An 1880 Census Connects my Kansas Cousin to my Colorado Co-worker

While cleaning up my genealogy database I noticed that one of my grandmother's cousins from WaKeeney, Trego, Kansas married a man who was born in Coal Creek, Fremont, Colorado. WaKeeney was the birthplace of my father in Kansas and Coal Creek is a small settlement 10 miles southeast of Canon City, where I currently live in Colorado. Two different worlds. WaKeeney was inhabited at the turn of the 20th century by German immigrants from the Volga River region of Russia. 

I was surprised to find this connection in the 1880 census for Coal Creek, Fremont, Colorado that is shown above. The bottom 6 rows of the census page list the Fred and Mary Dixon family, with their children Alex, Mamie, Alfred and Grace. The chart below shows that Mamie married James Lindsay. 

Their son James E. Lindsay married Amelia Meisner, whose 3rd cousin in the column at right is Amalia Koleber, my grandmother. I'm the "Becky Margheim" listed at bottom right. On my other blog "Grace and Glory Plus" on my web site, I wrote an article about my cousin and author Amelia "Mela" Meisner. You can read it here.

When I look at a census page I always review the entire page. I noticed the name Cowan at the top of the census page, shown at the top of this story. I knew that two of my "co-workers" had Cowan relatives, so I noted the names of John and David Cowan and looked at the research I've done in the past for those co-workers. This chart shows my findings.

The John and David Cowan on that census page were the sons of Charles Cowan and Margaret Scot. John Cowan's brother was Charles, whose great granddaughter is Sallie Poteet McQueen. Sallie is my friend who attends the church where I'm employed in Canon City, CO.

So on that one census page from Coal Creek, CO in 1880, I'm able to see the family of the in-laws of my distant (Kansas) cousin Mela Meisner Lindsay, as well as the cousins of my friend Sallie here in Canon City, Colorado. I had not suspected that I'd ever discover such a cousin connection.