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Jim & Selma Burrows
David Blue, the son of Rebecca Blue, was born in about 1814 in Pennsylvania.
David Blue married a woman named Wealthy.
Wealthy was born in 1822 in Ohio.
Their children were:
We're not sure that either Abner or Etna actually are David's children, and John D.'s siblings. All we really know is that there were three families of Blues in Belle Plain in 1870: David's, John D.'s and Abner's, and that Abner, like the other two, came from Ohio. Abner is about the right age to be David's son and lived near him. He appears to have come to Iowa between 1864 and 1867. Jonh D. Blue came to Belle Plaine from Ohio on 11 November 1865, which lends some crediblity to the idea that they are related, but we have records of the adult children of a John M. Blue in the county in about 1890, and Abner could be from John M.'s side of the family.
The only record we have of Etna Blue is the record of her marriage early in 1870 to Charles A. Morton. She was married before the first census after the Blue's moved to Belle Plaine, so we have little evidence of her exact relationship to the other Blues. It is likely that she is the sister of either John D. or Abner, and quite likely both.
The 1870 census for Belle Plaine lists three Blue families, one of them twice. The two entries for J. D. Blue's family are in the notes on his family.
Blue, David 56 M Carpenter Pennsylvania
-- Wealthy 48 F Keeping house Ohio
-- David L. 23 M Laborer Ohio
-- Anna L. 16 F Ohio
Blue, Abner W. 27 M Laborer Ohio
-- Oliva A. 27 F Keeping House Ohio
-- Louisa 5 F Ohio
-- Mary 3 F Iowa
-- Bartlett 4/12 M Iowa
Although according to the Belle Plaine directory, John D. Blue was born in Mt. Vernon, Knox county, Ohio in 1844, he doesn't appear as a child in any of the Blue families listed in Knox county in the 1850 census. However, there is one Knox county Blue family in the 1840 census that doesn't appear in the 1850 census--David Blue who lived in Jackson. My current guess is that this is the same David Blue who was living in Iowa in 1870 and that he was still living in Ohio in 1850 (since his son David was born in Ohio in about 1847 and his daughter Anna was born there in about 1854), but was missed by the census takers.
There were two David Blues listed in the 1850 Ohio census, three in Indiana and one in Illinois. None of these appear to be the one who was living in Belle Plaine in 1870.
The 1880 census for John D. Blue lists no place of birth for his parents. The 1900 census for John D. Blue lists Father born PA, Mother born OH. The 1910 census for John D. Blue lists Father born OH, mother born CT.