Mercy Winsor Chamblin is on my researcg short list. My grandmother’s notes show that Mercy was her grandmother, or my 2nd great-grandmother. If my grandmother is correct, Mercy is the daughter of Henry Winsor and Fanny Childs and was born in Vermont about August 1850.
The family moved to Muscotah, Kansas sometime after Henry’s discharge from the Union Army. Mercy married Samuel Chamblin and they had three children, Minnie (my great-grandmother), Maud, and Samuel Nelson.
I have found Mercy and Samuel living in Atchison County, Kansas in 1870, 1880, and 1885, and I know that their daughter Minnie was living in Kansas City, Missouri when her first child was born in 1890. Mercy and Sam do not appear in further censuses, but they may be the couple who are found in Kansas City, Missouri death records for 1889 (Samuel) and 1893 (Mercy)
Mercy may be the Mercy Chamberlain [sic] whose death record I found in Kansas City, Missouri showing her death 16 June 1893 in Kansas City. I had been unable to find any other mention of her death, until a casual comment to John O’Brien, moderator of the RootsWeb MOJACKSO listserv resulted in a flurry of email and wonderful results. Mr. O’Brien’s Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness have resulted in multiple printed death notices for both Mercy Chamblin/Chamberlain and Samuel Chamberlin/Chamberlain.
Addresses from the death notices led me to the Missouri Digital Archives at the Kansas City Library and the 1896-1907 Kansas City Sanborn Fire Maps. I may not have a photo of the Chamblin home, but at least I know where Mercy was living at the time of her death at age 43 from breast cancer. One day, I hope to find her full story and perhaps a photograph.
Thank you Lisa Alzo, for the thoughtful Fearless Females blogging ideas for Women’s History Month.
