Vermont Ancestry

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Comment by maggie on August 28, 2009 at 4:01pm

i looking for some one who lives in addison co . to take some digtail pictures for me

Comment by Caren on August 3, 2009 at 7:19pm

Hiyas. My Vermont ancestry consists of Vershire, Vermont in Orange County. My great-great-great-great Grandfather, Levi Jackman, as well as his siblings were all born there. His father was Moses French Jackman, born in 1767 in Salisbury, MA and died in 1797 in Vershire, Vermont (crushed by a tree he and his brother were cutting down). Moses' brother, Abel Jackman, died in Cornith, Vermont in 1820. I don't know if there's any Jackman's still there. All I know is that Vershire is a rather small town. I'd love to visit it someday. Just to see Moses' grave. Moses' wife was Elizabeth Carr. She died of breast cancer in Batavia, NY in 1819.

Comment by Phyllis Anne Kruger on July 27, 2009 at 1:10pm

Debra Burbank
My line is: Thoams,Robert,Thomas,Isaac,Ichabod,Issac,Zebulon,Zebulon,Zebulon Gardner,Allen Hall,Carroll, to my mother Beryl

Comment by Debra Burbank on July 26, 2009 at 9:26am

I have a letter my grandmother wrote in 1917. It has an address on it, Camp Hollister at the Rilleo, but no town. Does anyone have any suggestions of where I could search to find where the camp was. It sounds like a girls wilderness camp. My grandmother was about 19. Thanks Debra

Comment by Micki Boyer on July 25, 2009 at 11:40pm

I'll do that. At the moment I'm RVing in small towns, but should be near a substantial library in about 6 weeks. I've found few of the small town libraries have much in the way of genealogy resources, but some do surprise me.

Comment by Carldine H. (Martin) Van Allen on July 25, 2009 at 9:51pm

Micki
Check your public library. Many of them have Ancestry subscriptions you can access when you are at the library.

Comment by Micki Boyer on July 23, 2009 at 10:02pm

Hi Liz,
Thanks so much for going to that trouble. Eventually I'll have to join Ancestry if only for a few weeks, but we've been so busy I'm afraid I'd pay for time I wouldn't use, right now. So, I will keep those names in mind. I think these people made up their name as they went along. Seems like it, anyway.

Comment by Liz Loveland on July 21, 2009 at 12:16pm

Hi Micki,
I'm so glad to hear that is the right Benjamin! I hope it helps you in your search. I just tried another Ancestry search using just their last names to search VT in the 1880 census. There are several Donahue families (though none has a Ben or Benjamin) in VT but none using the spellings Cashel, Cashell, or Cashall. The closest are Cagill, Cagle, Cagswell, Caskill, Caswell, and Caslie. Just some surnames to keep in mind in your search. It is also possible that at least one of the families left as a whole family for MI (or some other state) by 1880 so my not finding anything in VT also certainly doesn't mean they weren't there in earlier years. I have seen cases where people who were from one place met after moving and married, so it is possible that is what happened to your family.

I will try a few more ideas.

Interesting family stories. I think it is definitely possible that there is some truth in them even if it is partly myth.

My Loveland family left England in the 1600s, though it is definitely possible that yours is a collateral line. I've only traced the Lovelands that left down to the present day, not the ones that stayed in England.

Comment by Micki Boyer on July 21, 2009 at 11:42am

Wow, Liz, you found the right Ben Donahue. I've contacted Leitelt and the don't have employee records going back that far (only back to 1920 or so.) But at least he used the same name as an employee as he did on birth certificates.

I'm beginning to wonder if they WERE the kind to change names and just disappear. Ben Jr.'s daughter wrote to my mother about her father and what he told her about the orphanage, and she said that Ben Sr. was considered to be a "Dandy", fancy dresser and going out many nights, so they may have separated/divorced. If they were unable to come back for the children, they might have had the authorities after them.

Mate was also spelled Matie on something I have, and could also be Mattie. A transcriber might have thought it was "Mare", or gone on to transcribe it as Marie, Mary, or any other stretch of that name. Once you get to Mary Donahue, it produces hundreds of names, and all might be the wrong person.

I haven't found the Michigan Directories yet, so I really appreciate your links. I will check all of them out. I think I found one for the Detroit area, but didn't find them there, either.

And finally, though I've long ago stopped tracing based upon the story I was told about them, maybe there's a mix of truth to this. Without explaining what happened to Mate, the implication was that she was either dead or gone at the time Ben dropped them off at the orphanage. I was told that he was a bridge builder and would leave them there while he went off to build a bridge, then pick them up when he returned. This went on for several years until one time he never returned. When it was finally assumed that he either died or abandoned them, they adopted or fostered the kids.

The letter my mom's cousin mentioned that Mate visited them once in a while. So she wasn't dead at the time. It's possible he did leave them periodically and that the records they found just pertained to the last time he dropped them off. This "legend" adds confusion but may have snippets of truth, or may have been a face-saving story told to the kids, or one to keep them from having to believe their parents could just leave them behind.

Now, for the Lovelands. Marie Loveland married William Baragwanath in Watford, Hertfordshire, England on 12 Aug 1844. Other records say September 1844.

They came to America sometime after that and had 7 children. The earliest I have is Amelia Ann Baragwanath (my gr-grandmother) born in Chicago in 1854. Another child named Maria was born but I don't have a date or place, so don't know if Amelia was first or second born. The story I heard about their arrival here involved their ship sinking and he saved a wedding gift from going under, so I don't think they had a child with them, or he'd have saved the child if he could. Unless he couldn't.

If they are relatives of yours, I have lots of info on the Baragwanaths, but very little on Marie. Her father's name is (supposedly) Robert, and mother's was Maria (surname unknown.) That's all I have.

Thanks for all the help

Comment by Liz Loveland on July 21, 2009 at 11:01am

Hi Micki,
Where are your Lovelands?

I found this entry for a Benjamin Donahue on Ancestry:


Grand Rapids, Michigan City Directories, 1889-90
about Benjamin Donahue
Name: Benjamin Donahue
Location 2: 19 Court
Business Name: A Leitelt
Occupation: fitter
Year: 1890
City: Grand Rapids
State: MI

If this is the right Benjamin, perhaps you could use the occupation and/or company name and/or company address to try to trace him? Grand Rapids directories from around the same time list an apprentice Benjamin Donahue and a few BDs of varied occupations (e.g. plumber). Unfortunately those ones are scans rather than transcriptions.

The Michigan state website has an article on city directories: http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-18835_18895_20699-117864--,00.html

I can't find any Benjamin Donahues on census records that match yours. I still can't find anyone named Mate Donahue and am still wondering if perhaps census records transcribed it differently since it is an uncommon (at least to me) name - but it sounds from what you say like you have not seen it mistranscribed so probably wouldn't know what alternate names to look for first. I am wondering if perhaps after dropping the children off at the orphanage, the parents died, changed their name, and/or started reporting their birthplace as other than VT on official records. I have found several instances in my research where someone seemingly deliberately lied to record-keepers in addition to all the mis-recordings and mis-transcribings I've seen.

You probably already know about this site, but in case not, this is the site the state of MI recently introduced: http://seekingmichigan.org/ I am a member of the Genealogical Society of Vermont and will try their website next.

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