Last year for Christmas I was gifted a membership to Newspaper.com. I have been loving this membership and I am so thankful for it every day I look at the newspapers. I have learned so much about my family and the history of other various events.
Just today I learned more about my 2nd great-grandma on my maternal side of the family. Before I only knew her name because she is buried in the family plot in Oakdale and I saw her on some of the newer census reports before I found a newspaper obituary for her. The best part of obituaries is that you never know the information you will find in them. I learned where she's from, her parents names', when she migrated to California and when and where she was married to her husband, Lewis Egbert McDaniel. I also learned where her children were living when Margaret died.
Margaret Elizabeth McDaniel was a native of Terre Haute, Indiana. Her parents were Richard Marshall Boswell of North Carolina and her mom was Clarissa Tillotson Boswell of New York. The family crossed the plains in an ox [wagon] train in 1857. One of the many outfits in her wagon train of 30 was her future husband, whom she married as in Elizabethtown, Plumas county, on the very day of their arrival on September 12th, 1857. Lewis Egbert McDaniel, Margaret's husband was from an ox wagon train from Tennessee.
Lewis and Margaret have lived in many different parts of the state of California including Knights Ferry, La Grange and Oakdale just to name a few. She was in Knights Ferry at the time of the high water in 1861-62 and two of her children were born during this time. In the end Margaret lived in Oakdale for 44 years before she died. Her parents lived in Oakdale too and her mother died there.
She has six living children that survived her after she died, Daniel M. McDaniel, Mrs. Emily F. Meyers, Richard P. McDaniel of San Diego, Mrs. Sarah Ellen Ames of Berkeley, Mrs. A. F. Welch of Modesto and Mrs. Rosa Beatrice Ames of Oakdale. She has 24 grandchildren and six great grandchildren as of 1919.
This obituary gave me more information than I have seen in an obituary before. I wish more were this informative as this one.
My favorite part of researching my family history is not leaning just names and dates. I like to learn the story and the facts that go with the names and the dates. The story is where I learn where I come from and what kind of life my ancestors lived in their life.
I wish I could find a picture of Margaret while she was living. For now I will just settle for her headstone.
Here is the link to the newspaper article https://www.newspapers.com/image/606909843/?clipping_id=187736303
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