52 Ancestors 2025: Migration - Huguenot Refugees

 

Since all of my ancestors were European immigrants, migration has been a constant theme in my family history. This post, however, is about my paternal immigrant ancestor, my 7th-great-grandfather, Jacques Cossart.

Jacques was born in 1639 in Leyden (Leiden), which is now part of the Netherlands. At the time, it was part of the Habsburg Netherlands, but he wasn’t Dutch—he was a Huguenot, a French Protestant and a member of the Reformed Church founded by John Calvin.

It’s unclear whether the Leyden Cossarts came from Liège, in the French-speaking Belgian province of Wallonia, or from Picardy, in northeastern France. However, it is certain that they were affected by both the persecution of Huguenots in France and the Eighty Years’ War, during which the Netherlands fought for independence from the Habsburg Empire. In 1648, when Jacques was about eight years old, the Peace of Münster granted Dutch independence, bringing some stability to his family and other Huguenot refugees in Leyden.

At just 17 years old, Jacques married Leah Willemijn (or Willems or Villeman), whose family came from Lorraine and the Netherlands. Their first migration, in 1657, was to Frankenthal, in the Pfalz (Palatinate) region of Germany. However, they stayed for only two years before returning to Leyden. In 1662, they made the journey across the Atlantic Ocean to New Amsterdam, settling among other Huguenot refugees and Dutch settlers. Initially, they lived at the southern tip of Manhattan, near the Dutch fort, but later moved to the Bushwick area of what is now Brooklyn. There, they had four more children, including three sons—Jacques, David, and Anthony—who established the Cossart family lines (including variations such as Cossairt and Cassatt).

Like many of my ancestors, Jacques was a devout member of the Reformed Church, and his migrations reflected his search for religious freedom. Interestingly, Leyden was also home to my Pilgrim ancestors before their migration to Plymouth Colony in 1620. My English, French, Walloon, and German ancestors were shaped by religious and territorial conflicts, from the Eighty Years’ War to the Thirty Years’ War to the Eleven Years’ Tyranny of Charles I. They sought freedom from European wars, kings, and bishops, and their democratic and republican church governments later became models for the American Revolution and U.S. government.

52 Ancestors 2025: Diary - The Civil War Writings of Benjamin C. McWilliams

 

The Civil War in America was a harrowing experience for those who lived through it, especially those who served in the armed forces. While the war has been extensively documented in writing and photographs, for our family, the writings of my great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Cruiser McWilliams, reveal more suffering than glory.

The McWilliams family, originally Scots-Irish from County Armagh, Ireland, settled in the northern Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania after arriving in the American colonies. The early generations of the McWilliams family, along with the German families they married into, have been extensively researched by my cousin Cindy Cruz (starting here).

Benjamin was born on October 18, 1843, and grew up on the family farm in Chillesquaque, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. Inspired by patriotism following the Battle of Gettysburg, he enlisted in the 16th Pennsylvania Cavalry in the summer of 1863. However, in October of that year, his horse went lame, and he, along with other dismounted soldiers, was captured by the Confederates.

His first stop was Libby Prison in Richmond, where his group of prisoners encountered a notorious gang:

Here was the first start of the ‘Raider’ of which 6 was hung afterwards for murder in Andersonville in 1864. I will trace them from prison to prison as I go along.

Shortly after his time at Libby, McWilliams was transferred to Belle Isle Prison, also in Richmond, where he described his first experience with hunger:

We was issued bean soup of the famous shick pear with more bugs than pear. Well, we had never had enough to eat since captured and we was ravenous with hunger so that the half loaf of bread we received tasted sweeter than any sugar we had ever tasted. We all felt curious to know if they would get enough to fill up on; filling was what we was after now.

In early 1864, he was sent south to the infamous Andersonville Prison in Georgia:

After 8 days we finally brought up at Andersonville. It was in the daytime and we had a chance to see as poor a country as ever layed out of doors. The timber came up nearly to the station and consisted of nine of the long leaf varieties. … A man by the name of White had charge of all who came there and we were turned into the stockade made of logs hewed on 4 sides and cut 20 feet long; set 5 feet in the ground leaving 15 feet out. … There was some stragglers there who was captured different places and sent there, perhaps 20 men when we got there. So we were the first lot of prisoners who arrived there.

At Andersonville, he again encountered the Raiders:

I drew my rations among the rowdies and cut-throats who were most all in the first squad, thinking they could get out first and if anyone came in for any cause, they were the first to know. They were most all Catholics and all the six who were hung were. I spent little time there, attended roll call, drew my rations and went back. My name being Mc they thought I was a Catholic and I never told them better. After about 6 weeks, when I went down for my rations, my sergeant, whose name was Jimmy, says, "Mc, there's no grub for you here. You played it fine but they have caught you. Don't blame you." So that confined me to one ration besides the toll from our sifter. I was in a shape to know who the Raiders were as I had come in contact with the "Molly McGuires"of the coal region and knew how they worked and it did not take me long to tell them.

From Andersonville, McWilliams was transferred to prisons in Millen and then Savannah, where he was fortunate to be present at the conclusion of Sherman’s March to the Sea. Like other Civil War veterans in my family, he eventually settled in Barton County, Missouri. He married Mary Ann Cloud (from an earlier blog post) and became a respected member of the community.

Much more of his writings have been transcribed, offering insight into the unimaginable hardships these prisoners endured, their interactions with enemy soldiers and guards, and the clever ways they used their wits to survive.

52 Ancestors 2025: Surprise - My Old Kentucky Home

 

Genealogical research can be full of surprises—finding a famous (or infamous) ancestor, uncovering mysteries, discovering ties to U.S. or world history, hitting dead ends, or suddenly breaking through a lineage that once seemed impenetrable. My surprise, however, began before I even became interested in genealogy.

Throughout my education, my goal was to attend graduate school and earn an advanced degree so I could become a scientist. That dream became a reality when I was accepted to the University of Kentucky and moved to Lexington—the heart of the Bluegrass. Coming from Buffalo, NY, was a bit of a culture shock, but I adapted and grew interested in the region’s history, from the journeys of Daniel Boone to Lexington’s reputation as the “Athens of the West” and the nearby Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill. The Shakers’ simple, agrarian lifestyle was appealing, though perhaps a bit too structured for my taste.

After five years of study and with a Ph.D. in hand, I moved to the Philadelphia area, expecting to explore my family roots there.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that my roots were more deeply tied to Kentucky than to Philadelphia.

How could that be? As I had understood, my paternal Huguenot-Dutch ancestors had started in New Amsterdam and ultimately settled in southwest Missouri. But as I delved into my research, I uncovered a different story. These colonists had followed a migration path from New Amsterdam to New Jersey and then to the “Low Dutch” Colony just east of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In early 1781, enticed by the promises of Squire Boone (Daniel Boone’s brother), a large group of these settlers—including the Bantas, Duries, Demarees, and a single Cossart family—picked up and moved westward to central Kentucky. They settled near Fort Harrod.

All those years I lived in the area, and I never knew the connection.

Unfortunately, frontier life during the American Revolution was perilous. Many of these settlers, including my ancestor Pieter Cossart, were killed in Indian attacks. While my direct family line moved north to Ohio, many others remained. In fact, two of the founders of Pleasant Hill, Samuel and Henry Banta, were cousins of Pieter.

With so much family history rooted in the region, it may be time for another visit—this time seeing Kentucky through an entirely new lens. 

52 Ancestors 2025: Challenging - Mary Nailor

My challenging ancestor is my 3rd-great-grandmother, Mary Nailor Cossairt. In 1814, she married my paternal-line ancestor, Hendricks (Henry) Cossairt (or Cossart) in Franklin County, Indiana. They eventually settled in Warren County, Ohio, where Mary gave birth to about six children. She died on July 15, 1843, and one source lists her birth year as 1782.

What’s the significance? What’s the challenge? Until her marriage, the Huguenot Cossart family had remained within their blended French, Walloon, and Dutch colonies, starting with the founding of New Amsterdam. They kept together through migrations from New Amsterdam to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. Pioneer life in Kentucky during the American Revolution was difficult (another challenge), and parts of the family moved north to Ohio. There, they began marrying settlers whose families had emigrated from England, and it’s less clear where these English families originated.

Mary does not appear as herself in any of the early censuses, so where should I look? How could I make something of the scant data? I turned to ChatGPT, feeding it all the information I had—her name, marriage, and death—and let it generate probabilities, leads, and directions. I was able to input information about her first- and last-born children, along with checkboxes from the pre-1850 census records. ChatGPT also prompted me to check later census records (such as the 1880 census) for her children’s details, specifically for their mother’s birthplace.

I discovered another Nailor in the same county in Indiana where Mary was married, as well as another in Warren County, Ohio.

Thanks to ChatGPT, I was able to flesh out more details: Mary Nailor was born around 1792 in Maryland and migrated west before 1814, possibly through Kentucky. She married Henry Cossairt on December 12, 1814, in Franklin County, Indiana, and the young family settled in Warren County, Ohio, where Henry bought a substantial farm in 1821. Mary had six children and died in 1843, around the age of 51. One possible brother, John, about two years older than Mary, lived in Franklin County, Indiana.

The value of ChatGPT lies in its ability to analyze multiple bits of disparate data—such as the early census age/sex checkboxes—and generate plausible conclusions (or dismiss implausible ones) while pointing me in the right direction.