register
The Elijah Chenoweth Jr. family register — primary-source Chenoweth births, 1744–1806
The handwritten Chenoweth family register held by Roberta Burnes — which she has identified as belonging to Elijah Chenoweth Jr. (b. 15 August 1806), the grandfather of her grandmother Lillie Dale Chenoweth Eesley. The book has survived a 1970s flood and is in poor physical shape, but two pages have been photographed and the handwritten birth dates can be read. The book is DIFFERENT from Roberta's separately-held Chenoweth-and-Timmons photo album, which belonged to Lillie Dale. Together the two pages reproduced here document: (1) Thomas Chenoweth Sr.'s twelve children, including Elijah Sr. ('Elias') born 12 June 1762; and (2) Elijah Sr. and Rachel Foster's children, including their son Elijah Jr. born 15 August 1806, who in turn was the father of Joseph Hill Chenoweth (Lillie Dale's father). The register is the deepest primary-source documentation of the Chenoweth line in this archive.
What the register is
A handwritten Chenoweth family register, almost certainly the personal birth-and-death book of Elijah Chenoweth Jr. (b. 15 August 1806) — the grandfather of Roberta Burnes’s grandmother Lillie Dale Chenoweth Eesley. The book has the standard nineteenth-century printed-decorative-frame structure of a family Bible companion register, with a “Births” column on the left page and a “Remarks” column on the right for handwritten dates and notes.
The book is in poor physical shape, having survived a flood in the 1970s. Roberta has been unable to digitize it fully and has provided only two opened-page photographs at this time.
This register is distinct from Roberta’s Chenoweth-and-Timmons photograph album — which belonged to Roberta’s grandmother Lillie Dale and contains the photographs of Joseph Hill Chenoweth, John K. Timmons, Mary Ohio Timmons Chenoweth, Lillie Dale as a child, and other Chenoweth-side figures. The album is the photo source; the register is the date source. Both are now named on this archive as Roberta’s two foundational Chenoweth-side primary sources.
Page one — Thomas Chenoweth Sr.’s twelve children
The deeper of the two photographed pages preserves the births of the twelve children of Thomas Chenoweth Sr. — the Pleasant Township, Franklin County, Ohio Chenoweth patriarch — across 1744 to 1770. The handwriting is faded but legible. From the photograph:
| Name | Birth Date |
|---|---|
| Martin Chenoweth | December 25, 1744 |
| Sarah | May 12, 1747 |
| Mary | August 28, 1749 |
| John | May 13, 1751 |
| Thomas Jr. | September 10, 1753 |
| Arthur | December 6, 1755 |
| Richard | April 1, 1758 |
| William | May 5, 1760 |
| Elias (= Elijah Sr.) | June 12, 1762 |
| Ann | May 7, 1765 |
| Hannah | August 11, 1764 |
| Abraham | June 25, 1770 |
The name “Elias” on the page is the contemporary spelling for the ancestor this archive otherwise calls Elijah Chenoweth Sr. — the date June 12, 1762 is consistent with Roberta’s identification and with Egge’s structured record. The two register pages cross-confirm: page one names Elias/Elijah Sr. b. 12 June 1762; page two names him as the father of Elijah Jr. b. 15 August 1806.
The register confirms what Roberta wrote directly: “Elijah Chenoweth Jr. (b. Aug. 15, 1806), son of Elijah (b. June 12, 1762) who was son of Thomas Chenoweth.”
Page two — Elijah Sr. and Rachel Foster’s children
The companion page preserves the births of Elijah Chenoweth Sr. and Rachel Foster’s children, beginning with Elijah Sr. himself and his wife Rachel. From the photograph:
| Name | Birth Date |
|---|---|
| Elijah Chenoweth (Sr.) | June 12, 1762 |
| Rachel Foster (his wife) | August 11, 1763 |
| Thomas Chenoweth | November 22, 1786 |
| Elizabeth Chenoweth | June 22, 1789 |
| Lewis | August 26, 1791 |
| John Foster | September 15, 1798 |
| Sarah | October 15, 1798 |
| Joseph | September 6, 1798 |
| Cassandra | December 9, 1800 |
| Rachel | (date not yet read clearly) |
| Elijah Jr. | August 15, 1806 |
The Elijah-Jr.-as-ninth-child placement matches Egge’s structured record (which describes him as the ninth child and youngest son). His marriage to his cousin Nancy Chenoweth on 16 April 1827, his nine children with her including Joseph Hill, his Methodist Episcopal Church affiliation, and his 1898 death at age 91 are all elsewhere in the archive; this register page is the primary-source confirmation of his own birth date.
Why this register is the deepest primary source on the Chenoweth side
The Chenoweth lineage as the archive carries it forward:
Thomas Chenoweth Sr. (b. before 1744) → Elijah Sr. (b. 12 June 1762) → Elijah Jr. (b. 15 August 1806) → Joseph Hill Chenoweth (b. 30 December 1832) → Lillie Dale Chenoweth Eesley (b. 5 August 1877) → the Eesley line and forward to Chuck.
The Egge Chenoweth Site carries the same line through its structured-record database, but the primary source — the page where the actual handwritten dates were written, sometime in the early-to-mid nineteenth century — is this register. It is the document the Chenoweth Family Association descendant tables rest on at the Thomas Sr. → Elijah Sr. → Elijah Jr. junction.
That the book survived a 1970s flood and is still readable two pages at a time is, by itself, a small mercy. The archive owes its deepest-Chenoweth confidence to Roberta’s having kept it.
Source: Original handwritten Chenoweth family register held in poor condition by Roberta Burnes, having survived a 1970s flood. Photographs of two opened pages transmitted to this archive June 2026. Cross-checked against Jon Egge’s Chenoweth Site structured record.
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