I was fortunate to receive among the papers of my grandmother Betty Phelps a small palm-sized diary. It apparently had belonged to my grandfather Harold Bartle Phelps before he died in 1984. It is not an actual journal or diary, but the initially unknown author or authors recorded the births, deaths, and marriages of a large number of Bartle and Phelps' family members.
The name of the writer remained a mystery for quite some time until we were able to piece together details found in the journal.
In a 1905 diary William recorded family events. He wrote on February 17, "1822 at Mullica Hill N. J. William T Bartle born". |
These and other entries on the frontleaf of this diary allowed us to triangulate on the original author.
Based on this information, we deduced:
So if the owner has a brother named "Geo. Bartle," then the owner's given surname must also be "Bartle". And if the individual is a grandparent to all of the children listed, only one of those eight grandparents would have the birth surname of Bartle.
This leads us to conclude, given the time period in which the writing changed from one individual to another, that the initial owner was Rev. William Toy Bartle. Based on the evidence in the diary his mother died when he was twelve years old. Along with William's father, she was an immigrant from Prussia.
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