My Cousin Connection to my Husband

As I've done research on my family history and made interesting discoveries of family connections, I've used my skill working with Microsoft Publisher and my interest in seeing things visually to create dozens of charts like the one above. For the past two weeks I've been organizing those charts on a Trello board so I have then in view and sorted by family name. They're easily viewable on my iphone and ipad also, using the Trello mobile app. 

I made a discovery this weekend that my husband and I have a sort of cousin connection, using a Step-relationship in his paternal ancestry. I prepared the chart at the top of this post to illustrate that connection. I'm sharing it for those who might find it interesting.

My Husband's Family Connection to My Family, with cousins in between

The chart at the right looks like a maze to everyone but me. As I'm researching my family names, I often notice a name that actually "belongs" to someone else's family line. In this case it connected from MY family to My Husband's family. When I see that, I'm curious to follow the connection and see it laid out visually so I can understand it. This was the case last night as I looked at Strait descendants. 

Emma Cornelia Strait

You can see my name at the bottom right, as the great-granddaughter of Emma Strait, wife of Joseph Becker. In reviewing the descendant list of my 7th great grandfather, I saw that my 8th cousin, Elaine Litchfield, had married a man named Darwin Oler. The Oler name was familiar to me from research I'd done many years ago on a family connected to my husband. 

You can see those connections by looking at Larry's name at the bottom left of the chart. Larry's great, great grandfather John Haught was first married to Pleasant Horner, Larry's 2nd great grandmother. And John's second wife was Catherine Campbell. At the time of our initial research, I learned really interesting stories about Catherine's sister Mary Campbell, wife of Absalom Critchfield. In fact, I wrote up a small booklet detailing the stories of the interesting ties to the early day Mormons.

The chart shows that Mary and Absalom's great-granddaughter Myrle Jensen married Farrell Oler. Farrell's father was George Oler, who also had a son Roy Oler, whose son Leroy was married to Ruby Savage. Ruby's grandfather was Levi Savage, the well-known leader in the Willy Handcart Company of LDS History. 

Levi Savage, Jr. 

So we see that George Oler had a son Farrell who connects to Larry's Critchfield ancestors. He had a son Roy whose grandson married the granddaughter of Levi Savage, and he had a grandson Darwin who married MY 8th cousin through my Strait ancestor line. 

Call me weird, but I find that quite interesting.

The Gift of Mary Campbell

For 3 months earlier this year I researched steadily and very successfully the family of my husband’s 3rd great grandparents, Dennis Delaney and Eleanor Kendall Campbell. Their daughter Catherine is my husband’s great, great grandmother. Before visiting in-laws and their children while in Utah attending the NGS Conference in late April, I published my findings in a small book so I could share with them the wealth of information I’d gathered

When we returned from Utah, my plan was to turn my focus to other families. But that was not to be! I often find that our ancestors have other plans for us. I did have time in May to transcribe my mother’s high school dairy, of which I’ve posted previously.

But I received an email “out of the blue” on June 6 from a gentleman in Canada who found my research online. He explained that he was a descendant of Catherine’s sister Mary and was in possession of a LOT of information about her. In fact, these are his words: “I have the history of …… Mary Campbell and copies of a few hundred letters written by various family members to her in the early 1900's. I would be glad to pass them on to you. I also have several pictures of the family members.”

To a genealogist, this is a dream come true…the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! Can you believe how much I’m blessed? I’m amazed and grateful every day for the miracles that come to me.
The package that arrived contained a CD with ALL the documents and photos this nice gentleman was sharing with me. I printed everything and prepared a 3-ring binder so my husband and I could sit down and read more easily the fabulous stories it contains.
Here’s a photo of one of the sections that contain transcriptions of letters written to her by her family in the early 1900s.
The bonus of the gift was a collection of dozens of photos of Mary and some of her family members.
A member of one of Mary’s descendant families diligently gathered stories of their memories of her from her grandchildren. Those stories are also provided in this book.

While Mary was not my husband’s great, great grandmother, she was his great, great grandaunt and stories from her life reveal to us what her life circumstances were, and what life was like in the mid-late 1800s for his ancestral family. I’ll share one brief story involving Mary’s daughter, as told by her grandson: “One night, C….and I played in the yard all day. that night C…. woke up and asked Mother to put on his sailor suit because he was going away. He died that night of diptheria. We were put in quarantine and Father, who was away at work, couldn’t come home. He made a wee wooden coffin for his son and it was passed through a window. Mother and B…lined it with white satin, placed C…in the box and passed it through the window to strangers to bury her first-born son. It was a terrible time, Mother was grief stricken, but had to go on without Father to comfort her.”

Having stories like this to teach us of the sufferings, sacrifices and experiences of any of our ancestors is so valuable, for it truly draws us closer to our ancestors and contributes to a much deeper appreciation for all they endured to pave the way for a better life for us.

My husband and I feel very blessed to have been given this precious gift of a glimpse into the life of Mary Campbell and her family.

Ellenor Kendall Campbell 1815-1898

Meet Ellenor Kendall Campbell, my husband's great, great, great grandmother! I feel like I know her well, though I actually know very little about her. I've spent time with her each day for the past month and was very surprised and thrilled to find this photo of her on Ancestry.com last night. I think it's unique to have a photo of a 3rd great grandmother. I personally have pictures of two great, great grandmothers, but not of any of my 3rd great grandparents.


Ellenor was born on Christmas Day, 1815 in Monongalia County, West Virginia. In 1837 she became the wife of Dennis Delaney Campbell, and by 1858 they had become the parents of 10 children. Around the year 1882 Ellenor and Dennis left West Virginia and moved to St. John, Stafford County, Kansas, along with her parents and four of her siblings. It looks like four of her children also migrated with the family to St. John, Kansas.

Their third daughter Catherine was born July 19, 1842. In 1867 Catherine married John Haught and the next year gave birth to a son, Lafayette, who, in 1887, married Priscilla Yost in Marion County, West Virginia. Lafayette and Priscilla had a daughter Rhea, who married Paul Lester Jamison in 1914. Paul and Rhea named their second son, who was born in 1917, Lafayette Richard, after her father. Lafayette Richard "Dick" Jamison married E. Irene Roberts in Waynesburg, Greene, Pennsylvania in 1939 and became the parents of son Richard Laird in 1940 and my husband Larry C. Jamison in 1946.  

Lafayette and Priscilla Yost Haught

Rhea Haught Jamison

Lt. Col. Lafayette Richard "Dick" Jamison

Larry C. and Becky (Margheim) Jamison

I wish I had a picture of Larry's great, great grandmother Catherine Campbell Haught to add to the direct line of photos above, from Larry to Ellenor Kendall Campbell, his great, great, great grandmother!

St. John, Kansas On My Mind

Don't you love this photo? I "borrowed" it from my new Facebook friend Jill. I've accused Jill recently of contributing to my genealogy obsession by posting this photo and others that are similar on the "St. John Memories" profile at Facebook. I can hardly pull myself away from her photos and get to bed when it's so late at night.

It all started a few weeks ago when I got an email from Jill as she explained her connection to my family, as displayed on our Ancestry.com family trees. As I viewed our family trees, I was astonished to find that Jill was not only connected to a family in my tree, but also to my husband's family in two different lines. Jill is not technically my cousin, but I want her to be!

It was this tiny introduction to Jill that drew my attention to the St. John High Facebook profile and the wonderful photos that have been posted there in the St. John Memories album. The above photo is from that album and shows Jill's 3rd great-grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. James Jenkins in 1883 in downtown St. John, Stafford, Kansas.

I was born and raised in Great Bend, Barton, Kansas, which lies 19 miles straight north of St. John. My mother was born near St. John and her parents lived in Stafford, Stafford, Kansas, which lies 12 miles southeast of St. John. So this is my familiar home territory. But as I began researching my husband's family a decade ago, I saw that, while 99% of his ancestors were in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, one set of his 3rd great-grandparents lived, died and are buried in St. John, Stafford County, Kansas.

This kind of discovery has such an impact on me that I'm nearly just blown away. I'm a person who's easily impressed, easily struck by what other people call "coincidences".  After I enjoyed reviewing all the wonderful photos in the St. John album on Facebook, I went back to my husband's Jamison file in my RootsMagic database and studied his 3rd great-grandparents, Dennis Delaney (1816-1889) and Ellenor Kendall (1815-1898) Campbell. They were residing in their hometown of Monongalia, Marion, West Virginia in 1880 and were in St. John when the March 1, 1885 Kansas State Census was taken. So they were about 68 years old when they made the long trip from West Virginia to the dry, hot, dusty plains of central Kansas. In the 1880 census Dennis's occupation is listed as "farmer" but in the 1885 Kansas State Census he's listed as a "Wagonmaker". I haven't fully developed any facts on the reason for their move west, but I have some ideas that I'll post as I'm able to determine their validity. And while the people in the photo at the top of this story are my friend Jill's ancestors, I appreciate the picture, as it's representative of the St. John that my husband's great, great, great grandparents experienced in their Kansas residency.