Tracing the Connections

 

It's not just the direct line connection to a First Families ancestor that fascinates me. It's tracing the connections of all the collateral lines of that ancestor which makes this exploration interesting. While one First Families application may gain recognition for a specific ancestor, just pointing to that name, that person, allows others to find their way to that connection, as well.

Take yesterday's case of John Hutchins, the Canadian immigrant who crossed the Great Plains with his family to seek his fortune in the California Gold Rush. John Hutchins arrived with his Irish-born parents as well as five siblings—each of whom likely had descendants who also can qualify for our county's First Families program.

As for John Hutchins' wife Anna Nevin, she too arrived in California with family. Her father, Alexander Nevin, had lost his wife Sarah in 1854, long before the journey westward, but by the time of the 1870 census, both Anna's father and another Nevin relative lived in the Hutchins household in California.

Any one of these several siblings in either of the two families joined by the Hutchins-Nevin wedding could have become the ancestor of direct line descendants who might not even realize their connection to a couple eligible for First Families recognition.

Being able to point the way by a publicly-shared tree or document diagramming such relationships could help others realize their connection to local history. Multiply that possibility by each of the First Families programs currently in operation throughout the United States, and we'd have some amazing resources to help researchers find their way back through time and connect with their own family history.

Because I'm curious, I'll be checking these connections in the Hutchins and Nevin families, and adding them to our genealogical society's fledgling online tree of our county's First Families notables.

Founders and their Families

 

In working on First Families projects, we sometimes anticipate receiving records of significant men and women who were instrumental in building our state or county. In our county's case, one of the most well-known names of local city founders was that of one man who settled in Lodi, California. His name was John Hutchins, and he was the Canadian-born son of Irish immigrants. He likely came to California for one reason: the Gold Rush. But he made the wise choice to take his winnings from that mining gamble and invest it in a more solid future.

In one of those ubiquitous local history books of the late 1800s and early 1900s, author George H. Tinkham offered up a brief biography of John Hutchins in his 1923 tome, History of San Joaquin County, California. Ascribing to John Hutchins the honor of being included among "the highly honored pioneers" of the county, Tinkham portrayed him as a local man with an "interesting history" and "enviable record." True, the book containing what seems to be a lasting legacy was published a quarter century after John Hutchins' passing in 1899, but books like this often excelled at hyperbole.

Still, the Hutchins name is one that is noted even now in the town's public places, including at least one civic building and street name. Local residents who have been here for a while recognize that name as coming from one of the city's founders.

John Hutchins apparently migrated to California across the Great Plains with his family. Arriving during the later years of the California Gold Rush—his family was enumerated in Iowa for the 1850 census—he would have been in his late teens or early twenties when the family arrived in Placer County.

He and his family apparently met with some success at that mining venture, for the extended Hutchins family decided it would be far more prudent to invest their money in land in the nearby Central Valley, where land prices at the time were quite reasonable. There is a record of a John Hutchins taking advantage in 1872 of the Homestead Act provision to acquire land in San Joaquin County, a fertile location for farming ventures, with access to water provided by nearby rivers.

John Hutchins was apparently in the "Big Valley" before that date, however, for the local newspaper noted his appearance in court in Stockton to vouch for his brother James during naturalization proceedings in  1868, and, even before that date, John stood before the pastor of Saint Mary's Church in that same city to be wed to his bride from Iowa, Mary Ann Nevin.

With that began the family and business ties which remained throughout John Hutchins' life. Though a foreign-born immigrant, he made business and personal connections tying him to the town he helped to form. From farmer to real estate owner to businessman, John Hutchins was credited, in partnership with associates, of laying out the town of Lodi and selling lots to the first residents there. He remained there for the rest of his life and was buried in Lodi in 1899.

It's what happened with the next generation, though, that moved away from that "First Families" designation, as John Hutchins' children married and moved away. Yet it is in that next generation that we see the beginnings of the network of descendants which eventually will tie back in with those roots in Lodi. It's the connections between the many lines of descent that tie back to the home location which fascinate me as I research these First Families applications.   

Remembering "First Families"

 

For this month's goal, as laid out almost a year ago in my Twelve Most Wanted research plan, I had thought that surely there were no more resources for me to continue pursuing my father's Polish ancestry. Instead, I set upon a different plan: a genealogical "giving back" project. For this month, I'd work on the family trees of the "first families" of my county.

By "first families," I'm referring to the programs offered by many groups to recognize and honor the early settlers for a particular geographic area. These certificate programs generally award recognition to a direct line descendant of an honored early resident, along with preserving that ancestor's family history. Some programs are coordinated by historical societies, such as the First Families of Tennessee, launched by the East Tennessee Historical Society. Many are administered by state genealogical organizations, such as the Utah Genealogical Association's First Families of Utah. Some county organizations also host First Families programs, such as the San Mateo County Genealogical Society in the San Francisco bay area. There are even cities promoting First Families programs, such as Saint Louis, Missouri. 

The term "first families" may be a misnomer, at least in the way most genealogical and historical societies use it. "Early settlers" would be a far more realistic term, especially for those geographical locations which experienced wave after wave of migrant settlements. Perhaps our neighbors to the north in Canada have a more accurate way of putting things when they refer to "First Nations" among their residents. Among some U.S. statewide programs, Oklahoma acknowledges that disparity in their First Families of the Twin Territories, where their stated goal is to: "recognize, honor and perpetuate the memory of early Pioneer and Indian families who were residents of Oklahoma or Indian Territory on or before the date of statehood."

Date ranges for recognition vary from program to program. Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania members who can prove descent from a resident as early as 1638 in what is now the state of Pennsylvania are eligible to apply for recognition in the First Families of Pennsylvania program. As we move westward through the country, dates of eligibility logically advance with each respective state's settlement history, sometimes pinned to the date upon which a territory achieved statehood, as is the case with the Missouri First Families Program.

One of the best points about such First Families programs is that the hosting organization often makes available the list of names of such recognized settlers. That's how I discovered my own fourth great-grandfather, Charles McClellan, was included in the Florida Pioneer Descendants Certificate Program of the Florida State Genealogical Society. It becomes a useful resource for others who are also researching the same ancestor.

That is only one of many reasons people have given for participating in a First Families program. Years ago, Amy Johnson Crow recapped several of these reasons, reminding us that by participating in First Families programs, we are "honoring our ancestors and recognizing their contribution to history." While I've mentioned several programs above, there are far more such programs in the United States—currently, Cyndi's List provides links for seventy nine of them.

As for our own local program, it is a partnership between our county genealogical society and the county's historical society. We currently have nearly three hundred names of recognized, documented ancestors who settled in our county and were recognized by our First Families programs.

Among those early settlers were those who made our cities, suburbs, and farm regions what they are today. These were the men and women who gave us our heritage. I like how one society put it: these were the "settlers who cleared the land, drained the swamps, ran the stagecoaches, built the dams, roads and houses, planted and harvested the crops, and sold the meat, potatoes, clothing, soap and other necessities their neighbors needed."

For this month's Twelve Most Wanted, we'll review the stories of some of these settlers.    

A Season for (Genealogically) Giving Back

 

I spent the last day of November binge-adding documents for Laskowski and Gramlewicz collateral lines as my last-gasp kiss goodbye to the eleventh of my Twelve Most Wanted. Today, we'll begin a new research project, one perhaps prematurely chosen based on the assumption that all the records that could be accessed on my father's Polish side had been accessed.

How wrong I was.

No matter. The trouble with long range goal setting may be that we can't always foresee what will happen that far down the genealogical road, but by December, I can always comfort myself with the thought that I'll soon be setting research goals for 2025. We can always start over, based on updated information.

For this month, we'll enjoy a hiatus from my own Twelve Most Wanted—er, eleven for this year—and take this month as a season for giving back. A few years back our county's genealogical society re-introduced a First Families program, for which we've been building trees online in preparation to make the listing of these ancestors publicly available to other researchers.

Quite a few of these early immigrants to our county arrived with some fascinating stories. Almost all of them came from great distances to settle here during the early years of statehood—some, right on the heels of the newsflash about the California gold rush.

This month will be my opportunity to share some of those stories as a way of giving back to the genealogy community. Who knows? Maybe some relatives from your collateral lines stopped by in our county for a while before moving on—or perhaps staying for a generation or two more. 

Awash in Collateral Connections

 

It should have come as no surprise that families from small communities would, over the generations, intermarry with relatives. Yet, when I chose my Twelve Most Wanted ancestral goal for November, I blithely placed that potential number of intermarried surnames at a number far lower than it may turn out to be. Right now, as I close out this month's research, I am awash in potential collateral connections—only on the likely relatives of my second great-grandfather Mateusz Laskowski. That says nothing about the connections with his wife's Gramlewicz family—which I still need to pursue—or the other surnames I've discovered which are connected to this family.

Add that to my ever-growing to-do list of unfinished research. Thankfully, finding more online resources for local documentation from the Laskowskis' Polish home in Żerków has helped my progress. Last year, I thought I had gone as far as I could without actually traveling to Poland; this year, I'm staring down a list of possibly accessible names which are far too long to wrap up on this last day of the month.

The result last year of thinking I had hit the end of the line for this family persuaded me to veer off course from my Twelve Most Wanted research route. We'll discuss December's projects tomorrow, but I am now thinking we may need to blend in some catch-up work on the families we've left behind during this quarter's family history explorations. If nothing else, they will inform the selection for those Twelve Most Wanted, once I begin planning for 2025—which won't be long in coming.

Alone in the Crowd

 

There are some people for whom a holiday like Thanksgiving does not make a good fit. It's not that they're ungrateful for all the blessings we're supposed to be thankful for on the fourth Thursday of November. It's just that life does not always accommodate a four-day weekend. It sometimes leaves people feeling alone, despite being in the midst of a crowd.

Face it: a day like today—the pandemonium of Black Friday following close after the feast day of Thanksgiving—is one I earnestly hope to avoid. Yet this year, situated less than four weeks away from Christmas, it will see me doing the last thing I'd hope to do: run into town to shop. Why? Because we want to get our Christmas tree up and decorated before leaving on a business trip. Sometimes, life just doesn't stop because it's time for a holiday. So I'll be out there, right in the midst of the shopaholic crowd—but certainly not there for the same reason.

If it isn't apparent to you yet, I am Thanksgiving's counterpart to the Grinch who stole Christmas. I've never enjoyed the day (let alone a four-day extension), though I've tried to reconcile myself to turkey dinners by creative additions of hors d'oeuvres and side dishes over the years. Even as a child, I found the day miserable, and during my college years, the pressure of the academic calendar couldn't justify a four-day transcontinental round trip, just to be with family.

Over the years, we've hosted others who have found themselves alone in the crowd on the Thanksgiving weekend. This year was no different, sharing our meal with a delightful guest whose work schedule couldn't permit the long drive home this week.

Our conversation turned to memories of family—not necessarily the family our guest would have liked to dine with this past Thanksgiving, but family of previous generations. I'm firmly convinced that every family has ancestors who can evoke memories and yield fascinating stories, and this extended family did not disappoint. Our guest's face came alive with the shared memories over dinner, amidst the encouragement to write these stories down before they are lost forever.

When I hear some family historians' recounting of their Thanksgiving visits, I get the impression that eyes glaze over among those captive at the dinner table, but that was certainly not the case for us. Of course, I have a vested interest in seeing others pursue their family's stories, but I can tell a fun story when I hear one.

Family historians are not as alone in the crowd as we might think we are. We have the ability to bring people's stories back to life again, to be remembered and appreciated for who they were. We may be the only one among our family members who actually do the research—in that one way, alone in the crowd—but when we bring those ancestors' stories to life again, there will eventually be an audience of those who appreciate the memories.

Making The Dash Come Alive

 

On a day like today—Thanksgiving in the United States—when we're surrounded by generations of family members, a genealogist's thoughts may turn to sharing stories. There is, however, a knack to that. We either become the instigator of stifled yawns and rolling eyes, or the inspiration that sparks interest in family history. It all comes down to discovering ways to make the stories from our family's past come alive for future generations.

The most succinct representation of an ancestor may be the stark image of a headstone: name and dates of birth and death, separated by a dash. When we focus on cataloguing those names and dates—though vital to document for a genealogist's task—we can't be surprised by the yawns. But when we set our sights on that dash between the dates, that's what brings those ancestors to life for our audience.

Ancestors, really, are just like us. They had dreams of a good life. They had times to celebrate. And they endured dark times and struggles and perhaps even doubts that they would make it through. The scenery might have been different, the setting more sparse, the supporting cast a bit different than ours. Imagining ourselves in such situations as those can evoke feelings that might not be different than what those ancestors did feel.

To put it another way, we can relate. And that's what helps us make their dash come alive again in the minds of those who take time to think about them.