The Nissley Family of Lancaster: Barbara Nissley

We return to western Pennsylvania in our search on a new family. Of the many well-kept cabinet cards I collected from Joy's Antiques of Quarryville, PA, a handful of them were of an apparently large family from the greater Lancaster area: the Nissleys.

Barbara Nissley, a young woman in perhaps her teenaged years or early-twenties, sits in Simenhoff Photography Studio in
Lancaster, Penssylvania. She dawns a dramatic mutton sleeved blouse with an embellished vest - a common look for women privy to fashion in the 1890s.

Much to any genealogist's delight, the previous owner of this cabinet card provided not only Barbara's full name on the backside, but also her married name: Mrs. Isaac Miller. It seems like an easy enough beginning to a search into the Nissley family, so we begin our research there.

A marriage certificate was easy to find: Barbara Nissley married Isaac Miller on November 27th, 1900 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The certificate indicates that Barbara was born in 1879 in Rapho Township - a small community just northeast of Lancaster.

The second record that appears on FamilySearch is an obituary for Amos Miller, who appears to be Barbara and Isaac's son. Born in 1915 in East Hempfield, Amos died at age 83 on December 11, 1998 - a relatively recent date that should easily lead us to his survivors, who appear to be listed in his obituary. Unfortunately, access to his obituary is restricted without a subscription to newspaper services such as Newspapers.com or NewsLibrary.com. With a bit more Google searching, I come across an obituary for a woman named Barbara Ann Miller, of Quarryville, PA, and all the dots fall into place. Quarryville, PA, is the small, unassuming hometown of Joy's Antiques, where I purchased these photos. Her obituary explains she was the daughter of the late Amos Miller, and is survived by three siblings as of 2013, one of whom is married to a Hess. Our last blog post featured the Hess family of Lancaster, whose photos I purchased along those with the Nissley family, so we can be sure that we've found the correct descendant of our Barbara Nissley Miller.

Now, with some tangible names of descendants who had recently lived in the community, I feel prepared to reach out to some Millers and Nissleys in Quarryville listed on Facebook to see if they are familiar with the family.

However easy this research case was (the easiest in Forgotten Faces Project's history?!) I am not quite ready to send Barbara's photo off just yet. I want to know more about Barbara: qualitative details about her life, and general genealogical details about her relation to the Hess family.

An easy Google search for "Barbara Nissley Isaac Miller 1879" returns the public Ancestry.com page for Barbara. For those of you wondering why I don't save myself all the research trouble and just find a user on Ancestry.com who has Barbara in their tree: I don't have an Ancestry.com subscription! Yep: wow. A genealogist without a subscription to Ancestry?! Is it even possible?! It certainly would make this project easier, but what is the fun in that? After all, the goal of this blog is not only to return old photographs, but tell the stories of lives long forgotten. It is about forgotten faces. Everyone deserves a few moments in the spotlight, and that is what I aim to do before finding homes for these photographs.

Anyway, Barbara's public Ancestry.com page (information compiled from all the Ancestry.com trees made by users) enables us to make this family tree:

There was another apparent Hess connection: through Barbara's maternal grandmother, Catherine Hess. Navigating through the Ancestry.com information, I am led to believe Catherine Hess was the sister of Levi Hess, the father of our previous subject, Salinda G. Hess. The research may be spotty here - I'm not checking my sources, just navigating through public Ancestry.com information. Nevertheless, if this connection is true, it would mean Salinda and Barbara were 1st cousins once removed.

Barbara was a mother of seven boys! First, this will hopefully make it that much easier to find descendants: no need to deal with pesky maiden names that disappear with marriage. But most importantly, we can deduce from this fact that Barbara Nissley, the young woman in the mutton-sleeved top, grew up to be quite a mother.

I'm still curious as to who Alvin, Emma, and Martin are: the other Nissley's whose photographs were found along with Barbara's. Before we reach out to the Quarryville community to see if we can find one of Barbara's descendants, we'll delve into the lives of these other long-gone individuals.

Until next time.