Christian Longacher had a new wife about every ten years

I just discovered two new wives for Christian Longacher. Counting the two we were already aware of that makes four wives (within twenty-four years). He married Belle Grimm in 1895 (he was 23) in Berne, Indiana, then married Laura Rhodes in 1906 in Elkhart County, Indiana (where he lived most of the time), then married Ella Newman in 1916 in St. Joseph, Michigan, and for his four wife married Elsie Kingery in 1919 in St. Joseph County, Indiana (South Bend).

He may have been married a fifth time but I'm still researching the details of that marriage. Christian was a day laborer and shipping clerk for most of his working career but the last few years of his life he lived in the County Infirmary in Elkhart County.

Margaret E. Bell and Ella Bell are the same person!

I found an error in my list of Thomas and Minerva Helmer Bell's children. It turns out that Margaret E. Bell is the same daughter as Ella Bell. I have combined those two children into one, Margaret Ellen Bell. She was born 18 March 1840 and died 15 February 1902. She and her husband John J. Jones are buried in Green Lawn Cemetery, Columbus, Franklin, Ohio.

Vashti Leary Dyer

Meet Vashti Leary Dyer, Diane and Marsha's third great-grandmother. The line goes back like this: Marilyn, George Hosmer, Mary Hallett, Sophronia Mann Dyer, Vashti Leary who married Jonathan Dyer. Vashti was born in Provincetown, Massachusetts (at the tip of Cape Cod) on 19 November 1795 and died in Provincetown on 7 June 1881. Her husband Jonathan was a mariner.

Found At Last: The Marriage of James Sonday and Zoe Shirley!

Eureka! I was finally able to locate the marriage date and place for my aunt Zoe Shirley and her husband Jim Sonday. I have been looking for this for at least twenty years. The Mormon church has placed Indiana marriage records from 1811 to 1959 online and I decided last night to see if Zoe and Jim's record had been added and there it was: They were married in Putnam County, Indiana on 14 December 1936

Emma L. Longacher Frederick

Found this really good photo of Emma L. Longacher Frederick on findagrave.com. She was the great aunt of Marilyn Phillips, Marilyn's grandpa Longacher's sister.

Mary (Cooper) Colton Carried Off by Indians!

One of our immigrant ancestors was George Colton (d. 1699). He and his wife Deborah Gardner had ten children. The oldest son was Isaac Colton, another of our ancestors, who married Mary Cooper in 1670 and lived in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. On 26 March 1676 Mary was carried off by Indians after being wounded. She was later abandoned as dead but recovered and outlived her husband Isaac. He died in 1700 and she died in 1742.

John and Elizabeth Tilley Howland

One of our Mayflower ancestors was John Howland. He had a rather eventful journey across the Atlantic. During a raging storm he was swept overboard while checking the ships rigging. He caught a rope as he hit the water and, after being drug below the surface of the water, was hauled back to the ship by several other men.

He was a manservant who married Elizabeth Tilley whose parents had died. Elizabeth was a ward of Gov. Carver of Plymouth Colony. According to The Mayflower by Vernon Heaton, John Howland died in Plymouth in 1673. Elizabeth died in 1687 in the home of her daughter Lydia in Swansea, Massachusetts.