The Merrow Ancestry

In Charlotte's papers, she had pieced together very little about her grandfather (and my great-great-grandfather) Joseph Daniel Merrow. She notes he was the son of John Joseph Mereaux and Angeline Burdenau. He had an older brother Alexander and a younger brother named William. His grandfather Joseph, was a brother to his wife Josephine's grandmother Rachel, which made them second cousins.

Charlotte also notes that the Merrow surname had gone through several changes over the years; Merrow, Mero, Mereaux, Miraux.

Apart from that, little else was known of his ancestry. Today, I can take advantage of the huge amount of available online genealogical databases to push the Merrow family history a little further back. Here's what I've been able to uncover so far.

I've found Joseph and his parents John and Angeline in the 1870 U.S. Census, living in Detroit, Michigan.

The listed ages are a little bit off, but that is not unusual for early censuses. Here their surname is spelled Miraux. Older brother Alexander is there, as is younger brother William.

I have not found yet any further records relating to this specific family, but if we accept the account that John's father Joseph was a brother to Rachel Amireau, Josephine's grandmother, that would mean he would most certainly be Joseph Amireau (b. 1792). The Amireau/Amirault family is well studied Acadian family that goes back many generations to the early days of the French settlement of what later became Nova Scotia.

With this connection made, here is what the Merrow's direct ancestral line would look like:

Joseph Daniel Merrow (1851-1922)

John Joseph Miraux (c.1815-    ) + Angeline Burdenau (c.1811-c.1880)

Joseph Amireau (1792-    ) + Sarah Stockwell (c.1796-    )

Jean Baptiste Amirault (1755-1835) + Marie Archange Desmarais (1768-    )

François Marin Amirault (1720-1799) + Cécile Bourg (c.1729-1795)

Joseph Amirault (1689-1774) + Marguerite Laure (c.1695-    )

François Amirault dit Tourangeau (c.1644-c.1726) + Marie Pitre (c.1666-    )

François Amirault, born in Tours, France, apparently arrived in Port Royal in 1671 aboard the ship L'Oranger. He was a soldier, who once his service was finished, remained in the New World as a settler of Acadia.

His descendants were forced from their homes during the expulsion of the Acadians during the French and Indian War of 1754-1763. Thousands of Acadians died as a result of this upheaval at the hands of the British. Some deported Amiraults managed to escape to Quebec and later Ontario, and from there eventually some became the Mirauxs/Meros/Merrows of Detroit.

Joseph and Josephine

Margaret Merrow's parents were Joseph Daniel Merrow (1851-1922) and Josephine Gertrude Greusel (1861-1938). They were married on 3 August 1881 and are shown here photographed shortly afterwards. Joseph and Josephine were second cousins, both being great grandchildren of Jean Baptiste Amirault, a French Canadian of Acadian descent. The surname Merrow is an anglicization of the original Amirault.

In the span of twenty years, Joseph and Josephine had sixteen children, only half of which lived to adulthood.

The children of Joseph and Josephine, reconstructed from census records and Charlotte A Raymo's notes:

• Margaret Angeline Merrow, b. 11 October 1882, d. 21 December 1946
• Clarence Charles Merrow, b. 10 April 1883, d. sometime after 1920
• Joseph Daniel Merrow, Jr., b. 20 December 1884, d. 1886
• Vivian Merrow, b. 19 December 1886, d. September 1887
• Twin boy, died in infancy
• Twin boy, died in infancy
• Girl, died in infancy
• Josephine Gertrude Merrow, b. 23 December 1891, d. 6 October 1949
• Marie Stella Merrow, b. 3 April 1893, d. sometime after 1949
• Rachel Irene Merrow, b. 2 August 1894, d. September 1983
• Flavious Joseph Merrow, b. 10 June 1895, d. 29 September 1918
• Unknown child, died in infancy
• John Merrow, died in infancy
• Florence Virginia Merrow, b. 23 February 1898, d. 2 December 1992
• Caleb Merrow, b. January 1900, d. probably died in infancy
• Hazen Alfonso Merrow, b. 7 July 1901, d. 6 December 1978

The Merrow Family

Margaret Merrow's parents and family, photographed in Summertown, Tennessee, c.1915.

FRONT ROW: Uncle Edward Greusel (1853-1934), Margaret's mother Josephine Gertrude Greusel (1891-1938), Margaret's father Joseph Daniel Merrow (1851-1922).

BACK ROW: Jim & Reba Becket (unknown relation), sister Rachel Irene Merrow (1894-1983), sister Marie Stella Merrow (1893-    ), brother Flavious Joseph Merrow (1895-1918), sister Florence Virginia Merrow (1898-1992), and cousin Joseph Greusel.