Tales and Tidbits about This American Family Tree

It is great honor to be asked to research into the mysteries of a dear friend's family tree. Mary is one of my dear friends, made even more so by this process of turning over a few stones for her and seeing where the roots of her ancestry take us. What was really fun, which makes sense because Mary is really fun, is that her tree was supposed to be obvious. Irish-Philadelphia. English or something from New England. But surprises lurk in every foundation. The American Line Roster marking the day Peter J. O'Brien arrived to Philadelphia from Ireland in 1865. We may never know each of our ancestor's stories. Unless they do something remarkable to the world around them and are blessed (or cursed) enough to be noticed (or caught), most of what they have done day to day fades into the fabric of time. A lifetime of moments, summed up by a few census records and some religious documents. If they somehow become prominent, or notorious, there maybe more data to describe their life. B...

This report is fairly trimmed and g-rated for a 5th grade talk I am giving tomorrow. Although these are fairly wholesome people the big reveal is that Mary Ann Hoopes Yearsley became a 3rd wife for Albern Allen and they had a daughter together. He was still married to Marcia/Marsha Allen and also had married an Elizabeth, with whom he had at least one other child. People of their time and place I suppose but here it is, my pioneer notes for 5th graders, learning about the Oregon Trail, absenting the previously mentioned information from above... Allen Family pioneers (8) The Allen and Hadlock families Albern Allen (4th great grandfather - 4ggf) born in Connecticut but met Marsha  in upstate NY where they married. They did not have much money so someone from their community went to the government and asked for help. The government had just declared war on Mexico so they struck a deal. Money for wagons and supplies but a regiment had to be formed to go to war. Albern became a private...

Allen, Albern. (1802-1867)  4th Great Grandfather         Albern Allen was born in Connecticut and fatefully moved to New York state where he met his first wife, Marcia, and became a convert to the Church of LDS in 1835. He moved several times with the first LDS members ending up serving as a Private in the Mormon Battalion in the Mexican American War.       The battalion is the only religion based unit in the history of the US military. It came to be that at the time the Mormons faced much persecution and this had been ignored by the US government. A member went to Washington to appeal for federal aid to pioneer west rather than continue to face persecution where they were. It happens that at that time the US had just declared war on Mexico to contest the territories that now make up the US southwest. A deal was struck for a group of men to muster for the US army in exchange for funding and protection to move west. It took Brigham Young...

The following are direct grandparents Franklin Alonzo Dunbar Franklin Dunbar was born 11 August 1838 in Brighton, Ohio. He lived in Ohio until enlisting in the military to fight for the Union in the American Civil War on October 9, 1861 with the 9th Illinois Cavalry. He served as a corporal and discharged from service on October 11, 1864. He worked as a farmer and married Lourina Anna Self sometime before 1870.  According to census records they lived in Gallatin City, Montana Territory for some time, later relocating to Texas where most of their children were born. The family later settled in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1911, Franklin Dunbar entered the Disabled Veterans home in Leavenworth, Kansas after having a stroke that left him hemiplegic. He died at that home in 1913. U.S. National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers Website, 1866-1938. Pub. 2007. Provo, UT, USA Franklin Alonzo Dunbar on the far right with son John on the left and daughter Ethel next to him. Hired ...

Peter Fore (likely born Pierre Faure)   7th Great Grandfather Peter Fore was born in 1706 Manakin Town, a Huguenot settlement in what became Powhatan County, Virginia, the son of Mary and Pierre. His story is so interesting that more than his military record will be relayed here. He married Marie Godwin and was willed land by his father in neighboring Goochland County (about 300 acres). According to the will, Peter already lived on that land before his father's death. For reasons unknown, Peter sold his son Joseph the land in 1778 and moved to Prince Edward County onto 130 acres of land.   At 73 years old, he moved with some his younger children to Martin's Station in what was then Kentucky County, Virginia (now Kentucky state). He settled on the banks of Stoner Creek during the winter of 1779-1780. Peter, despite his age, was on the muster roll of Captain Gatliff's company at Martin's Station at the time of an attack by local Natives that had sided with the Britis...

In 2005 I joined Ancestry. But that is not how my interest (nay occasional obsession) with my family roots began. My father used to tell me family lore when we were spending time together in my youth, which seemed gravely important to me at the time. That he would take me aside and tell me family tales really grabbed my attention and are some of my dearest memories with him. And I suppose growing up in Arlington, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C., I had the impression of history being all around me. Not just the museums and historic sites but the experience of going there, multiple times and getting to know these places. The Clara Barton House, Old Town Alexandria, the streets of Georgetown, Arlington Cemetery, and countless battlefields. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting a place and then reading every biography I could get my hand on regarding the people who lived there or helped shape a moment in time in that place. I still do. As I have researched and uncovered our act...