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: genealogy, Census, ancestry, 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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May 18, 2008 at 12:00 am (Aaland, Roberg, genealogy)
Tags: Census, Digitalarkivet, genealogy, Norway, parish records
I’m still intending to post here more often but was in Vancouver for work for a week. I’m back now, though, and intend to get back on track (eventually!). Before I left, I discovered some new databases posted on the Norwegian site, Digitalarkivet. This site contains thousands of digitized Norwegian records covering census data, births, marriages, confirmations, emigrations, tax lists, and more. I’ve visited this site in the past, but the “digitised parish records” feature was recently added, and this has provided a wealth of new primary records on our Norwegian ancestors. The records are sorted by county and then parish, so it is fairly easy to look through the images for Sogn og Fjordane County, Innvik Parish, and locate many of our Roberg/Aaland relatives. You can now find a number of these records for Anders Roberg, Svend Roberg, and others posted in my genealogy database.
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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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February 9, 2008 at 3:48 pm (Wilson, genealogy)
Tags: Census, genealogy, lighthouse
In the summer of 2005, Mom and I took a trip to Michigan. I had never been there before, and we wanted to check out the many lighthouses on the Great Lakes. One of our favorite stops was the Little Sable Light, situated on an isolated sandy beach near Mears. The lighthouse is made of reddish brick and stands 107 feet tall on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. As always, I was interested both in the light itself and in imagining what life for the lighthouse keepers was like, but had no reason to suspect I would one day find a personal connection.
Several years later, researching census records of our Wilson ancestors, I made an unexpected discovery. Hiram James Willson, born in Massena, New York, between 1836 and 1837, was the first cousin twice removed of Carl Ozro Wilson. Sometime between 1850 and 1867 Hiram moved from New York to Michigan, as did a number of Willson relatives. In the 1850 census Hiram can still be found in Louisville, New York, but in 1867 his daughter Gertrude was born in Michigan.
By 1900 Hiram had died, and Gertrude was not found in the census record of her widowed mother, Jennie (Vernon) Willson. Searching more widely, however, I was able to locate her; though Gertrude had married and therefore changed her last name, her birth year and birthdate were correct, as were the birthplaces of her parents. Once Gertrude had been identified, further details became evident. She had married Joseph Arthur Hunter (born March 1857) about 1887, and had given birth to Herbert H. in June 1888 and Pearl G. in July 1890. Joseph’s occupation in the census record is shown as “lighthouse keeper,” with the family living in Golden Township, Oceana County. A quick Internet search determined that the lighthouse in Oceana County is in fact the Little Sable Light, and further research revealed a listing of the keepers of Little Sable, which includes not only Joseph Hunter but, for a few shorts weeks in 1910, “Mrs. H. G. [Gertrude Helen] Hunter.”
All in all, it appears that the Hunters were involved with the Little Sable light from 1890-1922, when Joseph retired. Joseph’s journals from 1916-1922 have been published as well, so (as soon as my copy arrives!) I may have an even fuller understanding of what life at Little Sable was like.
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