Local attorney traces his lineage
Local attorney William Huber was inducted on April 29, into the Ohio Genealogical Society’s newest lineage Society, The Military Order of the Daughters and Sons of Ohio.
Huber had already done the research for membership in the Sons of the Union Veterans, Ohio Society of Civil War Families, The Ohio Society of Settlers and Builders, as well as the Sons of the American Revolution and Ohio Society of Mayflower Descendants among others. He has been researching his family over the past 28 years.
“You have to go back and show direct ancestry,” Huber said. In this case, it was to an Ohio resident who served in the armed forces of the United States or British Colonial Forces of the original thirteen Colonies prior to the American Revolutionary War. Silas Allen, his 11th great-grandfather had moved to Ohio after serving in the war.
Huber also had direct descent from ancestors who have served in World War II, the civil war, the war of 1812 and the American Revolutionary War.
Huber said because of the research he had already completed all he had to find was his father’s discharge papers from World War II.
“That was pretty easy for me,” Huber said. “I’ve traced direct ancestry back to the 1500s and verified.” The challenge came when he researched the German side of his family as many records were destroyed during World War II.
“They saved those records in churches, they didn’t have a public health department as we have,” Huber said. He said records in Great Britain were much easier to find. Huber has written two books about his family history and placed copies in various libraries for preservation.
“If you know where you came from, and you know why you are here and how these things, happen. I think it is very important to know,” Huber said. “You honor your ancestors, their service and everything else. You think about their struggles, and their difficulties, they crossed the sea on a sailing ship that wasn’t the safest back then and came into an unknown land and had to make do and it is sort of the same way.
Early settlers didn’t have much in the way of roads giving Huber a new appreciation for the crossstate tracks his ancestors faced.
“I had family who left North Carolina to come to Ohio in 1820 because they didn’t like the climate,” Huber said. He said they traveled by river through West Virginia all the way to the Cincinnati area and took another river to Champaign County.
His Huber ancestor who came from Germany was in Philadelphia in 1832 and moved to Ohio because they didn’t like it there, migrating to Allen County.
“They owned land in Beaver County, Pennsylvania,” Huber explained, When a payment was due the oldest son walked from Bluffton, Ohio back to Beaver County to collect it and walked back.
“People don’t realize we didn’t have roads back then,” Huber said. “I don’t think anybody today would walk that far.”
The Society was formed last year and Huber is a charter member.