52 Ancestors Week 4: I'd Like to Meet

Question

Ready for Week 4 of the 52 Ancestors challenge?

You're encouraged to share a profile of an ancestor or relative who matches the week's theme. This week's sharing prompt:

I'D LIKE TO MEET

From Amy Johnson Crow:

Which ancestor would you like to meet? I have a whole list, but I'd have to include the woman pictured here, my great-great-grandmother Susan Tucker Kelley, so I could ask if she remembers anything about her parents!

Share below!

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Comments

I have participated in all four weeks now and the sticker in my profile says that I have participated in 1 week.  Did I participate the wrong way? Don't tell anyone but Monday is my birthday and it would be nice to have it fixed all nice before then :oP if possible. Thanks in advance.

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Hi Jerry! The sticker you'll need to update each week yourself :)

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I believe I would love to sit down with my 2nd Great-grandmother, [[Shelton-4148|Lucinda Shelton]] .

She has been so difficult to track down. Us cousins who find her extremely interesting have located 5 children in the census records with her but never a husband and she is never listed as married or widowed. We have no clue if she ever married and we cannot locate a death record or burial site for her. She was born in 1834 in North Carolina and travelled to Kentucky with her family where her children were born. She had 3 girls and 2 boys. We've tested the yDNA on both of the male lines and they do not match so we know there were at least 2 fathers. I want to ask her "what happened to you!". Where did she disappear to?

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Great prompt this week!

Answer 1

I have questions for all of them!

I'm going to choose Caroline Eliza (Nickerson) Hubbard, though. Her journey from Vermont to Utah is so full of hardship and tragedy, as well as joy, that I sometimes wonder how she survived to the age of 81. She married three times, twice in polygamous marriages which apparently weren't to her liking as neither lasted long. She lost a husband and at least two children on the journey. She and her sister built a cabin in the middle of winter while caring for ill parents, spouses, and children without help. She was a teacher for many years after finally reaching Utah and appears to have been well loved by her community and family. A very full life and I would love to hear more about it.

Answer 2

I agree with a lot of people, that I'd like to meet the brick-walls to solve more information.  But I actually would like to meet one in particular because he moved around so much.  Wright-8741 moved around so much and there is definitely a history to him that I'd like to know more about.  Some of his theoretical family were Torys and it's possible he was too.  He also fought against indians in Virginia and later was an early pioneer in Kentucky/Ohio.  There's a family story that's passed down about him and a group of other men moving to Ohio from Kentucky.  The women went by boat and they drove the farm animals by land and encountered a Buffalo that took a few shot to down.  I'd really like to meet him to find out of the story is true and get more details about their journey.

Answer 3

Right at the moment, I would like to meet one of two Avery women -- Deborah Avery married Charles Blodgett or their son Jacob's wife Annis Avery -- for purely selfish genealogical reasons. I finally broke the brick wall from Annis to her parents, only to have her father as brick wall. I suspect the two are related biologically as well as by marriage their marriages, and certainly each would have known the other. 

Answer 4

I would love to meet my great-great-grandmother Susannah Varnell (Brookshire) Wilson Plaster Vestal (abt. 1836-1913) 

She lived through turbulent times.  She pioneered in Texas with her husband, moving from conflict-ridden Missouri only to find the entire nation becoming embroiled in the Civil War.  Despite their anti-slavery feelings, her husband enlisted in the Confederate Cavalry and died as a prisoner of war, leaving her destitute with four children.  She took the children back to Missouri where she married a man (Henry Plaster)  who was only ten years older than her own father.  With  Henry, she had two more children before she was once more widowed.  She married a third time to William Vestal.  

I would love to hear the stories she could tell me of the various places she lived, the people she knew and the times she lived in.  I have traveled to Texas to see the location of her home, which was at one time a boarding house.  Did she run it as a boarding house?  Before the war, her family moved out of town to a ranch that about a 1-1/2 hour horseback ride from town.  How was she able to run the ranch when her husband and all the other men were off to war?  Was she able to feed the children?  Why did she go back to Missouri?  Did she love her next two husbands?  Were they good to her and her children?  

Answer 5

Biggest, fattest, hardest brick wall in our family tree - and in my direct paternal line.  3x great Grandfather Samuel Baty.  He was orphaned at a young age and we don't know anything about his past.  I'd love to sit down and learn all about him, his family, and his family tree.

Answer 6

This is both super easy and super difficult for me - I have a list, and it changes regularly. But right now, I think I'd like to meet Margaret Ann Johnson (later Mussulman, Crouse and Roush), or her granddaughter Leona (Miller) Hall.

Margaret is an ancestor I only found out about a year ago - her granddaughter Leona died very, very young, when my great-grandmother was 3, so I never knew much about her or her family, and struggled to find her in records before her marriage (turns out, Leona was the name she used but it was her "official" middle name). That is, incidentally, why I'd love to meet her. I know nothing about her, and there's not much to find. What were her interests? What were her dreams? I have very little information about many of my female ancestors, but Leona is the closest for which I have nothing - just a pair of census records, birth records for her three children, and her death from consumption.

But it's her grandmother Margaret who has really caught my attention the past week, for the opposite reason. She seems to have been something of a "black sheep" (and a bigamist!), and I have more information about her than most of my female ancestors from that generation - but it's not enough!

 I'd love to ask her:

• What happened between 1867 and 1870 that made you and John split up?
• Where did you go between 1867 and 1873?
• Were you having an affair with your sister-in-law's husband before the two of you (illegally) married in 1873?
• What really happened when he passed away and his kids showed up? It seems like things were fairly amicable, but they also told the newspaper you were a bigamist, so were they, really?
• Why? Why did you and John Mussulman leave your kids with other families and take off?
• Was John Crouse (the second then-living son of William by that name) your son? He's not likely to have been Eliza's, she would have been nearly 60 when he was born. Was he really William's, or was he John Mussulman's or someone else's?
• Your obituary listed three living children out of seven; what happened to Fanny and Jacob? Who were the other two? Was one John Crouse?
• Were you happy?

That last one is the most important. Despite the mess that her life (and John Mussulman's, and Eliza Mussulman Crouse's and William Crouse's, and their children's) probably became in the late 1860s, I sort of hope she was happy. I hope she did it for love. (I hope John and his sister Eliza were able to find happiness again, too.) She was 20, and 20 years younger than John, when they married and moved from Pennsylvania to Ohio. 

I'd also like to ask who her parents were, of course. I know her father was Irish from the census records, but Johnson isn't exactly an uncommon name.

Answer 7

I would like to meet my five-times great grandfather Ostenaco. He was called the "George Washington of the Cherokee" which is ironic since he chose to fight for the British. As a leader of his people, he met with the father of Thomas Jefferson and, indeed,  with Thomas Jefferson himself who was then a boy accompanying his father into the wilderness of North Carolina. He was also taken to visit King George in England. During the visit, the King commissioned a portrait to be made of him so I am lucky enough to see what he looked like. In a strange coincidence, he is buried not more than a thirty minute drive from where I currently live and well before I started the geneology of my family tree I had visited his gravesite.

Answer 8

I would most like to meet my 6X Great Grandfather Shane.  He was impressed into service aboard a British Man of War in New York Harbor in 1745 and was never heard of again by his family.  His son, James Shane, was born shortly afterwards and never knew his father.  My Shane line was the reason I started doing genealogy because I wanted to find out where in Ireland they were from.  Since I can't get farther than James Shane, born in New Jersey in 1745, I can't get that line out of the United States.

Answer 9

I'd love to meet my great-grandmother. I would ask her how she managed to not get bitter after she heard within 3 days that her oldest son died and the second one went missing in WW2.

Answer 10

Oh! This would be a tie. I would want to either meet William Mott Sr. (1709-1786) or Sgt. Christian Bender (1731-1808). I would love to meet either of these two gentlemen to help me break down two big brick walls! William Mott is a mystery because it is unknown who his parents are and where they came from. On my Mott line, he is the farthest back anyone has been able to get. The same for my Bender line. Sgt. Christian Bender was born in Germany but his parentage is also unknown. All we know is that he came to America from Stuttgart, Germany about 1746 with at the least a younger, half-brother. I don't know if he came with any kind of parents and if so, who they were. Knocking these walls down would be wonderful!!!!

Answer 11

I would love to meet my maternal grandmother & paternal grandfather, ANY Hovis grandparent, especially my 2x great-grandfather, he fought in the Civil War along with his brother, who didn't survive, then married his widow!! My Gr-Great-grandmother married when she was 15, I would love to know (at least I think I would) the story behind that..and her family is a complete mystery...I know her mother's name but nothing else. And my husband has a cool ancestor, a gr-(gr?)uncle who was a drug & Liquor "kingpin" in the mid-late 1920's...

Answer 12

I would like to meet my G4 grandfather Benjamin Huband. Not just because he is currently a brick wall, but also he lived in the town I live in now, which I only recently discovered and I would like to find out what it was like in the 18th century.

Answer 13

Like most people I have several brick wall folk I'd like to meet to interrogate, but in terms of interesting people I'd like to meet my G G Grandfather Sargeant William John, who travelled around a lot with his job in the police.  He has a family reputation of being hard drinking and a gambler, so much so that subsequent generations were strictly tee-total churchgoers.  I don't think he was as bad as he was made out to be and it sounds like he had a bit of sense of fun too.

Answer 14

This is an easy one for me. I’d like to sit down over a couple cold beers with my 3rd great-grandfather, Daniel Kinnaston. My question to him would be “What are the names of your parents and siblings?” Then I’d want to know what drew him from Vermont to Lexington, Massachusetts. Daniel has been my brick wall for about 25 years.

Answer 15

For this week's 52 ancestors challenge I decided to write about the questions I would ask my great-great grandfather Peter Fullerton if I met him.

This is my blog post for this week:

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 4 - I'd Like to Meet - Peter Fullerton

Answer 16

My first thought was John Howland, my 10th GGF, because I really want to get a first-hand story about his pilgrimage on the Mayflower, including his little unplanned swimming expedition.  However, I have to now go with Lt John Budd, also my 10 GGF.  There has been so many conflicting sources regarding his wife, and his wife's parents, and I've read them all, ad nauseam.  I'd like to sit down with him and get the complete and unadulterated truth.  Questions I would ask:

1. Who was your wife?  What was she like?
2. Who were your wife's parents?  
3. What drove you to take that long boat trip to a new world?  What were you fleeing, and/or what were you looking to find?
4. What was your favorite food? (for the chef in me, because, hey, if I'm talking to him, I'd like to cook him a meal!)

Of course, there would be more questions, but that's how I'd start.  :)

BTW, this is my favorite question so far.  I suspect that I'd have a different answer if asked on a different day!  

Comments

Like so many other Americans, I, too, am descended from John Howland.  (Hello, cousin.)  Recently my hubby gave me a delightful children's/adult's picture book about Howland entitled, ''The Boy Who Fell Off the Mayflower''  by P. J. Lynch.  If you have not already, try to read this delightful book.  I read two chapters to the amassed family at this Thanksgiving gathering.  

- Peggy

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I know the book!  I bought it for my son for Thanksgiving last year.  :)

Thanks Cuz!

Answer 17

I haven't finished writing his biography yet, but did write my blog (posted on twitter and facebook) about the Ancestor I'd most like to meet, and WHY, especially right this moment I would REALLY like to meet him. Definitely NOT my usual blog.

Richard Anson Wheeler (2nd Cousin, 5 times removed)

Answer 18

If I had to pick one, I'd choose Margaret Sweeten Kirk https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Sweeten-88 my 3rd great-grandmother.  As she lay dying of a fever in the late summer of 1838, in Monroe County, Indiana, she called her ten-year-old son to her bedside and asked him to do something for her, and to never, ever, tell anyone.  Her son, John Wesley Kirk, kept his mother's secret all his life.

I don't think I could pry the secret out of her by popping the question as soon as her ghost hovered into view, but I might get it by starting her talking about anything related to her family.

Who were her parents, really?  Are they the ones I have tentatively given her, based on a process of elimination?

Did she have other siblings than sister Sarah, who married her husband's brother?

What other Sweetens had she even heard of, in North Carolina or East Tennessee?  Which of the numerous Dutton Sweetens was she most closely related to?

Answer 19

I'd really like to meet my 7th great-grandfather, Alexander Johan Planting-Bergloo, thanks to the translation of his diary (generously translated by Karl Göran Eriksson; the place I can see the excerpts still online is this website (K. Mäkelä is the tree's manager)).  If I ever make it to Sweden, I'll go and see the diary myself.  

According to the translated diary excerpts I read, Alexander's military service started before he was fifteen years old.  At twenty-one, he was shot in the head twice at the 1709 Battle of Poltava, and the war didn't end for him for many years-for over a decade, he was a prisoner of war in Siberia.  The diary excerpts are amazing, and it was almost like reading "War and Peace" set in a different time (Alexander and his comrades saw Peter the Great in person in winter 1709, always making me think of Prince Andrei and Napoleon).  Alexander is probably the ancestor I'd be most eager to meet, and I wish I could do his life story justice.  

Answer 20

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Junker-134

52 Ancestors - Week 4

I'd like to meet my 2nd great-grandfather, Herman Junker. He was born in Germany in 1840 and he immigrated to the United States in 1866. By 1879, he was naturalized as a United States citizen.

My 2nd great-grandmother, Sophia, passed away in 1910, so he went to live with my great-grandfather, William Junker.

One of my favorite people in the world was my grandma, Minnie Junker Leinen. There will never be anyone like her again. She lived to be 98 years old. Her dad was William Junker.

So when my 2nd great-grandfather Herman Junker) went to live with his son, my grandmother was a little girl, living in the same house.  He mentions my grandmother in his will, so they must have had a close relationship.

I would love to meet him to see what he remembers about my grandmother as a little girl. She was a handful as an adult, so I just would like to know if she was precocious as a child. If she ran and jumped on his lap. What her hair looked like when she was a child. Was she silly and did she giggle a lot? All I got to see was her as a grandmother, but I would love to see her through the eyes of her grandpa.

Grandpas always love their little granddaughters the best.