52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #10: Typhoid Fever Fells William M. McClure

Hubby's great-grandpa William Madison McClure (1849-1887) had been married to Margaret Jane Larimer for only 11 years when he died following six weeks of suffering from typhoid fever. As noted in his obituary from the Wabash Plain Dealer, above, "Will" was a Mason. According to the 1880 Census, he was a worker on the railway.

Will left four children under the age of 10 at the time of his death:

• Lola A. McClure, born in 1877 in Goshen, Indiana
• Brice Larimer McClure, born in 1878 in Little Traverse, Michigan
• Lucille Ethel McClure, born in 1880 in Millersburg, Indiana
• Hugh Benjamin McClure, born in 1882 in Wabash, Indiana

Luckily, the Wabash Plain Dealer reported that Margaret (known as Maggie) had some financial cushion, thanks to his advance planning and his Masonic connection: 

Will McClure had his life insured in the Masonic Mutual Insurance Co for $3,000. The policy was made payable to his wife.

What caused Will and Maggie to move from Elkhart, Indiana, where they married in 1876, to Goshen, then to Little Traverse, then back to Millersburg and finally to Wabash? I know a number of McClures lived in the Little Traverse area, which was in the midst of a farming, tourism, and lumber boom. But why leave to return to Indiana so quickly?

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #9: Brice S. Larimer, Elkhart Pioneer

Brice S. Larimer (1819-1906), hubby's great-great-granddaddy, was a pioneer settler in Elkhart county, Indiana and the son of a pioneer couple of Fairfield county, Ohio (Robert Larimer and Rachel Smith Larimer). Most probably, Brice's full middle name is Smith, in honor of his mother's maiden name.

His father brought Brice and siblings to Elkhart in 1835. As the oldest of nine, Brice helped his father with the farm and family after Rachel died at age 38, in 1838.

In 1847, Brice married Lucy E. Bentley (which is why I've been hunting her elusive ancestors, William Tyler Bentley and Olivia Morgan Bentley). They had four children: Atta, Emma, William, and Margaret (hubby's great-grandma, who married William Madison McClure). Wonder what happened to Atta? Maybe she died young, because I've found nothing about her.*

Brice had a series of careers, including family farming, Lake Shore agent, and notary public.

He was not the first Brice in the family. Brice Smith (1756-1828) was Brice Larimer's grandfather, the father of Rachel Smith. And the family has had other Brices since then, keeping the name alive for generations.

* The Larimer family book says Atta died young, sad to say.

Tuesday's Tip: It Takes a Village to Trace a Tree

All of the family trees I'm working on have been "leafed out" with help from other people. Especially this year, I've learned that it truly takes a village to trace a tree. 

For example, Major James Elmer Larimer (hubby's first cousin, 4x removed), wrote to his mother, Asenath Cornwell Larimer, when he was fighting for the Union during the Civil War. At left, a page from one of his many letters--thanks to the gentleman who found me via this blog and who is now part of my village.

Here's how I make it easy for my village to exchange information:

1. My family trees on Ancestry are public (not living people, of course). That's how Philly Cuz found me and how the latest contact from a Wood cousin took place. 

2. I post about people and places on surname and locality message boards. If anybody out there is looking for Schwartz from Ungvar or Farkas from Botpalad or Bentley from Indiana (or California), they'll find my queries on message boards like Ancestry and GenForum. That's how I connected with Bentley researchers, for example.

3. I contact local genealogy clubs and historical societies. Just as one example, the fabulous folks at Elkhart County Genealogical Society provided numerous gravestone photos and probate court records for my research into the Larimer family.

4. I correspond with people who have posted on Find-a-Grave. Sometimes they have more photos they haven't had a chance to post--and among those photos are my ancestors. A very kind volunteer supplied exact directions to hubby's great-great-grand uncle's gravestone so we could visit this summer. Of course, I return the favor by posting photos of dozens of gravestones on F-a-G whenever I visit a cemetery.

5. I blog about my genealogy challenges and achievements. Thanks to this genealogy blog, I've been found by so many cousins! (You know who you are...) The blog also helps me explain to my newfound family what I know (or think I know) about a particular person or branch of the tree. In more than one case, my wonderful blog readers have been instrumental in identifying a person's uniform or place or period.

Thank you to my village!

Thankful Thursday: Thanks to our ancestors who made Thanksgiving 2013 possible

On Thanksgiving, I'm giving thanks to the courageous journey-takers who came to America and made it possible for me and my family to be here today.

My side:

• Farkas ancestors: Above, a Thanksgiving dinner with the Farkas Family Tree, descendants of Moritz Farkas and Lena Kunstler, who arrived in New York City in 1899 and 1900, respectively, bringing their children from Hungary just a little later. I'm one of the "hula girls" near the back at far left.
• Schwartz ancestors: Tivadar (Teddy) Schwartz left Ungvar, Hungary (now Uzhorod, Ukraine) in 1902. He encouraged two siblings to join him in New York City, Sam (who arrived in 1904) and Mary (who arrived in 1906). Teddy married Hermina Farkas (daughter of Moritz and Lena) and settled in the Bronx.
• Burk and Mahler ancestors: Isaac Burk, a skilled cabinet maker, arrived in New York City from Lithuania in 1904. His bride-to-be, Henrietta Mahler, was a small child when she came to New York City from Latvia in 1885 or 1886, with her parents Meyer Mahler and Tillie Rose Jacobs. 

Hubby's side:

• Mayflower ancestors: My hubby has four Mayflower ancestors, but only two survived to give thanks on the first Thanksgiving in 1621: Isaac Allerton and his young daughter, Mary Allerton. The Allerton line connected with the Cushman line and eventually married into the Wood family.
• Wood ancestors: John "The Mariner" Wood, Sr., was the journey-taker in the Wood family. Born in England about 1590, he died in Portsmouth, RI in 1655, leaving a tradition of carpentry and sea-faring occupations throughout the Wood family for many generations. 
• McClure ancestors: Halbert McClure and his family journeyed from Raphoe Parish, County Donegal, to Philadelphia and then walked to Virginia to settle down. I'll be researching these ancestors more thoroughly at next year's NGS Conference, which takes place in Richmond on May 7-10.
• Larimer ancestors: Robert Larimer took the perilous voyage from the North of Ireland to Philadelphia--but was shipwrecked along the way. I've told his story before.
• Slatter ancestors: John Slatter Sr. was probably the first journey-taker in this English family, arriving in Ohio around 1889. I haven't yet located the ship records for his daughter Mary Slatter, who married James Edgar Wood in 1898.
• Steiner and Rinehart ancestors: Still on my to-do list is the task of identifying the first ancestors of Jacob S. Steiner to arrive in America. Jake himself was born in Pennsylvania about 1802. Joseph W. Rinehart wasn't the first journey-taker, either. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1806, but I can't find much on his parents (yet).

Thank you, journey-takers. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Motivation Monday: Those Brickwalls Are Crumbling

When I began this blog in 2008, I put the following sentence at the top: Adventures in genealogy . . . finding out who my ancestors were and connecting with cousins today!  What adventures I've had, and what joy in finding cousins all over the map. 

Botpalad, hometown of Moritz Farkas

Nothing is as motivating as a breakthrough, right? November is possibly my best-ever month for bringing down brickwalls, which only makes me want to dig deeper. It's been so exciting that it's hard to know where to begin...remember, all of this happened in the past 25 days, and the month isn't over yet :)

• "Hello Cousin" was the subject line on a much-anticipated e-mail from Israel. After many months of searching, I've finally connected with long-lost Schwartz cousins on my maternal grandfather's side! My 2d cousin confirmed our relationship and sent me wonderful photos of herself and the rest of our family in Israel. Next up: A Skype session! All in the same month that Sis and I met "Philly Cuz" for the first time in person--she's also a 2d cousin on the Schwartz side. And in the same month, I saw my 1st cuz from Queens (Hi, Ira!)
• "James Elmer Larimer" was the subject line on an e-mail that arrived out of the blue. As I wrote just recently, this gentleman is trying to find the connection between hubby's Larimer line and his family (still working on that). He was kind enough to share the wagon-train journal kept by James Elmer Larimer's widow, Asenath Larimer, who went with her brother John Cornwell and three of his neighbors to join the Gold Rush in 1852. The journal is an incredible first-person account of what it was like to walk day after day through an unknown landscape, battle illness and accidents, and--hardest of all, in some ways--to leave loved ones behind, never knowing if the family would see one another again. Spoiler alert: Asenath is reunited with her young children after all!
• "I'm the grandson of ... " read the Ancestry message I received from a first cousin, 1x removed of my hubby's! He's just beginning to trace his family tree and I'm delighted to share what I know about Thomas Haskell Wood and Mary Amanda Demarest, our common ancestors. Can't wait to hear from him again.
• Remember microfilm? Last week I located the handwritten birth entry of my great-grandpa Moritz Farkas in the records of Botpalad, Hungary, contained on a Family History Library microfilm titled "Anyakönyvek Izraelita Hitközseg, Fehérgyarmat." Now I can search the same records for any siblings, knowing I'm in the correct part of the world at the correct time. I'm very motivated to keep cranking through this microfilm, even though part is in Hungarian and part is in German :( 
• Cousin JW, who was thought to be a family friend but turns out to be a cousin of the Farkas family, sent naturalization records and other documents from her parents and grandparents so I can connect her line to our line. I'm almost there. This is an immense breakthrough because we believe it will show we're actually related to a large group of Farkas descendants in Europe and the U.S.
• "Captain Slatter" was the subject line from a lady whose father trained under Captain Jack Slatter in 1941. Captain Jack (actually John Daniel Slatter) was hubby's great-uncle and a renowned bandmaster for 50 years. Replying to this inquiry, I sent a photo of Capt. Jack and a request to hear her father's memories of the good Captain. It's a small world after all!

So many ancestors, so many cousins, so little time. I'm motivated! 

Military Monday: Major James Elmer Larimer

This morning I heard from a gentleman who found me through this blog.* His family has some wonderful historic treasures: A cache of Civil War letters written by James Elmer Larimer to his mother, Asenath Cornwell Larimer, and Asenath's journal chronicling her trip to California in the Gold Rush era. Are these Larimers related to hubby's Larimers?

Yes! And they're listed in the book Our Larimer Family by John Clarence Work, which traces this branch of the Larimers, starting with Robert Larimer's shipwreck enroute from North Ireland to America in the early 1700s.

Of course I dropped everything to check out James Elmer Larimer and his parents, James Larimer and Asenath Cornwell Larimer...and quickly discovered that James Elmer Larimer had quite a distinguished career in the military and afterward.

Above is the first of several pages about Major James Elmer Larimer from the 1915 book History of Dearborn County, Indiana (read or download it here). He enlisted in Company A, 17th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, on April 16, 1861. He rose through the ranks, serving bravely, and eventually became a first lieutenant in command of four companies of the 23rd Missouri Volunteer Infantry. He was in the first battle of Bull Run, and in many other famous battles (Hoover's Gap, Stone's River, siege of Atlanta, and on).

After the war, President Grant appointed him U.S. gauger and in that capacity, Major Larimer foiled a number of frauds (but not all--see this Wikipedia entry). Next he became publisher and editor of the Lawrenceburg Press in Indiana. The Dearborn history sums him up this way:

"His favorite sport is baseball. His church--all of them. His bible--"The Book" and Emerson. His reading--everything, but preferably scientific. His friends--every good man or woman. His hopes--the best of what he has been. He hates--a human skunk or fox. His pride--that he has lived through 75 years of more valuable achievement by man than all the race had previously accomplished."

James Elmer Larimer was my hubby's first cousin, four times removed, and that makes us proud. 

* Larimer ancestor landing page, a big plus!

Surname Saturday and Getting Down to the DNA

The newly enhanced Ancestry DNA results are a much closer match for hubby's family tree origins than the old version. Above, the new map of his origins. Below, the summary of his origins, which make sense in the context of the updated Heritage Pie I created for him earlier this year.

Great Britain (England, No. Ireland, Scotland) and Ireland were the original homes of these families from hubby's tree:

• Bentley 
• Denning 
• Larimer
• McClure
• Shehen 
• Slatter 
• Taber 
• Wood

At left, 2022 snapshot of DNA at LivingDNA.

Western Europe was the original home of these families from hubby's tree:

• Demarest
• Nitchie
• Shank
• Steiner
• Rinehart

Genealogy Tip Jar: Gen Societies and Historical Societies on Facebook

Today's Geneabloggers Genealogy Tip Jar topic is: Genealogical and Historical Societies (#gentipjar). So here's a 21st century twist: Finding those resources on Facebook. Often it's as easy as searching in Facebook using the location and adding the word "genealogy" or "historical society." But there's an easier way, as I'll mention below.

My Facebook genealogy alter ego, Benjamin McClure, uses the family tree shown above as his cover photo. Benji has "liked" or joined the pages of a number of local genealogical societies on FB, including:

• Adams County, Ohio Genealogy Researchers
• Crawford County Ohio History & Genealogy 
• British Isles Genealogy
• Ohio Historical Society
• Genealogical Society of Ireland
• Indiana Genealogical Society
• Elkhart Genealogical Society
• Genealogy Club of Newtown, CT

Why Facebook? Because the people who post on these pages are very knowledgeable about their areas and willing to help each other with ideas, local info, even photos. In some cases, you have to request an invite; in others, you simply "like."

On the Adams County FB page, I requested an invite, and once approved, I posted a query about Benji's in-laws. Another participant on that site soon sent me a file listing early marriages in that county--including several members of the McClure family and the Denning family. What a find!

Surname Saturday: Heritage Pie Updated

Last October, I modified the idea of creating a heritage pie chart of great-great-grandparents and posted my pies with hubby's great-grandparents and my grandparents.

Today I have enough information to post a chart with the birth place of all 16 of hubby's great-great-grands (above). Except for 4 people, all of hubby's great-grandparents were born in the US (mainly Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, Ohio). However, not all of the great-great-great-grands were US-born.

Here's what I know or suspect about where the families of each of hubby's great-great-grandparents were from originally:

Ireland: John Shehen and wife Mary (maiden UNK)--have evidence
England: John Slatter Sr. and wife Sarah (maiden UNK)--have evidence of English birth, but this family might have long-ago Irish roots
England: Ancestors of Isaiah Wood Sr.--have evidence
England: Ancestors of Harriet Taber--have evidence
England: Ancestors of Sarah Denning--need evidence
England: Ancestors of Lucy E. Bentley--need evidence
Huguenots (possibly France): Ancestors of Henry E. Demarest--need evidence
Huguenots (possibly France): Ancestors of Catherine Nitchie--need evidence
Scots-Irish: Ancestors of Benjamin McClure--have evidence
No. Ireland: Ancestors of Brice S. Larimer--have evidence
Germany: Ancestors of Jacob S. Steiner--have a clue (a letter from a descendant)
Switzerland: Ancestors of Joseph W. Rinehart--have a clue (a family story)
???: Ancestors of Elizabeth (maiden UNK) Steiner
???: Ancestors of Margaret Shank, who married Joseph W. Rinehart

Military Monday: Elihu Served 6 Days in the Revolutionary War

Elihu Wood Sr., hubby's 3rd great-granddaddy, is the only one of his ancestors officially recognized as having fought in the Revolutionary War.

According to the 1896 multivolume publication Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, Elihu--a resident of Bristol County, MA--responded to an alarm in Rhode Island by joining Captain Henry Jenne's company in Colonel Hathaway's 2d Bristol Regiment on August 2, 1780. Elihu was mustered out on August 8, 1780. Grand total of Revolutionary War service: 6 days.

During the War of 1812, his son, Elihu Wood Jr., was in Lt. Col. B. Lincoln's regiment, serving from June 30, 1814 to July 10, 1814 in New Bedford and Fairhaven, MA. His military service totaled 10 days.

Two other ancestors saw service during the War of 1812:

• Daniel Denning was a private in Capt. John Hayslip's Ohio Militia from September to November, 1814.
• Isaac M. Larimer was a Sgt and Ensign in Capt. George Sanderson's company in Ohio, serving from April, 1812 to April, 1813. 

At least four ancestors fought for the Union side during the Civil War:

• Benjamin Franklin Steiner was a private in 10th Company L, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, enlisting in 1862.
• His younger brother, Samuel D. Steiner, served in Company C, 180th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, in 1864-5.
• Hugh Rinehart was a private in Company I, 15th Ohio Infantry, in 1861.
• Train C. McClure served the longest of hubby's ancestors. He enlisted as a private in the 89th Regiment of the Indiana Infantry in August, 1862, and didn't leave the Army until July, 1865.

Blogoversary #5 and Going Strong!

Thank you, dear relatives and readers, for following along on the genealogical journey I've been documenting here for the past five years. And thank you to the many dozens of Geneabloggers whose posts and comments have encouraged and inspired me to try new things, like the ancestor landing pages just below my masthead and using Facebook for genealogy.

Some of the high points since Blogoversary #4: 

• Being "found" by Philly Cuz, a second cousin from my Schwartz side. She's been kind enough to share photos and stories. Quite a trip down memory lane on both sides, and of course, an in-person visit is in our future. Thank you!
• Finally seeing the all-important McClure book to confirm the Scots-Irish connection. And while at Allen County Public Library, locating more records of the McClure fam in Adams County books on the open shelves. Thank you to ACPL staff and volunteers! 
• Teaming up with a long-time Bentley researcher to try to fill in the blanks on William Tyler Bentley's life and family. We have a ways to go but have been making progress together. And it's wonderful to have connected with an actual Bentley cousin (hi Elizabeth) who's tracing her tree also. Thank you all!
• Being "found" by the son of a woman who sailed across the Atlantic with my Auntie Dorothy Schwartz, the WAC, on the oceanliner that defied the German subs. I never would have known about the magazine article describing that tense ocean crossing if not for him. Thank you!
• Scanning and indexing 31 years of notes and historians' reports from meetings of the Farkas Family Tree, my maternal grandma's family. One fabulous cousin retyped many barely readable documents for this project, and a number of cousins very patiently answered questions about who's who, so we can get this book into shape for the next generation to browse and keep (I hope!). Thank you!

Now for some of the big questions I'm still trying to answer:

• Are any descendants of Paula Schwartz and her daughter, Viola, still alive? Answered...Yes! I'm now in touch with these cousins! (updated 2022)
• Where oh where in Ireland do hubby's ancestors hail from? Yes, I'm talking about you, Smith, Shehen, and Larimer ancestors. Stop hiding in plain sight!
• Where did the Steiners and Rineharts come from in the Old World? Thanks to the kindness of FindaGrave volunteers who've photographed graves and clarified family connections on our behalf, we expect to make progress. 
• Where in Lithuania did Isaac Burk/Birk come from and who else was in his family (parents and siblings)? Updated 2022: Their birthplace was Gargzdai.

Matrilineal Monday: Saluting Marian McClure Wood

Marian McClure, age 4

My late mom-in-law, Marian Jane McClure Wood, was the only child of Brice Larimer McClure and Floyda Mabel Steiner McClure.

Marian McClure, age 14

These are some photos of Marian as a youngster, a young lady, and finally a Mom.

Wood family

At left, in Cleveland Heights, Marian McClure Wood, her father Brice Larimer McClure, and her husband Edgar James Wood. The kids are my hubby and his siblings.

Jane is the traditional middle name passed down through many generations (on both sides of the family).

Travel Tuesday: Elkhart's Island Park Hosts Fam Reunion, 1902

From the Elkhart Truth

In August of 1902, hubby's 2d great-grandpa Brice S. Larimer (1819-1906) was the oldest person to attend a reunion of three families united by marriage for many decades: The Larimers, the Works, and the Shorts.

Relatives traveled from as far as South Dakota and Michigan to attend this reunion at Island Park in Elkhart, Indiana. Island Park is, today, home to events such as music festivals. These ancestors were trend-setters!

The 1902 event wasn't the first reunion of the three families. The 2d annual reunion was held in June, 1901, and again Brice Larimer was mentioned as "the dean of the party" because of his age as the reigning patriarch.

Many years later, John Clarence Work* wrote a definitive history of the Larimer family, 1740-1959, based in part on the genealogical research of Aaron Work (1837-1924) of Elkhart, Indiana. This book is now downloadable from the Family History Library here.

* John Clarence Work's grandmother was Cynthia Hanley Larimer Work. See the family connection?!

Genealogy by the States: The Bentley California Land Rush!

William Tyler Bentley, hubby's 3rd great-grandpa, seemed to be drawn west throughout his life. Born in New York in 1795, he moved his family to what became Elkhart county, Indiana, in 1835. Though they were early settlers, most of the family didn't put down permanent roots in Indiana.

Tulare County, CA

During the 1850s, William and his grown children* (except two of his married daughters, Lucy E. Bentley Larimer and Lucinda H. Bentley Shank) moved to California in search of fertile farm and ranching land. Remember that California only became a state in 1850, and Visalia was the county seat of Tulare in the early days. By 1858, Visalia was being served by the overland stage coach from St. Louis to San Francisco. The Bentleys were part of this exciting time in California history!

The 1867 voters' records of Visalia (Tulare county) list William Tyler Bentley as a farmer. His son Elisha Morgan Bentley (married to Charlotte Raymond) was raising livestock on 320 acres in Visalia (according to the 1870 non-population Census).

William's daughter Elizabeth E. Bentley Light and her husband Emanuel were farmers in Tulare county. Another daughter, Abbie Eliza Bentley Curtis and her blacksmith husband, Leonard Curtis, lived in Santa Cruz, CA.

William's obit from the Visalia Times Delta of April 3, 1873 reads: "Died on South Tule River, March 29, 1873, Wm. T. Bentley, aged 77 yrs, 7 months, father of E.M. Bentley, of this place."

To learn more about the Bentleys' lives in California, I'm sending for the obits of Elisha Morgan Bentley and his wife, Charlotte (see below, right). *According to Lucinda H. Bentley Shank's obit, Wm Tyler Bentley left for California in 1848 and five of his seven children followed to California in 1851.

Special note to "Cousin Elizabeth"--please get in touch again re William A. Bradford.

---

Genealogy by the States was started by Jim Sanders of Hidden Genealogy Nuggets.

Tombstone Tuesday: John Larimer and Rachel Smith of Wabash, IN

John Larimer (1794-1843) was born in Mifflin, PA and moved west with his family to Ohio. He met and married Rachel Smith (1799-1838) in Fairfield county, OH in 1818. By the mid-1830s, they had moved further west to become pioneers in Wabash, Indiana.

Rachel Smith Larimer, 1799-1838

John bought land there in 1836, alongside property owned by his brother Moses Larimer (1804-1857).

John Larimer, 1794-1843

When Rachel died at 38, he had her buried in Eldridge Cemetery. Two years later, he remarried to Nancy Orr, in Fairfield county, OH, and brought her back to Wabash, along with her three children.

In 1843, John died from "an infection of his throat caused by a deer bone splinter which lodged there," and is buried in Eldridge Cemetery, Millersburg, IN.

John's father Isaac Larimer served in the War of 1812, part of Capt. George Sanderson's Company from Fairfield, OH. Others in the Larimer family and related families also served in the same company, including: Robert and James Larimer (John's brothers) and Samuel Work (part of the family that John's sister Cynthia Hanley Larimer married into).

Surname Saturday: Bentley and Morgan, from New York

One mystery was solved today when the mail brought death file info for Lucinda H. Bentley Shank, my Tombstone Tuesday for this week.

Lucinda's younger sister, Lucy E. Bentley Larimer, is hubby's great-great-grandma. 

This death document confirms that Lucinda's parents were William T. Bentley of New York and Olivia Morgan Bentley of New York. Lucy's document says her mother was "Oliver" [sic] Morgan.

I'm so glad I didn't accept the name shown on family trees contributed by Ancestry users, who said "S.L. Hixon" was Lucy and Lucinda's mother. As if I needed another reason to look at the documentation for myself, this case shows how important it is to DIG DEEPER before coming to a conclusion! 

Tombstone Tuesday: Lucinda H. Bentley Shank

Gone but not forgotten is the inscription on the tombstone of Lucinda H. Bentley Shank and her husband, Jonas C. Shank. They're buried in Eldridge Cemetery, Elkhart county, Indiana.

Lucinda is hubby's 2d great-grand aunt, the older sister of Lucy E. Bentley, who married great-great granddad Brice S. Larimer.

Just three weeks ago, my query posted on Ancestry's Bentley message board put me in contact with a Bentley researcher who had traced more of the Bentley children, finding Lucinda and Lucy in Elkhart county and learning that the rest of their siblings had journeyed to California in search of fertile farmland and a bit of pioneering adventure.

At his suggestion, I sent for Lucinda's death record. Meanwhile, I also contacted the wonderfully knowledgeable and helpful folks at the Elkhart County Genealogical Society, who sent me the above photo (along with at least a dozen other photos of Larimer family tombstones from Elkhart County). 

According to Lucy Bentley Larimer's death doc, William Tyler Bentley and Oliver [sic] Morgan are her parents. Now we want to confirm by reading the names on Lucinda's death cert.

Ancestor Landing Pages: Views But No Connections Yet

As you can see from this chart, my ancestor landing pages are being viewed. The bottom two pages were posted just a few weeks ago, so the low page views are no surprise.

I started using ancestor landing pages back in January, after reading a post by Caroline Pointer. 

The Birk and Mahler pages were among the earliest posted, so it makes sense that they're the most viewed. Even though the pages have not yet brought me new genealogical connections...I still have hope they'll lead to breakthroughs!

2022 update: I added an ancestor landing page for McClure, Donegal--and it's now the most viewed by far. 

Tuesday's Tip: The Ten-Minute Genealogist

I'm busy, you're busy, we're all busy. But we really can get things done bit by bit.

Here's what I learned I can accomplish in just 10 minutes:

• Write and post a message to a surname message board. Above, the message I posted on Friday about a long-standing brick wall ancestor named William Tyler Bentley, hubby's 3d great-grandpa. He almost certainly married Olive Morgan, but it would be nice to have documentation. Less than 24 hours later, a Bentley descendant contacted me! Now we're working together to trace this elusive guy's family. William Tyler Bentley was the father of Lucy E. Bentley, who married Brice S. Larimer. And thanks to the Elkhart County Genealogical Society, I now have much more info about the Larimers (plus a tantalizing lead on Mr. Bentley).
• Click to follow a hint or two on an Ancestry tree. There are still dozens of unexamined hints on the trees I've posted on Ancestry. When I have a spare minute, I log on and check a few out. Most I click to "ignore" but some are very promising. OK, it's easy to get carried away: Today I was checking the hints on the mother-in-law of the uncle of the wife of a cousin, once removed. Had to stop myself from clicking on those!
• Blog as cousin bait. I want to make it easy for cousins to find me. The more I blog, the higher the possibility that one of my posts will show up in a search done by someone who's related or knows about my family in some way. It works: One of my 2d cousins found me a few years ago via this blog (hi, Lois!) and another 2d cousin found me via my Ancestry tree just weeks ago (hi, Philly Cuz!).
• Google a particular ancestor. I'm always finding new things that weren't online or weren't digitized just a year or two ago. It really pays to go through my ancestor list one by one and check out the top "web" results, "image" results, and "news" results, not to mention Google Books and HeritageQuest. In 10 minutes, I can do a quick search on one ancestor. 
• Read other genealogy blogs. I follow about 60-odd geneablogs, and try to read at least a few every day. You all are having lots of genea-adventures and have taught me so many good tips about family history research! Thank you.

FGS Conference Quest: In Search of Steiners and Rineharts

This is my quest, to follow that star as far as Fort Wayne, Indiana and beyond!

Hubby's ancestors, the Steiner family and the Rinehart family, lived in Ohio and Indiana, so by attending the FGS Conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana, we're following that star into the 18th century. Our quest: To break down Steiner and Rinehart brick walls by determining where in the Old World they were originally from and locate their arrival time/place in the New World.

Our research plan includes:

• A visit to Crawford County, OH to locate birth/death/land/probate records for Elizabeth Steiner (maiden name UNK), who died in November, 1864; Jacob S. Steiner, who died before 1860 (he was in the 1850 Census); and Margaret Rinehart, who died in June, 1873. Maybe we'll get lucky and find parents' names? Fingers crossed...
• A visit to Wyandot County, OH to see the homes where the Steiner sisters (Etta, Minnie, Carrie, and Floyda) and their spouses lived and where hubby visited them during school vacations. Of course we'll look for land/probate records and pay our respects at Old Mission Cemetery in Upper Sandusky, where some Steiners are buried.
• A visit to Wabash, IN to do research into the McClure and Larimer families who were early settlers in this area. Cemetery visits are a must, in addition to hunting for vital records and newspaper reports.
• Attendance at FGS sessions that pertain to our quest, including "Beginning Swiss Research" (in case the Steiners or Rineharts are actually Swiss, as family legend suggests); "Buckeye Beginnings" (for those Crawford Cty folks); and "First Steps in Indiana Research" (to get a good overview of resources and repositories).
• Rooting around at the Allen County Public Library for family roots (still coming up with a plan for tackling this almost overwhelming place!). This is our first visit, but hopefully not our last.

And I'm looking forward to meeting genealogy folks from all over the country at the meeting. See you there!

2022 Update: The Genealogy Center at Allen County had a key book about the McClure family that enabled us to fill out the branches of that line (I bought a personal copy for reference). Also we received many newspaper clippings from the Wabash archivist. A special part of this trip was visiting the Old Mission Cemetery in Wyandot County, where we wandered among family headstones while photographing for Find a Grave and family trees.