Honoring My Family's Veterans

My family’s U.S. Veterans (that I know of at this point)

On my Dad’s side:

My Dad –  Specialist, 3^rd Class, U.S. Army, Korean Conflict veteran, Japan as a Petroleum Laboratory Supervisor

My grandpa, Owen Carl Henn (1906-1988), U.S. Army (albeit briefly), WWII

My first cousin, twice removed, Benjamin F. Bentley (1893-1926), Sergeant, WWI

My 2^nd great grandfather, John Henn (1842-1919), private, Company G 3^rd Regiment, New York Light Artillery, Union Army, U.S. Civil War

My 3^rd Great Uncle, Andrew Henn (1832-1911), private, New York Light Artillery, Union Army, U.S. Civil War

On my Mom’s side:

My cousin KMR, Master Sergeant, U.S .Air Force, retired

Great-Uncle Don B. Snyder (1918-2012), Technical Sergeant, 151^st Infantry, 38^th Division (“Avengers of Bataan” – he served in the operation that won them that nickname), WWII

My great-grandfather, Vernon Erwin (1872-1947), private, G Company, 4^th Illinois Infantry, Spanish American War

My 2^nd-great-grandfather Edward Carleton Bailey (1849-1926), private, Company D, 192^nd Pennsylvania Infantry, Union Army

My 3^rd great uncle John W. Bailey (1843-1864), 1^st enlistment 1861: private, Company C, 45^th Pennsylvania Infantry, Union Army; 2^nd enlistment 1864: corporal, Company C, 45^th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteer Infantry, Union Army – died of wounds incurred in the siege of Petersburg, VA. U.S. Civil War

My 2^nd great grandfather John Erwin (1841-1917), 1^st enlistment 1861: private, Company D, 11^th Missouri Volunteer Infantry, Union Army, wounded at the Battle of Corinth and discharged; 2^nd enlistment (1864): private then corporal, Company B, Illinois 48^th Infantry, Union Army. U.S. Civil War 

My 3^rd great uncle William Erwin (1838-1865), enlisted 1861, Sergeant, Company D, 11^th Regiment Missouri Volunteers, Union Army, discharged to accept commission as Captain July 1, 1864, died of wounds received at Spanish Fort, Ala. U.S. Civil War 

My 3^rd great uncle Eli Erwin, private, Company F, 18^th Regiment Missouri Infantry, Union Army, badly wounded at the Battle of Shiloh/Pittsburg Landing 6 April 1862, sent to field hospital a Savannah, TN. He was discharged August 31, 1862, near Corinth MS due to wounds incurred at Shiloh. He didn’t make it home alive. U.S. Civil War 

My 3^rd great uncle Lafayette Erwin (1848-1935), private, Company E, 155^th Illinois Regiment, Union Army. U.S. Civil War

  

My 3^rd great grandfather Henry Y Zimmerman (1794-1853), private, “Captain George Sanderson’s Company” Ohio, War of 1812

Maternal Ancestor Charts ... to Date (Direct Line)

As I explained yesterday, I thought I had previously posted the direct line ancestor charts for my maternal side, to the extent I've found them thus far, but when  I looked for them, I only found one side posted and I'd screwed up the image posting somehow. So I'm going to post the charts for the maternal side of my family (to date) tonight.

I'm only doing direct line charts because there are too many people in most generations to post readable charts if I were to include entire families. And I'm only including the people I'm pretty sure of -- so yes, I might have others on my working tree ...trying them out, so to speak. But not here.

Vertical Pedigree Chart for Clarence Weldon Snyder (1910-1984)
My maternal grandfather
Click to make bigger

Vertical Pedigree Chart for Mabel LeRe Erwin (1910-1990)
My maternal grandmother
Click to make bigger

If you think we share any ancestors, please contact me. I'd love to hear from you! You can leave a comment or email at the address on my Contact Me page.

Treasure Chest Thursday - The Hartman Girls

Written on the back is "The Hartman Girls: Cleo Duffield, Fannie Hart-Erwin, Zoe Rader and Etta."


These are my Great-grand aunts and my Great-grand-mother Fannie (Hartman) (Hart) Erwin, on my mother's maternal line. My great-grandmother is behind two of her sisters, so we only see her head. I don't know why Etta's married name is not listed, but it is Archer.

Their parents were Samuel Myers Hartman (1844-1928) and Julia Zimmerman (1844-1913) who  grew up and married in Wayne Co Ohio, near Wooster, then moved to Findlay Ohio in Hancock County sometime before October 26, 1872 as my great-grandmother was the first child I know for certain was born in Findlay.  Samuel and Julia had 11 children: Charles O (1869-1930) s; Etta /Ettie (1870-????); Dellie (1871- ????); Fannie (1872-1954); Zoe (1874-1954); Jesse (1877-1945); Samuel T. (1877-1880); Wellie (1879-1960); 1880-1957); Henry (1884-1968); and Cleo (1899-1966.)

First pass of Mom’s Maternal line

In the past week I got as far as it appears I can on this first pass through of my Mom’s mother’s side of the family. Earlier, in the Catching You Up post, I explained how far I’d gotten up Mom’s maternal grandmother’s line in this first pass and posted a picture of the direct line pedigree chart starting from Fannie (Hartman) Hart Erwin (which involved the following surnames: Diehl, Hart, Hartman, Meyers, Speicher, Whonsetler, Wonsetler/Wonsettler, and Zimmerman). Since then, I’ve been researching Mom’s maternal grandfather’s family, and have gotten as far as I can go on this first not-so-very-in-depth pass. I’ve got some good hints as to where I’ll be going in the next step up in general, on several of the lines, but I just can’t find/make the next connection using the family papers I have, Ancestry.com, Google EBooks for county history books, Fold3.com, Google, and Newspapers.com, alone, right now.  [Yes, I know I originally said I’d stick to Ancestry.com for the first pass – I got enticed and distracted. ; ) ]

Mom’s maternal grandfather’s family tree, as I have it now, looks like this (click to embiggen):

It involves folks with the following surnames: Conley, Cosner, Craig, Erwin, Lewis, Miller, Wilson. 

I can tell that in the next pass I will be doing a lot more research into North Carolina, as I have indication in the documentation I have that nearly everyone I lost the trail of was born in or spent some time in North Carolina. It shows that Judge William Erwin & his wife Lydia Lewis were born in North Carolina, as were both Henry Conley, his father John, and his father John, and Henry’s wife Sarah Cosner. I have some indication that Judge William Erwin’s father, William, may have been born in Ireland. Adam Craig may have at one point been in Tennessee, since his daughter, Eliza Ann, was born in that state, but I really know very little about him. I know nothing about either John Conley's (1776-1853) wife or his mother.

Putting together the charts for my Mom's maternal line, the direct line chart of my maternal grandmother (Mom’s Mother, Mabel Erwin), as I have it now, looks like this (click to embiggen):

I’ve been reading up on lots of other possible types of searches for the second pass. That pass will take more time and more patience. I can see now too, that I will probably take some time off searching between the two passes to create and/or organize my physical files in a much better way as that will help me make a better and more successful search ultimately. I will probably also be sending out emails/letters to older relatives requesting memories/stories they have of their relatives/ancestors as those would both help my search and provide body & color to the bare bones of my document search to help me know my ancestors more as people. But first I must finish the first pass of the rest of the family.

This weekend I started the first pass of my mother’s paternal line of the family. I have some help with this side in the form of handwritten remembrances of her own family and family tree, and that of her husband, by my great grandmother, Pearl Pauline Bailey.  I started by entering her remembered connections and names as she wrote them into Ancestry.com and waited overnight for little wiggling leaves to show up to hopefully verify her memories. I’ve already discovered that her remembrances of family history aren’t entirely accurate. So, while it’s a start, it all must be verified. Fun!

Ancestor Highlight: Henry Y Zimmerman, 1795-1853, my 3rd great grand father

I don’t know as much about Henry Zimmerman as I do about John Erwin. There has been much less written about him, and I’m struggling with applying the “Does this make sense?” standard (see the blog article Anne's Top Ten Rules For Growing Your Family Tree) to the facts I did find. But the man intrigues me…perhaps because of the contradictions and mysteries. I have spent a more time on him than anyone else thus far, trying to resolve the contradictions and get through the mysteries. I need to let him go for now, to move on now, and maybe by the time I get back to him, something will have been dug up and digitized that will help me crack the conundrum. However, in order to be able to leave him (I even dreamed about researching him last night!), I must write about him.

I obtained information from his census records and death records through Ancestry.com’s little wiggling leaves.

Henry Y Zimmerman was born in about the year 1794 or 1795. I know this in part because he said in the 1850 Census on September 13, 1850 (in Chester Township, Wayne County, Ohio) that he was 56 years old. Simple math puts his likely birth year at 1794. On that Census, he also said he was born in Maryland, and that he was a farmer. It also says that his wife, Frances, is 50 years old and was born in Pennsylvania. It lists his children as Henry, 20; Caroline M., 17; Susanna, 15; Hiram F., 14; Martin V., 12; Oliver P, 9; and Juliann, 7. The first two children were born in Pennsylvania, and the rest of them were born in Ohio. I descend from Juliann (later designated as Julia A Zimmerman).

                I also have him, and probably most of his family, in Chester Township, Wayne County, Ohio, in 1840, but that Census form was not nearly as detailed as the later one; it consists of numbers in columns indicating how many people in his household in certain age ranges.

                It’s the information that I obtained along with his death and burial information that starts bringing in the contradiction and mystery. Through Ancestry.com I have a record of his death and burial place from the Ohio Obituary Index kept at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center (it describes its source as Wayne County Grave Registration Cards) and I have a record of his burial place through a link provided by Ancestry.com to Findagrave.com which has a memorial page for Henry Y Zimmerman with a picture of the cemetery, it’s name and address. Through these sources I have his birth year as 1795 in Maryland, his age at death as 58, and his death date as September 12, 1853. He was buried at Eight Square Mennonite Cemetery, Lattasburg/Chester Township, Wayne County, Ohio. The Findagrave.com memorial lists his wife and children, and they match, so I know he’s my Henry Y. Zimmerman. Apparently, he’s Mennonite; that’s interesting (later research into his wife shows she’s Mennonite and buried there as well).  Both death records contain the note that he served in the Army in the war of 1812 under the command of Captain George Sanderson. 

                Wait! A Mennonite soldier? This is where it stopped making sense.

The Mennonites are a peace church. They don’t fight in any war. I knew this because when I was young I was a member of the Church of the Brethren, and even attended a Church of the Brethren affiliated college (Juniata College - great school & experience!). As one of the three historic peace churches, the Church of the Brethren has often partnered with the other two (Mennonite and Quaker) in their peace efforts. But just to be sure I’ve spent a lot of time reading Mennonite histories in the past week, and a lot of time reading about the War of 1812.

I first checked to see whether I could find out if Henry Y Zimmerman did serve in the War of 1812. Per addendums to a lecture given before the Lancaster Literary Institute, by George Sanderson, Esq., in 1851, titled  “A Brief History ofthe Early Settlement of Fairfield County" which was subsequently printed in the local Lancaster PA paper, "with added facts", "H. Zimmerman" was a private in the campaign of 1813-1814  I then remembered the luck I had in finding digitized enlistment rosters for my ancestors in the Civil War and looked for any records relating to enlistment rosters for the War of 1812, and there I found “Served In 1813 and 1814: Private Henry Zimmerman”. Excerpted from Roster of Ohio Soldiers in the War of 1812, 27th United States Infantry, Roll of Capt. George Sanderson's Company, And “Henry Zimmerman Enlisted June 7, 1813”, per 1880 History of Franklin & Pickaway Counties, Ohio; Military Record (See http://www.genealogybug.net/FrankPic/military.htm). That was the muster center for Ohio. He was honorably discharged in Detroit in 1814, per A History of Fairfield County Ohio, Chapter XVIII, The War of 1812 and The Mexican War (see http://www.perrycountyohio.us/fphhistory/fphpart3chap18.htm)

In doing this research, I also found out that there are a whole bunch of Henry Zimmerman(s) in that time frame (it was a very popular name – though seemingly only one with a middle initial Y) – so it could still be someone else. On the other hand, the Ohio Society of the United States  Daughters  of1812, include Henry Y Zimmerman’s grave on their Online Index to Grave Records of Servicemen of the War of 1812, for the State of Ohio. (See http://ohiodaughters1812.org/graveindex/displaygravedetail.php?req_id=2581) And I would assume they check these things out pretty carefully.

I then started looking up variations of War and Mennonite and American, and skimmed two histories of the Mennonites I’d earlier picked up via Google books. I found that, while in Ohio, as of 1803, Quakers, Mennonites, and “Dunkers” were exempt from military duty in the state militia in lieu of a three dollar annual payment, that didn’t apply to federal call ups, and it wasn’t until WWII that a formalized alternative service was created. I did see several rather entertaining complaints of senior officers throughout various wars whose rolls contained Mennonites, Quakers or Brethren that they were “near deadweight” as they wouldn’t pick up a gun and had to be put to cleaning, grave-digging or cooking duties.  According to Notes on the Ohio Militia duringthe War of 1812 by  James T. Brenner much of the Ohio militia was relegated to building roads, convoying supplies, and manning blockhouses, causing one Ohio officer to remark, “The militia of Ohio have been made pack horses and merely served as convenience for others to receive the honor and glory.”  I could see a Mennonite soldier serving his draft duty in such a way, such that the contradiction becomes somewhat more plausible.

I don’t feel that the contradiction is resolved, but perhaps it is as resolved as it is going to get. I know it is as resolved as it is going to get right now. Now to the mystery: I can’t find anyone beyond him. I hit a brick wall. Hopefully, I’ll be able to dismantle it later but not right now. In my search I saw other people putting posts on genealogical forums seeking information on him too. Many postulate that Fanny is his second wife and that the first two children, born in PA, are from an unnamed first wife. Later research into his son Henry showed that he was born in Westmoreland County PA, but I can find nothing about Henry Y there. At least I am not alone; those other people can’t find his parents in Maryland, or anywhere else, either.

If anyone has any more information on my 3^rd great-grandfather Henry Y Zimmerman than I do, I would love to hear from you!

The direct descent line is:

Henry Y Zimmerman (1795-1853) – Frances “Fanny” Speicher (1801-1876)

Julia Ann Zimmerman (1844-1913) – Samuel Myers Hartman(1844-1928)

Frances “Fannie” Hartman (1872-1954) – [2^nd husband] Vernon Erwin (1872-1947)

Mabel LeRe Erwin (1910-1990) – Clarence Snyder (1910-1984) – my maternal grandparents

My Mom
Me 

I Feel Like Thomas Edison

This week I made fewer discoveries and spent more time running into roadblocks. But, as Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed 10,000 times. I have successfully found 10,000 ways that do not work,” and I have been discovering sources of information that may well work for other people on the tree later on, bookmarking them, and/or joining them, as needed. I have also added a few bits and pieces of additional facts to people I’d already discovered (some real estate transactions by Great Aunt Julia Hart Siddall and her 2nd husband found on Archives.com and Newspapers.com; some family stories about Great Aunt Julia Hart Siddall told to me by one of my mother’s sisters after she saw the post about the quilt and my efforts to find the drapery shop; some Civil War related information for some of 2nd great grandfather John Erwin’s siblings, etc). And I’ve been doing some background research on the War of 1812 and Mennonites to try to understand and reconcile some facts I’d found regarding one of my third great grandfathers, Henry Y. Zimmerman, who will be my Ancestor Highlight for this week (I learned a lot but it didn’t help me reconcile the two opposing facts – the man is a puzzlement, on multiple levels). I will write that post tomorrow.

I also received and uploaded some family tree software to my computer so that I can work on it outside of Ancestry.com and so I can more easily keep track of information obtained from sources other than Ancestry. I am living proof that incessant advertising works. Over the past several months I’ve gotten a tone of ads from Ancestry.com for software called Family Tree Maker. I bought the latest version of it. I’ve since seen competing blog posts by other people as to whether they like it better or something called RootsMagic or Family Source better. Since I’m just beginning I rather think that whatever I get used to will work for me and this is set up a lot like Ancestry.com and will sync with Ancestry.com quite easily, which I like.

The Family Tree Maker software also helped me make the chart I put up with the catch up post earlier this week. Making the chart was easy and fun. Figuring out how to post it on BlogSpot was anything but; even though I found a how to video and a step by step instruction with pictures on the web. It didn’t turn out like I wanted it to turn out but it’s readable and adequate. It’s odd how I have infinite patience with historical research, even including brick walls; but am shortly reduced to cussing at the computer and pounding the desk (both actions utterly unhelpful) when I’m trying to do something technical and it isn’t working, lol!

Next week I’m going back to the Erwin branch to get them as far as I can, and then I’m moving on to the Snyder side of Mom’s family. My goal is to get the first pass through Mom’s family done by the end of October. I don’t know yet if that is possible, but I’m going to try.

P.S. Hah! I just learned how to make paragraphs in html! (I had no paragraphs the first two times I previewed this. I needed to use html to put in links.) I can learn nearly anything from a good Google search! And now, to bed.

Catching You Up

     I've been trying to figure out a way to catch you up with the basic work I'd done prior to starting the blog, in a way you could see it [as opposed to yet another long-winded post.].  [Update: I figured out a better way to post it. (Click on the picture to embiggen.)]

      Prior to the start of the blog, I began working my way up the family tree, starting with my maternal grandmother, Mabel LeRe Erwin, and going up through her mother, Fannie S. Hartman Erwin. In order to have the picture stay on one page, I've begun the started tree below with Fannie. My Great-Grandfather, Vernon Erwin, was Fannie's second husband. I have some information on my grandmother's half-siblings, and on other siblings/children and every level, but for the purposes of the above tree, I limited the information displayed to the direct line ancestors to keep it from being too busy to look and and understand easily (these people have big families!). These are the people I've documented as being in our family tree through my first pass through of checking Ancestry.com's little wiggling leaves (that's how Ancestry indicates it has "hints" to be looked at relating to this person).

      Based on what I know so far, as I dig deeper into their lives and history, I'll be learning a lot more about the history of Wayne & Hancock counties in Ohio, and certain portions of Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Johan Gorg Whonsetler and his son Nicholas may have been born in Germany the country...or in Germany Township, Adams Co. Pennsylvania. I have something that says Germany, but since everything else in their lives says Pennsylvania, and I know there's a Germany Township in PA that was being created about then (the benefits of going to college in Pennsylvania...) I'm not sure but what they may have come from Germany township, rather than the country. This is one of the points I intend to nail down in later research into these people. [Catherine Meyers' and Frances Speicher's potential parents were among those I had to take off because I couldn't truly document the connection; that's were I lost another Germany connection. But, who knows, I may get them back in later research.] From now on I'll be reporting weekly on what I've done and/or discovered; foundation and catch up posts are done.