CFH First Draft: Elizabeth Belle Ferguson McNabb Reed

 This post is part of an ongoing series, sharing the first draft of my Revised Callin Family History. 

Elizabeth Belle Ferguson is the 44th person in a descendant report beginning with the earliest known ancestor of our Callin family, (1.) James Callin. This descendant report uses the Register Style of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society. 

Please use the Contact Form (at right) to send questions or corrections.

CFH First Draft: Mary Ferguson McNabb

 This post is part of an ongoing series, sharing the first draft of my Revised Callin Family History. 

Mary E Ferguson is the 43rd person in a descendant report beginning with the earliest known ancestor of our Callin family, (1.) James Callin. This descendant report uses the Register Style of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society. 

Please use the Contact Form (at right) to send questions or corrections.

The Return of April's Fool

(Be advised: this is long, and mostly contains lists of records - but if you're here for the challenge, you'll probably enjoy that!)

On 1 April 2016, I wrote about a puzzle that I had tentatively solved involving two men named John McNabb - one of whom ought to be included in my Callin Family History. Now that I'm at that point in the editorial process where I really need to determine which one is the "right" one, I need to revisit the evidence and make a choice.

Just to re-set the stage, here is the section about Mary Ferguson and Reuben McNabb from my draft of the Callin Family History:

40. Mary E Ferguson (Eliza Callin-3, John-2, James "1st"-1) was born in 1833 in Ohio, and she grew up in Jackson, De Kalb County, Indiana. Mary and Reuben McNabb were married on 16 Nov 1854 in De Kalb, Indiana. Reuben was the youngest son of John McNabb (1792–1860) and Mary Young (1787–1873), born on 25 Dec 1829 in Pennsylvania. 
Reuben and Mary lived in Jackson, De Kalb, Indiana in 1860. They moved to Michigan in about 1865, and they lived in Chester, Eaton County, Michigan in 1870 and 1880. 
Mary died about 1895 at the age of 62 in Grand Rapids, Kent, Michigan. Reuben remained in Grand Rapids through at least 1896. He was an inmate in the Missaukee County Home in Reeder, Missaukee County, Michigan in 1910 and he died there on 5 Apr 1911 at the age of 81.     

The 1870 Census for Chester, Eaton County, Michigan lists their family as follows:

• Reuben Mc knab - Age 40
• Mary Mc knab - Age 36
• George Mc knab - Age 15
• James Mc knab - Age 11
• William Mc knab - Age 9
• John Mc knab - Age 6
• Ellen Mc knab - Age 4
• Martha Mc knab
• Marcus Mc knab

Note that the last two are infant twins; after 1870, Reuben and Mary had two more children:
Mary E McNabb (1871–1940)
Oliver Otis McNabb (1874–1931)

So, this is our first data point for the John McNabb we are trying to identify. Note that his estimated birthdate here would be about 1864; he is the last child listed as born in Indiana - we assume that means he was born while his parents lived in Jackson, De Kalb County, and after that, they moved to Michigan.

The Problem

There are two men named "John McNabb" with distinctly different life stories, both of whom have multiple records that claim their parents are Reuben McNabb and Mary Ferguson. The stories the records tell of their lives are different enough to rule out the likelihood that both are the same man - but the details are inconsistent enough that either man could "fit" as the son of Reuben and Mary; and none of the other McNabb siblings left behind obituaries that mentioned their brother, John, or his location.

It is also possible (maybe even likely) that either of these two men was the biological son of another McNabb - a nephew or cousin of Reuben - taken in and raised by Reuben and Mary. Neither of them appears in the 1880 Census records for Rueben and Mary's household, and while I found a John McNabb (b. 1864 in IN) living in Chester, Eaton County, Michigan, in that census, I have no way of determining which John McNabb he is:

The 1880 Census for Chester, Eaton County, Michigan

Name: John Mc Nabb
Age: 16
Birth Date: Abt 1864
Birthplace: Indiana
Home in 1880: Chester, Eaton, Michigan, USA
Relationship to Head of household: Servant
Marital status: Single
Occupation: Laborer

So, with that, I'm going to present the Narrative and the Evidence for both men, and hope that in the process of drafting a post like this, I'll learn something!

First, I need to identify a point where there is some overlap. There are several City Directory entries that place a "John G. McNabb" at the same address as Reuben and men who are, presumably, John's brothers. See if you can sort out who is supposed to be who:

Grand Rapids, Michigan, City Directory, 1889

McNab John, foreman, res 170 Henry.
 " John jr, elevator man, bds 170 Henry
McNabb James M, lab St Ry Co of G R, res 593 N Front.
 " John, contractor, res 392 Fountain.
 " John G, mach hd G R School Furn Co, bds 98 Taylor.
 " Marcus E, sawyer, bds 98 Taylor.
 " Reuben, mach, res 98 Taylor.
 " Wm C, mach hd G R Chair Co, res 392 Taylor.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, City Directory, 1892

McNabb James M, mach hd Greenman & Dosch Co, bds 534 Turner.
McNabb John (Campbell & McNabb), res 392 Fountain.
McNabb John, lab, res 170 Henry.
McNabb John G, sticker, bds 158 Taylor.
McNabb Marcus E, carver, bds 158 Taylor.
McNabb Oliver O, mach hd, bds 158 Taylor.
McNabb Miss Retta, clk W T Lamoreaux & Co, bds 170 Henry.
McNabb Reuben, carp, res 158 Taylor.
McNabb Wm C, mach, res 71 E Leonard.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, City Directory, 1893

McNab Miss Jennie, clk W T Lamoreaux & Co, bds 170 Henry.
McNab John, lab, res 170 Henry.
McNab Miss Retta, clk W T Lamoreaux & Co, bds 170 Henry.
McNabb James M, mach hd, res 422 Turner.
McNabb John (Campbell & McNabb), res 392 Fountain.
McNabb John, mach G R Hand Screw Co, res 88 Grandville av.
McNabb John C, shaper hd Royal Furn Co, res 45 N Jefferson.
McNabb John G, mach, bds 104 Fremont.
McNabb Martin C, mach, bds 104 Fremont. <-- this is probably Marcus
McNabb Oliver O, teamster, bds 104 Fremont.
McNabb Reuben, eng, res 104 Fremont.
McNabb Wm C, mach hd, res 195 Stocking.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, City Directory, 1896

McNab Cora, student, bds 135 Thomas.
McNab John, h 135 Thomas.
McNab Margaret, bds 135 Thomas.
McNabb James M, lab, h 261 Plainfield av.
McNabb John (Campbell & McNabb), h 392 Fountain.
McNabb John C, mach hd, h 165 W Division.
McNabb Joseph, bds 234 Broadway.
McNabb Oliver, porter Baldwin House, bds same.
McNabb Reuben, carp, bds 261 Plainfield av.
McNabb Wm C, mach hd, h 116 Earle.

As tempting as it is to conclude that because "John G" resided at the same address as Reuben, he must be the son we're looking for, there are two reasons to be skeptical of that conclusion.
    1) If Reuben took in a nephew named John, his son could have moved out and left the nephew at Reuben's address. There are, after all, up to four different John McNabbs living in Grand Rapids alone, according to these records.
    2) I don't trust middle initials as a sole point of evidence. Handwriting and human error, as well as the visual similarity of the letters "C" and "G" could be misleading.

Perhaps there's a clue hidden in the records that we can tie to one man or the other.

**UPDATE**

I found these two records after publishing yesterday, so I'm including them for completeness:

Grand Rapids, Michigan, City Directory, 1897

McNab Carrie, bds 135 Thomas.
McNab Cora, bds 135 Thomas.
McNab John, lab, h 135 Thomas.
McNab Margaret, bds 135 Thomas.
McNabb James M, mach hd h 261 Plainfield av.
McNabb John (Campbell & McNabb), ha 392 Fountain.
McNabb John C, mach h 165 W Division.
McNabb Marcus E, mach, bds 165 W Division.
McNabb Oliver, driver bds 281 Travis av.
McNabb, Wm C, mach hd, h 116 Earle.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, City Directory, 1899

McNab Cora, bds 135 Thomas.
McNab John, h 135 Thomas.
McNab Margaret, bds 135 Thomas.
McNabb Elizabeth, teacher Jefferson Av School, h 184 N Division.
McNabb James M, carp, h 882 N College av.
McNabb John (Campbell & McNabb), h 392 Fountain.
McNabb John C, mach h 155 Cherry.McNabb Marcus E, painter, h 204 5th.
McNabb, Wm C, mach hd Stickley Bros Co, h 116 Earle. 

Take note that Marcus and "John C" from the 1896 directory are rooming together in 1897 and that John C is at the same address as his 1900 Census address in 1899.

Candidate One: John C. McNabb (c. 1860-1932)

This man usually appears listed as either "John C.," or simply "John" McNabb. The first records I found were his 1932 Michigan Death record (number 13, below) and his marriage to Inez in 1912 (number 5). Both records name his parents as Reuben McNabb and Mary Ferguson. Note that Inez was the informant for the Death record, which means that she thought Reuben was born in Scotland and Mary in Ireland; it's possible that they were, and that this means we are talking about the wrong Reuben and Mary, but I think it's more likely that Inez didn't know where her in-laws were born. John was also pretty inconsistent about reporting his parents' birthplaces on the census (see the 1920 and 1930 for examples).

Working backward from these documents, I found a number of City Directories that showed where John and Inez lived in Battle Creek and his changes in occupation over time. Note that on their marriage record, he listed his occupation as "millwright" and that he was married once before. Based on these clues, I decided to accept the marriage and divorce records, and the 1900 & 1910 Census records that tell us John married Ella (or Ellen) Archer, they had a daughter who died, and they divorced in 1912 just before his marriage to Inez.

I note that John C's birthdates are all over the place; the earliest reported is Sep 1856, and the latest is about 1872. That's a distressingly wide gap - 16 years is wide enough to worry that I might be conflating records for a father and a son. That said, there are three records that suggest the later dates can be ignored: the 1920 and 1930 census, and the 1912 marriage record. Marriage records tend to ask for age only to ensure the parties are old enough to be married; they don't really care about precision, only that you're "over 21" if you're a man, and "over 18" (usually) if you're a woman. And both census records are from after this marriage record; if Inez was giving the census taker the information, and she says "he's about 8 years older than I am," because that's what he said on their marriage certificate, then you get that consistently wrong date.

The earlier dates present a problem, because the John McNabb we are looking for was not in Reuben and Mary's household in 1860, and should have a birthdate around 1864. That said, John is younger than his first wife, suggesting that he might have given an earlier birthdate on his first marriage record, either out of ego or because the law required him to be 21 and an 1863 birthdate would have made him 18 in 1881. If he lied, we can ignore those earlier dates. That still puts his likely birthdate a couple of years before the birthdates we see on the 1870 and 1880 Census.

The point is: there are a lot of inconsistencies between these records, but despite that, they seem to tell the story of the same person. Here they are in chronological order, so you can construct a narrative from them:


1. Michigan, Marriage Records, 1867-1952

Name: John C McNabb
Age: 23
Birth Year: 1858
Birth Place: Fort Wayne, Indiana (Auburn, De Kalb County, is a nearby suburb of Fort Wayne)
Marriage Date: 19 Nov 1881
Marriage Place: Niles, Berrien, Michigan
Residence Place: Fort Wayne, Indiana
Spouse: Ella Archer
Age: 24
Birth Year: 1857
Birth Place: Union City, Michigan

2. The 1900 Census for Grand Rapids, Kent County, Michigan

John Mc Nabb
Age: 43
Birth Date: Sep 1856
Birthplace: Indiana
Address: 155 Cherry Street
Marital status: Married
Spouse's name: Ellen Mc Nabb (age 42)
Born: Nov 1857, Mich
Marriage Year: 1882
Occupation: Mill Hnd Furn Fact [probably "Mill Hand at Furnace Factory"? or "Millwright"?]
Daughter: Mabel McNabb (age 12)
Born: Jan 1888, Mich

3. The 1910 Census for Emmet, Calhoun County, Michigan

Name: John C Mc Nabb
Age in 1910: 54
Birth Year: abt 1856
Birthplace: Indiana
Relation to Head of House: Head
Father's Birthplace: Scotland
Mother's Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Occupation: Machinist
Industry: Shop
Marital status: Married
Spouse's name: Ellen Mc Nabb
Years Married: 30
Number of Children Born: 1
Number of Children Living: 0

4. Michigan, Divorce Records, 1897-1952

Name: John McNabb
Marriage Date: 19 Nov 1881
Decree Date: 23 Sep 1912
Decree Place: Calhoun, Michigan
Spouse Name: Ellen McNabb
Number of Children: 0
Divorce Status: Granted

5. Michigan, Marriage Records, 1867-1952

Groom: John C. McNab age 40, occupation: Millwright, birthplace: Mich.
Father's name: Reuben McNab
Mother's name: Mary Ferguson
Married one time previously
and:
Bride: Inez M. Atkins, age 32, birthplace: Mich.
Father's name: John Atkins
Mother's name: Emma Swift
No previous marriage
Marriage: 25 Dec 1912 in Kalamazoo, Michigan

6. Battle Creek, Michigan, City Directory, 1914

McNabb, John C (Inez M) - baker 231 Marshall, res. 43 Mary

7. Battle Creek, Michigan, City Directory, 1918

McNabb, John C (Inez) - 2d hd gds, 68 Jefferson St. S
[note the abbreviation for "second hand goods"]

8. The 1920 Census for Battle Creek, Calhoun County, Michigan

Home address: 68 South Jefferson Ave.
John McNabb (49), proprietor of a secondhand store
Father's birthplace: Scotland
Mother's birthplace: Indiana
Inez McNabb (39)

9. Battle Creek, Michigan, City Directory, 1921

McNabb, John C (Inez) - 2d hd gds, 68 Jefferson St. S

10. Battle Creek, Michigan, City Directory, 1922

McNabb, John C (Inez) - 2d hd gds, 68 Jefferson St. S

11. The 1930 Census for Battle Creek, Calhoun County, Michigan

Home address: South Jefferson Ave.
John McNabb (58), machinist/home shop
Father's Birthplace: Indiana
Mother's Birthplace: Indiana
Inez McNabb (50)

12. Battle Creek, Michigan, City Directory, 1931

McNabb, John C (Inez) - confr ["confectioner"] 124 Capital Ave SW 

13. Michigan, Death Records, 1867-1950

Name: John C McNabb
Marital Status: Married
Death Age: 72
Birth Date: 20 Sep 1860
Birth Place: Indiana
Death Date: 1 Dec 1932
Death Place: Battle Creek, Calhoun, Michigan
Father: Rubin McNabb (born Glasgow, Scotland)
Mother: Mary Ferguson (born County Clare, Ireland)
Residence: 124 Capital SW
Wife: Inez M. McNabb (informant)

Candidate Two: John Goldsmith McNabb (1864-1943)

As with Candidate One, I started out finding documents that named his parents; for Goldsmith, that meant starting with his California death record (number 5, below), and marriage records.

Michigan, Marriage Record
for John McNabb and Ida Sack (Stoik?)

1. Michigan, Marriage Records, 1867-1952

Note: this record is dated 1890, but as you can see in the detail to the right, it has been crossed out - the date of "Nov 1st 1890" is the date of the record - the field for recording the date of the wedding is blank. I think this means that while the wedding may not have happened at this time, the other information is probably right - and probably provided by John G McNabb.

Name: John G McNabb
Age: 26
Birth Year: 1864
Birth Place: Calhoun County, Michigan
Marriage Date: Nov 1890
Marriage Place: Ottawa, Michigan
Residence Place: Grand Rapids, Michigan
Father: R McNabb
Mother: M Ferguson
Spouse: Ida Stoik
Age: 19
Birth Year: abt 1871
Birth Place: Grand Haven, Michigan
Residence Place: Grand Haven, Michigan
Father: Unknown
Mother: Unknown

2. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Marriages, 1838-1911

Name: John G McNabb
Birth Place: Auburn, Indiana
Marriage Date: 31 Aug 1893
Marriage Place: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Father: Reuben McNabb
Mother: Mary McNabb
Occupation of husband: Machinist
Residence: Janesville, Wisconsin
Spouse: Ida Sock
Birth Place: Spring Lake, Michigan
Father: William Sock
Mother: Ida Sock

Note: The City Directories above place "John G" in Grand Rapids *until* 1893; we know from these two marriage records that Goldsmith was in Grand Rapids in 1890, and was living in Janesville, WI, in 1893. That could mean that John G was Goldsmith, and that he moved to Janesville after the City Directory for 1893 was published.

3. The 1900 Census for West Branch, Missaukee, Michigan

1900 Census for West Branch, MI
McNabb family

Name: John M Mcknabb
Age: 36
Birth Date: Dec 1863
Birthplace: Indiana
Marital status: Married
Spouse's name: Ida A Mc Knaff
Marriage Year: 1894
Father's Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Mother's Birthplace: Indiana
     Note: John and Ida ended up on two pages, and the transcription didn't get coded correctly, so you can't tell until you open the image that the following children are in the household:
Doris R. born Jan 1894 in Wisconsin
Forest S. born Jan 1897 in Michigan
Ester L. born April 1899 in Michigan

Note: Reuben was an inmate in the Missaukee County Home in Reeder, Missaukee County, Michigan in 1910.

4. The 1910 Census for Chico, Butte, California

John G Mcnabb
Age in 1910: 47
Birth Year: 1863
Birthplace: Indiana
Street: South Sycamore St
Spouse's Name: Ida A Mcnabb
Father's Birthplace: Indiana
Mother's Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Occupation: Hostler
Industry: Stallion
Years Married: 17
Household Members:
John G Mcnabb Age - 47
Ida A Mcnabb Age - 37
Doris R Mcnabb Age - 15
Forrest S Mcnabb Age - 13
Esther M Mcnabb Age - 10
John G Mcnabb Age - 8

5. California, Death Index, 1940-1997

Name: John Goldsmith McNabb
Birth Date: 24 Dec 1864
Birth Place: Indiana
Death Date: 24 Dec 1943
Death Place: Modoc
Mother's Maiden Name: Furgeson
Father's Surname: McNabb

Conclusion:

I'm still not satisfied that either candidate is "provably" the son of Reuben and Mary McNabb. The timeline of their lives and the records we have for Reuben and Mary fit closely enough that either could be the boy from the 1870 Census, or the "John G" living with Reuben and the brothers in Grand Rapids.

That said, I think the consistency of the birthdates reported for Goldsmith make him a slightly better choice for the boy in the 1870 Census. My guess is that "John C" was born around 1860 to one of Reuben's McNabb relatives, and was either orphaned or otherwise sent to live with Reuben and Mary, probably after 1870. If he is older than Goldsmith, then it is likely that both boys would have been out of the house by the time of the 1880 Census.

Obviously, John Goldsmith left children and grandchildren behind, and one of them may prove to have the answer, somehow. In the meantime, I'm going to figure out the best way to document both men in the Callin Family History, and offer my conclusion in hopes that future researchers might find some clues I missed, and solve this particular mystery once and for all!

The Second Life of Mrs. McNabb

Hello, cousins!

Over the past several weeks, we learned that Elizabeth Belle Ferguson's first husband, James McNabb, died in 1860 leaving Elizabeth widowed with a small daughter, Ella. We just spent three posts covering the descendants of Ella, "The Carper Children," and now we will move on to her half-siblings.

Just to help re-orient yourself:

Elizabeth B Ferguson McNabb Reed

James, Elizabeth, and Ella appeared on the 1860 U.S. Census in Cedar Creek, Allen County, Indiana, living in the household of a William and Fanny McNabb (this William most likely being the older brother of Reuben McNabb). William and Fanny McNabb's household is listed just above a Robert McNabb (age, 38; wife, Prudence) and another William McNabb (age, 28; wife, Celia) who appear to be from another McNabb family. The upshot is that we don't have many records, and we have a LOT of people with similar names, which makes the puzzle of who's who in the McNabb zoo a very tricky one to solve.

But thanks to Elizabeth's obituary, quoted in our earlier post, and this 1860 Census record, we can assert that James most likely died in Cedar Creek after the date on this record: 12 July 1860. And that's where we'll rejoin Elizabeth's story - but first, we must introduce Mr. Reed:

George Washington Reed (1825–1874) was born in Ohio around 1825. I believe his parents were James C. Reed and Mary Glass, but the evidence for this is somewhat thin. We do have the record showing that George married his first wife, Clarinda "Clara" Trindall (1828–1853) on 26 October 1847 in De Kalb County, Indiana. They then appeared on the 1850 Census with their son, Jacob, in Mifflin, Ashland County, Ohio. Their household consisted of:

• George W Reed, Age 23
• Clara Reed, Age 22
• Jacob M Reed, Age 1
• Mary Reed, Age 53 (possibly George's mother)
• James P Reed, Age 21 (possible brother)
• S. A. Reed, Age 18 (possible sister)

George and Clara had more children, notably Lovina Reed (1853–1925), who would grow up and marry John D. Ferguson (1848–1922), the younger brother of the very same Elizabeth Belle Ferguson George is about to marry!

We don't have a record to say when Clara died, but Elizabeth's obituary tells us that she and George married on 27 March 1861. In 1870, we see George and Elizabeth on the Census record for Jackson, De Kalb County, Indiana, listed below the households of James Ferguson Jr and Sr. There are two boys, Franklin and William, who are older than Elizabeth's daughter, Ella, so presumably they are Clara's younger children. From that, we might assume that Clara died after William's birth around 1857.

There is a memorial on Find-A-Grave for a "Clarana Reed, wife of George W. Reed, Died 11 March 1859" located in the Vesper Cemetery in Mifflin Township, Ashland County, Ohio; in the same cemetery, there is a memorial for a Mary Reed, d. 1882, "wife of James Reed" - that could be George's mother. Until we can confirm some of this with additional records, all of this is just speculation, but these facts do seem to fit together.

At any rate, from this point, we will be focused on the children born to George W. and Elizabeth Ferguson (McNabb) Reed. Since we numbered Ella Florence McNabb, Elizabeth's first child, as "I." in our earlier post, I'll continue to number her half-siblings for consistency:

     II. James F. Reed (1863–1936)
     III. Emma A Reed (1865–1934)
     IV. Eliza A. Reed (1866–1951)
     V. Mary Reed (1868–1869)
     VI. Margaret Jane Reed (1870–1952)
     VII. Charles Albert Reed (1871–1927)

George W. Reed died on 21 February 1874, and he was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Auburn, DeKalb County, Indiana. According to her obituary, Elizabeth "lived in the present home [the farm she and George moved to in 1867] for 28 years. She kept the family together, and looked after their welfare." When she died on 8 June 1896, she was buried in Evergreen Cemetery with her husband.

     II. James F. Reed (1863–1936)

James was born on 5 January 1863 in Indiana, most likely in De Kalb County, where he grew up. It should be noted that out of the six children born to George W. and Elizabeth Ferguson Reed, James is the only one not mentioned in The Callin Family History.

In 1885, he married Ellen Walter (1866–1941), the youngest child of Joseph Walter (1818–1882) and Sarah Nixon (1818–1888). They lived in Auburn until moving to Fort Wayne in 1900. I should note that the records were very inconsistent on whether their surname was "Walter," "Walters," or even "Waters" or "Watters." The family appears to have preferred "Walter."

James worked for the railroad, and then as a laborer until winding up working in the streets department of the City of Fort Wayne. He suffered from liver and heart trouble and died at age 73 on 2 September 1936. Ellen also died in Fort Wayne on 22 January 1941. She and James were buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Auburn. They were survived by their two sons and one grandchild.


     A. Elmer Charles Reed (1886–1954) was born in Auburn on 27 February 1886 and lived there until his father relocated the family to Fort Wayne in 1900. Elmer married Seauretta Bonsay (b. 1887) on 21 May 1909, but divorced her five years later, claiming she "up and left" him.

Elmer was a barber and worked in a number of barber shops in Fort Wayne over the years. He appears to have remained single after his divorce and left no children behind. He died on 28 December 1954 in Fort Wayne and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery with his parents.


     B. Ralph R Reed (1888–1946) was born 3 December 1888 in Auburn and married Lucille L Havert (1893–1964) on 5 August 1913 in Fort Wayne. She was born on 21 March 1893, the daughter of Alphonsus Havert (1850–1903) and Ellen Didier (1861–1947).

Ralph retired as a switchman from the Casad Ordnance Depot in New Haven and then worked as a taxi driver in Fort Wayne. He suffered from heart disease for several years and died at the age of 57 on 31 May 1946. Lucille died on 20 March 1964 after suffering from uterine cancer for 6 years. They are buried in Catholic Cemetery in Fort Wayne.

     i. Ralph Raymond Reed Jr (1916–2007) was born on 3 October 1916, and listed his birthplace as Jackson, Michigan, though he was raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He was living in Los Angeles, California when the war came, and he enlisted there on 23 October 1943.

After the war, Ralph married Anna Marie McLaughlin (1922–2017) on 11 February 1946 in McKeesport, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. She was the daughter of Francis H McLaughlin (1881–1965) and Estelle M Bigley (1888–1966).

Ralph worked for the Uniroyal Corp. in Mishawaka, Indiana, for more than 30 years. Anna was a secretary for Wilts Office and Sears. He died on 5 July 2007 from renal failure after suffering from kidney trouble for many years. Ralph donated his body to Indiana University Anatomical Education Program, Indianapolis. Anna died on 16 May 2017, and they are buried in the Bigley Family Cemetery in Coulter, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

They left behind one son (now deceased), one daughter, two granddaughters, and three great-granddaughters.

     a. Raymond Richard Reed (1950-2017) was born on 1 July 1950 in Fort Wayne and served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. Ray died in Coulter, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, 6 May 2017. He is survived by his daughter, sister, two grandchildren, niece, and great-niece.

- -- --- -- -

Next week, we will continue with James Reed's younger siblings. I'm still in summer school for a couple more weeks, and then I get to take some vacation in August before settling into my "senior" year!

As always, if you've found one or more of your relatives mentioned in this blog, please get in touch. You can comment below (anonymous comments are usually not as helpful), or email "mightieracorns" at Gmail.com.

We now have more ways to reach out:

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!

The First Life of Mrs. Reed

If you hearken back almost three years to a post titled The Mysterious McNabbs, we left a mystery unsolved about Elizabeth Ferguson McNabb (1835-1898). Here's what I said about her back then:

     Mystery #2: Mary Ferguson's sister, Elizabeth (1835-1898) also married a McNabb. The Indiana Marriage Index helpfully tells us that a James McNabb and Elizabeth B. Ferguson were married in DeKalb county on 8 February 1858. The CFH tells us that they had six children:

•     Ella McNabb 1859–
•     Margret McNabb
•     Mary McNabb
•     Charles McNabb
•     Eliza McNabb
•     Emma McNabb

But... after finding what I believe to be the only appearance of this family in the 1860 Census (with James, Elizabeth, and 1-year-old Ella), they seem to fall between all of the cracks in the databases. I have not been able to find them in 1870 or 1880, even with very broad searches.

Looking at the data again, there are some details in the original Callin Family History that were hard for me to interpret. This was one of several records in the CFH that could be read in more than one way, and without source citations, it's hard to check the information great-uncle George drew from or figure out what he meant to communicate to us. Here's what his record actually said:

Record of Elizabeth Ferguson who was the 2nd daughter of Eliza Callin Ferguson who was the 3rd daughter of John Callin who was the 2nd son of James 1st.

Born about 1836, died about 1898.

Married to James McNabb.

To this union seven children were born:

Ella, married, has five children living.
G.W. Reid (by 2nd marriage), married, two children living.
Emma, married.
Eliza, married, five children living.
Charles, unmarried.
Margret, married, two children living, three dead.
Mary, died at one year old.

It's pretty clear now that I should have interpreted this as telling me after Ella, the other children listed were from Elizabeth's second marriage. It's an understandable mistake, and since I didn't know to look for people named "Reed" instead of "McNabb," I missed a lot of clues.

The CFH also gave us some of the vague information Great-Uncle George had about Ella:

Record of Ella McNabb, eldest daughter of Elizabeth Ferguson McNabb, who was the 2nd daughter of Eliza Callin Ferguson, who was the 3rd daughter of John Callin, who was the 2nd son of James 1st.

Born ----.

Married ----.

To this union were born five children.

Record of Alta McCorse, eldest daughter of Ella McNabb, eldest daughter of Elizabeth Callin Ferguson, 3rd daughter of John Callin, 2nd son of James 1st.

Born ----.

Married ----.

To this union were born four children.

For years, I misread this as saying that Ella married someone named "McCorse," when it turns out that "McCorse" is similar to her daughter Alta's married name...but we'll get to that next week.

In 2016, I didn't have access to Newspapers.com, so I didn't find Elizabeth's obituary until recently. It still wasn't easy to track down (I had to open my search parameters and dig through a lot of results), but as you can see, this find fits with what we already know from the CFH and the 1860 Census.


Elizabeth McNabb, wife of James McNabb, obituary Thu, Jun 18, 1896 – Page 8 · The Waterloo Press (Waterloo, DeKalb, Indiana) · Newspapers.com
Here's the first part of the obituary:

"Elizabeth B. Reed was born in Ashland Co., Ohio, Jan. 1, 1835, and departed this life June 8th, 1896, aged 61 yrs., 5 mos., 7 das.
"She was married to James McNabb, July 8th, 1857. To this union was born one child, Ella Carper, who survives them. This union was severed by death, Dec. 27, 1860. She was married the second time to George W. Reed, Mar. 27, 1861. To this union were born six children, two sons and four daughters, five of whom survive them. In 1850 she came with her parents to DeKalb county, where she has since lived. They moved on their farm in 1867, where they enjoyed life together until death removed her husband. She has lived in the present home for 28 years."

Elizabeth's place in the tree

That confirms enough of the details we already know and gives us some insights we didn't know so we can start tracing Elizabeth's children.

As with previous breakthroughs, this one document allowed me to find a large number of previously unknown descendants of our common ancestor, James Callin. For the next few weeks, we'll look at the members of this branch of the family.

We'll visit Elizabeth's second husband, Mr. Reed, and their children in future posts, but today we'll look at Ella, the daughter born from her tragic first marriage. There are a lot of folks to cover, and I'm researching as I go, so I'm going to break these down into smaller posts so I can better stick to a weekly schedule.


James McNabb (1834–1860)

James was the first husband of Elizabeth Ferguson. Despite learning his date of death, I haven't been able to dig up anymore about his origins. As the first mystery in the original post on The Mysterious McNabbs concluded, this James McNabb is not obviously related to the other McNabbs who married people in our Callin/Ferguson tree. All we really know about him are these three vital facts:

• Born about 1834 in Pennsylvania (according to the 1860 Census)
• Married Elizabeth Ferguson on 8 February 1858 (according to two records in the Indiana, Marriages, 1810-2001 and the Indiana, Marriage Collection, 1800-1941, respectively)
• Died in Allen County, Indiana (according to the above obituary - I didn't even find an official death record!)

There is a discrepancy between the marriage date in the Indiana marriage records (8 February 1857) and the obituary (8 July 1858), but that's close enough to be either a clerical error or the time between registering for the license and the actual wedding. Either way, before he died, he left behind one child:

I. Ella Florence McNabb (1859–1929)

Like a few other people in our family tree, Ella seems to have shifted from using her first name to going by her middle name as she got older. She first appears as "Ella McNabb" in 1860 and as "Ella F Reed" in 1870. After she married Jacob Carper she appeared on the Census in 1900 as "Ellen Carper" and in 1910 as "Ella Carper;" but on the various marriage and death records of her children, and on the 1880 Census, her name is recorded as either "Florence Carper" or "Florence E. Carper." I surmise that her parents named her "Ella Florence McNabb," but she started using "Florence" later in life. Her eldest daughter and some of her grandchildren were apparently given that name in her honor.

Ella grew up in the home of her mother and step-father in De Kalb County, Indiana, and in 1875 she married the son of Adam Carper (1795–1877) and Ann Elizabeth Cobler (1812–1886). Jacob Carper was born in Indiana in June 1853, the youngest of ten siblings.

Between 1879 and 1891 Jacob and Ella (or Florence, as she got older) had four children in Jackson Township, De Kalb County:

     A. Alda Florence Carper (1879–1970)
     B. Howard Leroy Carper (1882–1948)
     C. John D Carper (1886–1964)
     D. Callie Bell Carper (1891–1980)

Jacob underwent some minor surgery in late July 1927 which resulted in his health quickly deteriorating; he died on 6 August 1927. Florence died just two years later in 1929, and they are buried together in Roselawn Cemetery in Auburn, Indiana.

- -- --- -- -

We'll end there for now, but continue next week with the descendants of Jacob and Ella. There's a lot of them, so be prepared to take thorough notes!

You may notice a few changes around here at Mightier Acorns - we have:

•  a Twitter feed - @MightierAcorns 
•  a Facebook page - facebook.com/MightierAcorns/ (for everyone, not just proven relatives!)
•  and if you like the work I'm doing, you can "buy me a coffee" using the Ko-fi button:

I also set up an email address - mightieracorns@gmail.com - so if you have a question or comment, you can send it there.

The Reubenites, part 6: Finally!

At last, after many weeks of searching, we arrive at the end of the McNabb line...only to find more mysteries!


Mary Ellen McNabb (1871-1940) was not named in the Callin Family History. There is a possibility that this could be the person I was looking for in the post from a couple of weeks ago; the "Ella, married, dead" who is mentioned in the CFH. (After all, I never found a birth record for "Nancy Ellen" and can't be sure that the record of her marriage to Frank E Hazard is connected to our family of McNabbs.)

For now, I'm sticking with the assumption that "Nancy Ellen" is the four-year-old Ellen listed in the 1870 Census, and that Mary Ellen is another person.

Here's what I know:

• Michigan Birth and Christenings Index lists "Mary E McNabb" born on 2 February 1871 to Reuben McNabb and Mary.
• Michigan Death Records list "Mrs. Mary M Streeter" born Febraury 1871 (in Indiana), parents Reuben McNabb and Mary Ferguson; death occurred in Battle Creek, Michigan on 21 April 1940.

Some other interesting things about the Death Record:

The information was provided by Mary's "niece," Mrs. Clarence Hyde. You might remember her as Mary Mable McNabb, the daughter of James M. McNabb from The Reubenites, part 1. She probably knew that her father had been born in Indiana, and that Reuben had moved the family to Michigan after most of the children were born, which would make listing Indiana as Mrs. Streeter's birthplace an understandable mistake.

It also lists Mary as the widow of Lewis Streeter, and states that Mary had been a member of the Battle Creek community for 10 years. I was not able to find any evidence to say when Lewis died, or how long they were married. Mary is described as a retired actress, and there is no evidence that she had any children.

But there's more!

Some other researchers claim that Mary was married in December of 1900, in Waukesha, Wisconsin, to a Charles W. Menges (1875-1915). There is a family by that name living in Milwaukee in 1900, with a son named Charles who is the right age. There is a couple by the name of Charles and Mary Menger (sic) living in Milwaukee in 1905 (with a 14-year-old Charles Menger, who might be Charles's son from a previous marriage), as well as a Charles and May (sic) Menges living in Chicago in 1910.

When I went looking for an obituary for a Charles Menges in 1915, I found several newspapers describing a massive steamboat accident (the Eastland) which killed about 1,200 people. One of those identified was a "Lieut. Chas. W. Menges":

Found on Newspapers.com

I'm going to have to leave things there, for now, but if any of you has a marriage certificate that could tie this story together, I'd love to know about it! Until I see evidence that Mary Menges was the former Mary McNabb, I won't know for certain.


Oliver Otis McNabb (1874-1931) presents his own set of questions. The record of his birth I found was only an index record in the Michigan, Births and Christenings Index, 1867-1911. It says his mother's name was Rebecca, but since I can't examine the original, I don't know where that comes from. It could be anything from an awkward family secret to a misprint.

Oliver grew up in Grand Rapids, and as a young man he worked as a teamster and a porter. In 1898 he enlisted in the U.S. Army, and served in Company L of the 19th Infantry Regiment. His records indicate that he served during the first part of the Spanish-American War.

According to An Abbreviated and Incomplete History of the 19th Infantry Regiment:

During the Spanish-American War, the 19th was one of the first units dispatched. Transported by train to Mobile and then Tampa, on July 21st the regiment boarded the USS Florida and USS Cherokee to set sail for what was then called "Porto Rico." They spent a year in Ponce performing guard and provost duty, then sailed to New York where they boarded trains to the west coast. On July 27, 1899 they sailed for Manila.
The regiment was broken into company-sized units and participated in many battles with the Insurgents before returning to the U.S. in 1902. 

Oliver was discharged in April of 1899, which probably means he saw duty in Ponce, but got out of the service before the Regiment shipped to the west coast.

A few months after his discharge from the Army, on July 4, 1899, Oliver married Margaret Maud Schravenrand (1875–1953) in Grand Rapids. The marriage did not last long, as Oliver moved to Detroit in 1902, and the couple's divorce was granted in Kent county on 16 January 1903.

The Michigan Divorce Record indicates that the couple had one child at the time of the divorce. Maud remarried in September 1904 to John E Nieboer (1870-1936), and according to the 1910 U.S. Census record for their family, they had two daughters: Margarett (age 4) and Hellen (age 9). There are no records which state plainly that Helen is the daughter of Oliver McNabb, but the evidence strongly suggests that she is. It is also apparent that John Nieboer raised her, and that Oliver was probably not part of her life.

Oliver moved out to California, where he can be found in the 1910 Census married to Elizabeth (b. 1876) and living in San Francisco. In 1920, they had several boarders lodging in their home, but no children; and in 1922, 48- year-old Oliver's health had deteriorated to the point where he was moved to the Sawtelle Veteran's Home in Los Angeles. Records show he had partial paralysis in his right leg. By 1930, he Elizabeth were divorced, and the following year, he died, and was buried in the San Francisco National Cemetery.

(One more tantalizing clue: Oliver's obituary mentions his "loving sister, Mrs. Mary Streeter" - which implies that her acting career may have unfolded in San Francisco. No evidence to support that, though, I'm afraid.)

Maud and John had remained in Grand Rapids with Helen and Margaret. They had three more daughters; one of whom died in infancy in 1910. John died in 1936, and Maud in 1953.

     1. Helen J. Neiboer (1900-1988) was born 28 September 1900 in Grand Rapids. When her mother married John Neiboer, he evidently adopted Helen. She married Ralph David Wheat (1897–1991) on 6 October 1920. Ralph was a core maker in a steel foundry in the 1930s. They raised a family of four children: two sons and two daughters.

     a. Marjorie Elaine Wheat (1921–1998) married Alvin F Hayward (1920–1999) on 17 June 1944. He was a World War II veteran, having served from  22 July 1942 to 4 December 1945.

     b. Donald C. Wheat (1924-2013) married in 1946, and at the time of his death, he and his wife had two sons and a daughter, eight grandchildren, and eight great grandchildren (with two on the way).

     c. Joyce Carolyn Wheat (1927-2011) married John Milo Maat (1920–2002) on 24 January 1948. John was a farmer all his life, and was a veteran of World War II. They have three sons, still living, and had a daughter, Carol Jean Maat (1950–2001).

     d. Karl David Wheat (1931-2004) was a veteran of the Korean war, having serving as a Private First Class in the Marine Corps. He was buried at the Ft. Custer National Cemetery in August, Michigan. His wife survived him.


And there you have it: the last of our McNabbs (that we know of)! There are a lot of gaps I wish I could have filled in, but the records either weren't where I expected them to be, or had mistakes that I couldn't trust. Maybe one of you lovely readers will recognize someone from these posts and drop a note to help me sort it all out. You can comment below or email my Gmail (callintad at gmail dot com).

Next week, we'll be back in Indiana with Mary (Ferguson) McNabb's younger sister, Mildred (Ferguson) Ettinger.

The Reubenites, part 4

Sometimes, no matter how hard we squeeze, we can't get enough information to be certain about what we know. When that happens, we do the best we can with the information we have, make our best guess, and use plenty of "uncertainty" words so that those who come after us know not to trust the facts that we aren't sure about.

The Callin Family History (CFH, for short) tells us the bare minimum about the children of Reuben and Mary (Ferguson) McNabb. We have looked at George Washington & James M (part 1), William C (part 2), and John Goldsmith McNabb (part 3). Next on the list, the CFH only tells us this:

Eliza, burned to death at age of nine years.
Ella, married, dead.

We also have to remember that for this family the CFH is not entirely reliable, since it refers to George only as "Washington" and it doesn't name John at all. Being the skeptical fellow that I am, I'm going to treat the records I find with suspicion. First, I looked at the 1860 Census, which shows Reuben and Mary still in Jackson, Indiana, with these children:

George W McNabb 4
James M McNabb 2
Eliza J McNabb 3/12

Then in 1870, they are in Chester, Michigan:

George Mc knab 15
James Mc knab 11
William Mc knab 9
John Mc knab 6
Ellen Mc knab 4
Martha Mc knab 1
Marcus Mc knab 1

This tells us a couple of useful things. First, it tells us Eliza's birthdate (in 1860), and confirms that she was no longer in the family in 1870, which fits with what the CFH tells us about her fate. Then, it tells us that Ellen (or Ella) was born in 1866. (And, hello, John! There you are, too!)

With that information, I went looking for a marriage record. The only one I found was for a Nancy E McNabb, born about 1867; the marriage took place in Chester on 7 May 1886, and the groom's name was Frank E Hazard (or Hazzard). The bride's age and the location fit, and the middle initial could well be "Ellen" or "Ella," but I was not able to find any other records that definitely tie this marriage record to our McNabb family.

I did find a Frank E Hazard the same age as the one in the marriage record in Battle Creek, Michigan, in the 1900 Census. If this is the same Frank Hazard, the Census indicates that he remarried to a lady named Estella in 1897. Subsequent records (later Census records, death records, etc.) show that this couple had three daughters, and that Frank lived until 1957.

That could well mean that Ella/Ellen grew up, married Frank in 1886, and died before 1897, but I have not been able to find a record to show that. My guess is that she died before they had any children, but we should still be on the lookout for evidence either way.

Now, dear reader, while I realize I spent many words telling you how little I know about this person, I feel like I should give a full post to the Twins, Marcus and Martha; Marcus's descendants, in particular, have proven to be full of surprises...and they left a lot of records to sort through!

Which I hope to tell you all about next week!

The Reubenites, part 3: Goldsmith

Fair warning: this post may well turn out to be an April Fool's joke on us all.

Such is the nature of dealing with unreliable records! Let me explain:

Back in February, I said in the post The Mysterious McNabbs that there were two people named "John McNabb," both of whom claimed to be the son of Reuben and Mary (Ferguson) McNabb. As I said then,

I am inclined to believe that the second of these - John Goldsmith McNabb - is the actual son of Reuben and Mary McNabb, based on the birth dates. There is a 6-year-old John McNabb listed in Reuben and Mary's family in 1870, and the strongest evidence says that he would be that John McNabb.

I still believe that, and so we'll explore the descendants of John Goldsmith McNabb today; but it may well turn out that we unearth a clue later that forces me to change my mind. If that happens, then I will feel like a very special April Fool!

In case you don't feel like re-reading that whole post, here is my description of the family we'll start with today:

John Goldsmith McNabb was...

... born 24 December 1864 in Auburn, De Kalb, Indiana. He married Ida Ann Sack (1872–1953) in 1894, and they had four children - the first in Wisconsin, and then the others in Michigan - before heading out to California in about 1905. They had two more children after settling in Chico, California, both of whom died in infancy (one in 1907, one in 1912). The couple then divorced in the 1920s. Eventually, John applied for a life claim on his Social Security in January 1943, and died that December in Alturas, Modoc county, California. His Social Security application lists his parents: Ruben McNabb and Mary Furgson.

John appeared in the 1940 Census, living in Alturas and working as a salesman. He was not married, so it is probably safe to assume that he never remarried after his divorce. Ida appeared in 1940, living alone in Durham, Butte county, California. In 1945, she is listed in the city directory for Chico/Oroville as the widow of J.G. McNabb, and after her death in 1953, she was buried with Theodore and Kathryn - the babies who died in 1907 and 1912 - under the name McNabb; so I think it is safe to say she did not remarry, either.

Their four surviving children were:

1. Dores Rosalie McNabb (1894–1992) was born in Wisconsin on 20 June 1894. When she graduated school in Chico, she found work as a stenographer in a lawyer's office. She married Carlyle Conrad Roberts (1894–1981) about 1921, and they raised five children together. He worked as an oiler in a power plant, and she continued to clerk, at least during the 1950s. His family was among the early California pioneers, starting with his mother's family, the Stanfords, who settled in Shasta County from Butler County, Missouri, in 1857. His father Benjamin Franklin Roberts came to Shasta County from Mechanicsville, Penn. around 1871.

Dores and Carlyle started their family on the Middle Fork of the Feather River in a quaint PG&E community called Las Plumas which has since been inundated by Lake Oroville. Around 1937, the family moved to Paradise, Butte county, California.

     i. George Franklin Roberts (1922–1998) enlisted 5 November 1942, and served as a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps, earning the Bronze Star. He was married after the war in 1947. After his father's death in 1981, he may have taken in his mother, as she died in Calaveras county, where George and his wife lived, and where George died in 1998. His wife is still living.

     ii. Lewis E "Bud" Roberts (1924–2007)  grew up in Paradise, California, and graduated high school in Chico. He enlisted in the US Army Air Corps in 10 December 1942. According to his obituary, he was discharged in 1945 as a Technical SGT (E-7) at the age of 21. He flew 35 missions over Europe in a B-24 Bomber as a Radio Operator/Top Turret Gunner, with the 458th Bomb Group in the "Princess Pat". He survived the B-24 crash in France with a full load of gasoline that was being hauled for Patton's Tank Force, and a forced landing in Belgium, with two engines feathered landing at a P-47 fighter base during the Battle of the Bulge. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, an Air Medal with clusters, European Theatre Campaign Medal and WWII Victory Medal. Bud also served several years in the Naval Reserve as a Radio Operator until he contracted polio in the early 1950's. He retired from service with the State of California in 1984 as a Senior Communications Technician. He was also a ham radio operator for over 65 years, "W6ZFJ".

Bud married Jennie Lee McCandliss (1925–2001) in 1946, and they raised two sons and a daughter who are still living.

     iii. Earl Stanford Roberts (1930–2011) started a career with the California Division of Forestry, Department of Natural Resources as a seasonal firefighter in 1947, when he was 17 years old. He achieved Eagle Scout in 1948.

In December 1950, Earl, along with his childhood friends Hugh Jared and Bill Brill, enlisted in the Navy and took Basic Training in San Diego, Calif. He and Hugh were assigned to the Seabee’s Navy Mobile Construction Battalion 8, “Highball the 8 Ball”. Earl served at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,  Port Lyautey, French Morroco, Fort St. John, Newfoundland and was discharged in September 1954 at Quonset Point, R. I., Rank Chief Electrician.

His career with CDF continued after discharge. In 1959, he was chosen from among the top employees for a special assignment at Squaw Valley, California, providing fire protection for the 1960 Winter Olympics. In 1965, he moved to Modoc County and served 19 years as a forest ranger. Earl retired in 1984 after 35 years.

At the time of his death, in 2011, Earl left behind a wife, three daughters, and a son, all living, as well as five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren..

     iv. Helen Rosalie Roberts (1931–1976) married Andrew Kenneth "Ken" Hodges (1929–2012) in March 1953. Ken was drafted into the military out of high school and served his country honorably as a member of the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He returned to Chico following his discharge and met Helen. They raised one daughter, who is still living.

     v. Jean Margaret Roberts (1933–2013) grew up in Paradise, and attended Chico High School where she met her future husband. They were married five years later in December 1951. They had daughters, one of whom is still living. After her husband completed a degree at Chico State College the family moved to Woodland in 1959 where they spent the next 14 years. They then moved to Sacramento where she worked at the UC Davis Medical Center.

In 1992 both Jean and her husband retired and moved to Brookings, Oregon.

      a. Joni Lee (Sheldon) Paulsen (1956–2006) was born January 27, 1956, in Chico. She graduated Woodland High in 1974, then attended Chico State University. Joni lived and worked in Austin, Texas from 1978 to 1987, and in 1987 she moved back to Woodland where she met and married her husband. They were wed in 1993 and have two daughters. The family made their home in Woodland and on her beloved island of Kauai.

Joni was very active in her community. She headed the Paulsen Foundation, creating a College Scholarship Fund for local students and she served a term on the Yolo County Fair Board of Directors.

2. Forrest Stevens McNabb (1897–1987) joined the National Guard at age 17 and pursued Poncho Villa, according to one obituary. After serving three years, he joined the U.S. Army (on 5 August 1917) and served in Germany and France in World War I.

He married Laura Louise Frederick (1907–1983) in 1927, and they settled in Durham, Butte county, California, where he farmed through the 1930s. Laura worked for 20 years as a licensed vocational nurse at Enloe Hospital.

When the Second World War broke out, Forrest worked as a machinist foreman at McLelland Air Force Base for two years and then at Tetreau Garage. After the war, he served as the United States Postmaster at Durham from 1949 to 1967.

The couple had two daughters, one of whom is still with us. Lorraine was the elder daughter:

     i. Lorraine Elinor McNabb (1928–1991) married Carroll Myron "Bud" Hansen Sr. (1925–2003) on April 12, 1947 in Durham. Lorraine was a florist at Laughlin's Flower Shop for 13 years. Her husband, Bud, served with the U.S. Army during World War II and received the Purple Heart. He farmed most of his life, retiring in 1991, when Lorraine died. Bud then moved to Wayland, Iowa, in 1994 with his son's family.

 The couple raised three sons and a daughter. Their youngest son died several years ago: James William Hansen (1970–2007).

3. Esther Margaret McNabb (1899–??) graduated from Chico High School in 1920, and went to work as a nurse in the hospital in Chico. She spent most of the 1920s working in Oakland, and the 1930s in Modesto as a superintendent at the Lillian Collins hospital. In 1940, she was working at Nevada County Hospital County Home For the Aged in Nevada City.

After 1940, I can find no more records for Esther. Mathematically, it is unlikely she is still with us, but if she was, she would be 117 years old - and I'm pretty sure her name would have turned up a news article or three about that.

4. John Gerald McNabb (1901–1983) married Leila D Masterson (1898–1976) in Reno, Nevada, on 14 April 1935. The couple set up house in Chico, in the house where Leila and her widowed mother had been living. They do not appear to have left behind any children of their own.

John Gerald is occasional documented as "John G McNabb, Jr." though he and his father clearly did not share a middle name.


For the Record, if you want to know more about the other John McNabb, here are the details I was able to find:

John C McNabb was born on September 20, 1860, in Indiana. He married Inez M. Atkins (1880–1935) on December 25, 1912, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He died on December 1, 1932, in Battle Creek, Michigan, at the age of 72, and was buried in Augusta, Michigan. They do not appear to have had any children.

The Reubenites, part 2

William C. McNabb was the third son of Reuben and Mary (Ferguson) McNabb. Mary Ferguson, you will recall, was the great-granddaughter of James Callin, the granddaughter of John and Elizabeth (Simon) Callin of Ohio, and the daughter of James and Eliza (Callin) Ferguson.

In our last post, we talked about his two older brothers, George and James. William was born in Indiana on 21 November 1861. After the close of the War Between the States in 1865, he and his family moved to Michigan, and he grew up there.

He married Edna Hall (1872–1941) on 20 March 1889, and he worked as a machinist and a carpenter in Grand Rapids, Michigan. When William died, he was 56 years old, and had likely only seen two of his grandchildren born. His youngest daughter was only 10 at the time, and Edna was only 46.

Edna stayed in their house at 455 Delaware SE for a couple of years before relocating to 434 6th Street, where she ran a dry goods business. Her death record shows her name as Edna May Coats, so she must have re-married in the 1930s. (Her brother married a woman named Coats, so it's possible that Edna married someone from that family.) She died 21 July 1941 in Grand Rapids.

1. Leora McNabb (1889–1897) died at 8 years of age, causes unknown, and she was buried in the Fairplains Cemetery at Grand Rapids, where her parents and many others named in this post are also buried.

2. Charles McNabb (1891–1938) was born and raised in Grand Rapids, and was working as a cabinet maker when he married Chloa Wellman (1890–1933) on 16 September 1915. He worked his way up to being a stock clerk, and then moved his wife and infant son to Chicago for a few years, where the other two boys were born. By the end of the 1920s, they were back in Grand Rapids.

In 1933, Chloa died from unknown causes, and five years later, in 1938, Charles was hospitalized and quickly died from complications from cellulitis and septicemia. They were buried in Fairplains Cemetery.

     a. Warren Colburn McNabb (1917–2014) married Marion Elvira Renberg (1919–2008) in 1939 in Royal Oak, Michigan. Warren worked as a gear design engineer for 44 years and retired in 1979. During his career he published several technical books and manuals and also held several design and production patents. After his retirement they moved to Pentwater, Michigan, where they lived for 29 years. They moved to Florida and the Spring Haven Retirement Community in 2008, because of Marion's advanced Alzheimer's disease. She passed in 2008, they were married for 69 years.

Warren and Marion held a large McNabb family reunion in Lansing Michigan for 75 years. They had three daughters and a son, all of whom are still living. He died from congestive heart failure on 14 April 2014 at the Good Shepherd Hospice House, Auburndale, Florida.

     b. Charles Wayne McNabb (1919–1992) was known by his middle name, Wayne, and moved in with his aunt, Beatrice (McNabb) Blackall (she is #7, further down this post) after his father's death. He worked in an assembly plant in 1940.

Wayne enlisted in the U.S. Army 16 April 1941, and was inducted at Camp Haan in Riverside, California. He served throughout the war, and was discharged on 1 November 1945 at the rank of technical sergeant.

     c. Kenneth Earl McNabb (1920–2004) married Jeanne Ann Houman (1926–2015). Like his brother, Ken was a veteran of World War II and served four years in the Navy aboard the USS West Point. After the war Ken worked for Traveler's Insurance Company retiring after 32 years of service. He and Jean had two children, a son and daughter, both of whom are still living, and four grown grandchildren.

3. Ethel M Mcnabb (1894–1963) married Mark D Markham (1891–1918), and they had one son, Jack Markham (1918–1927), before Mark's untimely death in 1918. Ethel remarried, Edward Adolphus Mirandette (1887–1957) in 1922. Sadly, young Jack died five years later, but after that, Ethel and Edward had another son and daughter together.

   a. Elton Adolphus ("Al") Mirandette (1929–1997) married Rosemary M Breen (1929–2001). Al and Rose have three sons and two daughters still living, and as of 1997, 14 grandchildren.

   b. Marthajane "Marty" Mirandette (1937–2013) married and had three sons, two of whom are still living. According to her obituary, Martha held a Master Degree with the International Women's Organization, Beta Sigma Phi and was a long time member of the Faith Lutheran Church congregation.

     i. Bret James Stockreef (1958–2004) was the son of Marthajane (Mirandette) Stockreef; he died in Connecticut in 2004.

4. William Earl McNabb (1896–1956) married Marcia L Rushford (1891–1988) on 23 June 1917 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Marcia's father, Antoine (or Anthony) Rushford was born around 1820, and was a cousin of Napoleon Bonaparte. William served as a corporal in the U.S. Army in World War I.

They had three children, and their middle daughter is still living, as far as I can tell.

   a. William Earl Mcnabb Jr (1920–1969) married Barbara Ann Love (1921–1996) on 29 December 1945. They lived in Royal Oak, where William worked as a salesman until his death at the early age of 48. Barbara's last name at the time of her death was Barbara Ann Brunk, which would indicate that she probably remarried, but I have not been able to find any records besides her Social Security Administration application.

   c. Leila Joan McNabb (1932–1965) married John Thomas Carroll (1926–1998) on September 8, 1962, and she died just three years later.

5. Hazel I Mcnabb (1898–1987) married Charles Edward Peet (1898–1966) on 23 October 1918 in Frankfort, Michigan. The couple lived in the Grand Rapids area through the 1930s, and that is where seven of their eight children were born. By 1940 they had relocated to Battle Creek, where they had one more daughter. Their two youngest daughters are still living.

   a. Maxine Lorraine Peet (1920–2005) married Austin Alvin Collar (1918-1994) on 24 June 1941. Two years later, Austin entered the U.S. Army, and served from October 1943 through December 1945. They do not seem to have had any children, and they lived in Battle Creek for the rest of their lives.

   b. Jean Marie Peet (1922–1981) enlisted in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) in 1943 and served through her release in January 1946. Just a couple of months later, she married Kenneth Lee Stelma (1921-2009). Ken was also a veteran of World War II. They had three children, still living: two sons and a daughter. After Jean died in 1981, Ken remarried and moved to Florida; their children all moved to North Carolina.

   c. William J Peet (1923–2010) enlisted in the U.S. Army on 13 December 1941, less than a week after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He served until 10 November 1945. He married Doris Joyce Walton (1924-1998) of Paterson, New Jersey, probably in 1942 - as their eldest daughter was born not long after that.

The couple lived in Battle Creek, Michigan, and they raised four daughters and a son - all but one of whom are still living. They also left behind 12 grand children, and 23 great grandchildren.

     i. Nancy Carol Peet (1951–2008) was the fourth child of William and Doris. She was married and lived with her husband in Wayne county, Indiana.

   d. Charles M "Chuck" Peet (1928–2013) was only 13 when World War II broke out, and could not enlist when his older brother and sister did. But he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps on 23 January 1946, anyway, just a few months before his eighteenth birthday. He married Joyce Ann Gray (1931-1995) around 1949, probably just after his discharge from the Army, and he began a long career as a truck driver.

The couple raised two sons and a daughter; only their daughter is still living. But they also have six grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.

     i. Charles R. Peet (1950-2015) was born on July 11, 1950, in Jackson, Michigan. He was a lifelong resident of the area graduating from Harper Creek High School in 1968. Charles married in 1970, and he and his wife raised two sons and a daughter - all four of whom are still living. He worked as a carpenter and millwright for Carpenter’s Local 525, and he retired in 2009. When he died, he left behind six grandchildren, as well. He died Thursday, February 12, 2015, in Grand Rapids with his family by his side.

     ii. Dale E Peet was the other son of Chuck and Joyce; I know very little about him, other than the apparent fact that he died before his father and before his brother. He is mentioned only briefly in their obituaries. He also appears to have been named for his uncle, Chuck's younger brother.

   e. Dale Edward Peet (1930–1986) enlisted in the U.S. Navy on 22 July 1948 and served in the Korean War. After his discharge on 21 July 1952, he married Betty Jane Copenhaver (925-2003), and they lived in the Battle Creek area, where Dale worked as a machinist.

   f. Joyce I Peet (1931–1973) married Gerald Duane Lawhead (1922-1981) on 14 January 1950, and worked as a clerk-typist and a stenographer in the Battle Creek area throughout the 1950s. Duane worked his way up from a packer to a receiving clerk, and then in the late 1950s became an accountant. After Joyce died, he moved out to Clark county, Nevada, where he died a few years later.

The two youngest daughters of William Earl and Marcia (Rushford) McNabb are still with us, but the family lost one of their sons just a month ago.

  Louis Charles Monaweck (1954-2016) was one of four brothers, and leaves behind a wife and two sons of his own. Louis graduated from Harper Creek High School and then attended Michigan Tech on a wrestling scholarship. He later graduated with his Bachelors Degree from Western Michigan University and worked for Consumers Energy for 32 years prior to establishing his own company, Midwest Powerline Inc.

6. Frank Carmine McNabb (1901–1983) married Helen E Murray (1905–1998) on 23 November 1927 in Detroit, Michigan, and they had two children - a son and a daughter who are still living.

7. Beatrice J McNabb (1908–1992) married Lowell James Blackall (1905–1998) on 6 April 1929 in Grand Rapids. This is the family that took in Charles Wayne McNabb in 1940, after his parents died. Beatrice and Lowell had two sons, one of whom is still living.

   a. Robert Lee Blackall (1930–2004) married Beverly Sue Strohpaul (1932–2004) on 28 October 1950 in Grand Rapids. I have not been able to find any more information about them.


And that brings us up to date on this line. As you might be able to tell, there were a lot more descendants of William and Edna (Hall) McNabb for me to research than I originally expected. This post also seems to have more than the usual share of names of those who died recently - one, Louie Monaweck, who died between the time I started drafting this post in January and today.

As always, I do the best I can to tell their stories, but there are always details that I have to leave out in order to respect the privacy of the living. I often have more information from obituaries and public records than I can include here, but I won't post any of it in public without permission.

If you are one of the many children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren of this family, I'd love to hear from you how I did. If you have stories or memories you'd like to share here, I'm happy to host a guest post - and if I made any mistakes, I'd love to fix them.

Let me know what you think, and share this post with your family - and I'll keep digging for more cousins!

The Reubenites, part I

George Washington McNabb was born to Reuben and Mary (Ferguson) McNabb on 19 September 1855 in Jackson township, DeKalb county, Indiana. His father was a carpenter.

By 1860, George had a little brother, James M., born 2 June 1858, and a little sister, Eliza J. born 5 April 1860 (just a couple of months before the Census enumerator came around in June of that year). They were lucky in that their father did not go off to enlist in the War Between the States that broke out the following year; instead, another brother came along: William C., born 21 November 1861. During the War, in December 1863, John Goldsmith McNabb was born; he was the last of the McNabb children born in Indiana.

After the War, Reuben moved the family 100 miles due north from the Auburn area in DeKalb county to Chester township, Eaton county, Michigan, where he found work as an engineer in the saw mill there. Around 1866, he and Mary had another daughter, Ellen, and on 17 October 1867, their twins were born: Marcus Ebenezer and Martha Jane McNabb. A few years later, in February 1871, they had another daughter, Mary E., and on 19 April 1874, their youngest son, Oliver Otis McNabb was born.

George was 19 years old when his youngest brother was born, and may have already moved back to Indiana by that point. Records show a George McNabb marrying Alice Mapps (or Mopps) on 5 December 1874 in Vigo county, Indiana.

What I find odd is that I can't find any of these folks in the 1880 Census; I don't see George and Alice in either Indiana or Michigan (or anywhere else, for that matter), and I don't see Reuben with any combination of these children. There was one odd anomaly one of the records for Oliver Otis: his mother's name was listed as "Rebecca" and not Mary. Since I couldn't find any records for a Rebecca McNabb that fit with this family, either, and since that was an index record (which means I didn't see a scan of the original) I will have to leave that mystery for later.

Gaps in the records leave only outlines of stories for most of these McNabb children. While there are records supporting the facts in the rest of this post, please understand that in some cases I don't have a 100% certainty that the records I found are a match for the person in question.

George, for example, seems to vanish for nearly twenty years after the two Indiana Marriage Index records for his marriage to Alice; and that is assuming that the "Geo W McNabb" shown in those records is the same person as our George W. McNabb. (The Callin Family History only names him as "Washington" and gives no other identifying information.) It is apparent from the U.S. City Directories from the 1890s that Reuben and his other sons remained in Grand Rapids, but George is not there. It may be that George and Alice settled in Indiana and had a family; it is equally possible that they had no children.

I do see a 1901 record in the Indiana Marriage Index of a George W. McNabb in DeKalb county marrying "Phoobe Snaghy Knox" - and I assume this is a corruption of the name "Phoebe" - then another record from showing a George W. McNabb marrying Nancy A. Simmons in Daviess county on 24 August 1907. That George shows up in the 1910 Census in Spice Valley, Lawrence, Indiana, living with Nancy and her mother, Jane Simmons; in 1920, Nancy has died and George and Jane Simmons live in Halbert, Martin county.

James M. McNabb was a bit easier to study. He married Hattie E Sider (1864–1930) on 4 January 1887 in Grandville, Kent, Michigan. They lived in Grand Rapids, where James made a living over the years working as a teamster or a pipe fitter. In 1900, the couple lived with Hattie's parents, Johnas and Mary (Buxton) Sider.

We have a pretty good record of where James and his family lived in Grand Rapids from 1889 on from the U.S. City Directories. We also know that they took in their teen aged nieces, Dorothy and Dolores, as the girls were both listed in the household in 1920; Dorothy was still in the household in 1930. James and Hattie were living on Buffalo Avenue NE in 1930 when Hattie died, and James was still living there when he died in 1938.

James and Hattie had two daughters:

     i. Amy E McNabb (1888–aft 1954) married Roy William Pierce (1887–aft 1954) on 12 March 1913. I have not been able to establish when they died, though there are Social Security Life Claim applications for both. They appear in Grand Rapids U.S. City Directories as recently as 1954. They had one daughter, Louise M Pierce (1915–1963) who married Lawrence Everett Barcroft (1918–1989); I have not found any evidence that they had children.

     ii. Mary Mable Mcnabb (1895–1963) was 18 when her sister married and left home, and Mabel stayed with her parents, working as a clerk and later as a dressmaker. She married Clarence Henry Hyde (1879–1968) when she was 28; he was a 44-year-old bachelor farmer. They lived in her parents' home, and kept that house after James's death in 1938. They had two sons (now deceased) and a daughter (still living).

     a. James Richard Hyde (1925–2005) joined the Army Air Corps in 1943 and later earned a Masters in Business Administration from Ohio State University. He began his military career as a flight navigator on B-29 bombers in World War II, flying missions over Japan, Singapore, Burma and China.He flew 225 Vietnam Missions as commander of AC-47 Dragonship squadrons out of BienHoa and Nha Trang, and served as Chief of the Manpower and Organization Division at the Air Force Systems Command's Aeronautical Systems Division at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.

Colonel Hyde retired from the Air Force to live in San Antonio with his beloved wife, Celeste Harding Hyde, in 1975. After her death in 1987 he dedicated himself to serving his community. He is survived by his son and his sister.

     b. Clarence David Hyde (1936–2003) passed away unexpectedly Tuesday, 18 February 2003. He had lived his whole life in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and was buried in Fairplains Cemetery next to his mother and father.


We'll pick up with brothers William C. and John Goldsmith McNabb, the twins, Marcus and Martha, and Mary and Oliver next week in Part II...

The Mysterious McNabbs

Normally, I like to tell you what I know in these posts, but today I'm going to talk about how much I don't know. Hopefully, you'll understand why by the end. We'll take a look at two of the Ferguson daughters - Mary (1833-1895) and Elizabeth (1835–1898) - and the very confusing family they married into.

But first, a few words about research!

There are three "eras" into which the majority of my research seems to fit: the "Old Books" era, the "Census" era, and the "Google" era.

The Census Era is pretty straightforward. When I'm looking for people born before 1940, or people who would have been in their parents' home after 1850, I can usually find them in the U.S. Census and tease out the clues I need to develop their story. With people who appear on the Census, I usually get enough data points to start matching them up with other kinds of records; if I have a name, birth date, and place of birth, I consider that to be good enough to call it a "match." (There are exceptions, of course.)

People who were born after 1940 won't appear in the Census; until 2020 when the 1950 Census is released, I have to rely on the kinds of records that I can dig up on Google to develop my leads. Usually, this involves finding someone who died recently enough to have an obituary online. If they died after the late 1990s, I tend to have decent luck finding obits on the wild internet; before that, I use Newspapers.com (and hope they don't have what I need locked up behind their paywall). That puts these more recent folks in the Google Era.

Then there are the pioneers who settled the U.S. Midwest; those are the folks who I hope to find in the "Old Books." There are a few resources for this kind of research. Heritage Quest is free and available online with my library card (they also provide access to Census records); Google Books has a lot of old public domain local histories available; and the Internet Archive has a similar collection.

Reuben McNabb (1829–1911) is one of those people who almost falls into the cracks between the two earlier eras. Born before 1830, he is grown and out of his parents's home by 1850; and that makes him too young to be considered an "early settler" in the eyes of the people writing the old local histories. It was a real challenge to track him down.

Considering that the Callin Family History only names him as "R. McNabb," I was lucky to find a marriage record listed in the Indiana Marriage Index documenting his marriage to Mary Ferguson that gave his full name. (It's only an Index record, so I still really should find the original at some point.) From there, I had to chip away at the databases looking for matches, because he and his family were never quite where I thought they were going to be. But, thanks to some luck, persistence, and a combination of clues found in the Old Books and the Census, I think I can safely claim to know a bit more about his family history than Cousin George gave us in the CFH.

John McNabb was born in Pennsylvania in 1792, making him about the same age as the United States Postal Service. He married Mary Young about 1815, and according to one Old Book, they moved their large, young family from Centre county, Pennsylvania, to Ashland county, Ohio, in the year 1833. The McNabbs remained in that county until around 1845, when a number of them moved again to De Kalb county, Indiana. John and Mary remained in Vermillion, Ashland county, which is where John died in 1860.

The family of James L. and Eliza (Callin) Ferguson, as we saw in last week's post, made their move from Ashland county to De Kalb county around 1849; depending on when the McNabbs left on their journey to Indiana, the Fergusons may have gone with them. Their oldest daughter, Mary Ferguson, would have been about 17 when they left Ohio; and the youngest of John and Mary McNabb's children, Reuben, would have been about 21.

For the longest time, I only had circumstantial evidence tying Reuben to John and Mary McNabb, but John's 1860 will, registered in Ashland county, named his ten children: "John McNabb, the heirs of Margaret Shrader, William McNabb, Nancy Dunfee, the heirs of my son James McNabb, Mary Ann McNabb, David McNabb, Ebenezer McNabb, Robert McNabb, Reuben McNabb."

I haven't proven this out completely, but based on the birthdates for these individuals that I have been able to find, this list seems to put the ten McNabbs in order from oldest to youngest; and I have to assume that two of them - Margaret Shrader and James McNabb - were deceased, as John left his estate "to the heirs of" those two. (That assumption may be important in a few paragraphs!)

Reuben married Mary Ferguson in DeKalb county on 16 November 1854, and they, too, had ten children:

1. George Washington McNabb (1855–1922)
2. James M. McNabb (1859–1938)
3. Eliza J McNabb (1860–1869)
4. William C McNabb (1861–1918)
5. John Goldsmith McNabb (1864–1943)
6. Ellen McNabb (1866–1891)
7. Martha Jane McNabb (1868–1891)
8. Marcus Ebenezer McNabb (1868–1937)
9. Mary E McNabb (1871–1911)
10. Oliver Otis McNabb (1874–1931)

After his father's death in 1860, and after the end of the Civil War, Reuben packed up his young family, and moved from Indiana to Eaton county, Michigan around 1865. Reuben worked as an engineer in the saw mill, and he and Mary put their children through the local school. Once in Michigan, they had their daughter, Ellen, and the twins, Martha Jane and Marcus Ebenezer - the latter likely named for Reuben's successful older brother. According to the Callin Family History, a fire took the life of Eliza in 1869, when she was only nine years old. The couple had two more children.

Reuben continued to work, as a painter and a carpenter; as his sons grew up, they were listed in the city directories, usually boarding at the same address as Reuben. Mary Ferguson McNabb died around 1895; after that, Reuben seems to have fallen on hard times, appearing in the 1910 Census living in the poor house in Reeder, Missaukee county, Michigan, and dying on 5 April 1911.

Now, while that is certainly a lot of good information to know, there are two rather large mysteries that came up while I was trying to put it all together:

     Mystery #1: There are two residents of Grand Rapids, Michigan named "John McNabb," and I don't know for sure which one is the son of Reuben McNabb. Both men left behind documentation indicating they had parents named Reuben McNabb and Mary Ferguson.

One is a John C McNabb who married Inez M. Atkins in 1912 and moved to Battle Creek, Michigan some time before 1918; he died there in 1932. Their marriage record lists the names of both of their parents. When John died, Inez provided the information that appeared on his Michigan death certificate, and that included his birth date (September 1860, in Indiana) and the names and birthplaces of his parents (Rubin McNabb, Glasgow, Scotland and Mary Ferguson, County Clair, Ireland). There are some discrepancies here. Obviously, we know that Reuben and Mary were not born in Scotland or Ireland; but Inez may not have known that, as Reuben and Mary were deceased when she married John. But there are several records that list John's birth date in 1871 - the 1920 and 1930 Census records, and (most compelling) the marriage record from 1912. (Making things even more complicated: I believe Inez was this John McNabb's second wife, and that he had several children by a first wife - but I can't confirm that at this point.)

The other is John Goldsmith McNabb, born 24 December 1864 in Auburn, De Kalb, Indiana. He married Ida Ann Sack (1872–1953) in 1894, and they had four children - the first in Wisconsin, and then the others in Michigan - before heading out to California in about 1905. They had two more children after settling in Chico, California, both of whom died in infancy (one in 1907, one in 1912). The couple then divorced in the 1920s. Eventually, John applied for a life claim on his Social Security in January 1943, and died that December in Alturas, Modoc county, California. His Social Security application lists his parents: Ruben McNabb and Mary Furgson.

I am inclined to believe that the second of these - John Goldsmith McNabb - is the actual son of Reuben and Mary McNabb, based on the birth dates. There is a 6-year-old John McNabb listed in Reuben and Mary's family in 1870, and the strongest evidence says that he would be that John McNabb. However, we still have the mystery of who John C McNabb is, who his real parents are, and why does he claim to be Reuben's son?

     Mystery #2: Mary Ferguson's sister, Elizabeth (1835-1898) also married a McNabb. The Indiana Marriage Index helpfully tells us that a James McNabb and Elizabeth B. Ferguson were married in DeKalb county on 8 February 1858. The CFH tells us that they had six children:

• Ella McNabb 1859–
• Margret McNabb
• Mary McNabb
• Charles McNabb
• Eliza McNabb
• Emma McNabb

But... after finding what I believe to be the only appearance of this family in the 1860 Census (with James, Elizabeth, and 1-year-old Ella), they seem to fall between all of the cracks in the databases. I have not been able to find them in 1870 or 1880, even with very broad searches. Here's what I know:

1. This James McNabb is NOT Reuben's brother. I base this on the assumption that the Indiana Marriage Index and the 1860 Census are showing us the right James and Elizabeth - meaning that James is alive in 1860, his birth date is around 1834, and since the couple will have five more children, that this James McNabb will survive through the 1860s. Reuben's brother was mentioned in John McNabb's 1860 will, but the estate was willed to "the heirs of" James McNabb, suggesting that Reuben's brother had died before 1860.

UPDATE! See The First Life of Mrs. Reed for details, but we now know that James McNabb died in 1860, probably in Cedar Creek, Allen County, Indiana, and that the children listed after Ella McNabb are the children from Elizabeth's second marriage to George W. Reed. There is not enough information to determine whether this means James might be Reuben's brother.

2. This James McNabb MIGHT be Reuben's nephew. Again, if the James McNabb married to Elizabeth in the 1860 Census is our guy, he's only about 5 years younger than Reuben. He's living in the household of a William McNabb who I believe to be Reuben's older brother. William is not this James McNabb's father, either. William's son, William James, is listed in the same household on the 1860 by the name James - as confusing as that is, it's a mercy to be able to rule him out!

Here's a quick table to illustrate how ridiculous this puzzle is:

Reuben's brothers:                            Their sons named James:

Rev. John McNabb (1811-1889)            James, born 1842

William C McNabb (c. 1814-1876)       William James (1846–1924)

James McNabb (c. 1815-c. 1859)          (Haven't found any information about his heirs, yet.)

David McNabb (1819-1887)                  James, born 1844

Ebenezer McNabb (1823-1902)             James J, born 1847

Robert McNabb (1826-1893)                 (No son named James.)

Just based on their birth dates, I would rule out these nephews, leaving the most likely possibility that he is the son of Reuben's brother James McNabb who was deceased before 1860. Failing that, he could well be a cousin from family left behind in Pennsylvania - but that's just groundless speculation.

As I said, I cannot find an 1870 or 1880 record for James, Elizabeth, and the children listed in the CFH. But if you refer to last week's post, you will note that James Ferguson's will refers to Elizabeth as "Elizabeth Reed." The CFH tells us that Elizabeth's second marriage was to a Mr. Reid, and that they had one son; James Ferguson's will, dated 1885, would indicate that Elizabeth married Mr. Reid in the early 1880s at the latest. I have found no records to pin any of this down, either.

Ella McNabb, the daughter of James and Elizabeth listed above, grew up to become the mother of an Alta McCorse, according to the CFH, but I have not been able to find any records with these names, either.

So, I am left with a lot of information, but no conclusion. I don't know who James McNabb was, nor do I know much about the fate of Elizabeth Ferguson or her children. As new databases come online, and new information (hopefully) comes to light, perhaps these mysteries might be solved one day.

But we do know enough about Reuben and Mary Ferguson McNabb's children to tell you a few more stories, starting next week. As always, if you have any information that can help sort out some of these Mysterious McNabbs, please drop a note in the comments below!