52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #21 ~ Daniel Zaugg

Written for Amy Johnson Crow's Challenge 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. (click on the icon in the sidebar for details at Amy's blog) 

Recently on Facebook there was a conversation about someone ending up researching “ …the 2nd wife of the husband of my 1st cousin 4x removed.”   I replied that I had recently had an inquiry about someone in my tree and when I asked Ancestry to calculate the relationship it got - "grand nephew of wife of 2nd cousin 3x removed."  Someone else commented “Want to know who the brother in law of the grandfather of my uncle’s wife's first husband is?”  

In my search for Daniel Zaugg, I ended up going down a similar path and found something in a surprising place.

First just the facts:

Name: Daniel Zaugg
Born: 01 Dec 1836, Eggiwil, Bern, Switzerland
Married: Elizabeth Shifferly, 04 Apr 1864,Wayne County, Ohio
Died: Most probably in Adams County, Indiana sometime before his father's will was signed on 19 Oct 1870




Daniel has been rather elusive in terms of pinning him down in any particular place.  I do know that he married in Wayne Co, Ohio in 1864 as we see in this marriage record (Daniel & Elizabeth are shown on the bottom left):

In spite of that, I don't readily find him in the 1860 census in that area.  He is not living with his parent and his 2 younger siblings.  

While I still haven't pinned down his specific whereabouts, I did find something on my recent trip to Indianapolis that is in agreement with the page from the Zaugg book.  I only found it because I tend to look at those "barely connected" people. 

I was looking in the index of Standard History of Adams and Wells Counties Indiana vol II. I didn’t expect to find Daniel, but I did know that his wife had re-married and her second husband was a Civil War veteran.  I thought someone like that might be mentioned so looked for “Stepler.”  I didn’t find an entry for John but did find one for William so I took a quick look.  And there, in an entry for my 1^st cousin 4 times removed’s wife’s second husband’s son I found a mention of Daniel Zaugg.  In the part of the article about William’s father John we read, “He married Mrs. Elizabeth (Shifferley) Zaugg, who was born in Wayne County, Ohio.  She was the widow of Daniel Zaugg, who died in early life, leaving her with three children, Phillip, Lucy and Emma.”

 Certainly not earth-shattering, but it was a fun discovery at the end of my trip.