About the Women

As one researches their family history, it soon becomes abundantly apparent that most of the information is about the men in the family, and information on the women is often severely lacking. 

Them O'Neil Sisters, Frontier Women.

This stems partly from the fact that men were typically considered the head of the household. They were the ones who worked outside the home, ran businesses, owned the land, participated in government, voted, and went to war. One example of the information void is the lack of census data. Before the Civil War, federal census records typically listed only the name of one person in a family group, and that person was almost always the head of the household, who was almost always a man. The reason for this is quite simple: the generally accepted (and expected) social norms that dictated the gender roles of the times. Men tended to be the public face of the family - out in the world, and the women were the private face - in the home. This is, of course, greatly generalized and there are always exceptions to every rule. The same can be said for the roles of men and women in society; there were many famous and successful women throughout history, but the norm was clear: men dominated the records of the day.

In my own storytelling, men are almost always the focus. At times, I find information on the women of my family but often that information is limited. If I do find something, it is probably because the particular woman had a more public life. A couple of examples:

• Margaret Hulins of Springfield, Massachusetts, carried on after her husband died, did not remarry, and grew the estate. As such, more attention is paid to her in historical texts and records.
• Sarah Wilderman of Green County, Wisconsin, was a school teacher in some of the first public schools in the southern part of the state, so she gets mentioned in the local histories of early schools in southern Wisconsin.

As we get into the 20th century, women start to come out of the shadows but it is a slow process. I recently came across one such woman. Her name was Nina Goldbin. From humble beginnings in southwestern Wisconsin, she went on to study in Paris, married a wealthy merchant, and became a well-known socialite and philanthropist in Los Angeles. It was reading about her that led me to decide it was time to write some articles that featured the women in my ancestry. As with all of my posts and writings, when referring to the women in my ancestral lines, I always refer to them by their maiden name. 

Similar to my other posts, which are part of a series: Colonial Families - An Overview and The Towns of My Ancestors, this report will provide a link to articles about some of the women I have discovered.

The Women Ancestors

Nina Goldbin
Nina grew up in the first two decades of the 20th century. She married into money and lived a charmed and interesting life. When her husband died, she carried on, thrived, and wrote her own story.  

Read about Nina remarkable rise here

Margaret O'Neil
On the surface, Margaret led an ordinary 19th-century life, a wife and mother, farming in the rural Midwest as Wisconsin and Iowa grew into states. She has one major claim to fame that warrants recognition. In the late 1800s, she wrote a story that was published about the family's travels from central Wisconsin to far western Iowa. It was her 'Little House on the Prairie' moment. 

Read about Margaret and her story here . . . coming soon.

Research Notes: Available information on the women comes from stories I uncovered on the web or have been provided to me by some of my family connections. Some of the more prominent and useful sources will be mentioned at the end of each of the individual articles.