The sheriff's granddaughters

My step-grandmother's grandfather Samuel James Lowe (1798-1851), an immigrant from England, was sheriff of Cook County in the 1840s. He had two wives and thirteen children.

In the September issue of Indiana Genealogist, I tell the story of his two youngest daughters -- Mary Alice (Lowe) Amerman 1848-1943 and Kate (Lowe) Gilbert 1850-1928. They grew up in Onarga, Iroquois County, Illinois, and spent most of their adult years in and near East Chicago, Lake County, Indiana.

They were among the pioneers there: Kate's husband published the first newspaper and was the first postmaster, and was involved in a real-estate boom that somehow passed them by. Northwest Indiana was a lightly settled frontier 117 years ago, but a frontier with a difference: it was just a train ride away from Chicago's Loop.

This family has a lot more stories but they won't fit into an article!


“Pioneering in Chicago, Onarga, and Northwest Indiana: Lowe, Amerman, and Gilbert Families,” Indiana Genealogist 28 (September 2017): 5-16.

Genealogy for non-relatives

When people ask me about blogging, one point I make is that it helps to be dependable. If you can post every day fine, but if not try to be there once a week. Otherwise your reader(s) will lose touch. It's standard advice. 

But every rule has its exceptions. If you can blog as engagingly as Cynthia at ChicagoGenealogy, then I don't care. "RunKeeper to the Rescue: How I Found Mr. Janes' Grave" is her second post since April and I'm just fine with that. It's got everything: A cemetery, a story, a song, a research travelogue, technology, a town called "Onarga," and a recognition that we are related to people with whom we share no discernible blood tie.

Harold Henderson, "Genealogy for non-relatives," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 18 September 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]