The Last Son

 

The last in a long line of sons of Lyman Jackson and Deidama Dunham was Norman Landon Jackson. The tenth son and eleventh child born to the Jacksons, Norman likely made his 1801 appearance in upstate New York before the Jacksons' final move to Erie County, Pennsylvania.

While his parents and a few brothers chose to remain in Pennsylvania, Norman was among the Jackson siblings who decided to move west. For a while, he could be found in Knox County, Illinois, along with his brothers Obediah and David Bardsley Jackson. However, he eventually settled farther west, in Minnesota territory. There, in the 1857 territorial census, Norman Jackson and his wife, along with his son Eli's household, were listed in a place once known as Jackson Lake in Blue Earth County. 

Left behind in Illinois were his two daughters. Back in Knox County, Lois married Andrew Tapp in 1847, and shortly afterwards settled in Black Hawk County, Iowa, before the 1856 state census.  Her sister Louisa followed suit, marrying John Ferris and settled in Black Hawk County, Iowa, before the 1860 census.

As for Norman Landon Jackson, he died in the place where he had settled in the 1850s. His memorial in Blue Earth County, Minnesota, bears the dates 1801 and 1869, spanning a life which took him from upstate New York, to Erie County, Pennsylvania, then westward through Indiana to Illinois, and eventually onward to what was once known as Minnesota Territory.   

Ancestor #4: A Patriarch of Many

 

As we move through the selections for my Twelve Most Wanted for 2025, we are bound to find some repeats from prior years' selections. Ancestor #4 is no exception. Exactly three years ago, I had decided to focus on my mother-in-law's ancestor Nicholas Schneider, and this coming April, I will do so again.

With the selection of Ancestor #4, we shift from selecting ancestors from my mother's line to that of my mother-in-law. In many ways, working on my mother-in-law's tree is comparatively easy. For one thing, some of her ancestors were residents in this country from among the earliest of immigrants. Those ancestors, most of whom were devout Catholics, had many children, and for the most part, remained in the same rural areas for generations—either in Ohio (spelled Snider) or onward to Minnesota (spelled Snyder).

On the other hand, there is a twist to my mother-in-law's tree. For example, Nicholas himself was both my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather and her third great-grandfather. He was her second great-grandfather through her father's line, while he was her third great-grandfather on her mother's line. Perhaps that was thanks to the close-knit community where her family settled in the earliest years of Ohio statehood that her family intermarried over the generations. Whatever the reason might have been, I've learned to proceed carefully to make sure I'm following the right surnames in the right order.

That, in fact, is part of the reason I've decided to work on Nicholas Snider's line once again. While I would like to know more about where in Germany the man once known as Nicholas Schneider originated, the most pressing goal now shifts from ancestors to descendants, thanks mostly to the 262 DNA matches who claim him as their ancestor, according to Ancestry's ThruLines tool. It's time to update that list of matches and ensure that I've gotten each of them placed on the correct line in this Schneider/Snider/Snyder family tree. While I have some already linked to their rightful place, I have a long way to go.

Heading Home so Soon?

Well, that was quick! Thanks to the shared effort of our two helpful translators Per and Martin, it looks like the photograph of the Rosby family will be heading home as soon as I can get it packaged up and in the mail. As you may have noticed from the comments to yesterday's post, Susan, the third great granddaughter of "Mrs. J. T. Andersen," the woman to whom the photograph was addressed, has contacted me and we've finalized arrangements so I can mail the photo to her.

As far as I can tell, it looks like there are no living direct descendants of this particular couple or their daughter. The older woman, as we learned from the translation provided last Friday, was named Rønnøg Rosby and her daughter was Maria. Apparently, all three members of the family were born in Norway, and they arrived as immigrants to the United States about 1867, according to this 1900 census record for Polk County, Minnesota, where they settled.

By the time of the 1910 census, not only had their daughter Maria—apparently their only child, according to census records—lost her father and her mother, she had also been married and widowed. In 1878, Maria had married E. K. Overland—likely Eivind Overland—in Freeborn, Minnesota, but the couple and their family can be found back in Polk County (location of Fertile, mentioned in Maria's notes) by the time of the 1880 census. By 1909, though, Maria's husband was gone, passing on December 2, 1909.

That was confirmed by the 1910 census, which also showed us Maria's three surviving children: Obert, Cora and Rosa. Of those three, each of the daughters died young—Cora in 1915 and Rosa in 1920. Best I could tell about the Overlands' son Obert, he eventually moved to California, where he worked at the San Francisco waterfront for a shipping company. While Obert may have married and had children, I cannot find any such record, nor can I even locate an obituary for him. Obert Overland died in San Francisco in 1951.

One connection I could find, however, was to the aunt that Maria had mentioned in her notes written on the reverse of the photograph. Not knowing the maiden name for Maria's mother, Rønnøg, I looked first for the siblings of Maria's father, Ole. He did, apparently, have a sister named Bertha, who married a man named Jacob T. Anderson—the "J. T. Andersen" mentioned in Maria's inscription on the photograph.

That couple, in turn, had a son named Anton, who in 1891 married a young woman named Julia Bakke in Winnebago County, Iowa. It was a descendant of this Anton Anderson whom I found through the public trees posted at Ancestry.com, and emailed her to see if she was, indeed, related to the sister of Ole Rosby. With an immediate response, she confirmed that she was, and off the photograph will go to Susan, another diligent family history researcher who cares as much for old family photographs as the rest of us do.

Above: Closeup of the three subjects of a photograph found in a northern California antique shop: Ole Rosby, his wife Rønnøg, and their daughter Maria, taken in Fertile, Minnesota. Photograph on its way home to the third great granddaughter of Ole's sister Bertha, wife of Jacob T. Anderson of Iowa.

A Photo From Fertile, Minnesota

Thanks to the help from readers Per and Martin, the seemingly inscrutable inscription on the back of a hundred year old photograph has been translated. As you will see, the message not only makes a lot of sense, but contains enough clues to help us target a specific family—and, hopefully, locate at least one direct descendant who would be interested in receiving the photograph.

But first, the message itself. Apparently written in Norwegian, a transcription of the original—provided through the collaborative efforts of Per and Martin—is here below, in case you, too, can understand the original:

En hilsen ifra den döde og av
Mrs. Rønnøg O. Rosby og
Maria, Fertile, Minn

dette Portraet er taget efter ett gamelt. Til Tant J. T. Andersen.
Fader och moder har ingen feil i [øyne?], men
det er en feil i Printingen.

The consensus regarding the translation, thanks to our two interpreters, is as follows:

A greeting from the dead one, and from
Mrs. Rønnøg O. Rosby and
Maria, Fertile, Minn.

This portrait is based on an

old one. To Aunt J. T. Andersen.

Father and Mother has nothing wrong with their eyes, but
there is an error with the printing.

So, just what might Maria have been referring to when she informed her aunt that her parents had "nothing wrong with their eyes"? Take a look at the photograph and see for yourself what she might have meant.

Photograph, above, possibly of Ole, Rønnøg, and Maria Rosby of Fertile, Minnesota, addressed to Mrs. Jacob Torger Anderson of Iowa; photograph currently in possession of author until claimed by a direct descendant of the family.