Finding the Parents of Thomas Church

A contemporary view of South Royalton, Vermont [Wikipedia]

It's mid-October and I think it's safe to say that in 2022 I've achieved a new record for fewest posts on this blog and least overall genealogy research done. Life is busy. I've had very little time to work on family history this year. However, just recently, I opened up my Ancestry tree to look at my husband's Church line. This Vermont family has always been somewhat elusive, which I find unusual given how easy many of his early New England ancestors have been to trace. I checked some other genealogy sites to see if any new clues had emerged, and found a tree that connected this family to the Church family of Rhode Island. This idea was new to me, and I wanted to see if it could be proven.

My husband's Church line begins with his second great-grandmother, Isabel Dana Church. Isabel married Harris Goodwin in Chelsea, Vermont in 1869. They had four daughters, including my husband's great grandmother, Carrie Edith Goodwin. Carrie wrote an informative autobiography that talks at length about her mother's death at age 31 from an accidental laudanum overdose. 

Isabel's parents were John M. Church and his second wife, Wealthy Root. The family lived in Tunbridge, Vermont, where John was a farmer. Wealthy was raised in nearby Royalton, the daughter of John Root and Polly Eastman. John's death record, signed on May 23, 1861, lists his parents as Thomas Church and Mary Chambers. Finding information about Thomas and Mary has been challenging. 

There is a Thomas Church in Royalton in the 1810 census, with seven total people in his household. Three of them are over age 25, a white male aged 26-45, a white female aged 26-45, and a white female over age 45. This could very well be Thomas, Mary, and an elderly mother or mother-in-law. John was born in 1807, so he could be the white male age 0-9 seen on that census. There are three other children listed, a white male age 10-15, and two white females age 0-9. If this is the right Church family, then in 1810, John was the youngest of four Church children likely living in a home with their father, mother, and a grandmother. This all fits in terms of time, location, and ages, but it's not enough on its own. I'd like some corroboration. 

In the 1800 U.S. Census there is a Thomas Church in Putney, Vermont, an hour's drive south of Royalton. There are four people in that household: a man and woman each age 16-25, and a girl and a boy each under age 10. This could be the same family, but it's not enough to know for sure. I looked again at Royalton to see if there were any other Church family members listed in the 1800 Census. The only one I found was Ebenezer Church. A little research revealed that Ebenezer was born in East Haddam, Connecticut in 1750, the son of Samuel Church (son of Samuel Church and his wife Elizabeth of East Haddam) and Elizabeth Fuller. Could Ebenezer have been a brother of Thomas Church? 

For Thomas to have been under age 45 in the 1810 Census, he would have been born no earlier than 1765, but my suspicion is that he was born later than that, given how young his children were in 1810. Ebenezer does appear to have had a brother named Thomas, but that brother was born around 1754 and died in Connecticut, so that isn't the right person. However, Ebenezer also appears to have had a son named Thomas. We know this because Ebenezer named Thomas in his will, dated September 16, 1808. In this will, he leaves one third of his Royalton farm and assets to his wife, Abigail, and one third to his son Thomas Church. If the Thomas Church found in Putnam in 1800 is the son of Ebenezer Church, it would make sense that he was also found in Royalton in 1810, because he'd inherited part of his father's farm and was now living there with his young family and his widowed mother. The question is whether this Thomas is also the father of John M. Church, my husband's third great-grandfather.

Ebenezer is buried in Dewey Cemetery in South Royalton, Vermont. The only other Church surnames I've found in that cemetery are a baby named John F. Church who died in 1803, and a woman named Elizabeth Church, whose gravestone notes that she died in 1801 at age 71 and that she was the wife of Samuel Church. Elizabeth would have been born in 1730, and she is almost certainly Ebenezer's mother. Ebenezer's father, Samuel, is not buried in this cemetery. He died in Gilsum, New Hampshire in 1776, where he and Elizabeth had settled and raised their children.

I've found a couple of online family trees that claim Thomas Church is the son of Samuel Church and Hannah Rogers, and that he was born in Rhode Island in 1750 or 1770. None of those trees demonstrated proof for this idea, so I wanted to see if I could prove it. Samuel Church was born in 1738 in Westerly, Rhode Island, the son of Caleb Church of Watertown, Massachusetts and Rebecca Brand of Westerly, Rhode Island. Samuel married Hannah, the daughter of Thomas Rogers and Zerviah Woodmansee, in 1756. They had eight children together, including one named Thomas, born in 1770. Unfortunately, while many sources mention the existence of Thomas, there is no further information beyond his birth. At this time, I have no idea what happened to this Thomas after he was born in Westerly, Rhode Island, nor why some trees connect him to Thomas Church of Royalton, Vermont. I cannot do so.

At this time, I cannot prove the parents of Thomas Church. I do think it's more likely that Thomas was the son of Ebenezer Church of Royalton than Samuel Church of Rhode Island, just due to proximity, but some additional clues would be needed to definitely make this assertion. I welcome any tips from readers or others researching the Church family of Vermont.