This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: WILLSON WILSON HAAS HILL Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/QFB.2ACE/706 Message Board Post: Ezra WILLSON b. ~1830VT married "Anna" Elizabeth Anne HAAS, b ~1829 Prussia, at 1853 Pavillion, Kalamazoo. Around a decade later they moved the family to Yankee Springs. Children: Amos, Ezra, Anna H (for Haas or Harriet?), Seba, Marcia, Lotan, maybe George. Anna H's married surname MILLER. On the 1880 census there are 2 grandchildren in the house, Ernist and Alma Miller, born in the 1870s. Whoever Miller was seems to have been from NY - or Germany - the census info is confusing. Marcia is also gone, married or dead. The Kalamazoo 1850 census has Amos age 50 born VT, wife Harriet 49 CT, Ezra 20 born VT, Elizabeth 17 born MI as are the rest: Daniel 16, Levi 14, George 12, Harrison 9, Maria 7. This Amos appears to be the father of Ezra who moved to Yankee Springs. On the 1880 census what appears may be Ezra's sister Elizabeth is an inmate at Barry County Poorhouse. If so, she'd have been the next child after Ezra, first one born MI, about 1832-3 - placing the family in MI 1830-33, from VT. By the 19teens, Anna had outlived her sons and husband, all buried at Yankee Springs and Bowerman cemeteries. Seba was an inmate at Kalamazoo's state mental hospital per 1920 census. It appears (per 1894 MI state censuse) that Seba and her mother lived separately until mother's death. I see the possibility mental illness ran in that family for those 2 generations, or what was perceived as mental illness at that time. Forward to the early 19-teens. Of the next generation at least two brothers, Edward Amos and William, set off for Grand Rapids, each married there. Their siblings are George, Jennie, Maud, Lena and Sarah - if not more. Can you place these WILLSONS? I'm half-certain that someone had visited the Yankee Springs graves before me the end of May 2002. The Bowerman Cemetery had also been mowed since the rain.