Journey to His Past

NELSON (CORCORAN), Helen E. of Portage

Helen was called home to be with the Lord, Friday, January 13, 2012, after an extended battle with cancer.  Born in Grand Rapids to Bertrand and Leona Corcoran on September 20, 1929, she was married to Jack Nelson from August of 1951, until his death in 2007.  The mother of Scot, Kim, Mark, Todd, and Krystin (Scholten).  Helen had 13 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren.  She was a graduate of St. Mary's Nursing School in Grand Rapids, and subsequently had successful careers in nursing, real estate and as part of the family business in Kalamazoo.  A funeral mass was held at 1:30 PM, Wednesday, at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church, 1150 W. Centre Ave. with a luncheon immediately following at Helen's home, 1423 Schuring Rd.  The family requests that memorials in her name be made to St. Catherine of Sienna, 1150 W. Centre, Portage, MI 49024.  Arrangements by Langeland Family Funeral Homes, Westside Chapel, 3926 South 9th Street.  www.langelands.com


Helen Corcoran Nelson is Kirk's aunt and godmother.

FACT	DATE	PLACE OF RESIDENCE	ENUMERATION DISTRICT/PAGE ID./DWELLING
Birth	1903	Chicago, Cook, Illinois, United States
Census	1910	Monroe, Newaygo, Michigan, United States	113/2B/22
Census	1920	Grand Rapids, Kent, Michigan, United States	82/3B/63
Census	1930	Grand Rapids, Kent, Michigan, United States	79/7A/81
Census	1940	Grand Rapids, Kent, Michigan, United States	86-105/7A/124
Death	1959	Elk Rapids, Antrim, Michigan, United States

The Maasdam surname can be traced back to the middle of the 17th century in the Netherlands.  Maasdam means the dam in the river Maas.  It comes from the village of Maasdam in the Hoekse Waard(island formed by polders) polder (part of land below sea level that is surrounded by dykes) in the Province of South Holland.

Some of the Maasdam family settled in Owasco, Cayuga, New York, immigrating in the mid 1800's.  Jaapje Maasdam, who married Pieter Luijendijk, immigrated in 1849 to Owasco.  From here Pieter and Jaapje moved to the Grand Rapids, Michigan area.  Jaapje's brother, Johannes, stayed in the Owasco area and many Maasdam/Marsden live there today.

Kirk's Maasdam ancestry is:

• Kirk
• His Dad
• Peter Leyn Dyke (1894-1991)
• Cornelius Luyendyk (1859-1900)
• Jaapje Maasdam Luijendijk (1823-1900)
• Bastiaan Maasdam (1786-1843)
• Cornelis Maasdam (1755-1794)
• Gerrit Maasdam (1708-1764)
• Hendrik Gerrits Maasdam (1675-1736)
• Gerrit Pieters Maasdam (1624-1683)
• Pieter Aryens Maasdam (1600-)
• Arien Lenertszn Maasdam (1565-1644)
• Lenert Janszoon (1530-1600)
• Jan

For more information on the Maasdam family check out Tom deMeijer's website, The Maasdam Family.

Today the United States is celebrating Independence Day and I thought it would be fitting to showcase a revolutionary war soldier:  Andrew Dollaway.

Kirk's 4x great grandfather, Andrew Dollaway, was a soldier in the Revolutionary War.  Kirk has always enjoyed the history of that time period so I decided to dig a little deeper and see what I could find. 

I found Andrew Dollaway on the New York in the Revolution-New York Line, Fourth Regiment List, online.  Next, I went to my favorite local library-Helen Warner Branch of Willard Library and found "Abstract of Revolutionary War Pension Files, Volume 1: A-E.  Andrew Dollaway was found on page 996.


It stated:

DOLLAWAY, Andrew, Hannah, W16238, NY Line, sol appl 1 Mar 1819 Dutchess Cty Ny a res of Fishkill NY, in 1820 sol was aged 58 with a wife aged 55 and a daughter aged 13 and a son aged 9, sol d 27 May 1826, wid appl 31 Oct 1839 Dutchess Cty Ny age 71 on 4 Dec 1838, sol had m Hannah Van Amburgh 4 Nov 1783, wid was b  in Amsterdam Holland, children shown were:  William b 8 Nov 1785, Elisabeth b 20 mar 1788, Maryan b 15 Apr 1790, Sary b 11 Aug 1790 and d in Oct 1793, 3 or 4 births were illegible, Carlain b 14 Jan 1807 and Isaac b 29 Nov 1810

This application was a wealth of information.  It gave me Andrew's death date.  It provided his wife's maiden name, birthdate and birthplace.  It shows the names of their children with birth dates.  I was happy because it gave me enough information to research the family further.  Kirk's 3x great grandfather is the Isaac mentioned above.

The last thing I did was to check Heritage Quest, which I was able to access from my home with my library card number.  I found his pension file there.  I transcribed the 12 page document to make it easier to read.  Some of the information provided had to do with his service record and pay.  I will be sharing more in future posts. 

I found that Andrew did not own property and had to list his personal estate.  Imagine having to do this today.  It would take me quite awhile to count the things in my kitchen let alone the whole house.  This was the inventory provided: