Might they be cousins?

Many years ago I was hanging around in the Navy barracks at Treasure Island and was chatting with another sailor. I mentioned I was from Minnesota and he said he had many relatives in northern Minnesota. I said, “Where ‘bouts.” And he said, “The Motley-Pillager area.” I said, “Really, that’s where my family is from.” Sure enough, after a bit more discussion, we learned that his mother was my grandfather’s youngest sister. We were first cousins, once removed.

A couple years ago my half-sister, who lives in Oregon, started dating a guy who was also from Oregon. In their discussions, they learned that he had family from Pillager, Minnesota, also. They laughed about it and started calling each other “cousin.” Not that they thought they were actually related, but they figured if both their families were in Pillager during the same years, it is likely that they must have known each other. The town only has 469 people, according to the 2010 census. Back in 1910, it only had 252 people,[i] so it is easy to suspect that someone in one family married someone in the other. So she asked me the obvious question – are she (a Brown) and her new beau (a Haywood) related?

The family of interest is George Edgar Heywood (or Haywood) and his wife Christina Catherine Hull. It appears that George and Christina came to Minnesota from Wisconsin about 1875 and had all 10 of their children in Minnesota. Several were born in Kandiyohi County, but most were born in Cass County in Township 133 (May Township (S)). Christina died in 1901 and it appears that the family moved out to Idaho shortly thereafter. In the 1900 census, George’s sister, Delia, shows in the as a schoolteacher. In the 1905 Minnesota census, she still shows up in Pillager, but by 1910 she and, apparently, the rest of the family had moved on. Most of the Heywood family moved to Idaho, but some moved to other places.

Family locations by year.