Making the Case for Peter Horr's Parents
| This page is about documenting the discovery process to find Peter Horr's ancestry, which we knew nothing about when we started. To see a better description of his story after marrying Elizabeth ))McKee((, see the Horr McKee page. It can especially be useful to use the Page History feature on any page to see how our knowledge came about incrementally. |
Quickly after finding Jesse with his parents in a census, we also found Jesse's grandparents as the families all spent the majority of the 1800's in the same area in Illinois. We spent many years blindly searching for the paternal grandparents ancestry with no real progress. Like with Jesse, Roz Edson has had the best intuition and ideas of whom to search for. But, in general, we have still been at a roadblock of finding real documents to refine our ideas for a long time.
Early effort
Early, general background information used to start the search is captured on the
Hoar Surname page. It represents casting out a wide net into the open sea with the hope of sifting through and finding something of possible interest. From there, possible clues specific to Peter are brought into refinement and clarity on this page.
What we know about Peter going in is from records since his marriage and family.
- Born in Ohio around 1819 (Population census 1840-1880).
- Father was born in NY and mother in Connecticut (Population census xxx).
- Married Elizabeth McKee on 2 Feb 1842 in McLean County, IL (note: ))McLean(( was carved out of Tazewell and Champaign counties in December, 1830)
- Surname written as Harr in some documents (Illinois Pop Census 1865, .
- 1850 Farm census in xxxx that seems to list him and family; in addition to the 1850 population census from Tazewell.
- Elizabeth died in 1880 after they had relocated to Kansas.
- Peter is appointed a postmaster of Little Valley, McPherson, Kansas in 1874.Appears in 1875 McPherson County state census.
- Family lore from grandson Jesse and other of his cousins state some in the family were Stage Coach and Pony Express riders in the mid-late-1800's.
- Peter died in Poplar Bluff, Missouri while visiting his youngest son Jasper in 1894 and is buried there.
Y-DNA (surname line) Testing
The first big break came after performing a Y-DNA test and almost immediately getting a strong match with Gordon Hoard. Gordon has done extensive work and linked himself into the Hezekiah Hoar (puritan) line from Taunton, MA. The same one Norton Horr had published about in his treatise of 1907. This greatly helped refine the search into possible family lines that seemed well researched as well as possible different surnames as maybe Peter, like Jesse, changed the name.
Roz's refinement
At this point we still only had basic information from Population Census declarations by Peter and later his children. That he was born in Ohio around 1819. That his father was likely born in New York and mother likely in Connecticut. And that he married in Champaign County, Illinois in 1842. Based on this alone, Roz researched her database and felt there was one of two brothers that could likely be Peter's father. Jacob or Robert Horr, sons of Robert Hoar.
Refuting Norton Horr's Book
The next big break has come from finding an online genealogical database, much like Roz's, by a Donna Jaster. In her database, she specifically breaks from the traditional knowledge that Robert Hoar died in New York or Ohio in 1828 and instead, at that time, moved with his family and father Robert to the new Illinois territory. Specifically the Vermillion County area just across the boarder from Indiana. There is much about this that just makes sense. So if this break from tradition can be proved with documentary evidence, then more than likely Peter is the last son of Robert that has never been documented yet.
Vermilion was once part of a very large county, Clark, encompassing a large area. Illinois territory was being carved up and quickly populated from 1810 onwards with counties being formed every few months. See the maps at
Illinois County Boundary Changes Vermilion was carved out in 1826. Champaign from Vermilion in 1833. It is said Champaign was named after Champaign County, Ohio — the place where Robert Horr's family had come from
Champaign County, Illinois. So likely they were in a founding group who transplanted from there. Josiah, one of Jacob's sons, is seen bouncing back and forth from this area in Illinois and Ohio. But Jacob and family had stayed back, presumably.
In 1850, we find two hits in Illinois for a Peter Horr/Harr and family. One in Tazewell County population census that shows Peter, his wife Elizabeth, and there first, young children:
. The other a farm census in Champaign that simply lists the head of household, the number of family members, and what livestock and crops were grown there. There is never two Peter Horr/Harr's before of after that. And Peter Horr and family continue to appear in the alter population census; but in Fulton County across the river after that.