Family talk:William Noel and Mary Kelsey (1)

Family Construction Process [19 June 2010]

A tortured process was required to construct this family. Here is a reconstruction of the evidence in the order found and the reasoning used.

1. The Albert M Woody sketch in Source:County of Douglas, Illinois, Historical and Biographical stated that his two wives: Margaret A Noel and Phoebe Noel were sisters, and natives of Crawfordsville, Indiana.

2. The 1870 census for the A. M. Woody household indicates Margaret would have been born abt 1843 in Indiana. P A "Noll" is also in the household, born abt 1839 in Indiana. We assume this is Margaret's sister Phoebe.

3. Margaret Noel is found in the 1860 census in the household of James and Hester Daris in Tuscola. She is listed as lady's maid. We need to search further for the Daris family. Margaret married Albert M Woody later that same year. The fact that Margaret is not with her family at age 16 and that Phoebe is in the Woody household in 1870 leads one to suspect that the girls may have been orphaned.

4. Albert Woody married Phoebe Noel in September 1876 according to Illinois Marriage Index. We can presume that Margaret died shortly prior to this date and that this was a marriage of social necessity since Phoebe was already living in the household.

5. In the 1880 census, Albert M Woody household, Phoebe Noel Woody indicates that her father was born in Kentucky and her mother in Ireland. This is a valuable clue as it helps us sort through the Noel familes that we find. Phoebe gives her age as 41 confirming the estimate of 1839 for her birth.

6. A census search for Noel in Douglas county, Illinois turns up only one family, that of Michael Noel. While being the appropriate age for the father of the Noel girls, he simply does not fit. First, he is born in Illinois. Second, his family was pieced together from several census and there are no gaps for missing children.

7. We move on to explore Montgomery county based on the mention of Crawfordsville in the Albert M Woody sketch. Source:Portrait and Biographical Record of Montgomery, Parke and Fountain Counties, Indiana contains two Noel sketches. That of Perminter P Noel and that of George S Noel, both of Parke County. There are no Noels listed in Montgomery County. Perminter P Noel is of an age that he could be a sibling of the Noel girls. And his father, Samuel, is listed as being the son of William Noel of Kentucky. But all of his siblings are accounted for and there is no room for the Noel girls to be of this family. We will watch for other sons of William Noel. George Noel is of an age to be a parent to the girls. His father, Lewis was born in Virginia and his father, Bernard, migrated to Kentucky where he was married. However it appears that Lewis moved to Indiana before George was born. The Lewis and Bernard Noel families also bear watching as George was one of eleven siblings. These families satisfy the condition that the father is born in Kentucky.

8. A census search for 1850 did not turn up a Margaret Noel born in Indiana. There is a Margaret Noll, but her father is born Pennsylvania and there is no Phoebe in the household. A search for Phoebe in 1850 turned up the Mary Noel household in Parke County. Phoebe is age 15, thus born abt 1835 - four years older that our Phoebe. There is no Margaret in the family, however a daughter Anna is born 1843. Perhaps our Margaret A is Anna? But this family is most interesting because the widowed mother Mary is born in Ireland. This fits our profile. This family will be under consideration. Along with Phoebe and Anna are boys William and Henry and Samuel P McGill and Isabel McGill. We assume for now that Isabel is also a daughter of the family.

9. A search for Noel in land and probate records of Montgomery County, Indiana yielded only a probate for William T Noel opened in 1843. His widow was named Mary. However, a scan of the contents did not reveal a list of the children. Note that in the Mary Noel household in 1850 the youngest child, Anna, is born in 1843. William T Noel is a good candidate for the husband of the widowed Mary Noel. Also all of his business dealings noted in the probate were for Parke County indicating that he may be from there. Among the assets in the probate was an entry for his salary at the land office. This might explain how a single Parke County family arrived in Montgomery as the US Land Office was in Crawfordsville.

10. A search of the family folders in the Crawfordsville Public Library found only one entry: a query for information about William T Noel indicating that he was the father of two Margaret and Phoebe, born in Crawfordsville, who went to Illinois. Most of his information clearly came from the Albert M Woody sketch. It is unclear how he associated the girls as daughters of William T Noel.

11. An internet search on William T Noel found several family sites indicating that he is the son of Bernard Noel who died in Parke County and includes the children of Mary Noel in his family. None of these family sites offers a source for the construction of this family. We noted that most of the family entries were from descendants of Isabel Noel who married Samuel McGill. We were unable to return to Parke County to obtain the will of Bernard Noel. This should be written for. Two published abstracts of wills list a William among the sons of Bernard.

12. We now tentatively assemble this family using the 1850 census and adding William T Noel as the deceased father and assume that Anna = Margaret A Noel who married Albert M Woody. The next step is to explore the sons Henry and William of this family hoping for clues.

13. An Ancestry search on Henry Noel, born Indiana 1837 turned up an entry for the US National Home for Disabled Soldiers in Dayton, Ohio. Examination of this very detailed record indicated that Henry was from Rockville, Indiana (Parke County) and that his nearest relative is recorded as: Brother-in-law, A. M. Woody of Tuscola, Illinois. This proves that the family of Mary Noel of Parke County in 1850 included the wife of Albert Woody. The Soldiers Home record indicates that Henry was transferred several times.

14. Further search on Henry Noel found an entry for the Soldiers Home in Danville, Illinois. This record contained much the same information about his military and medical history, but now his nearest relative is listed as Miss Mary C Magill of Terre Haute, Indiana. This provides evidence that Isabel Mcgill is a daughter of Mary Noel.