Charles Gaisford from Hilperton, U. K.

Hilperton is a village in the County of Wiltshire in southwestern England.  It's about 110 miles west of London and only about 25 miles northwest of Stonehenge.  My Great Great Grandfather Charles Gaisford was born in or near Hilperton on January 26, 1842. 

In 2001, I connected with a descendant of Charles' sister Hannah, Cindy Pickard.  She shared with me some Gaisford family history.  Charles' parents were James and Anna (Rich) Gaisford.  Six children were born to James and Anna before they came to the U.S. in about 1855, then a couple more in Rhode Island.

The children of James and Anna were:

1. Emma Jane  (1840-1915)
2. Charles Henry  (1842-1920)
3. James  (1845-1909)
4. Hannah  (1847-1918)
5. William  (1850-1827)
6. Anna  (1854-1913)
7. Samuel  (1857-1921)
8. Jean  (1860 - ?)

Back in the day before census records were available to search online, I had to either inter-library loan microfilm, or request lookups from others.  In March 2004, I posted a request on the Rootsweb Mailing list for Providence county, Rhode Island for the 1860 census showing James Gaisford, listing his family members by name.  My request was answered the same day!  It would have taken me a long time to find them in a search at Ancestry or Heritage Quest since they were listed by the name "Gaskill".   They were in Burrillville, Rhode Island, James was a "cloth finisher".  The family moved to Minonk, Illinois in about 1868. 

In 1860, Charles was 19, living with his parents in Burrillville, working as a weaver.  His marriage record in 1867 shows his residence as Putnam, Connecticut, so it looks like he had gone out on his own, moved to Putnam and was making his living as a spindle maker. You can see a copy of the marriage record here.

After their marriage, Charles & Henrietta moved to La Salle County, Illinois about 1868 where he took up farming.  Charles became a Naturalized citizen in Woodford County in 1872.  In about 1876, they moved to Nebraska, first to Ellis in Gage County then filing a homestead claim in Jefferson County.  One of my goals this year is to take a vacation day and get to two or three county courthouses and look for homestead records.  If you have a homesteader story to tell, the Homestead National Monument in Beatrice is collecting them.  

Beatrice Daily Sun, February 4, 1903

This article from the Beatrice Daily Sun tells me two things:  1) that Charles did all right financially and 2) the reason for Charles Jr's move to Oklahoma.  Interesting coincidence - Charles Jr moved from Ellis in Gage County, Nebraska to Gage in Ellis County, Oklahoma. 

From the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota website, the 1920 census Instructions to Enumerators were:

 "Column 5. Name of each person enumerated.-Enter the name of every person whose usual place of abode on January 1, 1920, was with the family or in the dwelling place for which the enumeration is being made."

The Gaisford household was enumerated on February 4th, just two weeks after Charles' death on January 20, 1920.  He is listed as head of household with Henrietta and their daughter Mary ("Maime").  

Charles left the English countryside at about age 13, lived and worked in eastern cities for a while, then left there to help settle the west.  The Gaisford family was the first of my ancestors to settle here in Nebraska.  The state was 9 years old.

Charles Gaisford

William & Nancy Mann - Immigrants to America

This is William Mann, but I'm not sure which of his two wives this is.  He was first married to Nancy Clemie on September 14, 1861.  She died in 1894 and on March 6, 1896 he married Mary Armstrong.  This may be their "wedding" photo.  Where he married either woman is still an ancient Chinese secret to me. 

William was born somewhere in England on February 12, 1830.  The huge old trunk in the cyber attic lists him as an early settler in Princeville Township in Peoria County, Illinois, arriving in 1854.  He is also given credit for being a founding member of the White's Grove Baptist Church and having dug the well for the White's Grove School in 1880.  He immigrated in 1852 and if I have learned correctly, in the 1900 census under the "Naturalized" column there is a "Pa", which meant that he had filed his first papers for declaration of intent to become a US Citizen.  

Searches for "William Mann" come up with an astounding number of hits that would take hours to look through.  Because I don't have hours to look, I haven't been very successful finding this particular Mann, which is disappointing.  It makes me act a lot like little Susan Walker in "Miracle on 34th Street", even though there were packages under the tree for me, disappointed that I didn't see the package that I wanted.  I need to remember her mantra - "I believe.  I believe.  It's silly, but I believe."  Positive thinking will help me get through those hundreds of hits and find where in England this William Mann is from.

Nancy had been married before she married William.  Her first husband was John O'Brien and they had a daughter named Nancy Jane who was barely a year old when her father died.  A descendant of Nancy Jane's told me that she didn't know about her real father until just before she was married. 

Thomas Clemie from Scotland, and Mary Jane Hull from Ireland were Nancy's parents. She was born in Upper Canada, which was a British Colony in 1838.  Thomas died when Nancy was about 2, so both she and her daughter lost their fathers at a very young age.  Mary Jane remarried to Edward Jones and had 4 girls - Mary, Jane, Margaret and Jenette. Nancy originally was a nickname for Mary.  I don't know at what point in history it became a name on its own.  Why do I get the idea that Mary Jane Hull's mother's name may have been Mary - or Jane - or both?  The Jones family, with Clemie children Andrew, Robert and Nancy, lived in Van Buren County, Iowa in 1850.  Mary Jane died there May 29, 1854, she was only 37 years old. 

William and Nancy had 11 children together: 

• Ada Belle married (1) Alex Johnson and (2) Sherman Armstrong 
• Corrine 
• Lafayette
• William B married Eliza Carre
• Stephen A 
• Horace M married Lulu Wadley
• Oscar Marvin married Ida Belle Berkey
• Carrie
• Effa married William Camp
• Clarence married Cora Gaisford - my Great Grandparents
• Elsie

Nancy died at age 55 on February 11, 1894, that was the day before William's birthday. Her obituary mistakenly says she was survived by one son, not the four it should have said. William was 75 when he died on August 29, 1905.  

   

A Mann family trait that looks like it comes from William with his white beard in that photo, is snow white colored hair.  It's pretty really, but no one wants theirs to turn white at too young an age.

My original goal when I started doing this research, was to find out what country each line of my family immigrated from.  In this line I have succeeded.  These people were from England, Canada, Ireland and Scotland.  International research is something I've been putting off until I have the time to focus on it - like when I retire.  More and more records are becoming available online, I should go ahead and give it a try.  I believe.  I believe.