A little searching on Footnote.com located a Revolutionary War Pension affidavit signed by Katharine Wickiser, probably the same Katharine Wickiser as my wife's ancestor. Her testimony indicated how long she had known Katharine Blaim, widow of Elam Blaim. Apparently she had known Blaim for most of her life, but the testimony does not indicate that point blank.
A continued search of the file indicated testimony from Abraham Wickiser where he indicates he married a daughter of Katharine Blaim (my wife's Katharine Wickiser was married to an Abraham Wickiser). The pension file (which can be viewed in its entirety on Footnote.com) is over fifty images and I have not yet had time to go through the entire set of documents. We'll be posting additional information here as I am able to analyze it.
Suffice it to say that if not for the ability to search annotations on Footnote.com I would never have found this information. Katharine's maiden name is something we have been working towards for a long time with nary a clue. The documents indicate that there were several families from Huntingdon County, New Jersey who made their way to Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, and eventually into Delaware County, Ohio. A migration chain of which I was unaware.
Additional posts will include our analysis of why the Katharine in the pension is the same one as my wife's ancestor. One never wants to immediately conclude that individuals with the same name are the same person.
Footnote.com is adding more pensions as time goes on. Maybe I'll break down a few other of my brick walls when those are added. And as we'll see in future posts, some of the testimony is from non-family members who give clues about their own families in their testimony in the Blain file.
