I Resolved the Quandary of the Milstead Question
About 2 years ago, I hit a very confusing dead-end when reviewing my husband’s family tree. The handwritten notes from his mother’s family Bible had names that seemingly didn’t belong once I started putting documentation to names.
Long story, short - Nellie Hornsby married Claude Latta. Her parents were written down by her daughter-in-law as being John Hornsby and Calasted Milstead. But Nellie’s marriage documentation lists her father as WK Hornsby and I couldn’t find a Calasted Milstead in any database or record.
If you want a refresher on the full story, it’s —>
I Wandered into a Quandary
I’m determined to finish the Lincoln lineage book I’ve been working on. Yet, all weekend, I worked on one of my husband’s lines. A question was asked, a thread was pulled, and my curiosity sucked me …
After going over Nellie Hornsby’s siblings and parents (WK Hornsby and Anne Quinn from Ireland) and searching newspaper articles, I finally have an answer.
Calasted Milstead never existed.
I know - harsh statement. Impossible to prove. But in the context of the family I’m looking at, it’s true.
John and Colastie (short for Scholastique) Milstead were the parents of Sarah Milstead, who married Nellie’s older brother Samuel. However, it’s evident that Nellie spent quite a bit of time with the Milstead family as there are newspaper clippings about Nellie traveling with Sarah to visit the Milstead cousins.
And they got married around the same time.
Nellie’s mother died when she was very young. It wouldn’t be far-fetched that she fondly remembered her best friend’s parents when telling stories about her girlhood.
There is a Colastie (short for Scholastique) in my husband’s direct line, but she wasn’t a Milstead or a Hornsby. And there’s no Calasted that I’ve found in 6 plus generations - it’s a typo or mistranscription, likely based on Nellie’s daughter-in-law hearing the stories but being unfamiliar with the name - because they would never have met Nellie’s parents - W.K. Hornsby died in 1902, long before the Latta children married.
As for the Hornsbys - I’m still trying to work out W.K.’s origins. There may have been two men of the same name in southern Louisiana at that time - or they may both be him. If they’re both him, I found his father on the 1850 census in Iberville. If they’re not, sorting out which one is the one I found on the 1850 census is the next step. Unfortunately, I’m fairly certain there were two men.
So the search continues. But at least the Calasted mystery is solved.