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 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.

52 Ancestors 2025: Off to School

 

September (now late August) is a time of hope, anticipation, trepidation, and often change, as children, adult students, parents, grandparents, teachers, and other school staff face a new school year. Education has been an important part of our nation’s history, from the founding of public schools in Massachusetts to the cutting-edge technologies being developed in our universities. But for a genealogist, school records can give us glimpses into our ancestors’ lives and their communities.

Being farmers and often pioneers moving westward, my ancestors faced challenges getting the now-standard K–12, let alone a university education. As far as I can tell, my family’s role in schooling began with my 3rd-great-grandfather, John Jay Fast (1814–1891), who exemplifies the 19th-century migration pattern from Pennsylvania to Ohio, then to Illinois, and finally to Barton County, Missouri. The 1889 book of Barton County biographies notes:

The eldest of this family, John J. Fast, was reared on a farm, and had very meager educational advantages, not attending school a year altogether. By private study, however, he qualified for teaching, and followed this profession for some time…He was the first treasurer of the Lamar school board…

So the Fasts appear to be a branch invested in public education, and that tradition carried on. My maternal grandmother, Ruby (Fast) Reed, was a schoolteacher in Barton County. After separating from my grandfather, Stephen A. Reed, she needed to support herself and her children and turned to teaching. According to the 1940 census, she earned $560 a year. Unfortunately, she died at the age of 60, with a memorial document noting that she was a fourth-grade teacher. My great-aunt, Mary (Fast) Hizar, was also a teacher. I remember her being intrigued by my Golden Book of Natural History, written by the remarkable (for me) science author Bertha Morris Parker. I left my book with her so she could use it in her classroom, and that Christmas I received a brand-new copy.

This brings us to my mother, Ruth, who also became a schoolteacher. She taught in a rural one-room schoolhouse, where children of all ages learned side by side. We have three school pictures (one is shown here) that appear to represent the years 1937–1939. At the time, she was teaching at Bryan School, which I was able to locate in Barton City Township, just down the road from her grandfather’s farm, where she lived with her mother. The children—some of whom appear to be siblings—would have walked or ridden in a wagon up to two miles each way. I have a book about Barton County schools that includes memories and pictures of those days. These one-room schools were essential to rural communities, but as school buses became common, they were consolidated, and the children transferred to schools in Liberal, Missouri.

Was my mother able to continue teaching after she married and moved to Buffalo? Unfortunately, no. City teaching positions required a college degree, and Mom had only a high school diploma with a few summer terms at Southwest Missouri State Teachers College (now Missouri State University) in Springfield. But once a teacher, always a teacher. She instilled in us a love of learning—always keeping books in the house, sending us to the library, and immersing us in cultural activities. All three of us earned college degrees, with two going on to PhDs and careers in biomedical research. In that sense, we were first-generation college graduates—or maybe not.

Mom was able to teach right out of high school at age 17, but as consolidation brought stricter requirements, Ruby continued her summer classes and eventually graduated from Southwest Missouri State College in 1951, at age 57. She was certainly a model of perseverance.

52 Ancestors 2025: Off to Work – A Furrow in Time

 

For most of my family’s history, this prompt points to a single occupation—farming. “Off to work” usually meant getting out of bed and heading to the barn or the kitchen. With so many generations to choose from, where to begin? Farming shows up in colonial times—in places like Massachusetts Bay Colony or the tip of Manhattan—in the early years of our country on the frontier, and later as families spread westward. For this post, I chose to focus on the late 1800s, when my ancestors settled in Barton County (and surrounding areas) in Missouri. This period allows me to use U.S. Census records, especially the Agricultural Schedules, which list crops grown and their value.

I was fortunate to find the Missouri Agricultural Schedules readily available online. All I had to do was download the PDFs and scroll through by township. Using the 1870 and 1880 census records, I located many of my ancestors and entered their information into an Excel spreadsheet. I then uploaded this data, along with household information, to ChatGPT to help analyze what was happening on these farms. With so much detail, there’s almost too much for a single post—so this is just an overview.

On my maternal side, the family tree includes the Fasts (3rd- and 2nd-great-grandfathers), Benjamin McWilliams (2nd-great-grandfather), S. D. Reed (2nd-great-grandfather), and Anthony Gilmartin (2nd-great-grandfather). One good example is John Jay Fast, born in Ohio in 1814. Before the Civil War, he moved first to Fulton County, Illinois, and then to Barton County, Missouri. The census snapshots catch him in his mid-fifties and mid-sixties, showing a productive and diverse farm with a mix of grains, hay, and livestock. By 1880, with two of his sons striking out on their own, he hired extra help and still managed to increase both output and value. His farming skill was passed down to his son William Marion. By that same year, B. C. McWilliams also had a productive farm, while the earlier census shows him just starting out, breaking sod.

On my paternal side (Cassatt, Houseworth, Yount), I wasn’t able to compare 1870 and 1880 as completely because not all Agricultural Schedules were available. Still, the combination of Population and Agricultural records shows that these families, too, maintained respectable farms with grains, hay, potatoes, wood lots, and livestock.

The household data also helps paint a fuller picture. With AI’s help, I could see who was available for chores. It also highlights how often families were blended—widowed heads of household remarrying, sometimes to other widows who brought children into the family, or adult children returning after the death or separation of a spouse, often with children of their own.

These records help bring farming families to life, moving them beyond just names and dates. They also reveal the larger forces that shaped their lives: the extension of railroads, the Panic of 1873, swarms of locusts, and falling commodity prices brought on by the abundance produced as farms began to mechanize. There is so much more history—and so many more records—to explore. By organizing these details of marriages, births, deaths, and residences into timelines, and then using generative AI to connect the dots, I can keep building the narratives of these families. More blog posts to come—stay tuned.

52 Ancestors 2025: The Legal Troubles of Benjamin Cruiser McWIlliams

 

We’ve met my 2nd-great-grandfather, Benjamin Cruiser McWilliams, before. Through his writings on his Civil War POW experiences and life as a new settler on the Missouri prairie, we’ve had a window into our nation’s history. But I wasn’t expecting to see his name connected to the prompt “legal troubles.” Two unrelated events led me there: first, while using FamilySearch’s full-text search to check Ben’s land transactions, I stumbled across a couple of court cases. Second, my ace genealogist cousin, Cindy Cruz, sent me Ben’s complete Civil War pension file—and pointed out a rather heated dispute.

Details about the court cases were scarce, but in 1872 Ben was convicted of petit larceny and fined $5. In 1878, an appeal was filed but later withdrawn—though whether it was for that case or something else is unclear. By the 1870s, though, Ben was already a successful farmer. He had purchased land in 1866, and both the 1870 and 1880 U.S. Census agricultural schedules confirm his prosperity. This makes me suspect the case involved a minor dispute, perhaps a business deal gone wrong.

Ben was a survivor—both literally and figuratively. During his time in the notorious Andersonville prison camp, he had worked in the hospital, getting extra rations there until caught by the Raiders, and conducted shrewd deals with locals who couldn’t distinguish between worthless “old issue” Confederate money and the still-valid “new issue.” His resourcefulness, risk-taking, and business instincts no doubt served him well as a prairie farmer—but may have also landed him in conflict from time to time.

The pension dispute offers even more insight—and perhaps a glimpse into postwar Barton County, Missouri, where recently arrived “Yankee” settlers mixed uneasily with older residents whose sympathies leaned southern. Missouri had been a border slave state and a guerrilla battleground during the Civil War, with escalating violence between Union troops and Confederate bushwhackers.

From 1862, Congress provided pensions for Union veterans disabled during service. At age 37, Ben applied, providing testimony from himself, a physician, and several acquaintances. But in the file was a remarkable letter from Barton County neighbors declaring that granting him a pension “would be a fraud & swindle upon the Government and an outrage upon the feelings of every patriotic citizen and true lover of justice and right throughout this community.” Harsh words! They claimed he was well-to-do and appeared to have no disability.

Indeed, in 1880 his farm was valued at $5,000—far above the U.S. median of $600—and he was listed in the 1889 History of Barton County. Perhaps they had a point. Many successful farmers of that era claimed ailments like rheumatism or poor eyesight, and Ben’s claim of scurvy-related disability fit that pattern. Still, sworn testimony and a physical exam were required, and frontier farmers were known for working through pain.

Then I looked closer at the signatories:

J. C. Leonard, J. A. Eddlemon, T. B. Yount, Henry M. Mayfield, G. H. Dixson, J. H. Conrad, H. P. Schmalhorst, J. W. Schmalhorst, J. B. Geer, S. D. Reed, George Reed, D. H. Pierson, John J. Dixson, A. M. Comfort, G. W. Conrad, Lewis Stone, J. B. Eddlemon, Wm. Jones.

Some names were familiar—and in fact, many were in my own family tree. The Younts, originally from North Carolina, had roots in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and had intermarried with the Mayfields, who came from Virginia. The Justice of the Peace, J. C. Krimminger, was from a family long associated with the Younts. The Reeds had Virginia roots before moving to Ohio, and according to family lore, S. D. Reed had gone into hiding to avoid Union Army service. Several others had parents or grandparents from Kentucky, North Carolina, or Virginia, while others hailed from Union states like Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois—but as we know, Union loyalty varied depending on local settlement history.

Old wartime animosities may have still been smoldering. Ben was a proud Republican, outspoken about his service. Perhaps his pension application struck some as self-serving, or as an attempt to profit while their own families had suffered in different ways.

In the end, his 1882 application was denied. He eventually received a pension in 1890, when eligibility expanded to all veterans. But whether the wounds healed is another matter—though the families certainly intertwined over time. Ben’s granddaughter, Ruby Fast, married Stephen A. Reed, grandson of S. D. Reed. Their daughter married the grandson of Henry Yount, brother of T. B. Yount, and one-time farmhand for J. H. Conrad. These were my parents.

The opening of the prairie drew settlers from all over—bringing with them their cultures, grudges, and histories. Some conflicts played out in courtrooms or in letters to authorities. Others, eventually, were resolved at weddings and family dinner tables.