Surname Saturday - Bodine II

I shall now share my progress on my 2012 genealogy goal of tracking down my Bodine line. My most recent step in Bodine research was to contact the Cayuga County Historian's Office in Auburn, New York. There are some documents that indicate my ancestor, Eliza Bodine, was born in this county and the Cayuga County Historian's Office website indicated they had a Bodine family file. I sent a research request, but unfortunately I received it back without information. It seems that their family file did not contain information on Eliza Bodine or her potential parents, Peter Bodine and Susan Ervin.

But it was not a fruitless cause. By a strange coincidence, the research aide was also a Bodine descendant. She directed me to a website put together by Dave Bodine which is quickly becoming THE Bodine research database with more than 25,000 Bodine family members and descendants in his database.

The information on this website for my line mirrors that, for the most part, in the Maude Cutler Scholfield book, Genealogy and history of the Branch of the Bodine Family Founded by John Bodine, A Soldier of the Revolutionary War and a Pioneer of the State of New Jersey. One big discrepancy is the difference in Eliza Bodine's birth date. Scholfield's book lists her birth as January 14, 1815 and the website lists her birth as June 10, 1816 (and states this information comes from the LDS and has not been proven). I decided to return to Eliza's headstone.

It lists her death date as October 24, 1855 and that she died aged 39 years, 9 months and 10 days. I sure hate math, but my best guess indicates her birth as January 14, 1816. That is the date I'm sticking to. And, in an addendum to Scholfield's book written by her son, Arthur L. Myers, he discusses the death date listed by his mother and lists the proper date of January 14, 1816. He also mentions that this is the birth date listed in an obituary for Eliza. (I am happy to announce that I completed the above math BEFORE I found the addendum in the book. Yea for math success!)

I have yet to find a piece of documentation conclusively linking Eliza Bodine to her potential parents: Peter Bodine and Susan Ervin. I am prepared to accept her relationship to the Ervin family as she did name her first son Robert Ervin Cutler. I searched the records on FamilySearch.org for the state of New York, but could not locate a birth record for Eliza. I believe my next step is to try to locate her obituary. I'm also wondering if The New England Historic Genealogy Society might have some research that would be helpful. Membership in the society is $79 per year, so I will have to ensure it will be worth the cost.

Bodine To-Do list:
1. Locate Eliza Bodine Cutler's obituary