CFH First Draft: James "2nd" Callin

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

This James Callin is the 2nd person in a descendant report beginning with the earliest known ancestor of our Callin family, James "1st" 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: James "1st" Callin

This post is first in an ongoing series, sharing the first draft of my Revised Callin Family History. James Callin is the earliest known ancestor of one branch of the Callin (or Callen/Callan) family. 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.

243 Years Ago

 Hello, cousins!

243 years ago, in October 1777, my 5th-great (that's great-great-great-great-great!) grandfather, James Callin, was a private in the 4th Virginia Regiment of Foot, serving under a Capt. James Lucas. The Battle of Brandywine had taken place on 11 September, and while that battle was a loss for the American Continental Army, everyone had been impressed by the performance of a French soldier, the Marquis de Lafayette, who helped prevent the defeat from becoming a total rout. General Washington, realizing that the Continentals had been lucky to avoid complete destruction, decided to take advantage of the winter to regroup, and to train at Valley Forge with Lafayette and a Prussian drillmaster, Baron Friedrich von Steuben.

When we headed into the spring of this year, I had hoped that by this point in the fall, I would have finished the battle of editing the manuscript for the Callin Family History. If you've been following along on our Facebook page, Twitter, or the private Callin Family History group, you've seen me struggling to keep everyone posted on my progress. If you haven't been following along on social media, here's a distillation of my updates:

Timeline of Editing the Rough Draft:

• 27 May: person #93, Lillian May "Lillie" Campbell (1871-1946)
• 7 Jun: person #122, Sarah Elizabeth Scott (1869–1948)
• 14 Jun: person #142, Emma A Reed (1865-1934)
• 23 Jun: person #163, Dorothy Mae Ferguson (1889–1967)
• 28 Jun: person #177, John Ora "Jack" Copp (1881-1972)
• 2 Jul: my great-grandpa's brother, Byron Herbert Callin 
• 9 Jul: I DID IT!!! Generation 5 is done! 
• 21 Aug: person #257, Christina Agnes Urich (1903- 1998)
• 7 Sep: person #284, Fay Eleanor Richards
• 3 Oct: person #314, Raymond Ernest Hodges (1905-1970)
• 11 Oct: person #324, Alva Sylvester Stine 

While the scope of the task was more than I expected, I'm still pleased with the progress. I seem to average about 12 biographies per week. Sadly, that means it will still take several more months to get close enough to "Done" to think about launching our Kickstarter campaign.

So...

While I'm toiling away "off-camera," I don't want to lose you, my audience. I know that when a blog like this one sits idle for too long, it gets harder for possible cousins to find it in a search in the older posts. So I've decided to try something to help keep you all informed and involved.

Starting next week, this blog will put out two posts per week, late on Monday and Thursday nights. The book is structured using the NEHGS Register format, which assigns every descendant of James Callin with a number (thus, the "person #"). Each post will feature one numbered person and their immediate family from the First Draft version of the Callin Family History. 

In some ways, this will duplicate some of the content that you've already seen on this blog before, but it will be a lot more detailed and more deeply researched than the earlier posts. Because I'll be sharing the stories from the First Draft, you'll see a preview of what will end up in the final version of the book - and you'll have a chance to help me make any remaining corrections before it goes to publication.

I don't expect this to take a whole lot of time to do - the "content" of the posts is done, and I can automate things so that you see the posts here and on social media without taking a lot of time away from the main editing task.

If you want to volunteer to help with the editing - fact-checking or just pointing out typos - maybe this will help you zero in on those relatives who are closest to you. Maybe, if you've been wanting to try your hand at editing WikiTree, this will give you some content and sources to add there.

The blog format doesn't easily allow me to include footnotes, so each post will link to the Ancestry profile for the individual cousin featured that day. I believe I've set that tree to "public" so that any of you can view the research I've done - though you may need to create a free Ancestry account to view it. If any of you have trouble seeing the Ancestry profiles or any of the sources I have attached to them, please let me know.

The best way to reach me with any feedback is at my Mightier Acorns Gmail address - you should also see a Contact Form to the right of this post on this page, which sends a message directly to that email address. I look forward to hearing from you!

Here's hoping that if we can get through the winter, we'll be ready to start a winning campaign next spring.

Admin: Creating the Callin Family History

I reached a milestone last night: I finished editing the computer-generated rough draft of Generation 5!

Generation 1 was, of course, James Callin (c. 1750-c. 1816), and Generation 2 included his two sons, James and John - regular readers ought to be familiar with their stories by now. In March and April, I began editing the rough draft produced by my RootsMagic publishing feature into what will be the "first draft" of the revised Callin Family History.

I wanted to give you a better idea of what I'm actually doing, so here is a quick example.

Editing One "Person" or "Family"

Here's the "rough draft" of the first page of Generation 6, starting with person 204. Henry Bushnell. 

Gen 6 - page 1 (unedited)

To the right is a screenshot of the first page and a half on Google Docs. You can see in this block of raw text that Henry and his wife, Livva, each get their own "story" which starts out as a page of computer-generated narrative (full of bad grammar and confusing facts) with sources provided in brackets.

Note the 1910 Census (highlighted in yellow) appears three times - once as a "supporting source" for Henry's birth; again as a source for one of his life facts and a third time to support a fact in Livva's story. (It shows up again on that second page!) I'll combine their two biographies into one narrative paragraph, so I only need to cite the 1910 Census once in the edited version. 

The green highlighter shows you where Henry's obituary is cited; I have the text of that obituary, so I'll quote it at the end of his biography, and condense these four lines into a properly formatted source citation, which will go into a footnote.

The purple highlight shows you that the computer cited Henry's mother's obituary. I will take that line out altogether, because her obituary was quoted in her biography in Generation 5, and it doesn't need to be repeated here. Most of this "raw" version is repetitive information that will just be deleted or condensed. Ideally, each fact will get woven into sentences that tell more of a story.

Editing each numbered "Family" this way, I condense an average of 2.5 pages of computer-generated text into between 1 and 1.5 pages of first draft text. If I don't have other sources to quote (like an obituary or biographical sketch from another book), it's less; if I have other sources or a family has a large number of children, they end up with more. 

Once I am done, the final result looks more like this screenshot:

Gen 6 - page 1 (edited)

Now, instead of 1 to 2 pages of unreadable text, you have some basic facts arranged into paragraphs, with source citations, and an obituary - all on one page. 

This page took me about half an hour to edit. The raw version of Generation 6 has three sections, each with more than 200 more pages like this - and I expect I will find mistakes or gaps along the way that require additional research to complete.

The Way Forward

Now that I have some data, I can do a better estimate of how much longer this project should take.

I do a lousy job of taking notes, but from looking at my earlier blog, Facebook, and Twitter posts, I started on Generation 5 while I finished up my school work in March and mid-April. Here are some stats:

• 15 April - 9 July: just shy of three months
• rough draft: 371 pages (low estimate of 185.5 hours of work)
• first draft: 198 pages (53% of the rough draft size)

At this point, I need to go back to RootsMagic and re-generate Generations 6-11, because I made some pretty significant changes to the Ancestry tree while I edited Generation 5. It will save me a lot of time to re-generate the rough drafts for those Generations instead of re-numbering and manually adding people.

I broke the rough draft of Gen 6 into three sections so Google Docs could handle the larger documents; each section was about 200 pages. Based on that:

• an estimated first draft of Gen 6 (when I'm done) should be about 300 pages.
• My estimated hours of work: 600 rough draft pages = 300 hours
• Working "full time" (40 hours/week) should (optimistically) take about 8 weeks.

I said "optimistically" - I don't know how much of my time I'll get to keep spending on editing. And that estimate doesn't take into account the extra research I'll need to do as I find mistakes or missing people. Ancestry is constantly adding new records databases, and I'm constantly finding living cousins who help me find more information and fill more gaps. (Hi, Dean! Hi, Sara! Hi, Cheryl!) 

I'm not complaining - I'm thrilled to meet everyone, and I want to include your stories the way YOU want them told - but I have to budget for that extra time, too.

How You Can Help

If you've come this far, and you want to help lighten my load, there are a few things you can do that would save me a lot of time:

1. Send me YOUR bio. (mightieracorns@gmail.com) If you are a direct descendant of James Callin (meaning you will be one of the people in the book), writing your story down in a paragraph or two will save me a ton of time. Even if you're not confident in your writing, don't worry - I can help you with wordsmithing and I don't mind tracking down documents that help support your personal story. But it will be so much faster and more accurate if you provide it. 
2. Get your family to tell their stories, too. If you're a direct descendant of James Callin (and this blog should help you determine if you are), I'd love to see a paragraph or two for your parents, siblings, and/or your children. Not only will you save me time, but you'll help me get the word out about the book, and help me make sure I'm not surprising anybody who might not want a stranger writing their life story!
3. Ask me about your Callin-related ancestors. It may sound like that would distract me and take up MORE of my time, but I have found that your questions often make me look at the documents I have in new ways, and answering you makes us both smarter!
4. Can you spare some time to edit? I can send a link to you and give you permission to view and comment on the "first draft" I've done so far - you don't have to worry that you might accidentally delete anything, and your comments or specific questions would be a huge help when I go to do the final draft in a few months.
5. Spread the word! The biggest help of all is just to talk to your family about this project. If they're comfortable with Facebook, invite them to join the private Callin Family History group, or ask them to like and watch the Mightier Acorns Facebook page. If they are Twitter people, @mightieracorns might be for them. My email address is great for one-on-one questions.

What's Next?

Now that I have some idea of when this will be publishable, I plan to start making some Mightier Acorns videos to go along with the eventual Kickstarter campaign. 

If you are interested in contributing to that part of the project, you can send me videos of yourself with a greeting ("Hi, cousins, my name is ____ and I'm descended from James Callin through my grandparents, ____ and ____!") or a question ("I read blog post X, and I was wondering if you knew more about ____.") With your permission, I would like to put several videos together and it would be a lot more fun to have your input that it would be just to watch my big, dumb head talk to a camera for 5 minutes!

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!

Resolving the Uncomfortable Mysteries

Hello, cousins!

I've written before about how sensitive or taboo situations can make it difficult, or at least tricky, to dig into a family's history. It's common for families to have secrets or at least things they don't want to talk about. Adoptions can be touchy subjects, depending on the circumstances. Some of our cousins have had criminal adventures reported in newspapers. I've even found evidence of one cousin who was executed for murder. 

Divorce is one of those events that can be painful for families to talk about. Sometimes they can be acrimonious, of course, but even when they are amicable, there can be a stigma associated with them. When I was a kid in the 1980s, I heard a great deal about how divorce was a new phenomenon that was undermining the very nature of the American family, but I have seen enough examples of divorce in early generations to know better. That stigma can make it difficult to get answers when it comes to matters of divorce.

My 2nd-great-grandfather, John Henry Callin (1840-1913) was a well-respected man in his community. He was a teacher, Union soldier, poet, and community leader. He was also a divorcee.

The first I learned of this was a document in his pension record in the National Archives. The form, dated 1 January 1898, asked for the pensioner (John) to answer several questions about his marital status. The fourth question was, "Were you previously married? If so, please state the name of your former wife and the date and place of her death or divorce." John's answer, apparently in his own handwriting - which I've become familiar with during the process of transcribing his battlefield poetry - was: "Lucy Patterson. Divorced 1873 at Bowling Green, O. No children by former marriage."

There are several records that document the marriage of John H. Callin to Lucy A Patterson in Wood County, Ohio, on 27 October 1865. This was just a few months after he mustered out of the service on 27 May 1865 in Louisville, Kentucky. Beyond that, however, we know little about her. It is possible, however, that John was acquainted with her family.

A biographical sketch of John was published in 1895 in the J.H. Beers "Commemorative Historical and Biographical Record of Wood County, Ohio" and also ran as his obituary in the local newspapers in 1913. Of his military service, this sketch said he "enlisted in the Twenty-First Battery of the Ohio Light Artillery, Capt. Patterson commanding..." which raises a question about whether there is a relationship between John's wife and his commanding officer. James W Patterson was 44 years of age when he enlisted on 1 Nov 1862 as a captain in the Ohio 21st Light Artillery Battery. This puts his birthdate around 1818. He took command of the unit on 13 Nov 1862 and mustered out on 9 Mar 1864. (U.S., Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865) However, there is no information about where Capt. Patterson was born, and a search for someone of that name and age turns up a number of possibilities outside Ohio in the 1860 and 1870 Census records. 

As for Lucy's immediate family, there seems to be a case to be made that the Lucy A. Patterson who was married to John Callin from 1865 to 1873 might have been the daughter of Martin Patterson (1818-1891) and Abigail Osgood (1820-1908) of Plain Township, Wood County, Ohio. This Lucy Patterson would have been born on 27 Sep 1846 in Homer, Ohio, which would have made her 19 in 1865. Plain Township happens to be where John Callin registered for the draft in 1863, and according to his biographical sketch, his family had moved to Wood County in 1861. 

There are other Lucy Pattersons in other parts of Ohio, but they were either too young, twenty years older than John, or married to someone else in 1865 (as near as I could tell). The only evidence that might raise questions about whether Martin and Abigail's daughter is the same Lucy Patterson who married John Callin is the 1870 Census, in which Lucy appears in her parents' home under her maiden name. That census doesn't record marriage status, so it doesn't say whether she is "single," "married," "divorced," or "widowed." Of course, I have seen other people who I knew were divorced who were recorded on the census as "widowed" or "single," so that wouldn't be definitive, anyway. It seems most likely that whatever issue brought John and Lucy to split up may have happened early on, and they might well have been living separately three years before their divorce became official.

If I have identified the correct Lucy Patterson in these records, then her family moved to Lenawee County, Michigan, and in 1879 she married the Rev. Llewellyn Vasco Nash. In 1885, they adopted a baby girl and named her Ethel. Rev. Nash moved his family from Michigan to La Crescent, Houston County, Minnesota (1900),  Birmingham, Van Buren County, Iowa (1910), and Scotch Grove, Jones County, Iowa (1920); by 1925, they were back in Birmingham, Van Buren County, Iowa. Lucy died there on 5 Jul 1929 and was buried in Maple Hill Cemetery. We do not know what happened to Rev. Nash after that, though he was last seen in Birmingham in 1930 when he was 75 years old.

We can really only speculate about what happened to end Lucy and John's marriage. Many couples were married during and after the war, and certainly, not all of them would have been happy. John's wartime experience was brutal at times, and his poetry reflects the emotional toll it took on him. As the oldest boy of his family, I imagine that he felt pressure to establish himself and establish his family. It is possible to imagine that the young couple decided to marry before the war, and that he came back changed. It is possible that Lucy proved unable to have children, and that may have driven a wedge between them. 

It's not my place to judge people from another century. I don't entirely know what happened, and even if I can prove what happened, I can't know why it happened. So, when I'm speculating, I try to make sure I'm only doing so in a way that might be useful. I can't think of any other stones that we might be able to turn that might give us more clues, so even though I think it would be interesting to find a connection between Capt. Patterson and Lucy Patterson, I'm satisfied that we know as much as we are likely to know about this particular story.

But it is interesting to know that even our most revered and most respectable ancestors can have things in their history that they may not have wanted to admit.

The Price of Progress: An Update

Hello, Cousins!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That looks like "Marquis Callin" to me!

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

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

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

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

 - -- --- -- - 

As always...

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Until next time... Happy Hunting!