An End to the Adam Grim Confusion

 

I have two Adam Grim's in my family tree, a father and son as you might expect. Adam Grim Jr, also had a son named Adam Grim as well making three in a row and all living in the same vicinity of Pennsylvania north of Pittsburgh. That and combined with a first cousin also named Adam Grim, it makes untangling them quite difficult.

Click happy people on Ancestry, make the job even harder as nearly all of them have combined Adam Grim Sr. and Adam Grim Jr. to be one and the same. To make matters even more difficult, I only have the death date of Sr. and an approximate birth date for Jr. To give you some idea of the time frame, Sr. was born sometime around the start of the Revolutionary War and Jr. was born most likely around 1806. Two of the four records I have for him list that date and the other two list 1798 and 1812, a very wide range. 

So in my hunt to end the confusion of the Adam Grim's, I have been trying to figure out the death date for Adam Grim Jr., my 4th great grandfather. Anecdotal stories of him in county history books list him as somewhat of an idle person who didn't hold down ordinary jobs. Indeed his census record trail goes through Beaver, Mercer, Lawrence, Mercer and then to Butler counties, all counties in western Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. 

On my new found kick to look for digitized newspapers where there hadn't been any before when I last researched him maybe 20 years ago, I did a google search and found a site for historic newspapers from all of Pennsylvania. I did a search for Adam Grim and turned up the article above. I don't know for sure that this is my 4th great grandfather but the odds are that he is. The Adam Grim in the article is a peddler which fits that of a person who didn't hold down normal jobs, was an "idle person" and roamed through western Pennsylvania. One family history source described him as a "good natured ne're do well, who like to play the fiddle and chop cordwood when the notion struck him, and brag about the bad things he could do. He moved to Lawrence County. Adam never had any home or land for he was too lazy and doless to be bothered with it."  These both seem to be describing the same man.

The above clipping was from the Butler Citizen dated 3 October 1895 meaning this Adam Grim most likely died in September of 1895. The last record I have for Adam Grim Jr. was the 1880 Census. The 1890 Census was destroyed in a previously blogged about fire and he is deceased by 1900. Adam Grim Sr. died in 1844, Adam Grim III died in 1905 and cousin Adam Grim died in 1901. I haven't found any other Adam Grims from that area or timeframe. 

If it does pan out, perhaps those click happy people on Ancestry will fix their trees to reflect it but if I were betting odds, they will somehow try to keep them lumped together and just list September 1895 as an alternative death date. Such is life.