Chris Callais

Ancestors

Son of [private father (1950s - unknown)] and [private mother (1950s - unknown)]

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Biography

Genealogy has been a passion of mine since my teenage years. My maternal grandmother got me interested in it around the time I turned 13 and I recall pouring over microfilm/microfiche at the Salt Lake City Genealogical Library finding all sorts of information while my grandmother often came up empty-handed.

My ancestry is a typical American mish-mash…but mainly northern and Western European.

My Callais line came over from Lorraine, France in 1857 settling in Missouri. Charles and Marie Rose Callais had four sons but only the last one lived to maturity and had children. Their eldest son perished during the Civil War. This branch of my family intermarried with a family from Canton Bern, Switzerland named Messerli who also came over in 1857 and owned a farm next door to the Callais in Osage County, Missouri.

My Wolfe’s were “Pennsylvania Dutch” (also known as Germans), whose presence in the colonies dates back to the mid 1700s. On this branch there’s also some Quakers, the Griffith, Thornburg, and Hoopes families.

My Williams folks were a mix of Welsh and English who seem to have originally came ashore near Charleston, South Carolina about 1720 and made their way north and west to central Missouri by the 1830s.

My Parish family was practically a political dynasty in northeast Arkansas from the late 19th to the 21st century with two of my ancestors serving in the state legislature: John W. Parish as a representative (1881-82) and his son J. Fred Parish as a senator (1933-37). A cousin on this side also served in the Arkansas legislature, the late Rep. Tommy Dickinson (2003-08).

My Raney’s were an interesting bunch, my ancestor John R. Raney changed his name to J. Phillip Rusconi and moved from Arkansas to Kansas to evade gambling debts and charges of bigamy. Through DNA I was able to prove they were the same man, as well as prove the Rusconi father of a famous American author (still living).

My Plasters were hardy Appalachian folk, with their roots in SW Germany along the Rhine River where the surname was spelled Plästerer. Michael Plasterer came to the US at age 14 in 1742. His descendants married into families who were mostly a mix of German and English with a dash of Dutch thrown in. On this branch of my tree one of my ancestors died at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863.

My Taggarts were a mix of Scots-Irish and English, similarly to many such families who settled in the Carolina backcountry during the mid-late 1700s they’re difficult to trace back before that time. Hardy folks, they came west to Missouri during the 1830s. One especially adventurous ancestral couple on this side of my family, Richard and Molly Linville, went all the way to the Oregon Territory in 1846 following the Applegate Trail. Another ancestor on this branch of my tree was struck by lightning in 1890 but lived another 22 years (maybe it was those hardy genes!)

My Durham and Bates forebears went from Virginia to Casey County, Kentucky and then to Randolph County, Missouri. This large extended clan is known as the “David Milton Durham” family. My maternal grandfather is named for an ancestral couple: Milton Durham who married Jane Coleman in 1794. From then on “Coleman” became an oft used first name in that line.

My Kelson and Peterson folks were relatively recent Danish immigrants, arriving between 1861 and 1873. They came over as part of the Mormon Pioneer era and settled near Richfield, Utah, later moving north to Idaho and Montana. Kelson was originally Kjeldsen in Danish.

My Tarbert family were Scots who came to Pennsylvania in the mid 1700s and settled in Ohio during the early 1800s. Simple farming folk, they were strong in their Presbyterian faith. Succeeding generations married into other Scots-Irish families like McCullough, Dugan, and Knox. Not to be outdone by the Linvilles, my Tarbert folks came out to Washington while it was still a territory, arriving in the Spokane area in 1883.

My Hall line is steeped in New England colonial roots, my ancestor Rev. Willard Hall was the minister at Westford, Massachusetts for 52 years. He was also a Tory (loyalist) during the Revolution while his eldest son Willard Hall Jr was a patriot who died from smallpox during the war. There must have been some tense dinner conversations in that house! On this same branch of my tree I descend from Jonathan Bates who gave his life for the patriot cause at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

My Spencer’s are of the “Four Brothers” group, Gerard Spencer came over from England in 1635, settling first at Lynn, Massachusetts then Haddam, Connecticut. There’s no relation to Princess Diana that we know of. The Spencer’s were farmers and worked in the forests of Vermont, New York and Michigan. Eventually one branch moved out west to engage in timber work in the Libby, Montana area.

My Mitchell’s constitute another Scots branch of my tree, from Blairgowrie in Perthshire. James Frazer Mitchell came to the US in 1872 with his brother and an uncle, and married the daughter of English immigrants (the Stevens) who immigrated in 1850. One of my ancestors on this branch was orphaned in 1835 when both her parents died in the same year at a young age. She was sent to a workhouse on the other side of England and met her future husband who lived in the same city. DNA finally proved her parentage in 2019.

DNA

• Paternal relationship is confirmed by an AncestryDNA test match between Chris Callais and his father Callais-11. Their most-recent common ancestor is Callais-11. Predicted relationship from AncestryDNA: Parent, based on sharing 3488 cM across 25 segments; Confidence: Certain.

• Maternal relationship is confirmed by an AncestryDNA test match between Chris Callais and his mother Durham-4957. Their most-recent common ancestor is Durham-4957. Predicted relationship from AncestryDNA: Parent, based on sharing 3484 cM across 26 segments; Confidence: Certain.

Sources

• First-hand information. Entered by Christopher Callais at registration.