Weekly Rewind

Carnivals and Roundups

The First Edition of  the Carnival of Genealogical Societies - Doin' Things Right has been posted by Kathryn Doyle at California Genealogical Society and Library. A very nice first edition! The topic for the next edition is Collaboration.

As usual, Randy Seaver had a great list of the Best of the Genea-Blogs at Genea-Musings including several items I had missed.

John Newmark's Weekly Genealogy Picks at TransylvanianDutch highlighted several posts that I never would have seen otherwise.

At The Ancestry Insider you'll find the latest edition of Insider Ketchup for 12 March 2010.

Weekly Reading

It seems like everyone wrote about Who Do You Think You Are? last week. Some were critical but for the most part the show seemed to be well received. I enjoyed the show and had an OMG moment at the end when she brushed the show off of Mary Easty's memorial. My favorite review of the show was written by Lisa Louise Cooke of Genealogy Gems News.

At Kimberly's Genealogy Blog, Kimberly Powell was able to track down some of the documents mentioned in the episode and you'll never guess where she found them! Small Nuggets - The Death of Gold Prospector John S. Hodge.

JamaGenie also wrote about WDYTYA at Saturdays Child and followed up with an interesting theory of why the Salem witch accusations started and ended.

T.K. shares A Few Thoughts on Standards at Before My Time and has created a poll to see what you think.

Lisa's, On babies and transatlantic crossings, at 100 Years in America was originally posted in 2008 and I thoroughly enjoyed rereading it!

I'm certain that Donna Pointkouski and I do not have the same mother but we do do have very similar memories! Check out The Address Book at What's Past is Prologue.

At The Family Curator, Denise Levenick brought back many memories for me with On My Honor, We Were Girl Scouts  When Scouting Wasn't Cool.

I have a couple of cabinet makers in my tree so I found footnoteMaven's March History Hare article, "Cabinet Maker - Undertaker" at the Graveyard Rabbit Online Journal very interesting.

I'm still waiting to see grass in my yard but Tipper is already Planting By The Signs For March 2010 at Blind Pig & The Acorn.

At Gen Journey, T Pratt is sharing a collection of letters and the history behind them.

Cat shared the story of her grandmother, Women's History Month - Just Like Me at Diggin up Dirt.

Joan Hill shared My Religious Melting Pot at Roots'n'Leaves. "The path at times frightening, torturous, and funny, but now tantalizingly simple --- sometimes punctuated with a chant and a shuffle."

At Crooked Lake Review, Dick Palmer shared an old newspaper article, Good Season on The Canal - 1906. The mention of families living on their boats was very interesting to me.

Facebook Finds

Hat tip to Cindi Howells of Cindi's list for pointing me to ProGenealogists article, Sarah Jessica Parker on "Who Do You Think You Are? Natalie Cottrill offers some insight about the research process that went into making the first episode of WDYTYA and then focuses on one document. I could not find a feed for ProGenealogists but they do have a fan page on Facebook.

Skip, who is an administrator at Unclaimed Persons, shared a link to a song by an old friend of hers, Wayne Renn, called Maple Street. Not only did I enjoy the music and lyrics but the pictures used for the video were very moving.

Via Megan Smolenyak's Fan Page I found a link to Oprah's pages for WDYTYA. From what I read about Emmitt Smith's episode I think it will be a good one.

Tech Corner

Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings: First Look at New FootNote Viewer

Thomas MacEntee at GeneaBloggers: QR Codes and Genealogy Part 1; Part 2: Resources for Linking

The Blogger Template Designer at Blogger in Draft


Denise at Family Matters: WeRelate Tip: Use Your Profile to Bookmark Your Pages




My Week

I have struggled with my COG submission and I don't know why. With the deadline looming I have anxiously been checking to see how many submissions have been made. My series on Sarah Ann will conclude tomorrow, just in time to meet the deadline - I just have to finish writing it! I've known for months that what the topic for this edition would be and who I'd write about and for the life of me I don't know why I put it off or why I'm finding it hard to write.

I spent a couple of hours poking around my Turner line without really accomplishing much.

Not a great week genealogy wise!

Sarah Ann Wisner Camfield - Marriage, Children and Migration

Marriage, Children and Migration


Family lore is that Sarah Ann met her future husband, Michael Camfield, on the banks of the Erie Canal. In 1995 my cousin, Cecil Camfield, wrote a brief history of the Camfield family which included this:

The next I know Mike is driving horses on the Tow Boats on the Erie Canal. Sarah Wisner liked to sit on the Canal bank, where it ran through her father's farm, and met Mike, two years her junior. Can you imagine the furor in the Wisner family when Sarah announced she was marrying that Mike Camfield (his Master had Anglicized his name) who couldn't speak passable English. I don't know when they married, but when Fred (my father, Mike and Sarah's grandson) lived with them, 1887 - 1896, he learned a lot of German because Mike's English was so broken.

Based on the land records that I've found I'm not certain that this is entirely true. In the early 1830's land was sold and other acreage bought but in 1841 her father bought a large parcel of land in Clay, and the family moved there. The Erie Canal did not run through this parcel but it is possible that a feeder canal did. But no matter, I'm certain that there is some truth to the story and obviously Sarah Ann and Mike did meet as they were married on Christmas Eve, 1846.

What was there about Mike that captured Sarah Ann's heart? On the surface it appears that they had very little in common. She was literate, Mike was not. She came from a family of means, Mike had spent seven years as an indentured servant. When she married she was 29 years old. Was she worried about becoming an old maid? How I wish she had retold the story of their courtship in one of her letters!

I don't know if Mike continued to work on the canal after they married or if he switched to farming at that time. I don't know if they lived with Sarah Ann's family or if they set up housekeeping on their own. I do know that their first child, Joseph Harrison Camfield, was born 25 November 1847.

Family legend is that in 1849, William Wisner packed up his family and traveled by wagon to Lake County, Illinois. His son Anthony remained behind and was living (presumably) on the Wisner property in Clay, where he is found on the 1850 census. Sarah Ann and Michael remained behind also, and on the 1850 census are found in Salina, farming land that they did not own.

On 5 Aug 1853 a baby girl was born but the names of her parents remain a mystery. Our oral history is that a man brought the infant to Sarah Ann and Mike and asked them to look after her for which they were originally paid. At some point the payments stopped but the child was loved and Sarah and Mike raised her as their own. Nothing was ever said about her mother nor is it clear if the man was her father. I do not know if the name Sarah Ann was given to her at birth or by her adoptive parents but she was called Annie or Anna. Joseph and Anna were the only known children of Sarah Ann and Mike and in a time when large families were the norm I've often wondered why there were not more.

I loose track of the family for about 15 years; I've yet to find them on the 1860 census. Based on letters between Anna and her cousins, I believe that Sarah Ann and Mike moved their family to Avon, Lake County, Illinois by about 1865. Cecil Camfield's history places the family "near Waukegan" and further says that Mike worked in Chicago. My mother told me a wild story regarding Anna's birth that had her born in Chicago. While I've proven my mother's story wrong it is possible that the reference to Anna being born in Chicago is true and that they were in Lake County much earlier than I can find evidence of. I have found no record that Mike served during the Civil War but Sarah Ann's brother did go to war and died of disease 17 April 1865.

By 1870 they had again moved, this time to Buchanan, Berrien, Michigan. What took them to Buchanan? Another mystery that I do not know how to unlock. For reasons unknown they packed up and moved again about 1875 to Burr Oak, St. Joseph, Michigan. I believe they were either renting a farm or sharecropping. The farm they were living on was sold and on 21 March 1877 Sarah Ann wrote to Anna that they had to move. Not only did they loose their home but also the wheat that they had planted. They found another place in Burr Oak and their son, Joseph, his wife and two children lived with them briefly.

They did not stay in this home for very long either. By January 1880 they had rented a farm house in Noble, Branch, Michigan that was owned by Henry Bogardus, who Sarah Ann would have known from her early days in Manlius.

So while I know more or less where Sarah Ann was living while she was raising her children I know very little about what life was like in the family. Anna went to school and eventually became a teacher for a short time. Joseph however could barely write. I have to infer from the number of moves and the fact that they seemed to be sharecropping that life was difficult. Even difficult lives can be happy and I believe that Sarah Ann was happiest when she lived near family or friends so at least for some of these years I choose to believe that Sarah Ann knew some happiness.


This is the third in a series written for the 91st edition of the
Carnival of Genealogy: A Tribute to Women!



Sarah Ann Wisner Camfield Timeline
Sarah Ann Wisner, The Early Years
Sarah Ann Wisner Camfield, Marriage, Children and Migration
Sarah Ann Camfield, The Final Years

Also see:

Family of William Wisner
Badgley and Wisner Deed Abstracts, Onondaga, NY
Henry Bogardus, Shirt Tail Cousin

Thanks for the poster fM!

Sarah Ann Wisner, The Early Years

The Early Years

The first record I've found for William Wisner is a record of a land purchase in 1812. At that time he was 29 years old and paid $1662 for just over 268 acres in lot 42, Manlius, Onondaga, NY. While not wealthy, the sum paid indicates that William was doing well financially. It is unclear whether he already knew Elizabeth Badgley when he settled in Onondaga County or if they met there. Nor do I know when or where they married. But they settled on his land and began clearing it and shaping it into a farm. Their first child, Prentice, was born there in 1815. This is how we find the family on 9 October 1817 when Sarah Ann was born.

 

Sarah Ann was born the same year that work was begun on the Erie Canal and if you look closely at the map above you will see where the canal ran through the middle of the map. The family home would have been just north of the canal in the box with the M. With the canal came prosperity for the region.

Other than her birth date and where she lived I have no other hard and fast facts for Sarah Ann. I have no idea what type of home the family lived in. Was it constructed of logs, lumber or stone? Was it a single story or two? The winters in Onondaga County are long and cold so there might have been a fireplace or perhaps just a wood stove. The kitchen would have been where the family gathered. Sarah may have had a mattress stuffed with hay and placed of the floor or perhaps she had a slightly more comfortable rope bed.

There must have been some time for play while Sarah Ann was growing up but during the period when she was born life would have consisted of lots of work. As the oldest daughter she must have learned to help her mother at a very early age. While her father and uncle worked on improving and farming the land, her mother would have been responsible for the household including the care of the children (there were seven more after Sarah Ann, one about every second year), all of the cooking which would have been done on a wood stove, housework, sewing, washing and surely there was a large kitchen garden to tend. Most likely there were chickens and a cow or two to care for too.

Sarah Ann would have known her maternal kin. In 1820 her Uncle Egbert Badgley is listed just after her father. It is possible they were living in the same house. Her grandparents, Anthony and Mary Badgley, lived a short distance away in what was then Orville but today known as Dewitt however Mary died just before Sarah Ann turned three. Other aunts, uncles and cousins also lived nearby. I have so far not discovered which of the four available churches the family attended but religion would always play an important role in her life.

There was a school nearby and since Sarah Ann could read, write and do math I assume that she attended school during the winters, at least for a few years but it is possible that she was educated at home.

I have many more questions than answers about Sarah Ann's youth. The family did sell the land in lot 42 and by 1831 were said to be of the town of Salina just a little to the west. I do not know exactly where the family was living but my cousin, Cecil Camfield, wrote in a short history of the family that their farm was on the banks of the canal. You can still make out the path of the old canal in some of the roads today and my mother and I often detour down Towpath Road on those rare occasions when we visit the old Orville Cemetery.

Why have I mentioned the Erie Canal so many times? Sarah Ann's story continues tomorrow.

This is the second in a series written for the 91st edition of the
Carnival of Genealogy: A Tribute to Women!



Sarah Ann Wisner Camfield Timeline
Sarah Ann Wisner, The Early Years
Sarah Ann Wisner Camfield, Marriage, Children and Migration
Sarah Ann Camfield, The Final Years

Also see:

Family of William Wisner
Badgley and Wisner Deed Abstracts, Onondaga, NY
Henry Bogardus, Shirt Tail Cousin

Thanks for the poster fM!


Sources:
David Rumsey Collection: Map of the County of Onondaga. By David H. Burr. Published by the Surveyor General, pursuant to an Act of the Legislature. Entered according to an Act of Congress Jany. 5th. 1829 by David H. Burr of the State of New York. Engd. by Rawdon, Clark & Co., Albany & Rawdon, Wright & Co., New York. - Images copyright © 2000 by Cartography Associates. Images may be reproduced or transmitted, but not for commercial use. For commercial use or commercial republication, contact mailto:carto@luna-img.com This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. By downloading any images from this site, you agree to the terms of that license.


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