Bird by Bird

In her book Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott tells the story of how her brother, ten at the time, was faced with a report on birds due the next day.  He had put it off for three months and now was faced with what appeared to be an insurmountable task.  Their father sat down next to his son and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

This is also sage advice to genealogists when taking on large projects.  This quote came to mind when I thought about the huge project of supplementing the research of Frederick Browning Agard.  I shall fill out the lives ancestor by ancestor.

In that vein I went to HeritageQuest (free through our public library) with the goal of revisiting Mary Louise Catlin Cleaver’s book, The History of the Town of Catherine.  My search on the name “Agard,” did not bring this book up in the listings, but as I scrolled through I found the most interesting typewritten manuscript by Louise Huntington Bailey Jarvis.  The manuscript, dated 1947, contains short biographical sketches on a variety of family names. The title is: Some Ancestors and Descendants of Samuel Agard and Florence Williams Huntington Bailey.  I found birth, marriage, and death information on both Dr. Gilbert David and Anna Maria Agard Bailey.  I learned when the Bailey name changed from Baley and that the name is of Kelto-British origin.  I will go back to this document to glean more nuggets on the Agard family line.

This manuscript is a gem, and I just happened to stumble on it.  I encourage researchers to keep HeritageQuest in mind for its unique census search applications as well as digitized books, and PERSI.  

Doing the Math – Gilbert D. and Anna Maria (Agard) Bailey

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was returning to my Agard line to fill in the lives of my direct descendants’ siblings. Before I got incredibly busy with transcription work (my other life), I was working on the children of Samuel and Lydia Hibbard Agard.  My direct descendant was their first born, Noah Agard (b: 17 Apr 1823).

Noah’s sister, Anna Maria, intrigued me since my parents owned property on Anna Maria Island, Florida for almost sixty years!  I had not taken the time to delve into Anna Maria’s life until now.

And then I had to do the math. From the research Frederick Browning Agard did on the Agard family I knew that Anna Maria married Dr. Gilbert D. Bailey. The Havana (NY) Republican reports the marriage as 4 November 1841, when Anna Maria would have been ten years old – so I suspect there was a typo and Anna and Gilbert were married later in the 1840s.  It then occurred to me that since Anna Maria was born in 1831 and Gilbert in 1813 – there was 18 years difference in their ages.  I don’t know why this struck me as odd, but it did.

I followed this family through the census, both federal and New York. Anna Maria and Gilbert had five children: Samuel A (b: 1851), James (b: 1853), Mary F. (b: 1855) Lydia (b: 1857) and Gilbert (b: 1861).  Although Frederick Browning Agard’s book, Agards in America states the family moved to Benton Harbor, Michigan, the U.S. Federal Census as well as the NYS 1855 census shows the family continuously living in the Catherine, New York area. There is no 1865 NYS census for Schuyler County, but both the 1860 and 1870 U.S. Federal Census shows the family living in Schuyler County, New York. Gilbert is listed as being a physician. I will see what resources Benton Harbor has that might tell me if indeed the family lived there.

Gilbert D. Bailey died 6 February 1872 at 58 yrs, 3 mo, 12 days and is buried in Montour Falls (NY) cemetery.[1]  Anna Maria (Agard) Bailey died 27 March 1909 and is buried with her husband in Montour Cemetery.

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[1] Gilbert’s date of birth calculated utilizing Stevemorse.org.