This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Staub/Straub/Straup/Stroup and Ford Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/0IQBAEB/182.202.1.2.1.1 Message Board Post: Fran Stroup and I are cousins (first, once removed!). Our ancestor Frederick Stroup (b. 1844) was one of the sons of Peter K. Stroup (Misspelled "Staub" in the 1850 Chapman, Union Co--now Snyder Co--PA census.) The youngest child in the 1850 census is listed as "Anna" but is actually "Emma." We have an article from 1939 in Michigan interviewing her about the pioneer days (on the occasion of her 89th birthday). She said she was born in Union Co, PA, near Liverpool (which Chapman is). She remembered passing through Grand Rapids, MI, in a covered wagon, in 1863, where her father stopped to buy supplies. He later homesteaded in the area which is now Lake Co, MI. Peter K. "Straup" received a land grant in 1870 for Chase, Lake Co, MI. And Frederick received a land grant in 1871 in the same area. Both appear in the Lake Co 1870 census, one right after the other in Chase. The family seems to have consistently spelled their name "Straup" in Michigan. But Frederick's Union Army records spell the name as "Stroup" and this is the spelling he adopted when he moved on with his own family to Kansas in the 1880's. Frederick had a brother Lewis (b.1854). There is a Lewis Straup of the right age in the Green, Mecosta Co, MI census of 1870. He was listed as a student and was living with Felix (age 57) and Lydia (age 51 or 54) "Ekias" or "Eklas" or some variant on that spelling. Both were born in Pennsylvania. Frederick had an aunt Lydia (and also an aunt Kate). It looks like Peter probably left Lewis in Green (perhaps with his aunt Lydia?) to finish school while he went on to homestead in what was later called Chase in Lake Co, MI. Chase isn't too far from Green--they both used the Paris post office. There are interesting multiple connections between the Straups and the Ford family in Mecosta Co. Peter had been listed in the 1850 Union Co PA census as married to Martha. But on Dec 3, 1863, he married Amanda Ford in Mecosta Co. A few months earlier his daughter Elizabeth married Ira Lee Ford in Green, Mecosta Co. Ira Lee Ford was Amanda's brother. Then, when Frederick was discharged from the Union Army he came to Michigan and married Ira Lee Ford's daughter, Henrietta, in the same area in 1868. (They're listed as marrying in Osceola Co rather than Mecosta Co, but it turns out that the Mecosta and Osceola Co lines changed around that time.) Then Lewis Stroup, Peter's son and Frederick's brother, married Lucetta Ford, who was a niece of Ira Lee Ford. Lewis and Lucetta had apparently gone to school together in Green. Back to Peter K Staub/Straub/Straup/Stroup. He is listed in the 1850 census as having been born in Pennsylvania, as was his wife Martha. But I have no info on her maiden name or on where in PA they were born. There was a Margaret Neiman, age 82, also living in the household in 1850. So I'm wondering if she was Martha's mother or Peter or Martha's grandmother. (And of course her name could have been misspelled also.) By the way, Peter and Amanda Ford Stroup had two children on the 1870 census: Willmetta age 3 and Delmore age 1. Amanda was born in "Canada West." Peter is not listed in the 1880 census in Chase. I hope this info gives other people some clues. And I'd love to have some clues about Peter K's origins, parents, etc., and those of his (first?) wife, Martha. I wonder if Peter was related to the Straub's who founded Straubville, which is now called Freeburg, north of Chapman, in the Washington Township area of Union/Snyder Co. It is thought that these Straubs originally came from Freiburg in what is now Germany.