Memorial Day 2026: A Tribute to Nathaniel Cloud

 

On Memorial Day, we remember the service members who gave their lives defending our country. Many of us who research family history naturally focus on our direct ancestors, especially when trying to confirm lines and break through brick walls. Yet many of those who died in war were too young to leave descendants of their own. It is fitting, then, to also remember the brothers, sons, and uncles whose sacrifices shaped their families’ stories.

The Cloud family were part of the Quaker settlement in Pennsylvania, but over time they set aside their pacifist traditions and supported the patriot cause during the American Revolution. Nathaniel Cloud, the oldest son of Samuel Cloud and brother of Mary Ann Cloud, was born in 1843 and carried on a proud family name that appeared repeatedly throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Nathaniel, my 2nd-great-granduncle, was only nineteen years old when he enlisted in the 8th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment in 1861. His unit became part of the 2nd Division of the Army of the Tennessee under Ulysses S. Grant, fresh from victories at Forts Henry and Donelson. The army advanced into Tennessee and camped near Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River, preparing for operations aimed at Memphis, Vicksburg, and the heart of the Confederacy.

On April 6, 1862, Confederate forces launched a surprise attack near a small Methodist church called Shiloh, meaning “place of peace.” As the battle intensified, Union soldiers made a determined stand along a sunken road that later became known as the “Hornet’s Nest” because of the relentless artillery and musket fire. The 8th Iowa Infantry was among the regiments defending that position.

It was there that Nathaniel was shot and carried to the rear for treatment. The Union defenders held their ground as long as possible before many were forced to surrender and later paroled. Nathaniel, however, died of his wounds at the field hospital on April 14, 1862.

The Cloud family must have been devastated by the news. Like so many American families, their lives were permanently shaped by the Civil War. Nathaniel’s sister, Mary Ann Cloud, later married Civil War veteran Benjamin Cruiser McWilliams, whose own wartime experiences as a prisoner of war left lasting scars. I have written about their story before, and I am certain that the memory of her brother’s sacrifice stayed with her throughout her life.

Pictures:

Grave from Find-a-Grave

Battle map by United States Military Academy, Department of Military Art and Engineering, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=120563753

52 Ancestors 2026: An Unexpected Strength – Ready for an Adventure?

 

I am not sure any 19-year-old would be ready to endure a year in captivity after expecting to embark on a great adventure, but that is exactly what happened to my 5th-great-grandfather, Christian Fast, son of German immigrants Nicklaus and Catarina Fast. I have written about him before, but during the American Revolution he joined a militia to fight against British and Native American forces on the western frontier. Warfare in the West was brutal, with frontiersmen and warriors attacking settlements and often sparing neither women nor children.

While traveling down the Ohio River near the Falls of the Ohio, Christian’s company was ambushed by Delaware Indians, and the men were either killed or captured. Captured militiamen were not always spared, but Christian used both determination and quick thinking to survive. Wounded in the leg and unable to walk, he reportedly moved on his hands when ordered to keep going.

Whether it was desperation or remarkable presence of mind under pressure, his life was spared, and he was adopted into the tribe, living among them for about a year. But that was not the end of his story. When he learned of plans to attack settlements in western Virginia and Pennsylvania, he decided it was time to return home. He could not take up arms against his own family and community, so he devised a plan to escape and warn them.

Pretending to go for water, he left his containers and belongings by the riverbank, crossed the stream, and made his way back to his parents’ settlement. After convincing the villagers—reportedly speaking in his native German, which must have been quite a sight coming from someone dressed and living as an Indian—he warned them of the coming danger.

What makes Christian’s story even more remarkable is that this was not his first military service. He had already enlisted in the militia at ages sixteen and eighteen, making him a seasoned young frontiersman. Still, this was surely an ordeal and adventure far beyond anything he could have imagined.

52 Ancestors 2026: At the Cemetery – Road Trip Destinations

 

Cemeteries can serve many purposes: parks for leisure and reflection, repositories of historical records, or places to honor those who came before us. Cemeteries such as Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York can also reflect the history of a city, displaying the wealth and prominence of its leading citizens. Others, especially older rural cemeteries, can feel like snapshots frozen in time after their communities faded away.

The Low Dutch Cemetery in Pennsylvania is one example. The Dutch-Huguenot colony either moved away or assimilated, the church connected to the cemetery dissolved and was eventually torn down, and the burial ground was simply left behind—a preserved glimpse of a late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century community.

This week’s prompt asked, “Whose grave would you like to visit?” If there were a “one-stop” location for my family lines, it would probably be Barton City Cemetery, in Barton County, Missouri. Many generations of Cassatts, Younts, Reeds, Fasts, Gilmartins, and McWilliamses are buried there. Most were farmers and respected members of their communities. Thanks to sites like Find-a-Grave, I can at least visit virtually, though one day I may try to make the thousand-mile trip in person.

I could also travel one county north to search for members of the Curry and Maddox families, although some of those cemeteries appear to be poorly maintained. That might become a challenge for another time.

One place I would especially like to visit, however, is not actually a cemetery. As far as I know, none of my ancestors are buried there. Instead, it is a memorial to Kentucky pioneers whose graves may never have been properly marked. The memorial is located at Fort Boonesborough State Park, which also contains a reconstruction of the original fort and settlement.

The fort, established by Daniel Boone and other settlers, became a center of late eighteenth-century Kentucky settlement, including migrants from the Conewago Colony. One of those pioneers was my 4th-great-grandfather, Peter Cossart. His journey began in New Jersey, continued through the Conewago Colony in Pennsylvania, and eventually led him and his family to Kentucky along the Wilderness Road.

Peter lived near White Oak Spring, about a mile south of the fort. According to family tradition, he was killed by Native Americans around July 1781 while out picking blackberries. His body was never recovered, so he apparently never received a formal burial. This memorial therefore serves as a place of remembrance.

Although Peter lived only a short time in Kentucky, his family somehow endured the hardships of frontier life before later moving to Ohio and establishing themselves in Warren County for several generations. We know relatively little about the family during the remainder of the eighteenth century. Peter’s wife, Maria, still had relatives in Kentucky, though many pioneer families suffered losses during the violent frontier conflicts that accompanied the closing years of the American Revolution.

Perhaps by visiting Fort Boonesborough, I could better understand the landscape and hardships faced by those early Kentucky pioneers.

52 Ancestors 2026: A Question the Records Can’t Answer – If the Records Could Talk

 

Although so much information is now available at our fingertips, we still get only limited glimpses into the lives of our ancestors. The occasional memoir or contemporary account of a community can be invaluable, but we are often left guessing about the details of their lives. My maternal grandfather’s wandering ways and difficult household, the struggles faced by a widowed ancestor whose family supported the Confederacy during the Civil War, and the establishment of the Cossairt line in Kentucky and later Ohio all come to mind. Sometimes, though, we encounter a record that raises more questions than it answers.

One such record came from Fold3 and, as often happens, I found it while searching for something else. I was researching the military service of David Cossairt/Cassatt when I came across records for twelve Cossairts, including one for William Cossairt of the 26th Missouri Infantry Regiment. When Company G mustered out in January 1865 after participating in Sherman’s March to the Sea, the record noted that William had died on January 30, 1862, from an “accidental shot” in Medora, Missouri. Medora (now St. Aubert, in Osage County) was the location of a recruitment center for the 26th Missouri.

The remaining details are sparse: William enrolled on November 1, 1861, in California, Missouri, mustered in on January 9, 1862, and died only weeks later. No age was listed.

What happened? Was he accidentally shot during target practice? Did poor firearm safety in camp play a role? Was there an altercation with another soldier? The records remain silent.

And where had he come from? “Cossairt” is a variation of “Cossart,” so he was clearly part of the larger family line. Although his Civil War service record appeared in FamilySearch, it was not attached to any individual. I began tracing him through the Kentucky Cossairts but quickly hit roadblocks. His story may seem like a small curiosity, but it could hold clues to the larger family migration story. After the war, David Cassatt settled in Carroll County, Missouri, but it now appears he was not the first Missouri Cossairt. William and another soldier, Jacob Cossairt, also served in the Union Army. Was Jacob William’s brother? Would Jacob’s pension file reveal more?

Eventually, the puzzle pieces started to fit together. Through Jacob, I was able to identify William, and I attached his Civil War record in FamilySearch. William Fletcher Cossairt was twenty-two years old when he enlisted and was the younger brother of Captain Jacob Cossairt, who served in the 8th Missouri Infantry and survived the war. Their father, Francis Marion Cossairt, served in the 4th Iowa Infantry. Another brother, Henry, also joined the 4th Iowa Infantry and died of disease in 1863, while younger brother George Washington enlisted in the 9th Iowa Cavalry.

A father and four sons accounted for five of the twelve known Cossairts who served the Union during the Civil War, with three of them dying during the conflict, although apparently not from battle wounds.

The records provide names, dates, and units, but the deeper story remains hidden. What motivated this family to move west into Missouri? What sacrifices did they make, both before and during the war? Their experiences surely reflected the turmoil of a nation struggling to preserve the Union and end slavery. David and his father, William Peter, arrived later, settling farther up the Missouri River in Carroll County. But Francis Marion Cossairt’s family appears to have been among the earliest Cossairt settlers in Missouri.

These migrations—and the decisions behind them—remain largely mysterious. If only the records could tell us more.

52 Ancestors 2026: Tradition – Or Maybe Not

 

Growing up in Buffalo, I was surrounded by traditions, many of them rooted in the city’s immigrant neighborhoods. There were Italian festivals and foods celebrated each year, diners run by Greek immigrants, and the major Christmas Eve and Easter traditions centered around shopping at the Broadway Market. I learned to greet the various grandmothers—Babushka or Yia-Yia—who served as the respected matriarchs of multigenerational households. Since I got married, my own family now has absorbed and adapted many Polish customs, and we still enjoy celebrating those links to the Poland of around 1900.

At the same time, my family gradually let go of many of the Old World customs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and became an amalgamation of cultures—fully American. Although some ancestors originally lived in émigré communities in the colonies, it did not take long for cultures to blend. A few family lines especially stand out, both before and after the American Revolution.

My paternal line began as various groups of Huguenots from France and Belgium who migrated to New Amsterdam, where they became part of a blended French-Dutch community. The Scots-Irish McWilliams family settled in a heavily German area of Pennsylvania, and over time the Highlanders blended with the Rhinelanders. Other German families, such as the Fasts, were more recent immigrants and probably retained more of their German heritage for a generation or two, something that even proved useful during the Revolution. The New England Puritan families were perhaps the group that remained the most English, at least while they stayed in New England.

After the American Revolution and the opening of lands west of the Appalachians, everything began to change. Being “American” increasingly meant becoming something distinct from European identities. The Huguenot-Dutch branch migrated together into Kentucky, but eventually settled in Ohio, where they intermarried with English families. The Scots-Irish-German lines married into families with Quaker roots, descendants who had left the Society of Friends. Even the New Englanders broadened their horizons as they moved westward and married into German families. Farming and rural life became the defining tradition for many generations afterward. Even the one nineteenth-century Irish immigrant branch assimilated within a generation.

The move to Buffalo, however, transformed a rural family into an urban one. Open fields were replaced by parks and parkways, and one-room schoolhouses gave way to large brick schools with wood shops, auditoriums, and swimming pools. Yet perhaps some vestiges of those older traditions remain. Although gardening and mechanical work are far less necessary for me than they were for my prairie-dwelling ancestors, I still find myself carrying on some of those habits today.

52 Ancestors 2026: Working for a Living – A Doctor in the House

 

For most of my family’s history, this prompt would have been an easy one to answer, as I have written often about farm life. But while researching the Curry family, I came across some interesting finds regarding Nicholas Ray, another brother-in-law of Robert Curry.

I have yet to find a marriage record for Nicholas Ray and Mary A. Curry, but the Ray family appears in the 1850 census in the household of George and Amanda Cunningham, Amanda being Robert’s sister. George was a blacksmith, but Nicholas gave his occupation as “Physician.”

He may have been only an in-law, but having a doctor in the family could not have hurt. Was he educated in Europe or trained at one of the growing number of American medical schools? So far, there is no evidence of either. I did locate him again in the 1860 census, still listed as a physician, but this time in a different household and without any family members.

What happened to the family afterward is less clear. Mary and two of the sons—Atella and Annibal (or perhaps Atilla and Hannibal, or maybe one was actually a daughter named Anabel?)—seem to disappear from the record. Another daughter, Louisa, shows up in Illinois, where she married Mathew Thompson, and later appears in Iowa. From Louisa’s death record, we learn that Nicholas was born in Kentucky and that Louisa's mother’s maiden surname was Curry, also born in Kentucky. The informant, Louisa’s daughter Anabel, did not know her grandmother Curry’s first name, suggesting that Mary may have died young and that Louisa had been separated from much of the Curry family.

This is where it gets interesting.

In A History of Northeast Missouri, we learn that Nicholas was among the Kentuckians who helped found the town of Madison in Monroe County and that he served as its first physician. Records show that he was also appointed postmaster in 1846.

Yet Nicholas seems to have encountered some trouble despite his apparent standing in the community. In September 1848, he was indicted by a grand jury for practicing medicine without a license and posted bond the following day. At his circuit court trial in April 1849, he requested a jury trial, but the state dropped the charges and assessed no court costs.

Exoneration.

The fact that he was still practicing medicine at least eleven years later suggests the episode did little damage to his reputation. Whether formally trained or largely self-taught, he provided medical care on the Missouri frontier when few others were available. Perhaps competitors hoped to push him aside, but he clearly had enough community support to prevail.

Aside from some land sales in the 1850s and his appearance in the 1860 census, Nicholas then seems to fade from the historical record. The last mention of his wife Mary is in an 1854 land transaction. With surviving records so incomplete, much remains unknown, but his work was important to that young settlement, and his part in the Kentucky-to-Missouri migration remains part of its history.

Book:

Williams, Walter, ed. A History of Northeast Missouri, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, 1913

52 Ancestors 2026: Another Break in the Wall

 

I recently made major discoveries about the family of my 2nd-great-grandfather, Robert M. Curry. It was the story of a family from Mercer County, Kentucky, making the all-too-familiar westward move to Monroe County, Missouri. Piecing that family together using both old and new research tools was a satisfying project, and I was ready to dust off my hands, call it a day, and mark the week’s work complete.

As it turns out, though, there may be even more surprises waiting for this researcher.

I recently visited the local public library to check records available through Ancestry Library Edition. While reviewing Robert’s siblings, I found a marriage record for Susan Curry and Hiram Cunningham in Monroe County, Missouri, dated 6 November 1853. Susan had appeared in the 1850 census but then seemed to vanish from the record.

While searching for additional Cunningham information, I found another Curry-Cunningham connection: Elizabeth Curry and Andy Cunningham, married 16 December 1841. Elizabeth? That was not a name I had previously encountered. Could she have been the young girl marked only by a tick mark in the 1830 census and then missing from later records?

Unfortunately, Elizabeth and Andrew appear not to have had a long marriage, as Andrew remarried in 1847 after Elizabeth presumably died. However, they did have a son: George Washington Cunningham.

As a researcher, I wondered whether there was enough evidence to place Elizabeth within the Curry family. I believe there is. George’s 1886 marriage record names his mother as Elizabeth Curry. In the 1900 census, George reported that his mother was born in Kentucky. Various Cunningham families also appear within the Curry FAN network (more on that another time). Most importantly, the 1841 marriage record names Samuel Curry as the father of the bride. The fact that Elizabeth does not appear in Samuel’s later estate records could simply mean that she had already died. Taken together, these clues make her inclusion in the family quite plausible.

I was fortunate to find many more records for Hiram and Susan Cunningham, though they introduced a possible misidentification. I located Hiram in FamilySearch, but his wife was listed as Susan Sanders, and the couple was living in Mercer County, Kentucky. Dead end? Perhaps not.

The marriage record attached in the sources was the Monroe County, Missouri, marriage of Hiram Cunningham and Susan Curry—not Susan Sanders. In addition, the sources included death certificates for four of their children. Three listed the mother’s maiden name as Curry, while only one gave the name Sanders. It is entirely possible that the informant for that one certificate simply provided incorrect information. Secondary records often contain such errors.

We now have records for Hiram Cunningham in two counties—Mercer County, Kentucky, and Monroe County, Missouri—that were already connected by migration and family ties. Are there additional records linking Kentucky’s Hiram to Missouri? Yes. Several Monroe County land transactions in the late 1850s name Hiram and his wife Susan. There are also no competing records for another Hiram Cunningham in Missouri during that period.

It seems very possible that Hiram moved west to an area where his cousins had settled, married a woman whose family was connected to both Kentucky and Missouri, and later returned to the Bluegrass State. Susan died before her husband, but the widower later remarried—Artimesia Curry Gabhart Bennett, a cousin of the Missouri Currys.

With so many ties between the Curry and Cunningham families, it is very tempting to identify this Susan as Robert Curry’s sister. But one more promising source remains.

Hiram J. Cunningham served in the 9th Kentucky Cavalry in the Union Army during the Civil War, and both invalid and widow pension files exist for Hiram and Artimesia.

It looks like another trip to Washington, D.C., may be in order.

One last thing: Why spend so much time digging for records about a couple of 3rd-great-aunts when there are so many other avenues to pursue? First, all of these clues can help create a more complete picture of the Curry family and the close ties they shared with neighbors who may have migrated alongside them. Second, we often encounter brick walls when researching maternal lines, and perhaps someone else will make a breakthrough by building on these records.