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John or John E. Yeo (1842–1932, son of John Yeo and Mary Ann Warren) married Mary Moore in Windsor in 1865. They had four children:
– Frederick George Yeo (1866–1874, died in Alabama)
– Alfred Ernest Yeo (1867–1943, died in Kansas)
– Sidney Horace Yeo (1868–1936, married Emily Thurber née Brown, died in California)
– Charles Denis Moore Yeo (see below)
before emigrating to the United States and having two further children:
– Annie Louise Yeo (born 1872, married Albert Henry Everiss)
– Herbert Euclid Yeo (see below).
Mary died in 1888 and John re-married twice: to Frances E. and to Anita Marie Dewey in 1910.
Charles Denis Moore Yeo (1870–1921, son of John Yeo and Mary Moore) married Susana Everiss. Their two children were born in Kansas:
– Frederick Everiss Yeo (1917–1994)
– Edna Doris Yeo (1919–2015).
Herbert Euclid Yeo (1876–1959, son of John Yeo and Mary Moore) married Clara Alberta Trail. Their two daughters were born in Kansas:
– Blanche Mary Yeo (1911–1990, married Francis Roy Jensen)
– Eva Anna Yeo (1915–1997, married Marion Lowell Jefferies).
This family has a complex and interesting pedigree, traced in Descendants of William Yeo and Agnes Savery by Mike Darch and David Yaw.
John Yeo and Mary Ann Warren married in 1842; their marriage was registered at Newton Abbot in the first quarter of the year. They had a son John Yeo (no ‘E’), born at Ipplepen later in 1842 according to his birth certificate and consistent with the information shown for him in the 1851 and 1861 censuses.
John appears to have been apprenticed to a carpenter or joiner. He moved to Windsor, over 170 miles away in Berkshire. There, he married Mary Moore at a chapel in the Windsor registration district, which included several parishes in Berkshire and the Surrey parishes of Egham and Thorpe.
The marriage certificate shows that the ceremony was held in 1865. John Yeo (no ‘E’) is 23 and is recorded as a joiner of 2 Portland Place, Alma Road, Windsor, son of joiner John Yeo deceased. Mary is 29 and is recorded as a spinster of Hartland, Devon, daughter of mason Richard Moore. The as yet unidentified ‘Wesleyan chapel’ or its minister might not have been licensed for weddings – the ceremony was attended by the local registrar. A Wesleyan chapel was built in Alma Road a decade later, so perhaps the service took place in a temporary place of worship or elsewhere in the district.
John and Mary remained in Windsor and had three sons there: Frederick George Yeo (1866), Alfred Ernest Yeo (1867) and Sidney Horace Yeo (1868). Their fourth son Charles Yeo was born in England according to the 1920 US census, where his age is given inaccurately as 48 (he was born in 1870). The same 1920 census return shows Charles’s brother Herbert living in an adjacent property, age 43, born in Alabama [note 1].
Records examined by David Yaw show that John Yeo emigrated to the United States in early 1870, sailing to Boston, and from there travelled overland to Michigan. His wife Mary and four children joined him there later in the year, arriving at New York [note 2]. Over the next twenty years they do not appear to have led a settled life; they are recorded in Michigan, Alabama, Nebraska and Kansas. After setbacks farming in Kansas, John had to travel to Nebraska City to find work.
The 1880 US census shows John and Mary – with children Alfred, Sidney, Charles and Herbert – in Nebraska City. An 1885 census for the state of Nebraska shows the same six people, plus a 12-year-old daughter Annie in Nebraska City [note 3]. These returns all record John as a carpenter. Mary died in 1888 and was buried in Kansas.
The 1900 US census for the Kansas township of Grant shows English-born John E. Yeo, a 57-year-old farmer who had arrived in the US in 1870, living with his German-born wife Frances E. Yeo. Is this the same John, even though he has acquired an extra initial?
John later move to Oakland, California to live with his son Sidney. There, in 1910, he married 40-year-old Anita Dewey –his third wife.
John died in Oakland in 1932 – yet he was buried some 1200 miles to the east, in Kansas. The following death notice appeared in the Oakland Tribune for 12 September 1932:
YEO–In Oakland, John E. Yeo, beloved husband of Anita M. Yeo, loving father of Sidney H. Yeo of Napa, California, Alfred E. Yeo, Annie L. [Everiss] and Herbert E. Yeo of Colby, Kansas, aged 89 years, 8 months, 8 days. Funeral services at the parlors of James Taylor Co., northeast corner Fifteenth and Jefferson street, Oakland California, Tuesday, September 13, 1932, at 11 a.m., to which friends are invited.
John’s widow Anita died in 1946.
John and his first wife Mary are buried together at Ilion Cemetery at Levant, Kansas. Their headstone contains a wealth of genealogical information, including their dates of birth and death and the date and place of their marriage. The headstone – which bears what might be a masonic symbol at upper right – shows them as John E. Yeo and Mary Moore Yeo, gives John’s correct date of birth and the correct date of their marriage. So this is clearly the right family, but again, why is John shown as John E. Yeo? Did his son Herbert add the E, and was the burial arranged in Kansas because Herbert lived there?
The headstone also shows shortened names for their children Frederick George Yeo (Fred), Alfred Ernest Yeo (Alf), Sidney Horace Yeo (Sid), Charles Moore Yeo (Charlie), Annie Louise Everiss (Annie) and Herbert Euclid Yeo (Herb). There is no indication whether any of these children were later buried with them. Three of them are recorded in Kansas 1920 [note 1].
John Yeo senior, as mentioned in the first paragraph above, raises queries too. He has not been found in the 1851 census, is noted as ‘abroad’ in the 1861 census, and his wife Mary Ann is recorded as a widow in the 1871 census – consistent with his being shown as deceased in the 1865 marriage record described above. Did he emigrate, and die overseas? No matching English death registration has been found.
The Hartland area would be the place to look for a birth or baptism record for Mary Moore, John Yeo’s first wife, if the information given on her 1865 marriage certificate is correct. No record has yet been found.
If you are connected to this family or can answer any of the outstanding questions, please Contact Us.
See also the related pedigrees researched by Mike Darch and David Yaw.
Notes
1. The 1920 census for Grant, Kansas lists, in three households close together: Annie Louise (with her English-born husband Albert Henry Everiss and daughter Mary E. Everiss), Herbert (with his English-born wife Clara A. Yeo and daughters Blanch Yeo and Eva Yeo) and Charles (with his American-born wife Susana Yeo, son Frederick G. Yeo and daughter Edna D. Yeo).
2. The passenger list, not yet found, should confirm that all four sons were with her.
3. Annie has not been found in the 1880 census, when she would have been about two years old.