52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 5 - In the Census

This week's 52 Ancestors prompt  is "In the Census." What intriguing find have you made in a census? What has a series of census records shown you? Do you have an ancestor who constantly ages only 7 years between censuses? 

The census is usually the first set of records I use when starting research on a surname. Sometimes I easily find a wealth of information on a family and other times it can be confounding due to incorrect information and spellings that aren't even close! Following are a few of my favorite census records. For a complete list of my posts involving the census, you can check out my census link under the Labels on the right side of the blog page.

The most intriguing find I've made in the census was when I found an entry for a Timothy Creeden in the US 1860 census for Clinton County, Ohio.

1860 Census for Patrick Creedan family in Clinton County, Ohio

My family thought our Timothy Creeden was the first in his line to come to America and we assumed he came over as an adult. I knew Timothy was in Clinton County, Ohio by sometime in the 1860s since he was married there in 1868. This census entry raised the possibility that he came over much earlier than we thought and that he had other family members in Ohio. The only problem was his age was wrong and this entry said he was born in Ohio! Every other source I had said Timothy was born in 1846 in Ireland.

I took a look at the same family in the 1870 census and found that Joanette/Joannah was now said to be born in 1851 instead of 1846. Could the census taker have switched the ages for Timothy and Joanette in 1860? Timothy isn't shown in this 1870 entry since he was now married and running his own farm nearby. After much more research, I was able to determine that this was Timothy's family. Several years later I finally found an obituary for Timothy and it confirmed he came over with his sister Julia when he was only 3 years old. The census entries were key in making the connection, although the incorrect information threw me off for a long time.

1870 Census for Patrick Creden family in Clinton County, Ohio

I've found it useful to look at a series of census entries for a given surname in a county. I've found many connections between individual families that way. Sometimes you can recognize a pattern like the same first names being used in different families. A couple of examples of series by county are my posts for Matson Families in Hopewell Township, Mercer County, Ohio and Coakley Families in Clinton County, Ohio.

One of my favorite census entries shows several of my family names in the 1850 census for Queen Anne's County, Maryland. Members of the Godwin, Sparks, Meredith, and Davis families are living in one household. An intriguing thing in this entry is Samuel Godwin's occupation as a sailor. So far, I haven't been able to find any information about his job as a sailor.

1850 Census for Queen Anne's County, MD

The 1880 Agricultural census might not give you new information on family names, but it totally changed my impression of Timothy Creeden's farm. I'd pictured one crop like wheat or corn like the farms I'd seen when traveling through the mid-west.  It turns out Timothy and his wife Mary had a lot going on on their 42 acres! They sold butter, eggs, and livestock in addition to having crops of corn, oats, wheat, apples and even half an acre of Irish potatoes.

Timothy Creeden in the 1880 Agricultural census for Clinton County, OH

When the 1940 census came out, I looked up both of my parents and found that my dad managed to get included in two entries! He was raised by his grandparents Charles and Anna Creeden, but was also listed in the entry for his father Robert Creeden. We'll never know for sure how that happened, but my guess is the census taker asked if they had any children and my dad's stepmother answered yes.

Robert Jr. with his grandparents in the 1940 Mercer County, OH census

Robert Jr. with his father and stepmother in the 1940 Mercer County, OH census

#52Ancestors is a series of weekly family history prompts developed by Amy Johnson Crow.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 4 - Invite to Dinner

This week's 52 Ancestors prompt is "Invite to Dinner." Which ancestor would you most want to invite to dinner? Do you have a story of a memorable dinner with an ancestor? Is there a special recipe that's been handed down? 

I remembered doing a similar prompt back in 2011 for the Fearless Females series, so I took a look back to see what I said then: "While we're fantasizing, the special guest of honor would be my gg-grandfather's mother from Ireland so that she could tell us where she comes from, her and her husband's names and if Timothy had any siblings!"

I still think my 3x great-grandmother would be an interesting dinner guest since I know so little about her and her family. She's not the complete mystery that she was in 2011 though. I know now that she was Mary Coakley and she was married to my 3x great-grandfather Patrick Creedan. She had at least three children with Patrick: Julia, born in 1842, my 2x great-grandfather Timothy, born in 1846, and Hanora, born in 1848.

From Timothy's obituary, Mary died when Timothy was only 3 years old, so sometime between March 1849 and March 1850. Patrick had already come to Ohio and was working on a farm. He sent for Timothy and Julia, but there was no mention of Hanora.

Julia and Hanora were both baptized in Clondrohid, County Cork, Ireland and their address was given as Carrigapooka. So, I can answer most of the questions from my 2011 post, but now of course I'd like the same questions answered for Mary and Patrick!

#52Ancestors is a series of weekly family history prompts developed by Amy Johnson Crow.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 3 - Longevity

Before deciding on what to write for this prompt, I took a look at the ages at death of the ancestors in my family tree. There were a couple of people that lived to be over 100, but they were related through marriage and not in my direct lines. There were also a lot of people that I don't have birth or death dates for, so I still have some research to do there.

As I looked at the people that lived into their 90s, I noticed that a lot of them were descendants of my Hagedorn family. The Hagedorns were born in Germany and came to the US in 1834. Hermann Hagedorn was born on February 13, 1778 and died in Mercer County, Ohio on October 1, 1877 at the age of 93. Hermann's wife C. Maria Elizabeth Tebben was born in 1786 in Hannover, Germany and died on October 1, 1877, in Mercer County, Ohio, at the age of 91. That's amazing to think that a couple born in the 1700s both lived into their 90s!

The graphic below shows my direct line from the Hagedorn family and their ages at death.

Hermann and Elizabeth had two sons and three daughters between 1813 and 1825, so the children were born in Germany too. Their daughter Mary Katherine Hagedorn Gast was my 3x great-grandmother. She was born on May 7, 1823 and died on Nov 11, 1915 in Maria Stein, Mercer County, Ohio at the age of 92. Five children survived her, including my 2x great-grandfather, John Henry Gast. An interesting note from her obituary is that she lived to see the golden wedding anniversary of her daughter Mrs. Henry Schaefer.

John Henry Gast was born on October 28, 1849 and married Catherine M. Desch on April 23, 1872. They had nine children in 19 years, including my great-grandmother Mary Catherine Gast. John died on April 26, 1934, in Celina, Ohio, at the age of 84.

My great-grandmother Mary Catherine Gast was born on March 8, 1875. She married George Francis Pulskamp on August 18, 1899, in Mercer County, Ohio. They had eight children in 17 years, including my grandmother Anna Lee Pulskamp. Mary died on December 7, 1967, in Celina, Ohio, at the age of 92.

My grandmother Anna Lee Pulskamp and her twin sister Emma Lee Pulskamp were born on June 11, 1910, in Celina, Ohio. Sadly, Anna Lee died a few days after childbirth in 1934 and only lived to be 24 years old. Emma Lee died on March 15, 2001, in Celina, Ohio, at the age of 90. Their brother Andreas lived to be 91 and their sister Marie Catherine lived to be 95, so there was a lot of longevity in their family. I'm hoping some of it was passed down to my generation!

#52Ancestors is a series of weekly family history prompts developed by Amy Johnson Crow.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 2 - Favorite Photo

This is a photo of my Dad taking me on one of my first hikes in the Smoky Mountains. My Mom took the photo sometime in the early 1960s and I'm guessing it was a nice summer day from the short sleeves and green trees. We lived in Knoxville, TN for a few years and the Smokies have been a favorite vacation spot for our family ever since.

A faded version of this photo sat on my Dad's desk for as long as I can remember. We had our Dad's large slide collection digitized a few years ago and I was pleasantly surprised to find this one in the collection.

#52Ancestors is a series of weekly family history prompts developed by Amy Johnson Crow.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 1 - Start

This is my first post for the 2018 edition of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks and the prompt for this week is simply "Start". Each week I'll be sharing a bit about an ancestor based on the weekly prompt from Amy Johnson Crow.

"Start" makes me think of how I got my start in genealogy. I remember doing a homework assignment in the ninth grade to draw a family tree chart for one of my ancestors. My parents didn't know too much about any of our ancestors' origins, but we knew that my 2x great-grandfather Timothy Creeden had come from County Cork. When I say we knew this, there was no proof, but just the family legend passed down from my great-grandfather Charles Creeden. I wish I had still had that homework assignment, but I'm guessing it looked a bit like this chart my Dad drew for me around 1999. Full details on my Dad's initial guesses on our Creeden family are here: Initial Creeden Chart.

With this start from my Dad, I was able to quickly find more information about Timothy's family and add a lot of descendants to the chart. Finding information about Timothy's parents and siblings took much longer. A census record that had the wrong birthplace and date of birth for Timothy threw me off the track for years.

I was finally able to connect Timothy to his family through his father Patrick Creedan's will, court records in Clinton County and Mercer County, Ohio, and his sister Julia's service as a nun in the Sisters of Charity. Julia's death certificate gave her parents' names as Patrick Creedon and Mary Coakley and her baptism record gave the location as Clondrohid, County Cork, Ireland.

When I finally found Timothy's obituary, it helped confirm I had the right family and provided details on his immigration through New Orleans. He was only three when he came over, so no wonder we didn't know too much!

I recently posted my latest Creeden tree here: Creeden tree. There are still some mysteries, but I've come a long way since that ninth grade homework assignment!

#52Ancestors is a series of weekly family history prompts developed by Amy Johnson Crow.