Madness Monday - Collateral Lines Anyone?

One piece of advice often heard regarding brick wall ancestors is to research collateral lines.  In the case of my brick wall, William H. Ballenger, I haven't even been able to identify a collateral relative to research.  So in his case I thought I'd try identifying potential collateral lines.

William's last three known residences of Nye, Montana, Grand County, Colorado and Boulder, Colorado haven't turned up any potential Ballenger relatives.  However, when he was living in Mahaska County, Iowa, I noticed that surname so I decided to start looking there.

Initially I am focussing on the 1850-1859 time period, since I know that my William Ballenger was living in Mahaska County then.  In reviewing the Iowa State Census Collection, 1836-1926 on Ancestry, the following Ballenger family groupings turned up:

John F. Ballinger

• Two Johns-with one being much older than the other.
• The younger John appears in the various years as Ballenger, Ballinger and Ballanger.

Landon Ballinger
Thomas Ballinger
Samuel & Jeremiah Ballenger (young men listed, at times, in the same house with the older John F. Ballinger).
William H. Ballinger (click here to read a little about William)
Willard Ballenger

The listing for Willard Ballenger was for 1854 and caught my eye right off the bat so we will be taking a look at him next week. Can you guess where this discussion is headed?


© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Madness Monday - Moving on with the William Ballenger Family

When I started this blog, I was using the Madness Monday theme to discuss one of my difficult families, that of William Harrison Ballenger.  Each week I was discussing one member of the family.  Life got busy and I had to suspend the posts.  Well, now I've uncovered some new information so I am going to take a slightly different tact.  One of the things I would like to try out is something I learned in Pamela Boyer Sayre's workshop, "Synchronized Research and Reporting" at the NGS Salt Lake City conference; write as you do your research.  Well I'm already behind, but I'm going to try and use Monday's to write about some of the items that are being discovered regarding the Ballenger family. 

For an overview you can check posts here and here.  I'll wait until you return...

One of my original goals with this family was to identify the alleged 12 children of William and Lucinda.  I have accomplished this.  Here's the family group sheet.  I want to acknowledge The Shy Genealogist for her posts on how to do some great things like this form in Word or Excel.

I was tempted to use a family group sheet from my genealogy program but I like this table format a little better.  It was an interesting excercise in that putting this form together manually forced me to evaluate each piece of evidence rather than just taking the easy road and printing off and posting the FGS.  That's why there's so many "probably," "circa," and "or" statements.  Much of the evidence is not yet conclusive in my mind.

Next week we'll look at the newest Iowa state census record I found on this family.

By the way, if you think this might be your family or are just interested, please contact me, I would love to share information and sources.

© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Madness Monday-William Harrison Ballenger

When I first started researching William Ballenger, I thought this would be an easy project. My mom and uncle helped me put together their side of the family when I did my pedigree chart for a junior high social studies project years ago . What they found among family papers was that William was born in 1821 in Maysville, Kentucky. He married Lucinda Cambell (or Campbell) and they had 12 children. There also was a picture of William and Lucinda taken in Boulder, Colorado which is where several other branches of the family also lived at one time.

What I most wanted to learn about William was:
1. Who his parents were.
2. Verify his birthplace. As you will see in future postings there is a big question mark on his birthplace.
3. Identify William and Lucinda Ballenger’s children and verify whether they had 12 children.

This is were easy ended. The first thing I discovered was there is no consistency, even within the family, as to how his name was spelled. I have seen Ballanger, Ballenger, Ballinger and many other variations. When I add in all of the potential spelling errors, I am ready to pull out my hair! Even one person would spell Ballenger differently over a period of time.

A logical next step was to check out the US Federal Censuses. Unfortunately, I have yet to find William in one single Federal Census over the course of his life. Through other research I have been able to put together a pretty extensive timeline of William's life. So I know pretty close, if not exactly, where he was living for the various federal censuses. What happened every year when the census taker came along? Did he and the family go into hiding? Did he come out and run the census taker off? Have I somehow missed this family every ten years due to spelling errors? I really believe the man had some "privacy" issues!

The good news is that William and his family are listed in 2 state censuses and this has turned out to be a huge help.
• 1856 - Black Oak, Mahaska County, Iowa he is listed with his wife Lucinda and their three children: Mary, Nancy and John.
• 1885 - Grand County, Colorado. William and Lucinda are listed with 6 of their children Stephen, S., Wm., M., Lewis and John. There were also two boarders in the house: John Gibbons and Henry McGuffey.

I keep holding out hope that William will eventually turn up in a federal census but I am not holding my breath. In the meantime, I keep looking for alternative sources to search and try not to let it drive me to madness.

I will be writing more on this family. I started out with a single photo of William and Lucinda, taken in Boulder, Colorado and the basic information I mentioned. From there I have been working to compile an extensive outline of the family. A photograph is a good home source to illustrate how you can take an item found in the family home (or that of another relative) and tie it in to your family history and come up with a more complete and interesting story.

Copyright 2010, Michelle Goodrum