The Price of Progress: An Update

Hello, Cousins!

I'm working my way through the editorial process for the revision of The Callin Family History - and I realize this is just humble-bragging - but "I keep finding stuff!"

Fortunately for the ultimate end product that will be the revised Callin Family History, the things I'm finding will make the book more complete without forcing me to drastically re-number (and thus, re-edit) major portions of the draft manuscript. I wanted to show you the most significant example:

Do you remember Marquis Callin? He is named in the Callin Family History, but records that could tell us who he was or what happened to him were proving elusive. I talked about the two glimpses of him that I found in the post about his brother, Jeff the Shoemaker. However, going over the draft made me take another look in the database, and I found a couple of very good matches for Marquis and the family described by great-uncle George!

Here's what we started with, from the original CFH:

Record of Marquis, 4th son of Thomas, eldest son of James 2nd, who was eldest son of James 1st.
Born 1840, died in Chicago, date not known.
Married, date not known, Pauline Snyder.
To this union 2 sons were born:
John, date 1871.
Fred, date unknown.

My task all along has been to find evidence that would support or correct the facts in the CFH. This is tricky because, of course, there is a built-in bias on my part to support what great-uncle George recorded. I've worked hard to correct for that bias - meaning that for each fact I've found evidence for, I've tried to find ways to test my assumptions. If you've read my analysis of the evidence supporting the facts in the life of James "1st" Callin, and of his sons, the Brothers Callin, you see that I consider the evidence to be thin and circumstantial, but sufficient to give me a starting point. I'm still searching for records, and I'm open to the possibility that the records I have might prove not to be evidence of our family's story, but of other people. 

Still, I'm satisfied that if we accept that the two brothers who settled in Ohio were who we think they were, my work has proceeded from there, searching for proof of their descendants' various stories before moving to each successive generation. Along the way, I constantly compare the facts assembled from the public records to the version of the story presented in the CFH. Sometimes, this is confusing and challenging.

Case in point: At first, the only record that I could find before was the 1860 Census for Thomas Jefferson Callin (a shoemaker who went by the name Jeff), which looks like this:

The transcriber of this record saw "Munfer" - I can't do better.

That limited information calls into question parts of George Callin's account. Based on this, record, I can't even say for sure that George got this person's name or birthdate correct. Using the facts we have - the wife's name, the children, the bare outlines of his birth/death - I was unable to find anything else to compare to.

Until I got to this point in the editorial process and found a new breakthrough in the 1880 U.S. Census:

Name:     Marquis Collin
Age:     44
Birth Date:     Abt 1836
Birthplace:     Ohio
Home in 1880:     Wauseon, Fulton, Ohio, USA
Relation to Head of House:     Self (Head)
Marital status:     Married
Spouse's name:     Caroline Collin
Father's Birthplace:     Virginia
Mother's Birthplace:     Pennsylvania
Occupation:     Shoemaker
Household Members:    
Name     Age
Marquis Collin     44
Caroline Collin     34
Fredrick Collin     13
John Collin     8

This is pretty exciting - for a couple of reasons. First, I'm thrilled to see "Marquis" written in an official record - I feel like that vindicates great-uncle George, because if I'm honest, I was wondering if the name wasn't something more along the lines of "Manfred" or "Mumford" (both of which I had searched for while trying to find this person in the records). Second, because for all of the little differences, like the wife's name being "Caroline" instead of "Pauline" and listing Marquis's father's birthplace as Virginia (which, to be fair, overlapped with Pennsylvania's territory when Marquis's father was born!), details like his occupation (shoemaker!) and the names of their sons make a pretty compelling case that we have a match.

That looks like "Marquis Callin" to me!

Digging in a bit further, I also found this family at the same location in 1870 - minus the young John, who was born later, of course. This time, his name was recorded as "Martin Calin," but the other details match up, and I'm reasonably certain this is the family we were looking for. Sadly, there is a Find-A-Grave memorial in Wauseon for a "Caroline Callins," with a death date of 1880. And while I searched as thoroughly as I could, that trail ends here, for now. Wauseon is well to the east of Chicago, but it's entirely possible that Marquis ended up there. He and his sons could have gone anywhere in the years after Caroline's death.

I couldn't find a marriage record, so I don't know for sure whether Caroline's maiden name is Snyder (there are some tantalizing clues in the 1850 and 1860 Census), and I don't see any death record for Marquis (under any name). I see no traces of Fred, and while there are several records that suggest a John Callin who was born in Ohio in 1871 had a long life in Alaska, I don't have solid evidence that he's the same guy.

(Unless I can learn more that allows me to tie him to Marquis and Caroline, I don't plan on including John's Alaska adventures in the final book.)

But rest assured, the search continues, as does the monumental task of editing all of this into a well-sourced, and hopefully coherent, family history book!

 - -- --- -- - 

As always...

You can comment below (anonymous comments are usually not as helpful), or email "mightieracorns" at Gmail.com.

We have many ways to get in touch:

a Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/MightierAcorns/

a Twitter feed - https://twitter.com/MightierAcorns

a Ko-Fi cup - https://ko-fi.com/mightieracorns

...and if you prefer a private group, we still have the Callin Family History group on Facebook for "cousins only" (there will be a question about how you're related to the family before you can join).

Until next time... Happy Hunting!