Researching the McCracken family seems to always be a matter of looking where you don’t expect. This is true of both Lemuel and his wife Louisiana. They just never seem to be where you expect them to be or they have records that don’t quite match their names although they are definitely for the right people.
Lee County, Iowa
Lemuel showed up alone in Lee County, Iowa. I found him there in the 1860 census after much research. It took some time because the record was written/interpreted as Samuel McCracker and his wife Rosahhana McCracker with sons Samuel, Delormah, Lewis, and daughter Mary. There was also a Luther Vanbergler living in the household. This required a manual search of the records in order to find Lemuel and Louisiana. Then the record was quite confusing because at the time I did not know that Lemuel and Louisiana had each been previously married and had children with their first spouse. Fortunately, multiple of their children had recorded their birth location as Lee County. So, I had that clue.
Crawford County, Kansas
In the early 1870s, Lemuel and Louisiana pulled up roots and moved to Crawford County, Kansas. Why? What drew them to move and leave a teenage son (Lemuel’s by his first wife) behind? They supposedly knew or knew of the Gallea family that lived near Cato. But, why move there at that time? I did find that one of the McCrackens in Ohio married someone with a similar last name, but have yet to find a connection between them and the people in Crawford County.
Bates County, Missouri
To my knowledge, no one in the family had any idea where Louisiana, who was only 49 when she died, was buried. The family story was that she was ailing and that they left and headed to family. Dad always thought they were headed to Peoria, Illinois, but it is possible it was Adams County, Illinois where her oldest daughter Mary lived as no ties to Peoria have been found – yet! Dad assumed or heard that she died in route. In any case, one day I found a record that showed she was buried in Bates County, Missouri. Why Bates County? Did some of their family live there? No one knows. However, she has a gravestone located in a very prominent location in cemetery located a very secluded (and eerie) area (I wouldn’t go there alone).
Chautauqua County, Kansas
After living in Bates County with his third wife for many years, they moved to Chautauqua County, Kansas near Sedan. Why? What took them there? None of their kids lived there. They didn’t own property there. He had children in Adams County, Iowa, Lee County, Illinois, and Crawford County, Kansas. But, they went somewhere else.
The Johnson Name
And, then there was Louisiana’s maiden name. The family story was that her maiden name was Johnson. That resulted in many houses of wasted research. Another researcher said that her name was Mattser. Well, one is a common name and the other didn’t exist in the areas where I was researching. It turns out her maiden name was Matteer, which of course, was recorded as several different things in records for her children – none of which were Matteer (or any of its various spellings).
Lemuel’s Birth Location
Lemuel’s birth location seemed to be variable with most records indicating Ohio or Pennsylvania. However, he is nowhere to be found in the 1850 census. Prior to that the census records did not indicate each person by name – only listing the head of the household. DNA has narrowed his birth location down to likely in or around Wayne County, Ohio since that is where the families of McCracken and Peppard (our strongest DNA matches in his line) paths crossed.
My Lessons From This Family
I have learned a lot by researching this family.
- Use every tidbit of information that you have and then turn it on its side and upside down.
- Try every possible iteration of a name, spelling errors, etc.
- Don’t assume that anyone is where you expect them to be.
- Don’t assume anyone’s name is what the family says that it is.
- Basically, use all information available, but don’t exclude that it is all wrong!