52 Ancestors 2026: Unexpected – An Appreciation of Amy’s Prodding and Prompts

 

Genealogical research is full of twists and turns. Sometimes it’s a shady character, a surprising connection to deep history, or an unexpected migration. There have been plenty of such examples in this blog, but what surprised me most this year was how much my blogging and writing led to new discoveries.

I originally thought the weekly prompts from Amy Johnson Crow would be useful for quick summaries, while I spent most of my time breaking through brick walls and adding more and more names to my tree. Instead, the prompts pushed me to explore new territory and dig deeper into ancestors and families I thought I already understood. They also encouraged me to examine the broader context—the times and places in which my ancestors lived. Three areas I explored in particular were early settlements, migration patterns, and a deeper look at farming life in Barton County.

When it came to early settlements, I knew I had ancestors in New England and New Netherland, but writing these posts led me to dig further into the details. “New England” turned out to encompass a variety of Puritan families. I learned more about the Salem Witch Trials, naming conventions, and discovered that I descend from some of the earliest immigrants to Plymouth Colony (the Mayflower) and Massachusetts Bay (Winthrop’s fleet). I also explored my Huguenot line through family histories and narratives about the early days of New Amsterdam, as well as my early Quaker ancestors in Pennsylvania.

Of course, my ancestors were all immigrants, but their migrations didn’t stop at the coast. Early generations moved into the interior of the Thirteen Colonies, and later generations pushed even farther west. I had learned about routes like the Wilderness Road and the Oregon Trail in school, but they became far more meaningful when I realized that my own ancestors had traveled them. One unexpected discovery was the central role that Kentucky—first as a territory and later as a commonwealth—played in so many of my family lines. Perhaps that connection explains why I was drawn to the Bluegrass State for my education, even before I knew of my Kentucky roots.

With all these migrations, many of these once-distant family lines eventually converged in Barton County, Missouri. While I had long collected census data for these families, the depth of information found in those records—especially the agricultural schedules, along with land, probate, and death records—revealed far more than I had expected. These sources provided not just names and dates, but insight into daily life and the interconnected nature of these families.

In the end, it is hard to point to just one unexpected discovery—there were many. What surprised me most was how much progress I made simply by writing. The process kept me engaged, encouraged deeper research, and led me to explore topics in ways I might not have otherwise.

Not a bad year at all.

52 Ancestors 2025: Travel on the Oregon Trail

 

So many immigrant ancestors, so many westward movements—where do I even start when the topic for the week is travel? Should I talk about ocean crossings to the New World? Already covered that. Possible Mayflower connections? Still unconfirmed. The Wilderness Road to Kentucky? Done. Even wrote about our family’s move back east.

But while combing through the family tree for another travel story, I came across an ancestor who made not one but multiple big moves: first from New England to Ohio and Illinois, and then all the way to Oregon Territory. This is the story of my 4th-great-grandfather, Jairus Abijah Bonney Jr., who, fittingly, had not just one but two Biblical names.

Jairus was born on October 14, 1793, in Litchfield, Connecticut—just 17 years after the founding of the United States—to Jairus Abijah Bonney Sr., a veteran of the American Revolution, and Anna Brown. In 1814, the younger Jairus married Irena Larned in Litchfield. Not long afterward, the couple moved west to Ashtabula, Ohio, part of the Connecticut Western Reserve. Since Ohio had only recently become a state (1803), this move reflected the pioneering spirit that still burned strong.

Jairus and Irena had five children, including Lydia Louisa Bonney, my direct ancestor. Sadly, Irena died in 1827, leaving behind their young children. Jairus remarried, this time to Jane Elkins, and they moved again, this time to Fulton County, Illinois, where they had eleven more children. But Jairus wasn’t finished with big life changes.

A skilled millwright, carpenter, cabinetmaker, and cooper, Jairus was successful in Illinois. Yet when he heard tales of opportunity in Oregon Territory, he was inspired to go west again—this time on the Oregon Trail. He built his own wagon and stocked it with provisions, setting out in the spring of 1845 from Independence, Missouri, along with his second family and his brother, a doctor, Truman Augustus Bonney and his family.

At Fort Hall (in present-day Idaho), they encountered an agent for Captain Sutter of California who warned them that the trail to Oregon was “destitute of grass and wood” and plagued by hostile encounters with Native people. Persuaded, they diverted south to Sutter’s Fort in the Sacramento Valley.

They arrived in fall 1845 to find drought conditions, inflated prices, and land too expensive to afford. And since California was still under Mexican control, settlers were expected to become Mexican citizens. Feeling misled, the families set out again in spring 1846, this time on horseback, heading north to Oregon. With no established roads, the journey was rough, but they finally reached Oregon on June 16, 1846.

At last, Jairus and his family had arrived. His skills were in high demand, and he quickly found work as a cooper and millwright, while Jane worked for Governor Abernathy. In 1847, the family claimed a farm in the Willamette Valley, in what is now Hubbard, Oregon, where Jairus farmed until his death in 1856, three years before Oregon became a state.

This Oregon Trail tale comes from several sources found on FamilySearch under Jairus Abijah Bonney Jr. (LVHD-7FG), including an 1840s article from The Spectator and a set of recollections written by Jairus’s son, Benjamin Franklin Bonney, who was just seven years old when he made the journey.

And what became of my direct line? Lydia Louisa Bonney had already moved with her father to Illinois, where she married William Bolon in 1840. They didn’t go west again, instead staying in Fulton County, Illinois. Their daughter, Louisa Jane, married William Marion Fast and later became part of the Fast family migration to Barton County, Missouri after the Civil War.

Not quite the Oregon Trail, but still another step in the long pattern of westward migrations that mark my family’s story.

Photo Credits: 

Oregon Trail meme from Etsy

Trail map from Oregon Trail Center