October 1, 2009 at 11:49 am (Montgomery, Surnames, genealogy)
Tags: ancestry, captain, Census, Civil War, family history, genealogy, Lynchburg, Ohio, Shiloh, Vicksburg
One of the most interesting discoveries I have made recently is finding information regarding the 48th Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry, which fought in the Civil War and included a Montgomery cousin, Thomas Montgomery, and his brother-in-law John A. Bering (Thomas’s sister Susan was John’s first wife). The 48th Ohio fought at the battles of Shiloh and Vicksburg, among others. Following their war experiences, the two men collaborated on a memoir which was published in 1880 and is now available online.
Thomas Montgomery was born in New Jersey in 1837, the fourth son of William and Mary Ann (Extell) Montgomery. His eldest brother John was our direct ancestor. By 1850 the family was living in Clinton County, Ohio, where, 10 years later, Thomas was listed in the census as a schoolteacher. Thomas’s military career covered the four years of the Civil War, after which he appears to have settled down in Highland County, Ohio. His wife, Elizabeth, was born between 1844 and 1845 in Ohio, and their first child, Stella May, was born between 1866 and 1867. Based on a photo of the Montgomery family, 5 more children followed, though I only have details on 4: Walter T. (b. November 1870), Maud (b. 1872-1873), Harley H. (b. March 1876), and Milton Clark (b. 1878-1879). In 1870 the census listed Thomas as a livery stable keeper, and in 1880 as a U. S. Storekeeper. Thomas died 13 July 1907 and was buried in the Masonic Cemetery in Lynchburg, Highland County, Ohio.
- Thomas Montgomery, 1905
Thanks to the 48th OVVI website for many of these details.
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April 16, 2009 at 4:59 pm (Surnames, Wilson, genealogy)
Tags: ancestry, Census, genealogy, plural marriage
Yes, it has been a very long time since I’ve written here, and I hope to start writing more regularly going forward! I am continuing with my never-ending “Family Census Project” – tracing each family in each census from 1850-1930. I always enjoy jumping ahead 10 years to find new children born to a family, or to discover a that widowed sister-in-law or mother has now taken up residence with a young family.
Having come from a long line of Lutheran (and, further back, Seventh-Day Baptist or Apostolic Christian) stock, however, it took me a little while to catch on to what I was seeing with my 4th cousin five times removed, John Gill Wilson, in the 1860 census. John’s great-great-grandfather, Joseph Willson, was the brother of our director ancestor, Samuel Willson, and I had been placidly tracing his descendants through the Ancestry.com census records. John was born 14 August 1829 in Green Township, Richland, Ohio, and in 1850 was still living at home with his parents in Decatur, Iowa. Tracing John forward to 1860, however, I found him in Ogden, Utah, 35 years old and farming, with a number of small children, but also with Lucy, age 30, born in Indiana, and Polly, age 21, born in Missouri.
It didn’t take much searching to locate a number of LDS family history sites, including The Life, Times & Family of Orson Pratt Brown, which confirmed that both Lucy and Polly were the wives of our relative John Gill Wilson. In 1860 the census taker listed all the children in order by age, but in 1870 each group of children is listed separately with their mother, making it easier to determine each child’s parentage. By 1880, the Wilson household consisted of 17 individuals. This is the sort of discovery that certainly adds a little color to census research!
June 5 1880 Hyrum Precinct Cache Utah Page 18 Enum 10
152 153 Wilson John W M 50 x [married] Farmer Ohio Vermont Penn
—Lucy W F 49 wife keeping house Ind. New York New York
—Elvira W F 39 wife keeping house Mo. New York New York
—Orson W M 21 Son x [single] Works on farm x [school] Utah New York Ind.
—Alma W M 21 Son x Works on farm Utah New York Mo.
—Ezra W M 19 Son x Works on farm Utah New York Ind.
—George W M 19 Son x Works on farm Utah New York Mo.
—Beletta W F 17 Daughter x At home Utah New York Ind.
—Emma W F 17 Daughter x At home Utah New York Mo.
—Charles W M 15 Son x Works on farm x Utah new York Ind.
—Adeline W F 14 Daughter x At home x Utah New York Mo.
—C. WIlliam W M 12 Son x At School x Utah New York Ind.
—Frank W M 12 Son x At School x Utah New York Mo.
—Joseph W M 9 Son x x Utah New York Mo.
—Alice W F 6 Daughter x Utah New York Mo.
—Lycurgus W M 3 Son x Utah New York Mo.
—Isaac W M 7/12 Oct Son x Utah New York Mo.
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April 30, 2008 at 10:00 pm (Davis, genealogy)
Tags: ancestry, Census, family history
I’ve come to the conclusion that I am not writing as many posts as I ought to! Since my goal here is to keep everyone up to speed on all my genealogy and family history discoveries, I plan to write more often about my research progress even if I haven’t received any earth-shattering revelations. So what am I up to now? My major addiction is my current “Census Project”–using the census images at www.ancestry.com to trace all our family branches from 1850 (the first year that every individual in a household was listed by name) to 1930 (the most recent census available). I am working my way very slowly through the Davises right now, many of them located in Doddridge County, West Virginia. My target family today was Anderson G. Davis and his wife Millie (or Mollie) Dotson. All the West Virginia research is made easier by the fact that one of the Ancestry.com databases contains information on West Virginia marriages prior to 1900–this really simplifies the process of tracing an individual from their childhood home to their own home and family after marriage. This particular branch of the Davis family also contains quite a few unusual names–among the siblings of Anderson Davis were Zacharias, Elvira, Donmanuel, Elijah, Elkana, Sylvanus, Penelope, and Vandelee. All the unusual names help with the tracking process–especially with a common surname like Davis. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever see the end of the Census Project–and then I realize I don’t really want to!
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