A Tree Grew in Oakland

My second cousin, 4 times removed, Stillman Leek Jenks, was born 15 August 1828, in Jenksville, New York, to Calvin and Annis Ellen Brown Jenks.  Cousin Stillman made my list of odd named relative in a double sense — his parents gave him the middle name of a vegetable!  Luckily, there is no explanation, just wonderment.

Stillman married Sophia Parnell Kenney, daughter of George G. and Eliza Wetmore Kenney in Caroline, New York, on 7 October 1849.  They were the parents of six:  Edwin C. (1851), Calvin (1855), Nelson Treat (1858), Annis (1863), Stillman George (1865), and Albert Ernest (1869).  The location of the birth of each maps the migration of the family to their eventual home in Ionia County, Michigan:

1. Edwin C (1851) – Caroline, New York
2. Calvin (1855) – Waterford, Laporte, Indiana
3. Nelson Treat (1858), Ionia County, Michigan

Their youngest son, Albert Ernest Jenks, was a famous researcher and author whom I have previously profiled in this blog on 28 November 2019.

Stillman passed away on 19 May 1872, in Ionia, Ionia County, Michigan, and is interred in the Oak Hill Cemetery there.   Sophia survived him until 22 November 1900, when she passed while living in Newton Center, Massachusetts.  She was returned to Ionia and interred next to Stillman.

Albert Arlington and Nellie White Jenks

My first cousin, 3 times removed, Albert Arlington Jenks, called Arley, was born on 2 August 1856, in Southfield, Oakland County, Michigan, to Leman Case and Lydia Sickner Jenks.  Arley was their only child as his mother, Lydia died two months later.   His father, Leman, married Emily Hunderford in December 1869.  They had no children and she passed away in July 1863.  Leman married a third time to Lucinda Crandle in March of 1865 which provided Arley with three siblings.

On 26 January 1884, in Springwells, Wayne County, Michigan, Arley married Elizabeth Jane (Lizzie) Varnham, the daughter of William and Harriet Hollis Varnham.  The couple were the parents of seven children: Lydia Mabel (1885), Albert Louis (1887), Russell Edgar (1889), Baby Girl (1891-1891), Euphie Gertrude (1896), Elmer Sinknor (1899), and Harriet Lucinda (1903).  Lizzie died on 31 March 1906.  Arlie then married Kittie Lorain Chapman, the daughter of Albert L and Mary Bramble Chapman, on 30 December 1907 in Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan.  Kittie passed away on 7 March 1916.  Arley then married Nellie White, daughter of John and Anna Patterson White on 9 August 1920.

Reporting on this last marriage in The Reunions of the Jenks Family of Oakland County, Michigan – 1911 – 1927, by Evelyn Seymour Jenks, p 65

“At Highland Park, Michigan, August 9, 1920, by the Rev William Coltman, Miss Nellie White of Detroit, Michigan, to Mr. Arlington A. Jenks of Southfield. After a short wedding trip to Port Huron and Huron Beach, the happy couple returned to meet with us today at the grand Jenks Reunion.”

Arley passed away in 1929 and was interred with so many of the Jenks ancestors in the Southfield Cemetery, Southfield, Oakland County, Michigan.

My second cousin, 4 times removed, Permelia [in the list of names I wonder where they came from] Jenks was born 191 years ago in Franklin County, Indiana, on 18 July 1829, to Gideon and Sarah Shaw Jenks.

In the 1950 publication, The Jenks Family of America by William B. Brown, p 251, there seems to be a denial of Permelia’s name as it is recorded as Pamela.  Now, the Browne compilation of the family history is a work to be in every descendant genealogist’s library; it is also to be taken with a few grains of salt as there are no source citations in the huge volume.   I have been fortunate enough to be in contact with cousins that have supplied me with the information that was submitted to Browne and I know of the inaccuracies in those communications.

I have found Permelia listed multiply in the U.S. Population Census with that spelling.  Never once have I seen her listed as Pamela.  Her headstone in Conwell Cemetery, Laurel, Franklin, Indiana, is engraved as Permelia.  I am going to conclude the name Parmelia was strange  70 years ago when Browne was compiling that history.  Of course, the surname was being modified to one of the many versions – Jinks in this case.  Cousin Permelia was only 27 when she died on 12 April 1856.

And, with all my cousins names that fall into the What Were They Thinking, I had to Google to see if anything might shed some light:

“From Latin, meaning “by sweetness”. Another form is Parmelia. Some sources give it as a form of Pamela [so the Browne manipulation was not far off]; others as an “American invention”. It appears fairly often in American colonial and 19th century records, but seems to have dropped out of sight in the 20th century.”