On his birth certificate, my grandfather’s father was officially listed as “Homer L. Tedball”, age 40 from Iowa. Given those sparse details, I tried to find him by looking through census data and birth listings from the 1870’s time period. I had absolutely no luck.
However, according to the 1870 Iowa state census, a Homer S. Tidball (not “Tedball”) was born in Swan Township, Marion county, in January, 1867. This near-match was enough for me to try linking this Homer to “my” Seattle Homer, once and for all.
As it turns out, the Tidball family has quite a few followers around the country (more on that later) and I was able to connect with a few of them on the internet. One very nice woman (Jenny Lund) was able to provide me with a photo of this Iowa Tidball family. Homer is pictured in the back row, second from the left.
Homer was the fourth of nine children to Samuel Hiram Tidball and Eliza Louise (Mills). Eliza is shown seated in the middle. There are no known photos of Samuel.
According to the 1880 Iowa census, Homer was 13 years old and his siblings were listed as Willie L. (18), Cassandra (16), Fred E. (15), Finley M. (12), Nancy A. (8), Archie (6), Fannie (5) and Dickie (1).
Samuel
According to records, Samuel was born around 1833 in Holmes County, Ohio. He is listed in the 1850 and 1860 Federal Census in Holmes County, Ohio. He was also recorded in the 1880 census as a ‘skillful wall plasterer’. According to Denny Brubaker (another internet friend), he was also a school teacher. Census records also indicate that his father was born in Pennsylvania and his Mother in New York. In 1880, his Real Estate was worth $600 and his Personal Estate was worth $200. Samuel does not show up in the 1900 Federal Census, so we know he died between 1880-1900. Additional research indicates he died in 1894.
Eliza
The 1840 Federal Census records show that Eliza was born about 1837 in Wayne County, Indiana. Her family shows up in the Holmes County, Ohio in the 1850 Federal Census (she was about 13 years-old). She then shows up in the 1860 Census living in Marion County, Indiana. The 1880 census lists Eliza as a “housewife”. It also says that her Father was born in Tennessee and her Mother was born in Kentucky. In the 1900 census, she is listed as “widowed, head of household”. She was renting a house at 920 Center St. Des Moines, IA. She died in 1920.
Research indicates that Samuel and Eliza were married around 1860-1861.
I was very fortunate to stumble into this history – but was this my family or someone else’s? Not having a Delorean with a Flux Capacitor, the only way to know for sure was to create links between these two Homers.
Tracking Homer from his birth, to the point where my grandfather was born, in Seattle, WA was going to be a challenge.
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