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William Blyth was the eldest son of Thomas Blyth and Elizabeth Bates Baxter: he was baptised at Scarning Church on 19th October 1828, indicating his birth a few days or weeks previously. On the first census in 1841, most of the family appear in Gressenhall but William’s name is noticeably absent. There is however a 13 year old William Blyth recorded as a pupil at what appears to be a boys’ boarding school kept by a Charles Twiner in St Lawrence, Norwich.  This seems to have been a district within the city of Norwich around the present St Giles Street. So was William sent away to school as his father began to rise in fortunes? Whether this is so or not, William was the first of the Blyth sons to leave Norfolk for the USA. This was somewhere between 1849-1851 when William was in his early twenties. Why he left and why he chose Ohio as his new home is not recorded, but he clearly chose well and prospered as a farmer in the New World.

The 1860 census finds William working as a farm labourer for William Marsden, a 29 year old Englishman, in Milton Township, Wood County, Ohio. This was where William would make his home: on 27th September 1863 he married Susan Kieffer who was born in Ohio of Pennsylvanian parents, and by 1870 he was farming in his own right. That year his real estate was valued at $1000 and his personal estate at $200. He was farming 60 acres of ‘improved’ land and owned another 150 acres unimproved. He also owned 5 horses, 7 milch cows and 1 other (the bull, presumably), 6 sheep and 8 pigs, and had produced 260 bushels of wheat – clearly a mixed farm!

By the time William died on 19th December 1895 he had a substantial estate to leave to his ‘beloved wife’ Susan: he had made his will on 25th October 1895 and it was proved on 7th January 1896. There were no children of the marriage, and in 1900 Susan was living with her sister. She died in 1903 and was buried like her husband in Custar, Wood County, Ohio.

Joseph Blyth was Thomas and Elizabeth Blyth’s tenth child and appears to have decided early in life that his best course of action was to follow his elder brother to the New World – according to a later census return he arrived in Ohio in 1865 at the age of 17, and in 1870 was a farmhand for Englishman James Blake in Jackson Township, the neighbouring settlement to Milton where Henry settled.

He married Rebecca Morrison on 24 March 1872 and by 1880 he was farming in his own right in Jackson and supporting his young family: there is a birth record for Frankey Blyth on 5 February 1873 but he does not appear on the 1880 census, suggesting he may have died – interestingly he is also not included in the birth totals recorded on the 1900 census. The next two children, Adella and Edith are there however, and they were followed by Bertha Alice and Nora Laverne. By 1900 he was clearly doing well and in 1910 he was described as an employer. Joseph died in 1915 and like his brother, has a substantial memorial stone in Custar Cemetery.

Edith’s great grandson Jamey Booth is active in family research and has turned up as a DNA match – I have written to his mother Loretta, and I am in touch with Kathleen Lance, granddaughter of Nora Laverne.

Henry Blyth was the youngest of the family and also decided to try his luck in the USA: he arrived aged 19 in 1873. In 1880 he was not in Ohio however, but working as a farm labourer in Seneca, Ontario County in New York State, just south of Lake Ontario. On 22 December 1885 he married Marcia Ellen Davis (known as Marchie or Ella) and at some point joined his brothers in Ohio – by 1900 he is listed as a farmer owning his own land in Jackson Township and bringing up his own family: Phoebe was born in 1886 and Kenneth in 1902. The 1910 census records that sadly two more children died at an early age. Phoebe’s grandson Richard Sidle has also appeared as a DNA match.  Henry died in 1927, Ella in 1933 and they were both again buried in Custar, Ohio.

The Blyths (usually spelt Blythe in American documentation) seem to have done well for themselves in the USA and it’s great that I can keep in touch with some of my American relatives too!