Nina Goldbin - About the Women

Nina Goldbin, Rags-to-Riches

Nina Goldbin is a relatively recent find in my hunt for ancestors and like most of my discoveries, it was completely unexpected. Lately, I have been searching for any new information (new to me), which has allowed me to update, add to, and generally refresh my older posts. There is always new information available and this round of inquiry was very fruitful. When I found Nina, I was intrigued and the more I looked into her story, the more interesting it became. The rags-to-riches title may be a bit of an exaggeration but I think it is safe to say that Nina rose from very humble beginnings to something completely unexpected.

Nina, circa 1922

Peder P. Moe - Short Biography

Peder Moe, North Dakota Pioneer

Peder Moe was born on September 28, 1858, in Hafslo, Norway. In 1864, at about the age of six, he came to America with his parents, Peter Olsen Moe and Anna Augundsdatter Lad and several siblings. They first went to Black Earth, Wisconsin and then settled on Section One in the northeast corner of the Town of Blue Mounds and just north of what would eventually become the Village of Mount Horeb.

Peder Moe, about 1890.

1950 Census - Another Milestone

Back in 2012, I was really excited about the release of the 1940 US Census - I called it once in a lifetime and it was. But lo and behold, these past 10 years have gone by fast and another 'once' is happening. The 1950 census data has been released.

72 years ago, census takers were going around the country gathering information about the population. My mom was 12 years old and growing up in small-town Wisconsin. As a matter of fact, her hometown (and mine) had a population that was less than a quarter of its size today. 1950 ushered in an era of prosperity and growth for much of the country. World War II was in the rear view mirror and the future looked bright. In my own family search, many of the boys and girls from the 1940 census are adults and starting families of their own by 1950 and there are new names in the lists - new children who were not yet born in 1940. There are also those that have disappeared from the record, yes, some have died in the intervening years. The census brings home the full circle of life in cold, hard facts.

The Buell Family - Colonial Americans

Martha Buell was the wife of Nathaniel Holcombe II. She was born in Simsbury, Connecticut in 1675. Martha was the third or fourth of nine or ten children of Sergeant Peter Buell (b.1644, d.1728) and his first wife, Martha Cogan (Coggins / Cozzins) (b.1648, d.1686), both of Windsor, Connecticut.

Martha and Nathaniel Holcombe were married in 1695. She was raised on the frontier at Hop Meadow and would raise her family in the remote outpost at Salmon Brook. By the early 1700s, the area was becoming more settled and less of a frontier but there were still dangers lurking about. 

Salmon Brook (Granby), Connecticut

Salmon Brook, which started out as no more than a small cluster of houses and a remote outpost of Simsbury, would later become part of the newly formed Town of Granby. It was the home of Nathaniel Holcombe I, II and III and is an important place in the history of this family line. It is certain that almost every Holcombe in Granby was a descendant of the first Nathaniel and hundreds of them raised families and lived out their lives there. Six generations from this writer's direct line lived there, for over 120 years, starting with Nathaniel and ending with Apollas.

Granby Center (Salmon Brook); from the United States Geological Survey, 1892

In Search of David Hollister

One of the joys of family research is discovering lines of ancestors that you had never heard of. In my search, there have been a few of these, mostly from my paternal grandmother’s family. I did not have much information on her and so there was a lot waiting to be found. One of these families, the Hollisters, started out in colonial Connecticut and ended up, via New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, in far western Iowa.


The Town of Dansville, Stuben County, New York;
where David Hollister spent his youth?

Windsor, Connecticut

Located north of Hartford on the Connecticut River, Windsor was the first permanent settlement in the, soon-to-be Connecticut Colony and the home of Thomas Holcombe. In 1633 a group from Plymouth established a trading post at the meeting of the Connecticut and Farmington Rivers. A year later, the first group from Dorchester, Massachusetts, established itself just north of the trading post. Others from Dorchester would follow and a foothold in Connecticut was established.

North-central Connecticut prior to 1625 showing tribal settlements
along the Connecticut River in the area of future Windsor.

The Towns of My Ancestors

The primary focus of Genealogy is often concentrated on individual ancestors and their connection to others in the family. It is concerned about birth, parents, marriage, children, work, service, accomplishments and eventually death. These are the markers of a life and form a thread that connects each generation to the next. The place where they lived is another point of data but not always the focus of a Genealogy. Place was certainly an important part of each individual's life and yet, one constant seems to be that these folks were always on the move. It took a lot of work to put down roots and build a life but often, just as they had made a place for themselves, they would pack up and head out, usually toward the horizon of the setting sun. Still, those places . . . their home . . . was everything to the colonists and pioneers of America. Being able to settle in a place of one's own was the very definition of the freedom these people were looking for.

Town of Blue Mounds, Wisconsin. A survey from about 1833 shows the military
 road (on the ridge at the top of the map) and one settler (upper left corner). Like
the calm before the storm, over the next 30 years, the town will fill up; first with
 Yankees from the east, then a mix of Germans, Norwegians, Swiss and others.