These holes in someone’s life provide me with the opportunity to speculate, to let my mind go a bit wild. Was my ancestor a scoundrel? Taken off by Native Americans? Drowned at sea? Changed the last name to escape being found? Taken to an Insane Asylum only to die without proper records?
I admit I do this often. And occasionally my imagination takes me to a record or a book or a person where I find an answer. Today, I have two sisters who have left a hole in my neat genealogy records. I can trace them until 1870; I can trace them from 1877-1878 on until their deaths; but from 1870-1877, I’ve lost them.
In this case, my answer is YES. And in the case of the two sisters, they leave questions that I would like to answer.
Julia Linn and Mary Linn were born to John Linn and his first wife, Brita Eriksdotter. Both were born in Iowa with Julia being recognized as the first white child born in Webster County. She was born on 8 January 1851; Mary was born on 30 August 1853. Shortly after Mary’s birth, mother Brita died.
Julia and Mary are found with John and Sarah Linn in the 1860 Federal Census for Hardin Township, Webster County: John Lynn, age 34, minister (M.E.), Sarah, age 38, Melker, age 14, John, age 15, Julia, age 8, Mary, age 6, Sophia, age 5, Charlotte, age 4, Caroline, age 1.
But in 1870, the 1870 Federal Census for Moline Township, Rock Island County, Illinois, shows John Linn, age 44 (preacher) wife Sarah, age 48; daughter Charlotte, age 12; daughter Caroline, age 11; and daughter Louisa, age 10. Julia and Mary are not with this family. They would have been 18 and 16 years of age.
I’ve looked at state censuses, various spellings, looked at
other relatives in the 1870 census, and church records. I’ve lost Julia and
Mary from 1870 until Julia marries in 1877 and Mary marries in 1878. And now,
my mind starts to explore other possibilities:
·
Could one or both girls have been working in someone’s
household and no last name was listed on a census?
·
Were the girls together? Were they transient?
·
Were their last names horribly misspelled?
·
Were they living in a state besides Iowa or Illinois?
I have so many questions. But there’s additional information to consider:
How and when did Julia meet her future husband, Peter J.
Berg? From Peter’s obituary, we gain a clue:
Article in the 29 November 1923 Dayton Review on his death:
"Rev. P. J. Berg was born in Berg's Socken, Smaland, Sweden 07 June 1851 and died at his home in Kingsburg, CA on 16 November. He came to America, July 1869 to Henry Co., IL and worked as a farm hand and blacksmith. In 1871, he was converted in Areviva (a revival) meeting at Woodhull, IL and joined Swedish M. E. Church. He went to the seminary in Evanston, IL, was ordained an elder in 1880. He married 29 May 1877 to Miss Julia Linn, a daughter of a veteran of Swedish Methodism of IA. Two daughters born, Edna who is deceased and Mrs. A. J. Challgren, now of Harcourt. The mother died in 1905. He married again on 08 June 1908 to Mrs. Adelia (Hugner) Fuller at Clay Center, KS. Also leaves four step-children and a sister in Sweden. Buried in Dayton, IA cemetery beside wife and daughter.
From this obit, it appears that Julia was in Illinois. Otherwise, how would she and Peter have met? He lived in Woodhull in Henry County, not far from Bishop Hill, that we know as a Swedish cult village. But I don't know for certain where she was living.
Normally, I would guess that Peter and Julia met in or near Woodhull, IL and married in 1877 before they went to Evanston, IL for seminary. But to make this a bit more of a mystery, Peter and Julia married in Des Moines, Iowa. Nowhere near Illinois, nowhere near where Peter had been living, where John and Sarah Linn were living. And I have no record that John Linn officiated at Peter and Julia’s wedding.
Mysterious? Let’s see what happens with Mary Linn during that same time. Mary was born in 1853 to John and Brita, but shortly after Mary’s birth, Brita died. John remarried soon after. Both Julia and Mary are found with this new set of parents in the 1860 US Federal Census, but between 1870 and when Mary married her husband in 1878, I cannot find her.
How did Mary Linn and her future husband Charles Alfred Orman meet? We aren’t sure where Mary Linn is living before she married Charles Orman on 28 December 1878 in Worcester, Massachusetts! Massachusetts? How did Mary get there? Where did she and Charles meet?
Charles was 9 years Mary’s senior, born in Sweden in 1844. In 1872, at age 28, he left for the United States, arriving in New York. Charles was a laborer much of his life.
But you can easily see my question. Charles landed in New York in 1872 and, undoubtedly, was trying to find regular work. In the 1860s, Mary is in Iowa, living with her parents and sisters, until she's NOT. How would you guess that these two found one another? There are plausible answers: Charles may have taken work that had him traveling to the Midwest would be the most likely. But because this couple is between Federal Censuses, my luck at finding one or both of them between 1870 and 1878 has run out. No newspaper articles, no land purchases, no church records.
What I do know is that Mary Linn and Charles Ohrman married on 28 December 1878 in Worcester, Massachusetts with the officiating pastor being Alfred Erickson of Brooklyn, NY. The couple lived in both Massachusetts and in Pennsylvania for the rest of their lives. They had 5 children, one of whom died in World War I.
Charles died in 1926; Mary in 1927. And they are buried in Massachusetts.
After reading all of this detail, you may ask: Why care so much about those few years in a person’s life when I know the beginning and end?
Maybe it’s a bit simplistic to say that I just care about
their entire lives, not just the birth, marriage and deaths. While that is
true, I care about knowing about them as people. Whether it is adventures,
occupations, tragedies, I want to know it all. It’s what makes this hobby of
mine so interesting.
These young adult years for Julia and Mary Linn might have held many clues to who they were and what motivated them. They may have been adventurous young women, looking to see some of the world before settling down, but from 1870-1878, they would have been VERY adventurous young women for the time.
As the oldest two daughters in the family and Sarah being their stepmother, could the additional responsibilities they would have had lead them to leave? Could there have been tension between the girls and Sarah? Was this simply a pattern that we have seen in Sweden where young people were sent out to make their own way?
Did Charles Orman come to the Midwest or did Mary meet him elsewhere? And why would they marry so far away from Mary’s father, Reverend John Linn? Did Peter Berg meet Julia in Illinois? We don’t see a record of Julia living in that state, but it seems the most likely answer. But again, they marry in Des Moines without the Reverend John Linn officiating.
I can close the chapter on Julia and Mary for now because I have the bookends of their lives, the names of their children, and their important vital information. But these questions will likely stay with me awhile and even call me to go searching again at some point.
Note: I miss cousin Donny. As I was writing this post, I thought about all of the emails we had over the past few years about our family history, about his mom and mine, about the Cubs, about information in the blog. He always commented, either on the site itself or in an email to me.
And, on another note: I'm working on a very interesting land transfer involving Gus. I'm not sure where this will lead me, but I hope I can learn enough to write this up for you soon.
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