Category: Slatten

Census Sunday: Or, What in the Heck Does Megan Do All Day?

Posted on by spuddled

I’m just finishing up a week at the Outer Banks, which means I’m feeling lazy, so this week’s Census Sunday blog post will follow that old dictum, “Write what you know.” And what do I know? I know how to spend lots and lots of time “doing genealogy.” But what exactly does that mean? I wish it meant that I made a new and thrilling genealogical discovery (i.e., found a brand new ancestor) every day, or even broke through a brick wall every few weeks (or months). William Montgomery, I’m still looking at you. Instead, what it usually means in my case is working on my never-ending “Census Project.”

And what, pray tell, is the “Census Project”? In basic terms, it means selecting (somewhat arbitrarily) one branch of the family tree and tracing all the descendants of that line from 1850 to the present day, or some approximation thereof. I’m currently working my way through the Sweeney line, and have been for…well, I don’t even know how long. Why 1850, you might ask? The 1850 census was the first to list every individual by name, so it’s much easier to be sure you’re looking at the right family than if, say, you are faced with 38 men named William Montgomery in 1840, and the only identifying feature for each family other than location is how many individuals in the household fell into each age range.

So how is the Sweeney Census Project going after all this time? Well, if you want a hobby that will last the rest of your lifetime, this could be it. I’m working my way through the descendants of Moses and Elizabeth (Johnson) Sweeney, and so far I’m on their second child (of 14). Mary Sweeney was born in 1760 and married Tyre Slatten, and I’ve made my way to their 7th child of 8, James Anderson Slatten, and to his 5th child (of 14 – again with 14), another Tyre Slatten. This Tyre and his wife, Julia Anne Coy, moved from Kentucky to Missouri. They only had 7 children, and I’m to their second, a son named James Lyon Slatten. He and his wife Rosetta (or Rozettie) Bartlett also had 7 children. Their eldest, Elizabeth or Lizzie, married Alva Burton Guymon, and they had four children: Victor Floyd, Deloris, Roscoe, and Bedonna. Bedonna definitely goes on Megan’s List of Unusual Familial Names.

But then what does Megan do? Well, Megan goes onto Ancestry.com mostly, and looks up the family of interest. She finds them in the appropriate census record(s) and adds that location as a census “fact” in RootsMagic (Megan’s genealogy software of choice). Then, because she is a weirdo, Megan transcribes the details of the census entry into RootsMagic, then uses those details to add other facts (birthdates and locations, marriages, occupations, newly-discovered children, etc.) to the RootsMagic database, always citing her sources, because Megan has learned that lesson. Then Ancestry helpfully suggests other possibly-related records which are also examined and added as sources if they are really for the correct family. Often they are, but sometimes not even close.

Okay, I’m done talking in the third person now. I make an effort to find each individual in every 1850-1950 census during which they would have been enumerated. If I can’t find someone where they should be, I’ll just add a to-do task to their record, with the optimistic thought that someday I’ll come back and find all those missing documents. But since most of these are cousins of some stripe rather than more direct ancestors, I’m okay with moving on to the next victim, er, family. It’s the direct family members who can’t be found who are the most frustrating. Because where did they go?? Anyway…

Here’s one of the many census records I transcribed this week, the 1900 census record for Tyre and Julia Slatten’s family in Sulphur Springs, Arkansas. I do love those precise birth months/years in the 1900 census, rather than the ages in other censuses. Also the number of years married, and the number of surviving children out of how many children born detail. Tyre and Julia were in Bethany, Harrison County, Missouri, from 1860-1880, then Sulphur Springs from 1900-1910, though both Tyre and Julia were buried in Bethany upon their deaths in 1913 and 1919 respectively.1

So that’s what I’m usually working on, genealogically speaking. Though I will go on occasional side quests, like tracing all of one particular family’s memorials on the Find-a-Grave website, or randomly deciding to research someone else’s family tree on a whim. And sometimes there are side quests to the side quests, like reorganizing my library and updating my book-tracking software with purchase price and location, cover price, and reading dates for all 5679 books. And sometimes I spend time at the Outer Banks.

  1. Year: 1900; Census Place: Sulphur Springs, Benton, Arkansas; Roll: 51; Page: 8; Enumeration District: 0020 ↩︎

Z Is for…Zurilda

Posted on by spuddled

We’ve made it! It’s the last Sunday of the year, and the end of the second jaunt through the alphabet in 2025. I have an entirely new (sort of) hodgepodge theme for 2026, which I’ll describe at the end of this post. But first, Zurilda.

Zurilda (or Zarilda) Slatten, my third cousin 4 times removed, was born about 1846 in Clinton, Illinois. Her parents were John and Nancy (Adams) Slatten, and her great-great-grandfather was Moses Sweeney, my 6G-grandfather. She was the sixth of 8 children born to John and Nancy and was not the only one with an unusual name. The 1850 census in Clinton enumerates the family as John, 42 and a merchant; Nancy, 30; Andrew, 17 and a student in college; Rebecca, 13; Statirah, 9; Margaret, 8; Xantippe, 6; Zarilda, 4; Benjamine, 1; and a 33-year-old farmer named John Bowen.1 Helen Jane Slatten, born between Zarilda and Benjamin, lived only a year.2

By 1860 the family was in Des Moines, Iowa, and John was working as a hotel keeper.3 There is some confusion over Zarilda’s marriages. The source Moses Sweeney Descendants,4 a CD containing a wealth of information on this family line, indicates that in 1860 Zarilda, aged only about 14, married J. Anderson, who was about 26. I haven’t found any other information to corroborate this marriage date as yet. I do see a marriage record for “Zurilda Statten” and Newton R. Luther from 6 January 1863 in Polk Co., Iowa,5 but by 1867 he had married Mary E. Roe,6 and in the 1870 census enumeration, Zurilda and J. Anderson were married and living with her parents.7 Could she have in fact married Newton first and then Anderson?

Though I’m not sure where they were in 1870, it appears that Zurilda and Newton Luther had had three children: Annette M., born 1863-1864; Alice B., born 1866-1867; and George M., born 1870-1871. These three are listed as stepchildren of “Zuwilda’s” third husband in 1880, James Condon. The family was living that year in Lee Township, Madison County, Iowa. James was 59 and a farmer born in Ireland; “Zuwilda” was 32, and along with the three Luther children was a daughter born to James and Zurilda, Lorina Condon, 3.8

It appears that James and Zurilda had another daughter, Grace, about 1884, because the 1910 census in Hutchinson, Kansas, enumerates Zurilda, 56 (listed as a widow) with daughter Grace, 26, a private music teacher. Confusingly, a Francis Anderson, fireman is also living with them. He is listed as Zurilda’s son, aged 17. We have not heard from J. Anderson since 1870, so where did Francis come from?9 That’s a rhetorical question; I don’t know the answer. I also can’t find Zurilda in the 1900 census.

Later in 1910 we get a snippet concerning Zurilda and Grace in the Hutchinson [Kansas] News. On 27 August of that year, the newspaper reports that Zurilda and Grace were entertained at a dinner at the home of Mrs. D. W. C. Roberts, and that Zurilda and Grace then left for Galveston, Texas.10

Four years later, Zurilda appears again, but this time what we find is her obituary. It appears in The Norfolk [Nebraska] Weekly News-Journal of 12 June 1914 and notes that she died at the state hospital and was buried at Prospect Hill Cemetery. The obituary doesn’t provide much in the way of history but does state that “two daughters and other relatives” were present at the funeral.11 A notice in the Chadron [Nebraska] Record from August of that year clarifies to some extent why Zurilda’s death took place in the state hospital; a listing from 21 August notes fees due to various individuals for services rendered to the county; among these are fees due to Dr. E. L. Vernon, A. W. Crites, and Anna Dargan, for the Insanity case of Zurilda Condon.12

For those who have made it this far and are dying to know what next year’s theme will be, I’ll tell you! I’ve enjoyed making use of many themes over the years, so for 2026 am going to glom onto a bunch of them. Instead of making two passes through the alphabet like I did in 2025, I’m going to make four passes through the following 13 theme ideas:

  1. Alphabetical Ancestor (first name, last name, nickname, who knows?!)
  2. Newspaper Articles of Interest
  3. Document in Detail: I’ll transcribe or review some interesting family history document
  4. Highlight a Photo from My Collection
  5. Black Sheep Sunday: how many ne’er-do-wells can we find?
  6. Morbid Curiosity: mine never diminishes
  7. Highlight an Heirloom
  8. On This Day (resurrecting the 2024 theme four times in 2026)
  9. Census Sunday
  10. Ahnentafel Number: using whichever number week it is to focus on the individual with that number in my ahnentafel. If you don’t know what an ahnentafel is, I’ll explain it to you on March 8.
  11. Sympathy Sunday: time to get out the Kleenex
  12. Church Record Sunday
  13. Sibling Sunday: focusing on the sibling of one of my direct ancestors

I hope you’ll stay with me in 2026 to see what new stories we can uncover. Happy New Year!

  1. 1850 Census. n.p: www.ancestry.com, n.d. ↩︎
  2. Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18519433/helen_jane-slatten: accessed December 27, 2025), memorial page for Helen Jane Slatten (9 Jul 1849–19 Sep 1850), Find a Grave Memorial ID 18519433, citing Rock Creek Cemetery, Waynesville, DeWitt County, Illinois, USA; Maintained by Jim McNeely (contributor 49350654). ↩︎
  3. The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Des Moines, Polk, Iowa; Roll: M653_338; Page: 140; Family History Library Film: 803338 ↩︎
  4. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Moses_Sweeney_1734_1813_Descendants/awqdnQEACAAJ?hl=en ↩︎
  5. Ancestry.com. Iowa, U.S., Select Marriages Index, 1758-1996 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. ↩︎
  6. Ancestry.com. Iowa, U.S., Select Marriages Index, 1758-1996 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. ↩︎
  7. Year: 1870; Census Place: Des Moines Ward 7, Polk, Iowa; Roll: M593_415; Page: 284A ↩︎
  8. Year: 1880; Census Place: Lee, Madison, Iowa; Roll: 353; Page: 37b; Enumeration District: 109 ↩︎
  9. Year: 1910; Census Place: Hutchinson Ward 2, Reno, Kansas; Roll: T624_453; Page: 14a; Enumeration District: 0163; FHL microfilm: 1374466 ↩︎
  10. Hutchinson News; Hutchinson, Kansas; Saturday, August 27, 1910 ↩︎
  11. The Norfolk [Nebraska] Weekly News-Journal, 12 June 1914, pg. 7 ↩︎
  12. Chadron [Nebraska] Record; Chadron, Nebraska; 21 August 1914, pg. 6 ↩︎

J Is for…Justice of the Peace

Posted on by spuddled

Today we are examining one of the more familiar occupational titles, that of Justice of the Peace. I tend to think of this title in terms of 19th century weddings (surely you remember that episode of Little House on the Prairie where Nellie Oleson was married and un-married all in the same night), but as we shall see, Justices of the Peace have a much longer history than that.

I was able to locate a number of relatives in our family tree who held this position. We’ll take a look at four of them. Andrew J. Slatten, my third cousin four times removed, was born sometime between 1831-1833 in Illinois. He was the son of John and Nancy (Adams) Slatten and a descendant of our Sweeney line. In 1850 he was 17 years old and living with his parents and six younger siblings (Rebecca, Statirah, Margaret, Xantippe, Zarilda, and Benjamin) in Clinton, Illinois. Andrew was then a college student, and his father was a merchant. On 4 November 1858 Andrew married Clarinda S. Bassett in Warren County, Iowa. By 1860 Andrew and Clarinda had moved to Des Moines. He was then 38 years old, and Clarinda was 16. The census lists Andrew’s occupation as Attorney at Law. Clarinda and Andrew had two children: Douglas A., born between 1860-1861; and Shastebutte, born between 1862-1863. On 4 May 1861 Andrew enlisted in the 2nd Iowa Regiment. Less than a year later he was wounded in the right leg and left temple at Fort Donelson, and he died of his wounds on 18 April 1862 in St. Louis. Centennial History of Polk County, Iowa, by J. M. Dixon, has an account of his military service and death, and it is here that we learn that Andrew was “at one time Justice of the Peace in Lee Township.”1 We also learn that he was an “eccentric young lawyer,” for what that’s worth.

Amos Bee, my first cousin 5 times removed, was older than Andrew Slatten but outlived him by more than 40 years. Born 28 February 1828 in Harrison County in what would become West Virginia, he was part of our Seventh Day Baptist contingent of relatives, and his mother was one of the long line of SDB Davises. In 1850 he was still living at home with his parents Ephraim and Catharine and numerous siblings. He was then working as a tanner. On 20 March 1856 in West Union, (West) Virginia, Amos married Melissa Welch. Between 1860 and 1880 Amos and Melissa were enumerated in West Union along with their growing family. Amos was listed in 1860 and 1870 as a farmer, and in 1880 as a tanner once again. Their children were Genevra, Amos Alonzo, Anna B., James A., Clara Virginia, Ephraim E., Kate, and Mary. In 1900, still in West Union but now living with just his wife and daughters Clara and Mary, Amos’s occupation was listed as Justice of the Peace. Amos would die four years later and is buried in West Union’s Blockhouse Cemetery. He shares a headstone with his wife and sons James and Ephraim that I photographed there in 2010.

Robert C. Childers, second cousin five times removed, was also a Sweeney descendant. He was born 21 November 1815 in Grant County, Kentucky and was the son of Thomas Goolsberry and Mary Elizabeth (Thomas) Childers. By 1836 he had moved to Falls County, Texas, and in 1840 in Milam County, Texas, he married Sarah Adeline Moore. In 1850 Robert and “Adaline” were enumerated in Milam County, and Robert is listed as a hotel keeper, but according to Moses Sweeney Descendants, by J. Harvey Sweeney, Jr., in August 1850 Robert was Justice of the Peace in Bell County.2 From 1860 to 1880, the family is in Bell County, Texas, and Robert is engaged in farming. According to the obituary of Robert and Adeline’s son Joe, Robert’s farm was the first to operate in Bell County.3 Robert died on 20 June 1895 in Temple, Texas, and is buried in Temple’s Hillcrest Cemetery. The Childers family has one of the more amazing gravestones I’ve seen (though I’ve only seen this one virtually).

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/16024935/robert-childers: accessed August 23, 2025), memorial page for Robert “Bob” Childers (21 Nov 1815–20 Jun 1895), Find a Grave Memorial ID 16024935, citing Hillcrest Cemetery, Temple, Bell County, Texas, USA; Maintained by Imagraver (contributor 47349450).

For our final Justice of the Peace, we have to jump back in time by a couple of centuries. Joseph Clarke, my 11th-great-grandfather, was born 9 December 1618 in Westhorpe, Suffolk, England, which Mom and I visited in 2014. By 21 February 1639, he had immigrated to America, as on that date he was admitted as an inhabitant of Portsmouth, Rhode Island.4 He became a member of the First Baptist Church in Newport in 1644, married a woman named Margaret,5 and then on 22 March 1661 was one of the group of individuals who purchased Westerly, Rhode Island.6 In 1667 he is listed as being a Justice of the Peace.7 From 1668-1672 he was a deputy in Westerly, and then in February 1680 he moved to Newport. He died there on 1 June 1694.8

I still think my favorite Justice of the Peace story, however, is one told by Grandma Hoffmann. She relayed to me the story of a Justice of the Peace in Peoria, Illinois. Every time she would cross the bridge into Peoria, she would see the sign for his office: “Herman J. Bridegroom, Justice of the Peace.” For years Grandma had seen his sign and thought how neat it would be to be married by someone named Bridegroom. As Grandma said next, “And I was!” She believed many people must have felt the same way she did, as next to his office was a neat little parlor, fixed up with carpet and soft lighting. Herman J. Bridegroom’s fitting name even landed him in a humorous cartoon, as well as articles about his own wedding in 1947. Though apparently he wasn’t sold on the idea of a wedding by a Justice of the Peace himself. Was he thinking ahead about Little House on the Prairie?

The Orangeville [Illinois] Courier, 8 August 1941, p. 8
Journal Gazette and Times-Courier [Mattoon, Illinois], 14 June 1947, p. 4
  1. Ancestry.com. Centennial history of Polk County, Iowa [database on-line]. Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.Original data: Dixon, J. M.. Centennial history of Polk County, Iowa. Des Moines: State Register, print., 1876. ↩︎
  2. J. Harvey Sweeney, Jr. Moses Sweeney Descendants. n.p: 2006, n.d. ↩︎
  3. The Waco [Texas] News-Tribune, 8 October 1940, pg. 1 ↩︎
  4. Cyrus Clarke Van Deventer, Henry Clarke–Catherine Pendleton: Ancestry & Descendants (n.p: 1902, n.d). ↩︎
  5. Earl P. Crandall, Crandall Web Pages. ↩︎
  6. Cyrus Clarke Van Deventer, Henry Clarke–Catherine Pendleton: Ancestry & Descendants (n.p: 1902, n.d). ↩︎
  7. Ibid. ↩︎
  8. Ibid. ↩︎

M Is for…Military

M Is for…Military

Posted on by spuddled

For today’s post, I had grandiose ideas of making a simple list of all the relatives in my database with military activity. Then I realized even just providing a complete list of names would result in an outrageously long post. So instead, here is just a sampling of what I found.

Thomas William Davis, my 7th great-grandfather: born 15 May 1719 in Westerly, Rhode Island, he served as a captain in the 3rd Regiment, Monmouth County (New Jersey) Militia in 1777 and also from 1780-1781. He later moved to Monongalia County in what would become West Virginia, where he died in 1791.

Thomas Goolsberry Childers, my 1st cousin 6 times removed: this Thomas was born 31 January 1790 in Lincoln County, Kentucky. Records I found make him sound like an early-day Forrest Gump, so I should probably do some more research to verify claims that he: took part in the Battle of Tippecanoe, then was captured by the British during the War of 1812 and held prisoner for two years, then in 1832 fought in the Black Hawk War before moving to Texas and taking part in the Battle of San Jacinto with Sam Houston. Thomas died in Coryell County, Texas in about 1851.

Andrew J. Slatten was my third cousin four times removed: he was born somewhere around 1831-1833 in Illinois. In 1860 he was living in Des Moines, Iowa, and was occupied as a lawyer. Shortly after the Civil War broke out, he enlisted in Company D, 2nd Reg. Iowa Volunteers, Infantry. Less than a year later he was wounded at the Battle of Fort Donelson in Nashville in February 1862. Two months later he died in Saint Louis as a result of the leg and temple wounds he had received. He is buried in Des Moines’s Woodlawn Cemetery.

Find a Grave Memorial ID 38394272

Ozro C. Taylor, third great-granduncle: born 21 January 1847 in New York State, he enlisted 29 August 1864 in the 1st Regiment of the New York Light Artillery in Malone, New York. He enlisted as a substitute for a Seymour Gibbons; he was later mustered out at Elmira. He later moved to West Union, Iowa, where he was occupied in the livery business. He died 8 December 1890 “after ailing all fall.”

Ozro Taylor’s gravestone, West Union Cemetery

While most of the relatives I found were men, not all of them were. Mary Alice Evans, third cousin four times removed: born 18 February 1889 in Nortonville, Kansas, she served in the Army Nurse Corps between 16 February 1918 and 28 July 1919. She had been a nurse before the war and would continue her occupation after her military role ended. She died in 1948 in San Joaquin County, California, and is buried in the Stockton Rural Cemetery.

And last but not least from this random selection we have Ernest E. Bauer, half first cousin twice removed: born 14 January in either 1894 or 1895 in Gridley, Illinois, he left from Watseka, Illinois on 21 June 1918 to serve for six months during World War I. After his return he married Mary Yergler in Cissna Park, Illinois, in February 1920, and he died there in October 1966.