VanLeer - Van Leer - Finley - Finley - Estilow - Thomas - and a photo of the home of one of my third great grandfathers

Finding some of the places that my ancestors lived.

***** Update *****
Found a photo of William Finley, the father of Chester Alexander Finley - husband of Beulah M. Van Leer. I don't know much about the photo, as far as when it was taken or who the little girl was. I think that the photo was taken late in the life of William Finley, 1849 - 1935.

Chester "Pop" Finley was my great-grandfather. I realize now that I didn't really lay out the whole genealogy -- as I understand it -

Here's an image the lays it all out.

Deerfield, NY is one location. I was able to visit Deerfield just after Thanksgiving, 2011. I had been there before for the burials of my great grandfather, and grandfather. The weather was very mild and the sun bright. I took quite a few photos of VanLeer, Finley, and Estilow graves and put them on findagrave.com - You can follow the link below and links from it to see many graves of the people mentioned below

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=81073532

Michael VanLeer (1822 - 1901) is my one of my 3rd great grandfathers (you get 16 third great-grandfathers)
Beulah Mowers Van Leer (1855 - 1922 ) Daughter of Michael married William Finley and they had sons and daughters including
Chester Alexander Finley (1879 - 1969) married Cordelia "Della" Lawrence and they had daughters including
Helen Finley (1905 - 1973) who married Samuel Dare Estlow who had a daughter
Pearl Helen Estilow (1930 - 2004) who married Robert Roy Thomas who had a sons and daughters including
Robert LaRoy Thomas. I am a son of Robert Roy Thomas and Pearl Helen Estilow

My mother had a box of photos and other papers from her mother, Helen (Finley) Estilow.

In the box was a nice matted photo of a brick farmhouse, with writing along the bottom of the photo. The writing says,
"Residence of Michael VanLeer built in 1878." I had no knowledge of the VanLeer family before that. You can see the photo below of click on the link at the bottom of the page to see a higher resolution copy of the photo. As a side note you can find VanLeer spelled in at least the ways listed.

Van Leer
VanLeer
Vanleer
Vanlier
Van Lier

Searching for more information on Michael I located the following passage in a book with the title,There's a book - Biographical Review that has a volume on the Leading Citizens of Cumberland County. The Van Leer's are discussed on page 42 and 43 and the home that I have the photo of is mentioned on page 42. There is a good bit of genealogical information on those pages, too.

You can read the whole book online - or download it for free as a PDF and read it off line. It is interesting how the writer runs back and ahead in time to link children with grandparents, etc. Not all the dates he lists work out, but enough information is there to help you with your understanding of the times and people in the area.

The link is below.

http://www.archive.org/stream/biographiccalrev00biog#page/42/mode/2up/se...