52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Alzina Jackman Doyle

Alzina Jackman was born on 27 March, 1810 in New York (the family was enumerated in Lima, Ontario, New York in the 1810 US Census, which is likely where Alzina was born).  Alzina was the youngest of Moses and Rhoda Collins Jackman's four children and the only one not born in Vermont.

When Alzina was about a year old, the family moved to Mendon, Monroe, New York.  Not long after this, Alzina's mother, Rhoda died at the age of thirty.  A little over a year later, Alzina's father, Moses, remarried to Betsey Beecher (a distant relative of the Lyman Beecher family).  Alzina would gain eight half-siblings through this union.

In 1828, Alzina's family moved to Livonia, Livingston, New York.  By 1832, Alzina had married Heman H. Doyle and their first child, Maria Adelaide, was born in October of that year.  They would have three known daughters in all (though one appears to have died young).  In 1833, Alzina's mother's father, John Collins, died and mentions in his will Alzina and Heman being residents of Pittsford, Monroe, New York.

Alzina and her family moved west in the spring of 1839.  They settled somewhere along the banks of the Mississippi before being forced to return to New York due to illness.  They eventually relocated to Rochester.

A decade later, when gold was discovered in California, Alzina's husband decided to go west again, leaving her and their daughters behind.  I wonder how much Alzina and her husband communicated after he left because she is listed as a widow in the 1851 Rochester city directory.  Alzina last appears in Rochester in the 1853 directory, she was working as a seamstress at the time.  Heman was working as a lawyer in private practice in Placerville (then called Hangtown) at this time.

Alzina and her daughters eventually did make it out west and joined Heman.  At the time of the 1860 US Census, Alzina was in Placerville residing with her daughter, Frances, and Frances' husband and son.  Heman is enumerated in San Joaquin Co.  A year later Alzina's father, Moses, died in Livonia.

Alzina's daughter, Frances, died in 1864 in Nevada, where the Doyles had relocated.  The Doyles would at least partially raise Frances' young son, Frank Doyle Smith.  Heman was appointed Probate Judge in Douglas Co. in 1865 and District Attorney for Carson Valley in 1866.  The family was residing in Genoa, Douglas, Nevada.

By the 1870 US Census, Heman was enumerated in both Genoa and with Alzina in Elkhorn, San Joaquin, California.  Heman and Alzina are again enumerated separately in the 1880 US Census.  At the time Alzina is living on her own in Elkhorn and Heman is residing with their daughter, Maria, and her family nearby.

Although Heman and Alzina seem to have led separate lives later in their marriage, she was with him when he died in 1881 from typhoid.  Alzina died nine years later on 4 February, 1890 - a few weeks shy of her eightieth birthday.  They are buried in Woodbridge Masonic Cemetery in Woodbridge, San Joaquin, California.

Alzina's daughter, Maria Adelaide Doyle Shinn, was my third great-grandmother.

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