Francis E. Stout: Farmer

Many of my ancestors "worked the land." This week, I thought I would take a look at one of these farmers.

Francis E. Stout and his wife Mary E. Pugh Stout were my 3rd Great Grandparents. They were both born in North Carolina and made their way west into Tennessee where they raised a large family of 12 children. 

Here is part of their story:

In Search of Charlotte

I usually try to do a little genealogy every day. I also prefer to find everything I can in one source before moving on. This makes it easier to write those source citations.

The other day I thought I would go through the St. Louis, Missouri guardianship records on FamilySearch. I tend to go page by page, just in case the indexing isn't correct. In the first book, I found something unexpected. It appears that my 3rd great grandfather, Christian F. Kienlen, was made the guardian for a three year old girl named Charlotte, a "free mulatto girl." 

Christian was a young man of 27. 

He was married only the year before to Marie-Louise Moreau.

He was a confectioner, the first in St. Louis, and he bought and sold quite a bit of real estate at that time. 

But who is Charlotte?

Clearly, I'm going to have to find some additional court records, since all I found was the bond. I'll have to wait until all of the government buildings are opened back up again, but I really hope I can find out more about Charlotte. 

Who was she? 

Who were her parents?

What happened during her lifetime?

Did she grow up and have family of her own?

I don't want that little girl to be forgotten.

What Happened That Year?

For the past few weeks, I've been thinking a bit about how our current attempts to slow down a 

pandemic will influence us in the future. 

I am a nurse. I still go to work every day, not knowing when or by whom I may contract an illness.

This is not new for me, but this virus is different.

No one is immune to it.

No one, except for the people who already have it.

Everyone my age knew people who lived through The Great Depression, but unless you realize that, you don't quite understand why your grandma washed and reused aluminum foil or why your dad kept such detailed lists of his bills year after year. The Great Depression made people very careful with their money in ways we can't fully understand. We didn't live through it.

How will the 2020 global pandemic affect our lives?

Our "pop" or popular culture? 

Will there be more movies about pandemics?

Will people write books about social distancing?

Will video games have characters competing 

for toilet paper? 

Time will tell.

Honestly, some of the things I have seen are a bit concerning, but it's not the virus that worries me the most. 

I am worried about our children.

They are watching our reactions.

They watch people hoarding to the point that others can't get the things they need.

They are watching over-anxious adults unable to cope, or angry adults who are defying the recommendations.

We need to teach them to stay calm.

We need to teach them to be helpers.

We need to teach them to care about the more vulnerable in our society, even if it involves personal sacrifice.

I learned in a literature course that fantasy becomes more popular during times of economic recession or depression. It's a great distraction. Think about the things we've seen since 2008's Great Recession:

The Walking Dead, the Twilight series, True Blood, tons of superhero stuff - just to name a few.

My grandpa, Chester Paul Aden, was born in 1919.

This was the year after the pandemic flu that killed millions of people, many of them young, healthy adults.

Did that pandemic affect what people were doing when he was born?

Chester Paul Aden  1920

Here's a bit about my grandpa, who was born the year we were fighting the 3rd wave of the 1918 flu pandemic.

Lucille Holland Aden - My Granny

When my Grandpa Aden died in 1993, Granny (Norma Lucille Holland Aden) was 71 years old. One of my favorite memories of her came a few years later, after she had moved back to St. Louis from Poplar Bluff, Missouri.  She was living in a condominium that she bought, and one of her neighbors was a nice old man named Tom Waggoner. They became quite close.

My mom said it felt "weird," but we all embraced Tom as part of our family.
Once we asked Granny if she and Tom were ever going to get married.
Her response:  "No! I never want to wash another old man's underwear again!"

I've often thought of her answer. It makes me smile.
She was, obviously, happy living on her own.
In fact, she told us that sometimes she'd act really tired just to get
Tom to go home so she could be alone.

I heard something else in her reply, though:
Women are just fine on their own.

Granny was born in Mill Spring, Missouri on July 8, 1922.
She was the oldest child in a large family.
They were poor. 

In 1940, she and my grandpa, Chester "Check" Aden ran off to Arkansas to get married. Her parents were pretty angry. She was just 18.

Check and Lucille soon had three children, and he spent some time serving in the
U.S. Army during World War II.

They both worked hard to support their young family in Poplar Bluff, Missouri.
I don't know everything they did, but I know they were in the real estate business.
My grandpa drove a dump truck, I think, for a short time, and they owned a laundry.
They went to Oregon for a bit and there were some job prospects there, but according to my uncle, they didn't stay because Grandpa missed his mom.

When they moved to St. Louis, in the early 1960s, they both worked for the Missouri School for the blind. Later, Grandpa got a job at the St. Louis Metropolitan Sewer District, and I don't believe Granny had to work anymore after that.
It really wasn't until their children were married that I think they were comfortable financially.

Chester Paul Aden, Norma "Lucille" Holland Aden, and their granddaughters Valerie Ann Kienlen (on Lucille's lap), Elaine Margaret Kienlen (on the left) and Leslie Diane Kienlen (me - on the right)   1970

Granny lived from 1922 to 2007.

She started off her adult life as a married 18 year old, worked hard, and ended it content to be living on her own.

Just before Granny was born, women in the United States gained the right to vote.

The year after she was born, the first Equal Rights Amendment was proposed. It said, "Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction." It never passed.

In 1928, when she was 5 years old, Amelia Earhart flew solo across the Atlantic.

In 1960, women gained (illegal) access to birth control, which allowed them to plan their families. (It was approved for married couples in 1965. Single women had to fight for this a bit longer.)

Women could get credit cards without their husband's approval in 1974.

In 1975, women were no longer banned from serving on juries.

President Reagan appointed the first woman, Sandra Day O'Connor, to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1981.

By 1983, we had our first female astronaut, Sally Ride, in space.

So much changed for women during Granny's lifetime.

It must have been frustrating to have been denied so many things that we take for granted now. 

How many men (and probably women) fought against the rights we enjoy today?

Strong women spoke up.

I like to think that she would have supported the changes that her female descendants enjoy today.

I sure wish I could ask her! 

I hope she would want us to keep up the fight.

Nancy Strader and her Million Children

I have 64 4th great grandparents.

We all do.

I know who most of them are, thanks to years of research. 

One very special ancestor is Nancy Strader.

She is straight up my maternal line.

She is the earliest one in that line whose face I know. I don't see her in my face at all, but I know she's there. She looks a bit sad in her photo, like she's had a hard life.

She probably never even realized that she was creating a strong, thriving, female line.

I have one granddaughter, three daughters, and two sisters. My mom had one sister, and her mom, my grandma, had five sisters. I honestly don't know how many women have descended from Nancy since I haven't researched all the lines of descent, but in my tree there are currently 31 in just my direct line of nuclear families (not counting cousins, etc.). That's certainly a wealth of women!

Here's how this line goes:

Leslie Diane Kienlen (me) b. 1965 in St. Louis County, MO.

Sharon Eileen Aden b. 1942 in Poplar Bluff, MO; d. 2007 in St. Louis, MO.

Norma Lucille Holland b. 1922 in probably Mill Spring, MO; d. 2007 in St. Louis County, MO.

Nelle Naomi Hartman b. 1901 in probably Texas County, MO; d. 1990 in Poplar Bluff, MO.

Mary Naomi Estep b. 1877 in Kilbourne, Mason County, IL; d. 1948 in Ozark, Texas County, MO.

Mary Elizabeth Elmore b. 1848 in Tice Station, Menard County, IL; d. 1922 in Hugoton, KS.

Nancy Strader b. 1822 in Green County, KY; d. 1908 in Tice Station, Menard County, IL.

Nancy came with her parents, John Conrad Strader and Elizabeth Miner, to Menard County, Illinois from Green County, Kentucky. I believe they came with a group of people whose surnames are Strader, Miner/Minor, and Elmore. It has been a difficult task trying to sort out these families, especially the Elmores. But they all came from Green County, Kentucky.

Nancy married James Elmore sometime around 1844. 

They had five children.

Their daughter Mary Elizabeth Elmore was my 3rd great grandma.

James died in December of 1855.

Nancy remarried a few years later, to William K. Million.

Nancy and William had three children: James, George, and Jane Million.

I bet Nancy used to tell people about her "Million children."

I sure would have!

I haven't done any research into the Million children.

I should. We share DNA.

Researching the Million children may give me more information about Nancy. Maybe they have other photos. Maybe they have one where she looks happy. I would like to see that.

Did her daughter, Jane Million, have daughters too? 

How many of us could be out there?

If we count male descendants, are we close to a million yet?

Maybe someday, Nancy will have her million children.

William died before 1870, and by 1880, Nancy was married to John T. Smith from Scotland.

Nancy and John had no children.

The Pennsylvania Cowans

Same Name.

The genealogical problems created because people have the same or similar names are too numerous to count. I have heard that if you find ten online family trees and one of them has a different person, that's the one that may be correct. That person didn't just copy another person's "research."

I recently had to sort through 5 counties in England to determine the correct woman to put into my tree. It's hard work. I even made a spreadsheet, which I avoid as much as I possible. I hate them, but they work well when sorting out people.

This brings me to another example.

In 1971, John Kerr Fleming wrote a book entitled The Cowans from County Down. He states that four brothers, Hugh, David, John, and William Cowan, immigrated to the United States from Ulster around 1720. According to Fleming, they were Ulster Scots, or Scottish people who had settled in Ulster Province in Ireland and had lived there for several generations before immigrating. The four brothers lived near each other in Pennsylvania before their descendants moved around the country.

 Fleming includes transcribed documents in his work, and traces the family history forward to the time of publication. The Cowans from County Down is very often cited in many books about the area around Salisbury, North Carolina, where my Cowan ancestors lived.

Since 1971, our access to information has changed, and we also have the benefit of DNA to guide us in the right direction.

In 2012, Terry Cowan published A Cowan History: The Family of David Cowan (1665c. - 1730 of the Pequea Valley, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, His Antecedents and Descendants. In this book, Mr. Cowan presents another version of the Cowan story using new research and DNA analysis. He argues that Hugh Cowan may have come from Ulster, but David, John, and William were not his brothers (according to Y-DNA analysis) and most likely came from the Chirnside area of Scotland.  Like Mr. Fleming, Mr. Cowan cites many sources and documents to argue his point.

So what's a Cowan researcher to do?

Do your own research, of course!

Just because people have the same surname does not mean they are related.

Just because people with the same surname are living fairly near each other does not mean they are related.

You can always use family histories that you find as clues, but remember, they may not be correct. New documents may come to light. New technologies like DNA become available. 

While I tend to believe the updated research by Mr. Cowan, I plan to fully analyze both books and their sources, plus any additional sources I come across, to develop my own argument. 

It's okay to be different!

John Dunsford and Mary Ann Ware, My Third Great Grandparents

Genealogical research is never set in stone. There are always new things to discover. With that in mind, I decided it's time to update my information about John Dunsford and Mary Ann Ware of Devon, England.

My original post about this couple was way back in 2015. Recently (as in this past week), new information has come to light. But that's the great things about blogs. I can always go back and delete the old and post the new in order to keep my contribution to "fake news" at a minimum.

As I mentioned probably too many times, my daughter and I are going to Devon in July and I'll probably have to update this again, most likely with my own photos. But until that time, I'll have this post to refer to when I'm there.

So, here goes!

French Colonial Kaskaskia Illinois

Imagine the courage it took to leave an established settlement and venture into the wilderness. There was so much risk involved, no guarantee that you would ever make it back home. I have a lot of admiration and respect for all of my ancestors, but especially those who had the courage to travel so very far away from everything and everyone they knew and loved. I also credit these brave men and women for my sense of adventure and curiosity. At least one of my ancestors just disappeared, never to be heard from again. I have found The Jesuit Relations (title shortened by me) to be a great resource in studying this time period  HERE.  There are plenty of genealogical tidbits found no where else buried in the text of this book.

In many cases, money was a motivating factor. People took a chance in order to get rich. I'm thinking specifically of those French fur traders who left home seasonally to seek wealth in the interior of the North American continent. There was a world-wide demand for fur, especially beaver. The pelts were used not only for the fancy top hat everyone thinks of but also for military and tricorn hats as far back as the early 17th century. The trappers and traders would go out to collect pelts and then take them to merchants or the companies they worked for.  They were always at risk of being robbed of their pelts, or killed, and if they took too long in getting them to market, the skins could rot.

Named for an indigenous tribe, the village of Kaskaskia was founded in 1703. Catholic missionaries had been in the area known as Le Pays des Illinois earlier, but this was the first European settlement in what is now Illinois. It was developed by French coureur du bois, or runners of the woods, Catholic missionaries, and members of he Kaskaskia tribe. The French got along well with the Kaskaskia. As a result, some European and indigenous marriages occurred and metis families were established.


European governments profited from the fur trade too, and they took steps to protect the trappers and traders working in the wilderness. One of the first forts established in Illinois was the French Fort de Chartres, very near Kaskaskia, in 1720. It's worth a visit, especially when they are hosting their annual Rendezvous (June 6-7 in 2020).
Of course, settlement sprung up around the fort, and the government sent French women and families to come to the colonies to discourage intermarriage with the Native American tribes the men encountered. Use of products imported from France, like housewares and wine, was strongly encouraged. The government wanted to keep the French people French.

This is a picture I took of the site of Fort Kaskaskia in 2015. 
The village lies under the Mississippi river now.

Kaskaskia and Fort de Chartres, Cahokia, and all of the early French villages couldn't have been farther from home, though.  They were isolated, and help came slowly or not at all, even for those in the military. People had to trust each other, and rely on each other in order to survive. As a result of this isolation, the settlers created a unique American culture of diversity, a blend of European, Native American, and African traditions in what is now Illinois and Missouri. They even developed their own music and language, known today as Missouri or Paw Paw French which was spoken throughout Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. This version of Frenchness remained, even when Spain took over the lands west of the Mississippi.


Being so far from home, and being isolated, was not easy, but the resulting communities that developed are worth remembering. One example is Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. Unlike St. Louis, which saw rapid expansion and destruction in an effort to accommodate the rush of Americans moving west after the Louisiana Purchase, Ste. Genevieve was able to preserve much of its French heritage. In fact, it will now become a National Historic Park.
I can't wait to see how the additional funding helps the site, and I hope more Americans are able to learn about this important and overlooked aspect of our
U. S. history. It wasn't all East to West. There were people out here in the middle of the country way earlier than most people realize!

Family History Research in St. Louis, Missouri

I am a proud St. Louisan, born and bred. I love it here, right in the middle of the United States. We have the St. Louis Cardinals, the St. Louis Blues, and most of our tourist attractions are free to visit. Sure, we have our problems like most cities, but the people here are generally friendly and there's plenty to see and do.

My mom's family came from Poplar Bluff, Butler County, Missouri. My grandparents, Chester and Lucille Aden, needed the economic opportunities a bigger town would provide, so they moved here in the early 1960s. My mom got a job at Ralston Purina Company, where she met my dad, Rich Kienlen. His family had been here much longer. In fact, some of his ancestors were here at the city's founding.

I spend a lot of my genealogical research time online and have even taken a few trips to other places. For some strange reason, though, I tend to neglect the great research opportunities I have right here in my own backyard. 

One of my favorite places to go is the Missouri Historical Society 

Library and Research Center. Link

Not only do they have a wonderful archival collection, the facility is absolutely beautiful.  If you happen to have early French ancestors from St. Louis, this is a treasure trove. It's even better if you know French or Spanish, since most of the Colonial St. Louis collection is not in English. The collection is searchable on their website. Some is digital, but most is not. They have some helpful finding aids.

(Auction book from the sale of my ancestor's property in 1801. My photo. His name was Hyacinthe St. Cyr, and was of French descent. His name was either written like this or 

as Jacinto under Spanish rule. If you are researching your early French ancestors in St. Louis, remember to look for Spanish forms of spelling them too.)

St. Louis County Library Headquarters Link is another great place to visit in St. Louis. Not only do they hold the National Genealogical Society Book Collection, the staff in the History and Genealogy Department are amazing. You may try to accuse me of being biased because my daughter is one of them, but honestly the combined wealth of knowledge these men and women have is very valuable to anyone researching not only their Missouri ancestors but also around the country and even the world. The staff members write PastPorts, a free newsletter, just about every month, and you can sign up for it on their website. Be sure to review past issues for lots of great tips. These library employees are not your normal librarians. They truly have a specialized skill set and are happy to share what they know to help you become a better researcher.

There are a lot of other places in and around St. Louis to research. There is a branch of the Missouri State Archives located in the Carnahan Courthouse on Market Street. They have an archival collection I haven't really tapped into yet. Link

The Old Courthouse, now part of the Gateway Arch National Park, has a small library and a microfilm collection that I haven't had the chance to check out. Link 

(Old Courthouse, St. Louis, 2017. My photo.)

The St. Louis Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri St. Louis is also there waiting for me to visit. Link  I was there many years ago, and I believe they have information specific to the riverboats.

The City of St. Louis and also St. Louis County each have court and land records, although the city court records are pretty inaccessible. You can request them, though, and they'll mail you records. (Note: For those of you who don't know, the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County split in "the great divorce" of 1876.)  The Recorder of Deeds office in the city has an archives with a great collection and helpful staff.  Link

(Inside City Hall, St. Louis, Missouri)

The Central Library, part of  the St. Louis Public Library system (in the city, not the St. Louis County Library I mentioned before - again, "the great divorce") has some unique things too, Link but the book collection in the county is better.  

(My Photo, 2019)

Washington University in St. Louis Wash U  and St. Louis University SLU also have book and archival collections to search.

(Wash U's Olin Library. From their website.)

I guess I need to spend a little more time researching close to home!

The Dunsford Family: A Long Line of "Mediocrity"

The Dunsford family was "remarkable for a long mediocrity of station in the useful employments of life" according to Martin Dunsford (1744-1807). He wrote about the family in his Memoirs of the Family of Dunsford. Like that author, I can trace my Dunsfords back to the small town of Bradninch, in Devon, England, UK.

I have yet to get my hands on a copy of Martin Dunsford's manuscript, but I assume I am a cousin of Martin's. My most direct Dunsford ancestor, my grandmother Margaret Emily Dunsford, was born in St. Louis in 1897. Before she married, she was a forewoman at the Wallace Pencil Company in Maplewood, St. Louis County, Missouri. The building, which bears the company name, is still there, right across from the Maplewood Commons on S. Hanley Road. My grandfather, George Alexander Kienlen, Jr., was a foreman on a different floor of the building. According to my dad, Margaret quit her job once she married.

Margaret's father was James "Harry" Dunsford. He was also born in St. Louis, in 1876. He was a painter, or "whitener." He owned his own business, along with one of his half-brothers. They were poor, but hard-working.  

John Dunsford, the father of Harry, was also a whitener. He was born in Clifton, Bristol, Devon in 1846. He immigrated with his family in 1851. His mother and sisters vanished, which is a mystery I have yet to solve, but his father, John Dunsford, remarried and left a large Dunsford line in St. Louis, Missouri. 

John Dunsford, the father, was baptized in the small town of Cullompton, Devon, around 1820. He was employed as a rope maker in Devon, and also in St. Louis after his arrival. 

John's father, also named John, was a paper maker. This John was born around 1780 and was baptized at Clyst Hydon, Devon. Paper making was a huge industry in Devon. (Note: I found a book a few years ago at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City specifically about paper making in Devon. I recommend reading it if you have any paper making ancestors. I had no idea about the process, and I found it to be very interesting.) 

William Dunsford was the father of John the paper maker. From what I have found so far, he was a carpenter, as were several of his sons. According to my Ancestry.com hints, his father may have been Benjamin Dunsford of Bradninch. This is probably true, but I have yet to prove that definitively. The Bradninch parish records (St. Disens, pictured above - photo from the church website) are not online, except for an index. I'm holding out for the originals. I'm planning to visit Devon this summer, and I can't wait to visit Bradninch and the other towns where my Dunsford and associated ancestors lived.

 It seems our family has continued on with the Dunsford mediocrity, and I'm okay with that. It's people like us who make the world work!

Family Photos and Happiness

Before you ask, I missed Week 1. The theme was "Fresh Start," and somehow it got away from me. I absolutely could not let this week's theme slip by unfinished. 

My dad was a photographer, as I have mentioned before. He provided lots of favorites to our family photo collection. Most of them are pictures of our family.  We traveled a lot, and there are some great ones!

He also took pictures for his job at Ralston Purina Company. After he died, they became part of our family story - some more than others. My favorite example is a picture he took of some piglets. I think they were suckling, but they were all lined up, lying on their sides. There were 7 piglets, and it was a fairly large photo on foam board. 

When my sister and her husband moved into my parents house, my brother-in-law wanted to take down the photo of me and my sisters taken in the 1980s which had been proudly hung over their piano for about 30 years. It was kind of a sad day, because we didn't know what to do with it. We couldn't think of anyone who loved all three of us enough to display it, so we considered sending to our cousin Chris as a joke. In true Kienlen spirit, we turned that sad realization into a fun memory.  We wrote the names of our children (my dad's 7 grandchildren) on the pigs and hung it in its rightful place over the piano.

Somehow it seems appropriate to choose a photo of my dad as my current favorite. He was probably about 3, so I guess this was taken in the summer of 1936 or 1937. They lived either in Maplewood (St. Louis County) or St. Louis City at this point, but they could have been visiting friends.

Dad had a cute little outfit on, and a big smile on his face. It is clearly summer, and there are plants growing behind him. Maybe they were tomatoes or roses, his two favorite things to grow. George and Margaret Kienlen weren't rich, and I'm sure they couldn't give him everything they wanted to, but it looks like he was happy.

Dad once told me a story about a time he and his mom went to the Muny (St. Louis Municipal Opera - an outdoor, summer venue for mostly musicals). They took the streetcar and it started raining. The show was cancelled, and it took them a long time to get home. They were completely drenched by the time they made it. Instead of being wet and miserable, his mom (Margaret Emily Dunsford Kienlen) laughed and laughed about it. He said his mom's reaction made quite an impression on him, and, fortunately for us, he passed that optimism on down the line. His sweet, smiling face in this photo is a great reminder to look for the joy around us.  Maybe that's why he liked taking pictures. People are usually smiling. They are usually happy or doing fun things. What a great job that must have been, even if pigs can't smile.

So, here's a challenge for anyone reading this. You always have a choice. You can be angry or upset, or you can turn it around. I would love to hear comments about a time you did this, because it feels great to read positive things. Here's mine:

Last weekend my 5 year old granddaughter spilled about 1/4 of a bag of chocolate chips. She looked at me and had a complete look of shock and maybe a little fear on her face. I looked at her and said, "Rose! Now you're going to have to eat all of those!" I've never seen a kid so happy! She didn't eat lunch, but neither of us cared. 

Creating a Future to Discover the Past

"The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create."—Leonard I. Sweet

This week's blog topic is Future. I think about the future a lot, but especially at this time of the year.

It's not what you think. I don't get all sentimental at the holidays or anything like that. I just hate winter. I hate the cold. I hate being cooped up inside. I hate wearing shoes and socks all the time. 

You see, this is the time I think about the summer. I go through seed catalogs and plan my garden. I look at calendars of spring and summer festivals in the area to visit with my grandchildren. I plan my summer vacation.

More and more, my summer plans have included visits to places where my ancestors lived. I want to know how and why, if possible, they left their homes in other places and how I came to live in Missouri. What influenced their decisions? Were they looking for better opportunities? Were they running from some type of misfortune? Were they adventurers?

The first real research trip I made was to Tennessee. I visited the Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville and dug up a few things. Then I drove around the state to a few courthouses, churches, and cemeteries. It was all pretty uneventful until I went to Obion County, Tennessee to a small town called Hornbeak. After meeting a man who lived next to the church and knew of my ancestor, I was hooked!

Since that time I have taken a few trips, but the one the summer of 2020 will be the best yet.
I know it will require a lot of planning and a lot of research, but it's the trip of a lifetime. I want to do it right.

I'm going create my future, my 2020, to make it as genealogically fruitful and as emotionally rewarding as possible.

My daughter Jen and I are going first to Paris. I've never been, but some of my ancestors were there. One, Nicolas Hébert, was an apothecary and may have been associated with Catherine de' Medici, Queen of France. She supposedly had cabinets of poisons. Did she get them from him? She was also known to have met with Nostradamus. Did my ancestor know him too? I need to know more!

There are other ancestors who lived in the Paris vicinity. I want to learn and see as much as I can, and advance research is so important.

Fortunately for us, my daughter speaks and reads French. While she's busy diving into French history, I'll be working on another family line. We are going to leave Paris after a few days and take a ferry from Calais to Dover and see the White Cliffs of Dover as they are meant to be seen - from the water.

Then we are going to travel across southern England, seeing the sights until we arrive in Devon, England. Our Dunsford, Ware, and associated ancestors lived in many of the small towns in the middle of Devon. They were commoners - gardeners, paper makers, rope makers. I want to learn more about their lives and visit the places they frequented. I am just as excited about these families. We're going to get to stay in some country manor houses, even one with a thatched roof (Thanks, AirBnb!). We will look out over the moors at the beauty of England, and, of course, go to Cornwall - Sidenote: If you haven't watched Poldark, you need to watch it. Cornwall is amazingly beautiful. 

I hope all of you are planning a 2020 as great as I hope mine will be.

Happy New Year!

Here's to the future!

P.S. You should all check out the great prices on Norwegian Airlines, which made this trip possible.

Unplanned "Adventures" of Michel Messier dit St. Michel, My 8th Great Grandfather

Merriam-Webster defines adventure as "an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks" or "an exciting or remarkable experience." Today, our adventures tend to be the latter. They are positive things in our lives, like my solo-trip by car from St. Louis, Missouri to Arizona and New Mexico this past summer. That was truly an adventure! 

My ancestors' adventures were different. They were frightening, life-altering experiences. It's hard for me to think of the things they endured using the term "adventure." This is especially true for my French-Canadian ancestors. They came to the wildest places in North America, broke ground, and established families. They traveled down rivers and lakes, deep into the unknown interior of what is now the United States, and settled there too. Imagine how remote their tiny villages were in comparison to those on the Eastern Seaboard. They didn't live next to their indigenous neighbors. They lived among them. They intermarried with the friendly tribes and fought with their adversaries.

Michel Messier dit St. Michel was one of these men.

The Tragic Lives of James and Hannah Lowe Flint, My 3rd Great Grandparents

My family tree is full of everyday people. They are not royalty. They are not great war heroes. They are not celebrities of popular culture. They would largely be forgotten if not for the efforts of people like you and me - the family historians. I admit that at times I wish for those great stories and great connections to things we learn in school, but I also realize that it's the contributions made by the common men and women that make our country and our world into a functioning society.

Some of my ancestors struggled and, sometimes, they made decisions I cannot begin to understand. This week's theme "Context" provided me an opportunity to better examine my third great grandparents, James and Hannah Lowe Flint. Their lives did not end well. I first wrote about them in October of 2014 HERE.  James died at the age of 78 after he fell down some cellar stairs in a drunken stupor, fracturing his skull. He was found the following day. It's hard not to feel embarrassed about this. He wasn't a hero. What did his drunkenness do to his family? Was he a burden to them? Were they glad he died?

More recently I learned the fate of his wife, Hannah Lowe Flint.

She committed suicide 12 years before her husband's death. 

She drowned herself.

Again, my thoughts were directed at blaming her. Why would she do this to her family? Was she a burden to them? Were they glad or relieved that she died? Was she the cause of her husband's drinking, or did his drinking contribute to her depression?

James and Hannah were born in Manchester, England. They grew up during the height of the Industrial Revolution, in the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. The city boomed, but the working class suffered. There were food riots, protests, and, eventually, reforms. James and Hannah did not wait for the reforms. A few months after their first son was born, they left for Philadelphia, where their other 8 children were born, including twins who died at birth.

Sometime between 1850 and 1860, James and Hannah moved to St. Louis, Missouri. James was a blacksmith and engineer/machinist. He made steam engines, or at least placed advertisements for them. They were poor, members of the working class.

On the surface, James and Hannah escaped the working class struggles of Manchester. They started a new life in America where they raised their family. But in all likelihood, all they did was change their location. There were working class struggles in the United States too. 

They may have regretted their decision. They may have missed their family at home. It's even possible that Hannah did not want to come, knowing she may never see her family again. By the time she killed herself, 6 of her 9 children had died. 

I do not know the full context of the lives of James and Hanna Lowe Flint. I do not know all of the details surrounding their decisions. I probably never will.

So who am I to judge? 

James and Hannah were my 3rd great grandparents.

I'm proud of them for having the bravery to leave everything they knew to 

move to a new place - twice.

I'm proud of them for trying to create a comfortable life, even if they weren't successful.

I'm proud to call them family, because I wouldn't be here without them.

The Kienlen Plantation

Christian Frederich Kienlen, my 3rd great grandfather, had an interesting life - a true rags to riches story. He was born in 

Marbach am Neckar, in the Kingdom of Wurttemberg, in 1799, the son of Johann Gottfried Kienlen and Marie Charlotta Schemp Kienlen. He was trained in the family business. He was a confectioner.

In 1815, in Indonesia, Mount Tambora erupted. This was, and still is, the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history. The world's climate changed suddenly, and the following year, 1816, is known as the "Year Without a Summer." 

 While Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein and  John Polidori wrote The Vampyre, people of lesser means were starving. Conditions in Wurttemberg were worse than in most places. People there resorted to eating moss, grass, and tree bark, and a mass exodus soon followed. Christian left his family and went to the United States as an indentured servant. That's a story for another day.

Christian eventually made his way to the boom-town of St. Louis. He was the first confectioner in the city, and his name is listed on many land deeds of that period. In 1837, however, he auctioned off his confectioners' tools and bought 100 acres of land in the wilderness of St. Louis County. It was here, in the area now know as Wellston, that Christian and Marie Louise Moreau Kienlen moved their young family. 

According to family lore provided by my father, Richard L. Kienlen, Christian had a store on the St. Charles Road (now Martin Luther King Drive). He sold provisions to people going west. We still have the key to this store, which Christian's grandson George had nickel-plated.

Although I have found no evidence that this store existed, I have learned about his plantation.

According to my dad, the Kienlens built a large, 2-story brick home. There were even stone lions out front guarding the porch. At one time, there was a sketch of the house, but it disappeared when in the possession of my grandparents. Kienlen Avenue in the Wellston area of St. Louis County was the driveway through the property to their home.

In 1868, Marie Louise Kienlen sold 66 acres to Erastus Wells (for whom Wellston is named) for $17,000. The deal included the family home. Mr. Wells then built a three-story mansion on the property. His son Rolla Wells, one-time mayor of St. Louis, included this photo in his 1933 book Episodes of My Life:

Peeking from behind the left side of the house seems to be a brick, 2-story home. I can't prove this is the old Kienlen home, but it very well may be. Sadly, both homes burned down in later years.

This transcript from a 1965 KSD radio broadcast about Wellston mentions the Kienlen home:
"In 1868 Wells purchased a country home in the area which now bears his name. Located a few blocks north of Easton Avenue, the spacious house, with wide verandas extending across the first and second stories, had been the farm home of the Kienlen family. The driveway which led to the house is the present Kienlen avenue, on which stands the Wellston City Hall. The handsome brick residence burned to the ground in 1893, after which the country property, with its orchards, gardens, and vineyards, was subdivided into small home sites." 

Now we have conflicting evidence. Did Christian Kienlen built the house in the foreground above, or Erasatus Wells. It's really hard to know, but the orchards, gardens, and vineyards were probably started by the Kienlens. The home pictured seems to be of a later period than Kienlen would have built it, but I'm no architecture expert. The house behind the house is more likely.

So what do we know about the plantation? The Federal Agricultural Census of 1850 gives us some clues. This census lists what was produced in the year ending June 1, 1850, so it reflects the harvest of 1849. At that time, there were 50 improved acres and 50 unimproved acres. The cash value of the farm was $20,000, a lot of money in 1850. They had 4 horses, 4 milk cows, and 6 other cattle. They had 4 sheep and 20 pigs. They produced 200 lbs of butter. 

They had grown 800 bushels of corn, 200 bushels of potatoes, and 95 tons of hay. They also grew 400 lbs of cotton and 1000 lbs of sugar cane. (The sugar cane surprised me.) They had $100 worth of produce from their orchard.

Christian lived at this site from 1837 until his death on December 31, 1851. His wife continued to live there until she sold it and moved in with her daughter Julia Kienlen Brokmeyer, wife of  Missouri Lt. Governor (1877-1881) Henry Brokmeyer. 

So what became of this land? Here's a little project I did a few years ago.

Interestingly, in 1905, construction workers building a house came upon the Kienlen family cemetery. I did not know this existed, and I now have another lead to follow. I assume they found and removed Christian. He and Marie Louise had children who died young, and those may be the other burials.  The article is also proof that Rolla Wells is an imperfect source of information. He was incorrect in saying the Kienlens got their land from the Spanish government. In 1837 this was the state of Missouri, in the U.S.A.