When a genealogist is trying to follow their family chronilogically and geographically, it takes a bit of detective work and often tempts us to use a little conjecture as well. The United States Census provides a glimpse of where families lived every ten years, but what falls in between may involve looking for family oral history, going to courthouses to look for marriage, adoption, naturalization, land and tax records. With the advent of newspaper archival websites, we can also search newspapers in areas where we think they may have lived. Newspaper archival sites are also useful in searching for obituaries and now there are websites that locate graves of your ancestors and often provide photographs of tombstones.
Today we move across the country easily. During my nearly 70 years, I have moved from Maple Hill, Kansas to Moscow, Idaho doing the work myself with a rented U-Haul trailer. I then moved from Moscow, Idaho to Green Bay, Wisconsin again using a U-Haul truck. From Green Bay, our family moved to Jacksonville, Oregon using a U-Haul truck. From Jacksonville, we moved to Muncie, Indiana moving one truck-load ourselves with U-Haul and hiring a moving company to bring the rest. From Muncie, we moved to Lafayette, Indiana ourselves using U-Haul. I moved to New Braunfels, Texas using a U-Haul truck. When I decided to move to California, I "broke up" my house, giving whatever my children wanted to them, and moving my clothing and computer to a furnished place in my car.
I think I have probably been a lot more mobile than many because of my profession, but now consider my maternal great great grandparents, James and Cynthia (Casteel) Corbin. Tracing the dates of some of those moves would be difficult if we used only the U. S. Census.
James, born in 1813 and Cynthia born in 1819, were both born in Clermont County, Ohio.
I don't know the exact year or who moved first, but there was a migration of a large extended family to LaPorte and Lake County, Indiana during the 1830s. Nathan Corbin's widow, Mary Anderson Corbin, the mother of James Corbin and his sister Sarah Corbin, remarried to Elijah Lindsey on December 31, 1819 in Clermont County, Ohio. They all lived on the farm in Clermont County, that had previously belonged to Nathan Corbin (deceased husband of Mary Anderson Corbin).
Also living in Clermont County, Ohio and enumerated on the 1820 Census, were the William Casteel, Miles Harper Maddox and the Hezekiah Lindsey Families. William's daughter, Cynthia Ann Casteel, would become the wife of James Corbin in 1837. Miles Harper Maddox would become the husband of Sarah Corbin in 1833. Elijah Lindsey, Hezekiah's son, would become the second husband of Mary Anderson Corbin and step father to James and Sarah Corbin. These families are all shown as Clermont County, Ohio farm families on the 1820 and 1830 U. S. Census reports.
Sometime between the 1830 and 1840 U. S. Census, all of these families moved to LaPorte and Lake County, Indiana where they lived for about fifteen to twenty years. I say about because this is where conjecture and detective work are important. This time I'm using wedding dates and birth locations on the U. S. Census.
Mary Anderson Corbin and Elijah Lindsey were married on December 31, 1819 in Clermont County, Ohio and are shown there on the 1820 U.S. Census with her children James and Sarah Corbin living in the same household.
Sarah Corbin and Miles Harper Maddox were married on April 22, 1832 in Clermont County, Ohio so they obviously hadn't moved to Indiana yet.
James Corbin and Cynthia Ann Casteel were married February 5, 1837 in LaPorte County, Indiana.
So sometime between 1832 and 1837, the Corbin, Casteel, Maddox and Lindsey Families moved from Clermont County, Ohio to Lake and LaPorte County, Indiana-----because they are all shown on the 1840 U S Census living there.
Elijay Lindsey died sometime between 1840 and 1844 in Crown Point, Lake County, Indiana because his widow, Mary Anderson Corbin-Lindsey married a third time to John Brewer, on May 23, 1844. She was the mother of eight children, (two by Nathan Corbin and six by Elijah Lindsey) and I haven't found a death place or date for Mary Corbin-Lindsey-Brewer but her third husband died in 1860 in Lake County, Indiana so perhaps she died there. However, her children moved to Wisconsin, Oregon, Kansas, Missouri and many other states as they married and grew older.
I don't know who moved first, but the U.S. Census for 1850 shows James and Cynthia (Casteel) Corbin and her parents, William and Mary Casteel, living in District 29, Dodge County, Missouri. For those of us who have visited there, Dodge County is where the famous Ozark Lake, Bagnell Dam, is located.
So sometime between the 1840 and 1850 Census, these families left Indiana and moved to central Missouri. They were not living on the same farm but both James and William are listed as farmers. They are listed on facing pages on the Census so they are living fairly close together. In the William Casteel (age 54) household was his wife Mary, age 51, son John age 24, daughter Margaret age 18, daughter Ana age 9 and his mother, Nancy Casteel age 77. The Census provides some further revealing information. It says John and Margaret Casteel were both born in Indiana. If that is accurate, it means John Casteel was born in 1836 so the Casteel Family was living in Indiana at that time. Just as interesting is the revelation that Ana Casteel, age 9, was born in Missouri. So at least the Casteel family must have moved to Missouri in1841, just after the 1840 U. S. Census was taken.
On that same 1850 U. S. Census report, James and Cynthia tell the census taker that all of their children from William through Sarah, who was born in 1846, were all born in Indiana. We know that their son James Polk Corbin, was born in 1850 in Missouri to from the census birthplace and date information, it's easy to tell that James and Cynthia moved from Indiana to Missouri sometime betwen 1846 and 1850.
In an oral history interview on her 95th birthday, Mary Elizabeth Corbin Wilder says that her family moved to Texas for short time when she was about 8 or 10 years old. Since she was born in 1844, that means the Texas trip was in the mid-1850s. By the time the 1860 U. S. Census was taken, James and Cynthia and their family were living in Putnam County, Missouri. They lived there until the mid-1870s when most of the family of James and Cynthia (Casteel) Corbin pulled up stakes in Putnam County, MO and moved to Adams County, Nebraska, where they homesteaded. James and Cynthia remained there the rest of their lives while some of their children returned to Putnam County, Missouri.
It takes at least several months to several years to become a good genealogist. Some give up in frustration while others of us love to play detective. The one important constant is that if you are sharing conjecture, guessing or coming to conclusions based on intuition rather than hard fact---please, please, please say so. Nothing is more frustrating than working on family history thinking you are doing so based on fact when that isn't the case. I hope in my writing, I have and will always comply with my own rule!
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