Geography and Family Migration

My Mother's Long Journey to Norfolk, Virginia

On my mother's paternal side, our ancestors almost entirely came to America through New England: New Amsterdam (New York), Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. 

Our ancestor Nicholas Stillwell came from Holland and was a first settler in Gravesend (on land now known as Coney Island). The Wandells also came from the Netherlands, settling in the Dutch community in New York and building a thriving shipping business on the Hudson River. Jacob Wandell married Catherine Stillwell. My 2X great grandmother, Olivia Wandell, moved westward with her husband Andrew Hall and their children, taking a northern route through Michigan and settling in the Dakota Territory, finally making a home in the Black Hills of South Dakota. 

The original Crawford immigrant, Horace, came to America from Scotland and worked as a millwright in the Geneseo area of New York. His son Calvin followed the shores of Lake Erie westward to Ohio where he joined with the Dillingham family, with them (for safety from Indians) to settle in Indiana. He married Anna Dillingham, and with their children, they moved westward to Missouri and finally settled in Lincoln, Nebraska. Their son, Horace Calvin Crofford (the name had changed spelling by then), went off to seek his fortune in the Black Hills of South Dakota after the Civil War. 

Horace Calvin Crofford met Ada Clemina Hall at Andrew Hall's ranch in the Black Hills during a meeting of ranchers in the area to discuss the problem of the Indian uprising. This was during the time of Wounded Knee and the Ghost Dancers. They married, and had four children, including my grandfather Horace Calvin Crofford Jr.

My mother's maternal side began as a complete mystery. An orphan in Paris, Texas, my grandmother Teresa (nee Ethelyn) knew nothing about her family and had no idea what became of her parents. I have not only discovered the identity of her parents, but was able to trace her ancestry back to the earliest days of our country's history in New England and Virginia. It was certainly shocking to find out that her father's family line came from Virginia, bringing our family's migration story full circle. From New Kent County, the Allens moved to Southside Virginia. They married into the Dozier family, descendants of Leonard Dozier, a French Hugenot. Their Allen descendants moved westward to Kentucky, eventually finding a permanent home in Hancock County, Illinois. 

Teresa's mother's family, the Bosworths, had deep New England roots. Through them we can claim our descendance from the original Mayflower passengers, John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley. Joseph Bucklin Bosworth of Providence, Rhode Island, fought in the War of 1812. He migrated westward through Pennsylvania to settle in Ohio and become an important prophet in the Mormon church directly under Joseph Smith. After a brief missionary stint in the deep South, he returned to Ohio. His son, Orlando Bosworth, moved to Peoria, Illinois, which is adjacent to Hancock County.

Augustus Allen married Eva Bosworth in Illinois. Their only child was a daughter, nee Ethelyn.

About the year she was born, my grandmother's parents moved just across the Mississippi River to Keokuk, Iowa. When she was about seven, they moved to Wichita Kansas, where there was a land boom happening. The family became prosperous, but in just a few short years, the family fell apart. My grandmother was sent to a boarding school in Paris, Texas and her mother was admitted to an insane asylum in Woodward Oklahoma. Her father went on to build a new life for himself in Wichita, but was eventually sent to an asylum himself where he died the very day he was admitted (suicide?). 

My grandmother, by then calling herself Teresa Allen, graduated from nursing school, worked in Oklahoma City, then moved to the Chicago, Illinois area (for reasons yet unknown). She lived in Waukegan and worked at a doctor's office. After WWI, my grandfather, Horace Calvin Crofford, moved in with his mother Ada at her home in Waukegan just down the street from Teresa. Ada had moved there to be near her daughter Miriam after Horace, Sr. died in Missouri. 

Horace and Teresa met and married in 1926. A search for employment during the Depression led them to move to Norfolk, Virginia with their two young children, "Sonny" and Virginia.

My Father's Journey to Norfolk, Virginia

In my father's paternal line, the Zauns and the Wellners came to America from Germany in 1865 (via Philadelphia). John Adam Zaun married Louise Wellner; their son, John Adam married Georgia Powell in Richmond, Virginia. 

I hit a brick wall in my research on the Powell family. Georgia's grandfather George fought in the Civil War and died soon after. The search for the family of his widow, Mary Ellen Stevens, was also a dead end. I am guessing that their origin was European, probably English, but that is just a hunch. 

Georgia's father, Jefferson Powell, married Marie Louise Judd in Richmond, Virginia. Marie Louise had moved to Richmond from New York. The Judd family roots run deep in New England colonial history.  Some of her ancestral lines can be traced back centuries into England's history. 

My father's maternal line also goes deep into colonial history in New England. The Abbotts came from England in the 1800's to build pianos in New York City and New Jersey. George Abbott's mother was the 2nd generation from Ireland. The original immigrant, John Abbott, married into a well-known Revolutionary War patriot family from Rhode Island, the Godfrey family. The Abbotts settled in the Palisades area of New Jersey, just across the river from New York City.

George Abbott married Ida Rene Bryant from Southampton County, Virginia. The Bryants had original land grants in Virginia from the king of England. Eley Bryant married Margaret Cobb, who was also from an old Virginia family. 

Ida Rene's daughter Jacqueline married Ernest Earl Zaun in Richmond, Virginia. Their first child was my father, John Zaun. They moved to Norfolk, Virginia where John later met my mother, Virginia Crofford.