The Circle of ... Something?

Question

I adopted the profiles managed by a deceased WikiTree member. Some of them were tangentially related to some of my minor lines (Gibson/Phillips). Most had no relationship to my families. I was working on filling out the sources and bio of some of the profiles that were not related, and found they lived in the same township and county in Ohio, and about the same time, as my principal line (Carnes/Curnes). Nice little family history coincidence. Opened up the 1850 US Census for this unrelated family (Birney) and .... found that almost the rest of the page enumerated my Carnes family. They were close neighbors. Hmmm. Wonder what they talked about, and what they knew about each other. And whether there are in fact any relationships.

Anyone else have similar stories?

Comments

I've been documenting an extended family not related to me at all, and I realised that some of those folk HAVE to have known my paternal great-grandfather because they were all in the legal profession (which in their day was a rather small-ish group).  I just found that an interesting thought.

Answer 1

In rural areas, especially before WWII, you can assume everybody knew everybody on their enumeration page and probably the one preceding and following. Some they hated and some they loved but most likely you would have stronger relationships with these folks than most anyone outside of immediate family. Certainly, the children would have been into everybody's business within walking distance and been on a first name basis with every pet for that matter.

Answer 2

IME....The older the record + the smaller the population of the area usually = LOTS of cross marriages and family connections. It usually depends on how wide their family tree is whether or not they're captured here.

This 1855 Pine Rock Illinois shows related pioneer families that moved out of Eastern Ohio in the 1830's & 40's (I guess it got too crowded for them ) and settled on the then edge of 'civilization'. The Walls, Tiltons & Hardestys have SO many cross marriages from Ohio and later in Illinois that its like untangling a giant knot trying to figure it all out! I had to use 'cheat sheets' like this to try to keep it straight.

Comments

Nick,

Very interesting. I have seen the same thing for the Reed, Sanford, Ousterhout families who moved from Hubbell Hill in Delaware New York to Buffalo Grove township in the early 1830s . Buffalo Grove township is about 25 miles west of Pine Grove. I wonder if the Sanford on your census list is a cousin of the Buffalo Grove folks. That might be a clue. It would be a longer connection for our shared Hubbell ancestors to actually be related to the ones who moved to Ogle county.

My Ogle County folks had parts of their families settle in Peoria, Illinois and others move there later. Some went to Peoria during the Black Hawk War. Wonder if yours went to the same area.

I was working on these families before I got distracted writing the Bio Check app.

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Looks like Newton Adam (son of Hiram) Sanford's family's travel route was Connecticut=>Vermont=>Ohio=>Illinois (but his mother appears? to be from NY) 

tree  1850  1870

He and Washington are sort of started here..... I don't recall any cross links with this Sanford clan but Washington's property shown on the 1872 map was next door to a lot of Hardestys and Tiltons......so I may have not gone wide enough to catch it.

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It might be a clue when I get back to looking at Cyrenus Sanford and Samuel Reed. In the meantime I have been looking at my great grandmother's 15 double first cousins Simon Reed

The pattern is from Connecticut into New York (Albany is very close to Vermont) then further south in New York then to Ogle county, with a couple of kids via Ohio. Maybe an Ohio clue from yours.  The Moats family joined in there then on to Ogle.