Sepia Saturday and Saturday Night Genea-Fun

James Edgar Wood in his 1917 Ford, Summer of 1917

This week's Sepia Saturday ties in well with my response to Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge! So I combined the two.

Sepia Saturday: Posing with the Car

Above, a photo taken of my husband's grandfather, James Edgar Wood (1871-1939) by hubby's father, Edgar James Wood, (1903-1986). Ed was only 14 when he took this photo of his father during a road trip from their home in Cleveland, OH to downtown Chicago, visiting Wood family members along the way. Ed had gotten a camera for his birthday and began a lifelong hobby of chronicling family activities.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Top 20 Surnames in Family Tree

Using RootsMagic7, and following Randy's instructions, I went to Reports, then Lists, scrolled down to "Surname Statistics List," and selected "Frequency of Surnames" from the list.

With 3,128 people in my husband's Wood family tree, I could have printed 17 pages for the "Frequency of Surnames" report. Instead, I printed only the first two pages. After that, the frequency of surnames dropped off sharply.

And the winner is . . . WOOD, which appears a total of 204 times (125 males, 78 females). The oldest date of a Wood ancestor record is 1551, the most recent date is 2019.

The top 20 are: Wood, Larimer, McClure, Work, Steiner, Slatter, McKibbin, Hilborn, Denning, Smith, Cushman, Brown, Taber, Nelson, Johnson, Bradford, Short, Caldwell, Rinehart, and Miller. 

By the time I got to Miller, there were only 17 appearances in the Wood family tree (11 males, 6 females), with the oldest date of 1803 and the most recent date of 2006. A Miller married a Work (the granddaughter of a Work-Larimer marriage) and that's how the Miller surname connects to my husband's Wood family tree.

Two Boys Named Royal

For Amy Johnson Crow's #52Ancestors prompt of "Namesake," I want to look at two boys in my husband's family tree, both named Royal. Who were their namesakes? In one case, I have a very good guess. In the other case, not a clue.

Royal Hathaway

My husband's 1st cousin, 2x removed, was Fanny Fay McClure (1882-1962). She lived her entire life in or near Emmet county, Michigan, where she married Royal D. C. Hathaway (1869-1946) in 1899.

The seventh and last child of Royal and Fanny was Roy Hathaway, born on August 26, 1912. He died just two days later, unfortunately (see vital records search result at left). My guess is that baby Roy was actually "Royal Hathaway."

Royal D.C. Hathaway was the son of Albert L. Hathaway, and by the time baby Roy was born, the family had already named a son after Albert.

Therefore, it would make sense to name this new baby Royal after his Dad, and then nickname him Roy. At least, that's my reasoning. So far, I've not found any other boys named Royal as descendants of the Hathaway line.

Royal Hilborn

Another Royal in my husband's family tree was his 1st cousin, 2x removed Royal Edgar Hilborn (1879-1955). This Royal was the son of Mary Elizabeth Rinehart and Samuel Hilborn. Like his parents, he lived his entire life in Ohio.

I haven't found any ancestors named Royal earlier in the Rinehart or Hilborn lines. Why did the parents choose the name Royal for their fourth son?

At the age of 22, Royal Edgar Hilborn married Alpha Omega Caldwell (1882-1919)--who is, to my knowledge, the only Alpha Omega in the entire family tree. Alpha Omega died, and something interesting and significant happened.

Within a year after Alpha Omega died, Royal adopted a 2-year-old girl named Mary Jane. Royal was enumerated in the 1920 US Census as the widowed head of the household, living with his sister Mabel Hilborn and little Mary Jane.

Who this little girl's parents were and when/where Royal adopted her, I simply don't know. This might not even have been a formal adoption, for all I know!

In 1921, Royal married Laura Helen McGann and the household of three settled was enumerated as a family in 1930 and 1940. No further boys named Royal have been found as descendants of this line at this point.

This is what I love about #Genealogy: Answers to one question lead to many more questions and then more discoveries. Never a dull moment.

Jane: The Name in the Middle

Margaret Jane Larimer McClure at right, with daughter Lucille Ethel McClure
and son-in-law Edward DeVeld

My sis-in-law has always told me that Jane is the traditional middle name for females in her family.

Not in the family tree of my late father-in-law, Edgar James Wood (1903-1986). One of Edgar's aunts was Jane Ann Wood Black (1846-1936), the eldest child of my husband's great-grandparents (Thomas Haskell Wood and Mary Amanda Demarest). None of the earlier Wood family females carry this middle name, so far as I can discover.

We learned that Jane is the most popular middle name in both sides of the family of the mother-in-law I unfortunately never met, Marian Jane McClure (1909-1983). She gave her daughter that middle name, and in turn my sis-in-law gave her daughter that middle name.

Marian's mother Margaret Jane Larimer (1859-1913) and grandmother Elizabeth Jane Rinehart (1834-1905) both had Jane as their middle name. Larimer and McClure ancestors often gave Jane as the middle name of one girl in each generation.

The McKibbin family, which intermarried with Larimer ancestors, included a number of women with Jane as their middle name. Same tradition in the Hilborn family, which intermarried with the Rinehart family.

By the way, I identified all the ancestors with "Jane" as a first or middle name by doing a search with my RootsMagic7 software. Very convenient way to prep for this #52Ancestors post.

Family History Month: Top 10 Surnames on the Family Tree

Picking up a great idea from Colleen G. Brown Pasquale at her Leaves & Branches blog, I learned how to use the "surname statistics list" report function on my Roots Magic 7 software. No surprise that for my husband's family tree, Wood was the top surname by frequency, followed by Larimer.

But I also realized, with a pang, how many people appear without surnames in that tree. Uh oh. These are mainly missing maiden names, stretching back to the 1500s. This means I'll have to intensify my Genealogy Go-Over to see how many missing surnames I can identify. Perhaps new information has become available since I added some people to the tree? Turns out that these statistics can also reveal gaps in research...

The top 10 surnames that appear most frequently on the Wood tree are:

1. Wood (earliest instance: 1551)
2. Larimer (earliest instance: 1719)
3. McClure (earliest instance: 1660)
4. Steiner (earliest instance: 1802)
5. Slatter (earliest instance: 1811)
6. McKibbin (earliest instance: 1766)
7. Hilborn (earliest instance: 1794)
8. Denning (earliest instance: 1775)
9. Smith (earliest instance: 1724)
10. Cushman (earliest instance: 1578)

PS: Randy Seaver made this "top 10 surnames" theme the subject of his Oct. 21 Saturday Night Genea-Fun.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #4: The Rinehart Brothers of Crawford County, Ohio

This week is a two-for-one special: Joseph W. Rinehart and his brother, George Rinehart. I'm still trying to find their father.

Joseph W. Rinehart (1806-1888) is hubby's great-great-grandpa. Born in Pennsylvania, he was married to Margaret Shank or Shanklin (1807-1873). Last summer, we visited their graves in Oceola Cemetery #2, Crawford County, Ohio. 

He was a farmer in Tod, Crawford County, and after his wife Margaret died, he lived for a time with his niece Elizabeth Rinehart Hilborn and her husband, Amos Hilborn. This Elizabeth was Joseph's brother's daughter (see 1880 census excerpt).


There were several intermarriages between the Rinehart and Hilborn families. Joseph's daughter Mary Elizabeth Rinehart married Samuel Hilborn, for instance.

On the one hand, a lot of people are tracing the Hilborn tree. On the other, there are mixups between one family's Elizabeth or Mary Rinehart and another, as I can see from Ancestry trees.

George Rinehart (abt 1810-1889), Joseph's brother and Elizabeth's father, was also born in Pennsylvania and also a farmer in Tod. His first wife Mary died in 1872 and then he married Christina Torrence. At the time of this second marriage, he owned 80 acres.

To try to pinpoint who's who and identify ancestors and descendants, I've sent for George Rinehart's obituary and that of Elizabeth Rinehart Hilborn. AND the results are:

George Rinehart's obit, printed in the Wyandot County Republican of July 18, 1889, says "Another pioneer gone to rest." No mention of any other family.

Elizabeth Rinehart Hilborn's obit (published in the Daily Chief of Upper Sandusky, OH on Oct. 27, 1920) says, in part: "She was a daughter of George Reinhardt [sic], who was one of the early settlers in the western part of Crawford county. The date of her birth was June 15, 1835. Besides the one daughter [Mrs. Hannah Hilborn Johnson], there are six grandchildren, one of these, William A. Johnson, living on East Mansfield St, Bucyrus, and being employed in the public service department of the city."

Getting Ready for FGS 2013: FAN Research for the "Most Wanted" List

FGS 2013 is just weeks away and I'm going over my list of "Most Wanted" ancestors, the people hubby and I really want to find. My plan is to bring along not only a printout of the Family Group Sheets, but also a complete alphabetical index of the family tree. That way, if I can't get online, I can consult my paper files.

But I want to do as much as possible from home. So, using FAN (Friends and Neighbors) research, I'm retracing my steps--and I believe I've discovered a sibling of one of the "Most Wanted" Ancestors.

Joseph W. Rinehart (sometimes spelled Reinhart), 1806-1888, is hubby's great-great-granddaddy. From at least 1850 on, he lived in Tod in Crawford county, Ohio. Scrolling through the 1880 Census for Crawford, I spotted another Reinhart just two farms away: George Reinhart. George is only 3 years younger than Joseph, both were born in Pennsylvania, and what's more, George's household includes little George Hilborn.

The Hilborns were in-laws to the Steiners. Who, you ask, are the Steiners? Joseph W. Rinehart's daughter Elizabeth Jane married Edward George Steiner (see his Civil War draft registration, below). And other Hilborns married other Rineharts.

Civil War draft registration (1863( of Edward George Steiner

As it happens, the Rineharts AND the Steiners are on the "Most Wanted" list so I'm definitely making progress by using FAN to be understand the geographic connection between the Rinehart, Steiner, and Hilborn families.

Just wait till we're at FGS and can dive deep into the Allen County Public Library's vast collection of genealogical records! Stay tuned.