52 Ancestors 2026: A Name with Meaning – “My Name Is Spelled ‘Artimesia.’”

 

“My name is spelled ‘Artimesia’” was the opening sentence in a Civil War pension deposition given by my 1st cousin 4-times removed, Artimesia Curry Gabhart Bennett Cunningham. Artimesia could neither read nor write, yet she recalled decades of family history with remarkable clarity. Her testimony not only offered a fascinating glimpse into life in turn-of-the-20th-century Kentucky, but also became an important piece in solving my Curry family puzzle.

I had written earlier about my efforts to trace the ancestry of my 2nd-great-grandfather, Robert M. Curry, and reconstruct the Curry family. To continue researching the interconnected families of Monroe County, Missouri, I searched records on Ancestry at the local public library and followed up with full-text searches on FamilySearch. Among the discoveries were several marriages linking the Curry, Maddox, and Cunningham families. Brothers Robert and John Curry married Maddox sisters, while three Curry sisters married men with the surname Cunningham. Amanda married George Washington Cunningham, Elizabeth married Andy Cunningham, and a third marriage particularly caught my attention: Susan Curry and Hiram Cunningham in 1853.

Although the marriage took place in Monroe County, Missouri, Hiram appeared as a resident of Kentucky in both the 1850 and 1860 censuses. That discrepancy raised questions, but land sale records in Monroe County linked Hiram and Susan Cunningham to George and Andy Cunningham. When I checked FamilySearch, however, I found Hiram’s wife listed as Susan Sanders. Find-a-Grave added more confusion by identifying Hiram’s wife as Susan Bennett.

The next step was to examine supporting documents. Death certificates for the children showed mixed information: one listed the mother as Susan Sanders, while three others gave the maiden name as Curry—or at least handwriting that could reasonably be interpreted that way. I also learned that Hiram later married a woman named Artemisia Curry and that he had served in the Civil War and filed an invalid pension application, followed later by a widow’s pension application from his surviving wife. I hoped those records would identify Hiram’s first wife, so a trip to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., was in order—one advantage of living nearby.

That is where I met Cousin Artimesia—or perhaps “Artemisia.” In any case, I learned a great deal about her life. Like many of my ancestors, she was born in Kentucky, in 1824. At age seventeen, she married John Gabhart (also spelled Gabbert or Gabbard) and had four children with him before his death in 1859. She later married George Bennett, and then Hiram Cunningham. Her marriage to George Bennett ended in divorce, and records from the Mercer County Clerk’s office show that the divorce was finalized on May 10, 1871. Artimesia wasted little time beginning the next chapter of her life, marrying Hiram just four days later, on May 14, 1871. She and Hiram spent more than twenty years together before his death in 1892.

Artimesia’s deposition was taken in 1901 as part of her widow’s pension application. In it, she clearly identified Hiram’s first wife as Susan Curry. At that point, it was time to evaluate all the evidence, using both my ChatGPT assistant and guidance from a FamilySearch volunteer. Three independent sets of records identified Susan Curry as Hiram’s first wife: the original marriage record, three of the four children’s death certificates, and Artimesia’s deposition.

The deposition carried particular weight because Artimesia recalled not only Susan’s name, but also attending her funeral, which had occurred just a year before her own marriage to Hiram. She also accurately remembered the witnesses at her first wedding, which had taken place more than sixty years earlier. Her testimony demonstrated firsthand knowledge of the family and strongly suggested that she, likely Susan’s first cousin, would not have confused such an important relationship. As a result, her deposition became a high-quality source.

And what about the “Sanders” claim? That rested entirely on a single death certificate in which the informant was the county coroner rather than a family member. The overall weight of evidence strongly supported Susan Curry as Hiram’s first wife. As for Find-a-Grave, the confusion may have arisen because Artimesia herself had once carried the surname Bennett. Since Artimesia stated that Hiram had only been married once before, I concluded that the grave beside Hiram’s belonged to Susan Curry Cunningham.

With that conclusion, I could finally piece together Susan’s story. Susan Curry, the sister of Robert Curry, was born in Kentucky on September 7, 1833, and married Hiram Cunningham in Monroe County, Missouri, on November 6, 1853. The couple lived in Missouri and had three children before returning to Mercer County, Kentucky, sometime before the 1860 census. By 1867, they had seven children, but tragedy struck during the birth of their eighth. An infant son was born on June 18, 1870, and died the following day. Susan herself died on June 29, 1870, only thirty-six years old. Infant and maternal deaths were heartbreakingly common in that era, when medical care for mothers and newborns was extremely limited.

Armed with all of this evidence, I reconnected Hiram Cunningham and Susan Curry in FamilySearch and attached the supporting documentation. Artimesia gave us the gift of restoring Susan Curry Cunningham’s identity and recognizing her as a daughter, wife, and mother rather than a forgotten name lost in conflicting records.

After Hiram’s death, Artimesia continued to manage the farm, renting it out in exchange for a share of the crops. That was remarkable for a woman who was seventy-seven years old at the time of her deposition and who would live another fourteen years. For someone who claimed, “My mind has gone to pieces,” she managed quite well.

Pictures: 

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/72814019/susan-cunningham: accessed May 27, 2026), memorial page for Susan Bennett Cunningham (7 Sep 1833–29 Jun 1870), Find a Grave Memorial ID 72814019, citing Grapevine Christian Church Cemetery, Mercer County, Kentucky, USA; Maintained by Michael & Pam (Carey) Ison (contributor 47315156).

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/72814015/infant_son-cunningham: accessed May 27, 2026), memorial page for Infant Son Cunningham (18 Jun 1870–19 Jun 1870), Find a Grave Memorial ID 72814015, citing Grapevine Christian Church Cemetery, Mercer County, Kentucky, USA; Maintained by Michael & Pam (Carey) Ison (contributor 47315156).

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: 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: 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.

52 Ancestors 2026: Conflicting Clues – Match? Doppelgänger?

 

In genealogical research, mix-ups happen all the time. Authors of online trees—and even published histories—sometimes confuse two people with the same or similar names. As I review my own locally saved tree and the larger FamilySearch tree, I occasionally find facts that don’t look quite right. Information is often posted without careful analysis, and the cited sources sometimes contradict the conclusions presented. In those cases, we have to examine all the available records before drawing conclusions.

One ancestor who has long interested me is my second-great-grandfather on my paternal side, Robert Curry. According to census records, he was born in Kentucky in 1830 and by 1850 had moved to Monroe County, Missouri, where he married Elizabeth Ann Maddox. In 1860, the couple and their children appear in Vernon County, Missouri, where several members of Elizabeth’s family had also settled. Unfortunately, this region of Missouri was in turmoil during the Civil War, with fighting between Confederate-sympathizing bushwhackers and Union forces. The violence even led to the burning of the town of Montevallo. By the time of the 1870 census, Elizabeth was listed as a widow raising her family.

So what happened to Robert? Did he become caught up in these events? At present, the most definitive answers I can offer are: He died—and maybe.

Starting with what we know, the 1860 census lists Robert’s middle initial as “M.” A written genealogy of his father-in-law, Jesse Maddox, states that Robert died before January 1866. Another intriguing piece of information involves a man named Robert Marion Curry, who enlisted in the 15th Kansas Cavalry, Company D. He was reportedly one of three men executed in the winter of 1864 and buried among prisoners or Confederates. The pressing question is whether these two Roberts were the same person.

Rather than accept the connection simply because it appears in numerous Ancestry trees, I put on my researcher’s hat. The middle name aligns with the census initial—but why would Robert enlist in the Union Army? And why in a Kansas regiment if he was living in Missouri?

Spoiler alert: I don’t have definitive answers—not for lack of trying. A search of Fold3 reveals no enlistment record for a Robert or R. Curry, except for one soldier in the U.S. Colored Troops. Since the 15th Kansas Cavalry was not part of the USCT, that record can be ruled out. Still, some interesting clues remain. Although many companies recruited locally, Company D appears to have enlisted cavalrymen from across the state. Vernon County lies on the Kansas border, so crossing state lines to enlist would not have been unreasonable. Moreover, the 15th Kansas Cavalry was used primarily to suppress uprisings in Missouri.

This leaves two possibilities: either the similarity of names is coincidental, or a man born in Kentucky to a Virginia-rooted family—whose in-laws were associated with guerrilla resistance against Union forces—somehow joined the Union cause.

Neither possibility can be dismissed outright. The first leads to a frustrating dead end (for now), while the second stirs the imagination. Was Robert pressured into service to fight against his neighbors? Was he a bounty jumper who deserted, was captured, and executed? Could he have been acting as a spy, gathering information and relaying it back home? Given his probable sympathies, it is difficult to ignore the possibility that he may have engaged in activity that led to his execution.

We may never know the full story. But that doesn’t stop me from taking another swing at this brick wall every few months.

Photos:

Grave photo: Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/5851280/robert_marion-curry: accessed February 28, 2026), memorial page for PVT Robert Marion Curry (1831–1864), Find a Grave Memorial ID 5851280, citing Fort Scott National Cemetery, Fort Scott, Bourbon County, Kansas, USA; Maintained by Tom DeNardo (contributor 767).

Description: https://www.kansashistory.gov/resource/national_register/nominationsNRDB/Bourbon_FortScottNationalCemeteryNR.pdf

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.

52 Ancestors 2025: Family Heirloom — Real and Imaginary

 

Given the many moves my family has made over the generations, the number of children in each generation, and the fact that we were never awash in finery, I don’t have many heirlooms with clear and definite family ties. Maybe one or two come close. There is a plate decorated with old-fashioned “ABCs” that my mother said came to Missouri in a covered wagon. I’m not entirely sure whether that story originated in our family or in an antique shop, or whether there truly was a Reed ancestor who traveled west before the age of railroads. From what I’ve been able to determine from my family tree, the earliest Missouri pioneers were on my paternal side.

My father passed along a number of useful items. As a millwright, he accumulated a wide collection of tools, including a formidable ½-inch drill with a yoke and side handle that can power its way through just about anything. One item he gave me was an Eclipse shoe cobbler stand (see above), said to have belonged to my great-grandfather, likely Henry Yount. Like my other paternal great-grandfather, David Cassatt—who ran a home broom-making operation—I suppose Henry “Skinhorn” (and there must be a story behind that nickname) Yount may have worked on shoes.

But there is one heirloom I truly wish I had.

My second-great-grandfather, Ben McWilliams, described a cane he had made by a German woodcarver during the Civil War. In 1862, he worked for a sutler, John H. Gotshall of the 172nd Pennsylvania Regiment, near Yorktown, Virginia. He described the area this way:

There was a monument standing there marking the place where Cornwallis surrendered to Gen Washington. It had a fence made of red Cedar pickets run in around same.

The site had also seen fighting during the Peninsula Campaign.

After the battle of Yorktown the fence was badly destroyed; but upon looking around I found a thin detached 2x4 rail covered with grass that had escaped destruction. I found a knot in center which enabled me to break in in two, which gave me a pied enough to make four canes. I gave half of it away, found a German wood carver in the Regiment, and gave him the other half in payment for his services in carving me a cane. He carved me out a cane, with the Goddess of Liberty on the head on one side and the Eagle and a copperhead on the other side. He then carved a union soldier standing up, under them, standing upon a cannon ball, and a big snake wound around the cane, which represented the copperhead trying to bite him (2 feet long.) I took it home and gave it to my grandfather, who returned it to me just before his death. I still have it.

I asked both ChatGPT and Gemini to generate renderings of the cane based on this description. 

Gemini:

ChatGPT:

To me, the results seem more decorative than practical—but it’s hard not to imagine what that cane must have looked like, and what it would feel like to hold an heirloom so vividly tied to both family and national history.