GLOVER

Ellen's mother's family, GLOVER, helped hook her on genealogy: childhood tales of connections to Spencer PERCEVAL (d. 1812 -- the only British prime minister ever to have been assassinated!) and two different noble families (the PERCEVALS who were earls of Egmont, and the DUFFs who were earls of Fife) kept her meaning to trace the links back some day.

Nearly thirty years later, that connection is still elusive (and possibly mythical). A female PERCEVAL did marry into Ellen's GLOVER line, but while family legend kept her descendants naming sons "Duff" and "Perceval" for generations, her claimed descent from nobility has completely failed to materialize. It figures.

Until very recently, all we knew was that the GLOVERs, whoever they were descended from, eventually settled in Lockport, Niagara County, New York.

(William) Henry GLOVER, a flour miller, married Emma CLARK (b. 1844), daughter of English immigrants Joseph CLARK and Sarah CAULTON of Codnor, Derbyshire. Henry and Emma had a daughter, Minnie C. (later Cardullo); their younger child, a son, was Ellen's great-grandfather Herbert Perceval GLOVER (1879-1954).

According to the 1880 census, Henry was born in "Canada (Eng.)" -- probably Ontario -- around 1843. And there the trail stopped cold, with only a few clues scattered about (in the 1870 and 1900 censuses; city directories of 1867-68; and an IGI reference to the 1875 marriage of Henry's probable sister).

This spring, however, a GLOVER relative in Lockport provided a breakthrough: Henry was the son of William (also a miller), born in Scotland in 1815, and his wife Elizabeth PERCEVAL (aha!), who was probably born in Ireland around 1820. William's family had lived in Haddington (near Edinburgh, in what is now East Lothian) for several generations, so we can rest on the GLOVERs for the moment.

Elizabeth PERCEVAL is a mystery, though. Why marry the son of a stonemason, then tell your grandchildren that you were born to not one but two noble families?

Alas, her marriage record (1843, somewhere "in Canada") may be impossible to locate, and we have no idea where in Ireland (or England) she originated. Her death record (abt. 1892) may reflect the tales she told, but we've requested it anyway.

Strategies:

• The next obvious target is probably the 1851 or 1861 Canadian census (though we still have no town, only a slender hint that the GLOVER immigrants may have settled in Brockville, ON).
• We should also check for possible US naturalization records for William and Elizabeth; Lockport newspapers; and state censuses for 1865, 1875 and 1891 (indexed or no!).
• A death-record search on Elizabeth's children (an LDS card index to vitals in Niagara County newspapers is rumored) might help pin down her birthplace.
• The Niagara County Genealogical Society might have experience with research on Canadian immigrants to the county.
  

Stay tuned for the next update on this mystery....