Cousins in Common: The Rathbuns

Are there even more cousins that David and I are both related to? Yep. I don’t find this surprising anymore. Interesting, you bet. Even fascinating. But not surprising. I wouldn’t be surprised to find coincidences like this and line-crossings in the family trees of many couples.

So which cousins in common am I talking about today?

Norton Galard Rathbun (1838-1919) was my first cousin five times removed. Norton's parents were Saxton Squire Rathbun (1813-1895) and Barbara Elizabeth Huss Rathbun (1816-1894). You can see their gravestone in Bakertown Cemetery, Clyde, Ohio, just below. Norton’s maternal grandparents were Noah Jacob Huss (1790-1843) and Mary Burkholder Huss (1789-1849). You can see Noah and Mary's gravestones in the same cemetery about three-quarters of the way through this previous post. Noah and Mary were my five times great-grandparents through my paternal grandmother’s line.

Gravestone of Saxton Rathbun and Barbara Huss Rathbun.

On Christmas Day of 1865 in Sandusky County, Ohio, cousin Norton married Elizabeth E. Hufford (1842-1926). Elizabeth was David Maxine’s second cousin five times removed. Her great-grandparents were Christian Hoffart (1716-1788) and his second wife Anna Catherine Vogel Hoffart (1715-abt 1807). Christian and his first wife, Elizabeth Keim (1723-abt 1763), were the six times great grandparents of David through his paternal grandmother’s line.

The marriage of Norton Galard Rathbun and Elizabeth E. Hufford Rathbun means that all their descendants are cousins to both David and me. Not that they had a great number of descendants. Norton and Elizabeth had three sons, Edward Carlyle Rathbun (1867-1942), Arthur F. Rathbun (1869-1965), and Herman W. Rathbun (b 1867). Edward had two sons, Irvin Noah Rathbun (1899-1988) and Alan Edward Rathbun (1906-1993). Irvin and Alan had seven children between them, seven great-grandchildren of Norton and Elizabeth Rathbun. One, maybe two, of those didn’t make it to adulthood. None of the remaining five has had any children that I can find so far. All of those offspring are cousins David and I have in common.

Dorothy M. Sherrard Rathbun, 1936.

At one point I thought I might find another family connection though one of these common cousins. Alan Edward Rathbun (1906-1993), grandson of Norton Galard Rathbun, married Dorothy Marguerite Sherrard (1910-1994) in Canton, Stark County, Ohio, in 1936. Since my father has had relatives in Stark County, Ohio, for nearly two hundred years, I wondered whether Dorothy Sherrard was connected to me through another line. But I can’t find that she is.

But there is another family connection among these Rathbuns, David, and me. That connection turns these family lines into one big circle.

A while back I posted here about David's and my cousins in common the Colgrove sisters—Victoria Marie “Vikki” Colgrove Young and Rebecca Louise “Becki” Colgrove Siler. They're related to David through the ancestor they share with him: David F. Sellers (1845-1927). So, like David, they're related to Elizabeth E. Hufford Rathbun through David F. Sellers's maternal line.

I’m related to Vikki and Becki through our common great-great-grandfather Matti Juhonpoika Uhmusberg Hietanen (1857-1915), a line going through my mother. But it's through my father that I’m related to Norton Galard Rathbun, so Vikki and Becki aren’t related to Norton, too, just to Norton's wife, Elizabeth.

But just as David and I are related to all Norton and Elizabeth Rathbun’s descendants, so are Vikki and Becki.

Is that too confusing?

It’s easier to visualize, so I’ve created a chart. The names in red are cousins in common. I didn’t want to make the chart any more complicated than it is, so I didn’t put in the children of brothers Irvin and Alan Rathbun--although those children are also cousins in common with both David and me. If you trace the main course of the lines and ignore the offshoots to the red names, you can see that it’s actually a closed loop.

Cousins in Common: The Rathbuns Chart. As with all images on this blog, click it to see a larger version.

Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery

Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, west gate. The plot of Don and Amy Bartholomew is just behind the gate's left pillar.

I was intrigued to find that some of my relatives have graves in Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. It's not that I have any thrilling or funny stories to tell about these relatives--I don't. I was intrigued because Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery is in the city I call home, San Diego, California. So I took a drive out to the cemetery to find the graves of Amy Consuelo Huss Bartholomew (1890-1984) and Robert Murray Schell (1930-1992).

Amy Consuelo Huss Bartholomew was my second cousin four times removed. Our common ancestors were her great-grandparents Noah Jacob Huss (1790-1843) and Mary Burkholder Huss (1789-1849), who are my five times great-grandparents.

On September 1, 1912, Amy Huss married Don Clio Bartholomew (1888-1959) in Lagrange County, Indiana, the county where they both were born. Don joined the US Army and rose to the rank of Major. They lived at different times in Fort Constitution, New Hampshire; Sable, Colorado; and in the Canal Zone of Panama, where their only child, a daughter, was born in 1923.

First side - Don Clio Bartholomew grave.

Reverse side - Amy Consuelo Huss Bartholomew grave.

When Don died in San Diego, California, in 1959, he was buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, in plot T-134. Several months before Amy died in 1984, she moved from San Diego to Carmichael, California, to be near her daughter. After she died, her ashes were returned to San Diego where they are buried in the plot with her husband Don. Her name is recorded on the reverse of their gravestone.

Robert Murray Schell grave.

Robert Murray Schell was my fourth cousin twice removed. We had the same common ancestors with Amy Consuelo Huss Bartholomew, Noah and Mary Huss, as I mentioned above. They were Robert Schell’s great-great-great-grandparents through both his paternal and maternal lines.

The paternal line from Noah and Mary Huss to Robert Schell goes like this: Noah and Mary had a daughter Barbara Elizabeth Huss Rathbun (1816-1894). She had a son Chaplin Lorenzo Rathbun (1845-1921). He had a daughter Nina Edna Rathbun Schell (1879-1951). She had a son Harry Gaylord Schell (1904-1951). Harry's son was Robert Murray Schell.

The maternal line from Noah and Mary Huss to Robert Schell goes like this: Noah and Mary had a son Christian Huss (1815-1864). He had a son Chaplin Rathbun “Chap” Huss (1838-1913). He had a son Burton William Huss (1869-1929). He had a daughter Helen Marjory Huss Russell Schell (1899-1987). Helen's second husband was Harry Gaylord Schell, and their son was Robert Murray Schell

Robert Schell became a Staff Sergeant in the US Air Force. His term of service was August 10, 1947, to August 10, 1951, and he served in Korea. His ashes were interred at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery on March 4, 1993, in plot CBA-2-112. As far as I know, his wife is still alive. She moved to Gassville, Arkansas, after Robert’s death.

Fort Rosecrans Registered Historical Landmark plaque.

Fort Rosecrans is a registered historical landmark as well as a US military cemetery. It’s worth visiting just for the views, even if you don’t have any interest in the graves. The cemetery straddles the ridge of Point Loma, which encompasses the north side of San Diego Bay and sticks out into the Pacific Ocean. The road divides the cemetery into an eastern side and a western side.

In the center of this photo, between the trees, lies the historic red-roofed Victorian resort hotel, the Hotel Del Coronado, on Coronado Island.

The graves of Robert Schell and the Bartholomews are on the western side of the cemetery.  The Bartholomews’ gravestone is just inside the western gate to the left of the entrance drive, the fourth row from the cemetery wall, the fifth stone in from the drive. Although they’re on the western side of Point Loma, the hill curves so that their stone actually faces east, toward North Island, the bay, and downtown San Diego.

Looking east from Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery toward North Island, San Diego Bay, and downtown San Diego.

Robert Schell’s grave is within the cemetery wall high on the western slope. It commands a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean.

Looking west from Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery to the Pacific Ocean. I took all these photos on the same day, but the sky over San Diego to the east was mostly clear, while the sky over the Pacific was overcast.

Cousins in Common: Vikki Young and Becki Siler

When I wrote an earlier blog post called “Cousins in Common, Featuring Nathaniel Bartlett,” I didn’t know that Cousins in Common would become a series of posts. But David and I stumbled across a second instance of relatives that we share, so here’s a second Cousins in Common post—and I already know this one won’t be the last.

As I wrote in the first Cousins in Common entry, one of the factors that first got me interested in family genealogy was to see whether my partner David Maxine and I might have a common ancestor. So far, unless one believes I'm descended from the early Stewarts of the Scottish royal family—I wrote about that possibility here, but it will probably remain just that, a possibility—I haven’t found any common ancestors. What I have found are more cousins that we share, people—like Nathaniel Bartlett (1722-1802) and his descendants—who are related both to David and to me, but who don't make us blood relations to one another.

Information about David's father's family has long been fragmentary, but his unanticipated discovery of some Miller cousins last summer, as David wrote in this post a couple weeks ago, helped him put together many of the stray puzzle pieces. That was the bridge he'd been searching for.

In the center sit David F. Sellers (1845-1927) and Caroline Lower Sellers (1853-1923), great-great-grandparents of David Maxine, with their eldest daughters flanking them. On the right sits David's great-grandmother, Nora Belle Sellers Miller (1873-1948). On the left sits, very likely, David's great-great-aunt, Eva May Sellers Montgomery (1871-1935).

David learned that his great-great-grandparents, David F. Sellers (1845-1927) and Caroline “Anna” Lower Sellers (1853-1923), lived in Seneca County, Ohio. The mention of Seneca County rang a bell for me. Many of my paternal grandmother’s relatives lived in southern Sandusky County, Ohio, in the towns of Clyde and Green Springs, just across the border from Seneca County. I thought it was quite possible that some Sellers relative of David's from Seneca County could have married one of my Hawk, Huss, or Rathbun relatives from Sandusky County. So we started searching for information on the Sellers family.

David F. and Caroline Sellers had nine children, but only five daughters survived past childhood. Their second daughter, Nora Belle Sellers Miller (1873-1948), was David Maxine’s great-grandmother. She married Edward Nelson Miller (1868-1950) in 1890. The Millers lived for awhile in Tiffin, Seneca County, Ohio, then moved to Willow River, Minnesota. Nora Belle Sellers Miller and Edward Miller are both buried in Jamestown, Stutsman County, North Dakota. No connection to my family there, as far as I know.

David's paternal grandmother Fern Naomi Miller Maxine (1890-1945) stands between her parents Edward Nelson Miller (1868-1950) and Nora Belle Sellers Miller (1873-1948), David's great-grandparents.

Nora Belle Sellers’s three younger sisters who survived past childhood seemed to have remained in Seneca County. At least, they’re all buried there. So none of them seemed to offer promising leads.

But the eldest sister, Eva May Sellers Montgomery (1871-1935), was a different story. She took a path in life that neither David nor I expected. Eva May and Chester A. Montgomery (1869-1926), after marrying in Tiffin, Seneca County, Ohio, moved to Willoughby, Lake County, Ohio. Eva May spent her last days in the home of one of her daughters in Painesville, Lake County, Ohio, and is buried in Painesville’s Evergreen Cemetery.

When David mentioned Evergreen Cemetery, it more than rang a bell, it set me on high alert. Dozens of my relatives, including both my parents, are from Lake County, Ohio. Many relatives of mine are buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Painesville. There had to be a Lake County connection between our families.

David found the names of the spouses of Eva May’s daughters and I began trying to match them to names on my family tree. Bingo! Eva May’s daughter Mabel A. Montgomery (1902-1951) married Clyde Robert Colgrove (1893-1986). I had Colgroves in my family tree on my mother’s side. This surprised me, since I’d been initially expecting to find the match on my father’s side. But the connection wasn’t proven yet.

I went to the internet, looking for evidence to link my Colgroves to David’s. I found posts from another genealogical researcher named Vikki Young who was also searching for Colgrove information. The name Vikki spelled with two Ks seemed strangely familiar, but it took me a little while to recognize Vikki Young as someone I was already aware of—my Colgrove third cousin Victoria Marie “Vikki” Colgrove Young. She and I had been separately exchanging information with a third family researcher, all three of us cousins.

Vikki has a sister Becki, and I managed to trace the ancestral line from them back to David F. Sellers, their great-great-great-grandfather on their father’s side, making Vikki and Becki third cousins once removed to David Maxine.

My great-great-grandparents with some of their children in 1897. Clockwise from top left: Matti Juhonpoika Uhmusberg Hietanen (1859-1915), Selma Marie Hietanen Filppi (1892-1978), Aliisa Elviira "Ella" Hietanen Quiggle (1894-1950), Liisa Kristiina Herttua Hietanen (1861-1943), Juho Tauno "John" Hietanen (1897-1973), Santra Aliina "Lena" Hietanen Krause (1896-1976).

I already knew that Vikki and Becki are my third cousins on their mother’s side. Our mutual ancestors are our great-great-grandparents Matti Juhonpoika Uhmusberg Hietanen (1859-1915) and Liisa Kristiina Herttua Hietanen (1861-1943), who emigrated from Isokyro, Finland. Matti arrived in the USA on June 16, 1887, and it seems that Liisa and their two sons arrived later on July 5, 1890. The eldest son was Matti Hietanen Jr. (1883-1921), my great-grandfather, whose death I wrote a post about here. Matti Sr. and Liisa’s first child born in Fairport Harbor, Lake County, Ohio, where they settled, was daughter Selma Marie Hietanen Filppi (1892-1978), the great-grandmother of Victoria Marie “Vikki” Colgrove Young and her sister Rebecca Louise “Becki” Colgrove Siler.

Matti Jr.'s sister, Selma M. Hietanen Filppi.

Matti Hietanen Jr., my great-grandfather.

Vikki and Becki’s mother is my second cousin once removed. Their father is David’s third cousin. This may not seem such a close connection between David and me. But compared to the long chain we each had to trace to reach the previous common cousin we knew of, Nathaniel Bartlett, the connection between us through our mutual cousins Vikki and Becki seems like almost nothing. It’s been almost two weeks now since I discovered that these sisters—and their children—are David’s and my cousins in common, but it still kind of blows my mind.

Like the Cheese

Swiss cheese. It has holes. Like my Shanower ancestral line. Or should I spell it Schonauer? That’s how they spelled it back in Grosshochstetten, Canton Bern, Switzerland, where my possible ancestor Andreas Schonauer was born about 1560.

There’s a huge hole in the line of descent from Andreas Schonauer and his wife Elsbeth Krahenbuhl Schonauer (1558-?). Here, in a previous blog post about my five times great-grandfather Henry Shanower, I pointed out that hole between the Schonauers and their purported Shanower descendants. There’s no definite connection between them, no proof that my oldest direct Shanower ancestor, my five times great-grandfather Henry, descended from the Schonauers of Switzerland.

Two factors support the idea that he didn’t. The first is a discontinuity of names—the lack of earlier Henrys. I’ve found no Henrys among earlier Schonauers, a family that tended to reuse names through the generations.

I’ve come across several Henry Shoners and Heinrich Schoners while researching alternate spellings, but so far I haven’t found any family connections among Shoners or Schoners to my five times great-grandfather Henry Shanower.

There is, however, a Henry Schannauer (1859-1860) descended from the Swiss Schonauers in another line. But this Henry, who died before he was a year old, was born several decades after my five times great-grandfather Henry Shanower probably died. So the existence of this infant Henry probably doesn’t signal a continuity of names.

There are Jacobs and Johns, Abrahams and Magdalenas on both sides of the hole, though, so maybe those names show continuity. And Henry’s son Jacob Shanower (1785-1829) had his last name spelled variously as Shoenauer and Schöenhauer. Those spellings might indicate a link to the Swiss Schonauers, too.

The second factor indicating that Henry Shanower might not be descended from the Swiss Schonauers is the possible German origin of Henry’s ancestors. My father has long believed the received information that the Shanowers came from Germany, not Switzerland. An early twentieth century report of a Shanower family reunion mentions the German origin of the family. So maybe my Shanower line wasn’t Swiss, but German.

However, I can explain how a Swiss family line might come to be considered German. The Swiss Hans Schonauer (1644-aft. 1711) and his wife Elisabeth Aebersold Schonauer (abt. 1647-aft. 1711), of Grosshochstetten, Canton Bern, Switzerland, were persecuted for their religious beliefs. In 1710 they were imprisoned at the Upper Hospital in Bern because they were Anabaptists. They managed to buy their way out of jail, but in 1711 they were exiled from Switzerland and put onto a ship bound for Holland. They escaped at Mannheim, Germany, the main city of the Palatinate.

Karl Ludwig I von der Pfalz by Gerrit van Honthorst.

Germany’s Palatinate in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was a province in southern Germany between the Swiss and French borders along the headwaters of the Rhine. It was known for being an area of religious tolerance by direction of Karl Ludwig I von der Pfalz, Elector Palatinate (1617-1680), known at the English court as Charles Louis I. He wanted people to move into the area, which had been depopulated by the Thirty Years’ War. (Incidentally, Karl Ludwig I is related to David by being the fifteen times great-nephew of Euphemia Bruce of the Scottish royal family, David’s many times great-grandmother.) Many Anabaptist Swiss emigres spent years in the Palatinate before renewed religious persecution from France caused them to emigrate again. This time they settled in North America, primarily in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, where William Penn’s Quaker views were a good fit with the beliefs of such Anabaptist sects as the Mennonites and the Amish.

In 1729 one of Hans and Elizabeth Schonauer’s sons, also named Hans (1688-1749), was living in the town of Perry in the Palatinate. Hans Jr. left Germany about 1744 and settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where his name Hans was Americanized to John. It’s possible—maybe even probable—that one of the younger Hans’s grandsons is my five times great-grandfather Henry Shanower. If that’s true, then the Swiss Schonauers’ sojourn in the German Palatinate could explain the story of a German origin for the Shanowers.

My research on other family lines has many holes, too, but I suspect that some of these lines may have come from Switzerland. My suspicions find support in the seventeenth and eighteenth century pattern of migration from Switzerland to the Palatinate to North America, most often Pennsylvania.

Frederick Roush grave, Massillon, Ohio.

My five times great-grandfather Philip Roush is said to be from Bavaria in Germany. The border between Bavaria and the neighboring Palatinate fluctuated in the seventeenth century, so although I have no proof, this could suggest that Philip Roush was, like the Schonauers, a Palatinate settler originally from Switzerland. While I don’t have any direct confirmation that Philip immigrated to Pennsylvania, his son Frederick Roush (1789-1844) is reported to have been born there before moving to Stark County, Ohio.

My six times great-grandfather Johann Michael Haflich (abt. 1720-abt. 1770) seems to have a similar story. He was born in the Palatinate region—in Mutterstadt, Pfalz, Bavaria, as were his American immigrant parents Johann Karl Hoefflich (abt. 1699-aft. 1760) and Eva Kern Hoefflich (abt. 1700-abt. 1760). So was his grandfather Franz Hoefflich (1677-abt. 1730), as well as his great-grandparents Franz Hoefflich (abt. 1644-abt. 1694) and Elizabetha Hoefflich (abt. 1650-abt. 1690). Could this line have been from Switzerland originally? The Haflichs followed the pattern of moving from the Palatinate area to Pennsylvania, specifically Richmond in Berks County, before 1756. But since they’d been in Pfalz as early as 1644—before the end of the Thirty Years' War—maybe they’re simply German after all.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the French region of Alsace bordered the Palatinate. Between 1671 and 1711 immigrants flooded into Alsace, too, many of them Anabaptist refugees from Canton Bern in Switzerland, where the Schonauers had lived. My six times great-grandmother Eva Catharina Startzmann Haflich (1722-1770), wife of Johann Michael Haflich, was born in Rexingen, Alsace, France. Both of Eva Haflich’s grandfathers were born there, too: her paternal grandfather Hans Martin Startzmann about 1660 and her maternal grandfather Heinrich Arneth about 1670. Like the Haflichs, the Startzmanns also ended up in Richmond, Berks County, Pennsylvania, in the mid-1700s. And none of their names sound French.

If any of my older Roush, Haflich, Startzmann, or Arneth ancestors were Swiss, my genealogical research, like the cheese, is too full of holes to show it. But the Reitenauers, who I’ll discuss next, are a different case. They must be the part between the holes.

My eleven times great-grandfather Antony “Anton” Reitenauer (abt. 1586-?) was definitely Swiss. He came from the area of Gondiswil in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland, possibly from the small municipality of Reitnau in Canton Aargau about ten miles from Gondiswil.

His grandson Nicolaus “Claus” Reitenauer (1650-1717) ended up in Alsace, France, following the migration pattern. Continuing that pattern, several of Claus’s grandsons, including Nicholas Reutenauer (1711-1795) and Henry Reutenauer (1713-1781), emigrated with their father Johann "Hans" Nicholas Reitenauer from Alsace, France, to Maryland in the USA.

Immigrant passenger list of the ship Robert and Alice, September 3, 1739. The third name, marked with the dot, supposedly reads Hans Nicholas Reitenauer, who was son of Claus and father of Nicholas and Henry. I can't make out the writing, but other records show that this Hans Nicholas Reitenauer immigrated to the USA, so I'll accept this reading.

The eldest of those grandsons, Nicholas Reutenauer, had a granddaughter, Anna Elizabeth Ridenour Hawk (1774-abt. 1840), my five times great-grandmother. Anna Ridenour Hawk was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. About 1824-25 she was, with her husband Conrad and their crowd of children, one of the earliest settlers of Green Creek Township in Sandusky County, Ohio.

And—what do you know?—my Hawk line, originally spelled Haag, came from Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, which used to be part of—you guessed it—the Palatinate. Baden-Wurttemberg is right next to—quelle surprise!—Alsace, France. And after the Hawks left Germany they settled in—wait for it—Pennsylvania.

Noah Jacob Huss grave, Clyde, Ohio.

Mary Burkholder Huss grave, Clyde, Ohio.

Conrad and Anna Hawk’s son David Hawk (1805-1855), my great-great-great-great grandfather, married Eleanor “Ellen” Huss Hawk (1812-1889), who was born in York, York County, Pennsylvania. The family of Ellen’s father, Noah Jacob Huss (1790-1843), came from Germany, but I don’t know the region or whether they reached Germany from Switzerland. So far I’ve failed to find the ancestors of Ellen’s mother, Mary Burkholder (1789-1849), my six times great-grandmother, but I know that some Burkholders came to Pennsylvania from Germany. It's probable that Mary’s forebears did, too. And if they did, there’s a chance they came from Switzerland before that.

But enough speculation—back to the Reitenauers. The second immigrant grandson of Claus Reitenauer, Henry Reutenauer, married, as his second wife, a woman I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, my six times great-grandmother Eva Catharina Startzmann Haflich, widow of Johann Michael Haflich. Through Eva’s second marriage to Henry Reutenauer, she became my eight times great-aunt as well as being my six times great-grandmother already. To complicate the connections even further, Eva’s mother, Christina Arneth Startzmann was the sister of Henry’s mother, Anna Margaretha Arneth Reutenauer. So Eva’s second husband, Henry, was also her first cousin.

These multi-generational connections to the Reitenauers suggest to me that the Startzmanns and the Arneths were also Swiss at an earlier point, especially when considering their aforementioned pattern of migration from Alsace to Pennsylvania. But there are too many holes to be certain.

Catherine Easley Leifer, circa 1880s.

Finally, there are the Leifers. Frederick Leifer (1813-1865) and Catherine Easley Leifer (1818-1892), my great-great-great-grandparents, were born in Switzerland. They immigrated to Ohio in the early 1850s, probably in 1854, with no lengthy stops in Germany or Pennsylvania on the way. Their daughter, my great-great-grandmother, Louisa “Lucy” Leifer Shanower (1856-1916), was their first child born in the USA.

Louisa "Lucy" Leifer Shanower, circa 1900.

Lucy’s older brothers and sisters were all born in Switzerland. Her brother Jacob Leifer (1842-1922) was born in Sougenreed, Canton Bern, Switzerland. Jacob was living in Massillon, Ohio, in April 1907 when he made a month-long trip to Switzerland for a visit to the old Swiss hometown, taking along his son Daniel Webster Leifer (1869-1947), my first cousin three times removed. This 1907 return to Switzerland wasn’t the first; there seems to have been an earlier trip in the late 1860s.

Later, cousin Daniel Webster made at least one more trip to Switzerland, this time in 1937, taking his wife, Iva May “Ivy” Donant Leifer (1869-1956). A few years afterward, Ivy was pained to learn of the destruction World War II was causing to many of the European countries they’d visited on their trip.

The Leifer family, circa 1875. The only person I can positively identify is Lucy Leifer Shanower (1856-1917), my great-great-grandmother, the woman standing to the right of center. Compare her to the later photo of her above. The woman on the left could be Catherine Easley Leifer (1818-1892), Lucy's mother. Compare her to the later photo of her above. If that's Catherine, then the man her hand is resting on is likely her husband, Frederick Leifer (1813-1865). As usual, you can click on any photo to have it open larger in another window.

Those are all my Swiss ancestors, both certain and speculative—at least for now. I hadn’t been aware of my Swiss ancestry before my genealogical research revealed it. I was surprised—and happy—to find it. But I’d still like to fill in some of those holes.

My Gay Relatives: Gold Miner Jacob Huss

Everyone has gay relatives, whether one knows they’re gay or not. As a gay man, I’m interested in identifying my gay relatives. I know several living ones, but I’m more intrigued by those from the past, the hidden ones.

Before the twenty-first century, being attracted sexually to someone of the same gender was far less acceptable in Western society than it is today. There was a time when the subject of homosexuality was taboo in public. Today’s familiar topic of equal marriage rights for LGBT people would have been a concept inconceivable to many in bygone days. Of course, prejudice against homosexuals is still around, but it used to be greater. Most lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people of yesteryear tended to hide their sexual preferences. They would “stay in the closet”—consciously or unconsciously—to avoid negative repercussions from society, from family, from the workplace, from organized religion, even from self.

So it’s difficult to identify gay relatives when most traces of their homosexuality never made it out of the closet, much less into the historical record. How can one draw conclusions about any aspect of people’s lives when all that’s left are names, some dates, and family relationships?

Marital status can be a clue. Homosexuality is one obvious reason an adult might remain single. But a lack of marriage is hardly conclusive—there are any number of reasons people don’t marry. And in a culture of repression, gay people do marry those of the other sex. Married or unmarried, a specifically gay person is virtually impossible to recognize from such scanty remains.

More information is necessary. Most times there isn’t more information—not information that contains clues to sexual preference, anyway. But once in a while there is. Case in point: Jacob Huss.

Grave of Jacob "Jake" Huss (1830-1911), Clyde, Ohio

Jacob Huss (1830-1911) was the tenth of eleven children born to my great-great-great-great-great-grandparents Noah Huss (1790-1843) and Mary Burkholder Huss (1789-1849). Jacob’s elder sister Eleanor “Ellen” Huss Hawk (1812-1889) was my great-great-great-great-grandmother.

The information that I have about Uncle Jake comes primarily from his 1911 obituary in an unidentified Sandusky County newspaper. He was born and died in Green Creek, Sandusky County, Ohio, but what he did in between is fascinating.

Uncle Jake lived with his parents on the family farm until he was twenty years old. In 1850 the California gold fields called to him. He followed the footsteps of the previous year’s Forty-Niners to northern California and became a placer miner. Placer mining is the mining of gold or other minerals from alluvial deposits found in stream beds. So far, so good. Nothing to exclude that Jacob Huss was gay, but then, nothing to confirm it, either.

Uncle Jake never married. His obituary calls him a “bachelor,” a word that, if spoken aloud with a certain emphasis, has long been a code word for “gay.” I can’t honestly claim that the person who wrote the obituary definitely intended this understanding, but it’s a possibility—especially when considered in the light of what follows.

Grave of James Carson (1822-1906), Weaverville, California.

The obituary continues. “For nearly 40 years he and his boon companion, James Carson, made their home at Weaverville, Trinity county, California.” Now, when I first read this, I immediately leaped to the conclusion that Uncle Jake and Irish immigrant James Carson (1822-1906) were a gay couple. Two men who live together for almost forty years as boon companions is about as clear an announcement of that as seems practical in an Ohio newspaper of 1911.

Eventually paralysis struck James Carson, who was Uncle Jake’s senior by eight years. Jake “cared for him as a brother until the end, then gave him a Christian burial” in Weaverville Cemetery. Clearly Uncle Jake was devoted to the man the obituary calls his “partner.” Now, the word partner has many aspects. In 1911 could it have implied a member of a gay relationship, however that was conceived of? Possibly not—but the obituary certainly doesn’t say that Uncle Jake and James were business partners.

Now comes an interesting twist. After James died, we learn that “kind friends at Weaverville, especially Miss Lizzie Fox and her family, did what they could” to comfort Uncle Jake. Who’s this Lizzie Fox? Should I throw out the window my assumption of Uncle Jake being gay?

Not necessarily. Elizabeth “Lizzie” Fox (1833-1908) seems to have been part of a crowd. She was the foremost of Uncle Jake’s “kind friends” along with unnamed members of her family. Lizzie was evidently important in Jake’s life, but who knows if there was more than friendship between them? They were close in age. He would have been in his mid-seventies and she was three years younger.

Perhaps there was a romantic relationship between them, and because no marriage resulted, the writer of the obituary, for propriety’s sake, calls them friends and doesn’t mention romance. Or perhaps Lizzie had romantic intentions that weren’t reciprocated. Or perhaps there was no romance because Jake was known to be gay and the obituary writer hoped to obscure this by throwing in a woman’s name. Or perhaps there was never any thought of romance on either Lizzie’s or Jake’s part because Lizzie was gay, too. I find no indication she ever married.

[UPDATE 11/27/2012: In nineteenth century Weaverville, California, there was an Elizabeth Johnson born in Ireland in the 1830s, who immigrated to the USA in 1847. Elizabeth married William Orson Fox—called Orson—on August 15, 1861, and gave birth to five children. Orson Fox was born in Suffield, Connecticut, on October 31, 1824, and died in 1897 in Weaverville, leaving his wife Elizabeth a widow. It's possible that she is the Lizzie Fox mentioned in Jacob Huss's obituary, although I don't know why she'd be called "Miss."

Also in the Orson and Elizabeth Fox household were five nephews and nieces, children of Elizabeth's brother-in-law William I. Hupp and apparently left with Elizabeth and Orson after their mother Isabella Johnson Hupp, Elizabeth's sister, died in the 1870s. One of these nieces was also named Elizabeth and called Lizzie. So it's also possible that Miss Lizzie Fox of the obituary instead refers to Elizabeth Fox's niece Elizabeth Hupp, who perhaps was called Fox instead of Hupp because she'd been raised in her aunt and uncle's Fox household.]

Extremists may question my conclusion that Jacob Huss was gay. I would argue that the evidence weighs more on the side of his being gay than not. It’s unusual for two unrelated straight men to live together for forty years and care for each other like family, particularly with no indication of one employing the other. The obituary provides subtext—as well as not-so-subtext. Remember that “boon companion” bit?

In addition to the obituary’s wording, which can’t help but be subjective, I believe that the context of Uncle Jake’s traveling to the California gold rush is also telling.

The frontier has always been a place where non-normative activity is tolerated. The California gold rush was overwhelmingly male. Many of the miners were unmarried. I’m not saying that all or even most of the men who went to the gold rush were gay. I am saying that gay men in the gold rush had fewer societal pressures to conform to heterosexual norms than gay men had in the east. The attraction of such an environment to a twenty-year-old young man who felt different from those around him is easy to understand. The opportunity to explore one’s homosexuality without negative consequence was greater in the west—and so was the opportunity to strike it rich.

But I don’t think Uncle Jake and James Carson made fortunes in the gold rush. In January 1909, less than a year after Lizzie Fox died, seventy-eight-year-old Uncle Jake returned to Green Creek, Ohio, to live with relatives. He died two years later, February 13, 1911, at the home of his nephew, Chaplin Lorenzo Rathbun (1845-1921), who’s my first cousin, five times removed. Jacob Huss was buried in Bakertown Cemetery, in Clyde, Sandusky County, Ohio. A few months ago I was happy to visit my gay great-great-great-great-great-uncle’s grave.

Uncle Jake and me.