Michigan, my Michigan

Sand Lake, July 2023

 People who know me, know that I talk about Michigan..alot. They know that I’m originally from Michigan and I spend every summer in my favorite place on earth, Sand Lake in Michigan. Last night, as I was preparing for an upcoming trip to the State Archives and Library of Michigan, I realized there might be another reason why Michigan is so important to me. I have deep, deep roots in Michigan and in this blog, I share what I mean.

Library of Michigan & State Archives

The Files

At the Library of Michigan, I learned about two collections that might be worthwhile for me to investigate: Centennial Family Certificate Application Files and the Michigan Sesquicentennial Pioneer Files and indexes. In 1976, in preparation for the centennial, the state of Michigan issued certificates to people who could prove their lineage back to “early” settlers in Michigan prior to 1876. These applications can be found in the Centennial Family application file. I will talk about the Michigan Sesquicentennial after a little history lesson.

Some Michigan History

You might think that 1876 is late for a state to consider family members to the area to be pioneers and you are correct when you consider the original 13 colonies and the Mayflower arriving in 1620! Also, considering Ohio was made a state in 1803 and federal land contracts began being sold in the 1780’s, one wonders what happened. 

Land Purchase Certificate by Rodman Stoddard, 1827

Well, in 1816, after the War of 1812, when Congress wanted to reward soldiers with land in the Old Northwest Territory (which included present day, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota), a surveyor by the name Edward Tiffin wrote a report as the US Surveyor General that basically called the whole of Michigan “swampland” and stalled the settling of Michigan. 

Several years later, a map maker, John Farmer and the opening of the Erie Canal changed the feelings about Michigan and emigration from the East to what is now Michigan really began. The “true” pioneers to Michigan are considered any people who came and settled prior to Michigan’s statehood in 1837. Hence, the establishment of Michigan Sesquicentennial Pioneer Family Files, which was similar to the Centennial, but the settlers needed to be in Michigan prior to 1837.

Map in 1841

(Farmer, J. & V. Balch And S. Stiles. (1826) Map of the surveyed part of the territory of Michigan on a scale of 8 miles to an inch. [Detroit: Publisher Not Identified] [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2012593320/.)

My mother’s family

I thought it would be wise before I went to the Library to make a list of the surnames and people from my family who might show up in the Centennial or Sesquicentennial files. This was a long but fascinating process and it made me so very aware of my deep roots in Michigan. I probably intellectually knew this to be true, but seeing it on paper was striking.

Both of my mother’s parents were born in Michigan..in 1910 and 1914.

Mary Matteson Stoddard, came to
Michigan with parents in 1824

All four of my mother’s grandparents were born in Michigan, between 1872 and 1883.

All 8 of my mother’s great-grandparents lived in Michigan prior to 1876 and three were born in Michigan (1840, 1841, and 1852) and one was a baby in 1834 when his family arrived.

Of my mother’s 16 great-great-grandparents, 11 were in Michigan before 1876 and 8 of them had families in Michigan before 1837. Surnames of the earliest settlers to Wayne and Washtenaw counties were: Tubbs, Orcutt, Bailey, Stoddard, Bedell, and the earliest was Matteson sometime prior to 1824.

I’m thinking some of my love and connection with Michigan comes from the 5 generations of my mom’s ancestors who lived their lives in this wonderful lake (not swamp!) state. 

This is in stark contrast with my father’s family, where 3 of his 4 grandparents were born outside of the US!

My husband’s family

Abiel Fellows, came to
Michigan 1829

Jim and I met at Hope College, a wonderful school close to the shore of Lake Michigan in Holland, Michigan. (In fact, it was our first weekend of freshman year that we met and walked on the beach of Lake Michigan!). It would not be surprising if Jim and his family were also from Michigan and they are! I did the same exercise with Jim’s family and while they settled mostly in Lenawee and Kent counties, they were also pioneers in Michigan.

Both of Jim’s parents were born in Michigan.

Three of 4 of his grandparents were born in Michigan between 1898 and 1901 (the fourth was in Ohio!).

Of his 8 great-grandparents, 5 were born in Michigan in 1870 or 1871!

And 10 of his 16 great-great-grandparents were in Michigan prior to 1876.

Jim has 8 ancestors who were either born or lived in Michigan prior to 1837, with the surnames: Howell, Remington, Wheeler, Chambers and the earliest in 1829 Abiel Fellows.

No wonder why both Jim and I have such a deep love for our Michigan! A state where no matter where you are, you are not more than 85 miles from a Great Lake! There are over 11,000 inland lakes. And is No. 1 for having the most freshwater coastline of any state in the US and in the top 10 for coastline, period.

Making it back to the Mayflower?!

 I feel so lucky as a family historian to have a variety of ancestor experiences to uncover. I have German immigrants who came in the 1850’s to Germania, PA, Hungarian immigrants in the 1870’s who I have connected with the Christoff’s of western PA (Brick wall to beautiful mosaic),  I have a “mystery orphan baby” left “on the wheel” in Italy in the 1870’s, I have Scottish ancestors who settled (via Canada)  to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the 1860’s,  I have Civil War veterans (Celebrating Civil War Veterans), Revolutionary War veterans, and now possibly Mayflower passengers. 

One of my goals this year was to prove a line back to the Mayflower and join the Mayflower Society. One might ask “why?” and you can read about the benefits here, but my main reasons are the verification and documentation of my ancestors and the continuous opportunity to learn as a family historian. And in this past week, it’s getting closer to becoming a reality!

Early Research

For over 20 years, I have been gathering information and documentation on my family history and have known about the Stoddards and Tubbs families who came to the New England colonies in the 1630s. These are close but no cigar for the Mayflower!

 I’d say in the past 5 years I have seen other people’s trees on Ancestry.com that had similar ancestors to me that suggested I had at least one line to the Mayflower through my mother’s paternal grandmother (Cora Viola Orcutt–the one’s whose Irises I enjoy.) Last fall, after being accepted into DAR, I went to the DAR Library in DC (Note: you do NOT have to be a member to make use of the library!) to start really investigating for the Mayflower. 

Beginning Serious Research

Step 1: I had heard about the Silver Books but it was at the DAR Library that I first was able to explore them. The Silver Books refer to the documented, verified, and accepted collection of volumes of the first five generations (and in some cases farther) of the passengers of the Mayflower. It was truly a Herculean feat to put together these books and we can thank the Mayflower Society that continues to update them.

Step 0: Before consulting these, though, you need to know which pilgrim you are connected to. The Silver Books are organized by pilgrim into separate volumes.  It is wise to have the proposed lineage mapped out for yourself, so you can see if the first 5 generations match yours. 

I didn’t learn this until later in my journey, but there is a helpful website, called Relative Finder,  which provides possible lineages based on your Family Search tree. This obviously means that you need an account and have entered in enough of your family tree to connect with the world tree that is there. You can see that this tool searches for more than just Mayflower Relatives, but I am showing just the Mayflower Direct Connections for my family. Hopefully you have more than one line as possible, but choose one and try to prove it. I chose to work on two lines, one from Thomas Rogers and one from John Cooke. 

Just like any resource, there are bound to be errors, so you need to do your own research to confirm, but this is the place to start. There is another tool through Family Search that ties into the Mayflower Society descendancy records, but if your family is like mine and have to prove a lot of generations, it is not likely to be too helpful.

Step 2: Try to find another published family history that might start to give you ideas of what has been documented and what resources to go to for documentation. For me, the Silver Books proved through generation 6, to William Walker and the place to start was to show that George was the son of William Walker. When I went to the Allen County Public Library (ACPL) see my post, I found a book on the Walkers:  Memorial of the Walkers of the Old Plymouth Colony Embracing Genealogical and biographical sketches of James, of Taunton,... and of their descendants from 1620 to 1860 by J.B.R. Walker, AM (Member of the Old Colony Historical Society” Printed by Northhampton: Metcalf & Company, Printers. 1861). This book provided me the next several generations through to my mother’s great-grandfather, Chauncey Orcutt. Since I knew the line from there, I was OVER the MOON to find my great-great-grandfather mentioned being in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the book printed in 1861!

Step 3: Once you are confident that you have a line, you can submit a Mayflower Lineage Match (MLM). There is a fee and it may take 2-3 months to hear back, but it is an important step. Once you have submitted, the Mayflower Society will investigate other previously approved lineages and see where your line intersects previously approved. For me, I am the 13th generation and I was informed that they have proven through generation 7! Only 6 generations of birth’s, deaths, and marriages for me that needed to be proved!

Step 4: Once your MLM (from Step 3) has returned, the Mayflower Society also notifies your state’s historian for the state’s Mayflower Society. In my case, I will be joining through the PA Mayflower Society and I was connected with my awesome Co-Historian Sharyn Davis. Sharyn was an absolutely amazing resource and helped me each stage of the way from here. I learned soooo much from Sharyn, and she did so much work for me!! 

Your Historian will evaluate your line and will have you send in the documentation you have already collected and then set you on a path to collect the rest. I started with my own generation and worked backward toward the 7th generation.

This last step began June 16th and the next several weeks were a whirlwind of document gathering and submitting. Each day, I would send Sharyn an email with information or documentation and she would respond back usually providing more guidance and instruction. County Clerks offices, cemeteries, county historians, town clerks, and town historians were contacted both in New York and Michigan. Censuses, property records, newspapers, and lots of websites were scoured! It was a fun and fulfilling process, but is not for the faint of heart! I can’t even count the number of hours spent trying to gather the information!

We *think* we have provided enough documentation to “prove” my line, but it needs to go through final evaluation in Plymouth. I should know sometime this fall.

Meanwhile, I’m off to work on Jim’s Mayflower line….

Names really can tell us a lot about a person!

Me with Diahan Southard, March 2023

I’ve written before about names earlier this year because my great-grandfather was a baby left “on the wheel” in Villa San Giovanni in the 1870s and just randomly given a name. (See Names and Naturalization, February 7, 2023) This week’s blog is about a new-to-me resource that I think is pretty cool and even non-family historians might think so too!

The Sawtooth Slayer

In March, as part of the Rootstech Conference, YourDNA Guide Diahan Southard hosted the first-ever DNA Dining Detectives Murder Mystery Experience, and I was one of the lucky ones to go! It was an awesome and interesting night of teaming up using DNA genetic genealogy techniques to solve a mystery. The mystery was based on the book by Nathan Dylan Goodwin called The Sawtooth Slayer. As part of the evening, we received a copy of Diahan Southard’s YourDNA Guide book (definitely worth it for those tough DNA brick walls) and also Nathan’s book.

I just finished the book and although I knew “who did it”, it was still a fun read. What I didn’t expect was to learn about a new very fun resource in the process!

Finding a Name

Have you ever wondered what the most common surname is in the world? This is easy enough…just ask Google, Siri, Alexa, or your favorite device….Wang! Have you ever wondered about how common your own surname is? Or maybe where all of the people in the world live with your surname? In The Sawtooth Slayer this idea was used to investigate the possible historical origins of a particular surname. And Nathan provided a website to investigate this and I tried it out!

https://forebears.io/

This past week I have been doing a lot of research on my Mayflower line and was curious about the Walker line. Here’s some of the fun things you can learn about a surname (or a forename), in this case Walker:

1. It is the 543rd most common surname

2. There are approximately 997, 243 people in the world with that name

3. 

   Location for Walkers

   What the distribution of those names look like (see map)

4. Origin stories of the name…most agree that Walker comes from the occupation a walker or fuller or cloth maker

5. The average height of people with that name–64 inches for a Walker woman

6. Sometimes the average income with people with that name

7. And other random facts.

Location for Orcutts

The other line I worked on this week was Orcutt. What do you think..more common or less? Yeah, that is probably pretty easy. It is the 73, 237th most common surname and about 6,724 people have Orcutt as their last name, with a different distribution. It appears to be named for “a dweller inside a hillside, or riverbank, or cottage”.

What’s my last name (which is my husband’s name) Breyfogle look like?

It is the 452,272nd most common name, with approximately 750 people holding that name, and guess where they are?

Breyfogle's

Pretty funny, eh? Of the 750 people with the name Breyfogle, 728 live in the US.

I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that people often falter over saying my name, it’s not like you might run across a whole lot of us.