What I've Been Up To Since Mid-December ...

As you've probably noticed, I haven't posted much recently, although I've wanted to do so. (At the time of this writing, I have about 13 backlogged articles that I am trying to finish and post.) Of course, I haven't had much time because I'm a grad student.

One of the articles I wanted to post was a summary of the genealogy research that I did over Christmas break. Well, it wasn't very much, but while I was doing research for my thesis at the Library of Michigan and State Archives of Michigan, I was able to do a few quick look-ups on a couple of branches. At the Archives, I discovered that my Klippel ancestor had filed a Declaration of Intent (I'll write about this later.), and in the Library, I found the burial records for a few Saint Joseph county ancestors and relatives. Unfortunately, I did not copy the burial records down as a result of being too tired from doing research for my thesis earlier in the day. Since I know where to find the burial information, I'll make sure to copy the information on my next visit to the Library of Michigan.

So, as you can see, I did not do very much genealogical research on my time off from school. Most of the time I did research for my thesis, or read the textbooks for my upcoming classes, and since I've returned back to school, I am still researching and reading for my classes. I do not know how many posts I will be able to publish in the upcoming months because of my school work, but I do hope to post whenever I can. So, there maybe periods of time when this blog is quiet, but it will be due to being busy with school work rather than neglect. Stay tuned for future articles ...

Madness Monday - Irene Havens, Part 6

As you may remember from my previous post, I ended the article before I revealed the information I learned about Clarissa's marriages from Jim just before Christmas.


So, what did Jim uncover for me? Well, he uncovered the dates of Clarissa's marriages to Archibald Mandigo and Darwin Havens and who the official was at the weddings. For Clarissa's first marriage, which was to Darwin Havens, a Rochester city alderman was the official at the wedding, and thus, if I want to uncover any further information on the wedding, I'll have to look and see if there were any civil records created by the city for that marriage. (Does anyone know where I can find marriage records from the late-1840s for Rochester or Monroe County?) As for Clarissa's second marriage, Jim uncovered the name of the pastor and the church where the marriage occurred. So, now that I have a possible religious belief for Clarissa, I'll have to order the records from the church and see if I can find more information on my Havens ancestors.

Now that I have a more solid connection between the Havens and Mandigos through Clarissa, I need to do more research in Saint Joseph County, Michigan to see if I can uncover more information on my ancestor and Clarissa. I'll have to find out when Clarissa died and if Archibald Mandigo left anything to Clarissa's step-children in a will or probate record.

Of course, I still have several questions that I need to answer about the Havens and Mandigo families, not only in Michigan but also in Rochester? Is this Darwin Havens my ancestor's father? At the moment, I do not know, but in my next post, I'll write about some other records that I took a second look at recently. Stay tuned ...

Madness Monday - More on Irene Havens, Part Five ...

I've noticed that several genea-bloggers are taking part in a meme started by Amy Crooks, and I thought I would participate in this meme.

For this edition of the Madness Monday, I've decided to focus on my mysterious ancestor, Irene Havens, and post another article in my series on her. In my previous post, I mentioned the discovery that I made about Rhoda's parents. What I did not add at the time of that post was that I had also some additional information the mysterious Clarissa Mandigo that I recently mentioned in another post.

After looking up Rhoda's death record, I only came to the conclusion that the 1850 Rochester, New York census that included a Clarissa, Rhoda and Hirena Havens was the correct census when another genealogists suggested that the Hirena might be my ancestor in response to my request for help in finding Irene Havens in the 1850 census. (Up to that point, I wasn't sure if that census was the correct one as I have found an 1860 census that included a Rhoda Havens family living in Clinton county, New York. That family, that I mentioned in a previous post, happened to be the wrong family, and it was only Rhoda (Havens) Lang's death registration that revealed how incorrect my assumption was.)

Once I came to the conclusion that my Havens ancestor lived in Rochester, New York before coming to Michigan, I decided to figure out why I could not find the right Rhoda Havens in the 1860 Census. (I could find Irene, but Irene was living with a different family.) This time, I decided to look in Saint Joseph county, Michigan for the Mandigo family, and I came across the household of Archibald Mandigo. Archibald's household included a Clarissa and Rhoda Mandigo, and I began to suspect that Rhoda was listed under the Mandigo name instead of her own name. I also suspected that Clarissa Havens had remarried after the 1850 census to Archibald Mandigo. At the same time, the same genealogist who helped me, pointed out a biography of a Robert Mandigo as a source I should look at, and after viewing the biography, I decided to look for Archibald Mandigo's family in the 1850 census to prove or disprove my speculations. I found Archibald Mandigo and his sons living in Webster, Monroe county, New York in the census, and noticed that a female was not present in the household. This suggested to me that Archibald was probably a widower at the time of the census, and that Archibald might have married Clarissa. To further solidify my suspicions, I decided to go through the Rochester City Directories for 1849 and 1851. In the 1849 city directory, I found a Clarissa Havens mentioned, and in the 1851 city directory, I found a Clarissa Mandigo listed. Again, I suspected that these Clarissas were the one and same person, but until the Rochester, New York newspaper indexes were put online, I did not have a way to confirm my suspicions.

After going through the newspaper indexes, I discovered that Archibald Mandigo did marry a Mrs. Clarissa Novens (I suspect that her surname was misspelled), and that a Darwin Havens had married a Miss Clarissa Howe a few years earlier. I also discovered that Archibald had married a woman previous in the 1830s, and I suspect this woman had died before the 1850 census. To confirm my hypothesis, I needed to find out what the newspaper announcements said, and I put a look-up request on the Monroe County, New York Rootsweb message board, and a few days later, I received an e-mail from an man named Jim, who offered to do the look-up for me.

Due to the fact that this post is getting quite long, I will, for next week's Monday Madness, continue with the research into Irene Havens, and I'll mention the information that Jim uncovered. Eventually, I do plan on posting the sources I have used in my research so far, and I'll try to include my sources at the end of the next part. Stay tuned ...

A Surname Meme: Some of the Surnames I Am Researching

I just happened to notice that Jasia listed the surnames she was researching, and I thought it would be a great idea to do the same thing. Of course, I'm not going to post all of the surnames I'm researching because I want to protect my family members' privacy as well. Thus, I am only going to be posting surnames that are a few generations away from my living relatives. So, here are some of the surnames I'm researching:

• Oswalt: Saint Joseph County, Michigan and Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania
• Detwiler: Saint Joseph County, Michigan and Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania
• Householder: Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania (specifically interested in information on a Barbara whose father's name might be John.)
• Stout: Saint Joseph County, Michigan and Northampton County, Pennsylvania
• Havens: Saint Joseph County, Michigan and Monroe County, New York (tentative location)
• Kees: Cleveland, Ohio, Trippstadt, Germany and Gelnhausen, Germany
• Cotta: Trippstadt, Germany and Southwestern Germany (Stuttgart area, possibly?)

I thought I would just start with these surnames since I'm researching quite a few and since these surnames do not violate the privacy of any of my relatives. If you have a connection any of these surnames, please contact me at jess_history at yahoo dot com. Thanks!

And More On Irene Havens: Part Four

In my previous post on my Havens ancestor, I left off with the mistakes I made in trying to establish who were the parents of Irene and Rhoda Havens. For this post, I want to continue writing about my search for my ancestor's parents. (Although I stated I that I was going to list my sources at the end of this article, I am unsure if I will be able to finish with my analysis in this post due to the possible length. Therefore, I will post the sources at the end of my analysis post.)

Until I viewed Rhoda's death record, I did not know if I was right or wrong about who Gordon and Salinda. Well, during the summer of 2007, I finally was able to view Rhoda's death record when I visited the local Family History Center near my home. This Family History Center had microfilms of the first three books of Saint Joseph County's death records, and since I had checked Saint Joseph's online death index to confirm that Rhoda's death was recorded in Saint Joseph county, I was able to quickly look up her death. Instead of seeing Gordon and Salinda Havens listed as Rhoda's parents, I discovered that Rhoda's mother was listed as Clarissa Mandigo and the father was only listed with his surname, Havens. (As you can imagine, that was a shock for me.)

So, my next step was to do research on this Clarissa Mandigo, and find out more information on her. In the next post, I will continue my research on Rhoda and Irene Havens' connection to Clarissa Mandigo, and post on what I discovered. Stay tuned ...

More On Irene Havens ...

Earlier this month, I started to write about my mysterious ancestor, Irene Havens, but to be honest, I realize I left the post unfinished. I'm terribly sorry about that. Anyhow, I'll just start over again.


What I know about Irene primarily consists primarily of estimated birth year, a possible birth location, and her marriage to my ancestor, Peter Stout. As I mentioned before, I suspect she was born sometime between 1840 and 1843 in New York. (That information is based upon census records and her tombstone epitaph at the moment.) On one of my first research trips to Saint Joseph County, Michigan, I found the marriage record for Peter Stout and Irene Havens, and learned that they were married on the 1st of January in 1862. The marriage record suggested she was about 18 years old at the time, and unfortunately, the record in the county did not record the names of either bride or groom's parents. Prior to Irene's marriage, the only census I could find Irene in (at first) was the 1860 U. S. Census. In that census, she is living in the Household of Calvin Johnson in Florence Township, the same township where the Stout family resided, and her occupation is given as a servant. Calvin's birthplace was listed as New York, and I thought at that time that there might be family connection since Irene's birthplace is given as New York. Of course, when I tried to find a location in New York for Calvin Johnson and Irene Havens, I could not find a place where both could have lived nearby each other's family. I then quickly made the assumption that the chances were that Calvin and Irene were not related. So, for a little while after that, I was stuck and I put her line aside for a while.

Later on in that year, I visited St. Joseph County, Michigan again, to do more research. (I was planning to do research on all of my branches, not just on Irene.) In my previous visit, I had been unable to find a death record for Irene. Even though I did not have a death date for Irene, I knew she had died by 1877 since her husband remarried that year. (Of course, I should also state that I noticed that Peter had another wife by looking at the 1880 census, but at that time, it was only a guess.) I would not have a possible death date until towards the end of my visit when I visited Calhoun Cemetery in Florence township. I'll write more about my visit to Calhoun Cemetery in another post, but for the moment, it'll suffice to say that after finding Irene's grave, I had a possible death date and possible age at death in years, months and days. So far, this is the closest I have to a possible birth date and year for Irene.

Of course, finding Irene's grave did not help me figure out where in New York she was from or who her parents were. And I would not have an idea until about a year later. At that time, I was starting to think about what I could do to figure out where Irene came from when I realized that I had not followed her younger daughter forward into the censuses from 1900 to 1930. I knew that Mary Stout had married Clement Albright in the 1880s, but I realized that I did not know what happened to her after her marriage. So, I began to look for her daughter in the censuses. At the same time, I took a look back at the 1910 census for Peter Stout's household, and I noticed that Peter had a granddaughter named Jessie Albright living with him at the time of the census.

After finding one of Mary's children, I decided to look for her and her family in the censuses. I was able to quickly find Mary and Clement in the 1900 census in Kalamazoo County. I then looked for Mary again, and I found her with her children in the 1910 census living in Gladwin County with a Philip Lang (or sometimes spelled Lange). Mary and her children are listed as nieces and nephews to Philip, and since Mary is listed as a widow, Clement probably died sometime between 1900 and 1910. (Of course, I could be wrong, but I'll have to do a little bit more research to find out when he died.) I then looked for Mary again, and I found her living in Gladwin County again in the 1920 census. In this census, Philip was listed in the building below Mary's. After finding them in the 1920 census, I could not find Philip or Mary in the 1930 census. I am uncertain as to when or where they died, and I hope to be able to do some research sometime into when they died.

After noticing that Mary Albright was listed as Philip Lang's niece, I went backwards in the censuses to see who he married, as Philip's wife might be a sibling to Irene. In the 1900, 1880 and 1870 censuses, I discovered that he was married to a Rhoda. I then looked up Philip Lange's marriage record in Saint Joseph County, and discovered that he had married a Rhoda Havens. After discovering that Rhoda was related to Irene (either as a sister, step-sister or half-sister), I decided to look for her in the censuses prior to 1870. I also looked again at the 1900 and 1910 censuses and realized that Rhoda had died sometime between the 1900 and 1910 censuses. I looked at Saint Joseph County's online death index, and learned that there was a death record for a Rhoda H. Lang listed.

On another note, I'll have to continue this article on Irene in another post since this post is getting extremely long. So, in another post, I'll write about searching for Rhoda, and what I discovered. In addition, I will continue writing about my research into my Havens ancestors.

A Possible Brick Wall Ancestor? Irene Havens - Part 1...

I've noticed that a few other genealogy bloggers have posted articles on their brick wall ancestors, and I thought I would post on one of my ancestors. Well, I'm not sure I can call this ancestor a brick wall ancestor, but at the moment, I haven't been able to do very much research on this ancestor. But here is a little of what I do know:

Irene was born somewhere in New York state sometime between 1840 and 1843. When I first started my research on her, I could only find her in the 1860 U. S. census before she married Peter Stout. (I know believe I have found her in the 1850 census, but I'll explain my speculations in a later post.) In the meantime, I'll continue with my research in another post.