Family History Notes and Photos by Bob Mesenbrink

William Combs was my 3g grandfather. He has many descendants and the Combs name isn't uncommon. But his origins have always been a question for me and others. He was born in Pennsylvania ca.1789, married Barbara Baum in Ross county Ohio ca. 1808, lived in Crawford county, Ohio, Buchanan county, Missouri and Madison county, Iowa, where he died in 1872. It is  common for people to trace him back to Job Combs of Shenandoah county, Virginia and Jefferson county, Tennessee. But I don't know what evidence there is for that. It seems reasonable. William claimed to have been born in Pennsylvania, not Virginia. But Shenandoah county was only 50 miles or so south of Pennsylvania, across the Maryland panhandle. Families were somewhat mobile. It is possible that Job Combs lived in Pennsylvania for a time, when William would have been born. But I haven't found evidence of Job Combs being in Pennsylvania. It is also possible that William was wrong about his birthplace. We really aren

Cyrus Van Gundy, or Vangunda as he would later be called, was my great great grandfather. Born in Ohio, he grew up in Iowa, and homesteaded in Kansas and Colorado. The lure of cheap land and the new possibilities of the frontier, led his father, John Van Gundy, to take his family from rural Sycamore, Ohio to Jasper county, Iowa, near Prairie City. And Cyrus, likewise, was moved to leave that area for northwestern Kansas, and then again for eastern Colorado, and yet again for northwestern Colorado. So when he came home for a visit to Prairie City Iowa in 1915, it was fitting that he described himself as "An Old Man Looking Toward the West" to the Prairie City newspaper. Cyrus was born February 3rd, 1835 in Crawford county, Ohio, in the part that would later become Wyandot county. His father was John, and his mother was Susannah Combs, daughter of William and Barbara Baum Combs. The Van Gundys moved with William Combs and his family to Andrew county Missouri where they lived