I've started a page where I plan to list all of the documented references regarding the whereabouts of the Vickery family in Nova Scotia. See The Vickery Family in Nova Scotia on this website. I've added information about Vickery grants in both the Falmouth and Diligent River area and newly-discovered wills for James Vickery and Christopher Vickery. I've also started looking into the various Allen families in Nova Scotia to see whether I can find parents for Hannah Allen. See The Elusive Allan Family on this website. The title of the page provides a clue as to how things are going.
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The good news is that today I was able to find the estate papers of William Pipes Sr. (1722-1796) and William Pipes Jr. (1751-1804) online at Family Search. I have added a new page describing the will of William Pipes Sr. on this website with links to the online files. However, it looks like the estate papers of William Sr. and William Jr. have been jumbled together in this collection. It's easy to determine which will belongs to which man and that the guardianship papers for daughter Mary belong with the estate of William Pipes Jr. However, proceed with caution regarding the notes due and owing and the estate inventory. The notes due and owing read like a who's who of early Cumberland County, so even researchers with no connection to the Pipes family may find a mention of their ancestor here.
Just a heads up that I have moved the pages for the related families Coates, Pipes, Vickery, and Mallory to their own menu heading. I was working on a laptop with a 13 inch screen and discovered that it was getting difficult to access all of the pages on the smaller screen. So...no new information, just a different placement for now. However, with the new organization I'm tempted to start adding more information about the other families. I'm open to other suggestions for re-organization.
When Robert Ripley of Maccan (1766-1843) died, he made provisions in his will for 3 granddaughters under his guardianship: Margaret Ann Ripley, Jane Ripley, and Sarah Storey. Robert left half his farm to a Charles Storey, so it seems likely that Sarah Storey was the daughter of Robert's unmarried daughter (name unknown) and Charles Storey. Since Robert's other sons, William and Thomas, were still alive when Robert's will was written, it is likely that Margaret Ann Ripley and Jane Ripley were the daughters of his son Henry (1805-) who was not mentioned in the will and had likely passed away prior to 1843. At age 14 or older, children had a say in choosing their guardian, so we know that Jane and Sarah were at least 14 years old by 1847 when they filed a petition to request Charles Storey as their guardian. That means they were born by 1833 at the latest but may have been born a few years earlier but not early enough to make them 21. I am fairly sure that Sarah Storey (abt 1832-) married Jamison Brown, but had no leads on Margaret Ann and Jane until yesterday.
Here is the death record 17 Nov 1869 for a Jane Phinney, born about 1831 in Maccan, daughter of Henry and Margaret Ripley, wife of Elkanah Phinney. Jane and Elkanah had 7 children between 1851 and 1867. Birth and death records for several of the children list Jane Ripley as mother. Elkanah provided 1849 as the date of his marriage to Jane on son Elkanah's birth record and 1840 on daughter Augusta's birth record which is unlikely if Jane died in 1869 at age 38. All but a very few of the Cumberland County Ripleys are descended from Robert Ripley and Isabella Bean. Robert and Isabella's son Thomas remained in England. Their son John lived in Oxford and had no sons named Henry. Robert and Isabella's son Henry lived in Nappan. His son Henry married Matilda (not Margaret) Riley and they lived in Nappan. Henry and Matilda had a daughter Mary born 1843 who married Robert Symnes Lowther and died in Leicester in 1866 whereas Jane Phinney died in 1869 in Black Rock. Robert Lowther (1833-1877) then married Mary Jane Morris (1840-) which has apparently led to some confusion. I have seen at least one family tree in which Henry and Matilda have two daughters named Mary in order that a Mary Jane can marry Elkanah Phinney and a Mary can wed Robert Lowther, but I think it very suspicious, especially since Robert Lowther's second wife's name was Mary Jane. I have seen no documents on which Jane Ripley (1831-1869) is listed as Mary Jane Ripley. Robert and Isabella's son William lived in Maccan and had no sons named Henry. I didn't find any Henry's in the 3rd generation. That leaves Robert Ripley's (1766-1843) son Henry Ripley (1805-) as the mostly likely candidate as the father for a Jane Ripley born in Maccan about 1831 with parents Henry and Margaret. Robert's homestead was in the Southampton area of Maccan. This Henry's mother was named Jane Rushton so it makes sense that Henry would have a daughter Jane. It's also interesting that the 3rd granddaughter under Robert's guardianship was named Margaret Ann. Perhaps we will never know for certain, but this lead does look promising. I would love to know if there is a connection between Charles Storey's family and the Phinney family that might help explain how Elkanah met Jane. Sara Ann Ripley was the daughter of William Ripley (1809-1844) and Mary Scott Brown (1812-1901). William died during the settlement of his father Robert Ripley's (1766-1843) will. Part of his small inheritance was paid to William and part to his widow, Mary, who was left with 5 children. It's likely that Mary then remarried a man whose last name was Mekins. On the 1871 census, Mary appears as Mary Mekins with daughter Sarah Ann and two grandchildren living next door to her son George W. Ripley. In 1881 Mary Mekens is living with son Robert. In 1891, she's still living with Robert but as Mary Ripley. In 1901, she's back to Mary Meekins, living with son George W. Ripley in the household of grandson William Clarence Ripley. That's always been a bit of a mystery but I forgot about it until I recently stumbled across birth records for the two illegitimate children of Mary's daughter Sarah Ann Ripley.
The first was Elled May Ripley (1868-1940). The birth record lists George Ripley, likely her brother George W. Ripley, as informant but let's hope he was not the father. The stepfather Mekins is a possible candidate but we don't really know as the space for father is left blank. On Elled's death record, sister Violetta MacBean provides the information that George Ripley is the father. I see this fairly often in my research. The father dies early and the vulnerable daughters end up with illegitimate children. Sarah Ann seems to have made the best of the situation and done right by her girls, moving first to Amherst and then to Halifax living as a "widow". Sometimes the illegitimate children simply disappeared. Violetta's (1871-1949) birth record lists Andrew Hunter, a Scottish labourer from Greenville, as father, the information supplied by Sarah Ann Ripley. "Widower" Andrew Hunter married Elizabeth McLellan 24 Sep 1870 and Violetta was born 1 Mar 1871 according to her birth record and 31 Mar 1869 according to her death record. In 1889, Lettie J. Ripley married William H. McBain, a telephone operator from Moncton NB. Although Lettie was apparently legally married in 1889, by the 1901 census, she was living with mother Sarah Ann Ripley and son James Mariner Ripley, born 1890, in Amherst. On Lettie's death record, daughter-in-law Freda Ripley says Lettie's father is an unknown Ripley and her mother is Sarah Meakim. So, Andrew Hunter was clearly named by Sarah Ann Ripley as Violetta's father but there's that Meakim name again. Which leads me to believe Freda is onto some secret but doesn't quite have the whole story. When Violetta's son James Mariner Ripley marries Freda Adamore, he gives parents as Ella and William Ripley! Secrets abound. James Mariner Ripley was born in New Brunswick, and William McBain came from New Brunswick, and his mother Violetta was married to William McBain at the time, so I'm thinking his father really was William McBain. Why does James Mariner think his mother is Ella? On his death record, Freda (now going by her maiden name Adamore) supplies the information that James Mariner's parents were Railway worker William Ripley and Lettie Ripley, even though she also provided the information on the death record for Lettie McBean. It boggles the mind. James and Freda's daughter Marion V. Ripley (1920-2004) is buried with her mother in Sackville. It doesn't appear that she ever married, but who knows. Infant Crystal Lynn Lockyer, daughter of Ivan and Charlotte also appears on the marker. I learned some time ago from a post on Family History that physicians sometimes added a numerical code on death certificates to indicate the cause of death. This could be helpful in cases where the cause of death is unreadable or where a colloquial term has been used. However, I hadn't really seen such a code on a Canadian death certificate until recently. Here's a link to to a Nova Scotia Historical Vital Statistics record for Jane Ripley, who was born prematurely and unfortunately died soon after. (To view the record, you'll have to scroll through their usage policy and click the agree button.). The code used here is the circled number 159. To look up this code I accessed this code list and used the list last updated in 1938. In this case, the written cause of death was very clear but in other cases the code may be helpful. Rest in peace little Jane.
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AuthorHi there! My name is Mallory Burton and I started researching the Ripley family in 2011. I'd describe myself as a careful amateur who's more interested in story than names and dates. I hope you enjoy my website and blog. I also have a public Mallory/Ripley tree on Ancestry with over 4,000 names. To contact me, please comment on any one of my blog posts. Archives
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