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Miller's Farm Cemetery

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The joy of research is the opportunity to answer questions about our history. Whether it family history, local history, military history, etc., the process is virtually the same. You take what you know, formulate a question (or a thousand), formulate a hypothesis and head out of the trail. One thing you will quickly find is that one question really only leads to more questions. One trail only leads you to more trails. The Miami County Sentinel of July 1, 1880, announced the passing of old timer, George L Miller, on June 25. George's claim to fame was to be the first white male child born in Miami County. He grew up in what was, at the time, the American frontier. Woods were thick, wildlife was plentiful, and work was hard. George born on March 30, 1832, to John and Julia Miller, the oldest of a half dozen or more children. He married Eliza Mansfield in 1858 and the couple went on to have three children, possibly more. These items leave plenty of trails of their own to follow, ...
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How helpful in the 1840 Census?

The 1840 and earlier censuses are often overlooked or disregarded as a source for much information. Inexperienced researchers, and probably some with years under their belt, don't bother with them. How helpful can they be? They don't even contain the names of family members! There is an exception to that to be addressed later, but the main page of the form is nothing but a list of heads of households and columns of dates ranges. How would you even know if you had the right family looking at a list of such gibberish? Questions had not yet been expanded to include more identifying and for the researcher, intriguing details. Earlier records had occasionally been listed alphabetically losing the information provided by proximity, 1850 was a huge leap and information gathered continued to expand over the coming decades. Names of household members were added along with, age, gender, color, birth place, type of work, house numbers in order visited and family number. The same year, m...
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