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Trying to find the Fox family in North Carolina
Fox is my middle name (and my father’s and his father’s) so I’d love to find out more about the Fox family, and our North Carolina connection.
I’m looking for two sisters who were born in North Carolina (and their parents):
Leonora Louisa Fox was born in Greensboro, NC, most likely on 13 Sept 1846, although I’ve found one (undocumented) source that puts her birth in the mid-1850’s. She married Arthur Moffat Allen on 4 Nov 1876 in Philadelphia, PA. They lived in New York City with Arthur’s family and had three sons: Richard Fox (b.1877), John Trevette (b.1880) and Arthur Gilbert (b.1885). I don’t know when Leonora died, but her husband died in 1925.
Helen Louise Fox was born in Wilmington, NC on 5 July 1854. Around 1893, she married her sister’s husband’s youngest brother, John Little Moffat Allen. They lived in the New York City area, and Helen may have worked as either an artist or as an art teacher. John died in 1912 and Helen died sometime after 1935.
The sisters’ parents were Richard Fox and Sarah Guilbert. According to the daughters’ 1880 census records, both Richard and Sarah were born in England, although I suspect that Sarah may have been born in North Carolina. Richard and Sarah were most likely married in Greensboro in 1845, but they may have been married in 1853 in Wilmington.
I know from other people’s postings that counties are often hard to pin down for NC, so please correct me if I’m wrong, but I have Greensboro in Guilford County in 1845 and Wilmington in New Hanover County in 1854.
If anyone has any light to shed on the sisters, the parents or the counties, I’d appreciate the help.
I’m looking for two sisters who were born in North Carolina (and their parents):
Leonora Louisa Fox was born in Greensboro, NC, most likely on 13 Sept 1846, although I’ve found one (undocumented) source that puts her birth in the mid-1850’s. She married Arthur Moffat Allen on 4 Nov 1876 in Philadelphia, PA. They lived in New York City with Arthur’s family and had three sons: Richard Fox (b.1877), John Trevette (b.1880) and Arthur Gilbert (b.1885). I don’t know when Leonora died, but her husband died in 1925.
Helen Louise Fox was born in Wilmington, NC on 5 July 1854. Around 1893, she married her sister’s husband’s youngest brother, John Little Moffat Allen. They lived in the New York City area, and Helen may have worked as either an artist or as an art teacher. John died in 1912 and Helen died sometime after 1935.
The sisters’ parents were Richard Fox and Sarah Guilbert. According to the daughters’ 1880 census records, both Richard and Sarah were born in England, although I suspect that Sarah may have been born in North Carolina. Richard and Sarah were most likely married in Greensboro in 1845, but they may have been married in 1853 in Wilmington.
I know from other people’s postings that counties are often hard to pin down for NC, so please correct me if I’m wrong, but I have Greensboro in Guilford County in 1845 and Wilmington in New Hanover County in 1854.
If anyone has any light to shed on the sisters, the parents or the counties, I’d appreciate the help.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Fredric Z. "Rick" Saunders on
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Just in case you don't know, images of Guilford County deed records are online at:
Guilford County, NC Deeds
Search the "Old Indexed Books" (1771-1921) and you can see if there are any FOX deeds. If there are, you can view the images then.
Rick Saunders -
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Permalink Reply by Kathleen Fox Allen on
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I didn't know. Thank you Rick!
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Permalink Reply by Ginger R Smith on
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Hi Kathleen,
Have you combed the records at Ancestry.com for census reports of Richard and Sarah Fox? I could not locate the actual census records for 1850, 60 or 70 in NC. However, I did find a couple of things of interest:
North Carolina Death Collection, 1908-2004
Name: Sarah Fox
Race: White
Age: 83
Date of Birth: 1827
Date of Death: 14 Jan 1910
Death County: Caldwell
Death State: North Carolina
Source Vendor: NC State Archives. North Carolina Deaths, 1908-67
Sarah Fox was Not in the NC Death Certificate database 1909-1975
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Marriage and Death Notices in Raleigh Register and North Carolina State Gazette, 1846-1867, compiled by Carrie L Broughton, two volumes in one, Volume 1 1846-1855 and volume 2, 1856-1867 published by Clearfield Company, Ancestry.com online database.
Deaths, 1846-1855
1853
p. 523: Richard Fox, of this State, Oct 17, Lawrence Co MS, RR., Nov 9, 1853.
[Oct 17 1853 was the date Richard Fox died, "RR" means "Raleigh Register", Nov 9, 1853 was the date the newspaper article was published]
You can also pull this document up from the NC State Archives Digital Repository here. This link takes you to the first instance of "Fox" in the document. On the left hand side you will see page nos. The page nos with "*" beside them are "hits" of the term "Fox." You want page no. 119. However, to get it to show up, you have to click on the last page shown (page no. 53) to get the next set of pages to show up and become available to click. Do this until you see page no. 119. Click on page 119 and that will bring up the listing for Richard Fox.
I then looked up "Richard Fox" in the 1850 census report of Lawrence Co MS. He was listed with Mary Fox, but no daughters named Lenora and Helen. So this was probably not your Richard.
Richard Fox 66
Mary Fox 55
William Fox 30
Elizabeth Fox 26
Minerva Fox 24
Richard Fox 19
Martha Fox 14 -
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Thank you Ginger! You've given me a lot to follow up on.
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Please keep us posted about what you found, what worked for you and what to look for next!
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I will definitely let you know as I find out more.
For right now, it looks like the Lawrence County, MS Richard Fox is not my ancestor. On the other hand, the NC death collection hit on Sarah is still an open item for me.
I don't currently subscribe to Ancestry. I've considered doing the free trial, but I want to wait until I have more free time so that I can make best use of it. (Maybe this fall when I'm on vacation.) In the meantime, I have scoured the census records at FamilySearch and on the FamilySearch pilot site, but haven't gotten any reasonable hits yet. -
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Hi Kathleen,
I thought I had attached the death record to my previous post. Did you see it? Just in case I will attach again below. I have a subscription to Ancestry, so please let me know if you need me to look anything up for you. The North Carolina Death Records 1809-2004 are online at ancestry.com and they are a wealth of information.
Ginger - Attachments:
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Sarah Fox Death Certificate.jpg, 212 KB
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Thank you again Ginger, for both the image and the offer.
After looking at the image, I don't think that this is my Sarah, but I'll definitely chek out those death records. Since the last time I posted here, I found out that my library offers Ancestry access on-site. I just need a free weekend to go...
I also found census records for Sarah's daughter, Leonora (my g-grandmother) for 1900 and 1910 (it looks like she died between the 1910 and 1920 censuses.) So now I have 3 separate censuses that indicate that both of Leonora's parents were born in England. I still need to find Helen's other census records (her 1880 census doesn't list her parents' birth places.)
Now that I've seen an image of the 1880 census record (thanks to remote HeritageQuest access through - again - my library) I know that there was also a 36 year-old woman named Emily V. Fox living with Leonora's family. Both Emily and Helen were listed as boarders. I'll need to do more research on Emily. -
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