This is a picture of John M. Lever, his wife Anne Pemberton and their two sons William George Lever (standing) and Arthur Ellis Lever. Arthur is my great grandfather. There is no date for the photo, but Arthur was born in 1900, so my guess is 1906 give or take a year.
John is one of my many gateway ancestors. In 1887, he migrated from Hyde, England and settled in Lewiston, Maine. Two years later, his younger brother Samuel Ellis Lever joined him.
Tracing John and Samuel back to England has been challenging. Based on my research, their parents were George and Eliza. Unfortunately, this is where things get confusing. There is another George and Eliza Lever in Hyde, England and not only were their first two children born around the same time as John and Samuel, but they also named them John and Samuel. One of the censuses has Samuel’s full name, so this allowed me to distinguish between the two families.
That said, I am making the assumption that John and Samuel are brothers. Samuel signed John’s naturalization papers as a witness, so I think this makes this a safe bet rather than another strange coincidence.
After that, George and Eliza’s parentage is unclear to me. At one point, George’s mother (Ellen) was living with them, but that is the end of my research. John and Samuel also had four sisters (Mary Ellen, Bertha, Elizabeth and Clara). These names were pretty common and I have no idea what became of them.
At this time, my research has been limited to what I can find on google or ancestry.com. The records from England on ancestry.com is pretty limited. At some point, I may pursue this further by attempting to obtain records from England.