Tuesday, January 28, 2025

A Castle, A Clan, and A Connection

Jim and Lynn at Urquhart Castle c. 1989

Sometimes a place calls us to it and we don’t learn for decades later why! 

For me, the place is Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness, close to Inverness Scotland. In 1988-89, my boyfriend (now husband), Jim and I studied our junior year abroad at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. In addition to our travels to Europe during winter break and around the UK during spring recess, we took day trips and long weekends organized by the exchange program. At least twice that year, we visited Urquhart Castle. I’m sure that the infamous Loch Ness was one reason, but a love of castles was another. 


The Castle






Urquhart Castle, like most castles in the UK, has a long and storied past. For those interested, please visit the official historic website. There are many beautiful photographs of the location, far better than my (over) 35 year old digitized photos can provide!

 


Sometime after we were married, we happened upon a vintage image of what we thought was Urquhart Castle. I think we found it on our trip back to Scotland in 1999. We didn’t get that far north on that trip to Scotland but we must have picked it up on our travels. We liked it enough to have it framed and it has been hanging prominently in our house on a kitchen wall for decades. In researching for this blog, I learned that the image is actually a copy of a vintage engraving from 1895 printed in a book called Souvenir of Scotland: Its Cities, Lakes, and Mountains One Hundred and Twenty Chomo Views. Who knew?!



The Clan


There was also a clan named Urquhart who resided in the region. Both Urquhart Castle and the Clan Urquart were named for the Celtic word “Airchart”, which is a region now called Cromarty, just about 25 miles north of Inverness. The research that I read suggests that the Clan Urquart was not affiliated with Urquhart Castle, they were both just named after Airchart. So maybe it was more of a draw to the area and not really the castle?


The Connection


About 10 years ago as I was investigating my great-grandmother (Cora Viola Orcutt–the one whose Irises I have in my yard), I learned that the name Orcutt is a version of Urquhart that shows up in America. My great-aunt, Helen Tubbs Judson (my genealogy angel), researched the Orcutt Family and identified who she thought was the immigrant. That was William Orcutt (1618-1693) and his wife Mary Lane (1646-1693). There is some question about Mary, as it seems he might have had more than one wife and possibly more than one wife named Mary. There is documentation, though, that they had a son named William in 1664 in Bridgewater, Plymouth, Massachusetts, where William died. William Orcutt was born in Fillongley, North Warwickshire Borough, Warwickshire, England. In some information I found, it appears that there were Orcutt’s who migrated to England before heading to the “new world”.


Why now?


Why did I have a renewed interest in Urquhart Castle and the Clan Urquhart? Well, as I was investigating lineage societies recently, I came across Clan Urquhart Association, a lineage society open to anyone who can trace their name back to an Urquhart, Orcutt (as well as Cromartie and Cromarty)! The one-time fee of $20 would get me a membership card, two newsletters a year, and invitations to international gatherings of the Clan. The organization was established in 1976 to help promote awareness and preserve the history and heritage of the Clan. There is still also a Chief of the Clan. I haven’t decided if I am going to try to join, but I may invest in some article of clothing with the Clan’s tartan, which I find quite appealing! And just maybe I will wear it sometime when I’m back in Scotland and visit my family’s long ago homeland near Urquhart Castle?



Sunday, January 12, 2025

A Photo to Remember


What a great photo, right?!!

This photo was among my grandmother’s (Elizabeth Anna Leach Tubbs) photo collections. I’ve seen it on numerous occasions and although it is marked with “Tyler Family” in my grandmother’s handwriting on the back, that’s all I knew about it!

I had no idea if these people were related to my grandmother (thus me) or if it was just some random family.

I decided to colorize it using MyHeritage to see what it might have looked like in color.

Since I do love a challenge, I thought I would try to figure out who these children might be. I made some assumptions to get me started:

  1. The surname of the 4 children was Tyler

  2. The fashion of the children appear to be the 1920’s

  3. My grandmother lived in Ypsilanti, Michigan in the late 1920’s


It actually didn’t take me that long to find a Tyler Family living in Ypsilanti in 1930. In the 1930 Census, a family of 6 were living at 215 Cross Street. Parents were Lewis H. and Linda C. Tyler. The four children were Janet L (18), Mary E (15), John F (13), and Virginia P (9). The ages and gender of the children seem to fit. In the 1920 Census, the family of 5 (Virginia wasn’t born yet) were living at the same location. Janet was about the same age as my Uncle Clay and Mary was the same age as my grandmother. My great-grandmother was an elementary school teacher in Ypsilanti, so it is also possible that she was one of these youngster’s teacher.


When I showed my husband, he said it is possible that this is the same family, but he wouldn’t definitively agree with me. Maybe the photo Tyler family didn’t live in Ypsilanti? So on to looking for more evidence.


As I was starting to investigate the children, I started with Mary Elizabeth Tyler who was about my grandmother’s age. I found that she married Jack Robinson Donohoe at age 21, in 1936 in Steuben, Indiana. My grandparents also were married in Steuben in 1935…it appears that was the place to go to elope during the 1930s. (I later found that her sister, Janet L, also was married in 1935 in Steuben, Indiana.) Jack was from a farming family in Caro, Michigan, so they moved there and he farmed. She lived until age 91 and he until 85 and had no children and I could find no photos of her.


I then turned my attention to Janet Louise Tyler and that’s where I hit pay dirt! In 1932, there was a Janet Louise Tyler was attending Michigan State Normal College (now Eastern Michigan University) from Ypsilanti and majoring in Fine Arts and part of the Normal Art Club. Here’s her photo (clearly she found a way to tame her hair). And I enlarged the original photo and I was pretty certain at that this was the same person. Interestingly, my uncle Clay was in the same year, so probably they knew each other from high school, although he studied history and mathematics.


Janet married Cornelius James Fox in Steuben in 1935 after they had both graduated from Michigan State Normal College, he studied mathematics and science and was the year behind Clay and Janet, which happened to be in the same year as Clay’s future wife, Vivian Lantz. Vivian was also part of the Normal Art Club in 1933 but Janet was graduated by then. Both women became teachers, although Vivian became full time at home when the children came along. 


An interesting fact is that in 1950, both couples were living in Nueces County, Texas about 38 miles from one another! I have no idea if they knew that at the time, but a very interesting coincidence. Janet continued to teach and contributed to Art Education in profound ways, including authoring a three-volume series Modular Art Education, teaching in the Art Education department at University of Houston, honored by the art education community as Texas Art Educator of the Year and inducted as a Distinguished Fellow of the TAEA (Texas Art Education Association). After retiring she co-founded CityArtWorks, a nonprofit children’s art program in Houston. Quite a remarkable person! She lived to be 99.

Did you see what Janet is holding? A camera.
Clearly the budding artist.


I found photos for the other two siblings. It’s a little harder to be convinced that they are the same people because they were younger in the photos, but I’m pretty convinced that these are in fact the same family. The three women all lived into their 90s and John lived to be 78. This is interesting to note because I came across a fascinating article in the Detroit Free Press on Feb. 14, 1915 in which a large photo of Janet (referred to as “baby doll”) as a young child announcing the birth of her sister, but also advertising that she has all 4 grandparents alive and 7 of her 8 GREAT-grandparents still alive–something not many people could have (or still now) boast to have. Clearly they had long-living genes.


This doesn’t answer why my grandmother had a photo of the Tyler children, but there must have been something special between the Leach’s and the Tyler’s! 


Or maybe you still have doubts that I identified the right people…and these are just some other Tyler’s in a completely different state…where there is snow…?














Thursday, January 9, 2025

The Beauty of Community

Pardoning Board of the State of Michigan
under Gov. Geo. Bliss, c. 1903

 I love being a family historian because I love mysteries and uncovering new truths. I also enjoy being a part of a community helping one another in their own searches. In genealogy, we are taught to document and cite and compelled to do so (see Elizabeth Shown Mills book Evidence Explained or the Genealogy Standards).

It is good practice for one's own research–it’s a heck of a lot easier than having to go back years later and try to recreate how you know something is true or where an original photo might live–and you can’t help out the community if you don’t do it. When working with others, I keep excellent track but with my own family I do a so-so job and every January I find myself listing “Document and cite everything” among my New Year’s Resolutions so do better. Sometimes, just sometimes though, I do do it right.

Lansing State Journal
10 Jul 1903

In 2012, I shared the group photo of my husband’s great-great-grandfather Russel Ralph Pealer (1842-1919) with other board members (he’s 2nd from the right) on my Ancestry.com family tree and included (unbelievably!) in the notes section what was written on the back, “R. Holzhey, Photographer, Marquette, MI. Taken when on pardoning board under Geo.(sic) Bliss”. Russel was born in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, actually not too far from where we live now. Russel was a member of the 16th Pennsylvania Cavalry, known as “Gregg’s Cavalry” during the Civil War. After the war, he continued his study of the law and was admitted to the bar in Pennsylvania in 1867 and later that year to the bar in Michigan. He moved with his wife to Three Rivers, Michigan where he practiced law, became a Circuit Judge, and eventually served on the Pardoning Board for the State of Michigan. This photo was taken between 1901-1903, while he was serving on the board. 


R.R. Pealer c. 1865
Fast forward 8 years to August of 2020, I was contacted by two historians from the Netherlands and asked if I owned the original photograph. (Thanks to Jim’s Aunt AnnaMarie Breyfogle Austin, we inherited this among MANY wonderful photos of RR Pealer most dutifully identified by Jim’s grandmother Bertha DeBoer Breyfogle) The Dutch historians had found the photo while researching in Ancestry.com and they were interested not in any of the people in the photo but rather the photographer! They were writing a book about the photographer, Reimund Holzhey, who had quite an interesting life after immigrating to the United States from the Netherlands. Reimund, for unknown reasons, resorted to robbing stagecoach and train passengers in northern Michigan and Wisconsin during the late 1880s. During one such event in the summer of 1889, he shot a man (Adolph G. Fleischbein) who died the next day. A massive manhunt was created and he was eventually caught in Republic, Michigan in the fall of 1889. He was sentenced to life in prison and sent to Marquette prison in the Upper Peninsula. 


He was a difficult prisoner until 1893 when he underwent surgeries related to a childhood brain injury and was completely transformed as a result. He became a model prisoner in Marquette and developed a passion for reading and photography!  The rest is history, as they say, and although I can’t read the book they produced and I own a copy (it’s written in Dutch), I can appreciate that I have helped to contribute to the story and the book. The authors have told me that the book was nominated for the most important history prize in the Netherlands and they are pleased with its reception. They are currently looking for a publisher in the US, so someday it might be printed in a version that I can read! (Most of the information for this blog about Reiumund Holzhey was found in an article  called “The Last Stagecoach Robber in Michigan” on Michiganology.com that was adapted from one that appeared in the Summer/Fall 2018 issue of Trace, the Archives of Michigan magazine.**)


Who would have ever dreamt that a photo of my husband’s great-great-grandfather, Russel Ralph Pealer (1842-1918) would find its way into a Dutch book in 2021?! It’s a beautiful story of the wonders of the internet, a culture of sharing, and the beauty of community. 




**In case you were interested, Reimund’s sentence was commuted by Governor Fred Warner on the advice of the warden, James Russell, in 1910. He was discharged in 1913 and lived and worked as a photographer wherever he found tourists, like Yellowstone and Captiva Island until 1952!





Thursday, November 28, 2024

Thankfully Celebrating My Grandmother's 110th Birthday

Today is Thanksgiving, November 28, 2024 and it would have also been the 110th birthday of my grandmother, Elizabeth Anna Leach Tubbs. A woman I am so very thankful was a part of the first 30 years of my life! So today’s blog is dedicated to her.


Early Life

Clay, Florence, and Elizabeth

Elizabeth Anna Leach was born on November 28, 1914, in Hancock, Michigan, the third and youngest child of Edward James Leach and Florence Mary Stoddard. Her mother always called her Elizabeth, but I heard most people call her Betty or “Tibby”, but the second nickname comes after meeting my grandfather.  Betty faced the early loss of her father at just five years old. Despite this hardship, she grew up with a strong spirit, spending her formative years in Michigan, particularly in Reed City with her mother, brother, and grandparents while her mother secured her teaching certificate and then later in Ypsilanti when her mother found an elementary school teaching position. Her early life set the foundation for her unyielding perseverance and adaptability.

Betty’s mother never remarried and I think was an incredible model of female independence and fortitude for her. Although my grandmother was married for nearly 60 years when my grandfather died, she was an independent woman and raised her daughter (my mother), and taught my sister and I to be independent, developing our own careers so that we could live without a spouse. “Mary Lynn”, she would say, “you never want to be dependent on a man!”

1937 Wedding
In 1935, Betty and Walter Elliot Tubbs (called “Tubby” by friends) eloped and two years later in 1937 they had a beautiful wedding that made her mother happy. (I wrote about that in The
Amazing Power of Newspaper: Part 3). I don’t know if this is true for my grandparents, but my Uncle Clay (Betty’s brother) and Aunt Vivian also eloped in the 1930’s and they always said it was because during the deep depression married women were not allowed to hold a teaching position, so they eloped and lived apart for a while.

It’s only speculation, but I believe that my grandparents met at Michigan Normal School (now Eastern Michigan University). Betty’s older brother, Clay, was also at Michigan Normal School and I believe knew Tubby first. The story of how Betty and Tubby met is forever lost, along with exactly why they chose to elope, and who Betty was originally engaged to before meeting my grandfather! We only know that she broke off her engagement!

Early Married Life

Tubby’s father and older brother (11 years older!) served in World War 1 (actually in the same unit!) and his brother made a career of the military, so it was not surprising that Tubby would too. He started in the National Guard and did two terms before joining the Army. By 1941 he was promoted to Lieutenant and stationed in Louisiana, which is where my mother Mary Anne Tubbs was born in December 1941. She is the only child of Betty and Tubby and although more would have been welcomed, it was not to be. 

Source: Collection of the Henry Ford

During the war years, Betty and little Mary Anne were back in Michigan, where Betty could work and live close to her mother and in-laws. I have been told (but I haven’t yet been able to confirm it) that Betty worked at the Ford Motor Company Willow Run Bomber Plant in Ypsilanti during these years. Some sources say that 12,000 women were hired and they were paid the same rate as men ($0.85/hr) in one of two nine hour shifts a day. This is the plant that prompted the Rosie the Riveter campaign. At their peak production they were making a B-24 every HOUR! (sources: Willow Run | Detroit Historical Society and How Ford's Willow Run Assembly Plant Helped Win World War II | 2019-01-03

If this was true, I know it would have been at least her 2nd foray into factory line work. She told me the story that when she was younger (I’m assuming teenage summer work), that she lived with her grandparents in Reed City and worked at a cherry canning plant. She described working on a line with a chute as cherries were hurtling past. The workers were supposed to pluck out the rotten or wormy cherries and place them along the edge. As a result of working there she NEVER EVER bought a can of cherry pie filling or any canned cherries because she KNEW how many rotten cherries went past her. For anyone who ever watched the I Love Lucy show, remember the iconic episode of Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory? Yeah, that’s what I imagined as my grandmother was telling me the story…except I’m sure she was not popping the cherries into her mouth!

Credits: Vachon, J., photographer. (1940) Untitled photo, possibly related to: Migrant girls working in cherry canning plant, Berrien County, Mich. United States Michigan Berrien County, 1940. [July] [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2017720609/.

Beside working and taking care of young Mary Anne and doting on her mother who was also working, she was the consummate hostess in various societies. Both she and her mother were members of the Ypsilanti DAR chapter and I have numerous newspaper articles identifying Betty as the hostess or meeting presider during the years immediately before the war and then again right after.

Middle Married Years

After WW2 ended, life changed dramatically for this young family. My grandfather was stationed first in Japan from 1946-1949, so the whole family moved and lived there with him. My grandfather was making the military a career and moving up the ranks. My grandmother became an Army Officer Wife and learned to live this part. My grandparents became known as Tubby and Tibby, my grandfather earning his name because he was always a little portly and my grandmother maintained a thinner figure. My mother tells me that this period in their life was pretty “cushy” with a maid and cook and my grandmother playing bridge and entertaining other officer wives. My parents entertained a lot as I was growing up and they were spectacular hosts! As I reflect back on it, I’m sure it was my grandmother’s influence and model for my mom. 

The two Tubbs brothers.

My grandmother, too, was an excellent hostess and having “everything just right” was important. For example, the ketchup (she called it “catsup”) bottle could never be put on the table, it must be served in a bowl with a spoon and there were always many condiments (for any meal) like pickles of various varieties and pickled beets. She had hors d’oeuvres every day before dinner which usually accompanied her 4pm Manhattan cocktail. I’m sure much of this was learned by her own mother who grew up in the Victorian Era whose family members’ names frequently graced the social columns of the newspaper, except that last bit…the Manhattan cocktail. Her mother, my great-grandmother, was a teetotaler and never had a drink in her life…except the one time when she and my grandmother were at a shower of some sort and she tried the punch and remarked to my grandmother how wonderful the punch was! My grandmother told me that she didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was spiked with alcohol. But I digress.

Betty and Tubby returned stateside for a few years before going overseas to West Germany from 1952-1955. This was less ”cushy” but still did allow for some European travel and weekend trips. Once they returned stateside in 1955, the family stayed, although my grandfather was stationed in Iceland and while abroad missed many of my mother’s high school milestones, including her graduation. My grandmother, much like her own mother, was the glue that kept things together and took on a job along with taking care of her daughter and doted on her now retired mother. She was now an accountant at Eastern Michigan University.

It is because of my grandmother that we spend our summers at my happy place! Because of her work, she knew the Rynearson family who owned a cottage on Sand Lake. In the early 1960s, the Rynearson's wanted to sell and my grandparents bought the first cottage our family owned! I am so very thankful to my grandmother for encouraging them to seize the opportunity and the foresight to keep it in the family.

Later Married Life

My grandmother was devoted to her mother, which kept them in the Ypsilanti area. When my grandfather returned from Iceland, which ended his 20-years of service, he retired from the Army and became a high school industrial shop teacher in River Rouge. Both of my grandparents retired and became snowbirds (spending the summers at Sand Lake and the winters in Clearwater, FL) shortly after my great-grandmother passed away in 1974.

They lived in On Top of the World, a 55 and older retirement community, on a golf course. They played golf, played bridge, rode large wheeled tricycles, and entertained and went to parties in their retirement. I knew her mostly in her retirement years, because I was still small when they retired. And I spent most of my time with them at Sand Lake. 

In the summer at Sand Lake, we lived two houses away and every day I would run over to their cottage to see them. Like most older people, my grandma was a creature of habit. She didn’t usually eat much breakfast but she had her coffee, toast, and a cigarette. Yes, she was a smoker. I think it was the Officer Wife thing in the 1940s and 1950s. She wasn’t a heavy smoker but smoked enough that she was very concerned about the smell, so she always had rolls of Certs everywhere and she often would be sucking on one. She also wore perfume and had air fresheners in the cars and house to help. She was an early riser but also always took a nap in the afternoon. After lunch, she would retire to her bedroom with a book (she was an avid reader too) and take a nap. After her nap was time to prepare the hors d'oeuvres and dinner so that by 4pm she could have her Manhattan. They often went into Ann Arbor to meet up with friends or entertain their friends at the lake. And she never went out without lipstick and her clip on earrings.

Cherished Memories

This was my 5th birthday party at the lake.
Notice the flower arrangement!


My grandmother always had a flower garden because she loved fresh flowers in the house. She often had a bouquet picked from her flower beds. The flower that she never wanted to see was carnations. Carnations were the only thing she remembered about being at her father’s funeral and it was traumatic for her. Her favorite flowers were daisy’s and black-eyed susans and peonies…or maybe they were just the ones she grew best in her garden? My mother always had rose bushes at the in town house, so I would cut roses and bring them out to my grandmother on the weekends when we came back out to the lake. She was always so pleased to receive them and it made me feel so good when she promptly put them in a vase. In 1974, she invested in a beautiful paddle boat, it was one of the first ones on the lake and it was heavy duty aluminum with a canopy (because she was fair-skinned and tried to keep out of the sun). She used it on occasion to visit with neighbors down the beach or to pick cattails, but she loved watching the grandkids playing on it. She would be so happy to know that we still have this paddle boat, which is used and appreciated by everyone and in fact one one of her great-grandchildren (my daughter) wanted to have
a senior picture taken in it.

My grandmother never understood my fascination with investigating the family tree, even though she had a wall in her condo in Florida with a painted on family tree and small photos of the several generations hanging on it in! About a month ago as I was sorting through papers I came across a letter she wrote to me in 1981. I loved seeing her handwriting and I could hear her voice say the last line as I read it, “Hope this is what you want dear”. Made me cry. Thank you, Grandma, for supporting me even when you didn’t understand.

We are in the kitchen cooking
for my sister's wedding shower.

My grandmother was also a good cook. Not the kind to always be cooking in the kitchen or have “specialties” but she was always one with a new recipe! She would go to luncheons to play bridge or go out to dinner parties and come home with a new recipe. Some of these “new recipes” have become some of our family favorites–not so much the main courses, but the desserts. One of these favorites we call “Caramel Brownies”. In fact, I didn’t even realize it until writing this blog today, that both me and one of my daughters made it to share with others this Thanksgiving weekend--without the nuts, but she loved nuts in everything! (The recipe is at the bottom, she didn't like her handwriting and she was quite adept at a typewriter so often typed everything but you can see her trademark smiley face with "G".)

My grandmother was a great listener. I could share anything with her and I appreciated her guidance and loving reassurance or funny little sayings. One that I still use and my kids have picked up on is, when you have decided that although it wasn’t exactly what you were hoping for but are grateful for what you have, she would say, “well, it’s better than a kick in the pants”. She never told me what to do, although on occasion she might say something to put me in my place, “Mary Lynn, don’t let your halo pinch you too tight”! She was always so proud of me and one of my greatest supporters and she then extended that to my husband. When we asked to learn to play bridge, she patiently taught Jim and I and had my grandfather practice with us as a foursome.

She never thought that she would see me graduate from college or get married, but she saw both! She didn’t meet our twin daughters who were born in 1999, but I told her on the phone during our last conversation that I was pregnant, so she knew a baby was coming. Unfortunately, she also passed before I earned my PhD in 2001, but I could feel her presence as I defended my dissertation and knew she would be so proud.

She passed away on October 16, 1998, in Clearwater, Florida and we remember her as a woman who lived life fully, embraced challenges with grace, and enriched the lives of those around her. 

I love that Thanksgiving is your Happy 110th Birthday, Grandma–Elizabeth Anna Leach Tubbs. Your life was a gift, and your legacy remains a treasure to us all.













Friday, November 22, 2024

First Family of PA Comes to Life!


This week, two exciting things came together for a really interesting week. 

LiveMemoryTM 
First, Geneamusings (Randy Seaver) announced a new feature available on MyHeritage APP called "LiveMemoryTM " that uses AI to make a 5 second video out of a photo. It's more than just animating there is significant movement. Right now it is free to try and I tried it on 3 photos so far. There are problems, of course, but it is fascinating and really brings the people to life! I tried it on Jim's 3rd great-grandfather, Jacob Breyvogel/Breyfogle who was born in Berks County, PA in 1805. This photo (based on his necktie and wide lapels of his suit) was taken between 1860 and 1870. He died in 1871, so that is the latest this could have been.  Try the video and tell me what you think!!

Jacqueline_Wolfe shared this photo 
on Ancestry.com in 2016.

First Families of PA
Second, I learned about an opportunity to record Jim's lineage through the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania. It's not really a Lineage Society, more like an opportunity to record and allow others to learn about their history. The program is First Families of PA and they have four "levels" of membership based on the time frame for when your ancestors arrived to PA. 
Wedding Announcement in the Bloomsburg, PA
Newspaper "The Star of the North" 1861

You can probably tell where this is going. Yes, I spent about 15 hours putting together all of the documents required to "prove" Jim's family back to Jacob Breyvogel who fits early in the Keystone and Cornerstone (1791-1865) category. The packet ended up being nearly 50 sheets of paper that includes everything from birth/marriage/death certificates for those that existed for both members of the couple at each generation to newspaper clippings when records aren't available, like this newspaper clipping for John H. Breyfogle and Elizabeth Harriet Santee in 1861. Apparently getting names wrong in the newspaper is not a new thing....Driefagle is Breyfogle. Yep!
This is John and Elizabeth(Santee)
Breyfogle in their younger years.
Photo provided by Holly Prescott
in 2014 in Ancestry.com


The documentation to Jacob's father, Daniel Breyfogle (1775-1849), is not yet to the level the society accepts and although I have documentation that puts the Breyfogle's in PA as early as 1744, proving the connection between generations can be a little tricky. I will work on it, once I know that this first application was accepted! 

Jim's grandfather (Russel Pealer Breyfogle) and his mother (Mary Ann Pealer) were born in Michigan, but everyone else in this tree were Pennsylvania residents. None of these family names were yet to be listed among the First Families, so I have a little work (and investment, each application costs $75) ahead of me, but it is my goal to prove them. 

Pioneer Certificates

I don't know if every state has some sort of equivalent to First Families or Pioneer families, but Michigan does, too! In an earlier blog (Michigan, my Michigan) I shared that my mother's family has every grandparents and their ancestors coming (or being born) in Michigan back to at least the 1860s. Michigan has only two levels: Pre-statehood (prior to 1837) and First Families.

After finishing Jim's PA First Families I decided that I would work on an easy line for me in the Michigan Pioneers. Again, none of my family names are already recorded so I have lots to choose from. I decided to go with the Stoddard family, my mother's maternal grandmother's side. This took me less than 10 hours and the application fee is only $25. I'm not sure if I am getting faster or because I have already submitted to DAR on this family I knew I had acceptable proof. 


So, the application is submitted for Rodman Stoddard and Mary Matteson as a couple and we'll see in about 4-6 weeks what the Michigan Genealogical Society has to say about my application. 

Mary Matteson Stoddard
(1809-1893)

Rodman and Mary have an interesting story, they actually met in 1822 in Canada when Mary's father (Epaphras Matteson) kept moving west with his family and Rodman was into lumbering. With Michigan opening up, Rodman ends up buying land in Michigan (in Detroit) and Epaphras buys in Ann Arbor around the same time in 1824. When Epaphras dies in May of 1828 and his wife about 6 months later Mary at 19 is left an orphan. Rodman and Mary get married a few short months after. 

The most interesting thing that I found while digging in to the documents were the Probate Records for Rodman Stoddard who died in 1853. Mary lives for another 40 years a widow spending her last decade in Reed City, where my great-grandmother (who I knew!) knew her.

I tried my hand at transcribing these Probate hand written documents from 1853 which clearly show that Henry Clay Stoddard was the son of Rodman and Mary and along with the headstone of Rodman and Mary I could prove their relation. Lots of fun!








A Castle, A Clan, and A Connection

Jim and Lynn at Urquhart Castle c. 1989 Sometimes a place calls us to it and we don’t learn for decades later why!  For me, the place is Urq...