Genealogy

I have been interested in genealogy for a long time. From when I first had access to the Internet and first hosted my own genealogy website in 1992, I have continued to learn about new ways to search information, as well as becoming all too aware of how much disreputable information is purveyed through genealogical webpages. I have used a variety of genealogy software tools, although I now use the very powerful Reunion for Macintosh. In my genealogical research I have not only endeavored to ensure that my data are documented, but situated within an understanding of wider social histories influencing the areas in question. None of the people in my ancestry are famous or notable persons, however, they have been part and parcel of the American experiment for nearly 350 years. I have heard it argued that it is a uniquely American thing to be interested in genealogy in the way in which we study it. American interest in genealogy is seen to stem from a need to somehow reconnect with what is perceived as a lost past, an unknown and often imagined continuity to that which is seen as holding the key to understanding our inner selves. While I eschew this essentialist position and see Americans rather negotiating their identities by actively choosing who they want to become, sometimes drawing on aspects of their ancestry and at other times distancing themselves from the same, I nonetheless am fascinated to know where my ancestors came from and what role they played in the social forces that have shaped the world in which we live. The data presented below are broken up by the branches of the family I have created for analytical purposes.

Casad-Cossart  |  Hauck  |  Cormack  |  Mottier  |  Others
Family Trees and Reports (Ancestors and Descendants)

Casad-Cossart

CASAD is a very early Americanization of the French COSSART. I have the CASAD-COSSART lineage traced back to Jacques COSSART who was born in Liège, Belgium in 1595. A large number of Cossarts are supposedly to be found in historical records from the regions of Picardie and Normandy, France. However, some evidence I have reviewed suggests that the Cossarts of my ancestry are not likely to be related to these French families. An impression prevails, however, among the Cossarts of Leyden, that Rouen (Normandy) was the birth place of the father of Jacques. The records, however, of the Cossart family of Rouen during that period do not record any such emigration. Another story ascribes their place of origin to the region of Picardie. Other sources claim that La Rochelle, further south in France, is the homeland of the Cossarts.

Jacques COSSART's son, also Jacques COSSART, was born 1639 in Leiden. In 1656 the family shows up at a Walloon church in Rhineland-Pfaltz (Palatinate), where he married Lea Villeman (1656) and three years later moved back to Leiden, Holland (1659). Shortly there after the Cossart family sailed aboard the Dutch ship Pumerlander Kerk (1662) from Amsterdam, arriving in what is now New York on 18 February 1663. In 1673, Jacques moved from Manhattan to a farm in the Dutch area of New York called Bushwick.

Jacques' son, Anthony Cossart, was born in 1673 in New York and married Elizabeth Tymensen Valentine. Their son Jacob Cossart was born 1701 in Bushwick and married Anna Cox. Their son, Anthony Cossart II, was born between 1733-35 in Somerset County, New Jersey. Anthony was a Revolutionary War soldier (the name spelled Corsat and Corsort on archives). He married Catherine Coon in Somerset County, New Jersey. Their children were the first to use name CASAD. Their son, Thomas Casad, is my direct ancestor. According to an autobiography by a daughter of Thomas Casad, Lydia Casad-Cox-Moore-Sexton, it was at this time that the spelling of their surname was changed to CASAD. It is reported that Thomas and his brothers Jacob and Aaron changed the spelling to Casad, while Samuel, the other brother, took the spelling COSAD which is now spelled COZAD by many descendants. There is much more to tell, but these early ancestors set the stage for the rest of us.

Anyone who is interested in the CASAD, COSSART, COZAD or any other variant spelled families is encouraged to contact me. I have also begun to discover that there are some unrelated variants of the Casad name. I have been told by numerous people that the name Casad, or spelled Kasad, is not an uncommon Farsi (Persian, Iranian) name. However, I have not been able to find much information on it, although it does seem to be a known last name is Bahasa Indonesia, the national language of Indonesia. I have also found that the Tigrinya word for "neck" is pronounced the same as our last name. A final interesting similarity is the word Khazâd, the Dwarvish (Khuzdul) word for Dwarves in Tolkien's Middle Earth, adapted into the ancient Elvish tongue Quenya as Casar, which is also phonetically similar to our last name.

Hauck

When the Casads arrived in Escondido, California, they encountered a rural area populated by first- and second- generation immigrants from a variety of homelands. My grandfather married Alice CHRISTENSON, the daughter of Andy Albert CHRISTENSON, whose parents came from Denmark, and Katie HAUCK, whose parents were among the first settlers in Escondido, California. The HAUCK family is among a group of Germans who had been living in Russia. I have been able to determine that the HAUCK family was living in Kassel, in the Ukraine, a village founded in 1808 as part of the Glückstal colonies, in the Oblast of Odessa, known today as Veliko-Komarovka. The Haucks were among the large number of Germans in Russia who had been settled there under the generous 1763 manifesto of Catherine the Great of Russia which sought to settle and cultivate the newly gained land. Sometime between 1888 and 1892, due to changes in Russian policies towards the German immigrants, the Hauck family immigrated to Escondido, via the Dakota Territories. These Danish and Germans from Russia branches of my ancestry are the ones that are the least well documented and therefore, the ones on which I am most focused at present.

Cormack

I am also doing research on my mother's father's family. One line of my family's origin is from Scotland. My mother, whose maiden name is Susan CORMACK, is descended from the Cormack family of Steven's Point, Wisconsin, who arrived there shortly after 1885 from Roseneath, Alnwick Township, Northumberland County, Ontario (Canada). After moving to Wisconsin, my great-grandfather married a daughter of the prominent GAGNON family, themselves Québécois immigrants from Canada. Before the CORMACK family immigrated from Scotland, sometime between 1817 and 1840, they most likely hailed from the eastern shore of Loch Lomond, near the modern town of Drymen in Sterlingshire, Scotland. Cormack is regarded as a sept (family) of the Scottish Clan Buchanan and although direct blood links may not have existed, they most certainly shared a geographical proximity. I have developed a pride of our Scottish heritage and therefore identify quite closely with it. I wear my Buchanan kilt anytime that I have excuse and occasion to do so, such as Tartan Day (April 6) and to local Scottish Highland Games, not to mention for our wedding.

Mottier

I recently discovered a significant amount of information about my maternal great-grandmother's family (MOTTIER), which I have been able to trace back to the 16th century in the French-speaking canton of Vaud in Switzerland. The Mottier and Siebenthal families are credited in a book entitled Our Native Fruit for having been among those who started the grape wine industry in the United States. The Siebenthal and DuFour families are from the town of Montreux, on the east shore of Lake Geneva and many settled in the town of Vevay, in Switzerland County, Indiana in 1806.

Others

Additionally, I have added a separate family tree for the ancestors of my wife, Michelle CASAD, the JOHNSONs and GRADYs. The GRADY family can be traced back to Kiltimagh, County Mayo, Ireland. This tree also includes information about members of my wife's mother's family, the OTTOBONI and GIOVANNETTI families, whose ancestors hailed from the town of Varese Ligure in the hills near Genoa, Italy.

Thanks for visiting and as I add to my research this site will inevitably continue to grow! Please contact me if I can help you or if you think you have anything of interest for me.

Family Trees and Reports:

InterneTree lets you view an actual box-style tree on the Internet! See the quick instructions to learn the best ways to locate information in the tree.

Genealogy Reports:

Ancestors of Andrew Lee Casad (Ahnentafel)
Ancestors of Michelle Eileen Johnson (Ahnentafel)

Outline Descendant Tree: Descendants of Jacques Cossart
Outline Descendant Tree: Descendants of Jaqemon Mottier