Callin
The revised Callin Family History is where I focused most of my efforts from 2015 to 2022. I started with James Callin, my 5x-great grandfather, and traced as many of his descendants as I could using Ancestry’s World Deluxe membership (which includes partial access to Newspapers.com and Fold3). If you click on his name, you will find yourself on his WikiTree profile - and the green “SHOW DESCENDANTS” button will display the top three or four generations.
Some other significant surnames:
Montgomery - two granddaughters of James Callin married brothers named Montgomery, and moved to Fulton County, Indiana.
Davidson - Sarah, one of the Montgomery daughters married Henry Davidson (28 May 1818 - 19 Feb 1894), and they moved their large family to Oregon in 1852. (That’s right - they took the Oregon Trail!)
Scott - Sarah Callin, another granddaughter of James married and moved to Winnebago County, Illinois, leaving a large number of Scott descendants there.
Campbell - Granddaughter Ann Callin married Henry Campbell, and their children settled in Missouri, Texas, and California.
Ferguson - Eliza Callin married James Ferguson and their family moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana. Dozens of their Ferguson and McNabb descendants remained in Fort Wayne and Auburn, and some moved to Michigan.
All of the families mentioned above are documented in my book, The Callin Family History - links to that book and others, including the republished 1911 version, can be found at this link.
Callen
I am convinced that James Callin is somehow related to Patrick Callen, whose family is documented in The Callen Chronicles, published in 1990 by Edna Callen MacNellis and her associated researchers. We have some compelling DNA connections and stories shared between the two families, as well as a tantalizing grave site in Muscatine County, Iowa (see below) that seems to prove that there is some kind of connection - but I haven’t found any documentary evidence. Yet.
Let me know if you think you have any clues - and if you want regular updates, be sure to subscribe to the blog:
Ohio and Kentucky
My grandfather, Robert T (Bob) Callin, was born in Ohio, and the four generations before him lived in either the Fostoria area, near Bowling Green, or in Ashland and Richland counties.
If you read James Callin’s WikiTree profile, you can see the evidence I’ve gathered suggesting that he did not die in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, but likely moved to Kentucky sometime after the conclusion of the Revolutionary War. There are dozens of people recorded with various spellings of the surname Callin or Callen in Mason, Campbell, and Kenton Counties in Kentucky.
I think I will need to start a One-Name Study if I’m ever going to figure out whether these Kentucky Callen families are related to my Pennsylvania/Ohio Callin family.
Iowa
Two of James Callin’s grandsons, Hugh and Alec (or Alexander) settled in Iowa around 1840. I’ve traced two of Hugh’s daughters and their descendants, but I don’t know whether he had sons. Until someone descended from either Hugh or Alec does DNA testing, and comes looking for them, I am at a brick wall with their branches.
But I do know that their mother, Mary Callin, is buried in Muscatine County, Iowa, alongside Patrick Callen’s grandson, Callin Rayburn.