The Olmsteads - Friday's Feature

One of my dilemmas is whether my great grandmother Jennie Emily Olmstead Wright's maiden name was Olmstead or Olmsted. Many genealogists will tell you it doesn't really matter. I recently came upon a genealogy and history of the Olmstead name. Of course, it listed dozens of variations, but the authors decided to use the spelling of Olmsted. However, in my poking around, running down rabbit trails, working in majorly inefficient ways, I found a photo on Find a Grave of whom I believe to be my second great grandparents, Nathan and Anna Olmstead. This photo answers the question for me. I will be using the Olmstead spelling from now on.

In my post about my great-great grandparents, I mentioned that the families of my great grandmothers, Jennie Olmstead Wright and

Laura Hamilton Grisso,  are the two maternal lines  about whom I have the least information. This inquiry into the Olmstead line has turned up more than I anticipated. I don't think GGrandma Laura's will be as complete.

 

If my research is correct and I think it is... G Grandma Jennie was the oldest child of Nathan and Anna Mae Groat Olmstead. She had been born in Schenevus, Otsego County, New York on November 26, 1861. ( I was married on the same day only 105 years later).  In the 1880 census, when Jennie was 18, the family had moved to DeKalb County in Illinois. They must have arrived only a couple of years before the census because the youngest child, Mary, is listed as two years old yet born in New York where all the other children were born.

 

As mentioned in the post Sac County, Iowa, Charles and Jennie settled in Sac County around 1883 about a year after they were married. I was surprised to find Nathan and Anna Olmstead in the 1885 census also living in Sac County. Sometime between 1880 and 1885, they all moved to Iowa from Illinois. Did they move at the same time or several years apart?

 

Further research shows the parents of Nathan W. Olmstead to be Roswell (1805-1889) and Lucy Merrill Olmstead.  I am gathering Olmstead research into Roswell's roots and a little on his other children, but will leave this line for a bit to focus on other lines connected to my dad.

 

Eight Generation Review

 

Roswell/Nathan/Jennie/Albert/Vern/Me/My kids/My grandkids.