It all started with a Prince

My grandmother, Nellie (Dillingham) Porter was the youngest of 14 children of Nathaniel and Carrie (Barnhart) Dillingham. She was born 10 July 1894 in Carroll County, Iowa. After her and my grandfather Harry Edward Porter were married, they bounced around quite a bit between Iowa and South Dakota and eventually ended up in Michigan. I never heard any stories regarding her older siblings except for her brother Grover Cleveland Dillingham who ended up in Flandreau, Moody County, South Dakota. And that was because my mother would say how wonderful Grover's wife Christine (Hanson) was. So, it wasn't until around the year 2000 that I was handed some stories about Nellie's older siblings. This led me to dive into research to uncover the answers to all the questions that abounded from those stories.   What I discovered were t rue family secrets. Nellie's 2nd oldest brother Samuel Dillingham was born 8 December 1869 in Manning, Iowa. In 1894 Sam was prisoner #2941 in Anamosa Pe...

My great-great grand uncle Hosea Bellon Porter, better known as HB, was born about 1830  in New York the youngest son of Aaron and Lovina (Chapman) Porter. The family migrated from New York state to Madison, Jefferson County, Indiana by 1818 based on the birth places of some of their children and Aaron showing as head of household in 1820 and 1830 census records. The family than traveled on to Cedar County, Iowa about 1832. The father Aaron died in 1846 and by 1860, many of the siblings, including their mother Lovina, had headed for Minnesota and then on to Oregon. John J (my 2x great grandfather) and his brother Nicholas and their families stayed in Iowa. By the year 1870, HB was found near Winters, Yolo County, California about 30 miles west of Sacramento. He owned land, was worth about $1500.00 (over $46,000.00 today) and had two farm hands. In 1880, he was located in Solano County, California; not because of moving, but because the county lines had changed.  By then he had...

 I always dreamed of finding a slew of diaries from my Sheridan family that I could ooh and ahh over and find all the answers to all my questions. Ya, right. Never going to happen.   Instead, I do have a letter written on my husband's side that has a lot of family information in it.  It was written by Eva Gates Connor who was the daughter in law of Archibald Conner. Archie was a younger brother to my husband's great-grandfather, William Conner. Archie was born 3 Jan 1879 in Barrie, Ontario, Canada and ca 1897 married Elisabeth Weigett. They had two sons by 1900, Russell and Ernest, both born in Simcoe, Ontario, Canada. Between 1900 and 1904 the young family had immigrated into Michigan.  Children Alice, Kenneth and Hazel were born 1907, 1910, and 1913, respectively in Twining, Arenac, Michigan. In Archie's immediate family, each person seemed to like a different spelling of their last name, so they are intermixed throughout their records. In the cemetery Archie ...