The one thing I knew for sure was the more family history I found, the more I knew there was more to find!

The question was asked if our ancestors came from England on the Mayflower. I answered no, “Our English ancestors sailed into Cambridge Harbor, Massachusetts in 1638, instead!” 

Finding Clara is a result of a single genealogical lead that became a family mystery in 1972. Jeri Fuller’s great-grandfather, Charles Emery Fuller, and first wife, Martha, had a daughter named Clara in 1875. She was born in Northfield, Minnesota. My mother did not know that he had been previously married, because there was no family history, stories, or photos handed down of Clara or her mother.

Jeri solved the mystery of finding Clara old school—by writing to relatives and obtaining copies of vital records. She provides intimate details of Clara’s life—where she lived, attended college, who she married, and her children—after she traveled to Northfield in 1997.

Her get-up and get-personal research method gets results. While completing Clara’s biography, she found that Charles Emery Fuller had served in the Civil War. She tells where she obtained a copy of his mustered-in and mustered-out record, and the narrative of where his regiment served.

Finding Clara reveals the discovery of numerous Fuller family connections to Northfield’s unique history. One ancestor witnessed Northfield’s famous attempted robbery of the First National Bank by Frank and Jesse James and the Younger Brothers in 1876. Some ancestors served as volunteer fire fighters for Northfield’s Hook and Ladder No. 1, and some attended either Carleton or St. Olaf College. The connections of her family to these places and events are amazing.

Jeri recounts her Fuller family history alongside America’s history from colonial New England to the 18th century in the Mid-West. She tells of how Chauncey C. Olin supported the Underground Railroad in Wisconsin. She goes on to solve seven family history mysteries. Using the strategy of her family’s naming convention, she identified her Violet Barber, who was born in 1796. Her inspiring stories of tenacity and perseverance are insightful.

Her research located her family’s American Revolutionary Soldier, who moved to Canton, New York in the early 1800s. She includes 11 generations of her Fuller family tree. The staff at the Flint Public Library in Middleton, Massachusetts, provided a map locating Thomas Fuller’s home built in 1684. These stories in Finding Clara can assist any novice or expert genealogist in finding inspiration to complete their family histories.