GLOVER

and CLARK, CAULTON, PERCEVAL, and possibly DUFF


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.

Decades 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.

The GLOVERs, whoever they were descended from, eventually settled in Lockport, Niagara County, New York.

(William) Henry GLOVER, a flour miller born in "Canada (Eng.)" around 1843, 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).

Henry was the son of William GLOVER (first a stonemason, then a miller), born in Scotland in 1815, and his wife Elizabeth PERCEVAL (aha!), who was probably born in Ireland around 1819 or 1820. According to his obituary, William (whose family moved to Canada in 1832) and Elizabeth met and married in Ontario in 1843. They moved to New York in 1865 (probably late in the year as I can't find them in the state census), probably so William could do Presbyterian mission work.

I've now identified five siblings of William (Lewis, Jane, Agnes Logan, Peter, and Jessie) and tracked all six through Ontario census records (in Peterborough and in Haldimand Township), although I can't positively identify their parents William GLOVER (b. 1745) and Agnes LOGAN in Canadian records. But I know where they were born -- Haddington, Scotland (near Edinburgh, in what is now East Lothian) -- and I have good data on several preceding generations of GLOVERs in Haddington, 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 1843 marriage record has been impossible to locate, and we have no idea where in Ireland she originated. She died 12 Nov. 1891, before the 1900 census (or even the 1892 New York census). Her death record may reflect the tales she told, but we've requested it anyway.

Strategies:

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

Last update: 18 April 2012