Meet the Campbells

...our story so far...

Ann Callin was ten years old in 1816 when her family left Pennsylvania for the wild frontier of Ohio. She had two older brothers to look out for her (John and George), two younger sisters to look out for (Sarah and Eliza), and two baby brothers (William and James).

Her father, John, planned to settle on a farm with his older brother, her uncle James. Her cousins were four adventurous boys: Thomas and Hugh, who were older than her, and Alec and James who were younger. Having so many people on one farm meant that there was a lot to do, but there were a lot of hands to do it all, and her mother and Aunt Mary surely kept them all occupied.

Ann's mother, Elizabeth, had two more children after the family arrived in Ohio: Hugh in 1817, and Margret in 1819. As the oldest of the four girls, Ann would have been well schooled in running the household.

Even as the two-family farm expanded, the township was growing rapidly around them. Richland county had no more than 150 people living in it in 1812, but by 1825, there were an estimated 8,000. There were bound to be problems, as in 1820, when uncle James was killed in an altercation with a man named Fowler. But the family was large, and strong, and most of their neighbors were industrious and kind.

Among those neighbors was a young man by the name of Henry Campbell. Henry's father was one of the many early settlers who found success farming in Ohio. He was five years younger than Ann, but he had been born in Pennsylvania, as she had been, and when he acquired land in Milton township, not far from where her brothers were clearing their own farms, he needed someone who could run a household to help him start a family.

And so, on 20 August 1833, at 26 years of age, Ann married Henry and joined him on his farm. Their first son, Cyrus, was born the following March. In those first ten years, the couple had five children. The youngest, Cornelia, was born 13 October 1843, but died before her sixth birthday: 13 March 1849. Their middle child, a daughter named Elizabeth born in June 1840, would stay at home with Ann and Henry, and never marry.

The children of Henry and Ann (Callin) Campbell:

1. Cyrus C. Campbell (1834–1873)
2. Harrison M Campbell (1837–1924)
3. Elizabeth Campbell (1840–1897)
4. Frances A Campbell (1842–1905)
5. Cornelia Campbell (1843–1849)

Next week, we'll talk about Cyrus's descendants, followed by Harrison's the next week, and Frances Campbell Hoot's the week after that.

Henry died in Ashland, Ohio, at some point before the 1880 Census was taken; Ann appears there listed as a widow. There is a record for a Henry Campbell in the Headstones Provided for Deceased Union Civil War Veterans, 1879-1903 database, with a death listed as 4 April 1880, but this record lists the receiving cemetery in Zaleski village, Vinton county, which is 155 miles south of Ashland. If he served in the Civil War, Henry would have been in his early 50s at enlistment; that's not impossible, but it is unlikely.

Ann died on 18 March 1889, according to the Callin Family History, and Elizabeth survived until 1897. Elizabeth was buried in the Ashland Cemetery.

Some Tips About Ohio Families

Since Cyrus's family proved to take up a lot of screen, I opted to split them off into their own post, but then I felt bad for making this one so short. To make up for that, here are some things I've observed while researching all of these families.

Michigan: Popular Marriage Get-away? When I want to find marriage records for some of these relatives in the northern part of Ohio, particularly in the decades between 1890 and 1930, I have found that a lot of couples headed up past Toledo and got their licences in Hillsdale or Monroe, Michigan. Those aren't exactly lakeside resorts, as far as I know, but there must have been some reason for so many couples to have gone there to marry. Whatever the reason, if you're researching some people who should have a Richland county or Ashland county marriage license and you can't find it, take a look at Michigan.

U.S. Social Security Applications - This is a relatively new Ancestry database, and it has been a fantastic resource for me - for everyone who applied for a Social Security account, of course. The information is gathered from official forms submitted by the person registered to a particular Social Security Number, and while not every file has every piece of information, you can usually expect to find the following:

• full name
• parents' names (including mother's maiden name)
• birth and death dates
• married names (and sometimes dates to suggest when the marriage occurred)
• places - these are tricky, but usually the correct place of birth is listed (it's probably abbreviated in a weird way, thought)

Obituary Blues - There are diminishing returns to searching for obituaries, and different ways to find them depending on when the person in question died. Here's how I usually go about searching.

Step 1: Google. This is my go-to, once I know at least a few facts about someone. I find that if I start with the person's full name (married names for women work best), followed by the word obituary, I usually get the one I'm looking for in the first page of results... if I get anything at all! If not, I add whatever other information I have; names of their parents or spouses can help; birth and death dates can help if you know those.

I'm usually successful with Google when the person I'm looking for has died within the last decade or so. Finding obituaries from further back than 2000 can be dicey.

Step 2: Newspapers.com - I'm paying for the Deluxe Ancestry membership, which includes limited access to Newspapers.com, so if Google comes up empty, I usually go here next. Start your search with the name of your person, and narrow your search using their interface (choose a state, date range, or even a specific newspaper if they have it in their database).

If you have a spouse's name, you can include that - so if you search for "King Kong Fay Wray" you should see results for pages that include all four names. That can help narrow down your search if you're looking for a common name.

Step 3: Rutherford Hayes Presidential Library collection - these folks show up in Ancestry, though if you want to read the obituary, you usually have to order a hard copy from them. At least they tell you which newspapers your obituary appeared in, so you can search for a digital version using Google or Newspapers.com, just in case. Otherwise, the $2.00 may be worth it to you.

Happy Hunting! (And Happy New Year...)