Spellchecking the John Berlin Mystery

When you sit down to solve a jigsaw puzzle, you already have a few advantages. Usually, you know that you have all of the pieces in your box. And usually, you have a picture on the box to show you what your solved puzzle should look like. Most importantly, though, you know that only the pieces that should fit together will fit together.

Solving a family history puzzle is the opposite of all of those things. You probably know you don't have all the pieces, and you probably never will. The picture on the box may not have been labeled properly, and when you do find clues, they may add up to give you three or four different answers - sometimes, even the right one!

If we're lucky, we can find enough evidence that matches the pieces we have to tell us where to look for the next several pieces. And that's the game. You will find a lot of information, and some of it is obviously wrong. But some of it is right — and how do you know what to hold onto, and what to let go?

Today, I'm taking a fresh look at the family of Elizabeth Berlin, rebuilding the case I made in a post from 2016.

The Pieces

The Callin Family History

According to the Callin Family History, Elizabeth Berlin is my 3rd-great-grandmother. Here's what we have to work with from the CFH:

Record of William Callin, 3rd son of John Callin, who was 2nd son of James 1st.
Born May 10, 1813, died Nov. 9, 1881, at Bowling Green, O.

Married to Elizabeth Barlene 1837 who died Nov. 14, 1903, at Bowling Green, O., aged 86 years.

The William Callin-Elizabeth Berlin marriage record

One guiding star in any kind of historical research is the rule that tells us to always look to original and primary sources. The CFH is not a primary source, but a marriage record would be. We can see the image of the original record here:

Detail from Ohio, County Marriage Records, 1774-1993

Despite the florid handwriting and odd line break, it is easy enough to see that "Mr. Wm. Cal-lin and Mifs Elizabeth Berlin" were married on the 29th day of Sept. in Richland County, Ohio, in 1836. (I had to crop the part of the image that showed the year, but if anyone needs to see that to believe it, I can send the whole page.)

Notice the way things add up, yet are different. The CFH says William married Elizabeth Barlene in 1837, and the marriage record says he married Elizabeth Berlin on 29 September 1836. It's easy enough to accept this record as proof that corroborates the CFH, but even though they aren't exactly the same. The year is definitely close enough, and the spelling of the surname suggests that a combination of pioneer illiteracy and varied pronunciation could complicate things for us.

Rosemary's Memoir

If you are a long-time reader of this blog, you may remember an early post, Silk or Satin, in which Elizabeth's granddaughter, Rosemary (the youngest daughter of George Callin, the writer of the Callin Family History) recorded her memories of Elizabeth after her death in 1903. Even Rosemary wasn't sure how to spell Elizabeth's maiden name, and she titled her memoir, "Things I Have Been Told About My Grandmother, Elizabeth Berlien (Barline) Callin."

That confusion in what, exactly, Elizabeth's maiden name was makes it difficult to find Elizabeth's family in the Census because there are many households with similar surnames in the 1830 and 1840 Census records for Ohio. Without more information, it would be impossible to track them down.

The Wood County history

Pages 923 and 924 of the Commemorative Historical and Biographical Record of Wood County, Ohio have a biographical sketch of my great-great-grandfather, John H. Callin, son of William and Elizabeth. In its description of William, it says: "In 1835, he married Elizabeth, daughter of John Barlin, of Ashland..."

The Wood County book is definitely not a primary source, but that statement may help us find one. At least we have two more crucial clues: a father's name, John, and a location to hunt in: Ashland. (Also, with that source, we are now up to five alternate spellings of the surname.)

Detail from the 1840 U.S. Census for
Mifflin, Richland County, Ohio

I assume that the location referred to as "of Ashland" is Ashland County, Ohio, where William's father and uncle settled when they arrived in Ohio from Pennsylvania. However, we have to note the fact that Ashland County, Ohio, did not exist in 1835, when the Wood County book says they were married. That book was published in 1895 or 1897 (depending on which edition you find), and it seems that it was referring to the counties as they existed in the 1890s. Ashland County was formed in 1846 from parts of Huron, Lorain, Richland and Wayne Counties. When the Wood County book says "Ashland," it could mean any one of those other counties.

The U.S. Federal Census

In the 1840 Census, we find a John Barlean listed as the head of a household in Mifflin, Richland County. Mifflin is near enough to Milton that the Barlean and Callin families likely knew each other. The 1840 Barlean household is enumerated as having one male between the ages of 50 and 59 (presumably John, putting his birthdate between 1781 and 1790), one female between 50 and 59, and one female between 15 and 19. This could be a younger sister of Elizabeth's, with a birthdate between 1821 and 1825.

Further searches failed to turn up records for 1850 or 1860, but in 1870 we can see an 83-year-old John Barlean listed with his wife, Mary A (age 79), living in the Young household in Vermillion, Ashland County, Ohio. The head of that household is listed as Catherine Young, 50 years old, and born in Pennsylvania. Not only do the estimated birthdates of John (1787, in Pennsylvania) and Mary A (1791, also in Pennsylvania) fit with their 1840 record, but Catherine Young (estimated birthdate of 1820) could be the younger female in that 1840 record, too.

Detail from the 1870 U.S. Census for
Vermillion, Ashland County, Ohio

The Ashland County History

Catherine's eldest son, Samuel, is featured in a biographical sketch in A. J. Baughman's History of Ashland County, Ohio, which says (emphasis is mine):

He is a son of Michael and Katharine (Berlean) Young, both of whom were natives of Pennsylvania as were the paternal grandparents, Mathias and Mary Young. ... The maternal grandparents of our subject were John and Mary Ann Berlean, who were likewise born in the Keystone state and died in Ashland county. ...John Berlean served his country in the war of 1812 and was at Baltimore during the hostilities there. The Berlean homestead, upon which the mother of our subject [the same Catherine we see in the 1870 Census] was born, was situated in Pennsylvania on the Maryland state line.
...Michael Young ...accompanied his parents on their removal to Mifflin township about 1829 and Katherine Berlean arrived about a year later. They were married here and became residents of Mifflin township, taking up their abode on a farm within its borders immediately after their marriage and remaining there until called to their final rest.

A War of 1812 Pension record

So, we now have another clue that tells us where to hunt for primary sources on John Berlean: his military service in the war of 1812. But this is also where I think I made a mistake; look at what I said in 2016, in the post "Great-great-great-grandpa William Callin," specifically this part:

"John Berlin turns up in the War of 1812 Pension Application Files Index, 1812-1815 and from that record we learn that he served from 21 April 1813 to 22 November 1814, in both Captain William Craig's and Captain Jonathan May's companies in the Pennsylvania Militia. The record also shows that he married his second wife (the widow claiming his pension) in 1830 in Columbiana county, Ohio. (Happily, his first wife, Anna Coy, is also named.) It also lists residence dates for Van Wert county, Ohio (1851-1856) and Canton, Stark county (1871); he died in Stark county in 1874."

When I wrote that previous post, I ignored some problems with that record that probably indicate it does not identify our John Berlin/Berlean. First, that pension record says nothing about Ashland County, or any of the neighboring counties that became Ashland later on. Second, the name of the widow given in the pension record was Catherine Landis; this means that even if we assume some scenario where the John Berlin in this record lived in Mifflin in 1840 and in Vermillion in 1870, the name of his wife in the 1870 Census does not match the name of his widow on the pension record.

I suppose it is possible that John and Mary Ann lived in Ashland in the 1840s, moved to Van Wert County during the 1850s, then back to Ashland in time for the 1870 Census, moving finally to Stark County by 1871. But there are problems with that theory. I find it unlikely that "Catherine" would use the name "Mary Ann" only when living in Ashland County. (Mary Ann is not Anna Coy, either, because Anna Coy died before 1830.)

The Ashland County History also specifically states that John and Mary Ann Berlean "died in Ashland county." Unfortunately, I have been unable to confirm this with records of any kind. They do not appear on the 1880 Census, and I can find no death records in Ashland county during the 1870s. I do see a Find-A-Grave memorial for John Berlin and Catherine, both of whom died and are buried in Stark County. It is possible that the writer of the Ashland history confused the location of their deaths, but that seems unlikely, as the two counties are about 60 miles apart.

When all is said and done, I don't think the John Berlin in this pension record is the same as the John Berlin who lived and died in Ashland County.

The Westmoreland County history

George Dallas Albert's History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania holds two more clues to the origin of our John Barlean (again, emphases mine):

pg. 611 -

"THE BERLIN FAMILY

"In 1794 one of the soldiers who came from Eastern Pennsylvania in the army to put down the "Whiskey Insurrection" was Jacob Berlin. He got a furlough in Pittsburgh to come out to that part of Franklin township now included in Penn, to visit his uncle, Jacob Berlin, who had settled there some twenty years before. He so liked the country that in the spring of 1795 he returned with his wife, formerly Miss Eve Carbaugh.
"He finally settled between the Fink and Lauffer farms. His children were four daughters and six sons, viz.: ...John, Frederick, Joseph, Samuel, Powell, and Elias, of whom Powell removed to Forest County, Frederick to Clarion, and John to State of Ohio. Col. Elias Berlin, the youngest son, was born in 1803...His brother John served in the war of 1812."

And there is this about John's likely bride:

pg. 668 (within the biographical sketch of Jacob Baughman)

"After his marriage Adam Baughman settled on a farm in Armstrong County, about seventy miles up the Allegheny River, and here four children, viz.: Catharine, Michael, Polly, and Jacob, were born. Upon the death of his brother Henry...he sold his place in Armstrong County and returned to Westmoreland, and became the owner of and occupied the homestead until his death. Here the following children were born, viz.: Elizabeth, Margaret, Peter, Anna, Henry, Christian, and Lydia...Anna, wife of John Berlin, six sons and three daughters..."

While none of the places associated with Jacob Berlin are places that I would describe as "situated in Pennsylvania on the Maryland state line," I'm inclined to think that the other details fit with our John Berlin; I'm even willing to think that because the biography of Samuel Young (which names his wife as "Mary Ann") might be more accurate than the biography of Jacob and Adam Baughman (which calls her merely "Anna") because the Samuel Young biography was written by a descendant of the Baughmans! (How's that for history rhyming?)

Conclusions

While I would prefer to have solid, primary sources to prove the relationships here, I think it's reasonable to say that I have enough evidence to assert that we know the key facts about Elizabeth Berlin:

1. William Callin married Elizabeth Berlin on 29 September 1836 in what was then Richland County, Ohio.

• Ohio marriage record (primary source)
• Callin Family History (secondary source; last name given as "Barlene" and date as 1837)
• Wood County History (secondary; last name given as "Barlin" and date as 1835)

2. Elizabeth's father was John Berlin, "of Ashland County" (Ohio)

• Wood County History (secondary; last name given as "Barlin")

3. Elizabeth's sister was Catherine (or Katherine) Young

• Ashland County History (secondary; last name given as "Berlean" and Elizabeth not named)
• 1870 U.S. Census (primary; shows Catherine Young and John & Mary Ann Barlean living in same household)

4. John Berlin's origins were in Westmoreland County

• Ashland County History (secondary; gives name as "Berlean," identifies Pennsylvania, mentions 1812 service)
• Westmoreland County History (secondary; gives name as "Berlin," identifies wife as "Anna," places him in Ohio)

That should give us some solid ground to build on.

Great Great Great Grandpa William Callin

At last, we have arrived at my 3rd great-grandfather:

William H. Callin (1813-1881)

His father was John Callin, whose story was told in The Brothers Callin of Ohio. His mother was Elizabeth Simon, about whom we asked Who Was Great Grandma Callin?

We talked about his older brother in Uncle George and the Underground Railroad; and since this time last year, we've looked at all of his older siblings and their descendants. We even talked about his youngest sister already in The Distance of Close Connections. You may remember even further back, when we talked about his eldest son and grandchildren in 20th Century Callin Clan.

Here is his record from the Callin Family History - as written by his fourth son, George Callin:

Record of William Callin, 3rd son of John Callin, who was 2nd son of James 1st.
Born May 10, 1813, died Nov. 9, 1881, at Bowling Green, O.
Married to Elizabeth Barlene 1837 who died Nov. 14, 1903, at Bowling Green, O., aged 86 years.
To this union were born seven children:

• Harriett, born 1838, died 1907.

• John, born 1840, lives in Fostoria, Ohio.

• James M., born Feb 26, 1844, died 1903 in Canada.

• George, born July 4, 1846, lives at Bowling Green, O.

• Hugh, born May 16, 1848, died 1880 at Portage, Ohio.

• Zimri, born Dec. 10, 1850, died Aug., 1907, at Bowling Green, O.

• Milton, born 1852, died at 5 months old.

William Callin was 3 years old when his father moved from Penn. To Ashland, Ohio. He grew to manhood on the old farm. Married and lived there till 1849 when he moved to Huron Co., Ohio; bought and cleared up a new farm. In 1861 he bought and moved his family on to a farm in Wood Co., near Bowling Green.
He was a perfect specimen of physical manhood, six feet tall, weight 200 pounds; all bone and muscle. Few men equaled him in strength. He followed clearing timber land and was badly crippled with rheumatism in old age.

The J.H. Beers company published their Commemorative Historical and Biographical Record of Wood County, Ohio in 1897. These hagiographic histories were very popular in the late 19th century, and George may have even contributed some of the information in this biographical sketch of his brother, John, which included these paragraphs about William:

His father, William H. Callin, was born at Callinsburg, Clarion Co., Penn., September 10, 1813, and was the fourth son in a family of nine children. He was an industrious, hardy, persevering man, possessing great physical strength, but had only a limited knowledge of books. He had a mind of keen perception and sound judgment, and was well fitted for pioneer life. In 1831 he accompanied his parents to Ashland county, Ohio, where his father entered a tract of land from the government, becoming one of the first settlers of that locality. William Callin aided in clearing and improving this property, and finally, on the death of the father, in paying it out of the land office and receiving title (the land having been entered on what was termed the ninety-nine-year lease). In 1835, he married Elizabeth, daughter of John Barlin, of Ashland, and of their union were born eight children, the eldest and youngest dying in infancy. The surviving members of the family are Harriet, widow of William , of Bowling Green; John H.; James M., and George W., both of Bowling Green; Hugh H. and Zimri L., of Pioneer, Ohio.

In 1849 William Callin removed from Ashland county to Peru, Huron Co., Ohio, locating on a farm of eighty acres which he sold in 1860, preparatory to his removal to Wood county. Here he settled on 160 acres of land in Plain township, and, on his retirement from farming, took up his residence in Bowling Green. He was an exemplary man, of high Christian character, and a consistent and faithful member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He supported the first Republican presidential candidate, John C. Fremont, and was ever afterward a stanch advocate of the party. His death occurred in Bowling Green, December 11, 1881. His widow still makes her home there, and is now in her seventy-ninth year.

While these old books of pioneer history have a reputation for being wrong or incomplete, the records I have been able to locate largely back up the later details of the Beers sketch; and the details between the Beers and CFH accounts mostly match, too. The only real doubt I have is about the claim that William was born in Callensburg, Pennsylvania.

Callensburg was not surveyed until 1826, and wasn't incorporated until 1851. William's father and uncle (The Brothers Callin) were both settled in Milton township, Richland county, Ohio, with John appearing in both the 1820 and 1830 Census records there; so William couldn't have been born in that town. That said, the founder of Callensburg, Hugh Callen, did purchase the 300 acres that would later become the town in 1812, so there is an outside chance that our Callin family was living there at the time William was born. That's hard to prove without records, though.

Another quibble with the Beers and the CFH is that Ashland wasn't formed until 1846, and both histories refer to people settling there before that date. I'm not a professional historian, but I'm pretty sure it's bad form to refer to a place by its current name, and not indicate that it used to be called something else.

Because of these bad habits, I'm more willing to think that wherever he was actually born (whether on the property that later became Callensburg, or somewhere near that), William's parents probably told him that's where he was from, and that is what got passed down into the written record.

William married Elizabeth Berlin (1817–1903) about 1836. I actually have a citation record from an ancient CD ROM, the Family Tree Maker's Family Archives: Marriage Index; Selected Counties of Ohio, 1789-1850 CD 400, which puts their wedding on 29 September 1836 in Richland county. When you take into account the Richland/Ashland confusion of the older historians, that fits with their versions of events. (Someday, I need to track down the original record.)

Elizabeth's family has been tough for me to hunt down. Let's start with the facts from the Beers sketch: Elizabeth, daughter of John Barlin, of Ashland.

There is a John Barlean listed in the 1840 Census as living in Richland county (Mifflin township), and in the 1870 Census in Ashland county (Vermillion). (Remember, parts of Richland became part of Ashland in the 1840s.) The 1870 lists 83-year-old John in a household with 79-year-old Mary A Barlean, and the family of 50-year-old Catherine Young. Some further digging turned up another biographical sketch that fits with the family described here; this one for Catherine's son, Samuel Young.

The maternal grandparents of our subject were John and Mary Ann Berlean, who were likewise born in the Keystone state and died in Ashland county. Mathias Young was a soldier of the Revolutionary War, while John Berlean served his country in the war of 1812 and was at Baltimore during the hostilities there. The Berlean homestead, upon which the mother of our subject was born, was situated in Pennsylvania on the Maryland state line.
The birth of Michael Young [Samuel's father] occurred in Union county, Pennsylvania, after which he removed to Center county and later to Huntingdon county in the same state. From that point he accompanied his parents on their removal to Mifflin township about 1829 and Katherine Berlean arrived about a year later.
(from History of Ashland County, Ohio, by A. J. Baughman, 1909)

There are a lot of clues there. The timing seems to add up for the Berlean family to arrive in Mifflin (though they weren't there in 1830); but other facts don't add up. And the 1840 record only counts three people - a male and female between 50 and 59 years of age (presumably John and his wife), and a female between 15 and 19 (presumably Katherine). No Elizabeth, though she would have already been married to William Callin by 1840.

John Berlin turns up in the War of 1812 Pension Application Files Index, 1812-1815 and from that record we learn that he served from 21 April 1813 to 22 November 1814, in both Captain William Craig's and Captain Jonathan May's companies in the Pennsylvania Militia. The record also shows that he married his second wife (the widow claiming his pension) in 1830 in Columbiana county, Ohio. (Happily, his first wife, Anna Coy, is also named.) It also lists residence dates for Van Wert county, Ohio (1851-1856) and Canton, Stark county (1871); he died in Stark county in 1874.

There is still no direct link to Elizabeth, but there are two men (one John Barlin, one John Barline) in Columbiana county, Ohio, in 1830. The former had four daughters under 20 and lived in Beaver township (which became part of Mahoning county in 1846); the latter had one son and one daughter, both under 5, and lived in Green township.

None of this adds up to concrete proof, but the facts do seem to fit together. I wouldn't be comfortable posting this next section without the preceding five paragraphs as a disclaimer, but I think this is what happened:

- -- --- -- -

John Berlin (1787-1874) was born in Pennsylvania, and served from 1813-1814 in the PA Militia during the War of 1812. He married Anna Coy in 1815 or 1816, and entered a tract of bounty land in Beaver township, Columbiana county, Ohio, probably just after 1820.

Elizabeth Berlin (1817–1903) would have been the eldest daughter; her sister, Catherine (mother of Samuel Young in the sketch above) was born about 1820. The couple had four daughters; the two youngest were under 5 when Anna died, likely around 1827. In 1830, John married Catharine Landis (1807-1882), and moved the family to Mifflin township, Richland county.

Elizabeth married William Callin in 1836, and they set up house on the Callin family farm in Milton township. William had purchased the deed after his father died in 1835, and many of the Callin family members who had grown up there had moved further west. In 1845, William took his wagon 500 miles west to Iowa to retrieve his recently widowed sister, Margret, and her two small sons, and return them to Ohio.

William moved to Peru township, Huron county, in 1849 and the family lived there for a decade before relocating in 1860 to Wood county, where he cleared a 160 acre farm in Plain township. When the Civil War broke out, William and Elizabeth sent their three oldest sons, and proudly received all three back. William retired from farming and he and Elizabeth moved into Bowling Green, where he died in 1881. She moved into the home of her son, George, where she made an impression on her granddaughter, Rosemary. Elizabeth survived William by more than twenty years, and she died 19 November 1903 in Bowling Green.

Rosemary recorded her memories of Elizabeth in the post Silk or Satin.

- -- --- -- -

As we head forward and start exploring the Sly family next week, I'm keenly aware that there are more cousins watching who are directly related to the individuals I'll be writing about. I will continue to try to tell the best/most complete/most accurate stories I can, but I need you all to keep me honest!

If you spot a mistake, or catch me taking a shortcut, call me on it!

And if you want to offer a guest post for your family, let me know before we get there, so I can schedule you in.

As always... comment below, email callintad at Gmail, or click through to the Facebook group.