52 Ancestors 2026: Multiples – Threes

 

The number 3 has all kinds of meanings. In folklore: “Third time’s the charm.” In Christianity: the Holy Trinity, Peter’s three denials, and the Resurrection on the third day. In public speaking: making three main points or using three examples. For this prompt, I thought I would use three examples of ancestors who married (sort of) three times. I’ve written about these three people before, but each example tells us something about the era and the circumstances of their lives.

The first is Susannah Shattuck, my Puritan ancestor who lived from around 1643 to 1717 and represents the second generation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. I’ve written about her remarkable life before, including her three marriages to Joseph Morse, John Fay, and Thomas Brigham. She was twice widowed and found a way to raise her six Morse children, her four Fay children and three Fay stepchildren, and seven Brigham stepchildren. I haven’t found any contemporary descriptions or remembrances of her (men seem to get more attention), but the names of her children reflect her Puritan piety, while her widowhood and sheer number of children demonstrate her perseverance and family-raising skills. She seems to have been one thread of continuity in her community. It’s also notable that the Shattuck, Morse, Fay, and Brigham families were prominent New England families, and she had ties to all three, not to mention the other families her children married into, such as the Larkins, Joslins, Newtons, and Holbrooks.

My second example is not a direct ancestor but a cousin, Artimesia Curry, my Kentucky relative who lived from 1824 to 1914. Her first marriage was to John Gabhart, with whom she had four children. Artimesia was widowed and then married George W. Bennett, whom she divorced in 1871, just days before marrying Hiram Cunningham. We learn a great deal about the times from her story. The Commonwealth of Kentucky was entering a promising phase but was also embroiled in the Civil War as a divided and fiercely contested border state. Hiram was loyal to the Union and served in the U.S. Army. It was gratifying to see his loyalty to his country and his contribution to preserving the Union, but it was also remarkable that Hiram and Artimesia persisted in their efforts to obtain pensions (veteran’s and widow’s) for his service. Pension records are often the stuff genealogists’ dreams are made of. Thanks to Artimesia’s precise memory, I was able to learn about another branch of the Curry family into which Hiram had married. Her depositions, combined with the fact that she had one of the relatively rare 19th-century divorces, contribute to a picture of a strong and determined woman.

My grandfather, Stephen Anthony Reed, and his marriages break the pattern a bit. His second relationship, with a woman identified as his wife in the 1940 census, may not have been formalized with an actual marriage certificate. We do, however, have a marriage certificate for his last pairing. Grandpa Steve was born in 1892 in Missouri and married Ruby Fast in 1911. They were both young—19 and 17 years old, respectively. They had five children, although their eldest died young.

His second relationship was with Margaret Branstuder Stephenson, and this household, which included Margaret’s two daughters—one who had previously married at sixteen and another who apparently had special needs—appears in the 1940 census. By 1950, he was living with Verna Fultz Verbeck. Like Margaret, her husband was still living at the time of these census records, although he was living in a different household. Interestingly, Verna’s husband was reported as “widowed” in the 1950 census. Steve and Verna married in 1961, and he died in 1973. If nothing else, I learned about some very complicated relationships, perhaps brought on by difficult circumstances.

Massachusetts, Kentucky, and Missouri are three important states in my genealogy, and in this essay they represent three different regions in three different eras. Family trees are complicated, and a lot gets buried as family stories fade and records become sporadic. It’s easy to talk about the “good old days,” but success was never guaranteed. Life required hard work, perseverance, and sometimes being in the right place at the right time. But if we dig deeply enough, we can sometimes piece together a broad picture and catch a glimpse of the past from the information that survives.

Picture:

Created by the author using Google Gemini (2026)

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).

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.

52 Ancestors 2026: A Brick Wall Revisited – A Curry-Spiced Breakthrough

 

I’ve written before about my 2nd-great-grandfather in my father’s side, Robert M. Curry. He married Elizabeth Ann Maddox but died near the end of the Civil War. It is still uncertain whether he was the same Robert Marion Curry who enlisted in the Union Army and was executed. As if this uncertainty wasn’t enough, for a long time, I kept hitting a brick wall when trying to find out who his parents and siblings were. Still, there were a few clues. A printed Maddox family history noted that Robert had a brother who married his wife’s sister, Sarah, and according to Find A Grave, his parents were James and Rebecca (Anderson) Curry.

Could this limited information point me in the right direction? Yes—and no. The proposed parentage was intriguing but led to another dead end. However, the Curry–Maddox connection opened a more promising path.

As usual, I began with what I could easily find: the census population schedules. Starting in 1870, I found Elizabeth, age 45, in Vernon County, Missouri, with her children but no husband. Moving backward, I located the Curry family in the 1860 census, where Robert M., Elizabeth, and six children, all of whom matched the household from 1870. Looking further back, things became even more interesting. 

In 1850, Robert and “Betsy” Curry were living in the crowded household of Jesse Maddox in Monroe County, Missouri. This suggested a pattern—and a plan. Were there other Curry households in Monroe County? Yes, but one stood out: a household headed by Susan Curry, with five others bearing the Curry surname. Could this be Robert’s mother and siblings? The population schedules also noted that the mother and Curry children were born in Kentucky.

To test this theory, I went further back. The 1830 and 1840 census records list only heads of household and household members sorted by age categories, but by examining the later census data, I created a spreadsheet to reconstruct the likely household composition.  

Picture: 1840 and 1830 Census predictions based on 1850 and 1860 Census records.

Two Curry households appeared in Monroe County. One, headed by R. H. Curry, did not match well with the known children and included slave ownership, which did not align with the later economic status of the family. The other, headed by Samuel Curry, was a much better fit, with children whose ages aligned closely with those found in later records.

Up to this point, the research had relied on traditional methods—census records and careful data organization in a spreadsheet. The next phase, however, involved using artificial intelligence tools. I shared my findings with my ChatGPT assistant, including full census data and the observation that a John Curry and a William Curry appeared in the same township as Robert in the 1860 census. John matched a "John Curry" from the 1850 Susan Curry household, suggesting a possible match. My assistant recommended checking military records for Robert Curry, but that avenue proved unproductive. However, the marriage record of Robert and Elizabeth and Elizabeth’s death certificate were consistent with the working hypothesis.

The real breakthrough came with the FamilySearch Full Text Search feature. Thanks to their AI-powered indexing and transcribing of handwritten documents, I uncovered land and probate records connected to Samuel, Robert, and Elizabeth Ann Curry. These records provided additional names and relationships, allowing me to reconstruct the family with greater confidence.

One settlement record proved especially valuable—it listed the heirs of Samuel Curry and their spouses, along with a land sale to George Cunningham. That name stood out. Further research revealed a FamilySearch listing for George Washington Cunningham married to Amanda Curry—whose parents were listed as Samuel and Susanna Devine Curry, who were married in Mercer County, Kentucky. 

That connection opened the door. I located an 1830 census record in Mercer County for Samuel Curry, with household members whose ages matched the known children. At that point, the pieces, including the Kentucky connection, began to fall into place. With the accumulated evidence, I felt confident enough—perhaps 87%—to reconstruct the family of Samuel and Susanna (Devine) Curry.

Picture: Reconstruction of the family of Samuel Curry. Three residents in 1830 could have been helpers, relatives, or children who left the household. Boy 2 in the 1840 Census could be a relative or hired hand.

There are still uncertainties. The birth year listed for Samuel in FamilySearch (1782) would be a few years too early according to the 1840 census but not the 1830 census, and there are many Curry families in 18th-century Kentucky to sort through. The age of the daughter who may be Sarah may be miscalculated in the 1830 census. But the nature of the problem has changed. I am no longer stuck at a brick wall—I am now in the confirmation stage.

Artificial intelligence tools played an important role in this breakthrough, especially in uncovering records that would have been difficult to locate otherwise. Still, human judgment, careful analysis, and a willingness to question assumptions were essential in bringing the pieces together into a more complete picture.

The search continues—but now, it feels like progress.

52 Ancestors 2026: A Family Pattern – The Great Convergence!

 

History may not repeat, but it often rhymes. In my genealogy research, I’ve noticed recurring themes—shared Reformed Protestant faith, the abundance of Davids in my Cossart/Cossairt/Cassatt line—but the most prominent pattern is migration.

Since the early 1600s, my ancestors from various European countries crossed the Atlantic to the New World for many reasons, from escaping persecution to seeking opportunity. I continue to be amazed that my family lines were present at the founding of Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts Bay Colony, and New Netherland, as well as in the early years of William Penn’s Province of Pennsylvania. From these footholds, and from other colonial settlements, they began to look beyond the eastern seaboard toward lands that were opening up—at least from the settlers’ perspective—while already inhabited by Indigenous peoples.

Thus began the westward migrations of my ancestral families. New England lines moved into New York and then on to Ohio or Indiana. Mid-Atlantic families migrated into the Appalachian regions of Pennsylvania and beyond into Ohio, Kentucky, and Illinois. Southern branches traveled through Kentucky and Tennessee. One line even set out along the Oregon Trail—though my ancestor, interestingly, was left behind.

By the time of the Civil War, certain patterns had begun to emerge. Several families—such as the Younts, Mayfields, Maddoxes, and Currys (more on them next week—stay tuned!)—had settled in Missouri, from the southeastern region to the north-central part of the state. The Maddox and Curry families eventually established themselves in Vernon County and were among the earliest settlers in southwest Missouri, an area that would soon be torn apart by the guerrilla wars. Meanwhile, other branches of the family were still living in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

The war, however, reshaped these patterns. Afterward, the prairies of southwestern Missouri opened further for settlement, and many of these eastern and midwestern families continued their westward movement, ultimately converging in Barton County by around 1870. There, they put down roots—farming the land and building communities that would endure for generations.

Regardless of their sympathies during the war—Union, Confederate, or simply a desire to avoid the conflict altogether—these families eventually came together. The descendants of English, Scottish, Irish, French, German, Dutch, Belgian, and Swiss immigrants blended into a uniquely American lineage, rich with shared history.

In a nation that continues to grow more diverse and multicultural, we are all part of this ongoing story—from Indigenous peoples to colonial settlers to modern immigrants, and everyone in between. What unites us is not just our origins, but the ideals that continue to bind us together.