James Harris Timberman Jr.

James Harris Timberman Jr.

PennsylvaniaConfirmed

Louise's father · 1886–1919

Married

Nancy L. Martin

Sources

6

Life in the order the records give it

Military1917

His WWI draft registration card, signed "James Harris Timberman Jr." in his own hand at East Orange, New Jersey in 1917, settles the full given name and the birth date of 23 October 1886; it has him at 30, a deputy real-estate agent for the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad at Hoboken S80 Confirmed

Death1886

His Ohio death certificate, read from the image, carries him the rest of the way: Jas. H. Timberman, born 23 October 1886 in Pennsylvania, a B&O Railroad inspector, died 24 January 1919 at 9 p.m. at Cambridge, Guernsey County, Ohio, of influenza after four days

the 1918–19 pandemic, exactly as the family remembered. The informant was his widow, reporting from Gallatin, Tennessee, where he was buried three days later. It names his parents J. H. Timberman Sr (born New Jersey) and Louise Harbauer (born Pennsylvania) S79 Confirmed

Death1930

His death when Louise was 21 months old is what the obituary describes

"at the age of two her family moved to Gallatin" — and by 1930 Nancy is enumerated as widowed. Two independent sources, one of them family-written, agree S26S27

The gap this note used to describe is closed. The draft card and the Ohio certificate together give the full name, the birth date, the death and both parents, so nothing now waits on the New Jersey birth certificate for Louise, Vol. 59 p. 95 (Orange, 10 April 1917) — only the index was ever retrieved. It would still add his mother's maiden name and both parents' ages as stated in 1917, and it is worth having for that. It is not online; the New Jersey State Archives holds it.

Family parents, marriages, children, siblings

Names1915

On the record he is "J. H. Timberman, Jr." Confirmed

the 1915 Sumner County marriage book gives initials and the suffix, nothing more S29

Marriage1915

Married Nancy L. Martin

licence issued 15 June 1915, solemnised 17 June 1915 at Gallatin, Tennessee; clerk Moon, officiant H. L. Olmstead S29. 🆕 Corrected 26 September 2026: the book was first read as the 10th and the 11th; set beside a second scan of the same page, both read the 15th and the 17th, which agrees with the marriage bond S261.

Open questions what is probable, weak or missing — confirm or correct it

Open question

⚠️ Philadelphia is the one thing still Probable. The draft card names the city; the death certificate says only "Pa." Two cautions on the certificate's own face: its stated age of 31 is an arithmetic error for 32, and the cause of death is a handwritten word on 1919 microfilm, read as Influenza rather than transcribed from type S79

In the record Generation 4 — Earl's great-grandparents

1. S26Obituary, "Louise Timberman Coffman," Houston Chronicle, published 25 January 2008; Legacy.com id 25719287. Family-supplied. Names her four children, her late husband, fifty years of marriage, her Peabody degree and her DAR membership. The document that both names her and dates her death.
2. S271930 US Census, Gallatin, Sumner County, Tennessee, lines 97–100 — Timberman, Nancy (52, widowed, head, high-school teacher); Timberman, Louise M. (13, daughter); Martin, Emma (59, sister, public-school teacher); Chenault, Ermin (28, female, boarder, saleslady in dry goods). FamilySearch ark:/61903/1:1:SP7V-TVZ. Page image read directly. The single page that proves the Martin maiden name from a record rather than a tree. Corrected 26 September 2026: the boarder was first read as a man, “Ernest Chernault”, as FamilySearch indexed him. A second scan of the same sheet, Ancestry record 66161418 (1930 census, ED 83-3, sheet 29B, line 100, image 4547930_00097), set beside it reads Chenault, Ermin, sex F, a sales lady in dry goods. The Chenault link to the family is unchanged.
3. S29Marriage record, Sumner County, Tennessee, p. 398 — "Gallatin, Tenn., June 15th 1915. This day issued to J. H. Timberman, Jr. to marry Nancy L. Martin. [A.] H. Moon, Clerk." Return: solemnised 17 June 1915 by H. L. Olmstead. Tennessee, County Marriages, 1790–1959; FamilySearch ark:/61903/1:1:QKH3-ZG5P / …QKH3-ZG5G. Page image read directly. Corrected 26 September 2026: this page was first read as the 10th and the 11th, with the clerk as “Groves”. A second scan of the same page, Ancestry record 1619878 (Tennessee, U.S., Marriage Records, 1780–2002, image VRMUSATN1780_047344-00268), was set beside the FamilySearch image: both read June 15th and the 17th, the clerk signs “Moon” on every entry, the next licence on the page is dated June 16th, and the marriage bond is dated 15 June S261. FamilySearch's 15 June was right.
4. S79James Harris Timberman Jr. — Ohio certificate of death, 24 January 1919. State of Ohio, Bureau of Vital Statistics; Guernsey County, registration district 470, primary registration district 8717, registered no. 26, file no. 3039; Ohio, Deaths, 1908–1953, FamilySearch ARK 1:1:X8KB-Z38. Read from the certificate image on 15 September 2026, not from the index. Gives: Jas. H. Timberman, born 23 October 1886, birthplace Pa.; died 24 January 1919 at 9 p.m., city of Cambridge, Guernsey County, Ohio; occupation inspector, B. & O. R. R.; cause of death influenza, the attending physician certifying four days' attendance; father J. H. Timberman Sr, born N.J.; mother Louise Harbauer, born Pa.; informant Mrs. Jas. H. Timberman, Gallatin, Tenn.; buried Gallatin, Tennessee, 27 January 1919. This is the record that turned the Timberman parents from Probable to Confirmed, and the only source on this page for the cause of his death. Two cautions, both on the face of the document: the stated age of 31 is an arithmetic error — 23 October 1886 to 24 January 1919 is 32 years, and the FamilySearch index copies the mistake forward; and the cause of death is a handwritten word on 1919 microfilm, read here as Influenza on letter count, the four-day course and the date, not transcribed from type. The informant is his widow, so the parents' names are her testimony — corroborated independently by the 1910 Wilkes-Barre census, which is why the tag is Confirmed.
5. S80James Harris Timberman Jr. — World War I draft registration card, 1917. East Orange City, Essex County, New Jersey; NARA M1509, World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards; FamilySearch ARK 1:1:7FP1-BV2M, read from the card image 15 September 2026. Signed in his own hand, "James Harris Timberman Jr." — the full middle name the Ohio certificate reduces to an initial. Age 30; born 23 October 1886, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; home 302 Halsted, East Orange; deputy real-estate agent for the D. L. & W. R. R. at Hoboken. The name is settled by this card and nothing else is needed for it. The age of 30 dates the card to the first national registration of 5 June 1917 rather than the 1918 rounds. ⚠️ Philadelphia rests on this card alone — the death certificate says only "Pa." — so the city stays Probable while the name and the birth date do not.
6. S261Tennessee, U.S., Marriage Records, 1780-2002 — J. H. Timberman Jr. and Nancy L. Martin. Ancestry record 5659918; p. 171. Read from the image at full resolution, 22 September 2026. Sumner Co., Tenn., marriage bond, 15 June 1915: J. H. Timberman Jr. obtained a licence to marry Nancy L. Martin; surety a Timberman Sr. ⚠ The bond's date does not agree with the licence and marriage dates on S29; unresolved, and nothing is changed from it.