52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 9 "Gone Too Soon"

 First off, am I the only one who did not know that there is a song called "Gone Too Soon" by an artist called Week Nine? Am I the only one who has never even heard of Week Nine? The things you learn using Google.

Anyway, "Gone Too Soon" in terms of my ancestors makes me think of my Dutch immigrant 2nd great-grandfather Everard "Evert" Huigen. He died 27 February 1864 at the age of 36. He left behind a young wife and six children, I only have info on four of the children. They are (with their age when their father died): Julia, age7; Bernard, age 5; Maria, age 3; John, age 1. John is my great-grandfather. The evidence for six children comes from his wife Catherine's obituary in 1899. It states they had six children, three of whom were living when she died. Maria and the two for whom I have no other evidence died before the 1870 US Census. Julia and Bernard are the only two listed in the 1860 US Census. 

I wrote about finally finding Evert in Wie Was Wie here. I wrote about his broken headstone here. I don't have any information about his death except the date that is on his headstone. I don't even have any direct evidence that he died in Marshall County. He was living there in the 1860 US Census and that is where his grave is. There were no death vital records in Marshall County, Illinois in 1864. The county courthouse has no probate records for him. The newspaper archives at the Henry Public Library do not cover 1864. He died during the Civil War but there is no record of his having participated, let alone having died in the war. He had two brothers who were living in Clinton County, Illinois. Perhaps there is some mention of  their brother's death in a local newspaper there. That is a topic for further research. For now the circumstances of Evert's death remain a memory.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 8 "I Can Identify"

I have had my Ogden relations on my mind recently. First I wrote about Jonathan Ogden for Week 7. Next the Relative at Roots Tech site showed me 6099 people attending Roots Tech this week who were purportedly related to me. As I checked them out, I discovered that on the FamilySearch tree someone had made my colonial American ancestor John Ogden of Rye the son of John Ogden the Pilgrim. Now I know that in the past there had been speculation that they were cousins, but no one had ever suggested that they were father and son. <big eye roll>. I did not look closely, but I'm betting that the family tree extending far into the past for John the Pilgrim included the false information from the Wheeler book. (I wrote about that in Week 5.)

I give up on the FamilySearch Tree. It is too hard to fight off the false genealogies that show up there.

On the other hand, I decided to go look and see what was on WikiTree for my John Ogden. The global tree there is far more reliable. I knew that there had been further research on him published in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. It's been on my To Do List to get down to the Newberry Library and read the articles for quite a while. I was hoping that the WikiTree entry for John Ogden of Rye had been updated with the new information. AND IT HAD!!

John Ogden of Rye is now listed as the nephew of John Ogden the Pilgrim. My John Ogden's WikiTree biography now includes a great discussion and overview of all the research on him. He is the brother of NY colonial Richard Ogden. They are the sons of Richard Ogden, brother of The Pilgrim, and Ellen Lupton. Ellen is a brand new person on my tree and Lupton is a brand new surname. Welcome!

It is still an open question as to whether the elder Richard Ogden came to the colonies with his sons or stayed in England. There seems to be evidence of two Richard Ogden's, father and son, in the colonial NY records. You can read more about it in their WikiTree biographies.

Richard, Ellen, and their sons are from...wait for it...Yorkshire! West Yorkshire to be current and specific. Ellen is from Keighley and Richard from Bingley, as are John and Richard. Now I have a location in England for my Ogden line. Last summer my wife and I spent a week with my stepson and his children in York. I was only 32 miles from the places where my Ogden ancestors came from! Damn! If only I had known!

And it doesn't end there. The Ogden tree on WikiTree goes all the way back to my 11th great-grandfather John Ogden who was born about 1524 in Haworth, Yorkshire and died there in 1576. He is buried in the churchyard of St. Michael and All Angels. 

I can identify my Ogden ancestors back 500 years to an 11th great-grandfather. As far as I can tell that is now the farthest back I can trace any line on my tree.

A trivial aside: Haworth is where the Bronte sisters lived three hundred years after my ancestor. The church where he is buried is where their father was the parson. Possibly one of the sisters wandered through the churchyard and saw my ancestor's headstone. You never know.

I spent some time this week adding my 2nd great-grandfather, James Robert Ogden, to WikiTree and linking him to the existing profile for his father Robert Ogden. That takes my Ogden line on WikiTree across thirteen generations from my late mother to my 11th great-grandfather. I added my only living Ogden uncle to WikiTree in the hopes that I could add the Y-DNA test I had him take several years ago. However, WikiTree only lets you add DNA tests to your own profile. Still it is amazing that his Y-DNA and his son's and their sons and their sons (and the son of my mom's older brother who died many years ago) goes back 500 years to a man who lived in Yorkshire at the time of Shakespeare.

Bonus trivia: now that my tree is connected back to all the Ogden related lines, I can verify that I am a 9th cousin of Humphrey Bogart. The Budd sisters Jane and Judith of Sussex and colonial NY are our 7th great-grandmothers.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 7 "Outcast"

When I think of outcasts in my ancestry, I think of my Loyalist ancestors, cast out of New York to New Brunswick after the American Revolution. My research has focused mainly on Michael Ogden and his son Jonathan Ogden, but my Clark and Morrell ancestors in New Brunswick were probably also outcasts.

Jonathan probably deserved his fate, since he did serve in the Loyal American Regiment (more about the LAR here) and fought against the colonial army. He was probably aboard either the Ann or the Apollo when  they sailed from New York to New Brunswick in the fall of 1783, after the formal end of the war, removing Loyalist soldiers from the new country that they had opposed. His father joined him in New Brunswick probably at a later date.

Michael and Jonathan were granted land in Long Island, Queens County, New Brunswick in July of 1786. 

I need to do much more proper analysis of Jonathan's service and the petitions and land grants for the Ogdens, Clarks, and Morrells. I could also see if any Clark or Morell ancestors served in any British provincial units. 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 6 "Social Media"

 I need to get caught up with the 52 Ancestors prompts. I plan to do several this week until I can get caught up. We'll see how this goes.

Social media. I thought I'd share a few items from the social media of its day: Newspapers. When I found the on-line archives of the Creighton News from Creighton, Knox County, Nebraska, I spent several hours playing around in it. So much to look for between my Huigens, Kain, and Fitzler paternal ancestors who settled there, and some Kennedy relatives, too. Like most small town newspapers there was a lot of local news about the goings and comings of locals and visitors. 

One of the interesting things I found was several mentions of my dad, Joseph Huigens, Jr. Shortly before he was born, his parents moved their family from Know County to Sheridan County on the other side of state. Nevertheless, news of his birth on 12 February 1927 was published in Creighton for his parents' friends in the area.

Creighton News, 24 February 1927

In the news about visitors, I was able to track many of the times  that my dad went back to visit his many grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. 

Creighton News, 10 Jan 1929

My almost 2-year-old dad would have been among those "and children."

Creighton News, 16 October 1930

A few month later my dad, then 3 years old, went with his mother to visit her parents and then to visit her in-laws. That was the last time my grandmother would see her father, He died later that year in December.

Creighton News, 19 November 1931

My dad, now 4 years old would most likely have been the "and son," He was the only one of his brothers and sisters too young to have been in school at that time. 

Creighton News, 3 December 1931

The recovery of my grandmother's mother did not last long--she died five days after my dad and his mother returned home. I'm glad my grandmother got to spend some time with her mother before she passed. 

Creighton News, 8 February 1934

Here is news of a visit on a happier occasion. At almost 7 years old my dad finally gets a mention by name. 

These are all the Creighton News articles that mention my dad that I have found so far. It's fun to think of this little boy going across Nebraska to visit his grandparents and other relatives. I wish I had found these when my dad was still alive. I would have liked to know what he remembered about any of these trips. 

Joseph Anthony Huigens (1927-2013)

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 5 "Oops!"

This "oops!" goes out to all of the family trees out there (and there are many of them) that include the false information from the Wheeler book on the Ogden family (Wheeler William Ogden Lawrence Van Alstyne and Charles Burr Ogden. 1907. The Ogden Family in America Elizabethtown Branch and Their English Ancestry; John Ogden the Pilgrim and His Descendants 1640-1906. Philadelphia: Printed for private circulation by J.B. Lippincott Company.) It's available on the Internet Archive here.

Quite a bit of information in the book is accurate. The "Oops!" is the part that traces the line back to England. For that William Wheeler relied on an genealogist named Gustave Anjou. Mr. Anjou is now recognized as a genealogical con man. You can read about good old Gustave on Wikipedia here.

I have to admit that early in my research I found this book and fell for the con. Luckily I discovered the truth and was able to prune my family tree of the false pedigrees. That is one of my many, known "Oops!" moments. I sure hope that my tree does not have very many yet unknown ones.