Mightier Acorns

More Quaker Clues

February 26, 2025
Using lessons learned from a different family

In January I talked about finding some of my wife’s ancestors in the records of the Society of Friends (also called “Quakers”) in Indiana.
As it happens, the skills I picked up as I learned about the Dyer family may help me learn more about my Scottish immigrant ancestor, Thomas Henderson Murray. He would have been the grandfather of Rosa (Murray) Huff (second wife of Albert Huff, from “The Huffs Move West. Twice.”)

I still have very little information about Thomas, but here’s the connective evidence between him and his in-laws (Rosa’s father is (10) Aaron):

Whyte, Donald. A Dictionary of Scottish Emigrants to the U. S. A. United States, Genealogical.com, 2009. – page 240

Searching for clues, I came across a few newspaper items written by William D. Murray, publisher of the Lawrenceburg (Indiana) Press and a great-grandson of Isaiah Henderson Murray. He sent these questions to The Indianapolis Star in the 1960s, looking for help with his research:

The Indianapolis Star, Sun, 4 Aug 19631

The Indianapolis Star, Sunday, 12 Dec 19652

Look again at the citation from Donald Whyte’s book: “D.C., 21 May, 1966”—checking the bibliography tells me that “D.C.” refers to the “Dictionary Correspondence. Letters to the editor regarding Scottish immigrants. Scottish Genealogical Society Library.” Since William Murray was actively researching and corresponding in the mid-1960s, I suspect one of his letters to the Scottish Genealogical Society might be the source of the information recorded in Whyte’s book.

And THAT tells me that William Murray probably had access to records that told him about the Livingstone family but left him with the same questions I have about Thomas Henderson Murray.

A Brief History of the Miami Monthly Meeting

I wanted to see what I could find based on William Murray’s information. We start with a few clues:
- About 1830, James belonged to the Hicksite church in Springboro, Warren County, Ohio.
- His wife was Elizabeth, and their daughter (Thomas’s wife) was Mary Magdalene.
- Thomas and Mary Magdalene married in 1803, probably in Pennsylvania.
A fuzzy Ancestry search for James Livingston living in Warren County, Ohio, in 1830 gave me many results. Focusing just on those from Warren County, I saw several results from volumes of the Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy. These records included a lot of cryptic abbreviations, which are explained in the front matter of the book—along with some explanations of the functions and history of the Monthly Meetings.

“The genealogical records of all members of Meetings of all types are kept by Monthly (Business) Meetings, which are attended by delegates sent by their sub-ordinate meetings:-Meetings for Worship and their Preparative Meetings. The Monthly Meeting is the executive body of the Quaker Organization. …

The Monthly Meeting, as stated, keeps all records, such as births, deaths, burials, marriages, disownments, certificates of removal, members received and released, etc., for all Meeetings for Worship which it controls.”

William Wade Hinshaw, writing in the Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy Vol· V, 1946.

In the Introduction to that same volume, Thomas Worth Marshall writes,

“When the Quakers began settlements in Ohio and Indiana, their meetings were established by and attacked to Redstone, (Pa.) Quarterly Meeting in Baltimore Yearly Meeting. This condition continued until 1813, when Ohio Yearly Meeting was established by Baltimore Yearly Meeting and took jurisdiction over all meetings in Ohio, western Pennsylvania and Indiana. Indiana Yearly Meeting was established in 1821 and took jurisdiction over western Ohio and all of Indiana. With the Hicksite separation, separate Yearly Meetings were established to serve the Hicksite Monthly Meetings in the territory of Ohio Yearly Meeting and those in the territory of Indiana Yearly Meeting.”

Miami Monthly Meeting (MM) was the first established in southwestern Ohio and opened on 13 October 1803 by permission of Redstone QM. The Friends met in private houses until a log structure was built in 1805. A brick meeting house was built in 1811, and in 1828, the followers of Elias Hicks (Hicksites) separated from the Orthodox group (the minority) with the Hicksites taking the larger brick meeting house and the Orthodox group withdrawing to the old log meeting house.

The White Brick Meeting House is still in use and is the oldest regularly attended religious building west of the Allegheny Mountains.

169 South Fourth – White Brick Meeting House

The Search for James Livingston

With all of that background knowledge, I can piece together some facts from the records:
- 1797 – James Livingston requested admission to the Muncy MM (Lycoming County, PA) on 16 February for himself and six children: Madgaline, Ann, Elizabeth, Aaron, Isaiah, and James (all minors). (recorded at the Byberry MM)
- 1801 – 17 June, Elizabeth Livingston produced a certificate from Salisbury MM dated 28 Jan. 1800 and was accepted into the Muncy MM.
- 1811 – 18 Dec, James Levingston and wife Elizabeth and five children (Aaron, Isaiah, James, Thomas, and Tamer) recommended by Muncy MM to Centre MM
- 1812 – 13 Feb, James Livingston and his wife Elizabeth and their minor children (Aaron, Josiah (sic), Thomas, James, and Thamer) were admitted to Centre MM from Muncy MM (certificate dated 18 Dec 1811)
- 1820 – 26 July, James received on certificate (rocf) from Center MM (PA) to Miami MM (Warren County, OH)
- 1822 – James rocf from the Miami MM to the New Garden MM (IN)
- 1823 – Tamar rocf Center MM to Miami MM (dated 18 Dec 1819)
- 1824 – Tamar gct New Garden MM (IN)
- 1825 – Aaron rocf from Centre MM (PA) to New Garden MM
Best of all, the Hinshaw Index to Selected Quaker Records, 1680-1940 lists the children, giving birthdates for all but Tamar, and identifying “Magdalen b 6.28.1783… m. 1804 ____ Morry”—almost certainly identifying Mary Magdalene (Livingston) Murray.

There is a lot more work to do, looking for records for each of these siblings and tracking the Livingstons through their moves from Pennsylvania to Ohio, and on to Indiana. I need to figure out which records go with James Sr. and which with James Jr., and see if I can find sources cited in some of the Index records.

But now I have some solid footing for basing the next round of searches!

1

Newspapers.com, The Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis, Indiana, Sun, 4 Aug 1963, Page 74 Q-51.

2

Newspapers.com, The Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis, Indiana, Sun, 12 Dec 1965, Page 99, Q-2839.
Away Out On a Limb

February 21, 2025
Tips and Tricks for stirring up clues

Even if you’re new to genealogy, you have probably already run across somebody posting a warning not to trust information from various common sources:
- “Hints” provided by major online research companies (Ancestry, FindMyPast, MyHeritage, FamilySearch)
- Obituaries
- Other people’s online trees
- Published genealogies and local histories
- Wikipedia (Note: that link goes to Wikipedia’s explanation of why they are not a “reliable source”)
And yet, people who are just starting on their family history journey are also bombarded with advice to look for clues in all of those places—which can leave the new researcher feeling as helpless and paralyzed as the old timer in this bank robbery:

I suspect that the vast majority of potential new researchers are turned off by this conundrum, especially if they paid for a DNA test, only to find that DNA doesn’t tell you any of the stories they came looking for. Finding out that it will take work to tease out answers that you expected to have handed to you is always discouraging.

Hopefully, you are willing to put in some effort, but if you feel paralyzed, the best thing to do is ignore all of these generalized warnings and focus on specific questions that you can learn how to answer.
1. Map Out the Rabbit Holes—Then Look for the Rabbits
All of the best advice tells you to start with what you know. Build a free private tree in several of the major platforms. If you did your DNA test through Ancestry or FTDNA, start there—and then try FamilySearch, too. Keep your information about living people private, but when you get to your first generation of deceased ancestors, learn how to find and attach source records to their profiles. Once you have a favorite site, begin following the evidence you find, pushing out (siblings and cousins) and back (great- and multiple-great grandparents) to expand your tree.

I tend to gravitate toward a systematic approach. If I get stuck on finding a person’s biographical records, I will go through what I know about their parents and then (usually) their siblings, from oldest to youngest.

But the point is to build a framework around what you already know, and in the process of doing that, develop a list of questions you intend to answer.

Make sure that for each piece of evidence you add, you ask, “How do I know that this is correct?” Compare the facts from an obituary with what you know from the Census or from death records. Pay attention to who the informant was on the vital records.

If something doesn’t add up, DON’T THROW AWAY THE SOURCE—instead, make a note for yourself in a comment or note section that points out the discrepancy and explain why you think the “correct” information is correct and the “incorrect” information is wrong.
1. Don’t Fear the Hints—Just Don’t Trust Them
I’m most familiar with Ancestry’s hints system, and while I’m uneasy with most uses of AI, their ever-evolving fuzzy search algorithms have been more right than wrong over the years. Keep in mind that I’m not implying that hints can be accepted without review; I just mean that 10% of the time, their hints pan out quickly, 5% of the time they can be easily rejected out of hand… and 85% of the time, they raise questions and present useful leads.

As you review your hints, you should have specific questions you are trying to answer (see the previous section). If a hint raises more questions, add those new questions to your list—only dismiss hints if they:
- clearly do not apply to your ancestor
- duplicate information from a more reliable source (i.e., if another user uploaded an image of a record you already have)
- come from unsourced or unreliable records (for ex., I ignore all Geneanet hints in Ancestry because they come from unsourced trees ingested into Ancestry)
If you find that your list of questions is growing longer than your list of answers, that might be a good thing, because:
1. Old Family Mysteries Are No Match for Search Engines
Once you have enough records to build a basic biography for someone, you should know when and where they were born, when and where they died, and basic facts (marriages, children, etc.) in between. You should be constantly asking “How do you know that?” about those facts—and be prepared to change what you thought you knew in the face of new evidence.

But what you don’t know should also start to take shape. Did your ancestor move in their lifetime? What kinds of searches might tell you more about how and when they moved? Did your ancestor have non-relatives listed in their household? What can you learn about those people—are they more distant relatives, or just boarders/lodgers?

Answering these types of peripheral questions might give you unexpected answers to some of your other mysteries. Even if they don’t give you answers, they may pose questions that will help you find more sources.

Don’t take my word for it! If Mightier Acorns passes your scrutiny, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

When They Say “Don’t Trust”…

Being skeptical is the key—you never simply accept a fact without testing it against what you already know. And you never reject a fact just because it doesn’t fit with what you know on the surface.

Asking “How do I know that” until you have enough evidence to support (or refute) your biography is the task. You never “trust” your biography—you test it. Constantly.

But you will never learn anything if you hear “don’t trust” as “don’t look.” Sometimes, the biggest obstacle is not knowing to go look!

Well, okay then!
Piggies: A Preview

February 19, 2025

Chapter 10 from “Tad’s Happy Funtime”
Thirty years ago, I was a Korean student at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. I met the love of my life, proposed to her (on Valentine’s Day!) and married her (on St. Patrick’s Day!), and started our family.
Ten years ago, I published my book, “Tad’s Happy Funtime” which includes stories about growing up in suburban Phoenix, experiencing DLI, and raising our family. This story is from that middle section.
Mightier Acorns is a reader-supported publication. Consider becoming a free or paid subscriber, or you may have to throw the Pig.
Piggies
Upon her arrival in California, Lieutenant Colonel Harriet J. Gallegos set out to make things better in her new command. She met with her staff, and received orders from the wing commander, and contemplated all of the things that needed to change. Her predecessor had been a friend to the airmen in his squadron, but that clearly was not a good approach, as discipline and good order were needed to stamp out the rampant smoking, drinking, and sexual escapades of her student body. Everywhere she looked there examples of lax standards, loose morals, and evidence that these Generation X slackers needed her guiding hand in their lives.
But before getting down to the business of implementing her program, she took a trip with her family to Santa Cruz and spent the day on their famous boardwalk. They rode rides and played carnival games, and she won a great, spherical, pink plush pig—which gave her a wonderful, horrible, awful idea.
My lovely bride, Kate, and I had already come to the attention of “Aunt Harry,” and not in the best way. There had been a number of people lined up outside the commander’s door for punishment after my infamous bachelor party, for one. And then, on the very day of our wedding, a Friday afternoon normally reserved for a 30-minute commander’s call between the wings, our 700-member squadron was split into male and female groups and led to separate showings of a 20-minute abstinence training video. We sat quietly through the program, and when it was over, TSgt Knight asked if we had any questions.
“Yeah, sir,” I said, “will you be sending a student leader to enforce this while I’m on my honeymoon?”
No. The answer was no.
The commander had a number of bad ideas. One of my favorites lasted fewer than three weeks: the Student Chaplain program. There are a lot of things about an airman’s daily life that are up to commander’s discretion in the rule book. Lt Col Gallegos used her discretion to ban smoking on the Presidio, but quickly learned that the post commandant, a grouchy Army colonel, happened to be a prolific smoker, and she was reminded (with several full-throated vodka- and Marlboro-scented obscenities) that it was not within her power to ban smoking on his post. So it became part of the student leaders’ duties to enforce a no-smoking rule among the airmen. They were also the enforcers of tighter rules about drinking (no alcohol from Sunday night through Friday afternoons), monitors of travel (no leaving a 50-mile radius of DLI without approved leave forms), and local area activities (no one was allowed to rent a hotel room within 50 miles of DLI).
After a very brief time under this new regime, tempers became frayed and incidents of bad behavior began popping up with alarming frequency. The Student Chaplain program was something the commander thought of while reading (what else) Chicken Soup for the Soul. She laid out her vision of “students helping each other with their spiritual needs,” and asked for volunteers at one of her Friday commander’s calls. These spiritual leaders would wear a white rope and be considered student leaders.
By the next Friday, she had five volunteers: a Muslim Arabic student, two Mormons, a Wiccan, and a Buddhist. She reminded everyone that morale was low and improving each other’s spiritual fitness was a good way to help raise it. By the Friday after that, the commander, who was a Roman Catholic, canceled the program, saying tersely that no one had taken her idea seriously.
Kate was horribly allergic to cigarette smoke, and was under 21, so my drinking and smoking were naturally being curbed anyway; and as a married couple, we applied to be moved onto F Flight. We received a modest three-bedroom house on Fort Ord. This eliminated our need to find accommodations that subverted the commander’s de facto abstinence encouragement plan. Besides, setting up house together was such a blast, we didn’t have much time for partying.
One thing we had done for a while was volunteer as PT monitors. Every day after school, we would change into running gear and meet up with A Flight—remember, they were the Phase One airmen, and they were required to run for their mandatory PT. We were on Phase Four, which meant we could manage our own exercise program, but we decided that it would be easier to maintain our practice if we ran on the same schedule as the newer folks.
The downside of being a PT monitor was that when we had new people fresh from Basic Training in the formation, they weren’t used to running on Monterey’s steep hills, and whenever those people fell out of formation with cramps or other issues, it was the job of a PT monitor to stay with them and make sure they made it back to the squadron safely. Unfortunately for me, this usually meant that instead of running the two miles, I was walking next to someone who didn’t know what shin splints felt like, telling them to keep breathing and stop crying.
This, combined with my sedentary days in the classroom, meant that I was putting on a little weight. Strangely, Kate was too, even though she had an incredibly high metabolism and had been eating less since moving out to Fort Ord, probably due to the stress of getting to school on time upsetting her stomach in the morning.
“I don’t like this,” she would say, dressing in the morning. “My boobs are getting squashy.” I never complained about that.
But, as I was contemplating other PT options I realized that Fort Ord was an easy bike ride from the Presidio, and with a convenient bike path leading from the bottom of Private Bolio Road where it intersected with Lighthouse Avenue all the way through Seaside, I decided to resign as a PT monitor, buy a bicycle, and make that 40-minute journey twice a day.
That’s when the commander announced her pig idea.
“Good morning, squadron!” she crowed at us, holding the ridiculous pink toy under her arm. It clashed horribly with the Air Force blue of her uniform. “I’ve been noticing that morale is low, and some of you airmen are starting to look like little piggies!”
We braced ourselves for the worst. Last time she had mentioned low morale, one of our less popular airmen had pointed out that there were plaques in Commander’s Hallway celebrating past Drill Competitions, and we had subsequently been required to show up for marching practice at 0700 on Saturday mornings. The airman in question had, naturally, washed out of her Vietnamese course and departed for another training school, so I’m sure the early drill practice improved her morale immensely.
“Since not enough of you are doing your own PT, I’m going to institute a weekly squadron run,” the commander continued, as our peers from the other branches of service casually slowed their pace to hear every word. “Each Monday, you will all gather by flights, and we’ll run the circuit around the whole post. That’s just under two miles, all the way down the hill and all the way back up! As you run, we’ll sing cadence, and throw this pig!” She brandished the pig over her head triumphantly as the horde of giggling Navy, Army, and Marine eavesdroppers scattered to tell their comrades what the Air Force was up to this week.
“If anyone drops the pig, we’ll have to go around again, so look sharp, everyone!”
Kate and I went that weekend and bought bikes. On Monday, I let the flight commander running the PT monitor program know that I wouldn’t be joining them the rest of the week. I had to assure her that I wasn’t quitting because of the pig, and since we were all required to be there that afternoon, I would help out with my normal duties on these Monday runs.
It was a brilliant, rare sunny day, but the 700 faces assembled in their drab running gear looked miserable. We were spread out, doing stretches and some calisthenics while watching the double doors leading from Commander’s Hallway. And then she appeared, the pig tucked under her arm, striding with her odd smile to the front of the formation.
We formed up. We snapped to when called to attention. We marked time, then began double time. The enormous, shuffling mass lurched around the corner and onto the road.
And the pig soared high into the air.
The first few people held onto the pig before launching it into the sky again, but then others began flinging it straight back, and it practically rolled across several hundred hands to the end of the line, like Eddie Vedder crowd-surfing at a Pearl Jam concert. Once at the back, someone was tapped to sprint to the front again with the pink monstrosity and begin the process anew.
As we ran, all of the other services turned out along the road to watch us go by. The commander acted as though they were cheering us, as if our squadron had returned from the front after licking Hitler, instead of jeering at a bunch of losers whose commander thought they were too fat to deserve dignity.
There was one close moment when someone fumbled, and we thought the pig was going to touch the ground. It may have, actually, but everyone denied that the black foot-shaped smudge was the result of an angry stomp, and the commander didn’t press the issue. So, humiliated and sweaty, we returned to our starting point, and dispersed to our quarters to wash, change, and prepare to face the rest of the U.S. military at dinner. Hopefully there wouldn’t be pork on the menu.
That week, I began my regimen of biking to school. The ride was amazing. I had the perfect riding mix (Dave Matthews Band, Spin Doctors, and Blues Traveler) on the Walkman, and whether I was going to school or back home, the trip started with a thrilling downhill half mile, followed by a peaceful beach cruise, and a half mile uphill workout.
Poor Kate seemed to be having a harder time with her stomach, and it was hard to say whether the stress of her Arabic class was affecting her, or whether the nausea and occasional dizziness was affecting her work. Either way, her grades were slipping, and she was not happy. When she hadn’t improved over the weekend, she finally agreed to visit the clinic—conveniently for her on Monday afternoon.
The Squadron Run started out about the same as the first one had, except the overcast sky did a better job of reflecting the mood of the squadron. There seemed to be a lot more spectators lined up on the road this week, and the commander beamed proudly as she strutted to the head of the column.
But this time, just as we got to the road, a small squad of Marines, carrying their platoon’s guidon (the pole that every military unit uses to display ribbons and honors), charged from between the Marine and Navy buildings and plunged into the middle of our formation. They speared the pig, which was in mid-fling, on the chrome spear-point of their guidon, grunted a bellowing shout of “HOO-AH!” and barreled out of sight down the hill before any of the airmen thought to stop running.
“Get them!” shrieked the commander. “Get that pig back, now!”
The crowd had shuffled to a halt and was milling about in a mix of mirth and befuddlement. A couple of people trotted off to follow the Marines half-heartedly, but by now it was apparent that no one was sad to see the pig go.
Well, one person was. Lt Col Gallegos stood weeping in the road and staring around at our blank, unhelpful faces, as it dawned on her that we would have been happy to let the Marines carry her off, speared on their guidon. She stalked back to her office without another word.
Kate met up with us as we returned, and in retrospect, I shouldn’t have been surprised by what she had to say. It made me forget about pigs, unhappy commanders, and intrusive student leader programs. All of the symptoms were there, and the timing was right, but it took a trip to the clinic for the truth to occur to either of us.
“Tad,” she said, “I’m gonna be a momma!”
If you enjoyed this story, there are several more available in paperback or on Kindle. Just click that button!
The Huffs Move West. Twice.

February 14, 2025

The family of Albert Crydler Huff (1854-1936)

Albert C Huff 1 (1854-1936) was the son of Lewis Huff and Catherine Stroud, born on 11 Apr 1854 in Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio. He grew up in Hancock County, but by 1875, his rather large family had moved nearly 800 miles southwest to Elsmore Township, Allen County, Kansas.

Albert had four older brothers (plus an older half-brother), two younger brothers, and two sisters. All of them – some with spouses and children of their own – pulled up stakes and moved to the same area around either Elsmore in Allen County or Grant Township in Neosho County.

Not long after settling in Kansas, Albert married Catherine Elizabeth Butterfield (1859–1912), whose family had also moved from Ohio. Their wedding was on 1 January 1877, and a little over a year later, their son was born: Perry L Huff (1878–1911).

The marriage did not last long. By 1880, Albert and Perry were living back in Van Buren, Ohio, and Kate was listed as living in her parent’s household in Elsmore as “Kate Huff, 22, widowed.” Albert sued her for divorce in the summer of 1882.

The Independent Press, Humboldt, Kansas, Wed, May 24, 1882, Page 1

After their divorce, Kate married James H Gipple (1863–1899) on 8 Jul 1895 in Bourbon County, Kansas, and she died in Wichita on 28 Feb 1912.

A Second Family

Albert and Perry’s stay in Ohio was brief. Albert returned to Kansas and married Rosa Edith Murray (1861–1943) on 8 February 1883. By 1885, they lived in Elsmore Township, Allen County, Kansas, on a farm just south of the little town of Savonburg.

Rosa gave Albert five children before 1890: Albert Burton (1883), Bertha May (1885), Iva Edith (1886), Chester (1887), and Hannah Merle (1889). Albert’s younger brother, Martin, lived nearby with his five children. Their father, Lewis Senior, lived in Martin’s household until he died in 1901.

In time, the farms and the farmers grew and prospered.

After twenty years of life in farm country, Albert and Rosa had succeeded at rearing a family and they faced the prospect of an empty nest. Their children were growing up and marrying the children of friends and neighbors – specifically the Samples and the Mores. But the downside of having large families prosper in a small, rural town is that there isn’t much for the younger folks to do.

Perry and his wife, Pearl, along with two of his three sisters, Bertha and Iva, and their husbands, were probably the first to relocate to Glendale, a growing town founded in the Arizona Territory. Perry started a meat market on Glendale Avenue in partnership with his brother-in-law, Bertha’s husband, Roy Sample. Perry’s health soon gave out, and Roy Sample’s new partner in the business was the husband of Perry and Bertha’s sister, Iva: Harry More.

I told the rest of their stories a few years ago: Sample More Meats: A Businesswoman’s Story

Albert must have decided to follow the bulk of his family. His youngest son, Chet, left Kansas to work as a lumberman in Colorado, and the only child remaining at home was my 19-year-old great-grandmother, Hannah Merle. So Albert auctioned off his farm equipment and animals, rented out his land, and moved Rosa, Merle, and himself to Arizona.

The Savonburg Record, Savonburg, Kansas; Fri, Aug 14, 1908, Page 3

The Savonburg Record, Savonburg, Kansas; Fri, Aug 21, 1908, Page 4

A Second Move

Growing up, I frequently heard my Aunt Vickie refer to the Huff family’s move to Arizona, saying, “My grandmother came here as a young girl, a pioneer in a covered wagon.”

There is a romance to that image—and there is a solid chance it is an accurate statement. But it’s probably worth pointing out that making that journey in 1908 was probably a very different thing from making the journey to Kansas in 1875.2

My guess is that Albert, Rosa, and Merle probably traveled in a Murphy wagon—like the one described on the National Park Service website. Coincidentally, 1908 was the year the first Model T Ford automobiles went on sale in Kansas City.3 I have a strong hunch that Albert might have chosen one of those contraptions over a wagon if they had made their move just a year or two later. There were available railroad routes by that time, running from Kansas City, through Santa Fe, and on to Phoenix, but the fares for three people, plus freight charges, mattress rentals, and buying food probably made the covered wagon a more economical choice.

Approximate overland route from Savonburg to Glendale, on a modern map.

I don’t know exactly what overland routes would have been available in 1908, but I imagine the family may have followed the railways between Kansas and New Mexico. The last leg, from Albuquerque to Phoenix would have taken them through lands contested by the Apache tribes, which occasionally clashed with the U.S. Army through 1924.

The Huff family touring Arizona – probably mid-1920s

I do have a bit of evidence that Albert and his family toured Arizona in automobiles. The photographs came to me when my Grandpa Bob died in 2007, and I’ve managed to scan a few. This one was taken at the roadside, probably between Glendale and Prescott. It’s hard to see faces, but Albert, holding a child, is unmistakable.

He and Rosa lived out their lives in Glendale, watching their grandchildren grow. He died in 1936, and she remained in their Glendale home until she died in 1943. They are buried in Glendale Memorial Park.

Albert and Rosa, probably about 1900.

1

Albert Huff was my 2nd-great-grandfather – one of “My Sixteen” – and his second wife, Rosa, was my 2nd-great-grandmother.

2

National Park Service, “Wagons on the Emigrant Trails”

3

Wells, Michael, Kansas City Public Library, “Western Auto: A Sign of the Times,” Thursday, July 23, 2020.
A Needle In a Needle Stack

February 12, 2025
The search for David E. Jones (1830-1902)

Depending on your sources and time frame, the surname “Jones” is about the 5th most common surname in the United States. The same can be said for “David” when you look at first names for males.1

Our work is cut out for us today, since we are looking for the origins of David E. (possibly “Eligh”) Jones, who was born about December 1830 in Pennsylvania and died in Harrison County, Iowa, on 8 August 1902.

How Do We Know What We Know?

We’re beginning our search with the facts we know about David based on research I did on his daughter, Alice Frances (Jones) McCullough – my wife’s 3rd-great-grandmother. There are a lot of records from 1870 forward that give us clues that we can use to narrow our search results down as we dig backward. This is how we know his approximate birthdate and that he was born in Pennsylvania. His obituary puts his family’s arrival in Iowa about 1867 (which is supported by the birth place/date information for his children) and the marriage records for his children recorded his wife’s maiden name as “Brookhouser,” which is useful information.

I talked about a few additional finds in April:
Mightier Acorns is all about documenting the journey. Subscribe to keep up—I will circle back to your favorite family eventually!

Two key pieces of evidence are Census records that appear to show our David Jones living in Meadville, Crawford County, PA (1850) and in French Creek, Mercer County, PA (1860). The 1860 shows David already married to Susanna, and Alice is listed as “Frances” on the following page. I don’t have a marriage record for the couple, but Susanna Brookhouser appears within her parents’ household in 1850 in Hayfield, Crawford County, PA.

At the end of that piece, I put out my usual plea for anyone else researching this family to say hello, and recently heard from Jodie, who is descended from Alice’s brother, Will.

Jodie has found a lot of information.

New Leads and Old Reports

“A Family Reunion” 1904 newspaper clipping from Missouri Valley Times – lists several of Susanna’s Brookhouser siblings, putting two of them in Meadville and Sagertown, PA.

Our county and its people: a historical and memorial record of Crawford County, Pennsylvania – names a William Jones, resident of Hayfield Township, but doesn’t provide a biography.

Crawford County Genealogical Society: Jones Family Record

This last document appears to have been originally published by the Crawford County Genealogical Society in 2005 and it looks like a hard copy is housed in the Oswego Public Library in Illinois.2

There are three sections shown for the “Jones Family” listed in the record, and Jodie’s document appears to have the first two. The first section is a transcript of three pages from a family bible provided by a descendant named Helen Osterberg, Erie, Pa, listing birthdates of William’s family, and his son Robert’s. The second is “THE DESCENDANTS OF WILLIAM & MARGARET (FITZ RANDOLPH) JONES OF WOODCOCK TOWNSHIP” by William B. Moore. It provides a well-sourced descendant report for William Jones, who appears to be the same man named in “Our county and its people…”

William Jones had a son, Robert, born June 23, 1789. According to Mr. Moore, Robert’s eighth child was “David E. Jones, b. Dec. 19, 1830.” This fits with the transcript of birth dates. Mr. Moore’s genealogy cites only one piece of evidence for David E. Jones: his 1880 Census record in St. John, Harrison County, Iowa.

This is a good lead, but Mr. Moore also lists the children of Robert’s younger brother, John Mounts Jones, which includes a son—“David Jones, b. ca. 1830, crossing the plains in 1862, never heard from again”—which could also describe our David Jones.

“Needle Nightmare” – from StatisticalFact.com by Eric Erbes

The Way Ahead

I’m pretty sure that I agree with Jodie and Mr. Moore. David E. Jones is probably the son of Robert and Letitia (Roberts) Jones. The best strategy I can think of is to create profiles in my Ancestry tree for both Robert Jones and John Mounts Jones, using the leads and source information provided by Mr. Moore, and then work my way “down” to see if I can find more direct evidence connecting our David to either of them.

Along the way, I have a ton of Brookhouser leads to explore, and friends and neighbors (FAN) to look for who might provide more clues.

The goal is to push my Wavetop for the Jones family back at least one or two generations.

Let the hunt begin!

1

Social Security Administration, “Top Names Over the Last 100 Years”

2

Fox Valley (Illinois) Genealogical Society: https://ilfvgs.org/online-indexes/mikes-index/volume-items/?source=CW&volume=28,2
The Double Life of Uncle Jack

February 7, 2025

William “Zardie” Sly (1882–1954) – a.k.a. Jack St. Clair
William Zardie Sly (1882–1954) took his middle name from his maternal grandfather, Gilbert Zardius Avery; most of the references I have found refer to him as “Zardy,” or by his initials “W.Z.” which probably served to distinguish him from the generations of William Slys related to each other and living in Wood county, Ohio.
He is the grandson of William Sly (1838–1894) and Harriet E. Callin (1838–1907), so he is named in the 1911 Callin Family History. We knew from that brief entry that he was married and had a daughter, and his wife, the former Jessie June Stockstill (1882-1966) appears as “divorced” in the 1910 census with their daughter.
For a long time, I didn’t know what happened to “Zardy” after about 1907. Then cousin Leanna contacted me with the rest of the story, which I ran as a guest post on the old Mightier Acorns blog on Friday, June 14, 2019:
Guest Post: William Zardie Sly AKA John St. Clair
Oh my, Uncle Jack, where to begin.

Actually, he was my great-uncle, the eldest brother of my paternal grandmother, Fanny Fern Sly Elder. (I’m sure retribution will hit me eventually for revealing her correct given name, Fanny Fern Sly. She hated ‘Fanny’. I’ve often wondered if she realized she’d probably been named for her great-grandmother, Francis/Fanny Cooper Meeker, or maybe for her mother’s sister, Fanny. She changed it to Fern F. early on.) But I digress. This is about Zardy, or to me, Uncle Jack.

Since I only heard first names of relatives as a kid, I didn’t know about this name change for a long time. Uncle Jack & Auntie Margaret would come from Chicago and visit Fern and her husband Cash almost every summer in the 1940s & early 1950s. They both loved to cook. They would work away in Fern’s kitchen during the day, making batches of food for us, or extra portions, which were put in the freezer. Auntie Margaret was from Virginia and her light Southern drawl was a joy to me. They always tolerated this little kid watching in the kitchen, since mom, dad and I lived next door. We lived in the old village of Eagleville, about 2 miles North of Bloomdale in southeastern Wood County; about 18 miles southeast of Bowling Green. Eagleville was an old village from the 1860s and 1870s and had been plotted. There were actually 2 or 3 lots between our houses, but Fern & Cash owned it all, so it was a great big yard for me to play in.

I use the birth date of 20 Sept. 1882 for William Zadius / Zardy Sly. That’s the one in the Callin Family History book, the one on his Masonic records with the Grand Secretary. Grand Lodge of A. F. & A. M. of Illinois, and the one on his World War II Draft Registration, filled out in 1942. (Isn’t it nice that those 3 agree?) This shows that the birthday of 20 Sept. 1882 for Zardy in the Callin History is the same as the birth dates of Uncle Jack who was a Mason and the Uncle Jack who filled out a World War II Draft registration.
This also means I have discounted his Dec. 1882 birth date in the 1900 Federal Census, Wood Co., OH, Washington Twp., Tontogany village, p. 234A, the 20 Sep 1880 date he gave on his World War I draft registration card, and the year 1881 in his obituary in the Oak Leaves. (newspaper) Oak Park, Illinois, 17 June 1954, p. 59. (quoted below)
Eventually, I found out that Uncle Jack had been married to someone before Auntie Margaret, and they even had a child, a daughter. My parents told me that for some reason, Uncle Jack divorced his wife and changed his name to get away from his first wife and daughter. Since they were always tolerant of this little kid, I found it a bit hard to think of Uncle Jack not wanting his child.
My parents told me that in the beginning, Uncle Jack and Auntie Margaret so enjoyed their cooking they spent summers at resorts in Wisconsin and places in the North, then went to Florida resorts for the winter. Not sure when they did this since they apparently were settled in Chicago by 1918. It seems that Zardy had a bit of a wanderlust and I wonder if he felt marriage & a child would tie him down.
I have not been able to determine exactly when Uncle Jack changed his name. He was William Zardy Sly in 1902 when he married Jessie Stockstill and in 1903 when his daughter Lulu was born. I haven’t been able to locate him in the 1910 Census under either name. When his daughter got married in 1924, naturally she knew the name of her father but I doubt that he was at the wedding.
Garrett Clipper, Garrett, Indiana • Thu, Apr 26, 1906, Page 4
I was not aware of his career with the railroad so was surprised to read about those activities in 1906 and 1907 that Tad mentions in Mightier Acorns: William James Sly. He also mentions he lived in Detroit & Toledo. I’m eager to see those newspaper clippings. Actually, I have been able to find some newspaper reports from that time & place, since I was motivated to look, so I evidently found a few of them.
The first instance I can find of him using his new name, John St. Clair, is when he joined the Masonic Lodge in Illinois – Home Lodge # 508 in 1917 in either Chicago or Oak Park. His occupation was a cook. Interestingly enough, they had no mention of his other Masonic activities such as the Shriners and Knights Templar. Dad was positive he was & since dad was also a Mason, I would expect him to know, and we have photos of Uncle Jack in regalia.
He was definitely going by John St. Clair by the fall of 1918. He had met Margaret Rebecca Walters and they got married in Lake County, Indiana on 3 October 1918. Lake County is the northwesternmost county in Indiana and borders Cook County, Illinois. Interestingly, on 12 Sept. 1918, two weeks before they were married, when he filled out his World War I draft registration card, he listed his nearest relative as his wife, Margaret, living at 640 Barry Ave., which is the permanent address he gives initially on the card for himself. At that time he was working as a chef at the Ontario Hotel, where his employer was William Hogan. And they were still living on Barry in January 1920, when the 1920 Census was taken. They rented rooms at that location from the homeowner. At the time of the Census, he was a hotel chef, possibly still at the Ontario Hotel, and she was not working.
On the other hand, since the Census is taken every 10 years, and they are only renting, it’s plausible that they were spending summers cooking at resorts in the North and Florida in the South off and on over these years.

They were living in Chicago for the 1930 Federal Census. She was not working and Uncle Jack was a chef in a wholesale grocery. They were still renting rooms from a homeowner, but had moved to 1758 N. Linder Ave. Oddly, they had a boarder with them. Her name was Esther Gahagan. I don’t recognize her name as anyone in the family. I wonder how often renters, in a home, have a boarder with them.
By the 1940 Federal Census, they were living in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, at 1138 Erie, in their own home. Uncle Jack is a chef at a café and Margaret is a Pantry Girl at a Country Club.
On 27 April 1942, Uncle Jack, at age 59, dutifully filled out his World War II Draft Registration Card in Oak Park. This registration card was interesting as it finally gave an indication that the St. Clairs did move around for work from time to time. While it gives his residence as the same Erie St. address as in the 1940 Census, it does not ask for an occupation, just an employer. And that employer was Eagle Waters Corp., Eagle River, in Vilas County, Wisconsin. Now there’s a resort, and I found it’s in the way-North of Wisconsin, on the Wisconsin – Michigan U.P. border. Now I’m wondering if this is where Uncle Jack worked in summers – one of those Northern resorts in Wisconsin my Mom talked about, and Chicago was just sort of a home base.
Since I was born about 6 weeks before Pearl Harbor, I don’t really remember much until the mid to late 1940s. By then, Uncle Jack was the chief chef at the Cook County jail in Chicago. He prepared food for the warden and bailiffs. Auntie Margaret was the head salad maker at the fabulous Marshall Field store restaurant. According to Wikipedia, that downtown Marshall Field store was the first to provide ‘in-store’ dining facilities. That was their life – working with food. I remember going to Oak Park to visit a couple of times, with side trips to places like the Natural History Museum being included.
On 11 June 1954, Uncle Jack had a heart attack at work and died. I secured an obituary from the Oak Park Public Library:
Oak Leaves. (newspaper) Oak Park, Illinois.
Copy of obituary obtained from the Oak Park (IL) Public Library, Oct. 1996.
p. 59, June 17, 1954, (page and date from accompanying letter):
“St. Clair – John St. Clair, 72, of 1138 Erie, died suddenly Friday of a heart attack at work, at 26th and California. He was long the chief chef for the warden and bailiffs there. He was born September 20, 1881, in Bowling Green, Ohio and had lived in the village a number of years. He was a member of Chevalier Bayard commandery, No. 52, K.T., of Chicago chapter, No. 127 R.A.M., and of Medinah Shrine. His widow, Margaret survives him, a brother, Sanford, and two sisters, Fern Elder and Fay Baumgardner. Masonic rites were accorded Monday at Drechsler’s chapel, under the auspices of Home lodge, 508. Burial followed at Mt. Emblem cemetery.”
June 17, 1954 was a Thursday so he died on Friday, 11 June 1954.
I thought it was interesting that an address was given as to the place he died, so I wrote back to the Library, inquiring about the address and the Cemetery and was told:
“Dear Mrs. Shaberly:
The central court building for criminal cases in Cook county is located at 26th and California. This building is at the edge of a whole campus, of county buildings, including Cook county jail, offices for the county states attorney, sheriff’s police, social services etc. The phrase 26th and California is used to refer to the court building and to refer to the whole complex.
I don’t believe I had heard of Mt. Emblem cemetery before but there are many, many cemeteries in the Chicago area. Mt. Emblem, I find, is in Elmhurst, a suburb about fourteen miles further west than Oak Park. Oak Park is on Chicago’s western border.
Mount Emblem Cemetery Assn
510 W. Grand Ave.
Elmhurst, IL 60126 Telephone 830 834-6080
…”
The Cemetery is in DuPage County, just West of Cook County. I created Memorial #196924112 for John St. Clair on Find-A-Grave and requested a photo. Then I recently saw that there was a Memorial for him under his birth name with the correct dates, but the note: burial unknown. I’m mulling this over in my mind about whether to try and merge the 2 records. Since the burials are 3 states apart, I might just leave them as they are. I did submit a note to Find-A-Grave for Zardy with the AKA information and burial place. It is currently under consideration.
And in his obituary, the deception of his name was kept right to the very end. His brother Sanford is mentioned, but not his last name. And with the 2 surviving sisters married, their names don’t point to anyone named Sly. I’ve included the obituary here, to help tie the threads together.
Auntie Margaret stayed in Chicago for several years before moving back ‘home’ to Virginia. She died on 27 May 1977, in Staunton, Augusta Co., VA. She is buried in Oak Lawn Cemetery, in Bridgewater, Rockingham Co., Virginia, with her father, Joseph Wesley Walters, and one of her sisters, Jessie Walters Hamilton. I cannot find where her mother is buried, and not really sure when or where she died, just that it was before the 1910 Census.
And that’s pretty much what I know about William Zadius Sly AKA John St. Clair, my Uncle Jack!

Leanna Elder Shaberly
11 April 2019
Bowling Green, Ohio
Thanks for reading Mightier Acorns! If we’re cousins, and you have a story to share, let me know!
Do You Like My Schedule?

February 5, 2025

I messed it up – did anyone notice?
I don’t know how I did it, but at some point, I shifted from scheduling my Mightier Acorns posts on Wednesday and Friday mornings. My music newsletter was posting Tuesday and Thursday nights at midnight, and I think I mentally shifted both schedules back during a transition from one month to the next.
Before I “fix” the problem, I thought I would ask you all, do you have a schedule you like better?
I plan to continue writing two posts per week, and my goal is to have two or three weeks’ worth of posts in the queue at any time. I just don’t know if it matters to my audience when they hit your inboxes!
Don’t worry – I’m not counting this as one of your two posts this week. You have one more scheduled for Friday!
When Were We Neutral?

February 3, 2025

Identifying “political correctness” as a bias in our research

As I have conducted my family history research over the years, I have had to go back more than once and reconsider my biases.

Like anyone else, I tend to think of my point of view as “neutral”—but it rarely is. My point of view was shaped by the culture I grew up in and by the relationships I have with other people. As I learn more about American history, I must adapt my thinking and correct for the biases I was taught.

Sometimes, I have been guilty of over-correcting. While trying to avoid projecting one set of biases onto the data, I may project a different set of biases. Sometimes this over-correction is an important and intentional academic exercise. For example, when writing about the European settlement of the Eastern United States, it is easy to find resources that record the point of view of those settlers—but it is very difficult, if not impossible, to find any written records of the people they displaced.

To correct for that bias in the written records of history, one must challenge the assumptions and biases of those who wrote the records and sometimes speak on behalf of people who are no longer here to speak for themselves. That can be risky and can provoke people who are invested in maintaining the notion that their point of view is a true or neutral one.

The famous “6 or 9” meme

The Reactionary Party Line

When provoked by a threat to their self-conceptions, people often argue out of ignorance of the available facts, and they may claim that attempts to understand and correct biases are, in fact, the real mistake. They will reach for a ready-made term for this—another explicit bias that has dogged scholars under many names for as long as scholarship has existed.

I was a cynical 20-something in the 1990s when a wave of backlash against what was called “political correctness” swept through pop culture. It was a loaded term then, and it has stayed a loaded term – along with ideas about “the PC police” and more recently “woke” culture.

None of this is new. Before the term even originated, Americans were practicing political correctness:

Civil War Memory

Neo-Confederates, the Lost Cause, and the Fight Over Black History Month

In the early twentieth century, the United Daughters of the Confederacy exercised a great deal of control over how African-American history was taught and remembered (if at all) throughout much of the country. They did this, in large part, by controlling the history textbooks that children used in school. Their Lost Cause narrative emphasized peaceful r…

Read more

4 months ago · 14 likes · 1 comment · Kevin M. Levin

The original meaning of “politically correct” arose from post-revolutionary Russia, when adherence to the Communist party line often meant accepting things that were not true as facts. The idea was that saying that you accepted non-factual things as fact kept you from being shot or imprisoned. George Orwell’s book, 1984, captured the idea of “Doublespeak” and spurred countless middle schoolers in the late 1980s and early 1990s (hi! It’s me!) to start second-guessing things they were told by people in authority.

More modern understandings of the term look more like this:

political correctness (PC), [is a] term used to refer to language that seems intended to give the least amount of offense, especially when describing groups identified by external markers such as race, gender, culture, or sexual orientation.

The irony here is that this shift in meaning is, itself, a form of political correctness.

Trends in the U.S. towards greater individual freedom and equitable inclusion in society for women, people of color, and religious and ethnic minorities culminated in the Civil Rights legislation of the late 1960s. But that historical moment also fed into a backlash in which the majority of the population—usually white, usually men—cast themselves as victims being targeted by “the state” for expressing mere opinions.

Even though few, if any, laws exist to police or punish “offensive” speech, we are expected to accept the counterfactual argument that giving offense is a crime. And even though America has a well-documented history of terrorism against those pushing for equal rights between the end of the U.S. Civil War (1865) and the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1965, many specific events—like the 1921 Tulsa Massacre, Wounded Knee—are treated as if they don’t exist for the sake of “not offending” people who might be uncomfortable discussing them.

Unfortunately, much about our shared history is uncomfortable.

Why We Are Talking About This

Discussing the violence that accompanied the rise of labor unions, the removal of Native Americans from their land, and the struggle to correct the fundamental moral error of allowing slavery is—and should be—central to any historical research. The fact that violent events occurred is undeniable. Sometimes our ancestors were involved, and the role they played may or may not sit well with you now.

However, discussing violence of any kind is always disturbing, and many people cope with it by disassociating it from themselves or their ancestors. This is a bias that is baked into the stories Americans have told themselves about their origins and their heritage. Confronting that bias is rarely something that people are willing to do.

I am in the process of learning everything I can about my ancestors. My 5th-great grandfather, James Callin, is a major focus of my research. Most recently, I wrote about his possible association with military units that fought to drive the original Native American inhabitants from what is now Ohio:

When researching the battles he might have been present for, I ran across material like this:

The Battle of Fallen Timbers was the culminating event that demonstrated the tenacity of the American people in their quest for western expansion and the struggle for dominance in the Old Northwest Territory. The events resulted in the dispossession of American Indian tribes and a loss of colonial territory for the British military and settlers.

National Park Service, Historical Overview of Fallen Timbers Battlefield and Fort Miamis

As a human being, I know I have a baked-in bias toward viewing events like this through a binary lens—two sides, with one victor and one loser—but the reality of that moment in history is that there were multiple “sides” and motivations were as numerous as the participants. In 1794, the British were still trying to destabilize the new American government and were using allies among the First Nations to do it. Tecumseh (Shawnee) and Chickasaw leaders were recognized for helping the U.S. forces and protecting them from the British side.1

Framing the Battle as “the culminating event that demonstrated the tenacity of the American people” is not a neutral statement. Tenacity is usually seen as a positive characteristic. That framing casts the “American people” as the “good guys” while acknowledging that their tenacity was in service of expansion and dominance. But dominance is the thing that our foundational myths tell us we were fighting against—and acknowledging that our quest was for dominance undercuts our self-image as the righteous underdogs.

For many people, that is an uncomfortable thing to live with.

Sticking to Facts

The pursuit of any kind of “neutral” point of view is impossible, but we still try to understand the facts. Understanding the violent events that accompanied the building of the railroads and the establishment of America as a global power in the late 19th century is a necessary part of understanding my family history. So is the relationship between abolitionist sentiments and segregationists; or the slower push for suffrage and gender equality. But I don’t always have direct evidence of the part individual ancestors played in the larger history – and that means challenging family lore and treasured stories and rethinking the way we cast our ancestors as “heroes” or “villains.”

There is a good-faith debate to be had about what political correctness is, and when it is appropriate for one group of people to insist that another group of people change the way they speak or act. But I find that people often use that newer definition of “political correctness” I listed above to derail discussions that make them uncomfortable. Challenging a person’s sense of who their ancestors were is one of those discussions.

Objecting to “political correctness” also implies that the idea you are being forced to accept is not a fact.

And facts are what we are trying to establish.

1

Chickasaw.tv (website of the Chickasaw Nation): The Battle of Fallen Timbers
Daunting Family Fractals

January 30, 2025

There’s a whole mess of kin
I tell my fellow researchers that I use this Substack newsletter as a family history tool, but what does that mean?
Spotting the Gaps
The main function of the newsletter is to share stories about my research. I don’t use Substack to search records or manage the tree, but crafting the stories is part of my process. Doing that makes up for some other things I should be doing— like maintaining a research log—that I don’t do.
The stories can be roughly categorized as “what I found” and “how I found it.” The “how I found it” stories tend to be about processes, record analysis, tips, etc. The “what I found” stories sometimes exist as fleshed-out stories with characters, a beginning-middle-end structure, and a thematic idea. Sometimes they give a few facts and pose questions about the gaps.
Those gaps are crucial.
When I look at the pattern of previous posts here, I pay attention to what is missing. Which branches of which families have I been ignoring? What obstacles have I been avoiding? Where am I weak?
Answering these questions helps me break down the larger problems that confront anyone attempting to document their family history. Problems of scope and scale, and questions like, “Where do I draw the line?” We’ve established the importance of following up on “shirttails” – but that fuzzy, porous border between “relative” and “not really relative” is going to be different for everyone.
Diving Down Deep
When you start out in genealogy, there are lots of neat, tidy charts to help you visualize what your ancestry “looks” like.
By Anonymous – http://www.ahneninfo.com/de/ahnentafel.htm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=576580
But most of the tidy charts force us to ignore siblings and cousins, adoptions, childless marriages, unmarried relatives, etc. because if we don’t ignore them, our “tree” might start to look more like this:
By Simpsons contributor at English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Franklin.vp using CommonsHelper., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9277589
That is a visualization of the Mandelbrot set, which is a mathematical concept defining the perimeter of an object in a way that becomes infinite as you look more closely at the edge. I’m oversimplifying, but the point should be clear: we can’t deal with the infinite, so we make choices.
I spent a lot of time (about 7 years) running down as many of the descendants of my most distant Callin ancestor as I could. When I began, I was working with a 1911 family tree that included about 100 people; by the time I was done, my estimated count of direct descendants from James Callin topped the 2,500 mark. With spouses and their parents’ names, my index ballooned to the point where it didn’t fit into the final publication.
We’ve established that we all have Sixteen great-great grandparents and that the number of greats doubles with each generation. James Callin, my 5th-great grandfather, is one of 128 5th-greats. If running down his descendants over 8 generations clocked in at 2,500 people, and there is no sign of pedigree collapse between them, I have to assume that collecting just the direct descendants of my 128 5th-greats would run to 320,000 individuals.
And then there are siblings….
On the Bright Side…
With numbers like those, it’s unlikely a newsletter like mine will ever run out of content.
The real challenge lies in finding the time to thoroughly document everyone and put their profiles into WikiTree. I’ve done alright, according to the “Ancestor Lines Explorer” app on the site:
“Out of 62 possible direct ancestors in 6 generations, 62 (100.00%) have WikiTree profiles and out of them, 0 (0.00%) occur more than once due to pedigree collapse.”
“Out of 126 possible direct ancestors in 7 generations, 104 (82.54%) have WikiTree profiles.”
If I plug in one of my kids as the base person, instead of me:
“Out of 254 possible direct ancestors in 8 generations, 160 (62.99%) have WikiTree profiles.”
What is less easy to capture is the amount of work I’ve done beyond the simple direct ancestors. For each generation, I’ve determined to add profiles for all of the siblings of each ancestor – a number that can vary wildly, of course. For my grandma Alberta, that means one additional profile for her sister, Lyle (Tuttle) Kuebler. But my grandpa Russ, Alberta’s first husband, was one of 12 children… and his father, David Ulysses Clark, was one of 10.
Depending on the availability of records, I spend between 2 and 8 hours on each WikiTree profile, so even if we assume a low average of 3 hours per profile, Grandpas Russ and David Clark cost me 66 hours of work, give or take.
And if that feels overwhelming, just remember: this is what I do to relax.
Thanks for reading Mightier Acorns! Now I’m going to go stare at that Mandelbrot set for a while.
So What?
So, we’re back to looking at the balance and mix of Mightier Acorns posts. I do my best to spend equal amounts of time on the various branches of the family, but the stories are going to favor the branches I’ve worked on most recently—like Valentine Shuffler’s group—or who have more identifiable people with stories I can tease out of the records.
And at this rate, if I ever run out of “gaps” I will be very, very surprised.
How the Headlines Got It Wrong

January 28, 2025

Then, as now, the media told the story they wanted to sell

“If it bleeds, it leads.”

Newspapers are a valuable resource for family history research. I frequently incorporate newspaper articles (often obituaries) into my WikiTree profiles. Newspapers helped me tell the story of when Martin Callin was killed in 1889:

However, newspapers were never meant to be a permanent record, and while we love to romanticize the importance of a free press to a democratic society, we must never lose sight of the primary reason newspapers exist: to make money.

That means that the truth of a story is less important than the sales it might generate; and if the audience has a strong bias toward one narrative, the reports that make print are likely to be shaped by that bias. Then, as now, the more outrage a story can generate, the better.

Martin Callin’s uncle Marquis

Marquis Callin was the son of Thomas Callin and Nancy Burgett, born about 1833 in Ohio. After his father’s death, he may have been apprenticed outside his mother’s home in 1850. He was in Olivesburg, Richland County, Ohio in 1860, a 27-year-old shopkeeper listed as “Munfer Callan” living in the household of his brother, a shoemaker named Thomas Jefferson “Jeff” Callin. Jeff Callin was the father of Martin Callin from “A Tragic Wealth.”

Marquis was named in the 1911 Callin Family History, but it was only in 2020, after years of looking, I found evidence that told me where he went after 1860. (If you enjoy details, see the old Mightier Acorns blog essay, “The Price of Progress: An Update”.)

The 1870 Census record for Wauseon, Fulton County, Ohio, listed Marquis under the name “Martin”—fortunately, the 1880 Census listed Marquis in Wauseon by the correct name. With wife, Caroline, and elder son Fred in the household on both records, I am comfortable asserting that the “Martin” in 1870 was a clerical error.

But because his nephew Martin was a well-known businessman before his 1889 death, I have to carefully judge records attributed to “M. Callin”—especially in newspapers—because they could refer to either Martin or his uncle Marquis. I’m pretty sure this one refers to Marquis, because Martin would have only been 17 at the time, and unlikely to own a building:

The Republican – Wauseon, Ohio · Thursday, June 02, 1870, page 3

After the loss of his building, Marquis did not make the newspapers again. The entirety of his Callin Family History biography is: “Born 1840, died in Chicago, date not known.” The most recent evidence we have of his life is the 1880 Census placing him in Wauseon. If he did die in Chicago, I have found no other evidence of it.

The Factual Records

We know that Marquis and Caroline were married about 1865, and we know from his father-in-law’s will that he and Caroline (née) Snyder, had two sons: Fred and John. We see their family in Wauseon in 1870 and 1880 when Caroline is noted as suffering from an unspecified lung disease. She died in 1880, probably after the 8th of June when the census was enumerated, and she is buried in Wauseon Union Cemetery.

FindAGrave memorial for Caroline (Snyder) Callins

As far as the solid evidence of census and vital records goes, that’s all I have to connect Marquis to his sons, but thanks to the flawed and sensational reporting of the 1890s, I have enough clues to find at least one of his sons in later records.

Two Callin Boys Go to Court

On August 30, 1890, Fred S. Callin was arrested in Seattle, Washington, for stealing $1,000 in gold coins from a canvas sack containing $5,000 belonging to the Western Express Company. The thief had cut a hole in the seam of the sack, taken the money out, and sewn the hole back up, and the theft had gone undetected for a week. Fred was a freight clerk working aboard the S.S. Idaho, a sidewheel steamboat that ran on the Columbia River and Puget Sound from 1860 to 1898.

Photo from Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society; provided by PSMHS – S.S. Idaho (neg. no. 1192-8)

The arrest was reported by the Associated Press and printed in The Los Angeles Times on 31 August. The AP account described Fred as “a young man scarcely 21 years of age” and refrained from making any assertions about Fred’s guilt or innocence. But The Post-Intelligencer in Seattle showed less restraint in their 31 August report. After saying that the “dapper young freight clerk” was arrested, they state “The evidence against the prisoner, who is scarcely 21 years of age, is very clear and his guilt is almost proven.”

The Post-Intelligencer goes on to describe the theft and the investigation in detail, and ends their piece with this prejudicial paragraph:

This is not the first time the young suspect has been summoned involuntarily to answer to charges in the couris. A short time ago he was arrested with two girls in the Occidental hotel on Pike street, the tenor of the main complaint having been kept quiet. It was known, however, that the trio were in a beastly state of intoxication, and were beld to answer on a serious charge of vandalism.

On Monday, 1 September 1890, the Spokane Chronicle weighed in under the headline “A Smooth Freight Clerk.” Once again, “a dapper young man, scarcely 21 years of age” was arrested, and after describing the crime, the paper asserts:

When the robbery was discovered the young clerk’s movements were shadowed, and the authorities claim that there is not the slightest doubt as to Callin’s guilt.

The Post-Intelligencer reiterated the strength of the case against Fred on 3 September, quoting Deputy Sheriff Woolery:

Captain Woolery said: “No, we don’t want any more evidence; we couldn’t have any more; it’s conclusive.”

The crime was also reported on 3 September in The Anaconda Standard in Anaconda, Montana. Their objective reporter repeated the claim that “The evidence against the prisoner, who is scarcely 21 years of age, is very clear and his guilt is almost proven.” They added this opinion: “The circumstances under which the money was lost are peculiar and shows [sic] the job to have been done by a nervous and bungling hand.” Obviously, they did not agree that Fred was a “smooth freight clerk.”

On Saturday, 6 September 1890, The Post-Intelligencer reported on the opening of the trial:

Callin came into court, occupied a chair near his attorneys, Wiley and Scott, and during the hearing stroked his light moustache and appeared perfectly cool and unconcerned.

Taking up several column inches of Page 5, the report quotes several witnesses giving testimony, and describes them as “reticent” or otherwise unwilling to “divulge anything” – but reading the statements, it becomes clear that the case was built on the idea that Fred was seen spending a lot of extra cash after the robbery occurred, and that nobody actually saw him with more than three or four $20 coins in his possession.

For all of the buildup and coverage, I was unable to find any reports of the verdict—at least not in 1890. But we finally get to see what happened in Fred’s story when John gets arrested in 1892:

The Post-Intelligencer; Seattle, Washington • Sat, Jul 23, 1892, Page 5

The day before, The Post-Intelligencer had reported that John Callin was charged in Tacoma with grand larceny for taking $35. Once again, they seem convinced of his guilt, stating, “He was locked up in the city jail. Callin is about 18 years old and seems to realize his position keenly.”

This time, though, we get to see the outcome, and The Post-Intelligencer’s editor is clearly miffed by it. Under the unbiased headline, “Newsboy Callin Goes Scot Free,” we learned that Justice Von Tobel dismissed the charges after the complaining witness, Daniel McFail admitted “that there was a partnership between himself and the boy,” leading the justice to declare that the defendant could not be prosecuted for grand larceny.

A Happier End for Jack Callin

Given the events that placed Fred and John Callin in Seattle, I looked there for evidence of their lives after the 1890s. Fred seems to disappear completely after his trial, but John shows up during the 1900s in both Seattle and Alaska, where he went into the restaurant business.

Eventually, Jack Callin, proprietor of the Arcade Cafe in Valdez, Alaska, married Nina Gifford of Seattle in 1913. He made the papers when he installed electric heaters in the cafe in February 1916, and again when the cafe burned down in January 1917. Jack moved into other business endeavors, establishing an automobile dealership in Anchorage by 1918, the Callin Motor Company, which he was still running in 1930.

Nina died in May 1938, and Jack appears to have left Alaska to live in the Seattle area after that. He married again on 9 December 1938, and he and the former Edith Ferris lived in Hillcrest, King County, Washington.

He died on 12 May 1940 and was buried with Nina in Lake View Cemetery in Seattle.

It’s impossible to tell from these sources whether he led a happy, crime-free life, but at least we get glimpses of his story. And those glimpses remind us to take every source with a grain of salt.