Family Trees & the Beardsleys

Have you ever thought about climbing your family tree? You might be surprised at what you find.

We all have rich, interesting history written into our families – it’s just a fact of life. Taking tests from 23andMe or Ancestry can help you learn about the history written into your very DNA, but you can also chase the paper trail of family lineage available through census records, death certificates, military records, and more. Ancestry.com offers a number of subscription levels that allow you to explore these public records so that you can learn what role your ancestors played in the community. For myself, I decided to do a little research into my family and found a few surprising facts, digging deeper until I was met with an actual photograph of a great-great-great grandfather that I’d never heard of, and the military record of HIS father fighting in the Civil War.

I’d like to use the Beardsleys as an example of what you can learn from Ancestry records. When it comes to the historical facts of Elkhart and, more specifically, the Beardsley family, the hardest thing for most people to remember is how all of the historic Beardsley men and women were related. Their family tree, like most of ours, is a complicated one. Most people who are familiar with Ruthmere know about Albert and Elizabeth Beardsley and their only daughter, Ruth, who died in infancy. Many have likely heard of Havilah Beardsley, the founder of Elkhart and owner of our other historic house museum, now aptly named the Havilah Beardsley House.

Here is a full sample of the family tree. I will show some of the sections closer up throughout the rest of the article.

Here at Ruthmere, we already have a great grasp on the history of the Beardsley family tree, but it was still fun to use the tools and documents available through Ancestry to fill in the gaps. We tend to go back and start with Elijah Beardsley, born in Fairfield County, Connecticut in 1760, because it is through his children that we see the development of Elkhart’s history. Elijah had nine children in Connecticut, among them two sons: Elijah Hubbell Beardsley (1807) and Havilah Beardsley (1795). It is from these two lines that we find most of our well-known Elkhart Beardsleys.

Elijah Hubble eventually ended up in the northern Midwest and had seven children, among them being Solomon Beardsley and the original owner of Ruthmere, Albert Raper Beardsley. While Albert’s line died with Ruth, Solomon’s continued. Solomon Lehman Beardsley had eight children – among them Andrew Hubble Beardsley, who worked for Miles Labs and lived in a large home that once stood directly east of Ruthmere; Arthur Lehman Beardsley, who was convinced to move into Ruthmere after Albert and Elizabeth died and lived there until his death in 1944; and Rachel Foster Beardsley, who went on to marry the eldest child of Dr. Franklin Miles of Miles Labs, Charles Franklin Miles. She is the reason that there are now several Miles-Beardsley family members on the tree.

Then there’s Havilah’s line. Havilah, of course, married Rachel Calhoun (cousin of Vice President John C. Calhoun, which presents an entirely new family tree that we won’t touch right now) and had seven children, five of which survived into adulthood. One of his sons, Charles, was a civil engineer who founded and developed Grace Lawn Cemetery, which was named after his adopted daughter. Another son, James Rufus, became a politician, serving as both Elkhart’s second mayor and state senator. He eventually became the head of the Havilah Beardsley House, gutting it and remodeling it with his wife, Susan Ray, in 1874. Sarah, Havilah’s only daughter, married Benjamin Davenport – a president of the First National Bank of Elkhart and, like James Rufus, an Indiana State Senator.

I was easily able to piece all of this together through the existing records, and really didn’t learn anything new - until I found an excerpt from “The Cantrill-Cantrell Genealogy,” written in either the late 1800s or the early 1900s. The Cantrill/Cantrell family was related to the Beardsleys through marriage, and provided the most far-back American records I could find about Beardsleys.

Elijah (1760) was born to Phineas Beardsley (1733) and they both fought in the American Revolutionary War. Phineas was the son of Obadiah (1706) and Mercy Beardsley; Obadiah was the son of John (1673) and Mary Beardsley; John was the son of Samuel (1638) and Abigail Beardsley; and finally, Samuel was the son of William and Mary Beardsley, who came to America from England aboard the ship The Planter in 1635. Their family generally remained in Connecticut until Elijah’s sons, Elijah Hubbell and Havilah, ventured elsewhere. That’s how you end up in good ol’ Elkhart, Indiana. It may not be new information to the living Beardsleys, but it was still interesting to learn about.

From this experience, I quickly learned that there are always new leaves on a family tree to be explored -  if you’re willing to go climbing. It can be time-consuming, but it’s a lot of fun and extremely rewarding. Consider looking into your own family tree, and let us know what you find out!