O Pioneer

My great great great grandfather, John Leonard Dickinson was a pioneer, true to the Dickinson way. Moving from New York State to Wisconsin in about 1856, he and his wife and several of their children remained there only a couple of years. By 1858 they had come to Minnesota, where he remained the rest of his life. Three of his sons, including my great great grandfather Theodore (husband of Emma) joined the Union Army for Minnesota. All three miraculously survived.

I've been searching for John's parentage for several years. Yesterday came a breakthrough from the researchers in Salt Lake City. They found land records indicating that John and his wife Harriet sold their New York property to Harriet's brother, Lawrence Mason. The land had previously conveyed to John by Joseph and Orrin Dickinson. I have other evidence that Joseph is John's father, and this could be the confirmation.

One more piece of the puzzle is coming into place, the research team at SLC will do a little more digging, and it's like waiting for Christmas to see what they unearth.

I feel time ticking away, I want to get this history into some sort of order to preserve it for whomever, in the next generation, or the next, becomes the "chosen" one, bitten by the genealogy bug. Made acquaintance this week with another cousin, a descendant of John L. Dickinson's brother, Richard. I have been seeking him for over a year, and finally had a response. He has some treasures to share as well, and I think again of how lives are entertwined like shiny and fragile threads forming a faint, almost invisible pattern over our country, and over the world.