Almira Reese Burgess

Almira, or Almina, I’ve seen this spelled several ways.  But family called her ‘Polly’.  Almira was born in Warren, New York in 1821.  About 1846, as a young lady, she accompanies her parents and other Reese family pioneers from New York to the Wisconsin wilderness where her father and older brother Adam carve out homesteads.  Polly likely helps to care for her younger brother William and her 2 younger sisters Lucretia and Matilda.   She is Adam Reese’s oldest sister, but will be the last of the 3 girls to get married.   In 1851, in Reeseville, Wisconsin, Almira marries a neighboring widower, Jeremiah J. Burgess,  who has a 4 year old son.  Almira has four children with Jeremiah.  Her first child is George W. born in 1851, then Maltisa in 1852, followed by Samuel Reese Burgess in 1852, named after her father, and Mary Ann in 1854, named after her sister-in-law (Adam’s wife).

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Jeremiah Burgess enlists in the Union Army , Company K, 11^th Wisconsin Infantry in Nov 1862.  He is gone for 3 years as the regiment marches through Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Alabama.  After the end of the war, Jeremiah is mustered out of the army in Alabama in Sep 1865 and he returns home to his family.

 In 1870, Almira’s elderly parents Samuel Reese, 74 and Elizabeth Bell Reese, 75, are staying in Almira’s and Jeremiah’s home in Reeseville, Wisconsin with Almira’s four children.  In the late 1870s, their children are on their own, her father Samuel is buried, and her widowed mother Elizabeth is staying in the home of Almira’s sister, Lucretia Reese Hilliker.

  About 1879, Jeremiah and Almira leave Wisconsin for California.  Accompanied by their son George W, the Burgess family sets up their new residence on a farm in rural Shasta county, California. The record does not say what becomes of Almira after the 1880 U.S. Census, but Jeremiah regularly continues to register to vote in Shasta and Yolo counties (women could not vote in those days).  In 1886, 65 year old Jeremiah registers to vote in Sacramento, California where his now married son George W. is living and raising a family.

Ima Lee Pedro

Snug in the pages of the Reese Bible is a funeral card for a Ima Lee Pedro, died June 1, 1976 in Kelseyville, California.  Presumably this is a relative or family friend of a Reese family descendant who possessed the bible in the 1970s.

See my November 5th post 'A New Clue'.  Because Kelseyville is not extremely far from Shasta, California,  I want to connect (her?) to Jeremiah J Burgess and his wife Almira Reese, but I'm not having the quick results that I expected.  Something doesn't add up.

Ima was not very old, having been born 6 June 1935.  Because she misses the 1930 U.S. Census, the last Census to be publicly released, it makes it somewhat more difficult to connect her with parents, husband, children.  Her tombstone in Kelseyville cemetery doesn't give any helpful family information either (other than her birthdate that I just mentioned).

William Henry Reese and surprising discoveries

At one time I doubted that he even existed, and nearly deleted him from my tree.  Then I found 3 sources confirming that Adam Reese did have a younger brother named William.  Born in Columbia, Herkimer, New York, in 1832, William Henry lived with the family in Reeseville, Wisconsin before getting married in 1856.  He and his wife Sarah took their 4 Wisconsin born children as far West as possible, to little Port Orchard on the Kitsap Peninsula, southwest of Seattle.  His Washington State Death Record in Seattle in 1908 correctly names his parents, Samuel Reese and Elizabeth Bell.  Amazing.   Colonial New York and 20th century Seattle are separated by just one generation.

  William and Sarah's daughter Ruby Amelia, born in Reeseville, Wisconsin marries a good man in Seattle, William Winston Wilcox and has 9 fine children with him.  I have found photos of Ruby and William and one of Ruby surrounded by her 9 good looking children.  In the photo, Ruby has an open book on her lap.  What's with the book?  Could it be a bible?  ...probably... but it is too slim to be my bible, I think.

  William's son William Ellis Reese has less luck.  His two sons, Ellis and Dewitt are a couple ne'r-do-wells.  Wisconsin born Dewitt is a musician who amazingly joins the Canadian Army, deserts after a few months, returns to the USA, registers for the draft in 1917 in Coos, Oregon, but claims exemption because he is a Canadian citizen and his mother's sole support.  On the same day in June 1917, his brother Ellis, who works as a bill poster in Spokane, Washington State also claims exemption from the draft because he is his mother's sole support.  Their mother, I assume, dies in poverty.  But I have not confirmed that.

A New Clue!

It has been a while since I've posted, but new developments come in their own time.

 I have discovered siblings of Adam Reese who moved their families to Washington State.  This may be a crucial breakthrough in discovering the bible’s last family owner.

Adam Reese’s younger sister Almira, born in the New York Mohawk Valley in 1821, ends up on the West Coast.  Almira did live with her parents Samuel and Elizabeth Reese in Reeseville, Wisconsin until she was in her late 20s and married Jeremiah Burgess.  Almira had 4 children born in Wisconsin.

 In 1880, Almira and Jeremiah Burgess are living in Shasta, California.  I lose track of the aging couple after that, but their son Samuel Reese Burgess appears in 1889 in Ferndale, Whatcom County, Washington State, living with his wife and 5 children.   Two of Samuel Reese Burgess’s daughters marry a pair of brothers named Shaw.  Almira Burgess’ grandchildren are soon spreading out in Washington’s Whatcom County, starting their own families there with the Burgess or Shaw surnames.

  Osee Reese Burgess.  I gotta like a guy with a name like that.  His father’s name was Io Burgess.  I don’t even know how to pronounce that.  Osee was born Christmas Eve 1908 in Bellingham, Washington.  During WWII he serves in the U.S. Navy as a cook.  He must enjoy that line of work, because after the war he is listed as a ship’s baker on numerous commercial vessels, sailing between Seattle, San Francisco and other Pacific ports, such as Japan.  Osee, the sailor, marries very late in life and lives in the San Diego area, a Navy town.  It does not appear  that he had any children.   His wife is buried in San Luis Obispo in 1987.  However in 1989, Osee the veteran, is buried at the Presidio, the San Francisco National cemetery.
  Osee's Burgess and Shaw cousins are well spread out in Washington State in the late 1900s.  More to come on that in following posts.

   

Success Story

Proving beyond doubt that Mary Harwick was Mary Ann Bass' mother involved proving my assumption that the portrait in the Reese Bible of the bearded Wm W. Bass was Mary Ann's brother.  This was accomplished some weeks ago.  Schoolteacher William Bass was found back in Warren in 1850 living with Henry and Mary Bell plus with another brother, medical student Edgar Charles Bass.  That led to a contemporary biography that I found on the prestigious Dr. Edgar Bass, clearly stating that his parents were Lovell Bass and Mary Harwick.  So I had my proof.  Time to move on...

However, I had come across a fascinating 1878 letter posted on a Bass family tree in Ancestry.com.  The letter was addressed to my William Bass by a relative talking about the family history and the recent death of an "Aunt Mary".  The relationship details were difficult to decipher simply because the writer just didn't explain enough, and the writer's identity was hidden by his/her scrawled signature.  William Bass probably easily understood everything in the letter.  But it was all a mystery to family descendants more than a hundred years later.

I read this letter many times trying to glean any Bass family information.  I figured a couple things out concerning the letter.  It was sent from New York state, near the town of Warren.  The Aunt Mary who died was my Mary Harwick, the mother of William and Edgar Bass.  I sent Ken, the Bass tree owner my comments.  Ken was astounded and we traded a flurry of e-mails.  My info immediately led him to more clues in other family papers in Ken's possession.  He showed me evidence that Mary Harwick, now that he knew his great-great grandmother's name, was the same person as Mary Bell.  For a moment it seemed that we were both up to speed on the data.
  A week later, I was updating my Reese tree with the Bell family information.  I was reading Ken's old letter again and noticed a couple more things. Just details, really.
  Don't think that I sit at my computer all day on a Saturday.  I did manage to get outdoors in the nice weather to weed my flower gardens, mow the lawns, and do a bunch of other errands.  I relaxed in the evening at my desk browsing through cemetery burial listings on genealogical sites for the Warren, New York area.  I found Henry Bell's grave which connected to something else in the letter.  My details were piling up.
  I wrote Ken again summarizing these small items, and asked him to check the original of that old letter.  Could the writer's signature possibly be Harwick?  That got quick a response, and Ken sent me a scan of the original letter.  Yes, we agreed.  Now that we had enough clues, we could see that the scrawled signature said Menzo Harwick.  In a burst of activity we found Menzo's family in the U.S. Census, including Menzo's siblings and his father David, who would be Mary Harwick's brother.  David's 77 year old father Peter, was living with the family in 1850 in Warren, NY.
  Now the old letter is starting to make sense.  The jigsaw pieces are coming together, forming a clearer picture.  Mary Harwick was Menzo's great Aunt who was Lovell Bass' 1st wife.  The Lovell Bass and Mary Harwick in the Reese bible were my friend Ken's great great grandparents.

   BUT WAIT!  There's more!  Old Peter is Mary Harwick's father too.  The names mentioned in the letter, Philip and Hannah Bronner have to be old Peter's parents!  Ken is researching the Harwick family furiously now.  He soon finds more documents proving the Philip in the letter is Philip C. Harwick,  a Revolutionary War soldier,born in Germany in 1742.  Philip Harwick and his 2nd wife Hannah Bronner, are Ken's great-great-great-great grandparents on the Harwick side.
    A huge success for the Reese Bible!

Mary Harwick, Mary Harwick

I have been tracking down Mary Ann Bass Reese's mother.  As mentioned before on the June 25th post on the Bass family; Mary Ann's father, Lovell Bass, is the first entry on the Births page.  He is also the first entry on the Deaths page.  Just below Lovell on the Births page is "Mary Harwick was born Sept 11, 1800".  The strong implication is that this is Mary Ann's mother.  This is proven back in June when I link Mary Ann to the photo of the black bearded man, William W. Bass.  William is her brother still living in Warren, New York with another brother, Dr. Edgar Charles Bass.  Dr. Bass becomes a prominent man in Cazenovia, New York, and a contemporary biography of him states that he is the son of Lovell Bass and Mary Harwick.   I'm pleased to have this 2nd source of Mary Harwick's identity.

On the Deaths page just below Lovell Bass is "Mary Bell Died Nov. 13th 1878".  In 1850, Mary Ann's two brothers as young men are residing with a Henry Bell (Adam Reese's uncle) and his wife Mary.   So I had thought Mary Ann must have been friends with her husband's uncle's wife.  Recently I made e-contact with Ken, a great-great grandson of Lovell Bass.  In sharing our information, my friend Ken tells me his belief that Mary Bell and Mary Harwick are the same person.  No Way!  But he has old family letters saying that Mary Bell is buried in the Bass lot with the two brothers, William and Edgar Bass.  I confirm this is true by finding the burial listings of Evergreen Cemetery, Cazenovia Villiage, Madison County, New York. http://home.comcast.net/~ingallsam/Cemeteries/Cazenovia/CazEvergreen/CazEverE-I.htm  Mary Bell is buried alongside the two brothers, obviously her sons.  One of the Ken's old letters gives the same birth and death dates for Mary Bell as I have for Mary Harwick.    I'm convinced that Mary Bell and Mary Harwick is the same person.  Her 1st husband, Lovell Bass dies in 1833 when Mary is just 33.  Time enough for her to marry Henry Bell, brother of Adam Reese's mother, Elizabeth Bell.  Already the mother of 3 children with Lovell (Mary Ann, William, and Edgar Bass) Mary Harwick becomes a stepmother to the widower Henry Bell's two daughters (Rosalinda and Sarah Bell).

While trying to find out more, I discover in the 1870 census that Rosetta Reese, Mary Ann Bass Reese's daughter is staying with Henry Bell, her paternal great uncle, and his wife Mary Harwick Bass Bell, her maternal grandmother, plus her cousin William Bass in Warren, New York.  Remarkable, really. The Bell, Reese and Bass families are so intertwined in one household.

   This discovery gets my attention. Rosetta Reese, who is still single in 1870,  has returned from Wisconsin to her hometown in Warren, New York, to be a schoolteacher in like her cousin William.  Rosetta is educated and well traveled.  We know that she later goes back out West to be with her parents and get married.  Rosetta would have been in a very good position to know the family genealogy.  As mentioned in the Three Daughters post below, Rosetta appears to be the chronicler of the bible from 1878 until her own death in 1913.   But who takes possession after that?

Three Daughters

Who inherits the bible after Mary Ann Bass Reese passes away in 1902?
  I've been assuming that it is Mary Ann who records her parent's births and deaths, her own marriage to Adam, and the births of all her children.  These all appear to be in the same handwriting.  But after she writes in Mary Bell's death in 1878, other hands seem to be doing the scribing.  Her daughters are among the suspects.

Adam Reese has 3 daughters and 1 son; Rosetta and Charles are born in Herkimer Co. NY; Ella and May Bell are born in Reeseville, Dodge Co. WI.   In 1869, Adam sells his property, taking the family and his business acumen to DeKalb Co IL, in the Chicago area. This is only 120 miles south of Reeseville, an easy train ride.  Adam leaves his parents behind in Wisconsin, in the care of his married sisters.

It looks like the same person writing, but it is not Mary Ann, who records the marriages of all 3 daughters in Illinois:

1) Ella Amelia Reese, marries Elias C. West, a Civil War hero, in DeKalb Co. in June 1872.  The 4 West children's births are recorded, but by 2 different people.  It looks like Mary Ann herself enters the birth of her 1st great-grandchild May (Mamie) West in Dec. 1873.  Someone else enters the birth of Roy West in 1876, Gertie May in 1881, and Herbert W. in 1887.  Years later, Roy West's marriage gets recorded by someone in 1897.  The other West children's marriages, or their children's births, are simply not written down. This is one of those big gaps I have mentioned.  Whoever has possession of the bible, doesn't think to enter any of the West family information, although Ella and her husband both live to a ripe old age.

2) Rosetta Eliz. Reese, the oldest daughter, marries Berry Landerman in 1873.  The births of all 3 of her children are listed in the correct order, but are not written by the same person.  The marriages of these 3 Landerman children are also captured in the correct chronological sequence, but not written by the same person; Bessie in 1901, Grace in 1903, and William in 1905.  The only 2 grandchildren of Rosseta and Berry Landerman are recorded in 1905. So all of the Lanterman events in Rosetta's lifetime are faithfully written down.

3) May Bell Reese marries John Travis in 1885.  By the way it is Bell, not Belle, her middle name is her grandmother's maiden name (Adam's mother Elizabeth Bell). It is May Bell probably writing in the births of her twins Charles and Margaret in 1887.  But the following year it looks like her sister Rosetta who writes in the birth of May Bell's daughter Mabel in 1888.

  To conclude this long post, it looks like May Bell participates in making entries, but her sister Rosetta is the real keeper of the bible from 1878 to her own death in 1913.

Handwriting Analysis

The Reese Bible has survived 148 years and traveled some 2,000 miles. The birth/marriage/death records written in several different people's handwriting are easy to read, and they record events of family members in Herkimer County, New York; Dodge County, Wisconsin, and DeKalb County, Illinois.  There are huge holes in these records.  Many events are simply not recorded.  Some marriages are listed, others are not.  Some births are carefully recorded, others are not mentioned.  Some people do not have portraits included.  There are portraits of people inserted in the pages without any hint of how they are related.  But don't worry, I have identified all but one of these relationships now.

  What this appears to add up to, is that the bible changed hands over time.  This is a clue.  Owners recorded events that were important to them, or those that they had direct knowledge of.  I've been trying to analyze the handwriting to distinguish which hands recorded which group of events, and what year did they start/stop.  I hope to match that with death years of our suspected writers, those deaths being the approximate time the bible gets handed off to a new generation.  The suspects come from analyzing what family is being recorded during a time frame and which are being ignored.  I'm using an Excel spreadsheet for this analysis.  I love Excel.
  My guess is that Adam Reese's wife Mary Ann was the first owner of the bible and started recording family events, some retroactively, because the pages start with her parents.  Then in 1902, a different handwriting records Mary Ann's death.

The Bass Family

The oldest birth recorded in the Reese Bible is "Lovell Bass was born December 31st 1798."  Just below that, in the same handwriting is the entry "Mary Harwick was born Sept 11th 1800."  It is easy to assume that Mary Harwick is Lovell Bass' wife.  We know from the marriage page that Adam Reese married a Mary Ann Bass.  The 1830 U.S. Census has a Lovill Bass with a wife, 2 male children and 1 female child living in Warren, Herkimer County, New York, the same town that Adam Reese grew up in.


  The bible contains only two pictures of people named Bass.  One of them is a young lady identified as Lucy Bass, and the other is a bearded man named William W. Bass.  There is no other clue as to their relationship, but I take a reasonable guess that William is Mary Ann's brother.  This proves right.  I find in the 1850 U.S. Census that William W. Bass, a schoolteacher, is living in Warren, Herkimer County N.Y. with another brother, Edgar C. Bass, a medical school student.  The young men are living with the Bell family, apparently relatives of Adam Reese's mother, the former Elizabeth Bell, who is also from Warren.  Henry Bell is Elizabeth's brother (Adam's uncle).  Henry's wife Mary is 49 years old.  This is possibly the Mary Bell recorded in the bible as dying in 1878.
   It takes me a lot of research and time to link these people with the proper relationships.  What we get from this is that the only Bell recorded in the bible, Mary Bell, is Adam's mother's sister-in-law who still lived in New York.  This means that Adam's mother, Elizabeth, was receiving family news in Wisconsin from New York and relaying the news to whoever was writing it into the bible.  Elizabeth Bell Reese dies in 1881 in Wisconsin, which the bible does not record.  But by this time the bible is in Illinois with Mary Ann.  


  Dr. Edgar Bass marries a Lucy L. Brand.  This is the Lucy Bass pictured in the bible.  Another document confirms that Lovell Bass and Mary Harwick are the parents of Dr. Bass.


  Amazingly, I find on Ancestry.com another picture of William W. Bass.  It seems to be the same bearded man pictured in the bible, just a little older.  The huge beard is full but graying, the eyes still piercing from under droopy eyelids.  


The pictures of some of Adam Reese's in-laws, and Mary Bell's death notation suggest that someone was in correspondence with the family back in New York, receiving news and the occasional portrait.

The Berties

There are 3 pictures in the bible of persons with the last name of Bertie, and like the Hillikers, someone wrote the names on their portraits but these people are not mentioned in any of the handwritten births/marriages/death entries.  There is no hint of the Berties' relationship to the Reese family.

I have now, with certainty, traced Samuel Reese Sr. and his family back to 1840 to a farm in the town of Warren, Herkimer County, New York, several years before they departed their native New York state to go to Wisconsin.  Adam Reese has 3 brothers and 3 sisters.  As we saw in yesterday's post, one of his younger sisters, Lucretia b. 1830, will eventually marry Adam’s friend, William C. Hilliker.  Now I’ve discovered that another of Adam's younger sisters, Matilda b. 1834, will marry in Wisconsin a man from Scotland, David Smith Bertie.    I’ve located their burials on Find a Grave and attached their photos from the bible. David Bertie has a an elaborate headstone.  It appears that he is buried with their 5 year old son Everett, who died years earlier.  http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Bertie&GSiman=1&GScid=88628&GRid=8352345&

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Bertie&GSiman=1&GScnty=3005&GRid=8352346&

David Bertie and Matilda have a daughter Rosine Bertie b. 1854 in Beaver Dam, Dodge, Wisconsin.

 Get this.  Rosine grows up  and marries a Eugene Anderson.  They have a son and move to Seattle, Washington.  Rosine lives a long life and passes away in Seattle in 1947.

But let's don't jump to conclusions.  We haven't traced the bible's path yet.  There are other possibilities for it getting to the west coast.

 I have to go to my real job.  Stay tuned.

The Hillikers

The Reese bible contains several portraits of people with the last name of Hilliker, a strange sounding name.  None of these people or anyone with a similar name is recorded in the bible on the births, deaths, and marriages pages.  I wonder who they are, but there is no hint.  I start searching Adam Reese's daughters in Ancestry.com databases to see if I can get a hit for one of them marrying a Hilliker.  I get nada, so I move on to Adam's granddaughters, however unlikely that seems.  His granddaughters thrived in the early 1900s and these pictures seem much older than that.

   What I love about genealogy is how these things happen.  The Hillikers are a dead end, so I change directions and switch to trying to trace the Reese family back to New York, before they take their pioneer spirit to the Wisconsin wilderness.  This is just a random search for post-Revolutionary War New York farmers.  I stumble across a reference of a William C. Hilliker, a widower from Herkimer County, New York, who marries a Lucretia Reese in Dodge County, Wisconsin in 1848.

  Lucretia appears to be Adam Reese's sister.  Voila!  I find Adam's father Samuel Reese, with family, a farmer in Herkimer County in 1840.  Genealogists know that U.S. census records before 1850 are not very specific, but even to a critical eye this does look like a good fit.  So the Reese's came from Herkimer County, New York, before settling in Wisconsin.
  Adam Reese b.1818 and William Hilliker b.1815 are close in age, they are both from Herkimer, Co. NY, and they likely traveled together in 1845, with their wives and young children.  William and his 1st wife, Nancy Hall 1813-1847 had 3 kids, Adam already has 2 kids with his wife Mary Ann.
We have a portrait of William Hilliker with who I think is his 1st wife, before her death in Wisconsin.  The other Hilliker portraits in the bible are of William Hilliker's and Lucretia Reese's grown children; Evelyn, Ellen and Charles.  I've traced some of their marriages and children.
  I've found the burial locations for William and his daughter Ellen.  I belong to Find-A-Grave.com which is a another good site for genealogy research and I've uploaded Ellen and William's portraits http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7005264 to their on-line memorials.  http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7005017  One day, somebody researching their family will spot these and I'll get an excited e-mail.
   Herkimer County, NY is a good discovery.  I have info on William's parents and a lead on a possible grandfather for Adam Reese too.  The story goes on.

Reeseville, Dodge County, Wisconsin

Adam Reese b.1819 was a true frontiersman, according to one history book.  He was the son of Samuel Reese b.1796, and Elizabeth Bell b.1797, both of New York state.  In 1846 Adam followed his father Samuel Reese Sr. to the nearly unbroken wilderness of Wisconsin.  Adam, his wife Mary Ann Bass b.1824, and 2 children, Rosetta b.1842 and Charles Henry b.1844 were all born in New York.  Adam was a farmer like his father and brother Samuel Reese Jr. Adam tilled his land in Wisconsin, taught school in winters, and as the county became more settled was elected supervisor.  Aware that the Milwaukie and St. Paul Railroad wanted to find a way around the Mud Lakes, Adam hired a surveyor to lay out a plat of land which he purchased in Sept 1858.  After the railroad was built through his farm, a station was built of which he took charge.  Adam also became express agent and postmaster.  Later the station was named for Adam and his father, Reeseville.  Samual Reese Sr. died in 1875 at his daughter's home and is buried in Reeseville cemetery, in the village of Reeseville, near Lowell township, Dodge County, Wisconsin.

Adam and his wife Mary Ann, had 2 more children born in Reeseville, Ella b.1846 and May Bell b.1862.  In 1869 Adam and his family moved to Sycamore, Illinois where they settled on a farm.

The bible we are researching was published in 1863.  Adam seems to have been an educated man who would be interested in books, and had the means to purchase a large, fancy bible.  So it seems that Adam Reese and Mary Ann were the original owners of this bible.

This leaves me to wonder why the birth and death dates of Mary Ann's father (or who I am assuming is her father) Lovell Bass are retroactively recorded in the bible, but not Adam's parents, who lived near them in Reeseville.  Makes me think that Adam didn't make any entries into the bible.  This practice was apparently started by Mary Ann, or perhaps years later by one of their daughters; Rosetta, May Bell, or Ella. 

A Family History

The binding is loose and the pages show moisture damage, but the clear handwriting neatly laying out births, marriages, and deaths causes me to gulp.   the 1st entry says "Lovell Bass was born December 31st 1798."  Most of the entries are for people with the last name of Reese.  Other surnames are well represented, but the sense is that this bible was in the Reese family for generations.  Men keep the family name going for a while, but the daughters' betrothals spawn children with a new last name.  The names all stand alone.  Nowhere does it say how these people are related to each other or where any of them were born, lived, or died.  I'm sure this won't be too difficult to resolve.  A little guessing at relationships should lead to U.S. Census documents that list the families.

For the genealogy research, I need a starting point, a "Home person".  My brother, who loaned me the bible that he obtained decades ago, agrees that May Bell Reese, born in 1862, appears to be the matriarch.  Using Ancestry.com, I begin a new family tree and commence connecting the names.

I start with a guess.  Adam Reese b. 1818 could be May Bell's grandfather.  Perhaps Charles Henry Reese b. 1843 is her father.  More importantly, I assume that Adam Reese's wife Mary Ann b. 1824 is Lovell Bass' daughter.  This is working, and in a few hours I have the outline of a family.  But later in the week documents prove me partially wrong.  Charles is May Bell's older brother.  Adam is their father.  OK.  I can accept that.

I'm hooked on this now.  I have a regular day job, but before a week is up I've put 15 hours into this, plus got the lawn mowed and took my wife to dinner.