Last time I mentioned that looking for the collateral relatives or those in the FAN Club (friends, associates, neighbors) of your ancestor can be quite revealing. Let’s look at an example of what I mean.

Throughout this research on S.C. Dimick, I realized that his biographical sketch mentioned that they lived in Toledo a few years before going to Wood County. Toledo is just a county to the north, not very far away from where Samuel finally settled near Bowling Green. Looking at city directories for Toledo, I discovered that he worked for “H. M. Clark & Co.” who were manufacturers of tin and “Jappaned Ware.” Basically they made metal plates that were covered in enamel and painted. Here are some examples of “Jappaned Ware”:

I’m going to be honest here. It took me a while to look for a county history entry for H. M. Clark. But when I finally got smart and started researching him and his company. I discovered an amazing county history entry, in a county history in … South Dakota! Through the power of internet searching I found it in South Dakota. I would never in a million years thought to have looked there, so I’m ever-thankful for the technology we have today to bring these disparate sources right into our homes and computers.

The following table shows the key datapoints from each biographical sketch:

Samuel Cook Dimick and H. M. Clark lived nearly parallel lives. And it seems most likely that Samuel went to Toledo to work with Clark in his can manufacturing business.

The lesson I learned and I hope to share with you is to research the FAN club, those people living around and beside our ancestors. They might reveal important information on your ancestor.