In the 1860 Census, David and Jane are still in Newark Township with their children Thomas, David, Robert, Owen, Jane, Kate (Catharine), and Margrett. The elder David Owens who was with them in 1850 is no longer there. I imagine he died, but I haven’t found any record of that.

I believe that the courthouse there burned down several times, so a lot of information has been lost. Most of what I have I have gathered from Census records and Newspaper clippings that I’ve been able to find on Ancestry.com. I was very fortunate several years ago to contact a grandson of Robert Owens, who gave me as much information as he could, and that has been very helpful in verifying that what I have found is probably correct.

In 1860 there is a David Hughes, 11, living in the Owens household. Who is David Hughes? Where did he come from? Where did he go? I don’t imagine that I’ll ever find those answers. During my research, though, it appears that the Welsh people would often send their children, especially sons, to live with and work for other families, probably relatives, when they were around 12 years old. Conjecture, I could be completely wrong.

Ten years later, after the Civil War, only Margaret is living with David and Jane. Their daughter Catharine, now Thomas, is living nearby with three children of her own. Where are the other children? What happened to Catharine’s husband?

David died before the next census. He died on July 18, 1878, age 79, of paralysis. With the exception of the ships list, all of the census records put David’s birth about 1798-1799, which matches the information from my “cousin”. He stated “I remember a little bit about the Owens family because of one strange fact. Robert Owens' father was born in 1799 in Bala, Wales. Robert was born in 1838 in Bala, Wales. My mother was born in 1902 in Nepesta, Colorado. That makes 3 generations born in 3 different centuries.”

Margaret was still living with Jane in 1880. Jane died of old age on May 27, 1889, at “82 years, 4 months and 21 days” old. With the exception of the 1860 Census Jane’s birth would have been around 1806-1807, the info for her death puts her date of birth at 6 Jan 1807, which corresponds to the information from my “cousin”.

I know about my Great grandmother, Catharine Owens Thomas, and I do have some information on Robert Owens, from my mother and his grandson, but what happened to the rest of the family? There are SO MANY Owens, how can I track them down? Close to impossible, but what I have would have been impossible without that scrap of paper!!

Thomas J Owens Will

I am still trying to figure out David and Jane Owens family. Not an easy task, because there are lots and lots of Owens and often they will be Owen singular as well. They frequently have very common first names as well, such as David and Thomas and Jane.


Just the other evening, I thought I had found someone who had the David D Owens I was looking for in their family tree!! It was the right name, and there were Owens from Dawn, Livingston, Missouri. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the right David, but I do have a new genealogy friend, and we may still be able to help each other out. Since a question came up about Thomas J Owens will, I am going to get out of the timeline of my story about David and Jane, and try to clear up the matter of this will.

Thomas J Owens died on 10 May 1910 in Licking County, Ohio, where he had returned to after living many years in Livingston, Missouri.

I found the information about Thomas J Owens will in the Probate Records of Livingston County, Missouri Volume IX on Ancestry.com.

It shows a Thomas J. EVANS, as the Executor of the will. Bond: May 23, 1910 He is a person in my new friends tree.

The heirs were:

Jane Evans, sister - That would have been Jane Owens, who married James Evans of Big Rock, Kane, Illinois

Thomas J. Evans, friend - The above named executor

Margaret Davis, sister - Margaret Owens, who married Elias Davis, and lived, I think, in Columbus, Ohio

Robert Owens, brother - married Vania Lane and had lived in Colorado, returning to Licking, Ohio prior to 1920

Owen M. Owens, brother - married to Kate Hommom, lived for a time in Linn, Dallas, Iowa, moved to Santa Cruz, CA about 1900

David J. Owens, brother - This person does NOT fit. Possibly someone from Dawn, who was a close friend?? There is no mention of such a person in any of the other brother and sisters obituaries.

Catherine Thomas, sister - Catharine Owens, who married James Reese Thomas, and moved to Harvey County, Kansas

David D. Owens, brother – lived in Marion, Jasper, Missouri until 1900, the moved to Santa Cruz, CA sometime after that.

I wish there was some huge family tree that had all the Owens/Owen people in it. It’s tempting to start tracking all of the Owens that I find, but that would be a HUGE task, too big I’m afraid. Hopefully this has helped to sort out a couple of them.

David Owens

David and Jane Owens


There are quite a few discrepancies in dates of birth for the family, but I think some of this can be explained by the fact that the church records might have been using the Gregorian calendar or because of when the New Year was supposed to begin – January for the Julian calendar, March for the Gregorian, and some areas of Wales stuck to the March New Year for some time, even with the Julian calendar. I don’t understand all this, so I imagine it may have caused more than normal confusion when the family was giving their ages for the censuses, etc.

I was fortunate to find a list of Catharine Owens and her siblings on the back of what I thought at first was a scrap piece of paper. With those names, I was able to find their family in a census in Licking, Ohio, and thus find their parents names. I then found the ships list for when they immigrated to the US. I have since found them at home in the 1841 Wales Census.

The 1841 Census for Wales, 6 June 1841, Nantlleidiog, Llanfawr, Merionethshire, Wales, Pen y Cefn or Penllyn lists David Owens, Jean Owens, Jean Owens, Thomas Owens, David Owens, Robert Owens, Edward Jones, and Cathrine Davies. Owen Owens is missing from the family, but the census was for where a person spent that night, and perhaps relatives occasionally took one or two of the children for overnights. He may have been at a relatives home, perhaps with Robert Owens? There is an Owen Owens on the next page of the census with a Robert Owens. Catharine was born about a year after this census.

The Ship Samuel Hicks sailed from Liverpool England, and arrived in New York, New York 15 Jul 1842. It was carrying David Owens, Jane Owens, Cath Owens, Thos Owens, David Owens, Jane Owens, Robt Owens, Owen Owens, and Cath Owens, Who is the Cath Owens age 21? A sister or cousin of David? Is she Cathrin Davies from the 1841 census? She may have been listed as Owens since she was traveling with them. Why did she come with them? Where did she go? I haven’t found her again.

According to my mother “Catharine Owens was born in Bala, Wales, April 30, 1842. She came with her parents to Newark when she was 6 weeks old.” According to the arrival in NY, and her date of birth according to my mother she would have been about 2 and a half months old when they arrived in NY.

The Newark Township Licking, Ohio, 25th July 1850 Federal Census shows David Owens, Jane Owens, Thomas Owens, David Owens, Jane Owens, Robert Owens, Owen Owens, Catharine Owens, Margrett Owens, and David Owens. Is David Owens, 76 a father or uncle of David Owens? When did he come to US?

As you can tell every answer usually generates at least two more questions.

A SCRAP OF PAPER

Catharine is a family name, frequently spelled CathErine, but always with a C. I’m quite proud of that as my middle name is Catharine, after my great grandmother Catharine Owens. Someone at the hospital corrected my mother’s spelling, so I am legally, CathErine. I don’t think I even knew Catharine’s last name for most of my life, but my mother did have it written down in the main genealogy papers that she gave me sometime before her death. She had her birth date written down as well and she came from Bala, Wales. Not too helpful, with names as common as Owens, Thomas, and Catharine. There was a Robert Owens that I had heard my mom talking about in Nepesta, CO but I never made the connection. To make a long story short I didn’t have any hope of ever tracking down anything about that part of the family.


In my life, I had gone with a guy back in High School, who went into the Marines. He came home on leave after his basic training, and we got engaged. It only lasted a couple of weeks after his leave ended, I was all of 16 at the time! I never heard from him after that, and I lived my life. A year or so after my mom died, though he contacted me on face book, and we are together again.

While I was going through some of the papers I had brought home from my mother’s I found a scrap of paper from back in my high school days. I had been doodling and writing his name while I was talking on the phone. Funny to have found that so soon after we had gotten back together, kind of cute, but just a scrap of paper, didn’t need to keep it, toss it in the garbage.

WAIT!!! STOP!!! HOLD ON!!! What’s written on the back of that doodling scrap of paper? A list of names, all with the last name of OWENS!!! AND another column titled married name, giving the spouses name.

It’s amazing what I was able to do with that one little piece of paper that I almost threw in the trash. I would never have been able to do anything without it. I did recently find a really old book that had a bio of Robert Owens in it and it did list some of his brothers and sisters, but not all of them and not their spouses, and as I say I didn’t even realize that Robert Owens was related to my great grandmother.

Having all the children’s names, I was able to find out the ship that they came to the US in, and find them in the census for Licking, Ohio. Once I knew their parents names, I was even able to find them in a census for Wales. And slowly, with the names of the brothers and sisters, I am finding out the descendants of my great great grandparents, and maybe someday, I will actually be able to contact a distant cousin from that family.

DAISY NEFF

I was fascinated by this picture when I found it among my grandmother’s pictures. A friend, but who was she? I still haven’t found the answers I’m looking for. In March of 1895, Daisy is living with a family named Pownell, in Halstead, Kansas according to the Kansas state census. Two months later she is dead from injuries suffered in a tornado. A tornado did in fact hit Halstead, Kansas on May 1, 1895, killing a number of people. Daisy is the only member of her family listed in the Pownell household that year, but a Halstead Independent news article from August 4, 1977 says that “Daisy Neff and her mother were in the chicken house, and were blown over into Smith’s pasture across the road, and through the wire fence.” The census doesn’t list her as being in school or working at any particular job, so I don’t know why she wasn’t living with her family. I think that her family is that of John and E J Neff, living in Rock Creek, Wabaunsee, KS according to the 1895 Kansas census. I have never seen anything about her mother dying, and Daisy is the only Neff buried in the Halstead Cemetery around that date. I have not been able to find that particular family in the 1880 federal census or in the 1900 federal census. The Pownell’s had a son about her age living at home when she was there. Were they planning on marrying? She was about 18 years old at the time of her death. How is it that my grandfather had a picture of her? Was she a special friend? He was single and would have been about 27 when this happened. I did find a couple of answers about this picture, but there are still many questions. Some will never be answered, but maybe someday, I will be able to find out more about her family.

THE ULTIMATE JIGSAW PUZZLE

Working on jigsaw puzzles is one of my earliest memories. It was a fun and competitive family past time, something that I still enjoy immensely. Other childhood memories are of my mother and grandmother and aunts talking about family members that I had never met. I was interested in these unseen people, since I didn't even have all of my grandparents, as my father's mother and my mother's father had died long before I was even born. At least I did have some aunts and uncles and cousins that we spent time with and I got to know, but there were many more that for various reasons, I didn't get to know. As a child though, you don't spend much time worrying about such things. They become more important when you have children of your own, but you’re busy, and you know you will remember things that you hear about. Time passes, and you do ask questions and write some of it down, but all too soon your sources of information are gone, and your memory isn’t that far behind.


My mother saved a lot of boxes of my grandmother’s things, diaries, newspapers, letters, etc. My mother also saved a lot of her own things, diaries, newspapers, letters, maps, programs, etc. When my dad passed away, and Mom was no longer able to stay in her home, good daughter that I am, several cross country trips later, I saved my mother’s and grandmother’s things.

One of the first things that I looked for and tried to preserve was the poetry that my grandmother wrote. That was easier said than done. While trying to locate her poetry in all the boxes, I kept finding all these amazing family things that I didn’t know anything about. One of the first things I found was a box of family photos that belonged to my grandmother. Thankfully, most of them had names and sometimes dates written on the back! But for the most part, I didn’t know who these people were. I vaguely remembered hearing some of the names, but they had very little meaning to me. Were they family or neighbors, where did they fit in?