Sunday, July 20, 2008

Coe 11s

Henry's parents John and Sarah also had 11 children including a daughter named Hadazsah.

Professions by Census

On the 1880 U.S. Federal Census, Noah Coe (great-grandfather on my mother's side) is listed as "Harness Maker." At that time he was 30 and, apparently, single. He would eventually have 11 children. Here he is, age 8, in 1860 with his mother and step-father. It would seem his father, Henry, died in 1853 when Noah was an infant, and shortly after the family moved from the western edge of New York state to a suburb of Chicago. Certainly, in 1860, Noah's mother, Mary Ann, was married to James Beatty. But absent a death record, perhaps Henry and Mary Ann divorced and Henry returned to New York to live with a cousin where lived in 1880 a single retired farmer by the same name? Too often, the census doesn't provide any information on occupation or relation to head of house.....

Friday, July 18, 2008

Here come the Oles!

I started the Halsey Helgeson Genealogy project a week ago and think it might be worthwhile to keep a somewhat narrative log of the findings, in addition to the files Ancestry.com allows you to keep and append to particular people and the project as a whole. Census records, birth/death/marriage records, land ownership, occupants, hired men, servants, borders, second wives, cousins, siblings, passenger lists, draft records, I'll attempt to note the more interesting and curious findings here. I've just found all the Oles on the Helgeson side!