52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2015 WEEK 32: CALEB COBURN PT4

I had discovered two names for Caleb Coburn's wife in the Land Sale documents: Martha and
Patty. I believe they are the same woman since Patty was a nickname for Martha in colonial
times. But even if they were two different women, I'm fairly certain that Martha was the mother
of Caleb's son, my 4x great grandfather Moses Coburn. When Moses filed for a Revolutionary
War Pension in 1818, he gave his age as 53, which means he was born around 1765. If "Patty "
was a second wife she had married Caleb far too late to be Moses' mother.

The other reason I believe Martha was the name of Caleb's wife is this entry in the Coburn genealogy
for his son Moses' family:

P99 Genealogy of the descendants of Edward Colburn/Coburn

Looking at it, I believe you can see the naming pattern: two children named for Esther's
parents Lot Spaulding and Esther Butterfield, and two named for Caleb's parents Caleb
and Martha.

There still remains the question of Martha's maiden name. Could the answer be found in
who Caleb's siblings married? Older brother Moses married Elizabeth Peabody and then
Hannah Burpee; younger brother Abiel married Mary Butterfield, another link to the Butterfield
family; and sister Deborah married William Frye. I need to do further research on whether Caleb's
other sisters ever married. Hopefully I can find a link between Martha and Caleb's in-laws.

But for the moment, at least I'm fairly certain Caleb's wife was named Martha!

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2015 WEEK 32: CALEB COBURN PT3

Continuing my search for the name of Caleb Coburn's wife in the Middlesex Deed index (grantor) 1800-1835 A-G file at FamilySearch:

The second, later land sale made by Caleb was to a M. B. Colburn who is named in the sale as Moses Broadstreet Colburn. This was not Caleb's brother, who had moved to New Brunswick in the late 18th century, but another relative. The land sale is on two pages and starts on the bottom right on this image:  

"Massachusetts Land Records, 1620-1986," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-36164-13038-57?cc=2106411&wc=MC1M-PT5:361613501,364639201 : accessed 4 September 2015), Middlesex > Deeds 1810-1811 vol 188-190 > image 749 of 821; county courthouses and offices, Massachusetts.

It continues on the upper left hand side of this image:

"Massachusetts Land Records, 1620-1986," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-36164-13137-59?cc=2106411&wc=MC1M-PT5:361613501,364639201 : accessed 4 September 2015), Middlesex > Deeds 1810-1811 vol 188-190 > image 750 of 821; county courthouses and offices, Massachusetts.

Examining the document I noticed that it had originally been drawn up on 6May 1803 but
was not filed at the county courthouse until nearly 8 years later. Was this a case of Caleb
selling the land to Moses B Coburn on condition he  be allowed to live there until his death?

And of course. I looked to see if Caleb's wife had signed off on the sale:

"Massachusetts Land Records, 1620-1986," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-36164-13137-59?cc=2106411&wc=MC1M-PT5:361613501,364639201 : accessed 4 September 2015), Middlesex > Deeds 1810-1811 vol 188-190 > image 750 of 821; county courthouses and offices, Massachusetts.

So in 1803 Caleb's wife was named Martha, but in 1810 her name is Patty? While it's possible
they could be two different women, it's more likely they are the same person. "Patty" was
a nickname for Martha in colonial times, as readers Kat and Linda Shufflebean pointed out in
comments to the previous post.

There's another reason I believe Martha was the wife of Caleb Coburn and mother to Moses
Coburn. I'll discuss that in the next post of the series.

To be continued

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2015 WEEK 32: CALEB COBURN PT2

One of the brick walls on my family mtree is the identity of Caleb coburn's wife. I can find no record
of the marriage in any of the towns near Dracut nor Dunstable. Was it possible Caleb's wife came
from New Hampshire, across the Merrimack River that his property bordered?

Last week after I finished the posts about his father Moses I decided to take another shot at finding the name of Caleb's wife, this time using a different set of records. I went to the Massachusetts Land Records, 1620-1986 Collection over at FamilySearch and searched the records for Middlesex County. In many land transactions, the name of the grantor(seller)'s wife is sometimes mentioned.  I found only two transactions involving Caleb Coburn in the Middlesex Deed index (grantor) 1800-1835 A-G file. Both of them took place around the time of his death:

"Massachusetts Land Records, 1620-1986," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1961-36097-14158-22?cc=2106411&wc=MCBY-PWL:361613501,363562301 : accessed 3 September 2015), Middlesex > Deed index (grantor) 1800-1835 A-G > image 313 of 655; county courthouses and offices, Massachusetts.

The first sale was to a "R.Coburn" on 20Nov 1810, the second to M.B. Coburn on  3Apr 1811.
Caleb had died on 17Dec 1810.

"Massachusetts Land Records, 1620-1986," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1961-36097-14158-22?cc=2106411&wc=MCBY-PWL:361613501,363562301 : accessed 3 September 2015), Middlesex > Deed index (grantor) 1800-1835 A-G > image 313 of 655; county courthouses and offices, Massachusetts.

Luckily both land sales were in the same book, Deeds 1810-1811 vol 188-190 and I found them
both. after a fifteen minute search This is the first:

Massachusetts Land Records, 1620-1986," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-36164-11837-73?cc=2106411&wc=MC1M-PT5:361613501,364639201 : accessed 4 September 2015), Middlesex > Deeds 1810-1811 vol 188-190 > image 494 of 821; county courthouses and offices, Massachusetts.

I noticed that the sale had taken place in Tyngsborough on 1Nov but was received by the
court in Cambridge on 20Nov. Down near the end of the document Caleb's wife Patty is named.

Massachusetts Land Records, 1620-1986," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-36164-11837-73?cc=2106411&wc=MC1M-PT5:361613501,364639201 : accessed 4 September 2015), Middlesex > Deeds 1810-1811 vol 188-190 > image 494 of 821; county courthouses and offices, Massachusetts.

So, My 5x great grandmother's name was Patty, probably short for Patricia.

Or was it?

I now examined the later, second land sale.I'll discuss what I found in the next post in the series.

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2015 WEEK 32: CALEB COBURN PT1

The three posts about the TChart I did for Caleb Coburn contain all I had known about my
5x great grandfather up until last week. For his installment of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
challenge, I'm going to discuss what I discovered about him since then.

I'll start with another document I found in the Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871 collection on the AmericanAncestors website. It's a petition from Caleb and his two younger siblings,  Mary and Abiel, asking the Court to appoint a Timothy Coburn as their guardian:

Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)

This raised a few questions for me. Why didn't they want their stepfather Edward Coburn as a guardian? From what I have found, he didn't die until 1771. I haven't found a date of death for their mother Deborah (Wright) Coburn yet so it's possible that she had died.Had the relations between Edward and his three youngest stepchildren suffered if that were the case?

Then there is the puzzle as to why Caleb and the others had chosen Timothy Coburn. I can find only one family member living at that time in Dracut named Timothy and he was a second or third cousin. According to the Coburn genealogy he was a prominent citizen and there was a "Negress" working for him who was the subject of several family stories. (I'll go into those in another post.) 

The family dynamics behind the petition will probably always be a mystery. At any rate, the petition was granted by the court. Notice that on the second document, a Moses Coburn had signed as well as  Timothy, and not Edward. Had older brother Moses Coburn been acting as guardian for Caleb and the others?

Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)

Next, I'll discuss some land records that might hold a clue as to the identity of Caleb Coburn's
wife.

To be continued.

A "T CHART" FOR CALEB COBURN REVISITED PT3

((Before I do the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks for Caleb Coburn, I thought I'd repost
three posts from four years ago I did as part of an exercise we did in the Genealogists
in Second Life group four years ago. Afterward I'll discuss what I've found recently
and revise my Tchart for him. Here's part 3.))

 
Before I go into the Federal Censuses I've found for Caleb Coburn, here's
the page for him from The Descendants of Edward Colburn (p48):

Notice the entry following Caleb for his brother Abiel.

This is the image from the 1790 Census for Tyngsborough, Ma.There
is only one Caleb Coburn on this Census and the presence of Reuben
Butterfield is significant since Caleb's brother married the daughter of a
Reuben Butterfield..Notice how the town of Dunstable has been changed
to Tyngsborough:

What I hadn't done when I found this document was pay attention to the other
members of the household. There is a male under 16 years old and 3 females
living with Caleb. Caleb's son Moses Coburn was my ancestor and was already
25 years old in 1790. Who was this young boy?

On the 1800 Census there is again only one Caleb Coburn. On the same page
I found an Abiel Coburn. Again, there are additional members of Caleb's household
that I hadn't paid attention to up until now. The boy is gone, either deceased or grown
and out on his own. There are still three females, one between age 10 to 15, one
between 15 and 25, and one over age 45.

By 1810 the household is reduced to Caleb, one female between 16 to 25 years
old and one 45 years or older:

When I found these records on Ancestry,com I was just starting to really dig
into researching my family. I took a two week trial with Ancestry and grabbed
any records I could find as fast as I could before the two weeks were up. While
I spent more time examining the records for the generations a bit closer to me,
I only recently began to analyzing the older ones. Back then, for example,
I assumed that Caleb only had one child, Moses, because I couldn't find a record
of any other. I went back to the Early Vital Records of Massachusetts site to see
if I could find the births or marriages of daughters of Caleb Coburn but was
unsuccessful.

But I did find something I had missed before, the possible date of death for Caleb
and perhaps the answer to the mystery of the boy from the 1790 Federal Census.
From Vol 1, p97 of the Tyngsborough Vital Records I found the following:
    Caleb, s. Caleb, Apr. 3, 1798. PR1
    Caleb, Dec. 17, 1810, a. 72 y. PR1

(Fellow SL genealogist DeeDee Nelson found the same information
 elsewhere while I was writing this post. Thanks DeeDee!)

I know Caleb was born in 1738 so he would have indeed been 72 years
old in 1810, so there's  a good chance that 17Dec 1810 is indeed his
death date. The other Caleb might be a younger son, but I need more
to be confident about that. What I need to find now is a will or a deed
that lists members of Caleb's family, or find Caleb's grave and check for
other Coburn's buried nearby. In otherwords, I know I need to look
beyond the Internet. I also need to keep the "genealogy of place" in
mind and look beyond Tyngsborough to the surrounding towns.( including
across the state line to Pelham which once was part of Tyngsborough).


All in all, I found the "t chart" a useful tool to break down what I'd found on
Caleb Colburn and help me analyze it more rather than just gathering it. I plan
to use it on others of my ancestors.

And thanks to Dear Myrt aka Clarisse for conducting the book review session
of Val Greenwood's book over at Second Life!

A "T CHART" FOR CALEB COBURN REVISITED PT2

((Before I do the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks for Caleb Coburn, I thought I'd repost
three posts from four years ago I did as part of an exercise we did in the Genealogists
in Second Life group four years ago. Afterward I'll discuss what I've found recently
and revise my Tchart for him. Here's part 2, which tells more about my problems
researching Caleb))

As I said previously, I don't know a heck of a lot about Caleb Coburn. Well,
I do know a bit more than some people know about some of their ancestors.
I found his DOB on the Early Vital Records of Massachusetts website which
contains images from the famous "Tan Books" transcriptions of the town
records. Interestingly, there appears to have been some damage to the
record because the transcription reads "(---)leb" .

There's a gap between that first fact and the second, the birth of Caleb's son
Moses Coburn in Dracut, Ma. in 1765. That's because there's apparently
no record of the name of Caleb's wife. Now I'm well aware that not everything
can be found online and there are a lot of records that can be found only at
town halls and courthouses. But even in the age before computers there were
other researchers who had no luck discovering the identity of Caleb Coburn's
wife and Moses' Coburn's mother.  Last year I blogged about how the co-authors 
of "Genealogy of the Descendants of Edward Colburn/Coburn"  dealt with
it almost a century ago in 1913. They simply wrote:

"Caleb Coburn(Moses 3 Joseph2 Edward1) was born in Dracut December
12, 1738; he married ________ ____________; they dwelt at Tyngsboro."
(p48)

But looking at the T chart I did some figuring. Caleb would have been 26 or 27
years old when Moses was born. I guessed Caleb would have been 16 years old
or older when he married the mystery wife, so that would mean that the marriage
would have taken place sometime between 1755 and 1765.

In his book Val Greenwood talks about the importance of knowing the genealogy
of places(p61) because the boundaries of early American towns and counties
shifted so much which would effect where records might be kept at different
times. Tyngsborough is a perfect example of this. It used to be part of the
town of  Dunstable but split off as a separate area in 1789 before becoming
an actual town in 1809. Also, in colonial times in Massachusetts it was not
unusual for a person's birth or marriage to be recorded not only in the town
they were born in but also in the town their parents were born, which in this
case would still have been Dracut. I'd already checked the records at Early
Vital Records of Massachusetts for Dracut, Dunstable and Tyngsborough for
any mention of Caleb's marriage. I also checked for the record of Moses
Coburn's birth in hopes it would list the name of his mother but that didn't
pan out either.

I'll talk about what the Censuses of 1790, 1800, and 1810 told me next 
in part 3 here

A "T CHART" FOR CALEB COBURN REVISITED PT1

((Before I do the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks for Caleb Coburn, I thought I'd repost
three posts from four years ago I did as part of an exercise we did in the Genealogists
in Second Life group four years ago. Afterward I'll discuss what I've found recently
and revise my Tchart for him.))


The Genealogists in Second Life have started a Just Genealogy Book Club  and
we're working through  Val D. Greenwood's  The Researcher's Guide to
American Genealogy, 3rd Edition (Genealogical Publishing Co. 2000) and I'm
finding it very informative. This past week we covered the chapters on
"Analyzing Pedigree and the Place" and "Evaluation of Evidence"(chapters
4 & 5). In the section on Pedigree Analysis Mr Greenwood suggested using
what he calls a "Tchart". Basically you draw a line down the center of the
piece of paper and one side label "What do I already know" and "What does
this suggest?"  I decided I'd like to try that out.

I chose 5x greatgrandfather Caleb Coburn as my guinea pig.(Forgive me,
Grandpa Caleb!). Then I wasted an hour or so hunting around for a two column
template I could use on one of my word processor programs. When that
failed, I tried making one from scratch which wasted more time. Finally I gave
up and went back to basics, pen and paper. So be warned: this isn't the
prettiest graphic you'll ever see:

I chose Caleb because I hadn't found a death date for him nor have I ever found
the name of his wife. I printed his name at the top of the page and included all
the various spellings I've encountered for Coburn, and then started listing on the
left side of the page what I already knew : his birth in Dracut, Ma on 12 Dec 1738,
the birth of his son Moses in Tyngsborough,  Ma in 1765  and where he was
enumerated on the 1790, 1800, and 1810 Federal Census. There was also a
Caleb Coburn enumerated on the 1820 Fishersfield Nh Federal Census but I
had questions about that one.(which may account for my mangling the name of the
town in my list)

And of course, he died,  (Unless Caleb was an immortal vampire or alien)  but
I'd found no date or place for that as of yet.

So, what did that all this suggest? As you can see, initially, not a heck of lot. But
we'll get to that next post,

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR PENSION FILE OF MOSES COBURN PT2

Included with Moses Coburn's pension request is the following document: 

This may certify that Moses Coburn of Tyngsborough was agreed with by us in 1781 to
go into The Revolutionary War and did go and stay until the war ended.
April 4th 1818                                                                    Isaac Pike
                                                                                           Asa Underwood
                                                                                           ?)Committee for the Clas(?)
                                                                                           who hiered him

I've wondered about the circumstances that led to the 16 year old Moses Coburn being
"hired" by the townsman to enlist in the Continental Army. His father Caleb was 37
years old when the Revolution began and according to a family genealogy had fought in
the Revolution in 1776 "In Capt. Ford's Co., Col. Robinson's Regt.. Also, in 1779, in Capt. Solomon Pollard's Co., Col. Samuel Denny's Regt. Was Caleb still in Capt. Solomon Pollard's company or was he home in 1781, and if so, had he been wounded or taken ill? Did Moses Coburn join the Army to help support his parents? How much was he paid for enlisting? 

So far, I have no answer for those questions.

To be continued

WHAT I KNOW ABOUT THE COBURNS

This is another in a series of posts in which I list what I've already learned about one of my family lines and then a "To Do" list of things I need to do to learn more.

-My Coburn ancestry comes to me through my paternal grandmother Cora B.Barker  whose own paternal grandmother was Lucy Coburn  of Albany, Oxford, Me. 

- My Coburn immigrant ancetor was Edward Colburn who came to Massachusetts in 1635 on the ship Defence at age 28and settled at Ipswich, Ma.  The family later moved to other towns in Middlesex County, such as Dracut and Tyngsborough.

-The family name has been spelled a number of different ways:Colbourne, Colburne, Colborne, Colbern, Colburn and Coburn. My branch of the family eventually settled on the
using Coburn.

- Some siblings of my ancestors were among those who resettled what became the
Canadian province of New Brunswick after the Acadians were exiled by the British.

.My 4x great grandfather Moses Coburn fought in the Revolutionary War

-Documents I have found so far include:
   -Moses Coburn's Revolutionary War Pension file which I found on Fold3

  -Moses Coburn's Probate file and Will which I found on FamilySearch.

 -Land sale transactions by 5x great grandfather Caleb Coburn from FamilySearch

-The death record of 2x great grandmother Lucy(Coburn)Barker from FamilySearch  

-A copy of The Genealogy of the Descendants of Edward Colburn from Google Books.

To Do List:
-Find  the name of the wife of Caleb Coburn, my 5x great grandmother.
-Transcribe Moses Coburn's Revolutionary War Pension file.
-Transcribe Moses Coburn's  Will and Probate file.
- Add the names of more of my Coburn ancestors' siblings to my database and online trees.

And I'd like to take a drive up to Dracut and Tyngsborough to see what else I can find out
about my Coburn ancestors.

This is how my grandmother Cora Barker descends from Edward Colburn:

A "T CHART" FOR CALEB COBURN PT3

Before I go into the Federal Censuses I've found for Caleb Coburn, here's
the page for him from The Descendants of Edward Colburn (p48):

Notice the entry following Caleb for his brother Abiel.

This is the image from the 1790 Census for Tyngsborough, Ma.There
is only one Caleb Coburn on this Census and the presence of Reuben
Butterfield is significant since Caleb's brother married the daughter of a
Reuben Butterfield..Notice how the town of Dunstable has been changed
to Tyngsborough:

What I hadn't done when I found this document was pay attention to the other
members of the household. There is a male under 16 years old and 3 females
living with Caleb. Caleb's son Moses Coburn was my ancestor and was already
25 years old in 1790. Who was this young boy?

On the 1800 Census there is again only one Caleb Coburn. On the same page
I found an Abiel Coburn. Again, there are additional members of Caleb's household
that I hadn't paid attention to up until now. The boy is gone, either deceased or grown
and out on his own. There are still three females, one between age 10 to 15, one
between 15 and 25, and one over age 45.

By 1810 the household is reduced to Caleb, one female between 16 to 25 years
old and one 45 years or older:

When I found these records on Ancestry,com I was just starting to really dig
into researching my family. I took a two week trial with Ancestry and grabbed
any records I could find as fast as I could before the two weeks were up. While
I spent more time examining the records for the generations a bit closer to me,
I only recently began to analyzing the older ones. Back then, for example,
I assumed that Caleb only had one child, Moses, because I couldn't find a record
of any other. I went back to the Early Vital Records of Massachusetts site to see
if I could find the births or marriages of daughters of Caleb Coburn but was
unsuccessful.

But I did find something I had missed before, the possible date of death for Caleb
and perhaps the answer to the mystery of the boy from the 1790 Federal Census.
From Vol 1, p97 of the Tyngsborough Vital Records I found the following:
    Caleb, s. Caleb, Apr. 3, 1798. PR1
    Caleb, Dec. 17, 1810, a. 72 y. PR1

(Fellow SL genealogist DeeDee Nelson found the same information
 elsewhere while I was writing this post. Thanks DeeDee!)

I know Caleb was born in 1738 so he would have indeed been 72 years
old in 1810, so there's  a good chance that 17Dec 1810 is indeed his
death date. The other Caleb might be a younger son, but I need more
to be confident about that. What I need to find now is a will or a deed
that lists members of Caleb's family, or find Caleb's grave and check for
other Coburn's buried nearby. In otherwords, I know I need to look
beyond the Internet. I also need to keep the "genealogy of place" in
mind and look beyond Tyngsborough to the surrounding towns.( including
across the state line to Pelham which once was part of Tyngsborough).


All in all, I found the "t chart" a useful tool to break down what I'd found on
Caleb Colburn and help me analyze it more rather than just gathering it. I plan
to use it on others of my ancestors.

And thanks to Dear Myrt aka Clarisse for conducting the book review session
of Val Greenwood's book over at Second Life!


 

A "T CHART" FOR CALEB COBURN PT2

As I said previously, I don't know a heck of a lot about Caleb Coburn. Well,
I do know a bit more than some people know about some of their ancestors.
I found his DOB on the Early Vital Records of Massachusetts website which
contains images from the famous "Tan Books" transcriptions of the town
records. Interestingly, there appears to have been some damage to the
record because the transcription reads "(---)leb" .

There's a gap between that first fact and the second, the birth of Caleb's son
Moses Coburn in Dracut, Ma. in 1765. That's because there's apparently
no record of the name of Caleb's wife. Now I'm well aware that not everything
can be found online and there are a lot of records that can be found only at
town halls and courthouses. But even in the age before computers there were
other researchers who had no luck discovering the identity of Caleb Coburn's
wife and Moses' Coburn's mother.  Last year I blogged about how the co-authors 
of "Genealogy of the Descendants of Edward Colburn/Coburn"  dealt with
it almost a century ago in 1913. They simply wrote:

"Caleb Coburn(Moses 3 Joseph2 Edward1) was born in Dracut December
12, 1738; he married ________ ____________; they dwelt at Tyngsboro."
(p48)

But looking at the T chart I did some figuring. Caleb would have been 26 or 27
years old when Moses was born. I guessed Caleb would have been 16 years old
or older when he married the mystery wife, so that would mean that the marriage
would have taken place sometime between 1755 and 1765.

In his book Val Greenwood talks about the importance of knowing the genealogy
of places(p61) because the boundaries of early American towns and counties
shifted so much which would effect where records might be kept at different
times. Tyngsborough is a perfectr example of this. It used to be part of the
town of  Dunstable but split off as a seperate area in 1789 before becoming
an actual town in 1809. Also, in colonial times in Massachusetts it was not
unusual for a person's birth or marriage to be recorded not only in the town
they were born in but also in the town their parents were born, which in this
case would still have been Dracut. I'd already checked the records at Early
Vital Records of Massachusetts for Dracat, Dunstable and Tyngsborough for
any mention of Caleb's marriage. I also checked for the record of Moses
Coburn's birth in hopes it would list the name of his mother but that didn't
pan out either.

I'll talk about what the Censuses of 1790, 1800, and 1810 told me next 
in part 3 here

A "T CHART" FOR CALEB COBURN

The Genealogists in Second Life have started a Just Genealogy Book Club  and
we're working through  Val D. Greenwood's  The Researcher's Guide to
American Gednealogy, 3rd Edition (Genealogical Publishing Co. 2000) and I'm
finding it very informative. This past week we covered the chapters on
"Analyzing Pedigree and the Place" and "Evaluation of Evidence"(chapters
4 & 5). In the section on Pedigree Analysis Mr Greenwood suggested using
what he calls a "Tchart". Basically you draw a line down the center of the
piece of paper and one side label "What do I already know" and "What does
this suggest?"  I decided I'd like to try that out.

I chose 5x greatgrandfather Caleb Coburn as my guinea pig.(Forgive me,
Grandpa Caleb!). Then I wasted an hour or so hunting around for a two column
template I could use on one of my word processor programs. When that
failed, I tried making one from scratch which wasted more time. Finally I gave
up and went back to basics, pen and paper. So be warned: this isn't the
prettiest graphic you'll ever see:

I chose Caleb because I hadn't found a death date for him nor have I ever found
the name of his wife. I printed his name at the top of the page and included all
the various spellings I've encountered for Coburn, and then started listing on the
left side of the page what I already knew : his birth in Dracut, Ma on 12 Dec 1738,
the birth of his son Moses in Tyngsborough,  Ma in 1765  and where he was
enumerated on the 1790, 1800, and 1810 Federal Census. There was also a
Caleb Coburn enumerated on the 1820 Fishersfield Nh Federal Census but I
had questions about that one.(which may account for my mangling the name of the
town in my list)

And of course, he died,  (Unless Caleb was an immortal vampire or alien)  but
I'd found no date or place for that as of yet.

So, what did that all this suggest? As you can see, initally, not a heck of lot. But
we'll get to that next post,

BEEP BEEP!

All genealogists have one: a brickwall. Alright, there may be a lucky few upon
whom the Gods of Genealogy have smiled who don't have a brickwall. These 
are probably the same people who got A's on their trigonometry finals. But the 
rest of us, we have brickwalls, ancestors whose names, or places of birth, or 
parents elude us. Finding the missing information and smashing through that 
brickwall to the ancestors beyond it is the Holy Grail of genealogy. Sometimes 
we have more than one brickwall to breakdown.


In my case, I have several, the big one of course being the enigma that is the 
Elusive John Cutter West. (Yes, I meant to capitalize Elusive.) But there's 
another that nags at me for my attention when I look at my family tree:


What was the name of my 5x great grandfather Caleb Coburn's wife?


Now I admit that I've been fairly lucky with the majority of my female 
ancestors.There are only a few whose maiden names I don't know. But
in the case of Caleb's wife, I don't even have a first name. Everything I've
seen online so far about him makes no mention of the woman who gave
birth to Moses Coburn, my 4x great grandfather.(I mean, I'm pretty sure 
Moses didn't come into being from spontaneous generation or cloning, so
he had to have a mother.) None of the queries I posted to discussion
groups for the Coburn/Colburn family have been successful, either.


The other day I thought I might finally solve the mystery. I found a copy 
of the book "Genealogy of the Descendants of Edward Colburn/Coburn" 
online. The book was published in 1913, only sixty-six years after Moses' 
death and co-written by Silas Coburn. Surely this might have the woman's
name. I looked through it in much the same way as Wile E. Coyote goes 
through the latest Acme Catalogue. And there on page 48 I found:


"Caleb Coburn(Moses 3 Joseph2 Edward1) was born in Dracut December 
12, 1738; he married ________ ____________; they dwelt at Tyngsboro."
followed by an entry about their child Moses.


Now I'm wondering if there was some reason the name is unknown. Could 
there have been some family scandal that removed any mention of Caleb's 
wife's name from the Coburn family history? Or was she so forgettable a 
person that nobody remembered her name?


So she still remains a mystery, along with my other brickwalls that I keep 
trying to break down, because that's what genealogists do. Like Wile E.
Coyote, we keep chasing after our elusive Road Runner ancestors.


Anyone out there have an Acme Genealogy Answers Catalogue handy?