52 Ancestors 2018 #7

"Valentine"

My 1st cousin 4x removed, Margaret Butler, got married on Valentine's Day in 1893.

Margaret "Maggie" Butler (4 Jun 1872-26 May 1956)
Margaret was the 7th child (out of 10) of James Butler and Mary A Schwallie. She lived her whole life in Belmont County, Ohio. On 14 Feb 1893 she married John August Vogt. They went on to have 7 children themselves. She died in 1956.

John August Vogt (18 Apr 1963-14 Jan 1946)
John was born to August Vogt and Magdalena Koch. He had at least 5 siblings. He died in 1946.

52 Ancestors 2018 #6

"Favorite Name"

I like odd names. When you are doing genealogy it can make things easier to find, well sometimes. It certainly makes them more interesting. You get to try out different spellings, because odd names often have people trying to spell phonetically. Anyway, this week I'll focus on Aloysious McCort (1879-1933). I have found his name spelled several interesting ways.
Aloysious McCort was born to James McCort and Mary Ellen Butler. He was the youngest of their 12 children, and was born 29 July 1879 in Somerset Township, Belmont, Ohio. As of the WWI draft he was a carpenter. He never married or had kids. He died 21 June 1933 of double pneumonia.


52 Ancestors 2018 #5

This weeks theme is "In the Census"

Charles F Butler (1869-1950)

Charles was the son of Simon Peter Butler and Eliza Boyd. He lived in Ohio his whole life. I have found him in several census', never married or even had a job. I found this curious. Sure, lots of people never get married, but not as many never have a job. Then I looked more carefully at the 1920 census and right next to the occupation column, where the industry is listed, he is listed as 'imbicile'. Well, I guess that explains it. I may have to do a little more research on him, but it answers my main question.

What interesting things have you found in the census?

52 Ancestors 2018 Week #4

Invite to Dinner

There are many ancestors I wouldn't mind inviting to dinner, if nothing else but to interrogate them about their lives and family. One such ancestor is my 4x great-grandmother Elizabeth Hughes.

Some things I want to know- Where were you born? Who were your parents? Why did you come to America? Why did you marry a man 27 years older than you with 6 kids, and then have 11 more? What was it like to raise so many children? Why did you never remarry? Did you like Ohio? Did you have other family nearby?

She is one of my 'brick wall' ancestors. I know she was born in Ireland around 1827, but have no idea who any of her other family members are. There are a few Hughes' that I have found in the census that lived near her in Ohio, but I have not yet found any connection between them, so I can't say for sure they are related. With all these unanswered questions, I'd definitely invite her to dinner.

52 Ancestors 2018 #3

Longevity

Last week I shared photos of my great-grandfather Thomas Edwards. He died in a mining accident when he was 42. His wife, however, lived much longer. I met her once when I was only 3 or 4 years old. I have no memory of this, but my parents have photos from the family reunion that prove it. My great-grandmother Flora Sophia Maggie Hasemeyer lived to be 102.

She was born in 1889 in Colorado. Her parents were both German immigrants who ended up in Colorado, got married and stayed there. She married Thomas Edwards when she was 20 years old. They made their first home in the Gunnison area of Colorado. By 1920 they had moved to Carbon County Utah, where Thomas was a coal miner. When my grandfather was only 9 his dad, Thomas was killed in a mining accident. This left Flora alone with 4 children. A few years later her oldest daughter died, so she took in 3 grandchildren to raise as well.

Eventually she remarried. In 1943 she married William Monte Pilling, a divorcee with 5 children of his own. Sadly he passed away only 3 years later. Again Flora was a widow.

She stayed in Carbon County for the rest of her life, which lasted until 1991. She wasn't the only long lived in her family, she had a brother who lived to 93 and a sister to 91. I don't know the secret to her long life, but it seems at least a little of it was inherited.

Flora as a teenager

Hasemeyer Family - Elmer, Mabel, Clyde, Flora (back row); Magda and Dietrich

Edwards Family - Thomas, Elizabeth, Edward, Flora, Helen

Flora and Monte Pilling

Flora and her family in Utah


Flora at home

52 Ancestors 2018 #2

Favorite Photo

Ok, so these probably aren't my most favorite photos of an ancestor, but I do like them a lot. My great-grandfather, Thomas Edwards, was a coal miner in Utah. He died fairly young, in a mining accident. I find these old photos of his life in that mining town very interesting. The area was in Spring Canyon, Utah. The city was names Storrs and people only lived there a short time. It's now just a few piles of stone foundations and wilderness. But when my family lived there it was a town full of life.




For comparison, here is what it looks like now (taken in 2016)

And some of my relatives who still live in the area helped put up this memorial. My grandfather's name is on the right-most column.




52 Ancestors 2018 #1

A few years ago I did the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge and enjoyed it a lot. I liked learning about my ancestors and writing down their stories. I was excited to see that the challenge would be going on again this year. Since I have already done posts on many of my direct ancestors the last time I did the challenge I will be doing things a little different this time.

I have a couple ideas about what I want to do with this challenge. The first is a continuation of a project I started last year: finding as many descendants of one of my ancestors. I went back several generations to an ancestor that had 19 children (between two wives, and 1 illegitimate child). I am only on his 5th child, but have found so many descendants. I want to continue this project, so some of my posts might be about these newly found cousins.

Another idea I had was to work on my 'ancestor score'. I found an interesting table online that showed how many ancestors you should have for each generation, then a column for how many you have identified in your own family tree. Going back 10 generations you should have 1023 direct ancestors. I have found 222, which puts me at a 21.7% filled out family tree. I know all my ancestors back 6 generations, and most of them in the 7th, but I only know half of my 8th generation and I only know 12 of my ancestors 10 generations back (out of 512 possible). I want to fill out those generations further back, which I know is a difficult thing because of how old those records would be. Some of my weeks might be information on these missing ancestors.

John Butler 1799-1870

The first week's prompt is "start". I'm going to start off with my 4x great-grandfather John Butler. He was born about 1799 in Ireland. When he was about 25 he married Margaret Dorn. They had 2 children before immigrating to the United States. They came through New York in July 1828. They spent a few years in the New York/New Jersey area before moving on the Ohio where they eventually settled for good.
Margaret died in 1841 leaving behind 6 children. Around 2 years later John married Elizabeth Hughes, who was also an Irish immigrant to Ohio. Elizabeth was about 25 years younger than John and they had 11 children together. Their youngest was not quite 3 when John died April 1870. As far as I have found Elizabeth never remarried.
In researching John Butler I thought this was all of his family, but then I came across his will. In it I found out that he had an illegitimate child named William Eller, whom he left some money to when he died. I still don't know who the mother is, or exactly where in the age-order pf children he fits. One more thing to add to my research plans.