If you have read my blog (which I now need to update), you know that I have been unable to trace what happened to several of the children of David and Anna Dickinson. The Frank Dickinson you mention may be their youngest son, William Francis Dickinson.

But here’s the great thing. I went to the Louisa County Iowa genweb site, since you mentioned New Boston in that county. There I found an 1885 biography of Levi Stephen, whose wife was Jane Dickinson, “Daughter of David and Anna (Gilbert) Dickinson.” The evidence was strong that David’s wife Anna was a daughter of Elisha Gilbert, but this was confirmation from an independent and contemporary source.

Plus, I now know the full story about David’s daughter Jane. Since she was in Louisa County, that adds to the probability of identifying the Frank Dickinson you mention. I just so far have found any of these people in census records.

You can tell how I spent much of yesterday. Harriet (Dickinson) Light’s son, Oliver Perry Light, i.e., Jane and Frank’s nephew, was in Louisa Co IA as a Methodist minister in 1870. I wonder if he knew and met any kin there. His youngest son was Francis Dickinson Spencer Light. One of his brothers also had a son named Francis Dickinson Light.

Do you have copies of the “Pioneer Stories” book? I would be glad to pay for you to take it to Kinko’s or Staples and have scans of the pages made and copied on a CD. That would be faster (and I hope easier) than scanning or Xeroxing each page. Please share this treasure.

I was also able, thanks to you, to correct the marriage of Elisha Searl’s brother Reuben S Searl; he married a sister of Levi Stephen, not a sister of Jane and Harriet Dickinson. The identity of this sister’s husband, Reuben L Searles, is still a puzzle.

Yours, happily,
Kathy