Estacaille Genealogy One Name Study
genealogy of the Estacaille (and variant spellings) families around the world
When I first decided today to write this particular post, I was trying to remember… how did I discover my 3rd great-grandfather John Hosmer?
I don’t clearly remember anymore as it has been a few years now since I first put together what I was discovering. My paternal grandmother, Frances (nee BOYD/BRANIFF) was a fountain of information, giving me most of the information she had. At the time, I didn’t have any information beyond my 2nd great-grandparents Jessie Grace (married to HOSMER) and Charles BOYD who farmed at one time near Pingree, Stutsman county, North Dakota. I fortunately have a copy of their marriage document which lists her maiden name.
I think the trigger was the 1900 US Census for Chambers School District in Stutsman county, North Dakota. At the top of the page is the family of Charles BOYD & Jessie HOSMER. Reviewing further down the page, I found the family of John H. HOSMER, his wife Frances, and children Floyd, Dora, and Dana. This led me on the search to check if there was any relation between the families, and how.
This census lists John as born Nov 1830 New York; Frances born July 1854 New York; Floyd born Sep 1886 North Dakota; Dora born April 1888 North Dakota; and Dana born Nov 1890 in North Dakota.
Naturally, the next search I tried was looking for John HOSMER born Nov 1830 in New York state. So, no luck with a birth, or a marriage to Frances.
What I did come across eventually was civil war records for a Corporal Jno/Jonathan/John H. HOSMER, about the right age, a Union soldier with the New York 50th Engineers – Company B & H. I didn’t have the proof so far that I was researching the right man, but I dug further into tracing his history. I ordered photocopies of his military records from NARA, the US National Archives.
The civil war records listed the birth location as Alfred, Allegheny, New York. On August 31, 1861 at the age of 30 years, he enlisted & mustered with Company B of the 50th Engineers, joining from Athens-Elmira Pennsylvania. He was described as having black eyes, black hair & dark complexion, and standing 5 ft 6 inches (and 5’8″) high, and his occupation was carpenter. And his signature “John C.H. Hosmer”.
About the same time that I found the civil war records, I discovered a treasure trove of a webite, Joyce Tice’s “Tri-Counties Genealogy & History“. This site proved to be valuable in tracing Hosmer families in the counties of Bradford & Tioga in Pennsylvania as well as Chemung, New York. Searching for Hosmer families around Athens & Elmira in the 1860s, I found John HOSMER, his wife Sarah Maliss GREEN and then their descendants thru their children Caroline, Adaline, Frank, Charles, Fred & Susan. Census records, cemetery indexes & burials, marriage indexes, family bios, military history…it was rich with info.
But where did his wife Frances come in?
A bit of research found that Sarah died in November 1879. John is listed in the 1880 Athens census as a widow, living with his children Fred (age 20) and Susan (age 18). I think I found Frances in the 1880 census for Athens listed as “Frankie Lane” with her sister Dora & Dora’s husband Frank CAMPBELL.
I don’t know when John & Frances got married. Given that the census is dated June 11, 1880, then I’m assuming it’s after that date. Their daughter Jessie was born June 1881 in Iowa, so I’m guessing they got married July-Sept 1880. (I’m working on theories of her parents). Dora’s husband died between 1882-1885 and Dora packed up, moved to North Dakota, listed in that 1885 census. About 1888 she remarried, to William FLETCHER.
I’ve gone on to fill in some of the blanks in this tree, thanks to census records, obituaries, newspapers. I’ve made contact with several cousins descended from Dana HOSMER as well as half-cousins from the marriage of John & Sarah, and proved DNA connections to those cousins thanks to AncestryDNA.