For Every Failure There Is A Success...Sometimes.

A few days (or maybe weeks, time gets blurry when I'm genealogy-ing) I wrote someone on ancestry.com about maybe having a connection to one of the people in her private trees.  I got an answer back tonight, but she stated she didn't think there was a connection.  She didn't have the person's parents, only the person's husband.

Well, that was enough for me! 

I'd been working on my Griffins in Canada, taking advantage of having full access to all the world's records with my new subscription (thanks again, Knapper!), and one of the families had moved down into Michigan, so I was following them here.  They were in Aetna Township in Mecosta County, which is where I've lived before.  I find that when it comes to some branches of my family or Knapper's, we've lived where they lived without knowing they lived there, much less that they were our relatives. 

Anyway.  I was following Sarah Ellen Griffin, the daughter of Isaac James Griffin, my 1st cousin 5x removed.  Sarah was born a twin, the last two children in a large family, and almost after-thought children, if you know what I mean.  The last child born before Sarah and her twin brother James Emmerson was a brother, David Griffin, who was born in 1839.  Sarah and James were born in 1849.

So Sarah Ellen Griffin was married twice:  first she married Henry Olin in 1863 in Mecosta County when she was 13.  Yes.  13.  She was 2 months pregnant with her first child, John Olin, when she married Henry in May.  Sarah and Henry eventually had 7 children. Six sons and one daughter.  Two sons as well as the daughter ended up dying very young.  It was a hard life.

Then something happened and the family broke up.  Henry remarried and had more children and Sarah remarried as well.  Her new husband's name was Charles Blackford.  Charles was born in Washington D.C. and together he and Sarah had 4 children.  I can't be sure, but it looks like they had a set of twins also: Chloe and Cleveland.  Chloe died at 5 months.  I don't know what happened to Cleveland.  Chloe is listed as female in the record I found and Cleveland as male, but I can't find a death record for Cleveland or find him in any census record.  Another mystery.

So Charles and Sarah have at least 3 children, maybe 4.  Their other children are Maude b. 1885, Gertrude b. 1887 and then the twins (maybe) born 1889. 

Gertrude Blackford married Franklin Alphson Adams in Barry County in 1906.  Franklin was the son of Stephen Adams and his wife, Irena Burd.  I love to hunt ancestors so of course I started learning all I could about the Burd and Adams families.  The Burds were pretty easy.  The Adams, not so much. 

I worked on that family for hours and hours.  I followed them from 1850 when Franklin (Franklin A's grandfather) and Susan Dilt married and set up house, through the 1860 census, the 1870 census, and the 1880 census.  In 1881 Franklin Adams died.  The Adams' had had 8 children by then:  Joseph F b. 1852, Alta A b. 1854, Stephen b. 1856,  Rufus b. 1859, (whom I think died early, I wasn't able to trace him any further than the 1860 census) then a Francombe, a female, b. 1861, Bryon  b. 1865, Carrie b. 1869, and finally Charles Randolph Adams b. 1874. 

Joseph, Alta, and Stephen were all out of the house by the time Franklin died.  In the 1880 census only Franklin, Susan, Byron, Carrie and Charles were left in the family home.  I can't find Susan after that census, but I found the last 3 children: Byron looks to have taken over the care of Charles until he grew up, and Carrie got married in 1884 at the tender age of 15. 

It took some looking, but I found these last three in Barry County in the 1894 Michigan Census.  Carrie is with her husband, Walter Scrambling, and Byron and Charles are working on the farms of other people.  I found an Alta Hubbard and my geni-senses started tingling.  I couldn't find a marriage record for Alta Adams, but I was sure I had the right Alta. 

Anyway, I've run on and on again, haven't I? 

So the person with the private tree I wrote to told me that she doubted we had the same Alta because that part of her own family was from...and she listed the counties where the Adams family had lived or married or died.  Using her Alta's married surname and husband, I tracked down my Alta and found where she'd remarried in 1906 in Kalamazoo.  Listed on the marriage record were the names of Alta Hubbard's parents, Franklin and Susan Diltz Adams.

That was a fun hunt.  I can't find Alta's death record using the name of her second husband, but it's out there somewhere.