Those in favor of Johnston say yay. Those in favor of Johnson...

I am the lucky holder of many rather common surnames among my family lines. Compared to some, my list of "plain" names is not very long, but those I do have still create research conundrums. My most recent run-in with one of these names is the Johnston line...or is it Johnson?

Charles Johnston was born in Ohio on January 6, 1844, and died on January 18, 1917, per his death certificate. This document also mentions that he is a shoemaker, a common enough profession, but also unique enough for me to confidently track Charles through several censuses. Note, that on Charles' death certificate he is listed as a Johnston.

Other than his death certificate and several census records I didn't have much concrete information about Charles. His father's name, Exum, was unique and there was an Exum Johnston living in Logan County, Ohio at the same time as Charles, but I could find no definitive connection that made me comfortable enough to link them. A brick wall.

Recently, I came back to this line to see what I could track down. I decided to focus a little more on Exum Johnston, Charles' father. His unique first name should be easy enough to delineate him from other Johnstons in the area. But in searches for "Exum Johnston" I find nothing. The next step was to try various different spellings and Exum Johnson brings up a hit on the 1860 census, with 16-year-old son Charles. With this spelling success in hand I checked Google Books for Exum Johnson and found a hit: The Johnsons and Johnstons of Corrowaugh in Isle of Wight County, Virginia, Volume 1, by Eddis Johnson and Hugh Buckner Johnston. It was only in a preview view, but there was Exum Johnson with the same birth date as the Exum Johnson I found on the 1860 census. The book was not at my local research center, but I happened to be traveling through a town with a volume in their library and made a quick stop.

Low and behold, Charles Johnson, born on January 6, 1844, is listed in the volume as a son of Exum Johnson. The family line starts in America in Isle of Wight County, Virginia and then a portion of the family immigrates to Logan County, Ohio. The pieces fit...but why the two names? Throughout the documentation I have on Charles I have an equal amount for both names. His children and subsequent generations all use Johnston. I'm not sure what made Charles change his name. He came from Quaker roots, is it possible he changed his name to separate himself from that culture later in life? I will probably never know, but at least I have learned that trying various name spellings when searching for ancestors really does pay off. Thanks Charles Johnston, Johnson!

The enigma of the "Perhaps" ancestor

I have a title for many ancestors in my tree: the "Perhaps" ancestor. This title is awarded to those ancestors that may or may not actually be related to me and that I may or may not have any substantial information on. These "Perhaps" ancestors really drive me crazy because I just can't bring myself to coin them full-fledged ancestors without better proof.

One such ancestor is Robert Cutler. Robert may belong to my Cutler line, that first appears in America around the 1850s in Richland County, Ohio. My known ancestor is James Cutler, but I have not been able to find much on him, other than a few census records that indicate his birth in England in 1815. Knowing that James Cutler immigrated from England, I did a search for arrivals to the United States born in 1815. I came across the manifest below, which indicates that a Robert, James and Bartha (?) Cutler arrived in May 1833 on a ship named Eliza.

The age fits James, and the closeness in ages of the other two leads me to believe they were related in some fashion, perhaps brothers or cousins. I call this the "perhaps" manifest. So I looked for a Robert Cutler in Richland County, Ohio...and eureka, there was one! Also from England, I might add. I can only find this Robert on the 1850 census in Ohio. I also found a declaration of intent for a Robert Cutler in Richland County in 1859; it states that he immigrated in May 1834. That is pretty close to the "perhaps" manifest I found. The 1850 census I found states that Robert is married to Esther and has one daughter, Sarah.

In searching for more records on my "perhaps" Robert, I come across a death record from Morrow County, Ohio. It lists the following information:
Name: Cutler, Robert
Birth Place: Wheatacre Parrish, Norfolk co., England
Birth Date: Aug 1808
Spouse: Esther Evarts
Marriage Date: 1837
Marriage Location: Belleville, OH
Children: Sarah
Death Date: After 1880
Death Location: Morrow co., OH
Other Notes: Spent his twenties as a bookkeeper on the Chiswick estate in St Thomas, Jamaica/ became absolutely disgusted with the slavery system

Belleville, Ohio, their place of marriage is in Richland County, Ohio. And Esther's maiden name, Evarts, also appears in Richland County. The information and many of the dates fit my "perhaps" Robert. Could this Robert Cutler be related to my James Cutler? If they are indeed brothers, was James born in Wheatacre Parrish as well? Perhaps.

To Meet Tuesday...or rather brick wall breakthrough

I would love to meet Bertha Cutler Kuhn, my 3rd great-grandmother. She was born in Plymouth, Richland County, Ohio on December 28, 1841. Bertha is one of those relatives that I know just enough about to be dangerous. As I have written in a previous post, I was blessed enough to have a letter written by Bertha to her husband during the Civil War. This link made me feel a certain connection to Bertha as I have also been at home with a small child while my husband was at war. But this was all I had.

Bertha's obituary lists her maiden name as Cutler and her birthplace as Plymouth, Ohio. I found her on the 1850 census in Richland County, Ohio. She lived with her father, James, her mother, Eliza, and her brother, Robert. Today as I was preparing to write about why I would like to meet Bertha, I decided to try and find out more about her parents, as they have been one of my brick walls. I have a copy of her brother Robert's obituary which states his mother was Eliza Bodine of Richland County, Ohio. But I have been unable to track more about this family. I cannot even find a death date for James Cutler.

To try to "backdoor" my research I decided to look for more information on a third sibling: Mary Cutler. Mary was born in 1853 according to my research. But I lose track of her after her listing at age 17 on the 1870 census. At that time she is still living with her father in Richland County. On Ancestry.com there is a link to a family tree for Mary. That tree states that her husband was Milton H. Myers. I have no idea if this information is accurate, as it is not sourced. So, I take a cautious step and look for information on Milton, hoping to find a connection back to Mary, and ultimately back to the Cutler family. On FindAGrave.com I find headstones for both Mary and Milton. The headstone states that Milton was a member of the 110th Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War and a member of the Grand Army of the Republic (a fraternal organization of Civil War Veterans).

With this information in hand I turned back to Google. I now searched for Milton Myers and Civil War and wonders upon wonders a link to the Wichita State University Special Collections page came up. They have in their archives a collection of documents from Milton Myers: Milton H. Myers Collection of Civil War Documents. The collection includes documents collected by Milton Myers during his time as a sergeant with the 110th O.V.I. The Special Collections branch of the library has included a list of all the items in the collection, and as I browsed through it I was especially piqued by what was in Box 1, file folder 12: "Photocopy of the "Genealogy and History of the Branch of the Bodine Family Founded by John Bodine: A soldier of the Revolutionary War and a pioneer of the State of New Jersey." It was written and compiled by Maude Cutler Scholfield. This work tells the genealogy and history of Milton H. Myers' wife, Mary Eliza Cutler."

Here we have Cutler and Bodine in the same area. I was floored and realized this could be a roundabout way through my brick wall. Needless to say, I have contacted the library to determine if I may be able to get a copy of some of the files in the archive. I still want to meet Bertha Cutler, but now I have a whole different set of things I would ask her!