16 May 2006

Whew! I am going to try explain how this one unfolds.

Roswell GOINS, according to the 1860 Census for Belmont County, Ohio was six years old. In the 1870 Census for Kalamazoo County, Michigan, he is naturally sixteen because the U.S. census occurs every ten years.

Ross, as he is documented on Ancestry.com, is enumerated with his parents Michael and Verlinda GOINS, his brother Benjamin Stewart and his brother-in-law Gabriel GREEN who married Roswell's sister Emily GOINS. It is 1880 or there about and time for another U.S. Census. I find everyone mentioned above with the exception of Roswell.

I looked high, low and sometimes in between to find Roswell. I was so frustrated by this search that I moved on to the next set of GOINS family members. I followed some of the GOINS' as they made their way from Belmont County through Coshocton to Stark. I hit a nice deposit of GOINS' in Canton, Ohio. I am currently working to get as much information as I can from the resources that have identified the relatives in them. One of these resources had an abstract of an obituary for James R. GOINS "from" Pennsylvania. It never said "born" in Pennsylvania just "from". Well, the surname looked like it might work but the Pennsylvania part really made me seriously doubt any relation between what I had found and this person. Nevertheless I took a chance and ordered his obituary from Stark County. I get it. I read the information and I am disappointed. I put it to the side as it might be useful in the future. I focused in the other GOINS' in Stark County but something kept nagging me about this James R. GOINS.

Furthermore, I thought I misplaced the obituary so I ordered it a second time. I read it a second time and it reveals what it did the first time: nothing! So again I focus like a laser on the other GOINS' in Stark County.I am just now really getting good information like death certificates and obituaries which tells me who is related to whom and how.

While I am waiting (the information trickles in at a snails pace) I decided to do some reinforcement of the information I had a for a couple of years; for example, I wanted to find an obituary for great Uncle Gus in Ohio. The last ( written word) I know of him is his appearance in Luella HACKLEY's, his sister's, obituary in the Columbus Dispatch circa 1950. Apparently Gus was living close or in Xenia, Ohio with his sister as the obituary says; but obituaries can sometimes, as I have found out, leave more questions than provide answers. I was doing some searches on Gus and I found out that he has a draft card for World War I along with his cousin James Fred[erick] GOINS. Stay with me. Remember this stared out with the subject of James Roswell GOINS and my inability to find him. While I was doing multiple searches of great Uncle Gus, something on Ancestry.com suggested that Augustus [Gus] GOINS had some association with James R[oswell] GOINS.

This was close to an Ah-ha! moment. After I finished my exhaustive search on Gus( still no obit--update, I found it), I turned my attention to James R. GOINS. Yes, it is the same James R. GOINS whose obituary I ordered twice and put to the side because I felt he wasn't related. As it turns out, James R. GOINS is the same Roswell for which I have been looking. He is Robert's, Walker's, Riley's, Emily's, Benjamin Stewart's, and Michael's (the second one in the family) youngest brother and Augustus' youngest uncle. He was close to 6 in the 1860 Belmont County, Ohio Census. He was about 16 in the 1870 Kalamazoo County, Michigan Census. He is about 26 and listed as R. James GOINS in the 1880 Beaver County, Pennsylvania Census. His wife is Elizabeth and they have a very young daughter Gertrude. I found him with his family in the 1910 Stark County, Ohio census at or about the age of 56. It is the Roswell in the 1860 Census for Belmont County that I could or would think I would ever find. I had his obit in my possession all the while I was searching for him. So he went to Michigan with his parents between 1860 and 1870. He moved to Pennsylvania in time to be counted in the 1880 Beaver County census. He returns to Ohio as he is enumerated (that is what I have found so far) in the 1910 Census for Stark County.

In the Evening Independent, Monday, 23 December, 1912 page 1

"James R. GOINS. aged 59 years, died at his home, 104 West Main street, Saturday evening at 7 o'clock of congestion of the brain. He was survived by a widow and one daughter Gertrude who lives at home. The funeral will be held from the residence Tuesday afternoon at 1:30 o'clock. The Rev. Samuel Ward, rector of St. Timothy's church officiating. Interment will be made in the Massillon cemetery."