(Wo)man can not live by...

dead ancestors alone.

So on a different note, today's blog is about one of my other favorite topics. Food.

Not the making of food, but the growing of food. It's January, I'm in Alaska for two more weeks. That means it's time to think about gardening. Or in this case, creating an orchard. I went to this website. Lucky me, every tree I bought was 30% off. Yay for me. I bought three types of apple trees, two plums, two cherries, two pears, one apricot and one peach tree. The apricot and peach trees are self pollinating, so I could limit myself to one each of them. I really wanted a nice granny smith apple tree but wasn't able to find one. I'm not a fan of granny smiths for eating, but they are very nice for making jellies. The pectin level in them is very high so one can use a granny smith instead of so much pectin. Maybe next year I can add a granny smith to the orchard.

Needless to say I'm excited about our orchard. This spring and summer we'll baby those little trees. They are our future.

Last year we started a patch of asparagus. It's frustrating to wait a year or two to benefit from trees or plants, but in the end it will be worth it.

Next on my list is to make a greenhouse so we can benefit from some fresh greens for a longer season. I know in my part of the country kale kicks into gear in the fall. If we can get some in a green house, I think we could get fresh kale through the winter too. This is what I have in mind for our greenhouse. This particular greenhouse works for those in zone 6 without using heat. I live in zone 5, so I'm hoping we can get some success with using only minimal heat.

I sent this link to my hubby so he can start working on it, too. This isn't a new idea to him, but seeing one that works will help him get our cistern system going a little quicker...I hope.

Are you ready to get your hands dirty and play in the garden?

Sigh

Today Google and I became good friends. More family history. During my googling experience I found plenty of misinformation. That really saddens me when people put wrong information out there for the masses. It can send others researching the family on a very time consuming wild goose chase. 

So, I will put out into the world what I know with supporting documentation. William Birdsell was born in 1832 in Ohio. Here is his grave. We can also find him in the 1850 census. At that time he was living in a house with Martin, Mary, Reuben, John and Jane. 

Some believe that Reuben is his father. Since Reuben is 32 and William is 17, I find that highly unlikely. It is believed, but no proof yet that Jane and John are William's siblings. Abram, whom several of us believe is William's father, can be found in the 1850 census living with the Abediah Preston family. Not only is Abram (referred to as Abraham) in the Preston household, but so is a 16 year old female, name Lelilia Birdsell. This is believed to be another sibling to William. 

Abram's wife, Margaret died in 1842. Her birth and death years are found here. I'm very confident that this is his wife. I know he is the brother who married her. Abram and Margaret are the second entry. 

So, with these two pieces of documents I can prove that Abram and Margaret were married. I can prove that William was born in Ohio. The year doesn't match up to the correct year, but it's close enough for census taking in 1850. 

I can suspect that William had two sisters and one brother. I can't find anything of proof regarding the sisters or brother. 

I do know that Abram married again in 1858. I have that document on my computer, too. If any of the relatives would like copies of any of these documents, let me know. I am more than happy to share them with you.

It is my goal to make sure that anything we put out there as fact has something to back it up. I'm tired of seeing wrong information. 

I do have a somewhat promising lead for New York. Time will tell if I've hit pay dirt or if it's a dry well. Which means I need another day off. 

I do hope that anyone using this information uses it as it is...use the facts, and keep the speculation as just that until it's proven or disproven. 

The best and worst things...

about being a traveler.

Pro: You get to quit your job every thirteen weeks.
Con: You have to start a new job every time you go out.

Pro: The money is better than a permanent job.
Con: You spend a lot of time away from family and friends.

Pro: You don't have to check your mail every day.
Con: You don't get to have all your things around you.

Pro: If you don't feel like cleaning house when you get off work, you don't have to.
Con: The appliances are NEVER as good as the ones at home.

Pro: You can live in a motel and have maid service every day.
Con: You don't have a washer and dryer that you can use any time you want to.

Pro: If you don't want to cook you order delivery.
Con: You eat all your meals alone, or decide it's not worth it and eat junk food.

Pro: If you want to spend your days off reading, there's no one to complain.
Con: If you want to spend your days off exploring, there's no one to share the experience with.

Pro: If you don't want to make your bed, you don't have to.
Con: It's not your expensive, comfy bed, but a bed that is usually found in first time away from home young people's homes.

Pro: I'm running out of pros.
Cons: I still have so many to list, but refuse to list them if I can't come up with a pro to go with it.

Guess it's time to consider giving up the traveling life since the cons now outweigh the pros.

In the beginning...

there was William and Maria(h) Birdsell. Both were born in Ohio, but moved to Iowa. I'm not sure when they moved to Iowa. I suspect that information is in the drawers full of information that Mom collected over the years. Perhaps she never knew the why of it either. I believe they were married in Iowa. 

Six of their children were born in Iowa. Two more would be born after they reached Kansas. All of their children lived to adulthood. However, their eldest, Daniel Liberty Birdsell passed away a few years before William's death. Daniel suffered from Rickets. It was severe enough that it prevented him from ever working. He never married and died around the age of 36, if my memory of what I read is correct. 

I'm doing all of this on what I remember from my own research, so please do not attempt to use it as something as absolute fact. I would not knowingly mislead anyone, but I'm not going to take the time to sort through all my files to find the exact dates and ages for a blog entry. 

From the census entries I've found I do know that he was labeled as handicapped. Or whatever the word was in the late 1800s that was used instead of the word handicapped. 

From everything that I've seen, William was always a farmer. In the census before he and Maria(h) went to Iowa, William was 17 years old and listed as a laborer. All the ones after that one has him listed as a farmer. 

Maria is shown as Maria on some censuses and Mariah on others. Her place of birth and age are consistant enough for me to believe they are the same person. In my limited research (and I'm sure Mom had a lot more information on this) I believe the Nancy Ellis who married JA White in Jewell County Kansas was Maria's sister. 

Relating to my previous blog: why did they move to Jewell County Kansas? After going through a quick history of the first settlers in the area, it's my belief they came to Jewell County because Maria had a sister here and I believe they had a larger network of family and friends here than I ever suspected. I've learned that Fred Beeler came from the same county in Iowa as William and Maria. I haven't checked the history of a lot of the other early pioneers, but realizing they were coming to an area where they already had family and friends, plus the lure of land is more than enough to explain why they'd undertake such a move. 

But William and Maria were just the beginning of the Birdsells in Jewell County Kansas. They weren't the beginning nor are they end. They are a concrete block to concentrate on while looking for those who came after them and while searching for those who came before them. 

Mom has extensive records on Maria's side of the family. One branch she has traced back to the 1500s. 

William is our problem child. There's not much argument regarding who is grandfather was, nor who is mother was. The argument pertains to which brother she was married to. Some believe she was married to Reuben, ten years her junior, making him 14 when William was born. I am in the camp that believe Margaret, William's mother, was married to Abram, who was three years her senior. Margaret did die in 1842, leaving William motherless at the age of ten. If Abram was her husband, William has one brother and two sisters from that marriage. Abram did go on to marry several years later and had more children with Mary Ann. 

I have only found Williams probable full blooded siblings on one census. I have found his half blooded siblings on a later census. 

I have no idea what happened to his siblings. I can't find them on later censuses. By the next census it''s reasonable to assume both sisters had married. Unfortunately his brother has the unique name of John (insert excessive sarcasm here) with a middle initial of H. Not a lot to go on. And considering the spellings in the census is only as good at the hearing of the one writing down the information, the H isn't written in stone. Which is why Abram is Abram on one census and Abraham on another census. It's why Birdsell is spelled Bertsell, Bortsell, Birdcel, and the list goes on and on and on. 

There's very little I can prove. I can can prove the man we suspect to be Willam's grandfather lived to be close to a hundred years old. Martin Birdsell lists on the censuses that I can find on him that he was born in New York state around 1761. He was still alive and living with Abram and his new wife in 1860. He claimed his age was 97 on that census. I'd say we can safely add or substrate 2-3 years. Still that's a lot of years. 

I can't prove that Martin has ever died. I can't find anything pertaining to his death. Other than the fact he isn't on any later censuses that I've found. However, I can't prove he existed prior to 1850, where he claimed to be 89 on that census. I might have found him on an 1840 census that I have filed away. But I can't find him prior to that. 

There's speculation that Martin came to Ohio around 1828. There's also speculations that the Birdsells were originally Quakers. If both of those are true, it's consistant with events of that time. In 1828 there was a split within the Quaker religion. 

There's a lot of evidence pointing to the Ellis's being Quakers also. I'm not sure when they went to Ohio.

The only thing I can prove with any reliability is that William and Maria went to Kansas in the early 1870s and filed a claim on a homestead in Browns Creek Township, Jewell County, Kansas. 

So, in the beginning there was William and Maria. 

Gone but not forgotten

This is my great, great grandfather's head stone. On the bottom are the simple words: Gone but not forgotten.

In 1899 when he died, I'm sure those who wanted those words on his grave marker could not imagine a world where William Birdsell would ever be forgotten.

The simple truth is: there is not one person alive who remembers William Birdsell when he walked this earth. I don't know if there's anyone alive who knows if he was always called William, or was he called Willie as a child? Were Williams called Bill back in the 1800s. If so, was he called Bill?

Was he a kind father and/or husband? Did his grandchildren cause a twinkle in his eyes?

Sadly so much about him has been forgotten, or it wasn't told often enough in the family stories.

Why did he and Maria AKA Mariah move from Ohio to Iowa shortly after they married?

What happened in Iowa that caused them to move themselves and their six kids to Kansas? That had to have been a tough move. It's not like they could call the local Allied Van Lines and get a quote on how much they'd charge to move two adults, 6 kids, three horses, two mules, one oxen, a lone milk cow with calf, five hogs, 12 chickens and various household goods and one good plow to Kansas.

When they left Iowa did they plan to settle in Jewell County, Kansas? Or did they just get in the wagon and leave, hoping and praying there would be a place they could call home?

Would it bring a smile to him if he knew that the land he homesteaded has remained in the family and is now being farmed by one of his own great, great grandsons and great great great grandsons?

What would he think if he saw the cemetery now where they buried their eldest son, Daniel, just a few years before William was laid to rest there? Would the number of his descendants resting their surprise him?

If I could talk to him I have so many questions I'd love to ask him. What was his favorite crop? When he first saw the land that homesteaded what did he see? I'm so curious if his answer would be him telling me exactly what it looked like at that time, or if he would tell me that he saw the house he would build with Maria and the kids playing in the yard after all the chores were done catching fireflies. But the list of questions are endless.

My goal for 2012 is to find out more about this man and his wife. To search the area they called home, which is the area I call home. To see if they left any clues as to who they were. To talk to those who are older than me to see if they remember any stories being passed down.

Today William Birdsell is gone and forgotten. The things that made him who is was are forgotten. But with time and a dose of luck, maybe by the end of 2012 he'll still be gone, but not as forgotten.

Who would you like to meet from the past?