Tag: Hammell

In the process of researching another entry, Welcome to the Family Hammells!, there was a little bit of information going further back that didn’t quite fit into that post. It involves the mother of Jennie Hammell-Featherston. I do find it a little interesting I’m filling in the information for generations after and before Jennie before I am able to do it for her. I’ll take whatever information I can get though, so no complaints here.

Where We Left Off

In the previous entry we really only knew the names of Jennie Hammell-Featherston-Nagel’s parents. Bernard Hammell and Alice Hackett. My next steps are to try and gain as many records as I can that will give me more information on her parents. Even a little bit of new information will help me start narrowing things down and maybe even finding people who went missing in the census in later years. Here is where the family stood at the end of that last entry:

Author’s Note: For the purpose of keeping this family easier to follow, I will refer to Jennie Featherston-Parkin as “Jennie” and her mother Jennie Hammell-Featherston-Nagel as “Jane”. With quotes, to further distinguish who we are talking about. Not just for this entry but all entries going forward.

New Record – But Unreliable For Now

I was able to find a church birth index entry for “Jane” on both Ancestry and FamilySearch¹ but I still need to try and see the actual record for that. It seems to be a very robust Catholic Church register though, so I have quite the to do list for that record set. The original record set isn’t searchable on FamilySearch but it is included in the New Jersey Births and Christenings record set. This index has actually been very beneficial to me for getting the exact location of my New Jersey records to order from the Archives. This exact one will have to wait until I can make it to a FamilySearch center, which I should probably try to do soon.

This record set also found a brother named James² who is five years younger than “Jane.” This led me to fill in some more information. It turned out that James married a woman named Louise Widasech in 1883³. They had one child named James. He also formed a “James Hammell Association” which really confused me for awhile until I realized it was some sort of club that James formed, they gathered regularly, formed a shuffleboard team, and took annual rides. The earliest mention I saw of it was 1888, and one last mention in 1904.

In the 1885 New Jersey State Census, Alice is even living with James, his wife and son⁴. Sadly James’ son would pass away in 1888 of diphtheria⁵. After his death the family would take in a foster daughter, but I haven’t been able to track down much information on her and where she came from. She appeared in the household in the 1900 United States Census⁶ and would live with Louise for a short time after James’ 1903 death⁷⁸.

How Do I Know This James Is Connected?

You might be thinking I’m in danger of adding a random family to the tree without verifying things just based off this information. That’s not the case though, there are a few more things helping me to decide this James is the actual brother of my “Jane”.

In Jane’s second marriage certificate to William Nagle, the witnesses to the marriage are a Louise and John Hammell, whose address is 163 Summit Street⁹. I am inclined to think John is meant to be James. It is about 8 months before James’ 1903 death and I haven’t found any evidence of a John Hammell but it’s still possible I am missing something. 163 Summit Street is associated with James and Louise for a very long time and he ran a pub at the location¹⁰. This address is also where the James Hammell Association would have their regular meetings.

The 1890 Death of Alice Hammell

The biggest piece of evidence I found linking James Hammell to “Jane” and Alice is the loose probate papers found in the FamilySearch Full Text search¹¹. In those papers we have first James Hammell, son and Jennie Featherston, daughter informing the Surrogates Court of Essex County that their mother died intestate. This means she had no will.

The second is a hand written letter from Jane. I repeat. A handwritten letter from “Jane“. In the letter Jane is protesting the letters of administration being assigned to anyone before some other legal matters are settled. This letter is dated the 31st of January 1890. Then finally, just one day later we have James and Jane both renouncing their rights to be appointed as administrators of the estate.

Lastly we have Alice’s death certificate¹². It gives us a little more information and another new address. If you were wondering if I’m logging these addresses and who is living with who in what years, you’d be thinking the same thing I am. 277 Warren Street is new for me in my tracking but it’s possible it’s a hospital, especially considering there is so little information given about her personal circumstances. The cemetery where she was buried is an Irish Catholic burying ground which fits with the Catholic baptismal records we found before.

My Next Steps

I am currently waiting for two more marriage records from the New Jersey archives. They will maybe help clear up “Jennie” and Sadie’s timelines but we won’t know until the records come!

Footnotes

1. St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Catholic Church, “St. Patrick’s Pro-Cathedral Parish registers, 1850-1926,” database, FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 30 Oct 2025), entry for Ann Jane Hammell baptism (1852). ↩︎
2. St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Catholic Church, “St. Patrick’s Pro-Cathedral Parish registers, 1850-1926,” database, FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 30 Oct 2025), entry for James Hammell baptism (1857). ↩︎
3. New Jersey Bureau of Archives and History, New Jersey index to records of births, marriages, and deaths, 1848-1900, 8 1883-1884: Louise Widasech, James Hammell marriage; digital image, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, “Marriage, Atlantic-Warren,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/312728: 1 Nov 2025). ↩︎
4. 1885 New Jersey State Census, Essex County, New Jersey, population schedule, Newark, Ward 4, p. 193, dwelling 727, family 1118, line 5782, James Hammell household; digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 1 Nov 2025). ↩︎
5. New York State Department of Health, “New York, U.S., Death Index, 1852-1956,” database, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/61535 : accessed 1 Nov 2025), James Hammell death (1888); citing City of Yonkers Register of Deaths, 1884-1889, p. 75. ↩︎
6. 1900 U.S. census, Essex County, New Jersey, population schedule, Newark Ward 7, enumeration district (ED) 66, sheet 12-A, dwelling 160, family 281, James Hammell household; digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 1 Nov 2025); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T623, roll 964. ↩︎
7. “Hammell,” Newark Evening News, 30 Apr 1903, p. 13, col. 1; digital images, Newark Public Library (https://newark.historyarchives.online/ : accessed 1 Nov 2025). ↩︎
8. 1905 New Jersey State Census, Essex County, New Jersey, population schedule, Newark, Ward 6-8, 4th and 5th District, p. 14-A, dwelling 204, family 310, line 38, Louisa Hammell household; digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 1 Nov 2025). ↩︎
9. New Jersey New Jersey Bureau of Vital Statistics, marriage certificate 12738 (1901), Naegel-Hammell; New Jersey State Archives, Trenton. ↩︎
10. “Office of the Board of Excise Commissioners of the City of Newark; list of names applying for liquor license,” Newark Evening News, 19 Aug 1902, p. 14, col. 3; digital images, Newark Public Library (https://newark.historyarchives.online/ : accessed 1 Nov 2025). ↩︎
11. Essex County, New Jersey, Probate Records, 1794-1902, unrecorded estate papers of Alice Hammell (1890); digital images, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 17 Feb 2026). ↩︎
12. New Jersey Bureau of Vital Statistics, death certificate H197 (1890), Alice Hammell; New Jersey State Archives, Trenton. ↩︎

You might be wondering who the Hammells are. That’s because I have never mentioned them before! They are new to you and me. That means I’ve added another surname to my direct family tree. This is really exciting! It’s always exciting to go back another generation but it’s even better when you can rediscover a female line. To get you familiar with where the Hammells will come in. I’m giving a little tree as a hint on where they fall into the family.

The last time I posted about this family was way longer than I realized. In 2017, I was working on figuring out what happened with the four Parkin children. I’m still trying to find some records that might help me learn exactly what happened with the children. I contacted the Orange Orphan Society, who said they no longer hold records for the orphanage as they are now a foundation who assists non-profits and not the actual orphanage.

I also asked the New Jersey Archives, and they do not have records for that orphanage or the Newark one. The archives was also concerned I might run into some privacy issues when trying to research. Needless to say, this will require more learning about the available records sets before I take another shot at that.

Where do we go from there?

Well, there is still so many question marks surrounding the Featherston daughters and their parents. So my next step was to search newspapers on the Newark Public Library website. If you have any kind of Essex County, New Jersey research, this website is a godsend. The years between 1904 and 1919 are missing from the New Jersey death indexes. Which happen to be the ones I am most in need of. This means finding obituaries or anything that can narrow my search down is a big deal. Once I have at least a small window, I can send to the archives for a record search.

I found news of William Featherston’s death by chance, searching for mentions of Parkin. It gave a new address for Jennie Featherston-Parkin in 1901. My last known mention of her is the 1900 US Census. There she was living at 568 Orange Street. Just down from her mother at 578 Orange Street. At the time of the 1900 US Census Jennie’s mother listed herself as widowed. Looks like William didn’t pass away until January of 1901. Looking at the articles it seems they were separated at the time of his death. So with these articles, I’ve gotten the date needed to send away for a death certificate for William. I also have a new address to search for Jennie in the 1905 New Jersey census. Hoping to get more information about her. Remember in 1905, Jennie was missing from the census and 3 of her children were living in an orphanage. Their father was living with his mother with the fourth child, but Jennie was missing from the household.

*Note: I do have William’s death certificate now but as it has no information regarding the Hammells, I am not posting it on this entry. The certificate does confirm the new address for Jennie though.

How does this say anything about the Hammells and who they are?

I’m glad you asked. I am showing the thought patterns that I had for getting one more generation back. Once I realized that the family was announcing things in the paper, I got more creative with my search terms. Trying to pick up every piece of information I could think of. Sometimes you do generic searches and think to yourself, well my family just wasn’t in the newspaper. How can you really be sure though. You can’t.

This image shows the events I’ve recorded for Jennie Featherston-Parkin’s mother, Jennie. So many Jennie’s I know.

Looking at the 1900 US Census entry for her had some interesting results. You can see a son Charles Fetherstone listed for her. Not impossible of course. However, we already know that Jennie had 3 daughters and her children born, children living columns match that. One line down from Charles is Sadie, the middle daughter. If you look at her marital status, it lists her as widowed and having 1 child with 1 child living. So let’s dig deeper into Charles and see if we can’t figure out what was going on with him.

Charles

Oh. So we have Sadie Featherstone as the mother of Chas. Jas. Acker. Sadie is interchangeable with Sarah/Sallie, so this is a good sign that we are on the right track. You are probably thinking to yourself, you should look for a marriage between Charles Acker and Sadie Featherstone!

I’m right on top of that Rose!

Sadie Featherstone. ✅

William Featherstone. Born in England. ✅

Jennie Hammell… Oh that’s new!

If you were wondering if I plugged that name into the newspaper website to search… I sure did!

Oh dear. We have a Jennie Nagle now. We have a new address of 46 Hunterdon Street. She is the wife of the deceased William Nagle?? William Featherston? I’m confused.😂

Let’s check out some census information to see what it will tell us about Charles Acker, Sadie, and Jennie. We might as well look up this new address as well and see what happens.

At that address, 46 Hunterdon Street, in 1915 and 1920 we have Anna/Jennie Nagel/Nagle living with her grandson, Charles Acker. In 1915, they have no relationships provided but in the 1920 census, he is listed as grandson. All this is fitting for Jennie Hammell/Featherston/Nagel to be the same person. We just need to something to bridge the gap between names.

I will say this. It never gets old does it. Seeing it come together in records. It doesn’t always happen like this. You can’t always just hop from one vital record to the other. When it does though. It’s amazing.

So now we have potential parents names for Jennie as well. I am still looking for her marriage to William Featherston and any birth records for her children. Those are elusive still.

Jennie’s final record. I’m know that something must have happened to Sadie, as she is not listed in the census with her son or mother after 1900. Whether she re-married or she passed away is still not known at this time. I will have to do some more looking for those answers.

I’m Not Done Yet

So now we know that Jennie Hammell, Jennie Featherstone/Featherston, and Jennie Nagel/Nagle are the same woman. So lets see if we can’t find some more information about that third daughter.

Here we have Carrie Jenneta “Nettie” Fetherston getting married in 1900. Her address of 578 Orange Street fits right in with known family information and we also have Hammell listed as her mother’s maiden name.

Where does this leave that family tree we started with?

We’ve added quite a bit to it with plenty more left to work on. I have a few more findings for the Hammells but I’ll save that for another day.