52 Ancestors 2026: A Big Decision – A Common Theme

 

Many of my ancestors made big decisions that led to major changes for their families and for the generations that followed. Their fates were intertwined with the history of our land—from a collection of colonies to a nation—as they contended with the forces that shape history. During our wars of independence and civil conflict, they had to choose sides. Many, like Peter Cossart and Christian Fast, fought for the Patriot cause during the American Revolution. Later, during the Civil War era, decisions were perhaps more personal, with some choosing to fight in the Union Army and others sympathizing with the Confederate cause.

Migration was another defining theme. My immigrant ancestors who arrived in colonial days settled close to the coast, but their descendants moved inland, becoming pioneers who walked the Wilderness Road or traveled the Oregon Trail. Even earlier, they had made the difficult decision to leave their European homelands and sail to the New World—most never seeing again those they left behind.

One common thread linking many of my ancestors was religious conviction. They chose to break with established churches and join the Reformed Protestant movement led by John Calvin (in French, Jehan Cauvin). These believers sought to emulate the early Christian church by rejecting what they saw as traditions accumulated over centuries. Viewing humanity as fundamentally sinful, they distrusted hierarchical authority—whether exercised by princes and kings or by bishops and popes. Unsurprisingly, this movement drew the ire of the established order, and these so-called “heretics” and “traitors” often faced persecution and even death.

In France, Huguenots were driven from their ancestral lands, fleeing to territories controlled by Protestant princes along the Rhine or to the Dutch Republic (Netherlands), which had embraced Reformed Protestantism after separating from the Spanish crown and the Holy Roman Empire. (As an interesting side note, the familiar hymn “We Gather Together” originally celebrated the Dutch victory over Spainish forces in the Battle of Turnhout, not a Thanksgiving feast.) Likewise, French Protestants in the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium) sought refuge in the Dutch Republic.

In England, cracks appeared in the façade of the Church of England, accompanied by persistent fears of creeping Catholic influence promoted by certain royals. Reformed Protestants organized themselves in Congregationalist (Puritan) and Presbyterian (Scottish and Scots-Irish) forms of church governance, with authority resting in local congregations or elected elders.

What did this turmoil mean for my faithful Reformed Protestant who faced persecution by church and state? Staying put was possible, but rarely wise. Refuge in the Netherlands or German states offered safety, yet assimilation remained a risk. For many of them, the New World offered a more hopeful solution. Pilgrim Separatists established Plymouth Colony, while English Puritans founded Massachusetts Bay. There, they attempted to build what they believed was a just society—though fears of losing their special covenant led to episodes such as the expulsion of Anne Hutchinson and the Salem witch trials. 

Huguenots from France and the Spanish Netherlands found common ground with Dutch co-religionists and migrated to New Amsterdam, helping to establish a colony that was less austere but more commercially focused. The search for refuge did not end there. My Quaker ancestors settled in Pennsylvania, seeking religious freedom. Scots-Irish and German settlers also made their way to Pennsylvania, making their way into the Appalachian Mountains. 

In the young republic, some of the descendants of these immigrant ancestors participated in the fervor of the Second Great Awakening, with some even joining new movements such as the Shaker communities emerging across the nation.

Religious conviction was thus a powerful force in the colonial experience. One could argue that their suspicion of aristocratic and royal hierarchies contributed to the spirit that fueled the American Revolution, and that their reformist zeal inspired movements ranging from public education to abolitionism. I sometimes wonder whether my own attraction to nonconformity and the pursuit of higher ideals is a trait passed down through the generations since my refugee ancestors first found their way to these shores.

Picture: Anonymous (France) - www.catharijneconvent.nl, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82311289

52 Ancestors 2026: What the Census Suggests – Harvesting a Wealth of Information from the Agricultural Schedules

When I began my genealogy research in the mid-1990s, I read whatever family histories I could find—mostly on the Fast line. The books I consulted advised that serious research required a trip to the National Archives to examine census records. Living in the Washington, DC, area, that was not a great stretch, and I spent several Saturdays downtown searching indexes, retrieving microfilm, and parking myself at a reader to transcribe information.

With the arrival of this century, those census records moved online. I could suddenly search for and download page after page of schedules from home. I made more discoveries than I can count—finding and tracing my ancestors, and even uncovering small stories along the way, such as my grandfather’s wandering ways.

One of my most intriguing discoveries, however, was the set of Missouri Agricultural Schedules. As my families settled in Barton County, these records revealed how much land they cultivated, which crops they planted, what livestock they relied on, and the income and value generated by their labor. For a researcher, the Agricultural Schedules—combined with the Population Schedules—are a gold mine.

I entered the data from the 1860, 1870, and 1880 agricultural schedules into spreadsheets for each census year and began analyzing the patterns. This is where my ChatGPT assistant proved especially helpful. By uploading the spreadsheets, I could ask it to interpret the data—examining livestock numbers and crop variety to suggest whether a farm was still in its early clearing stage (with many oxen) or had matured into a more diversified operation (with a wider range of crops and livestock).

For example, I followed the farm of my second-great-grandparents, the Currys, from 1860 through 1880—and, through the Population Schedules, to 1910. The records tell the story of a modest family farm that, after the death of the father, Robert, was maintained by his widow, with later assistance from their children. The postbellum years also brought new migrants to Barton County: the Fasts (John Jay and his son William Marion) and two Union Army veterans, Ben McWilliams and David Cassatt. These newcomers appear to have prospered more quickly—perhaps because they came from more established northern farms or because their wartime experiences provided both means and determination.

The Agricultural Schedules do more than measure family wealth. They describe how farmers lived—growing grain to feed livestock, producing butter and eggs for household use and market, raising hogs and poultry for home consumption, and fattening cattle for transport to the nearest railhead.

These records do not tell American history from the perspective of Great Men, but from the collective experience of ordinary families. Who lived on the farm, what labor each person could contribute, and the value of their industry—these details tell powerful stories about our ancestors, even when they left no written accounts of their own.

52 Ancestors 2026: Favorite Photo – A Fresh Look at an Old Favorite

 

I can’t help it—the winner of this year’s “Favorite Photo” challenge is last year’s winner. This photograph shows my great-grandfather’s family. Pictured from left to right are David Cassatt, his wife Susan Houseworth Cassatt, and their sons Orville, Virgil (my grandfather), and Bascom. I wrote about this image and the family a year ago and, with the help of ChatGPT, determined that it is plausible—perhaps even likely—that the photo was taken around 1888, possibly in the fall after the broom corn harvest.

That earlier post led to even more discoveries. To the right of the photograph is broom-making equipment, which sent me down a path of researching, and posting about, this home industry. I also learned that broom corn is a type of sorghum, though not the variety used to make molasses.

Perhaps it was the animals on leashes that sparked my curiosity, but I soon found myself heading down another rabbit hole—figuratively—learning about the livestock kept on the farm, their uses, and the crops grown to feed them. The Agricultural Schedules from the census were especially helpful in this deep dive, along with analysis aided by ChatGPT as I fed information into the model to help fill out the picture of this farming family. The records I most wish I had, however, are the 1890 census and the Agricultural Schedules from the 1900 and 1910 censuses. The former were destroyed accidentally by fire, and the latter intentionally, deemed no longer useful—clearly without future genealogists in mind.

Finally, while we see the boys in this photograph, we are also reminded of the children who are missing. In the 1900 census, enumerators asked mothers how many children they had borne and how many were still living. Susan reported having six children, but only three were alive in 1900—a sobering reminder of the ever-present reality of childhood mortality before modern medicine. There is a grave for their firstborn son, George, who died at fifteen months. Two other children, Laura and Hubert, were born after Bascom. Laura died at age two or three, and Hubert may have died shortly after birth, as he does not appear in this photograph.

We live in an age of abundant photography, but for many generations in the past, we are left with fragments—images combined with other records—to piece together the events that shaped our ancestors’ lives, and ultimately our own. Because a family portrait was a significant expense and a major event, much thought went into these formal images. When I look at this photograph, I wonder what David and Susan were hoping to record and what legacy they thought they were leaving behind. Had they recently lost two children and wanted to preserve what remained of their family? Were they highlighting their industriousness? Or perhaps expressing a sense of humor—laughter through pain—with the leashed rabbits? David had lived through the trials of the Civil War and later headed west, where he found success in farming. Perhaps they believed this image captured the essence of their lives in 1888. Whatever the reason, we are all the richer for have this treasure.

52 Ancestors 2026: A Breakthrough Moment – Off to a Good Start

My first breakthrough moment came soon after I began my genealogical journey of discovery, probably during my first visit to the local Family History Center. A volunteer helped me navigate their computer system, introducing me to the records available through the International Genealogical Index (IGI—rich with records) and the Ancestral File (AF—filled with compiled family trees).

At the time, I had a book on the Fast family line and began exploring maternal lines that were poorly documented. A few searches led to dead ends—at least initially—but eventually I found a promising match for my third-great-grandmother, Hannah Robbins Day. She was described as “a native of New York,” with parents, Samuel and Hannah (Robbins) Day, who were natives of Vermont and Massachusetts. One published history described her pedigree as being from “New England stock.”

This was not just a name match—she was listed with the correct husband, John Jay Fast—and her information appeared in the Ancestral File. Suddenly, generations of New England ancestors emerged. Having New England roots often means access to well-researched lines, and this discovery led to one revelation after another. These ancestors were part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony: the Puritans, famous—or infamous—for their deeply Reformed Protestant faith, their failed attempt to reform the Church of England, and their determination to establish what they hoped would be a “City on a Hill” in the New World. Names such as Fay, Joslin, Larkin, Cleveland, Morse, Hale, and Shattuck suddenly tumbled out of my family tree.

Many of these New England lives are preserved not only in family genealogies but also in broader American histories, including figures such as John Hale of Salem witch trial fame. I also found evidence of their religious convictions in the names they gave their children. Over time, I began to see my ancestors in a new light. The Puritans are often viewed through a narrow stereotype, yet New England also gave rise to public education and to revolutionary and reform movements. My own family became part of the westward migration across the Midwest, linking these early settlers to later chapters of American history.

Today, with the rise of the internet and shared FamilySearch trees, discoveries like this can be just a few clicks away. Thirty years ago, however, it required digging through libraries and records—though even that was an improvement over road trips and writing letters to churches and courthouses. It will be nice to experience more breakthroughs, but having one so early in my research journey was truly inspirational. 

52 Ancestors 2026: A Theory in Progress – A Sweet Harmony

 

One of my tasks this year is to update my local computer's genealogy database, beginning with the paternal side. I turned to my ChatGPT assistant to talk through my plan, including the pros and cons of wholesale downloads from FamilySearch. It suggested that I stick to updating my local tree by hand unless a FamilySearch tree was long and well documented (as many of my New England lines are), so I decided to harmonize my databases one measure—or rather, one generation—at a time.

That approach proved wise when a long Van Horne line began to crumble, revealing several generations with little or no documentation. When I moved on to the DuBois family, I paused to think more carefully. We have already met Jacob DuBois, son of Louis “the Walloon” DuBois and Catherine Blanchan, who was very likely one of Catherine’s children taken captive by Indians. Jacob had two wives: Elizabeth Gerritse Vernoye and, most likely after being widowed, Gerritje Gerretse Van Nieukerk. What do we actually know about these marriages and Jacob’s children?

At this distance in time, records are essential to piecing the story together. There is a marriage record for Jacob DuBois and Elizabeth Vernoy(e), dated March 8, 1689, which gives Elizabeth’s father’s name as Cornelis C. Vernoy. Jacob’s second marriage—presumably after Elizabeth’s death—is listed on FamilySearch as March 1690, but no marriage record is cited.

So where does the problem arise? My sixth-great-grandmother was Magdalena DuBois, Jacob’s daughter. According to FamilySearch, her mother was Gerritje Van Nieukerk; however, Magdalena’s christening record, dated May 25, 1690, lists her father but does not name her mother. Many records from this set omit the mother’s name, so I did not want to draw conclusions too quickly. Still, if we accept the FamilySearch timeline, this would mean a March marriage followed by a May birth. While short intervals between marriage and the birth of a first child are not unusual, this does raise red flags.

There is, however, another important clue. In the witnesses and sponsors column of Magdalena’s baptism record, the names listed are: “The Father. Annetje Vernoy. Louis DuBois.” This strongly suggests that Magdalena’s maternal family was the Vernoy family, not the Van Nieukerk family. Supporting this interpretation is a marker in the Huguenot Cemetery in New Paltz, New York, which lists Jacob DuBois (1661–1745), Lysbeth Vernooy (1662–1690), and Gerretje Gerritsen Van Nieuwkirk (1669–1739).

Gerritje herself had been widowed; her husband, Barent Janse Kunst, died on October 13, 1689, leaving her with a daughter, Jacomyntje. Magdalena would therefore have had an older stepsister, Jacomyntje Kunst, whose christening record from May 3, 1693 does include her mother’s name: Gerritje N. Newkirk.

So far, we have been working with names and dates, but these records allow us to assemble a plausible narrative. Jacob—who had survived Indian captivity and, along with his father Louis and other patentees, helped found New Paltz in 1677—married Elizabeth Vernoy in 1689 at age twenty-eight. Elizabeth was a year younger than he was. The following year, they welcomed a daughter, Magdalena, but Elizabeth died that same year, possibly as a result of childbirth. Jacob was likely supported by his family and perhaps by his late wife’s family as well, who were already closely connected through Jacob’s brother David, who had married Elizabeth’s sister, Cornelia. The closeness of these families is underscored by the fact that David and Cornelia’s daughter, Catryn, was baptized on the same day as Magdalena.

Between 1690 and 1692, Jacob married again, this time to the widow Gerritje Van Nieukerk Kunst. Magdalena grew up alongside her older stepsister and, over time, twelve half-siblings. Magdalena later married Peter Van Nest, and at some point the family moved from Kingston, New York, to Somerset County, New Jersey. There, their daughter Margaret married Francis Cossart, the well-known patriot who founded the Conewago Colony of Pennsylvania.

Two lessons emerge from this exercise. First, death was an ever-present reality in colonial America. Second, online trees—even reputable ones—must be confirmed with records before being blindly downloaded into a reference family tree. Next task: correcting the FamilySearch entries to bring the databases into harmony.

52 Ancestors 2026: What This Story Means to Me – Working the Coal Mines

 

I am very fortunate that one of my cousins, Cindy Cruz, is an ace genealogist who has devoted her time and talents to researching our shared McWilliams line. I have written earlier about my 2nd-great-grandfather, Benjamin Cruiser McWilliams, who left behind a wealth of stories about his service for the Union cause during the Civil War and his efforts to make something of himself afterward.

The McWilliams family were Scots-Irish, and the original McWilliams immigrant, William, hailed from County Armagh and made his way to Pennsylvania sometime before 1750, eventually settling in Northumberland County in northern Appalachia. By the mid-1700s, the best land in William Penn’s colony was already settled by Quaker landowners, whose descendants worked the land themselves or hired tenant farmers, so later immigrants headed for the hills. It was not long before these Scots-Irish began to intermingle and intermarry with German settlers. It is with William’s grandson, also named William, that this story begins.

William married Frances (Fannie) Knauss in 1843 and began raising a family. With their eldest son, Ben, serving in the Union Army, the family moved to Shamokin, Pennsylvania, where William and his sons found work on the railroad and in the coal mines.

In his memoirs, Ben—now twenty-two years old—described his new start after being mustered out of the Army in 1865:

When I arrived at home, Shamokin, where my parents now lived, I wanted a job of work. My father and one brother was then working on the railroad, while my other two brothers were working in the coal breakers. I went on the railroad for a couple of days and that didn’t suit me. I then got to be car loader at the Enterprise Colliery four miles East of Shamokin. Here I got the best job I ever had in my life.

He continued:

Each coal company had their own houses for their employees to live in. My father moved up to Shamokin the Spring of '66 and was made slatepicker boss at the Enterprise colliery. The coal as it came from the mines went through rollers and was broken up and run through screens which assorted it out into different sizes and dropped out into chutes which run down past the boys, “Slatepickers,” who picked out the slate as the coal passed in front of them. We worked ten hours per day, excepting Saturdays when we worked eight. I stayed here until the sixth day of July, 1866, when I started West.

I went first to Belleview, where my uncle and family lived, helped Sam Knauss [Samuel Knauss, 1840–1924] take care of his grain, then his sister Lib Knauss [Elizabeth Ann “Libbie” Knauss Boyer, 1837–1908] went to Michigan to Andy Billmeyer [Andrew Billmeyer III, 1827–1910], who lived at Clinton, both of them my mother’s cousins. I accompanied her from here there. I stayed there a couple of weeks hunting and fishing, then struck out for Missouri the latter part of August.

This story is fascinating on many levels. First, thanks to Cindy’s research, we gain a clear picture of the hard life this family endured. Second, we see Ben at the beginning of what became a lifetime of moving from one opportunity to the next—a journey that took him from Pennsylvania to Iowa to Missouri, where he eventually became a successful farmer. Third, we see the importance of family. In his memoirs, Ben described traveling throughout the East and Midwest to visit relatives who had moved west, and ultimately his own family’s relocation to Missouri. Finding their names on the FamilySearch tree was like finding buried treasure!

Finally, this is a story about the different stages of immigration. Early settlers in these Appalachian mountains came largely from the British Isles and Germany. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, new immigrants arrived from Eastern Europe, including Poland and Ukraine. These successive waves of immigration to Pennsylvania are reflected in my own family history—from Quakers, to Scots-Irish and Germans, and later to Polish immigrants who settled in other parts of the Northeast. These are the ordinary laborers and farmers who built our nation.

52 Ancestors 2026: A Record that Adds Color – Tragic Endings

 

This story begins with the extensive Civil War pension file of Benjamin C. McWilliams. In the 1990s, I made a trip to the National Archives to examine his service and pension records for clues to his experiences during and after the Civil War. I was puzzled when the archivist brought out a large folder containing files for two soldiers—alongside Ben’s file was one for Hiram Carter. I was about to point out the apparent error when I realized the connection: both files were linked through Ben’s second wife, Mary Ann Case Carter McWilliams. Ben’s first wife, Mary Ann Cloud, had died in 1907, and he later married her first cousin, Mary Ann (Case) Carter, the widow of veteran and pensioner Hiram Carter.

More recently, my cousin Cindy sent me a large cache of image files containing the complete pension material for both Ben and Hiram. I have been cataloguing the 359 images and made detailed notes for the McWilliams file, intending to simply set aside the Carter materials for later study. While doing so, however, I came across a card that immediately caught my attention. It was a simple Form 3-1143, used to record family members who had served in the World War. Three names were listed:

Lyle R. Voorhees, deceased

Harry Carter, living

William Carter, living

The fact that one family member had served and died—and that Mrs. McWilliams had received compensation—piqued my interest. I suspected there was a deeper story behind this small document. There was.

Using FamilySearch, I identified all three men as grandsons of Mary Ann Carter McWilliams. I also found a death date for Lyle Voorhees: January 20, 1919. He had served with the 2nd Engineer Regiment, a unit that constructed fortifications and filled in as infantry when needed, earning him the rank of sergeant. Notes attached to his Find A Grave entry state that he died of lobar pneumonia at age twenty-two. This was a common complication of the influenza pandemic sweeping the world in 1919–1920 and serves as a stark reminder of the role disease has played during wartime.

But why did Mrs. McWilliams receive compensation? That answer lies in Lyle’s childhood. He was born on April 18, 1896, to James Voorhees and Mary Margaret Carter, daughter of Hiram and Mary Ann Carter. James and Mary had married in 1894, when Mary was just seventeen years old.

The young family’s happiness was short-lived. In 1899, a daughter, Ruby, was born, but she died on August 11 of that year. Within two months, both parents had also died—James on October 1 and Mary on October 10. The 1900 census shows young Lyle living with his grandparents, Hiram and Mary Ann Carter. A guardianship record from 1901 indicates that his aunt, Carrie Carter, assumed legal guardianship. Yet the 1910 census still places Lyle in the household of his grandmother and step-grandfather, Ben McWilliams.

Adding another layer of complexity, newspaper articles referenced on Find A Grave list Lyle’s next of kin as his uncle, Charles Carter, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and note that Lyle graduated from high school there. This raises many questions. Was Carrie’s guardianship largely legal rather than practical? What circumstances led Lyle to live with his uncle in Colorado and attend school there? And what caused the deaths of so many family members in such a short span of time?

In the era before vaccines and antibiotics, diseases such as diphtheria and typhoid claimed countless lives. Childbearing and the death of an infant placed additional physical and emotional strain on young mothers—Mary Margaret was only twenty-one when she died. We may never know all the answers to questions surrounding events that occurred more than a century ago, but family tragedies shaped by disease and war have been part of the human experience for as long as humans have existed.

All of this—uncovered from a single card buried deep within a pension file.