A VAN SCYOC : MYSTERY MAN

His name may be Ashben, Ashber, Ashbel, Ashbin, or something similar.  Early records show writing that can be interpreted all four ways.  Other researchers have labeled him "Asbury" but without clear reason other than a confusion of this man with another group of a similar name who crossed paths in northern Missouri ca 1850.

His last name can be spelled in so many ways it can be hard to find him and harder to prove a connection. Like others with the last name - even the records of the same area can show great variation from decade to decade. Worse records of the same family can reveal different spellings and variations making searching a headache at times.

Contact with historians and researchers has indicated he was no doubt a very early pioneer in the Michigan and Iowa areas.  It has even been theorized he may have come into the region of Michigan-Wisconsin when it was a combined territory.  

There are people of the name in those regions of Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa providing some validity, if no clear proof, of such a connection.  Some photographs, however, might indicate familial connection where no proof exists. The resemblance in one Iowa case appears quite strong.

He married in northern Missouri the daughter of a widow also going through Missouri, and Iowa, Sarah Ann Farley.  

He mysteriously dies or disappears in Iowa very late 1859 or early 1860.  I say mysteriously because I suspect there is a story here about his death which has been purposefully hidden for reasons unknown. No grave, no death story, nothing  apparently remains explaining the circumstances which left his children fatherless and his wife pregnant with a last Van Scyoc child. Nothing explains how the wife knew her husband was dead and  her need to remarry in the summer of 1860.

Family line connections have been made based on the residence in Iowa of sisters (cousins?) of the man (census records).  These sisters show a clearer familial connection based on location of marriages and census links. Once links are made to a particular line of enough age in this family name of Van Scyoc, the trail is very straight and well documented back to the early 1600's in New York and New England and further back in the Netherlands.

Names associated: Mustard, Keeler, Oakley

Location: Fremont Co., IA