The twentieth ancestor on my 52 week challenge is my wife’s 4th-great-grandmother, Susan (SKINNER) WARNER.
Susan is also the furthest back we have documented on my wife’s mtDNA line (mother’s mother’s mother, etc.) Her mtDNA/maternal haplogroup is HV0, which is very heavy in Europe, especially in the British Isles and Scandinavia.
What we do have on Susan Skinner is that she about born sometime around 1813 in Connecticut. We don’t know her parent’s names, but we do know that she married Seth WARNER on 13 September 1832 in Chautauqua, New York. Sometime between 1836 and 1838, the family moved to Waupaca County in central Wisconsin. Here my wife’s ancestor, Helen Marion WARNER, was born.
The fourth ancestor on the 52 Week Ancestor challenge was picked using my patented ancestor-o-matic. It’s really just a random number generator and then using that number on my daughter’s ahnentafel chart. This week is William J DAKINS.
William is my wife’s 3rd-great-grandfather on her maternal side. His obituary in the Stevens Point Daily Journal from Stevens Point, Wisconsin says that he was born 29 April 1846 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This matches up with his census records that indicate he was born in Canada. It looks like his family, including father Amos DAKINS and mother Phoeba C (RILEY) DAKINS, moved from Canada to Wisconsin early in his life as they are found in the Fond du Lac, Wisconsin area in the 1850 US Census. In 1860, the family is found further north in Waupaca County, Wisconsin, though close to where William would settle later in life, in Weyauwega.
On 14 December 1864, William did what a lot of other young men in the country did that year, he enlisted to join the Civil War. He was stationed with Company I in the 17th Wisconsin Infantry. At the time of William’s enlistment, the 17th Infantry was involved in the Carolinas Campaign.
In January 1865, Union Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman advanced north from Savannah, Georgia, through the Carolinas, with the intention of linking up with Union forces in Virginia. The defeat of Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s army at the Battle of Bentonville in March, and its surrender in April, represented the loss of the final major army of the Confederacy.
Sherman’s March Through South Carolina ““ Burning of McPhersonville, February 1, 1865
The obituary also states that he was involved in the famous Sherman’s March to the Sea, but that looks to have taken place right when William was enlisting, so I’m not sure if he was.
After William returned from war, he married Helen Marion WARNER on 4 October 1871 and they settled on a farm in Plover, Portage, Wisconsin. Together, they had 6 children, including my wife’s ancestor, Mary DAKINS. They lived in Plover until William’s death on 18 April 1916. The obituary says he was ill with heart and stomach problems. He is buried nearby in the Plover Cemetery.
