ROOTS & BRANCHES

I suppose we all have special affinities for particular ancestors.

For me, my great-great-grandfather Wellington Bickel Machmer (1849–1943) has always fascinated me, not in the least for the reason that I now own the home that he first bought into the family 101 years ago.

He’s also my longest-lived direct-line ancestor, having reached the age of 93 years, 10 months and 8 days.

As I was thinking about the 1950 U.S. Census opening to the public in April 2022, I realized that he’s my only ancestor who can be found in all of the censuses that recorded the names of everyone in the household that are publicly available (1850 to 1940).

In 1850, he was an 8/12ths of a year old baby in the Bern Township, Berks County, household of his parents Amos and Catharine. Their surname was rendered as Machemer, a frequent 19^th century variant.

Ten years later, the family surname was spelled Machomer and Wellington was listed as 9 years old.

Moving ahead another decade to 1870, Wellington was listed as 19 and was a domestic servant in the household of Rufus Kissling in neighboring Penn Township.

The headcount in 1880 showed him still in Penn Township, but his age was listed as 34 and he was now married to Emma (25) and heading a household with three small children. His occupation was listed as farm labor.

The 1890 census no longer exists but the 1900 enumeration names him as “Valentine B.,” accurately records his birth month and year as December 1849, and gives his occupation as farmer. The family is back in Bern Township and Wellington and Emma’s three youngest children are in the household with them (Because of the “lost census” of 1890, the Machmers’ twin daughters Rosa and Lillie, born 1881, are not found in an extant census with their parents).

In 1910, Wellington has aged correctly to 60 and my grandmother Luella Frederick, then 8, enters the household. He’s again listed as a farmer and the family remained in Bern Township.

He’s 70 in 1920, still called a farmer, and the household has shrunken to include just wife Emma, their son James (my namesake great-great-uncle), and my grandmother Luella.

Wellington ages correctly again to 80 in the 1930 census and still called a farmer. In the household are still wife Emma and son James, but Luella is gone (she died of tuberculosis in 1928) and instead my mother Mildred made her census debut at the age of 2.

In 1940, son James is now listed as the head of the household and 90-year-old Wellington is finally shown as retired (or, more accurately, as simply not having an occupation).

Interesting to me was that Wellington, who worked many years as a mason, never listed that as his occupation in the census.