Following Collateral Lines

I wanted to do a quick post today about an exciting find I made this week and the importance of following collateral lines.

I often research collateral lines in the (usually unsuccessful) attempt to find other living descendants of the families I'm interested in.  Sometimes this takes me far far afield, but it is often very interesting.

One of those lines that has always interested me is that of the Richards family that married into my husband's Watt line.  Two sisters (Susan and Sarah Watt) married two Richards brothers (Samuel and Charles Richards).  The daughters of Susan and Samuel wrote many letters to their aunt, Laura (Watt) Braden, who is my husband's ancestor.  We have many of those letters.

I will do a more detailed post on this family at some point, but today I just want to talk about the discovery we made this week.

Briefly, Sarah (Watt) and Charles Richards had one son who lived to adulthood, Charles Russ Richards.  Charles Russ was an interesting fellow and eventually became president of Lehigh University.  Charles Russ and his wife, Alida R. Beardsley, had two children: Lenore Richards and Robert Watt Richards. 

I have been following this line in hopes of finding living descendants.  Lenore Richards did not marry.  She and her partner, Nola Treat, owned a very successful restaurant in Minneapolis called "Richards Treat."  Robert Watt Richards was a journalist living in the Washington, D.C. area.  He married and had two daughters.  One of those daughters might still be living, but I have not been successful in finding her yet. 

In the course of this research, I did a lot of reading about "Richards Treat" and discovered that Lenore and Nola had donated their papers to the Minnesota Historical Society.  Curious about what might be there, I searched the on-line information at the historical society and found that some of Charles Russ Richards' papers were part of that collection.  Among those was a booklet entitled Ancestry and Memoirs of Charles Russ Richards, 1940.  So I requested a photocopy.

I got the copy this week.  Not only does it include information on Charles Russ and his wife and children, but also his early life growing up in Tippecanoe Co., Indiana with the Richards family.  It is full of new information and clues for further research about both the Richards line and the Watt line. 

But the most exciting thing is that included in the booklet are pictures of Robert Watt and his wife, Jane Fagundus.  Robert and Jane are my husband's 3rd great grandparents.  Robert died in 1866 and Jane in 1857.  To have these pictures is really wonderful.

So follow those side lines and interesting people.  You never know when it will lead you to important discoveries and new information.

And I still hope that eventually I will find other descendants of Robert and Jane Watt.  The clues I have indicate that the family saved lots of documents and family history.  I would sure love to see some of that and share what we have.