It Was There All Along: Part Two

 

Clarissa Wiggins, Earl Owen and David Owen

     In my original post written almost four years ago I mused about the discovery of a previously unknown daughter of my third-great-grandfather Dr. Richard Wiggins.  Clarissa Janette Wiggins was born in New York, almost certainly in Wolcott, in February of 1855.  After the death of my third-great-grandmother Hannah Ostrander Wiggins in Michigan in 1848 Richard had taken a second wife, Susan Gray, who was Clarissa's mother.

     Richard is reputed to have died in 1857 and been buried in Old Westbury cemetery in Victory, New York, close to Wolcott.  I was never quite sure if the Richard Wiggins buried there was my third-great-grandfather or not since his widow Susan and daughter Clarissa were in Michigan just a few years later, but new evidence makes it seem more likely.  Richard was in Michigan in 1848 when his daughter with Hannah Ostrander was born and Hannah died, but he appears in both the Michigan and Wolcott, New York censuses in 1850.  The Wolcott census lists him widowed and with his children at the home of his parents.

     There is some conflicting evidence about Clarissa's birth place, her death record says Michigan but all censuses say she was born in New York, the 1900 census says she was born in February of 1855 which matches the date her son gave on her death record.  Since the information in the censuses was probably provided by Clarissa herself, I'm going with New York as the place of her birth.

     Now for the new evidence; taking a closer look at Clarissa's mother Susan Gray, I discovered Susan living with her parents in 1850 Wolcott, only five households from the Wiggins clan.  Clearly, Clarissa's parents met and married in Wolcott and in all likelihood she was born there.  Susan must have felt she was making a good marriage, Richard being an older man and a doctor to boot even if he came with five children.  It seems the couple were still there in New York in 1857 when Richard died, (yes I now believe that is him in Westbury Cemetery), and afterwards Susan and Clarissa went west to Michigan either with her parents who appear there in the 1860 census or to join them in their new home.  That same census shows Susan remarried and living with her second husband Abel Aldrich and her daughter Clarissa Wiggins.  As noted in the first blog, Susan died from consumption when Clarissa was 15 and the young girl was compelled to become a servant.

     Also new, while researching Clarissa years ago I found she had married a David Owen in Michigan around 1879.  Her father, my Grandpa Richard, had a sister, Elizabeth, who also moved to Michigan along with with her husband Charles Owen.  Their child David M. was born there in 1842.  Somehow I never put two and two together.  After finding the second family of Grandpa Richard I left off studying them, I was after all descended from his first marriage.  And I went no further with his sister Elizabeth Wiggins Owen's children other than noting their names and birth dates and places.  Today while looking through my family trees it hit me, DAVID OWEN!  Could it be the same David Owen?  Turns out it was, Clarissa married her first cousin.

     So what did I learn from this?  That I have an annoying tendency to miss evidence right under my nose for one thing, but also how very interesting and satisfying it is to put all the little clues together and watch the big picture slowly take form.  It's a process that can't be hurried lest you miss one of those clues and it's full meaning -- witness it took me four years to pull it all together though in my defense, I was working on other lines at the same time.  Since Clarissa was born in early1855 she should appear with her parents in that census, but that old familiar roadblock rears it's ugly head here, the Wayne County New York census of 1855 is not online.  Which means I will have to drive to Lyons at some point and view it in the historian's office.  I will keep you posted...