This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Fish, Cowles, Stoops, Braker Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/BFC.2ACE/329 Message Board Post: I am looking for four people in my maternal grandmother's line: 1. Charles Chester Cowles, the husband of my great grandmother, Mary Fish Cowles, (she was b. about 1860 to Hobart and Mariah Fish in Pepin County). I have been able to find almost nothing about Charles Cowles--He is not listed in the huge 1929 Cowles genealogy. But there is a Charles C. Cowles listed as dying in Pepin County in 1890. I'm not sure that's him because Mary Fish Cowles had 4 children: Elsie, b. 1884; Nellie, my grandmother, b. 25 May 1886; Ivan, b. 1890; and Bessie, b. 1892 on the 1910 census. On that roster Mary Fish Cowles is listed as living w/ her brother, George Fish (b. 1870, Pepin Co., WI), in Waubeek, Pepin, WI. In the 1920 census, she is listed as living w/ her sister, Madge Stoops, in Durand, Pepin, WI There was always a mystery/silence about Great Grandfather Cowles; he apparently died early in the marriage, leaving Mary with the children to raise. One of the children, Nellie, was sent at a young age to live w/ her aunt Madge Fish Stoops and her husband and, thus, is not listed on the 1900 census in the George Fish household, although the other 3 children of Charles and Mary Cowles are enumerated there. 2. Mary Fish Cowles: I cannot find a record yet of Mary Fish Cowles' death. She is not listed as living w/ her sister Madge Fish Stoops on the 1930 census, and I looked for Mary through all the pages of the Pepin Co. 1930 census with no luck. She may have gone to live w/ her daughter, Nellie Cowles Braker, in Douglas County, Washington State, by then and died there, although I can find no record of her death in the Washington archives from 1930 through 1945, when I know she was no longer living. 3. Madge Fish Stoops, b. Pepin about 1866 and listed as still living alone there, in Durand, on both the 1920 and 1930 census. I can't find her on any of the 1900 or 1910 Federal census pages for Pepin County. And I haven't found a record of her death etc. yet. She married a Mr. Stoops and I can't find anything on him; there isn't any record of a marriage for them or his birth or death in the Wisconsin indexes. I don't know for sure if he was born in WI, yet Pepin County is where Madge Fish Stoops lived when she was on her own after 1919. I haven't yet searched the 1900 or 1910 censuses for them beyond Pepin County. Mr. Stoops and Madge Fish Stoops don't appear in that record for those 2 censuses. 4. Mr. Stoops If there is any information on him or leads, I would be most grateful for it. I am interested in the Stoops connection because they took my grandmother Nellie Cowles Braker to raise when she was very young after their own child died in infancy. Any help would be most gratefully accepted! Thanks. Melissa Barth