Randy, at Genea-Musings, has posted this questions for tonight's Saturday-Night Fun:  Where were they in 1909?

1) Which of your ancestors were alive in 1909?2) Tell us where your ancestral families were living in 1909. What country, state, county, city/town, etc. Who was in the family at the time? Use the 1910 census as "close enough."3) Have you found each of these families in the 1910 census? 4) Write a blog post about your response. Or write a comment to this post.

Of my grandparents, only my maternal grandmother Bernice Alvin Davault was alive in 1909. She was born in 1902 and was significantly older than my grandfather.  She was living in Anna, Union County, Illinois. I have found most of my ancestors who were alive in 1910 in that census. So I will only mention if I have NOT found a particular person.

Mother's side

Great-grandparents

• Rufus Alvin Davault, d. in 1920, was living in Dongola, Union County, Illinois. His wife Eva (Dukes) died when my grandmother was 2, and so she was living with her aunt and uncle.
• Robert Lucky Van Hoesen, d. 1949, was living in Thayer, Oregon County, Missouri in 1909. His wife
  
• Dulcie (Green) Van Hoesen, d. 1953, also was living in Thayer.

Great-great grandparents

• Daniel Chandler Davault, d. 1916, and his wife Christina Elender (Dayvault) Davault, d. 1912, were living in Dongola, Union County, Illinois, in 1909.
• Rebecca Ann (Bohanon) Dukes, d. 1926,  has remained elusive to me after 1905 at which time she was living in a county adjoining Union County, Illinois. I only know her death date from family information. Rebecca's husband Thomas P. Dukes died in 1882 in Kentucky.
• Albertus Louis Van Hoesen, d. 1910, was in El Reno, Canadian County, Oklahoma, in 1909. His wife Carrie Annie (Burton) Van Hoesen died in 1897.
• Learner Ramey Green, d. 1920, was living in Willow Springs, Howell County, Missouri in 1909. His wife Martha Anna Mathes (Inman) Green died in 1898.

Father's side

Great-grandparents

• Fred Olson, d. 1966, was in Titusville, Crawford County, Pennsylvania, in 1909. That was the year he married his wife
• Nellie Bly Hunt, d. 1956, who was living in Tryonville, Crawford County, Pennsylvania, in 1909
• Ira Newell Lee, d. 1940, was living in Kane, McKean County, Pennsylvania in 1909.
• Mary Elizabeth (Overbeck) Lee, d. 1956, was living in Kane, McKean County, Pennsylvania, in 1909.

Great-great grandparents

• John Olson, d. 1924, was living in Dahoga, Elk County, Pennsylvania, in 1909, as was his wife
• Louisa Jansdatter (or Johnson), d. 1916.
• Henry Hunt, d. 1920, was living in Tryonville, Crawford County, Pennsylvania, in 1909. His wife Clarissa O'tillie (Watson) Hunt had died in 1900.
• Nancy J. (Magee) Lee, d. unk.:  I do not know what happened to Nancy after she and her husband Addison Harrison Lee were divorced in 1878. Addison died in 1880 in a boiler explosion.  So I have not found her on any census after 1870.
• Frank Overbeck (aka Fernand Vanhoverbeke), d. ca. 1911, was in Brookville, Jefferson County, Pennsylvania in 1909.  His tombstone has no date; there is no death certificate found; and I need to peruse his pension file more carefully to see if I can figure it out or get close. I know he was alive in 1910 as he had remarried. Frank's wife Margaret (Baughman) Overbeck had died in 1901.
  

Sometimes censuses can take us back for several generations and sometimes they don't. I tried to discover if two friends who live in Philadelphia and share a common surname were related.  I was able to get one of the friend's family back to around 1840 using the censuses, but could not get before 1910 for the other.

The other night, I found out that the mother of a long-time Internet friend was a friend to Beth Van Hoesen, an artist. Because I've done a lot of Internet searches for Van Hoesens, I had seen links to articles about Beth many, many times. But I really knew nothing about her, and I still don't really know much about her art.

All Van Hoesens in the US are descended from one immigrant ancestor and are thus related. My mother was a Van Hoesen, so I don't have to go far up the tree to find it. It turned out in my quick censuses analyses that Beth and I are more closely related than I would have thought.  Her family had some more unusual locations and names which made them easy to track.

I started out with Beth who, I found out, was born in 1926 in Boise, Idaho. Idaho is an unusual place to find Van Hoesens. Because she was born before the last census that is available to us, I found her in the 1930 census. She was living in Mesa, Adams County, Idaho.  You can see that her father Enders was born in New York around 1898.

I found her father in the 1920 census living in Mesa, Adams County, Idaho, with his father David, who was a widower.  David was also shown as being born in New York and was working as the manager of an orchard.  Also noteworthy is the presence of a brother, two years younger, Mynders.

They were not living in Idaho in 1910, so I searched New York and found them fairly easily even having to deal with the ubiquitous spelling issues when dealing with "Van Hoesen."  Since this household has an Enderse and Mynderse of the right ages, this has to be the right family. They are found in Cortland, Cortland County, New York.  My Robert C. Van Hoesen was born in Preble, Cortland County! Three Van Hoesen brothers came with their father from the Hudson River area to Cortland County around 1806.  So now we're narrowing the options and expanding the possibilities that Beth might be related to me.

In 1900, D.W. and Enderse Van Hoesen are found again in Cortland, Cortland County, New York.  David is a lawyer.

There is little to the census of 1890 which was mostly destroyed in a fire. So jumping back to 1880 can be a problem.  However, in this case since we had a middle initial and the year of birth (1864), I was able to identify him in the household of Henry M. Van Hoesen  in Preble, Cortland County, New York.  His father is Henry M. and mother is Maggie A. Henry is 43 years old which would place his birth around 1837.

At this point I had trouble finding them in the censuses, but from a genealogy of our branch of the Van Hoesens in Preble, we know that there was  Henry M. Van Hoesen who was the 11th child (scroll down to the list of children) of Gerrit and Catharine (Van Buskirk) Van Hoesen of the right age. According to the genealogy manuscript (done by descendant of one of these children and herself a genealogist for the DAR in Washington D.C.), Henry was married to Maggie A., just as we saw in the census. I also have the will of their father.

Henry M. Van Hoesen was the brother to my Robert Cravath Van Hoesen who was the 5th child in that family. Beth Van Hoesen and I are third cousins twice removed.

Randy at Genamusings has posted this week's edition of Saturday Night Fun. I have to say my story about what got me interested in genealogy isn't too terribly exciting.  My brother-in-law Walter, who lives in Rhode Island, first told me some stories he'd learned, not about his own family, but about his wife's.  She had an Italian stowaway for an immigrant ancestor. I think it was her grandfather although I could be off by a generation. I knew I didn't have any Italian stowaways in my background, but I thought perhaps I had ancestors who had stories just as exciting.  And I was right. I do. As it turns out my brother-in-law, who was around ten when his family moved to Rhode Island has no Rhode Island roots. I, on the other hand, have many. It was fun to discover that some of my ancestors are buried not very far from his house, and he (and my husband) grew up in an area where my ancestors lived during King Philip's War.