Isreal Alden and Hannah Johnson

The ancestral line that people are probably most interested about in my family is the one that traces us back to John Alden and Pricsilla Mullins of the Mayflower. John and Pricsilla Alden were my 10th generation great-grandparents. I have learned more about history and humanity through the genealogy of this line that I can share in my lifetime. There are thousands of people researching the Alden lines, and so I thought I would branch out and work on the wives (grandmothers).

My most recent work has been on the Hannah Johnson (1824 – 1908) line. She was married to Isreal Timothy Alden (1824 – 1892). This couple spent the latter part of their life in Iowa, and my great-grandmother, Iva Ann Kretsinger (1893 – 1967), was born in Iowa while my young great-great-grandparents Eldridge Ulysses Kretsinger (1871 – 1955) and Lottie Mae Knodle (1872 – 1954) (Hannah's grandson and his wife) were working on the Alden farm following Isreal's death.

I have written a lengthy biographical sketch about Hannah's father, Sherman Thomas Johnson (1798 – 1880) that I am reserving for publication at some point. Sherman has been a mystery for some 20 years, due to his popular last name it was unclear if he was indeed Hannah's father.

A Story of Discovery:

Enter the 1910 Federal Census. I randomly pulled up this census in front of my class (in 2011), where I was teaching how to read one. I had never looked at it before because "I knew this family and all of their records" etc. I noticed that there were two boys listed as "1st-cousin-in-laws" to Samuel Kretsinger, essentially making them the foster brothers of Eldridge.  The adopted children have never been mentioned anywhere except for the 1910 and then following 1920 census. These brothers turned out to be Johnson decendents.

These boys were the children of Cora Anna McKee (1869 – 1908) and she was the first cousin of Phoebe Ann Alden. When Cora died, her children were spread between two families of relatives in the Lincoln County, MN area. Eventually it came out that Cora's mother was Elizabeth Johnson, sister of Hannah, and they both were mentioned in various biographical sketches, and other sources. I was able to track these details back to to Sherman, and considering that Hannah's first child is Abner Sherman Alden (named after the fathers on both sides of the family) it really began to fit nicely together.

I have been agressively working with a cousin who seems to have found Sherman's father's will, and really is putting to rest some of the outstanding issues.  I hope to get to the will soon, when we get the house finished and I can spread out a bit more...