Ellen Butler was born probably in the late 1840s to early 1850s in either Missouri or Iowa. She died sometime after she was enumerated in the 1880 census in Warsaw, Hancock County, Illinois. She married William Ira Sargent in 1870 in Union County, Iowa.

What I have learned from Ellen:

• Some people do not leave birth records. There’s no civil registration where and she was born, no extant family bible, no letters, and they weren’t “church people.”
• When a poor young couple in the 1880s lives in an area where they have no close kin, it can put great stress on survivors when one of them dies.
• Your grandchildren may no absolutely nothing about you.

 

My ancestor table can be viewed on my site. Ellen is my great-great-grandmother.