> Isaac A. Brooks 54M Farmer born in Conn. Farmer Value of real estate > $50,000 > value of personal property $6,000 > Sophia 52 F born in N.Y. > Albert B 24 M born in N.Y. > Henry E 22 M born in MI > Amelia J. 7 F born in MI > George Isaac's 20 M farm laborer born in England > Patrick Higgins 18 M farm laborer born in Ireland > > > this is from the 1860 census of portage twp, kalamazoo co, michigan. he was > the largest property owner in portage twp, very important man about town. > dabbled in politics. he died in december 1880. interestingly he is not in > michigan's death index GENDIS, which is possible since it is not complete or > he died outside of michigan. > > i would like to know who he is parents and siblings were. usually with > someone who became this important, there is something on him, not this guy. >..................................................... > i have a brick wall, what i do is find possibilities check them out and > cross them off the list. my brick wall is william brooks, my gggrandfather > of michigan. not william ersatz brooks or william socrates brooks, just > plain old william brooks. family lore has william of indian blood (as does > all lore), a stagecoach driver, and dying in the 1850s or 60s. he had at > least 2 children with maria parish (i have not found proof of marriage yet) > and this is where it gets a little muddy. one of the daughters mary jane is > living with henry kidder and his wife in warren co, illinois in the 1870 > census, lore has maria going to st louis to look for work. > > its possible william was killed in the civil war, he could have been killed > and maria moved to illinois, or the family could have moved to illinois, > whatever,,,,,,,,,,,, mary j was born near kalamazoo in 1857. there is an > older sister, she was not who we thought she was (traced her) and she was > scratched from the list, now she is like her parents unknown. on the census > mary j has said (twice) that both her parents were born in michigan. > > various family members have been looking for william and maria for many > years as i have, but i have also taken the tactic of taking the tactic of > checking out and eliminating other brooks and parishes, parrishes in lower > sw michigan. if someone recognizes this gtm who was born in connecticut > about 1806, i will share what little i have on him. > thank you > carol t > upper michigan > [email protected] >

On Sat, 27 Apr 2002 15:15:48 -0400, Carol Thorpe wrote: :Isaac A. Brooks 54M Farmer born in Conn. Farmer Value of real :estate $50,000 value of personal property $6,000 Sophia 52 F [snip] ::he was the largest property owner in portage twp, very important ::man about town. dabbled in politics. [snip] usually with ::someone who became this important, there is something on him, ::not this guy. I can't match him with anyone in my data, Carol, nor do I have an Isaac/Sophia marriage. I do have one Isaac b. 1806, according to a web page with no sources indicated, but the birthplace was Conneaut, PA, and he reportedly married one Aldula Brown. This doesn't look very promising, but the URL is (or was, in June 2001) http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/8754/garwood2.htm I have another Isaac with no birthdate -- I've estimated 1803 -- who is just a name ("children Moe, Curly and Isaac") in the Seaver booklet I've "reviewed" here in the past. The parents of this Isaac, Isaac (Sr.) and Faithy Seaver, married at Westminster, MA and were for at least a time at Ashburnham, MA, but were so shadowy that the History of Ashburnham gives them only a sentence -- suggesting that they lived outside the town for a few years, and then moved on. I don't consider this promising for you either -- these towns are on the MA/NH border and far from the Connecticut River, the most common migration path to VT (and thence to NY) -- but I can send what little I have if you'd like. For a problem like this I usually adopt a "start and end" strategy. That is, you look for both the individual's origins (birth or baptismal records) or at the culmination of their life, by which time they may have accumulated property and descendants and thus rate a fat biography in the published county and town histories of the time -- most of which include family histories of the town's early and prominent settlers. Either of these is more likely to succeed than looking "in the middle" -- New York state, a huge place, where his wife and children were born. Therefore, I'd try and find Isaac in the Barbour Collection of Connecticut VR. CT records can be maddeningly incomplete and spotty, but Barbour (CT Secretary of State) and his team spent decades indexing every town and church record they could dig up. These records are indexed by surname and town, and available on LDS film -- but without a town to search, you might spend years working from one corner of the state to another. But ... the listings for individual towns are increasingly finding their way online as dedicated transcriptionists post them a town at a time. The greater part of the Middlesex County, CT Barbour listings have been transcribed by Coralynn Brown and uploaded to Jane Devlin's excellent Middlesex pages at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~jdevlin/ I would think that if you start with the "national" home pages of US GenWeb and US GenNet, you will find other towns and counties whose Barbour listings are also online. This is hardly a perfect solution, since many communities won't be online, but it's a starting place. I'd definitely keep a record of "negative research," so that as other towns are uploaded in future you don't end up re-searching those you've already looked at. It's quite surpising that a man with $50,000 of real estate in 1860 -- a lot of money back then -- wouldn't rate a bio in the History of Portage, or the Annals of Kalamazoo County, or whatever the relevant works are for that geographical area. Have you checked the LDS catalog to see what such works they have for this area? If he "dabbled in politics," have you contacted the MI State Legislature's archivist to see if he ever served in statewide office? Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. Chris