UPDATE Nov. 2, 2011

Today I overcame a technological problem.  I delved into the world of HTML coding and corrected a problem that had stalled my blogging progress.  Although we’re coming up on the holiday season and all the attendant activities, I hope to soon share the knowledge I gained on the July trip.  Some points were shared in the nine blog posts, but overall there is more to tell that I think will be of interest to the family and friends that want to know more. 

Finding Females

  A chronicle of how I discovered branches to the Breton tree

John and Margaret (Jean and Marguerite) Breton had six children, Jean and Rachel Mary died in infancy, and Mary Louise was blinded by scarlet fever and never married, so that Marguerite, John Walter and Sarah Elizabeth were the survivors who had families of their own. 

Marguerite was the oldest of the children being born in 1853 in St. Martin’s Parish on Guernsey.  In America she married Abram Thompson in 1877.  A child shows up in the 1880 Census as Willie B. Thompson, but no other trace of him has been found.  Maggie died in the depths of the 1885 winter in Madison, in the Dakota Territory and Abram later remarried and moved to Minnesota.  Thus it appears that that line of descendants ended with the death of Marguerite’s son, Willie B. Thompson. 

John Walter Breton was the first American-born child of John and Margaret being born in Racine, Wisconsin.  The bulk of my research has been tracking his descendants…a path that branches from his three children to the present day.  Two sons were the first to be tracked, with personal inspiration coming from his first son, Walter Sawyer Breton who I always knew as “Uncle Bud.”  Bud shared family memorabilia with me in the early 1970s.  The other brother was his half brother, Vivian Howard Breton, my grandfather.  I knew that Edith was the oldest child but did not know if she survived and married.  It wasn’t until 2008 that I began researching at the Family History Center and using their connections to Ancestry.com that I keyed in John Walter Breton in the Family Trees section.  It was there that help was received from a posting showing a picture of Leland Edwards  and another showing his grandfather’s lifetime railroad pass, the name on the pass?..... John Walter Breton!  With the help of Wanda Castoe, a volunteer at the FHC, I was able to contact the Tree’s creator and discover that Leland Edwards was the son of Edith Breton Edwards and that the postee was his granddaughter, Kristi Schertz from southern California.  Thus began follow-up effort with emails, correspondence, phone calls, and meetings with Edith’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. 

The last child born of John and Margaret was Sarah Elizabeth Breton born in 1863.  She married Uzell Sawyer, brother of Lizzie Sawyer who was John Walter’s first wife and the mother of Edith and Walter S. Breton.  Based on family notes my early charts showed her two children as Clyde and Marguerite. I knew of Clyde since his family stayed in the Morgan Hill area and he was listed in the U.S. Census’s there.  Marguerite was an unknown for years as I had no idea of how to learn if she had died, married or what her name was if she had married. 

In 2011 while again researching at the local Family History Center I looked a little further into Kristi Shertz’s Ancestry pages and saw that she had a married name for Marguerite…Purcell.  With that clue the name showed up frequently in Ancestry’s Immigration records.  Apparently they lived in Hawaii and were passengers on ships coming and going to the islands.  I had known from the Family Bible that Sarah Breton Sawyer was buried in Eva, Hawaii but didn’t know why.  From the immigration records it’s clear that Marguerite’s husband, Herbert, was an engineer at a sugar plantation there.  The ship’s records showed three children, Herbert, Louise and Marguerite.  Interestingly, Louise was born February 1^st, 1919 which was special because the ship had left San Francisco just the day before.  Her records indicate birthplace as “Born at sea.”  That must have been a challenging experience for Marguerite! 

At some point I was researching the descendants of Clyde Sawyer and knew of his two sons, Donald and Wesley.  These boys had been raised in Morgan Hill and were spoken of by Paul Ward and Lois Dickman and her father, Leland’s brother, Donald Edwards.  In 2008, I recorded the children and grandchildren of Donald, but little was known of Wesley’s descendants, if any.   

By corresponding with Laverne Sawyer in 2008, his wife, I learned that he had passed away in 2004.  Laverne was, and is, very helpful, sharing some wonderful genealogical charts that Wesley had made tracing the Sawyer side of the family back to a John Sawyer in 1590.  From that genealogical chart I saw that Wesley had had two children, Thomas and Gayle, but had no way to find them.  Then in September of 2010, Wanda at the FHC retrieved Wesley’s obituary from the Santa Cruz Sentinel that listed Thomas and Gayle with their towns they lived in.  I went to the internet and was able to find Gayle due to her more unique spelling and reached out to her for help in 2010.  She was helpful also and cooperative, supplying me with an old photo of the Breton ranch house in Florida and tantalizing me by saying she had her dad’s genealogical binders and other family materials. She sent me a handwritten chart, probably used by Wesley showing names and addresses, and spouses of his cousins, the children of Marguerite Sawyer Purcell.  Here I learned that the two daughters, Louise Purcell had married a Gentry and that Marguerite Erna Purcell had married a Campbell.  The latest date on the chart is 1975 so the information was probably current as of the late 70s or early 80s. 

Using that information I began checking Ancestry for birth, marriage and other records.  This was mostly an exercise in frustration, but I knew from their last trans-Pacific journey records that they had an address in Sacramento in the 1950s.  I was looking everywhere for Marguerite Campbell since she was the youngest and most likely to still be alive. I found a record of her death in the California Death Index in Sacramento, but there was no information about next of kin or survivors.  After getting so much help from Wesley Sawyer’s obituary I futilely searched the online records of the Sacramento Bee for more information about Marguerite.  Thinking that someone “on the ground” might have more success I contacted Bonnie Hinrichsen, my maternal cousin who lives in Sacramento.  She also could not find any newspaper obituary but suggested I contact the County Recorder for a Death Certificate.    

I resolved then to spend some money and wrote to the Sacramento County Recorder’s office for an informational death record for her. 

I was hoping that the form would list her survivors.  It did, but only showed her husband Charles A. Campbell.  So that was no help, but a bit more research did show that he’d died in Sacramento two years later.   After thinking about it for a week or two I sent off for his death certificate and got it back the following week.  It showed that his next of kin was a daughter, Patricia Nuytten.  FINALLY, a next generation name.  I found her in the Public Records Index which shows records from phone books and a variety of other places.  Tracing her through moves from California through four other addresses I was left with a 2002 address in Florida.  I then called information and asked for the phone number and found yet another address and phone number.  I called on June 2^nd, 2011 and established that her mother’s maiden name was Purcell and was delighted to learn that she was interested in helping update the chart.  The next day I sent her a Breton Descendants chart along with a relationship chart which showed we are third cousins. 

As this is written I’m awaiting updates from Tom and Gayle Sawyer regarding their families and Patricia is getting in touch with Sally Gentry, her cousin, a daughter of Louise Purcell Gentry.  I’m not sure if Herbert had any children but time will tell.  I think I see the light at the end of the John and Margaret Breton Descendants Tunnel.  

P.S.  This was written before the July trip.  Knowledge gained from that trip will be posted soon.   I'm pleased to report that answers to questions raised in earlier blogs were answered.  Stay tuned...