How I Found the Family of Grandma's Great-Grandmother

For those keeping score at home, I've recently made progress in the story of Grandma Denny's Great-Grandparents. Instead of first finding confirmed ancestors of John Hazzard, however, I've found the parents and siblings of his wife, Susan Myers!

For those interested, here's how I did it. Follow the links I've included below to view the actual documents:

1. I began with the 1870 Census of Capioma, Nemaha, Kansas. This is a common census that Grandma had access to in the 1980s. If you do a search for Howard Hazzard at FamilySearch.org, then filter the results for "Residence: Kansas," our Howard Hazzard shows up as the top two results. The 1870 census is option number two.
   
   In the 1870 census, notice that seven-year-old Howard Hazzard (Grandma's Grandpa) is listed as having been born in Kansas, while Susanna Hazzard was born in Pennsylvania.
    
2. The real breakthrough came when I found a record of John Hazzard's wedding to Susanna Myers at Ancestry.com. Unfortunately, different websites (companies) sometimes contain records not contained elsewhere - just like some library databases contain unique information also not found elsewhere.
   
   Anyway, I signed up for a free two-week trial at Ancestry.com and found this, resulting in two very helpful pieces of information: the date AND place of their wedding. Because this marriage record lists "John E. Hazzard" of Nemaha, and the date matches a time when it's reasonable they would have married (Howard was born in October of that same year), we're safe to assume that this was actually them. I've since learned that you can gain free access to Ancestry.com in any local FamilySearch library.
   
   
    
3. Seeing that they were married in Brown County - instead of Nemaha - I then searched for Susanna Myers in the 1860 Brown County Census. (Why would they be married in Brown County if she wasn't from there?). It would make sense that, since she wasn't yet married, she should be listed with her parents and siblings.
   
   My hunch was confirmed when I found a Susan Myers in Brown County, the same age that I would have suspected in 1860! She is listed as the second to oldest child of Austin and Sophia Myers, also from Pennsylvania.
    
4. Then, just to verify that I'd actually found the correct Susan Myers (living in Brown County in 1860, with the correct age, also from the same correct place), I searched for the same Austin and Sophia Myers family in later censuses. If my hunch was correct, Susan would no longer be listed with them (because she's listed with our John Hazzard).
   
   Guess what: Austin and Sophia Myers lived in Kansas for many more years - but Susan no longer appeared as listed with their family.
   
   1865 Brown County - Myers family
   1865 Nemeha County - Hazzard family (young Howard was just one)
   1875 Brown County - Myers family
    
5. In the later censuses, I've never found Susan as having returned to live with her parents - although I do believe she either passed away or left the Hazzards (possibly with their child, Florence), because she no longer appears on any records with John's family after 1870. This sad, 1875 Nemaha County census almost brings tears to my eyes.

One of the reasons Grandma Denny did family history work was to assist in fulfilling prophecy that the hearts of the children would turn to their fathers. For the first time in my life, I added names this week to our family tree in new.familysearch.org. I then printed the cards needed to submit for temple work.

I greatly appreciate the help that Aunt Rosie has given me with this research - and the tremendous amount of work she has done on this line and others over the years! Also, this may sound strange to some of you, but I know that Grandma has been helping me with this research. I know that we will all see her again, along with Susan Myers and the other members of her/our family.

John E. Hazzard - History Continued

Over the course of the last several months, I've been researching the life of John E. Hazzard, the great grandfather of my Grandma Denny. (Some of you may remember attending a Whitcomb/Denny family reunion back in the mid-80's. John E. Hazzard was Matilda Jane Whitcomb's father-in-law.)

Using only primary source documents, I've been able to recreate a somewhat different picture of his life than what was once understood by the family. While not trying to discredit the memory or research of others (especially Grandma), I've tried hard to piece things together as best as possible. I also very much welcome your participation in coming to know our family's history.

You may read what I've written: click here to see a full-screen version with comments enabled. If you'd like to edit the document, please contact me in the comments below or by email and I'll add you to the Google Doc. At the end of the document, you'll find an Appendix that contains images of some of the primary source documents. Once I'm satisfied we've told his story as accurately as possible, I'll then enter the family information found within this history into the new Family Search database.

What do you think? Can you help me fill in any of the holes? Can you find any flaws in the rationale I may have applied to the construction of this history?