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: An Address with a Story – Back on the Farm

 

I’m a city kid, born and raised in Buffalo, and I’ve always felt at home in cities—large and small. The walking, the buildings, the people, and the sheer variety of sights are endlessly engaging. But my family’s experience, stretching back many generations to the founding of this country, has been almost entirely rural or small-town—even including New York City back when it was New Amsterdam.

Growing up, the quickest way I reconnected with my rural roots was through occasional visits to Barton County, Missouri, to the farm of my (great) aunt and uncle, Ben and Mary (Fast) Hizar. It was there that I saw my uncles and cousins from my mother’s side of the family. We were sometimes there for the Fast family reunion or for the Fourth of July—celebrated in a place where fireworks of all kinds were legal and the open spaces seemed endless.

Aunt Mary was a teacher, and although she and Uncle Ben had no children of their own, she kept a wonderful collection of books for young readers. I was especially fascinated by the Golden Book Encyclopedia (encyclopedias being a major part of my childhood reading), written by that font of scientific knowledge Bertha Morris Parker, also the author of The Golden Book of Science for Boys and Girls and The Golden Treasury of Natural History, both of which played a big role in my early science education. On one visit, I even left behind my treasured natural history book—replaced the following Christmas—so she could share it with her students.

I was also captivated by a table lamp with a picture of a steam locomotive and a small insert that spun from the heat of the bulb, creating the illusion of steam rising from the smokestack. Yes, I was easily amused.

But beyond these small memories, it was on that farm that I first heard many of the family stories I now continue to explore through genealogical research—stories like Ben McWilliams’s Civil War experiences, including his ordeal at Andersonville. Being on the farm also gave me a firsthand look at daily rural life: feeding and milking cows, growing and harvesting crops. Since Cheerios were an important part of my father’s job and a staple in our household, seeing oats growing in the field was a special treat.

So this wasn’t one of my residences, nor is it a famous address in American history. It was simply a place I visited—a place where I connected with my roots.

Note: This also reminds me that I need to scan more of my Missouri slides so I don’t have to rely on photographing them off a computer screen and fixing them with Gemini!

52 Ancestors 2026: Changed My Thinking – Or, Thinking More About the Past

 

I wrote earlier about my grandfather, Stephen Reed, who had a troubling past—leaving his young family for one woman and then another. I reflected on his complicated journey and the family he left behind.

I have not researched the life of my paternal grandfather, Virgil Cassatt, as deeply, but I know he struggled with drinking and was not a particularly successful farmer. According to family lore, his father, David, had done well enough to provide land for his three sons, but they eventually squandered their inheritance. Virgil certainly started off reasonably well. In the 1910 census he was farming in Barton County, Missouri, but over the next six years or so he tried farming farther west—apparently in Idaho (where one of my uncles was born) and in New Mexico (where my father was born). Note to self: it’s probably time to start looking up land records in these places.

But sometimes I begin to wonder. Although I cannot excuse their failings or the hardships their families endured, I find myself looking more closely at the times they lived in and the pressures they may have faced. Farming has always had its ups and downs, subject to the vagaries of weather and market conditions that can make or break a livelihood. We often remember the dramatic stories of the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression, when drought and high winds turned acres of topsoil into clouds that formed dunes and buried houses and outbuildings.

While the Crash of 1929 and the Dust Bowl loom large in our historical memory, farmers were already struggling throughout the 1920s. Demand for farm products grew during World War I, driving prices upward, but beginning in 1920 those prices collapsed, leading to declining incomes and falling land values.

Looking at the 1920 and 1930 censuses, we find Virgil and Marietta (Yount) farming in Barton County, Missouri, raising five children. The family had moved around but had returned to Barton County. In addition to the stress of moving and the pressures of farming, the family endured personal tragedies. Two of their children died in infancy, and both Virgil and Marietta had lost several siblings—three and two, respectively. Sadly, many families of that era experienced the loss of children, and it is easy to imagine how such losses added to their burdens.

In 1920, Stephen and Ruby were also farming in Barton County, raising my mother. By 1930, however, the family, now six, was living in St. Joseph, Missouri, where Stephen worked at a foundry and, at some point, sold cars. Had they lost the farm during the difficult farm economy of the 1920s? Was the death of their first son, six-year-old Stephen Claire, from appendicitis in 1918 more than the family could bear? Whatever the reason, Stephen eventually left his family.

Yet the families carried on, likely through the strength and determination of Marietta and Ruby, along with support from relatives. Ruby and her children moved back to Barton County, where Grandma and Grandpa Fast provided a home and support while Ruby supported the family by teaching school. Perhaps Marietta possessed some of the resilience of her grandmother, Elizabeth Ann Maddox Curry, who kept her farm and family together through the turmoil of the Civil War after losing her husband.

Sometimes trauma can echo across generations. Although my parents faced hardships growing up and entered the workforce during the Great Depression, my own life felt comparatively stable—family challenges, certainly, but no alcoholism or wandering. Factory work was not easy, but we benefited from the economic boom during and after World War II.

I am not sure I have completely changed my thinking, and I do not want to excuse the weaknesses of ancestors who gave in to temptation. Still, perhaps we can better understand the pressures they faced. We often speak of how “resilient” our ancestors were, but perhaps the stories of their struggles and failures were not always passed down.

After all, they (and we) are only human.

Note: Thanks to Cousin Vicki for more insight, and stories, from my paternal line.

Photos:

Virgil, Marietta, and Alta Cassatt; Stephen Reed

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: 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 2025: A Musical Heirloom

 

This is a bonus post that combines the last two prompts—Family Heirloom and Musical—with perhaps a touch of the Wartime theme as well. It centers on a music book handed down from my great-grandmother, Nellie Louella McWilliams Fast, daughter of Ben McWilliams.

The book, Favorite Songs and Hymns, published in 1939, is a collection of old-time gospel hymns such as “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” and “The Old Rugged Cross,” along with songs deeply rooted in Midwestern and Southern traditions. The Fast family belonged to the Verdella Free-Will Baptist Church, and it’s easy to imagine these hymns sung by the congregation on a Sunday morning, following a long week of farm work.

The hymns, however, aren’t the only memorable part of the book. Written on the inside back cover are the names and addresses of several grandchildren who entered military service during World War II. One can easily imagine Grandma Fast writing letters to them, sharing news of life back on the farm.

Tucked inside the book is also a photograph of Grandma and Grandpa Fast with my twin uncles, John and Joe, taken in July 1941. I don’t know who took the picture, but it was made just a month after my mother had gone east to Buffalo, married my father, and begun their life together there.

So this heirloom isn’t a piece of fine china, antique jewelry, or handcrafted furniture—just a well-worn book and an old, cracked, discolored photograph. Yet together they hold a remarkable number of memories and offer a small but powerful snapshot of a moment in time.

52 Ancestors 2025: Written – Blasts from the Past

 

Finding something written by an ancestor is like uncovering buried treasure. Not only does it create a personal connection, but it also offers a unique window into history—a chance to see the past through the eyes of an ordinary person (unless, of course, your ancestor happened to be famous).

Some writings I've shared before, such as those of Rev. John Hale, a key figure in the Salem witch trials whose A Modest Inquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft remains a remarkable firsthand account. Another example is Jairus Abijah Bonney, who described his journey along the Oregon Trail.

A particularly rich source of ancestral writing comes from military pension records, especially from the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. These statements—often dictated to county clerks—detail hardships, illnesses, battles, and the testimonies of neighbors and comrades. Christian Fast recorded his capture and escape from the Delaware Indians during the Revolution. Civil War pension files for David Cassatt, Anthony Gilmartin, and Benjamin McWilliams also provide vivid snapshots of their lives.

But the richest writings of all belong to my 2nd-great-grandfather, Ben McWilliams. He chronicled his enlistment in the Union Army, his capture and imprisonment, his release, and his life afterward. We’ve already met Ben through his descriptions of Andersonville prison, his emotional homecoming, and even his return to everyday chores like hog butchering and barn raising. His account of the unbroken prairie is especially striking—typical of what many settlers saw when they first arrived in new territory.

Ben wrote all of this by hand. I remember my Uncle Jim typing the memoirs so they could be shared, and more recently I used ChatGPT’s OCR tools to digitize the original pages. Reading through his story, several things stand out. He describes the “Raiders” from Confederate prison camps who targeted other prisoners, such as a fellow prisoner from the early days, John McElroy. Ben wondered what became of McElroy; it turns out he survived the war and made his mark in print. He later became a journalist and wrote extensively about those same camps.

Ben’s writings also reveal what a hustler he was. In prison, he figured out ways to get extra rations and outwit illiterate guards. After the war, he worked wherever he could—as a collier, mason, fisherman, laborer—and eventually settled into farming and family life. He mentions numerous relatives whose names we can now trace on FamilySearch. He also recounts conflicts with local rascals, which may explain some of the legal records I’ve uncovered.

There is so much to learn from the written traces our ancestors left behind. It makes me wonder what kind of written legacy we should be leaving for those who come after us.

52 Ancestors 2025: Fire – The Lost Records

 

Fire has long been an essential part of human existence—used for cooking, clearing brush for planting, warmth, and metallurgy, among other purposes. Yet building fires and wildfires can also destroy lives, property, and history. For this essay, I want to reflect on what we lost in the 1921 fire at the Commerce Building in Washington, D.C.

The purpose of the U.S. Census population schedules was to count everyone living in the United States in order to apportion seats in Congress. At first, only heads of households were named, and other members were simply tallied by age and gender. Beginning in 1850, however, curiosity about the nation’s people grew. Over time, the census began recording names and relationships within households, as well as information about education, literacy, birthplace, parents’ origins, citizenship, property, and more. Additional schedules on agriculture and industry were also collected, proving invaluable to historians and genealogists.

Although the census data were analyzed and compiled into statistical summaries, the original books were often viewed as expendable once their immediate purpose was served. Storage conditions were poor, and that neglect set the stage for a disaster familiar to every genealogist: the 1921 fire that destroyed nearly all of the 1890 census records. The damage came not only from the flames but also from the water used to extinguish them. Only a few fragments survived.

For a long time, I didn’t feel the loss too keenly, since I have so much information from the 1880 and 1900 censuses, and my ancestors remained in Barton County, Missouri, through much of the postbellum years. But as I’ve tried to go beyond names and dates in my research, the 1890 gap has become increasingly significant. That census would have captured a pivotal time for my great-grandparents’ generation.

The Cassatts were well established and seem to have had a home industry making brooms—were they growing broom corn? The Younts married after the 1880 census—what did their young family look like? Hannah Brown Reed was a widow—were there children still at home to help her? Several generations of Fasts were alive; in 1880, John Jay and Hannah’s granddaughter lived with them after her mother’s death in childbirth—did she return to her father, who remarried soon after the 1880 census? And what about Fannie Knauss McWilliams, also a widow—was she living alone or with one of her children?

Other records, such as the Civil War Veterans Schedule and pension files, help fill in some of the gaps, but the census has long been a backbone for understanding family structure, guiding us toward answers or new questions. As a side note, I’ve often wondered why the Agricultural Schedules stopped after 1880. It turns out the 1890 schedules were likely lost to the same fire and water damage, and the later ones were deliberately destroyed—deemed by Congress to have “no historical value.”

Historians today are working to go beyond compiled statistics and the stories of prominent men, to uncover the experiences of ordinary families like ours. Those destroyed records would have offered a wealth of detail—insight into daily life, work, and community—that we can now only partially reconstruct.

Photo: Courtesy Bureau of the Census: https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1996/spring/1890-census

52 Ancestors 2025: Disappeared—The Children

 

It is not uncommon in family research to find relatives who seem to have dropped out of the records under mysterious circumstances. Yet, what struck this genealogist (and father) with a professional interest in public health is the recurring pattern of infant and childhood mortality throughout my family history. The evidence is everywhere: large families in the 17th and 18th centuries, the reuse of names for children who died young, and mothers who themselves died in childbirth.

For this post, I chose to focus on the 1900 and 1910 censuses and the listings of my ancestors in Barton County, Missouri. Why these censuses? Because in these years, mothers were asked not only how many children they had, but also how many were still living.

The inclusion of these questions reflects a growing national interest in public health at the turn of the century. The United States was expanding, and cities were swelling with people. Coastal and river regions, particularly in warmer climates, were plagued by yellow fever and malaria. In Kentucky—a major pathway for many of my ancestors—the rise of Lexington as a trans-Appalachian “Athens of the West” was abruptly halted by a cholera epidemic in 1833. As cities grew, the problems of waste disposal and sanitation became impossible to ignore.

By the mid-1800s, public health reforms were gaining momentum. In Massachusetts, Lemuel Shattuck (my 5th cousin, five times removed) championed sanitation measures. In London, John Snow famously linked cholera to contaminated water at the Broad Street pump. Advances in germ theory by Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch, and others, along with improvements in medical education, underscored the importance of separating water supplies from human and animal waste. Cities—especially overcrowded and impoverished neighborhoods like New York’s Lower East Side—saw the highest levels of childhood mortality, but rapid improvements followed.

What about rural Barton County, Missouri? Farms allowed for cleaner separation of wells, outhouses, and animal pens. Milk from cows on the farm was commonly boiled. Crowding was not an issue, but access to medical care was limited. Vaccines for childhood illnesses did not exist, nor were antibiotics available to treat bacterial infections.

Even so, mortality among children was a reality. Many of the older mothers among my ancestors lost between one and three children. We don’t always know how old the children were when they died, but we can imagine the grief. The mothers who had babies at the turn of the century and later may have seen some improvement, though I’d need to dig into statistics before drawing conclusions—that would be the subject of a scientific study, not a blog post.

The family photo at the top of this post, taken around 1909, shows my grandparents, Virgil and Marietta (Yount) Cassatt, with my Aunt Alta Mae. According to the 1900 census, Virgil's mother Susan lost 3 of her 6 children, and Marietta's Mary mother lost 2 of her 7 children. Together, Virgil and marietta had six children who survived infancy, but they also lost a 9-day-old baby boy, Frank, in 1907, and another newborn son in 1925. Their daughter Alta grew up, married, but died in 1942 at age 34 after a two-week illness. On my maternal side, a young uncle, Stephen Claire, died of appendicitis at age 6.

Today, we benefit from sanitation systems, vaccines, antibiotics, and hospitals equipped to care for the youngest and most vulnerable. Looking back, we can see how much progress has been made through public health, science, and medicine. Large families were the norm in those days, yet even with strong faith, supportive families, and close-knit communities, our ancestors deeply felt the pain of losing their children. Though some of these children may have lived only briefly, their memories endured.