Week 23: So Many Descendants

McKibbin headstone in Eldridge Cemetery

Middlebury, Elkhart, Indiana

This line of many begins with my 4x great-grandparents Thomas McKibbin and Jane Irvine of County Down, Ireland.  Thomas was born sometime in 1766 and Jane in 1777.   Their marriage most likely took place in County Down also because their first nine children were born in Ireland.  

In 1812 the McKibbin family emigrated to the United States, settling first in Turkeyfoot Township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania.  During their years in Pennsylvania three more children were born and one of their sons who had been born in Ireland died at just nine years old.

From there, the McKibbins migrated west to Ohio for a few years and finally settled in Elkhart County, Indiana.

This is where the ancestor math comes in.

Ten of the twelve McKibbin children lived to adulthood, married, and started their own families. Each of them in turn had large families: 

Total known grandchildren    83     

Eighty-three grandchildren?  Now that's a lot of names--let alone birthdays--to remember!

    

Week 22: At the Cemetery

There's a cemetery in the little town of Pierceton, Indiana where eight of my ancestors are resting.  Hillcrest Cemetery is located on the west side of Indiana State Highway 13 between E County Road 350 S and E County Road 365 S. 

The oldest of those graves holds Elijah Bird, one of my 3x great-grandfathers on my paternal side.  Elijah was born 217 years ago in Frederick, Virginia on 13 Nov 1805 to Sarah Butler Bird and Thomas Bird.  Elijah married Eliza Williams on 8 Dec 1825 in Holmes County, Ohio. Together they had ten children in 21 years. Elijah died on October 5, 1876 in Pierceton at the age of 70, just ten months after he and Eliza celebrated 50 years of marriage.  Eliza was born on 12 Jan 1805 in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Jehu Williams and Sarah Arbuckle.  She died eight years after Elijah on 7 Feb 1884 when she was 79 years old. The headstones for Elijah and Eliza are weathered and the inscriptions are hard to decipher.  Eliza's stone cracked and broke at some point and is sinking lower and lower in the ground.  

Elijah and Eliza's son Albert Arbuckle Bird was my 2x great-grandfather.  Albert isn't buried in Hillcrest Cemetery but his wife, Sarah Ann Norris Bird, is.  Sarah Ann was born on 6 Aug 1851 in Kosciusko County, the daughter of Luther Norris and Elizabeth Banghart Norris.  A month before her 16th birthday Sarah Ann married Albert.  During their eighteen years together they had six children.  Sarah died of typhoid fever when she was just 33 years old.  

Ruth Ann Bird Zook, the youngest of Elijah and Eliza's children, is also buried at Hillcrest.  Ruth Ann was born 9 Apr 1847 when Eliza was 42 years old.  Ruth Ann was my 2nd great-grandaunt.

                                                                   Ruth Ann's headstone

Sarah Ann Norris Bird

Sarah's parents, Luther Norris and Elizabeth Banghart Norris, are also buried in Hillcrest Cemetery.  Luther was born on 24 Aug 1824 in Holmes County, Ohio.  On 17 Jun 1843 when Luther was 18 he married 16-year old Elizabeth Banghart in Holmes County.  Together they had four children; their only daughter, Sarah, was their youngest.  Their first son, John Thomas, died at 4 months old.  Stephen and Albert, the second and third sons, both lived to adulthood. However, both Stephen and Sarah died before their parents did.

Elizabeth and Luther nearly made it to fifty years of marriage before Luther passed away on 4 Jan 1893.  Elizabeth lived for seven years after losing Luther.  It's hard to tell from the headstone pictures but I think Elizabeth and Luther share the same stone, with each having their story carved on opposite sides. The monument looks to be in beautiful shape after standing for over 130 years.

                                                                    Elizabeth and Luther

Luther and Elizabeth's son Stephen B Norris, my 2nd great-granduncle, was a Civil War veteran.  He was born on 7 Feb 1846 and died on 17 Dec 1878.  

The last ancestral grave I know of at Hillcrest is that of James Norris, my 3rd great-granduncle. James was an older brother to Luther.  Unlike Luther, he was born on 19 Apr 1814 in New York before the Norris family left there to relocate in Holmes County, Ohio. This picture of James gives a good look at his "unique" hair style and beard.  

I'm pretty sure that if I kept looking and branched out just a little farther on my tree I'd find plenty more relatives buried here in Pierceton.  

Week 21: Brick Wall

Are you out there somewhere, Alfred Cartwright?

One consistently frustrating brick wall I've bumped into over the years is that of my 2x great-grandfather Alfred Cartwright.  Here's what little I do know about him from one U.S. Census and several marriage records:

 1.  His inferred birth year was around 1822.

 2.  His birth place was New York.

 3.  He and Mary Ann Nelson registered to marry on 25 Jan 1857 in La Grange, IN.

 4.  He and Mary Ann Nelson were married on 11 Feb 1847 in La Grange, IN.

 5.  He was a farmer living in Washington Township, Starke County, IN on 30 Jul 1870 when the 

Census was taken.

 6.  Their children were William Cyrus (b. 1848); Francis Irvin (b. 1851); Oscar (b. 1855), Martin

(b. 1863); Walter (b. 1867) my great-grandfather; Urias (b. 1869); Laura (b. 1872); Amy Lillian

(b. 1873)

 7.  There are some pretty big gaps between some of the births, so there may have been other children who died at birth or at a young age.

 8.  At the time of the 1870 Census Alfred's real estate value was estimated at $1200 and his personal property was estimated at $250.

 9.  There are tick marks in the columns for Cannot Read and Cannot Write.

La Grange County is on the northern border of Indiana, one county away from Ohio.  Starke County is south and west by about 50 miles. 

There was a man named Alfred Deforest Cartwright whose records keep popping up but it's not my Alfred.  Interestingly, Alfred Deforest Cartwright was also born in New York, also about 1822 but he was living in California in the 1870s. He's not my Alfred.

I'm not going to give up on you, Alfred!

 

Week 20: Beard

 

This bearded gentleman is John David Miller, one of my 3x great-grandfathers in my paternal line.  He was born 6 Apr 1812 in Montgomery County, Ohio, to David Miller and Catharina Schaeffer.  When he was about 14 years old his mother passed away.  Shortly afterwards John David's father remarried and within a few years decided to move the family north and west from Ohio to Elkhart County, Indiana.  Eighteen-year-old John David went with the family but must have longed for a girl he left behind in Ohio because in 1832--at about 20 years old-- he returned to Ohio long enough to marry his sweetheart Mary Baker on 14 Jan 1832.  The newlyweds then headed to Elkhart County to face their first cold Indiana winter in a temporary shelter.

Eventually John David constructed a log cabin and over the years a house (which still stands) was constructed on the site.  The original log cabin stands under the center portion of the house.

In the 1840 U.S. Census the family was recorded as having:

    2 males under 5 yrs

    1 male 5-under 10 yrs

    1 male 20-under 30 yrs  (John David at 28 yrs)

    1 female under 5 yrs              

    1 female 20-under 30 yrs  (Mary Baker Miller at 27 yrs)

In the 1850 Census John David was shown to have real estate valued at $3000, making him one of the wealthier farmers in Jackson Township, Elkhart County.  His children were recorded as:

One of the two male children under 5 from the earlier census must have passed away in the years between 1840 and 1850.  David, 12, would have been the other male child under 5 on that 1840 Census.  The male 5-10 from the earlier census must also have passed away because I've never seen him appear again in records.

Esther (whose real name was Hester), shown as 17 yrs in the 1850 Census, was either not recorded in 1840 or her age was under-recorded in order for her to be 17 by 1850.  Hester's obituary shows her birth date to be 1833 so she should have been 7 in 1840.  Five-year old Matilda would grow up to become my 2x great-grandmother.

In 1855 John David's wife Mary died, leaving him a widower at 43 with seven children.  (A son, George Washington, had been born in 1851.)  Less than a year later John David married Margaret Lentz Whitehead, a young widow with five children of her own.  When John David and Margaret married Hester had recently left home as a bride herself, leaving them with a blended family of eleven children. Four more children were born after the families blended but only three survived:  Evaline Louise, Perry, and Ira. By the time John David and Margaret's last child was born Margaret was nearly 40 and John David had been fathering children over a span of 29 years.  

By the 1900 Census John David and Margaret were living by themselves. This picture was probably taken between 1890 and 1900 when he was between 78 and 88 years old.

According to Roberta Estes, in her blog "DNAeXplained--Genetic Genealogy", John David gifted each of his ten children $1000 in 1890 or 1891.  In today's dollars that would be over $33,000 for each. 

He passed away on 10 Feb 1902 just two months before his 90th birthday from senile gangrene, a form of gangrene that occurs mainly in elderly people, caused by insufficient blood supply due to degeneration of the walls of the smaller arteries.  In anticipation of his death John David had written a will.  He may have thought it was equitable but it wasn't well received by the family.  If there weren't hard feelings and resentment between the two sets of his children before that time, there were after the will was read.  Roberta Estes, in her blog "DNAeXplained--Genetic Genealogy", wrote this about our common ancestor's estate:

"There were several distributions to John David's heirs.  I am struck by how much better off everyone would have been to get along.  Instead, John David's older children contested the will which drove up the settlement cost, caused Margaret to petition the court for her one-third share instead of leaving it in the estate to be divided by all heirs later, which decreased the older children's share.  Contesting the will also incurred attorney bills that were paid out of the estate before their share, along with their own attorney who was paid out of their share before they saw a penny.  All in all, it turned out to be a very bad idea, on multiple levels."

Remarriages, blended families, and wills can bring out the worst in families.

Week 19: Bald

My GrandDad Scott stood six feet tall with a slim build, brown eyes, and—way before my time—auburn hair.  Like most men in the Scott line, his hair didn’t stick around for long so he wrote me this advice when he heard that he was going to become a great-granddad for the first time:

“I have only one very important bit of instructions.  If it turns out to be a boy—PLEASE be sure that he comes with permanent hair on his head.  I know that would be a violation of the old Scott trademark but it would be a good and legal violation.”

GrandDad was born Angus Cleon Scott on the cusp of the 20^th century on 10 May 1899 in Kosciusko County, IN, the first son of William Oldfield Scott and Mary Dubbs Scott.   For the next 89 years he was called A. C. or Cleon or Scotty but never ever Angus.  Angus only appeared as a first initial for the next 80 years.  

In the summer of 1977 when my husband and I and our six-week-old twins faced a cross-country move GrandDad wrote to me in his distinctive perfect penmanship to offer this contrast:

“When I was four years old my folks moved from west of Warsaw to Milford—16 miles—it took two days—three teams and wagons with three drivers—and my mother and I rode in a buggy pulled by one horse that was tied behind one wagon.  A move like you’re making would have required a year at least and the purchase of several fresh horses along the way.  Life on this world has made a lot of changes in the past 78 years.”

            GrandDad graduated from Milford High School in April of 1915, about a month shy of his sixteenth birthday.  In the five years following graduation he worked as the manager of a pickle station in the Libby, McNeill, & Libby factory, studied for a year at Purdue University, and worked in the family hardware and implement store.  In 1920 GrandDad married for the first of three times.

            Eva Mae Bird, my paternal grandma, became the first Mrs. Cleon Scott on 18 Apr 1920.  Together they had four sons in twelve years but in 1932 the couple separated.  About the same time, the Scott family hardware and implement store closed after struggling through several years of the Great Depression.  Eva filed for divorce in 1934 and was granted custody of the boys with a sum of $4.50 per week for child support and GrandDad moved to Dowagiac, MI, to work for the Rudy Furnace company.  By 1935 single motherhood became too hard for Eva so she gave up custody of her sons in order to marry another man.  

GrandDad hired a young housekeeper named Hazel DesVoignes to look after his four sons at home while he commuted to work in Dowagiac.  Within a year GrandDad was promoted to salesman at Rudy Furnace for a salary of $50 per week and a company car to cover a territory that included Indiana and western Ohio.   In 1937 Hazel the housekeeper became the second Mrs. Cleon Scott.  Unfortunately, this marriage was short-lived and ended tragically in April of 1940 when twenty-six-year-old Hazel suddenly died of a subdural hemorrhage, leaving GrandDad a widower with four boys aged 18, 17, 13, and 10.  He had to keep working so this time he hired a local farmer’s wife to cook and clean for his sons during the week while he was on the road selling furnaces. 

 GrandDad had much better luck his third marriage.  In 1942 he married Irene Shumaker, a 38-year-old school teacher.  Eleven years after their marriage GrandDad left the furnace business and put away his salesman’s suits and fedoras to become a farmer.  He and Irene bought a ramshackle farm in Steuben County, IN near where she had been raised.  For a year they lived in a shanty on the property as they fixed up the farmhouse and refurbished the barn and outbuildings.  By 1954 GrandDad was officially a farmer.

The Scott farm was a two-hour drive across northern Indiana for my family.  When my dad would pull off the highway and turn on the road leading to the farm I’d try to be the first to start singing, “I see—ee GrandDad’s house, I see—ee GrandDad’s house!”  We’d pull up by the big Cottonwood tree and pile out of the car.  There were cows to watch, eggs to gather, tractors to ride, a barn to explore, a dog to pet, and humongous soft sugar cookies with a raisin in their middle to munch.   When I was a little older GrandDad let me sit behind the wheel of his old Dodge pickup truck and let out the clutch to move it slowly forward while he stood on a trailer behind it.   

After twenty years of farm life GrandDad became a widower for the second time when Grandma Irene passed away in 1974.  He wrote:

“…the memories I hold for 1974 are not all pleasant memories.  The loss of Irene was quite a blow to a 75-year-old man…Enough of the morbid.  This is 1975.  I’m going to try to stay forked end down for the next 365 days.”

Not only did he “stay forked end down” but GrandDad lived for another four and a half years.  Too old to run the farm any longer, he developed an interest in genealogy.  His handwritten family trees are carefully recorded on large fragile scrolls of paper, showing the results of endless hours of mail correspondence, courthouse and cemetery searches, and conversations.  He would have been amazed (and probably confounded) by the internet and the billions of records to be found there.

Week 18: Pets

 I wish I knew the names of the dogs and the cat found in these photos so I could call them by name.  If it wasn't for these images, they'd be forgotten in time.  There may have been a simple wooden cross or  maybe just a few rocks to mark their graves when they passed.  If so, those are long gone but I'm lucky to have images of them with my ancestors who loved them.

My maternal grandma Irene Eldora Cartwright Williams with her cat, circa 1926-30.

My paternal 2x great-grandfather Daniel William Williams with his dog, circa 1935-1941.

My paternal grandfather A.C. Scott and my step-grandma, Irene Shumaker Scott, circa 1948-1950.

Week 17: DNA

A phone call I made to my brother and my sister-in-law in 1992 resulted in an interesting curve to our family tree.  They had been battling infertility issues for a number of years and had decided that a pregnancy just wasn't going to happen.  It made me sad to know that two people who would make wonderful parents probably wouldn't ever get that chance but there wasn't anything I could do.

Or was there?  Would they consider a surrogate pregnancy?  Even though I was 40 already I was healthy and willing to offer my womb and an egg but that couldn't be a decision I made alone; I had a family of my own to consider.  My husband and I talked about the idea of a surrogacy and together we decided that I'd make that call.

They were intrigued.  But there were lots of details to work out.  One important detail was the choice of a sperm donor.  Since my brother's DNA would be represented by the DNA that he and I shared, they decided that a donor from my sister-in-law's family would be ideal to represent her family line.  Luckily she had an older half-brother who was willing to be that donor.

The logistics were interesting since we lived in two different states but after only a few flights and the use of a syringe I recognized the early signs of a pregnancy.  I confirmed it with a home test.  Our homespun approach to surrogacy had worked.

This time my call said, "We're pregnant!!"

Nine months later with both my brother and sister-in-law in the delivery room, we had a beautiful baby girl born.  I relinquished parental rights and became her aunt.  Today that baby is nearly 30 years old.  She grew up to be a Genetic Counselor who educates individuals and families about family health history, inheritance, genetic diseases, and testing options and gives advice on the social and ethical issues associated with genetic disorders or test results.