Mightier Acorns

Last time I wrote about The Berlin Family Mystery, I was left with some questions.

Using the information in the excerpt from the Berlin Family book provided by the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Department, I was able to find some census records and clean up the mess I had made of John Berlin’s WikiTree profile. (It’s better now, if you want to go see!)

I’m satisfied that my ancestor, his wife, and his daughters and sons-in-law have better biographies now. But I still have too many records for too many men named John Berlin, and I’m not sure what to do with them all.

Cleaning Up Behind Myself

Over the years, I’ve added questions and half-supported theories to the wiki pages for my 3rd-great-grandmother, Elizabeth (Berlin) Callin, and her immediate family. This means that those pages are “works in progress,” sometimes for years, and for many people, having that sort of unfinished work out where anyone can see it is embarrassing.

I see it as an opportunity, though. The hope is always that someone will see where I am stuck and suggest a helpful resource. But in the case of the Berlins (John and Maria (Scheirly) Berlin, Elizabeth and William Callin, and Catherine (Berlin) Young and her husband Michael), those pages were simply unfinished for many years.

Now, even though there are still gaps and questions to be filled in, at least I’ve added narratives with source citations for anyone interested in working on that line.

Johns Berlin

Now that my own ancestors are ready for visitors, I’m not sure what to do with the information I’ve pulled together from various sources over the years trying to make sense of the documents and secondary sources describing men with similar names and biographical details.

There appear to be at least two other men who fought in the War of 1812.

John Berlin “A”: This is the man whose parents and wife are named in George Dallas Albert’s History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania. From pg. 611:

“THE BERLIN FAMILY
“In 1794 one of the soldiers who came from Eastern Pennsylvania in the army to put down the “Whiskey Insurrection” was Jacob Berlin. He got a furlough in Pittsburgh to come out to that part of Franklin township now included in Penn, to visit his uncle, Jacob Berlin, who had settled there some twenty years before. He so liked the country that in the spring of 1795 he returned with his wife, formerly Miss Eve Carbaugh.
“He finally settled between the Fink and Lauffer farms. His children were four daughters and six sons, viz.: …John, Frederick, Joseph, Samuel, Powell, and Elias, of whom Powell removed to Forest County, Frederick to Clarion, and John to State of Ohio. Col. Elias Berlin, the youngest son, was born in 1803…His brother John served in the war of 1812.”

And there is this on pg. 668 within the biographical sketch of Jacob Baughman, father of Anna Baughman:

“After his marriage Adam Baughman settled on a farm in Armstrong County, about seventy miles up the Allegheny River, and here four children, viz.: Catharine, Michael, Polly, and Jacob, were born. Upon the death of his brother Henry…he sold his place in Armstrong County and returned to Westmoreland, and became the owner of and occupied the homestead until his death. Here the following children were born, viz.: Elizabeth, Margaret, Peter, Anna, Henry, Christian, and Lydia…Anna, wife of John Berlin, six sons and three daughters…”

John Berlin “B”: This is the man we know about from his extensive War of 1812 pension application. It is possible that he could be the same person as John “A,” but it’s hard to tell from the available evidence. I summarized his pension file thusly:

“John Berlin turns up in the War of 1812 Pension Application Files Index, 1812-1815 and from that record we learn that he served from 21 April 1813 to 22 November 1814, in both Captain William Craig’s and Captain Jonathan May’s companies in the Pennsylvania Militia. The record also shows that he married his second wife (the widow claiming his pension) in 1830 in Columbiana county, Ohio. (Happily, his first wife, Anna Coy, is also named.) It also lists residence dates for Van Wert county, Ohio (1851-1856) and Canton, Stark county (1871); he died in Stark county in 1874.”

I may have gotten the date of death wrong, however; that could have been the date of the application for benefits – if so, then John “B” died in 1878:

1878 Obituary John BERLIN

Article from Apr 11, 1878 The Stark County Democrat (Canton, Ohio) <!— –>

A Trip to the MidWest

Regardless of who those other John Berlin families might be, or how many there are, I need to figure out how to acquire at least the 4th volume of Reginald Berlin’s 5-volume book. There are two copies – one at the Allen County Public Library in Indianapolis, and one at the Midwest Genealogy Center in the Mid-Continent Public Library in St. Louis.

Before I make a long trip, however, I took one last stab at reaching out to the Berlin family in Pennsylvania to see if I can get their permission to re-publish the set of books on Lulu, making them more widely available to more people (whether to buy for themselves or to donate to their favorite local library or genealogical society).

Until such time as I can get my hands on a copy of that book, I will be waiting for the fall of this particular Berlin Wall!