My 3rd great grandfather William Hogmire

I wish I knew more about William and wasn't even sure when I was going to write about him but I just had an interesting contact with a woman trying to join the DAR who had links for everything she needed except the link for her ancestor David Hogmire, William's brother.  I provided the only documentation I could come up with and I think it's going to be enough for her to be able to join the DAR and that makes me happy.  The woman from the DAR that's helping her told me that the SAR (Sons of the American Revolution) will accept a proved DAR application so now I'm considering doing that myself.  So, William is fresh on my mind.  This land record (starting on the bottom right corner and continuing for a couple of pages) clearly shows William and his minor siblings having a special guardian, who was acting on their behalf to sell land that belonged to their father Samuel, who had inherited it from his father Jonas Hogmire.  Given that William's marriage record and death certificate don't list who his parents were his is as close to documented proof as I'll ever get of the connection that I know is there.  Samuel Hogmire land record

When I interviewed my grandpa Hugmeyer he remembered his ancestry back to William and his wife Elizabeth "Libby" Langs but didn't know of their parentage.  Interestingly one of the ways I can prove William and David to be brothers is the double wedding they had, 12/5/1869 at Arlington, Van Buren Co MI.  They were married by their stepfather Aaron Russell and their mother Elizabeth and sister Caroline served as witnesses.

 William was born the 19th child of the previously blogged about Samuel Hogmire 10/15/1845 at Avon, Livingston Co NY.  According to his obituary the family moved to Van Buren Co MI when he was 10 years old.  I find the family in the 1855 Livingston Co NY census but by 1860 they are living in Arlington so they moved sometime between the two.  In the 1900 census he's living in Bear Lake, Manistee Co MI.  I'm unsure how or why they ended up in Bear Lake (Libby's family was in the Traverse City area and most of William's stayed in Van Buren and Kalamazoo Co) but I think his sons both got lumbering jobs up there and their parents may have joined them.

My grandpa remembered a man coming to play checkers at his grandparents house and that the man "looked like he was 100 years old" and he thought that was his great grandfather.  Once I started researching I found several online family trees that listed William passing away in 1945.  I was amazed that my grandpa had been right again until I found that William died at Bear Lake 1/30/1919, 10 months before my grandpa was born.  This was one of the first instances I had in genealogy that taught me to verify the work I find online.  He's buried in an unmarked grave at Fairview Cemetery in Bear Lake, in a plot owned by his son Cassius's wife's parents (odd, yes).  The old man ended up being his great grandfather Jacob Kraai, from his mother's side. 

Other than the information from his obituary and census records indicating he was a farmer and an all around nice guy I know nothing about him.  I did stumble on a couple photos of he and Libby when I called Barbara Hugmire Terry, the only granddaughter of their other son Frank.  I drove up to Howard City and met with her at a restaurant and she supplied me with these photos of him.  She passed away unexpectedly about 6 months after this visit so I thank my lucky stars that I called her when I did.  I think I could have learned more from her than I did but I wasn't very good at asking the right questions back then.  I'd have never found these pictures without that visit.  I called one of her sons after I discovered she'd passed away and he reassured me the photos would not be tossed.  There are a couple of other photos that I'll post to their related blogs when the time comes.       

William with his wife Libby on the right

William with Maude, wife of his grandson Harold Hugmeyer