The Family of Bridget Smith
Vallender Family (1st 2nd & 3rd Generation)
The "rest of the story"
Bridget married William Vallender around 1865. Their first child Frank was born a year later, and Catherine, their youngest daughter, was born in either 1868 or 1869. In the 1870 census their daughter, Catherine, was listed as "Mary". (More)
Esser Family (2nd & 3rd Generation)
The Esser Genealogy
Our link into this family is through Catherine Vallender (see graph - left). While Frank and Catherine had other brothers and sisters, they are the only ones whose mother was Irish John Smith's sister, Bridget Smith. (More)
Genealogy 101
The Search for Bridget Smith
For almost 5 years you have read many articles about our family on this website. Thanks to contributions from family members our history is being recorded for future generations. Some of you have asked how we find so much information about our family. Interviewing your family is the best and easiest way to fill in missing information. When oral history tells an incomplete story then you must research other sources to fill in these gaps.
Genealogy study is not a linear path, and more times than not you will hit a roadblock or spend too much time exploring families with no relation to your own. Sometimes the truth is in ‘plain sight’, and it is easy to get sidetracked by what appears to be true. We experienced the same obstacles when connecting the dots with Bridget Smith’s family line. Bridget Smith was “Irish” John Smith’s sister.
Years ago Frank Smith told Terry Smith that Bridget married and raised a family in Wisconsin. However, Frank thought this family moved to northern Wisconsin, Michigan or Minnesota. We did see Bridget’s name listed in the 1850 US Census; however, we saw no traces of her after that time. Her family history faded from memory, and her story was not passed down to our generation.
Several weeks ago we saw the following odd news item in an old Madison, Wisconsin, newspaper.
This family name, Vetter, was unfamiliar to us. They were not connected to the McPhillips family. There was only one John Smith living in Brule County who was a Civil War veteran. Obviously this woman thought she had a close relationship with “Irish” John when she identified him as her “grand uncle”. By the way a “grand uncle” means “great uncle”.
Fortunately, this news item provided clues for our research. According to this article Mr. and Mrs. Vetter had a son named “Jimmie”. Another clue suggests this couple had been married for five years. With this information in mind we looked at the 1930 US Census for Madison, Wisconsin, which provided a name for this woman – Marie.
Next we researched 1923 Madison, Wisconsin, news articles to see if we could find one for Earl and Marie Vetter. After all, this was the year Earl and Marie were married. We found the following article, which identified Marie’s maiden name as “Vollender”.
Further research revealed the actual family surname as ‘Vallender’ and not ‘Vollender’. Our interest was piqued. Next we looked at the 1920 US Census to see if there was an entry for Marie Vallender. One census record showed a family headed by Sadie (Macken) Vallender. Her mother, Sarah Macken, lived with them. Sarah Macken was born in 1838 somewhere in Ireland.
This is where our research detoured. Sarah Macken married an Irish immigrant named Hugh Macken. Our research indicated their daughter, Sadie Macken, married Frank Vallender sometime around 1892. The Vallender family had been living in Madison, Wisconsin, for a very long time. So we looked at the 1880 US Census and found a census record containing Frank’s name. Census records do indicate your ancestry. In this case, Frank’s ancestry shows his father and mother were both born in Prussia. So now we concentrated on Sarah and Hugh Macken as our link with the Smith family. After all, we do not have any German heritage in the Smith line.
Sarah Macken was born the same year as Bridget Smith. Was Sarah our elusive Bridget? We requested a death certificate from the Wisconsin Historical Society for Sarah. According to her death record, Sarah Macken’s father was Patrick Donnelly. Mother’s name is not listed. At this point we thought “Irish” John Smith’s relationship to the Vallender family was much further back than ‘Grand Uncle’ would suggest. The connecting points were not clear so we put this research aside. Perhaps Macken was a variation for McCanna, McCann, McKenna or McCannon. McCannon is a surname associated with the McPhillips family.
A week ago we saw Peter Smith’s obituary inside a Madison, Wisconsin, newspaper. Peter was “Irish” John and Susan Smith’s oldest child. One line intrigued us. It says Father Joseph Esser celebrated requiem mass for his cousin. ‘Esser’ is a surname not associated with the McPhillips family either. So how is Father Joseph related to the “Irish” John Smith family?
By reading Peter’s obituary we discover several facts about Father Esser. First, he is living in Danvers, Minnesota, serving as priest. Although he lives in Minnesota, Father Joe lived in Madison at one time. There were several ‘Joseph Esser’ census entries, so we needed to find the right family. The next clue came from a 1928 news item, which we found in a Wisconsin newspaper.
Father Joseph had a brother and sister. The brother’s name began with ‘J’ and the sister’s name was ‘Marion’. The 1920 US Census for Wisconsin (Dane County) showed the following record, which included Joseph, Marion and a son named Jacob (“J”). The mother’s name is Katherine M. Esser, widow. The 1910 census record shows the father’s name as ‘Frank Esser’.
Now you may be wondering how this family fits in with our own. With further research we found an online family chart for the Esser family. Katherine Esser’s maiden name was ‘Vallender’. Do you recall why we discounted this surname earlier? The 1880 census displayed earlier shows two siblings – Frank and Catherine Vallender. We discussed Frank Vallender’s link earlier but discounted it. We got detoured because the 1880 census said Frank and Catherine’s parents were Prussian. Confusing right? However, the online family chart showed Frank and Catherine’s parents as William Vallender and Bridget Smith. We think Bridget died young and William remarried a Prussian immigrant. We believe that explains what you see in the 1880 census.
Since we now know the father’s name we were able to find what we believe to be the correct 1870 US census record for William and Bridget Vallender. In this census record the mother’s name is shown as ‘Theresa’ and indicates the mother was born in Ireland. It was not unusual for 19th century women named ‘Bridget’ taking on a new name due to its bad connotation. A nickname for Bridget is ‘Biddy’ and no woman wanted to be known as an old biddy! Katherine M. Vallender may have been known by her middle name, Mary. Son, Frank, is listed too.
You may know something more about these families. If so, please let us know. Our email addresses are as follows:
Terry Smith twsmith@irishjohnsmith.com
Tim Smith tfsmith@irishjohnsmith.com