[Genealogy] Generational Spread, that Little House, and More

[Michael John Neill]

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Genealogy Update 1 May 2026

** Generational Spread
** AI for Genealogy
** That Little House in Elvaston
** More Problem-Solving with Full-Text Search at FamilySearch


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Generational Spread
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The recent birth of a cousin resulted in a new great-grandchild for one set
of my great-grandparents, Fred and Tena (Trientje) Janssen Ufkes, of Bear
Creek Township, Hancock County, Illinois.  I’m the oldest great-grandchild
at the age of 49. The youngest is less than a year old.

The birth got me to thinking of how much “spread” there is in the ages of
their great-grandchildren. I’m not much one for “busy work,” but it might
be an interesting exercise to determine how much age spread there is for my
other sets of great-grandparents’ great-grandchildren.

It is not nearly as much as it is for my Ufkes great-grandparents.

My other great-grandparents do not have nearly a fifty-year range in the
ages of their great-grandchildren: most ranges (for my family) are close to
twenty-five years.  The ages of their children and grandchildren are fairly
close together.

How much range is there in the ages of the great-grandchildren of each set
of your great-grandparents? Do you even know the names of all the
grandchildren of your great-grandparents and the years in which they were
born? That in itself may be a good research activity. Those are people who
may be good candidates for a DNA test–depending upon what you know and what
you don’t know about other generations in the family.

Then there’s the nearly fifty-year age spread again. There are two of my
great-grandmother Ufkes’ great-grandchildren who are old enough to remember
her (Fred, her husband died in 1960 well before our memory banks were being
created) because we were alive when she was and lived in the same location.
The other great-grandchildren have no memory of her and do not remember her.

There’s another reminder to think about the “older” generation in the
family who may remember people that you do not.

And in some cases that older generation may be the same generation as
you…only older.

Or you may be the older generation yourself. In which case you better get
writing those stories down.
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That Little House in Elvaston
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I’ve never been to the little house in Elvaston, but I’m going to have to
make a point to drive by and take a look at it one of these days.

John and Anna (Fecht) Habben had lived on a farm east of Elvaston,
Illinois, their entire married lives. It was the farm where John had grown
up and where they had raised all their children. And in 1914 they were
apparently ready to retire. I likely had found the deed for the purchase of
the house thirty years ago back in the day when I only copied things “that
I needed” and could afford to copy.  There were no grand genealogical
statements in the deed and I already knew quite a bit about the Habben
family and, in my experience at the time, I had located the farm where they
lived–that was the important thing. And so I did not worry too much about
the house.

My grandmother Ufkes was one of John and Anna’s youngest grandchildren and
she remembered going to the house to visit them as a child. Anna was still
living there in 1941 when Grandma went to visit her after she and my
Granddad were married. Anna gave her $5 as a wedding present–right there in
that house.

While reviewing digital images of newspapers, I came across a reference to
the Habben purchase of the Elvaston house in September of 1914. The Habbens
move to town is referenced as is the marriage of their son George in that
same month. The fact that George was newly married and going to “make his
home on a farm east of town” (one that he rented from his father) was more
than likely connected to John and Anna’s move.

Then I read from whom they purchased that little piece of property in
Elvaston: the heirs of S. P. McGaw.

The S. P. McGaw heirs have sold their property here, the home of the late
S. P. McGaw, to Mr. John Hobbin who will move from his farm east of town in
the near future. Thomas Ruddell who occupies the property now will move
this week to his own home on the west side. Mrs. Ruddell is a daughter of
Mr. McGaw and they have lived with the father for several years and cared
for him in his declining years.

Samuel McGaw’s descendants eventually left the county and moved elsewhere.
Several of his children had moved away before he died.  Growing up
relatively near Elvaston, McGaw was not a name I recognized. There’s no one
with the name living in the immediate area and when I likely located the
record copy of the deed to the house thirtysome years ago, I did not
recognize it.  There’s a copy of it in the Hancock County Courthouse.

But now I recognized the name.

Because there’s a document in another courthouse nearly eighty miles away
that mentions a descendant of Samuel and a descendant of John and Anna.

One of Samuel McGaw’s third great-grandsons grew up in Knox County,
Illinois. So did one of John and Anna Habben’s third great-granddaughters.

You know where this story is going.

That document is their marriage record–the third great-granddaughter is my
daughter.

So ancestors of my daughter and her husband both lived in that little house
in Elvaston–just at different times.
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There is one genealogical lesson here aside from the serendipity. The
marriage of the Habbens’ son George dovetailed with their moving from the
farm. Everything needs to be looked at in context. Sometimes the “reasons”
for things can be clearly determined blatantly, sometimes they can be
reasonably inferred from a record, occasionally they can be inferred from a
series of records (indirect evidence), and sometimes we simply don’t know
what happened.
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Michael John Neill
Genealogy Tip of the Day
PO Box 17, Henderson, IL 61439
http://www.genealogytipoftheday.com
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