Eesley Family History (1985)

The full original document is available here: Read the 1985 Eesley Family History (PDF).

Mary Eesley Bean — sister of Will Eesley, great-aunt of Chuck, and the most important figure in the previous generation of family record-keepers on the paternal side — compiled this register in 1985, in Narberth, Pennsylvania, with the cover drawing of the Goldie flour mill by her brother Will. The register opens with a narrative section on the family’s emigration from England via Scotland, then walks the descendant line in indented generations I through VII, and ends with an address appendix.

The address appendix is the reason this archive’s privacy rules exist. The PDF preserves it; the public site does not surface it.

Almost every person on the paternal side of this site — from Joseph and Frances Eesley of Hanwell down to the present generation — was first traced through Bean’s register. The Oxford library research notes from Chuck’s 2018 trip extended her line backward into the 18th century, but the bridge from England through Scotland to Marietta and beyond is hers.

How Bean compiled the register — her March 1985 preface

The opening page of the document is Bean’s own letter to the family explaining how the project came together.

Dear Members of the Clan:

This Eesley Family History was started to give a chronological listing of the members of my father, Charles L. Eesley’s family. His father was Albert Eesley, son of John and Hannah, the first Eesleys to come to America.

Since Albert had ten children, it seemed enough just to get these descendants in order. However, I had bits and pieces of information relative to John and Hannah’s other children, and I have tried to follow these leads.

Much of what I have, came from my father, Charles Eesley and his brother, my Uncle George, who was often at our home during the eleven years that my parents were living with us. Uncle George spent most of his life with a pharmaceutical company and travelled throughout the U.S.A. and Canada, always taking time to be in touch with branches of the family. The two of them spent many evenings reminiscing about various relatives. The notes I made of these conversations were the beginning of my interest in extending the knowledge of the Eesley family.

I am indebted to Bessie Eesley of Fremont, Ohio for the work she has done over the years. Also Eleanore Eesley of Rochester, New York and Lenore Eesley of Lake City, Michigan, and numerous other cousins who have answered my inquiries.

I thank all who have helped and hope that you will continue to help me by correcting any errors you might find, and keeping me informed of names and dates of marriages, births and deaths.

I have put a red mark by the names for whom I have an address. These you will find in the appendix.

Enjoy, enjoy,

— Mary Eesley Bean, March 1985 (Narberth, Pennsylvania)

What the preface establishes

Bean’s preface settles three pieces of the document’s provenance:

• The eleven years of Charles Leonard and Lillie Dale living with Mary Bean’s family. Bean’s father Charles L. Eesley and his brother Uncle George — the pharmaceutical-company traveller who “travelled throughout the U.S.A. and Canada, always taking time to be in touch with branches of the family” — were the conversational sources of the family memory. Bean’s notes from their evening conversations are the textual foundation of the register.
• The three named correspondents. Bessie Eesley of Fremont, Ohio (Charles Leonard’s sister), Eleanore Eesley of Rochester, New York, and Lenore Eesley of Lake City, Michigan were the principal correspondents who answered Bean’s inquiries by mail. The cousin network is part of the document’s provenance.
• The Albert-as-anchor framing. The genealogical question Bean explicitly set out to answer was who descends from Albert Eesley and his ten children — the line that runs through Charles Leonard, Will, Charlie, and Chuck. The wider family network (Albert’s siblings, their Australian and Constitution-Navy and other branches) was “bits and pieces of information… I have tried to follow these leads” — the secondary scope.

The provenance, in short: the register was written by a daughter, from her father’s stories, of the family her father remembered.