Family History Research before FamilySearch, Ancestry and other popular websites

If you believe the ancestry ads on TV, you can subscribe, type in your name along with your parents' and VOILA! leaves appear and soon you have your family tree emerging.  Actually research is not exactly that easy today, but I want to look at researching in the not too distant past, before the internet.

For the DAKIN family, we have the 716 page "go to book" written over many years by Albert H Dakin, and published, after he died by his niece, Mrs. H B Yamagata in 1948.

Prior to the internet, I would write letters to town clerks, including the self-addressed stamped envelop (SASE) and a check to cover the cost of sending a birth, marriage or death certificate.  Then from that certificate, write more letters for the grand or great grand, etc. parents indicated there -- building the tree piece by piece as I'd learn parents' names of an ancestor.  Now with the internet and the availability of some new sources online, I get hints from more than just the birth, marriage and death records -- newspapers, census pages, etc. are full of research clues.  But I still send to the town clerks for the vital records for confirmation.

Just imaging Albert H Dakin working on this not just for years but for decades, starting with the original Dakin settler, Thomas, in Concord MA in the 1600s and working down to "his time" of the 1940's.  Checking every child, then every child, then every child .... continuing down the generations.  WHEW!!  716 pages of ancestors numbering in the thousands!  Actually Albert documented 6,843 descendants of Thomas Dakin and also included an every-name index in his book!  IMPRESSIVE work.

What else might Albert have done beyond writing town clerks in order to find these 6,843 descendants?
Well, he wrote letters!  Lots of letters.

These letters were before the days of email and computers.  So every letter was individually typed and contained some information that he already knew and asked for more information for his files.

This letter written to my grandmother in 1943, inquiring about her family.  It tells her who referred him to her, a reference to information sent by her husband a year before he died in 1917, and a chart to fill in and correct if anything is incorrect.  He is writing this in 1943, worrying about whether he will be able to finish his project -- he died in 1945.

                    ALBERT H. DAKIN        2064        12-35
                    977 Anderson Ave.
                    New York, N.Y.

                            January 21, 1943
Mrs. Marion E. Dakin,
c/o College,
Storrs, Conn.


Dear Mrs. Dakin:
    For many years I have been collecting the genealogical
records of the Dakin Family and am at present writing up my notes
in the final shape.  I have not known where to locate you until
yesterday when Mr. Charles R Harte gave me your address.  I am
very anxious to bring my notes up to date and am asking your
kind help to secure it.
    I am enclosing a blank which shows all the data I have
of your family and which is for the most part  data your
husband sent me in 1917.
    Will you please add to this enclosed blank any additional
data that may be missing, correct any errors of mine and return
the blank to me.
    I believe you had another child that I have no record of.
If either of  your children married will you please give me their
address so that I may write to them to bring my notes up to date.
    One other question: Is Mr. Dakin’s mother living and
if not can you tell me when and where she died.
    I will greatly appreciate receiving an answer from you
as I am anxious to complete my records while I have the ability.
                Sincerely yours,
                    Albert H Dakin

and of course, he enclosed a SASE!

The Chart arrived in the mail in January of 1943 -- a busy time for Marion.  Her son Theodore got married that month with the anticipation of being draft by the US Army & shipped out sometime in the next few months; and as the First Extension Nutritionist for the State of Connecticut, Marion was busy preparing Farm and State Bulletins on how to manage with the Rationing for World War 2.

So, did Marion Dakin fill out the chart?


Sure looks like she edited incorrect information, added her new daughter-in-law, added her son who had died, and added death information for her husband.





So, did she mail it back?
Clearly not this one, since I found it among her paperwork when she died decades later.

Did Albert ask again?
It doesn't look like he did.
After all, I found the envelop sent from Albert to Marion in 1943.

Here is the book entry for her husband's father including his marriage to Marion and the birth of their son Theodore.

It does not any of Theodore's siblings who died young, or the information on Theodore's marriage.  Theodore is entry #3596, but there is no separate entry for him later in the book.

The documentation of our family line in the "Dakin book" stops with Theodore's birth.

Marion's not sending the letter back, means that any further information is not included in the Dakin family book.

But the gift Marion gave us by not mailing it back is to show us what our ancestors who documented our families in past decades and generation did in order to put their family histories together.


The link to this page is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2017/01/family-history-research-before.html
©2017, Erica Dakin Voolich

Remember the Women, part 1

If you have been doing family history and have tried to trace your family name, you might been thrilled to have the "XX Family History" or "The Descendants of XX" book.  I know I was when I first started out and discovered the DAKIN history "was all in" the Descendants of THOMAS DAKIN of Concord, Mass. Compiled by Albert H. Dakin (Tuttle Publishing, 1948).  Albert spent many years sending out letters to folks all over the United States trying to trace all the descendants of Thomas who was in Concord, Massachusetts selling land in the 1650s.  He made an effort to include the names of the women who the Dakins married and when possible included their parents' names.  This is not always the case. The Dakin family descendants were lucky to have that information.  Sometimes, when tracing a family, the records only give the first name of the woman and don't identify their parents.  The DAKIN descendants were also lucky when  Elizabeth H. Dakin took the women in the first few generations and traced their families back in her The DAKIN FAMILY from THOMAS of Concord to THOMAS of Digby Including the Families of Their Wives (Plainville MA, 2008).

In my own research, I have moved beyond just looking for the names and dates of my ancestors, to also including some of their stories as you probably know just from reading this blog, if not from my genealogy books [shown on the right in this blog].  I have decided to focus on the stories and the genealogy of the women in my family.  This year I am starting with my grandmothers' generation.  Next year, will be the women in my great grandmothers' generation.  I will research not only the direct ancestors, but also interesting sisters who I have been able to include.

Adelaide Copeland Harvey Richardson with her daughter Alice.

Adelaide (Addie) Copeland Harvey married Robert (Bobbie) Worthington Richardson.  He always wanted a beautiful woman by his side; and as a young woman, Addie was beautiful.  A part of Bobbie's job with magazines involved entertaining the stars who came to town to be photographed and interviewed.  Tragically, Adelaide developed a skin infection that left open sores all over her body for decades.  Then she was blinded in one eye and partially in the other from cataract operations, as a young woman.

As their children grew,  Bobbie was "looking elsewhere," and when their two daughters were starting their own families, he started another family himself.  Then tragically for his new children, Bobbie and his new wife died.

Addie was a divorcee, legally blind, scarred by sores, and suffering from asthma.  How did she manage to survive in the world?

Marion Elizabeth Evans Dakin shortly before her marriage in 1913.

Marion Elizabeth Evans married Robert Edward Dakin.  He was an engineer who grew up watching the Bulls Bridge Power Plant being built, with the canal across his farm.  He came back and built the addition to Bulls Bridge Power Plant to bring power to the neighborhood.

When they married, she started a life moving around the state as he moved from one engineering project to another until he died tragically.  One week in December 1918, Marion's mother, husband and youngest son, died in the Flu Pandemic.  Marion needed to figure out how to support herself and her two-year-old son, Teddy.

Marion became the first Extension Nutritionist for the State of Connecticut.  If something was related to nutrition in Connecticut from 1921 until she retired in 1946, she was probably involved in it. For example, during the Depression and the WW2 Rationing, she was helping people cook with the available foods.  She was giving talks and writing farm bulletins and serving on committees.

Clarice Evans visiting the museum with modern art -- one of her favorite places.

Clarice Evans started out as an elementary teacher in Connecticut.  She took classes at the State Normal School in Danbury and eventually earned two degrees from Columbia Teachers College.

Clarice taught many places around the US and even in England before she joined the faculty at New Jersey's State Teachers College in Jersey City where she taught fine art and industrial arts until she retired in 1950.  She was an early advocate of Industrial arts in the schools and traveled to Dartington Hall in England (1928-1930) to introduce industrial arts to Dartington teachers and to surrounding schools. She also studied other progressive schools in England and on the continent and to reported back to Dartington Hall with suggestions for modeling their own programs.

Since it took me 400 pages to report on what I found on these three women in Remember the Women,  Heading up the Branches of our Women's Family Tree, part 1,  I can not begin to describe everything here.  Basically, we have three women born in the late 1800s, who came into adulthood in the early 1900s: one a divorcee, one a widow, one never married.  All managed to find their way through the challenges of the 20th century.  Enjoy.


©Erica Dakin Voolich 2017
The link to this post is:  http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2017/01/remember-women-part-1.html

Honoring Some Fathers in the Family

In honor of father's day....

My father with his father:

Theodore Robert Dakin (Teddy) with Robert Edward Dakin (Rob)

[Ted: 11 November 1916, New Haven, CT - 20 November 1972, Berwyn, IL]

[Rob: 2 July 1888, Gaylordsville, CT - 15 December 1918, Danbury, CT]

Rob at age 30 died in 1918, when Teddy was 2.
Rob died in the Flu Pandemic the same week as his infant son Edward Evans Dakin and his mother-in-law Caroline Matilda Holstein Evans (Carrie) also died.  Carrie's husband (Charles H Evans) moved in with Rob's wife, Marion Evans Dakin to act as "baby tender" when she went to school at the U of Chicago for a term to get more training leading to her becoming the first Extension Nutritionist for the State of Connecticut three years later.

Charles Harold Evans with Teddy in Chicago.

[Charles: 23 May 1853, Sherman, CT - 18 February 1928, Savannah, GA]

Other fathers in the family:

Edward Dakin (Teddy's other Grandfather)

[3 October 1836, Hudson, NY - 6 July 1914, Gaylordsville, CT]

Charles Evans (Teddy's Great Grandfather)

[2 August 1820, Sherman, CT - 4 December 1903, Great Barrington, MA]

Eric Helsten (Teddy's Great Grandfather)

[27 February 1822, Uppsala, Sweden - 4 January 1903, Gaylordsville, CT]

Beers Radford (Teddy's Great Great Grandfather)

[13 April 1784 Waterbury, CT - 15 February 1876 Middlebury, CT]

Ted had many other generations of fathers, but these are the only photographs that were left to me for our viewing pleasure!


Happy Fathers' Day, 2016!

The link to this page is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2016/06/honoring-some-fathers-in-family.html
©2016, Erica Dakin Voolich

A Life Re-Routed thanks to the 1918 Pandemic

Marion Evans before her marriage, 1912 in Gaylordsville Connecticut

Marion Evans was born in Sherman Connecticut 11 February 1886, the 2nd daughter of Charles Harold Evans and Caroline Matilda Helsten.  Her father Charles and her uncle Edward had built houses next door to each other, at the foot of Evans Hill Rd. where their parents, Charles Evans and Hannah Elizabeth Radford lived on the top.  On the other side of that same hill in Gaylordsville, lived Marion's maternal grandparents, Eric Adolf Helstein and Mary Hearty.

Charles and Edward had a busy house construction business in Sherman and Gaylordsville.  In 1888, they decided to move their families and their business north to Great Barrington, Massachusetts where there was a building boom going on.  Charles and Edward Evans opened the Barrington Building Co. which ended up building not only houses but also a high school their daughters attended and other large buildings around the community over the years.

Neither Charles, nor his wife Caroline had any college education.  They might have attended high school but I don't know.  It is clear that education was important to them: Caroline was involved with the Current Events Club and Charles with the Sons of the American Revolution in Great Barrington.  Charles' mother, Hannah Elizabeth Radford Evans, amazingly had one year of college back in 1844-1845.  Caroline's immigrant parents -- Eric Adolf Helsten and Mary Hearty-- came in the mid-1840s and did encourage at least one of their 4 children (Sarah) to have education beyond high school.

Both Marion (1904) and her older sister, Clarice (1902), graduated from Searles High School.  Clarice taught in local schools before going on and getting degrees and eventually teaching at Jersey City State Teachers College in New Jersey starting in 1937.

As young unmarried women in the early 1900s, they needed to have jobs.  One might live at home, but unless you had wealthy parents, you needed to support yourself.   Both Marion and Clarice were in school at the same time, each graduating in 1908 -- Marion from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn New York with a degree in Domestic Science; Clarice from Connecticut's State Normal Training School in Danbury with a teaching certificate-- each with a two-year degree.

Marion's first job out of college was teaching high school domestic science in Saginaw Michigan.  Then she came back east and took courses at Columbia Teachers College for 2 years.    Her skills caught the attention of the philanthropist Helen Gould (daughter of Jay Gould) who hired her teach nutritional cooking classes for women in Roxbury New York during the summer of 1912.  She worked for Helen Gould all year, helping with setting up a new organization's chapter, the Campfire Girls, in Irvington New York and typing a book of sermons for a minister there.  When not working, she would be back home in Gaylordsville Connecticut.  Her parents were now living in her Helsten-grandparents' former home just over the Housatonic River from Robert Edward Dakin who was back at his parents' home working on the Bulls Bridge Power Plant addition.

Wedding of Marion Evans and Robert Edward Dakin, 1913

Marion and Robert Married on 13 September 1913 in Gaylordsville.  Rob was and engineer working projects around the state.  So, they would set up house-keeping and when the job required that they move, they did.  So they had three children born in three different towns. Robert Edward Jr was born in Danbury on 15 May 1915, dying the next day.  Theodore Robert was born in New Haven on 11 November 1916.  Edward Evans was born in Derby on 28 January 1918.  In August 1918 the family had moved again, this time back to Danbury so Rob could work on the dam at Stevenson over the Housatonic River.

Marion's busy daily life with children and running the household was abruptly disrupted by the flu pandemic that was sweeping all over the world.  On Saturday 30 November, Rob got sick.  Marion had two young children -- a two year old and a 10 month old along with a sick husband.  She sends her older child to stay with Aunt Mary in Gaylordsville and her mother Carrie Helsten Evans comes down to help.  By Wednesday 4 December, her son Edward was sick, as was her mother Carrie.  On Tuesday 10 December, her mother Carrie dies, the next day, her son Edward Evans died and on Thursday there was a double funeral.  The next Monday, her husband Rob died.  So, in 5 days, Marion lost her mother, son and husband to the flu -- she was now a 32 year old widow with a two year old son -- her life had dramatically changed.

She initially moved back to her father's home to decide what to do; he had lost his wife, son-in-law and grandson with all those deaths but they had no time to grieve.  Marion needed to go back to work, she had a son to raise.  What to do next?   In 1918 there wasn't social security for a widow raising a child.  Luckily she already had some education to build upon.  Probably not true for many other families who were devastated by the Influenza Pandemic.

Marion decided to go to the University of Chicago for courses in nutrition during the 1919 spring  term with her father going along as "baby tender" -- so Marion, son Ted and her father Charles traveled from Connecticut to Chicago and moved in with her sister Clarice who was teaching industrial arts at the Laboratory School there.

Marion at Pratt Institute

After a quarter at U of C, Marion was hired at her alma mater, Pratt Institute, to teach home economics.  Off they all go to Brooklyn New York -- Marion taught at Pratt for two years before being hired by Connecticut Agricultural College (now U Connecticut) as Connecticut's first Extension Nutritionist in February 1921.  She retired from U Conn in July 1946.  Her son Ted grew up on the Storrs campus with students who would trade child care for room & board. 

In her job, she was writing extension bulletins on food preparation and also giving talks to local groups and large Expositions and State & County fairs all over the state of Connecticut.  

You already know she had taken many courses and many different schools.  She decided to take a leave of absence for a semester and enrolled as a student in the college where she was on the faculty and completed her bachelors degree in teacher training in home economics -- graduating from Connecticut Agricultural College on 9 June 1930.  

When her father Charles died in 1928 in Savannah Georgia on a train home from Florida to New York, one of the obituaries listed his three surviving children and Marion was listed as the wife of a professor at Connecticut Agricultural College!!  Her husband had died ten years earlier, SHE was on the faculty, he NEVER was!

Years after she died, in 1974, the university decided to honor the "pioneer women educators" with a plaque and garden outside Holcolm Hall.  Ion 22 October 1991, went to the dedication as did Wilma Keyes, the only survivor of the honorees.

"The women were faculty members of the  School of Home Economics who lived and taught in Holcomb Hall.  Built in  1922, Holcomb Hall replaced the first women's building, Grove Cottage,  which burned in 1919. 

Memorialized for their pioneering efforts to educate UConn women  are:  M. Estella Sprague, Marion Dakin, Gladys Hendrickson, Wilma Keyes,  Lillis Knappenberger, Marie Lundberg, Lisbeth Macdonald, Edith Mason,  Elizabeth Putnam, and Elsie Trabue.  All taught in what was then the  school of Home Economics and is now the School of Family Studies.  Keyes is the only one of the ten still living.  Her art and design courses led  to the establishment of the University's present department of Art in the School of Fine Arts. 

The Pioneer Women Educators Memorial is a gift of three UConn women... 

'These women were part of the progressive wave who were seeking to  carve out new opportunities and careers for educated women,... Home  Economics was one of the new areas and these pioneers  taught our generations of women to reach beyond the accepted roles of teacher, nurse and librarian.' 

"Martha Fowlkes, Dean of UConn's School of Family Studies, comments:  'Our School is proud and grateful beneficiary of the contributions of the  women educators in whose honor the garden is dedicated.  Through their  accomplishments in the field of Home Economics, these women represent  both the University's history of women's educational achievement and its  attention to the importance and dignity of families and the lives of  women, both inside and outside the home..."  

There was irony of the picture of Marion at the top of this page.  She is sitting in the wagon, the mode of transportation around Sherman and Gaylordsville.  Soon after the picture, she married and her husband was an engineer who needed to travel around the state.  So, by the time he died, he was driving a car.  After he died and she took the job as the first Extention Nutritionist in Connecticut, in 1921 she was driving around the state to make presentations.   By the time she died, she & Ted had not only taken a boat to England to visit her sister in 1929, and then before she died she had traveled by plane to Sweden and then Japan.  To top it all off, she even watched the landing of man on the moon in 1969. Could she have even imagined the changes in transportation in her lifetime when sitting in that family wagon.

More details on the life of Marion Evans Dakin (11 February 1886-4 July 1974) are included in my article that was published in TIARA Newsletter, 2 September 2015, vol. 32, no 3.   TIARA (The Irish Ancestral Research Association) had a focus issue on Researching the Lives of Women.

The link to this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2016/04/a-life-re-routed-thanks-to-1918-pandemic.html
©Erica Dakin  Voolich 2016

My Regrets and Redemption Lead to a Present for my Family

I am sure that all good family historians have moments that they regret ... I wish I knew what questions to have asked my grandmother, Nana, Marian Evans Dakin, before she died in 1974.  As a result of not knowing ANYTHING about the DAKIN family back then, my work was extensive to piece together the story. I only knew my grandfather's name (he died when my father was 2 years old) and that he had died in the 1918 flu pandemic, along with his son and mother-in-law in less than one week.

When I was in high school, Nana brought some small brownish pictures of something [she said it was a power plant that her husband Rob worked on] to share one year when she came for her annual visit.  Of course, I was the uninterested teenager.  I'm not sure anyone else in my family was much interested either.  I think she brought them out just once during her annual six-month visit.

Years later, I was a 20-something who would drive down to visit her in Connecticut.  I helped her go through various things in her house, and made note of who she wanted them to go to and what things were.  Of course, we didn't find EVERYTHING since there still were surprises when I was her executrix cleaning out her home.  By then, I had enough sense to start asking some questions about the family -- clearly not all of the ones I should have, but I made a start.  On one visit, I asked her about those pictures of the power plant.  "Of, those, I gave them to the power company."

I contacted the power company and was told they did not know where the pictures were, but they did share some information on the power plant which helped me to understand how it worked along with some of the history of the Bulls Bridge Power Plant in Gaylordsville, Connecticut.

What I never asked my grandmother was the "rest of the story" which turned out to be quite interesting.
This year's Christmas present for my family is what I learned about this story AND about the DAKIN family.

In my grandmother's desk, when she died, was one of the surprises for this executrix -- the negatives for the pictures my grandfather, Rob Dakin took of the building of the addition to the power plant.  This book, Bulls Bridge:  The Story of a dreamer, a family farmer, a camera and the building of a power plant, is the result of much research.  It is not only the story of the power plant but includes information on the DAKIN family line, all the way back to Thomas Dakin, the immigrant settler in Concord, Massachusetts by 1652.

The "Readers Digest" version of the story of the power plant is about a politician with a dream to harness the Housatonic River, a farmer who sells a convoluted part of his farm for the canal to be dug right across the fields and past his house, a farm boy who watches the canal and power plant emerge, and then, the power plant is finished and does NOT bring any power to the surrounding neighborhood!  The high school boy, goes off to college (first in family), comes back as an assistant engineer and works on the addition to the plan which brings power to the neighborhood and documents it all with his camera. His pictures from 1912 are included in the book.

I learned a lot about my ancestors as people as I researched this book -- this was not a compilation of just dates.  Oh how I wish I had the sense to talk to my grandmother about this before she died in 1974.

The link for this post is: http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-regrets-and-redemption-lead-to.html
©2013, Erica Dakin Voolich

Ancestors GeneaMeme

As part of Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, he suggested we participate in the Ancestors GeneaMeme created by Jill Ball on the Geniaus blog.

Here are the directions:

The list should be annotated in the following manner:
Things you have already done or found: bold face type
Things you would like to do or find: italicize (colour optional)
Things you haven’t done or found and don’t care to: plain type
You are encouraged to add extra comments in brackets after each item 

Which of these apply to you?

1.  Can name my 16 great-great-grandparents [Robert DAKIN, Hannah Maria COLBY, Stephen SMITH, Abigail JENNINGS, Charles EVANS, Hannah Elizabeth RADFORD, Eric HELSTEN, Mary HEARTY, William RICHARDSON, Mary AC BOGART, Robert Searing WORTHINGTON, Elnora Esther COBB, Enoch Dole HARVEY, Mary Hubbard NYE, Charles COPELAND, Hannah Elizabeth BLODGETT.]

2.  Can name over 50 direct ancestors

3.  Have photographs or portraits of my 8 great-grandparents [7, not 8; unfortunately, no one seems to have a picture of Joseph E HARVEY; I checked with various distant relatives who might have HARVEY pictures with no success.]
4.  Have an ancestor who was married more than three times [Dennison WORTHINGTON buried three wives, but I don't think he tried a forth time.  I don't know of anyone else who had more than three.  Will keep my eyes open!]
5.  Have an ancestor who was a bigamist [not to my knowledge, we did discover a family "friend" was a bigamist years ago.]
6.  Met all four of my grandparents [never will happen -- my father's father, Robert Edward DAKIN died when my father was 2 years old in 1918.]
7.  Met one or more of my great-grandparents [all died before I was born, however, my great grand daughter can answer this question yes!]
8.  Named a child after an ancestor 
9.  Bear an ancestor's given name/s [only by accident.  My mother thought no one in the family had the name, when told my name, my grandmother announced "you named her after my grandfather Eric HELSTEN!  Thank you!"  Years later, doing family history, I discovered Eric had a sister Erica.]
10.  Have an ancestor from Great Britain or Ireland 
11.  Have an ancestor from Asia [not to  my knowledge]
12.  Have an ancestor from Continental Europe 
13.  Have an ancestor from Africa [not to my knowledge]
14.  Have an ancestor who was an agricultural labourer [lots of farmers in the old censuses]
15.  Have an ancestor who had large land holdings [not to my knowledge, unless those "royality in everyone's background" counts]
16.  Have an ancestor who was a holy man - minister, priest, rabbi [Rev John REED 1751-1831) and his father Rev Solomon REED (1719-1785), I think there might be more but I don't remember who they were.]
17.  Have an ancestor who was a midwife [not to my knowledge]
18.  Have an ancestor who was an author [after my father died, I discovered he wrote an article: "The Effect of Penicillin on  the Development of the the Primary Lesion of Syphilis" in VENEREAL  DISEASE INFORMATION (December 1944).  In 1895, my GGgrandfather Eric HELSTEN saved a man from drowning and wrote and sold a pamphlet on his method.  I've written weaving and math books, but I'm not my own ancestor!]
19.  Have an ancestor with the surname Smith, Murphy or Jones [my G grandmother was Mary Alice SMITH (1855-1931) and I have her line traced back into the 1600s in Connecticut:  Stephen SMITH, Aaron SMITH, Peabody SMITH, Stephen SMITH, Stephen SMITH, John SMITH.], [I have Mary JONES (b. 1698) possible line: Isaac JONES, Wm JONES]
20.  Have an ancestor with the surname Wong, Kim, Suzuki or Ng 
21.  Have an ancestor with a surname beginning with X 
22.  Have an ancestor with a forename beginnining with Z [Zachariah SOULE (1694-1751), Zachary BICKNELL (abt 1590-abt 1637) 
23.  Have an ancestor born on 25th December [I have a cousin born on 25 December 1983] 
24.  Have an ancestor born on New Year's Day [Thomas DAKIN's 1st wife, Susanna SLATER, not a direct descendant.]  
25.  Have blue blood in your family lines [supposedly if Royal Descendants book is right]
26.  Have a parent who was born in a country different from my country of birth [my husband can claim this, not me.]
27.  Have a grandparent who was born in a country different from my country of birth [my husband can claim this, but not me; my most recent immigrants were GG grandparents, Eric HELSTEN from Sweden and his wife Mary HEARTY from Ireland.] 
28.  Can trace a direct family line back to the eighteenth century [numerous direct lines]
29.  Can trace a direct family line back to the seventeenth century or earlier [numerous direct lines] 
30.  Have seen copies of the signatures of some of my great-grandparents [Edward DAKIN, Mary Alice Smith DAKIN, Charles Harold EVANS, Harry Bogart RICHARDSON]
31.  Have ancestors who signed their marriage certificate with an X [probably true, not seen  yet.]
32.  Have a grandparent or earlier ancestor who went to university [after watching a canal for the hydroelectric power plant being dug thru their family farm, he grew up and went to university and became a civil engineer and supervised the addition to the plant which brought electricity to his neighborhood; when he died young, his wife went to school to become first extension nutritionist for the state of Connecticut:  Robert DAKIN and Marion Evans DAKIN.  I suspect he paid for college with the money they got from the sale of part of their farm to the power company.] 
33.  Have an ancestor who was convicted of a criminal offence [probably, but not to my knowledge]
34.  Have an ancestor who was a victim of crime [probably, but not to my knowledge]
35.  Have shared an ancestor's story online or in a magazine [see my blogs, this one and Will the real Ursula Wright please stand up.
36.  Have published a family history online or in print [part of my family tree is on Ancestry.com]
37.  Have visited an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries [my mother grew up in the house built for her grandmother as a wedding gift by her father who built the house next door.  They were married in 1889.  For my mother's 80th birthday, we had a family portrait taken in the photography studio that is located there now] 
38.  Still have an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries in the family 
39.  Have a family bible from the 19th Century [1806, it includes listing of births in late 1700s.]
40.  Have a pre-19th century family bible

GeneaMeme

Surname Saturday: HELSTEN a.k.a. HELLSTEN: Stockholm > Uppsala > NY > CT

Olof Household Listing 1767, Canton, Lovö, Stockholm, Sweden.

All week I've been writing about John CARLSON and Eric HELSTEN.  So, I decided for my first post for Surname Saturday, I should choose HELSTEN a.k.a HELLSTEN.

Generations:
1. Olof HELLSTEN,
born 1730 in Vrena, Södermanland, Sweden.  He married Catarina WINQVIST (VINQVIST)
She was born in 1732 or 1737 in Stockholm, Sweden.  She died 31 May 1777 in China, Lövo, Stockholm, Sweden.
Olof was a master tailor.

I have not found birth records for him or marriage records for them.  Whether he was the first HELLSTEN, or not, I do not know.


According to Your Swedish Roots, Per Clememsson & Kjell Andersson, 2004, for many years Swedes used a patronymic naming system.
Example:  Olor Andersson’s son Erik would be Erik Olofsson and his daughter would be Britta Olofsdotter.
Some families chose names.  “Many townspeople and others who didn’t want to be perceived as “common folks” or wanted to distance themselves from the peasants adopted special family names. 
 The name was an important social marker. ... Many of these names are composed of features of nature, and they types of family names are sometimes called called “nature names.”  The names are just combinations of nature features; the combinations don’t necessarily make sense, as with Dalberg, which is composed of “dal” (valley) and “berg” (mountain).”

Hellsten is made up of hell meaning “flat rock” and sten meaning “stone.”
Maybe it doesn’t make sense, maybe it described the landscape where they lived at the time.  I remember riding thru the Sweden countryside, parts were rolling hills with lots of stones.


Children:
a. Johan Peter (13 February 1765 - ?)
b. Jonas (21 September 1767- abt 1820)

2. Jonas HELLSTEN,
born 21 September 1767 in Lövo, Stockholm, Sweden he died about 1820.  I have found no information on his wife.

Jonas was a tanner and represented the Tanners Guild as an alderman in Uppsala, Sweden.


In June 1983, Alice Hellsten read the book Uppsala City  History 1786-1862 and sent me the following information about Jonas:
“In March 1793 the 200 year celebration of Uppsala's church meeting  was celebrated as an unusually democratic addition to the procession from  the castle to the cathedral at the side of the magistrate was the  chairman of the Elders, the tanner Jonas Hellsten and store owner Anders  Yttraeus. ... In the spring of 1794 the falisfication of protocol was debated and  the tanner Jonas Hellsten insisted that Yttraeus had falsified it and  should be brought to court and now the interesting thing happened that no  less than 13 of the Bergers who had participated in the meeting of the  Elders immediately agreed with Hellsten. ... In the year 1808 he is mentioned as a newly elected treasurer. ... Around 1790 a number of upperclass citizens brought a complaint that  the water in Fyrisan River was so badly polluted that it was unusable for  all household use.  One person about who it was complained was Jonas  Hellsten and his tannery and it was requested that the tannery should be  moved but Hellsten protested.  And as he belonged to the leaders of the  Elders, it was with a certain degree of relief of the Elders that they  decided they did not have the power to prescribe such a measure that so  strongly interferred with a single member's professional work. .... In 1810 (after the war against Russia) it was discussed about the  payment and release of the soldiers.  They wanted to entice young farm  hands with high salaries to dress in the uniform of the state.  They  wanted to have special agreements with the people who signed up.  It was  felt that this was a difficult job and it was entrusted to a number of  experienced elders and among them was found yet again alderman Hellsten. ... In May 1816 a general council was held and now the cities were  supposed to regulate the salaries for the city workers.  Dyntation should  study this question and among them was found now the old Elder alderman  Hellsten.”


Child:
a. Eric (2 March 1786 - 24 March 1839)

3. Eric HELLSTEN,
born 2 March 1786 in Sweden, died 24 March 1839 in Uppsala, Domkyrkoförsamling, Sweden.  On 6 January 1815 in Norrtälje, Stockholm, Sweden he married Lovisa Charlotta ROBBERT.  She was born 21 August 1795 in Norrtälja, Stockholm, Sweden and died 25 November 1863 in Uppsala, Sweden.

Death of Eric HELLSTEN, 24 March 1839
in Uppsala, Domkyrkofösamling, Sweden.

Like is father, Eric was a tanner.  He had a tannery on the Fyrisån River, maybe the same one his father had before him.  When he died, his youngest child was 4 months old!

Children:
a. Lovisa Charlott (15 October 1815 - 7 November 1890)
b. Ingrid (Mari) Maria (11 February 1817 - 23 Jun 1880)
c. Gustava (Lina) Carolina (4 November 1818 -  21 February 1880)
d. Erica Wilhelmina (2 February 1820 - 27 April 1884)
e. Eric Adolf (27 February 1822 - 4 January 1903)
f. Matilda (Tilda) Bernhardina (22 April 1824 - 23 December 1889)
g. Carl Robert (14 June 1826 - 13 December 1909)
h. Ottiljana Josephina (20 March 1828 - 20 May 1910)
i. Edla Cecilia (25 July 1830 - 13 March 1910)
j. Theodor (Manne) Emanual (1 November 1832 - 9 June 1910)
k. Frans Elof (17 October 1833 - 27 December 1880)
l. Knut Alfred ( 27 January 1836 - 21 November 1891)
m. Oskar Eugén (5 November 1838 - 1 July 1900)

4. Eric Adolf HELSTEN,
born 27 February 1822, Uppsala, Domkyrkoförsamling, Sweden, died in Gaylordsville, Litchfield,  Connecticut on 4 January 1903.  On 12 August 1849 in Patterson, New York he married Mary HEARTY.  She was born in March 1823 in Dorsey, Parish Creggan, County Armagh, Ireland and died 17 September 1902 in Gaylordsville, Litchfield, Connecticut.

Birth of Eric Adolf HELSTEN in
Uppsala, Domkyrkoförsamling, Sweden.

Children:
a. Mary Louisa (7 June 1850 - 23 May 1942)
b. William Henry (7 September 1852 - 22 June 1917)
c. Caroline Matilda (13 February 1855 - 9 December 1918)
d. Sarah Jane (20 July 1860 - ?)

Eric Adolf was was the Eric HELSTEN who immigrated to the United States, changed the spelling of his last name slightly.  He was trained as a tanner in Uppsala and opened a tannery in Gaylordsville.  He is the person who took in John CARLSON and was later sued by John.

5. Caroline Matilda HELSTEN,
born 13 February 1855 in New Milford, Connecticut and died in Danbury, Connecticut on 9 December 1918.  She married  Charles Harold EVANS on 26 May 1881 in New Milford, Connecticut.  He was born 23 May 1853 in Sherman, Connecticut and died 18 February 1928 on the train from Florida to NYC (near Savannah, Georgia).

Children:
a. Harold H (8 January 1883 - 8 May 1884)
b. Clarice Theodora (21 April 1884 - 7 July 1953)
c. Marion Elizabeth (11 February 1886 - 4 July 1974)
d. Howard Eric (7 July  1893 - January 1972)

6. Marion Elizabeth EVANS,
born 11 February 1886 in Sherman, Connecticut and died 4 July 1974 in New Milford, Connecticut.
On 13 September 1913 in Gaylordsville, Connecticut, she married Robert Edward DAKIN.  He was born 2 July 1888 in Gaylordsville, Connecticut and died 15 December 1918 in Danbury, Connecticut.

Children:
a. Robert Edward (25 May 1915 - 26 Ma 1915)
b. Theodore Robert (11 November 1916 - 1972)
c. Edward Evans (28 January 1918 - 10 December 1918)

7. Theodore Robert DAKIN,
born 11 November 1916 in New Haven, Connecticut and died 20 November 1972 in Berwyn, Illinois.  On 8 January 1943 he married Alice Josephine RICHARDSON in Albany New York.  She was born 26 January 1917 in Oak Park, Cook, Illinois and died 16 January 2001 in in Oak Park, Cook, Illinois.