Pedigree Alternative

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fan chart below has the same information as does the pedigree chart which is included in the post Off a Little. This chart is in a different format which might be easier to understand for some readers.

 

This is to help follow the lines as I discuss the Olmsteads, DeHarts, and Wrights.

 

The large spaces have been used to shift the chart towards the bottom of the page where it can be enlarged without too much interference from the right side of the screen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 





Off a little

Does anyone notice when I fall off my regular schedule of posting on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. One week it was Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, or so I thought. Upon further review I discovered it was Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday. Did anyone notice? I doubt it. It really shouldn't matter, but I feel like I missed an assignment. I suppose it is the old teacher in me.  I think I might be off my schedule for awhile but still posting three times per week. I just thought I should warn my regular readers. 

My time is being taken up with rabbit trails down holes that contain information on the Olmstead family and the DeHart family.  Nathan and Anna DeHart had a daughter named Jennie who married Charles Howard Wright. Jennie and Charles are my great-grandparents.  I recently read an article or heard a speaker mention that just because one's great-grandparents are no longer living doesn't mean they aren't still your great-grandparents. Thus, the present tense is accurate.

I am also in the midst of discovering more about great-grandma Jennie's parents and ancestors. This has been one of my goals for a long time. I think a lot of this information has been out there. I just had to discover it. The Olmsteads promise to be an interesting family.

Jennie and Charles had a son named Albert, who is my paternal grandfather. He married Miss Nina Frances Borden. Her parents were Emma Susan DeHart Borden and William Borden.

The DeHarts lived in Lake City, Iowa and the Olmsteads and Wrights lived in Sac City, Iowa just up the road.  I wish to concentrate on these families for awhile. These are the ancestors of my father on both his mother and his father's side of the family.

I am disappointed with how this pedigree chart looks. I will be working on another way to present it. I hope it will help in clarifying whom I will be talking.

Those Collaterals (siblings, etc. of direct line)

My whole purpose with writing this blog is to record and share with my cousins what I know about our family's ancestors. It is a way of organizing the papers, pictures, pedigree charts, and assorted slips of paper that came from my mother, the saver of everything. And in the case of genealogy, how glad I am that she did.

Growing up where my mother's family had lived for generations, I was very familiar with my maternal collaterals. My great grandmother's brother and sister-in-law lived close by. Their daughter, my first cousin twice removed, is the source of much of the Vorhies genealogy.

I thought I knew about my dad's side. He was born in Lake City where my great grandmother Emma Borden lived when I was young. She had a couple of sisters, Great Great Aunt Mae and Great Great Aunt Alice. They were the children of George J. DeHart. He seemed to be quite a prominent member of that community. He left Iowa and moved to Texas with his second wife and daughter ( GGrandma Emma Susan DeHart Borden's  half sister). I have written about George Jackson DeHart and found his grave in Dalhart, Texas a year or two ago. There is quite a lot of research already done on the DeHart side. The needed information for membership in Daughter's of the American Revolution traces back to Abraham DeHart. This is not new information.

So where am I going with this, you might ask. I mentioned in my Easter 2016 that I had recently received (on loan) some of my aunt's genealogy papers. I am just starting to look at them. The very first paper I read is a photocopy of the obituary of William Calahill  DeHart. I have come across that name when doing DeHart research but I would need to do a little more to confirm what I think. I think he is George Jackson DeHart's brother. And he lived in Lake City.
 
Who Knew? More collaterals in Lake City to explore.

The same thing has happened on Dad's side. I have mentioned in  Cousins  I knew very little about the origins of my Great Grandmother, Jennie Emily Olmstead Wright. After some late night obsessive explorations, I have found her parents. I learned that they along with Jennie's younger siblings  moved from Illinois to Sac City, Iowa.  This was about the time Jennie and her new husband, Charles Howard Wright, settled in that same community.

Who knew?

I am still amazed at the geographical closeness of these collaterals. Lake City and Sac City, both, had more ancestors and collaterals than I realized.

Thanks to my Aunt Bonnie, I now have more information on the DeHarts, the Wrights, and the Olmsteads.

My Aunt Bonnie and me.
She is so pretty, and I have a stupid curl on top of my head.

I imagine the  furtherest thing from her mind was that I would be picking up her genealogy research about 65+ years after this photo was taken.