This photo kills two birds with one stone. First it shows you the house in Tallman that the McClains moved to from the house at 1027 Seventh Ave SE in Albany that was featured in Monday’s PotD. Second, it is the best photo (such as it is) that I have with me right now of Great Grandpa John Hammell, and I have some things to share about him.

These people are standing on the train station platform in the community of Tallman, Oregon about 1922. (Neither the community nor the train station still exists.) In the background is the house Grandpa (Arthur) McClain’s family lived in when they moved to Tallman in 1918. They lived in the house until 1947.

The people, from left, are: Mom (Florence McClain), Great Grandma (Sarah) Hammell, Uncle Barney (Bernard) McClain, Pat Hutchins (son of Bessie Hammell Hutchins, Grandma Addie’s sister), Great Grandpa John Hammell, and Aunt Betty (Sarah Elizabeth McClain).

I have several new bits of information to share with you about Great-Grandpa John Hammell:

• His father’s name was Solomon Hammell (spell “Hammell” how you wish). Solomon was born in Ohio about 1833. He could not read or write. Solomon was a farmer.
• In 1850 Solomon was living with his mother Barbara and his siblings in Knox County, Ohio. Census records indicate Barbara was born about 1815 in Ohio.
• Solomon Hammell’s mother Barbara (nee Lepley) lost her husband John Hammel just before this, between 1845 and 1850. She remarried in 1854, to a James Headington, and by 1860 they were living in Iowa. She remained there for the rest of her relatively long life.
• Solomon was the oldest of six siblings. Census data suggests that only the youngest one (another John Hammell) moved to Iowa with his mother after her remarriage. I don’t know much about the other siblings except his sister Mary Louisa Hammel. And what I know about her may help answer the question about the move to Illinois. (See below.)
• In 1857, Solomon married Sarah Harris in Knox County. Her parents were John and Mary Harris. I know almost nothing about them except their names (and not even Mary’s maiden name). According to census records Sarah was born in Ohio, as was her father. Her mother was born in Pennsylvania.
• Sometime between 1857 and 1860 Solomon and Sarah moved two states away to Winchester, IL. This may have had some connection to his sister Mary’s marriage. Mary married one Alexander Kelley, who was born in Scott County, IL, They were married in either Scott County or neighboring Morgan County just a week and a half before Great-Grandpa John was born in Scott County.
• Solomon and Sarah’s son John (Great Grandpa) was born in Winchester on 4 July 1860.
• The Hammells may have been back in Knox County by 1865 when John’s sister Mary was born. They were for certain in Knox County when the 1870 census was taken.
• In 1874 Solomon registered the birth of son Thomas Logan Hammel (known through most of his life as Logan Thomas Hammel) in Knox County.
• Sometime between 1874 and 1880 Solomon seems to have passed away and his wife Sarah married a Stephen Meredith.
• In 1880 John, Mary and Logan are living with their mother and step-father in Knox County.
• As you know, John (Great-Grandpa) married his own Sarah, Sarah Rine, on 12 July 1883 in neighboring Coshocton County, Ohio. Soon thereafter (before 1886) they moved to the vicinity of Lincoln, Nebraska where Grandma Addie Hammell and her siblings Bessie and Floyd (“Jack”) were born. John moved the family to Albany in 1890. His sister Mary married Walter Semmler, but they remained in Ohio for the rest of their lives. She passed away in 1939. Logan also remained in Ohio for the rest of his life. He married Sylvia Hardin and they had at least three children. John and Logan, at least, evidently kept in contact throughout their lives, since Logan was listed as a survivor in Great-Grandpa’s obituary. Logan passed away four years after his older brother (in 1959).

One observation about the discoveries above: The Hammells are yet one more branch of our family tree that is American back to the early 1800s at least. There are some exceptions here and there, but by and large, except for Grandma Wright, we’re almost surprisingly American. I would have expected to find a lot more immigrants in our tree in the 1800s. Dad’s oft-repeated statement (at least to Dan and me) that we are 1/4 English, 1/4 Dutch, 1/4 Scots-Irish and 1/4 Irish may be partially true in some sense, but you’d have to go back to the 1700s to find it.

Here is an updated ancestor fan chart with the ancestor information for the Hammells filled in. It doesn’t answer all the questions (even the basic ones), but it does put something in every “square” out to the fifth generation. More information may turn up, but genealogy in general becomes much more difficult before 1850. Censuses taken before 1850 did not collect the names of every enumerated person, or even any information about heads of household beyond name. And other types of records also tend to be less complete.