Week 12: Loss: Fire Devastates the Hawley Family

Not once, but twice the William Hawley family was devastated by fire. The logging industry was a primary industry in Northern Michigan in the late 1800s and early 1900s. William Hawley’s family was no exception. William moved his family from upstate New York to Long Rapids Township, Alpena County, Michigan…

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Charles at Large: Another Mystery Solved with DNA

Background In My last blog post, Charles at Large: The Search for Charles Hawley, I wrote about my great granduncle Charles Hawley and his disappearing act in the summer of 1910. As I have written about before, I have been doing significant research into Hawley DNA connections. This research has led to…

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Could William Hawley have been a Bound Boy?

I mentioned in my last post Finding the Parents of William Hawley… One Step Closer…, that I found my 2nd great grandfather William Hawley in the 1850 census. William was 14 years old and living in the household of John W. Lockwood in Urbana, Steuben County, New York. As you can imagine, I…

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Finding the Parents of William Hawley… One Step Closer…

In a previous post called, Re-thinking Research: The Parents of William Hawley, I made the claim that William C. Hawley and Mary Oakley were not the parents of my 2nd great grandfather William Hawley. I used several methods to help back up this claim including a timeline comparison of the…

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The Founding of Long Rapids Township and the Role my Ancestors Played

Sometimes it is the research I do on a location, rather than the people, that leads me to a piece of interesting information. My plan for my next blog post was to write about a letter that was written by William Faught to his brother George Faught in 1871. While in…

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Re-thinking Research: The Parents of William Hawley

As all beginning genealogist, I relied on online public family trees to start my research. Over the last year, I have been going back over my research, verifying information, adding sources and filling in the gaps. During my research, I started to add sources for my second great grandfather William…

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Finding George Faught

George Faught, my 3rd great grandfather, was born on July 12, 1837, in New York, the youngest child of Lawrence Faught and Bridget Fogarty. By June 11, 1860, George was living with his mother Bridgette and two older siblings William and Ann in Lexington, Sanilac, Michigan. George’s father Lawrence had passed…

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Mary Anna Faught: One Tough Lady

Mary Anna Faught was born in Bridgehampton, Sanilac, Michigan on January 18, 1870, the first and only child of George Faught and Elizabeth Miller.  The family was enumerated on the 1870 census living in Bridgehampton. George is a farmer and Elizabeth is at home keeping house and taking care of her…

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Elusive Ancestor: Sarah Anne Healy

Sarah Ann Healy (1851 – 1919_ Sarah Anne Healy was my second great grandmother. She was born around 1851 in Ireland. Sarah immigrated to the US from Ireland when she was in her late teens in order to avoid being sent to a convent.  This story was told to me by Edna Jean (Burt)…

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