Wallace Enoch Allen, husband of Mary Jane McCracken, seems to have dropped into her life “out of the blue.” We’ve been searching for him for a number of years…first my husband's uncle with help from his cousins , then Howard’s grand nephew, , and now Howard’s great, grand niece, DeAnn Jensen, and his nephew, Jim Allen and Jim’s wife Mary.
Putting together the puzzle of one’s past can be fun and fascinating, yet very frustrating at times, too. Searching for Wallace has been all of these and we’re by nowhere finished in our search.
Getting to meet relatives in this search is enjoyable and finding out about the lives of those people you’re researching is interesting as well.
Searching for Wallace has become an adventure as we go down first one trail then another. We'll think we have figured out his ancestry at last, only to find that's another Wallace living in the same era. We now have two Wallace's whose lives might be one person or they could be two. Dates and places are so similar in some cases. Yet there is data in one that's not found in the other.
We're "meeting" many people of the past in our research and wonder how many are ancestors. As we keep searching, we'll find one day that missing piece that will put the puzzle together.
The bare essentials of his life: Wallace supposedly was born near Bangor, Maine around 1853 with a father whose name was George. No mention is made of his mother in any records. Then he lived in St. John, NB, Canada a year or two before marrying Mary Jane McCracken in 1876. They had two children before moving to East Boston, MA, in 1880, following Mary Jane's sister Elizabeth. They eventually purchased a farm in Everett, MA, which still is in the family. We find them in census records and business directories. Wallace died in 1916, although he wasn't living with Mary Jane at the time. She died in 1920. They're buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett.
(c)2005
(If you're related to a Wallace Allen, let us know. Perhaps we have a common ancestry. e-mail at: me.allen@juno.com )
