I have made no progress in years on my WILSON line. I know a lot of stuff, but still hitting the brick wall and bouncing back to where I have been for a few years. names associated with this family. CONANT, CROMWELL, BROADHEAD, BROWNELL, FONTENELL, PICKERING, BARRICK, . Robert Preston WILSON, born April 1836, in England. Family lore say he was born in Preston England. Family lore also says that he was sent back to England as a teen to learn the Woolen Manafacturing trade. He worked in the Mills at Blue Rapids KS in the 1880 census and according to a slip I found in the family bible he at one time owned and operated one. Unknown where it was located. Immigrated in 1840 according to the 1900 census. I have no documented record of him at all until his marriage in Marion county MO 15 Sept 1877 to Calista Catherine CONANT, widow of Charles LAM or LANE. Son Charles went by the WILSON name all his life. Unknown if he was legally adopted. Robert and Calista had 2 surviving children (twin sons died within days of birth) Frederick Robert b Oct 1879 in Blue Rapids, Marshall, KS Ellen Leona b 29 Nov 1884 in Independence, Jackson, MO. According to a bio on son Frederick the family lived in Montineau county MO from about 1885/6 to about 1895 or so and returned to Independence MO. Robert is in the Topeka, Shawnee, KS census in 1900 and died there in July 1903. He was buried in Independence MO according to death notices and a page from the family bible, but is not listed in any of the published indexes I have found to date. Calista Catherine's mother was a member of the LDS church and later acepted into the RLDS church. This may be the tie to Independence MO. Son Frederick was an actor and worked with the Stock Theaters in the mid west. He started on stage in Haniball MO at the age of 14. He one time was part owner of a company "Baird and Wilson". Frederick also acted on stage in NY and in LA in the early 1900'. This taken from a book about the Stock Theaters called "Footlights on the Prarie". Daughter Ellen Leona (Nellie) married first to a Robert SPRY and did a trapeze act with him. I have a copy of the billing with a picture of them. He died in a fall within a year of their marriage and she later married Thomas Blair CROMWELL in Topeka KS Feb 1908.