Sorting it All Out

 

Sometimes, names and dates and family recollections get so scrambled in a researcher's mind that the best way to sort it all out is to use the same diagramming tools we've become familiar with in laying out a family pedigree chart. With that in mind—and reviewing what has become a dizzying array of Rinehart relatives in the Howard Leckey book, The Tenmile Country and Its Pioneer Families—I decided now would be the best time to pull out that Ancestry ProTools option, their "Networks" beta program. 

I set up a network within my mother-in-law's family tree, linked to her third great-grandfather, Simon Rinehart, and called the file what it is: "Rinehart Families in Greene County, Pennsylvania, and Perry County, Ohio." From that point, I'll pull out the Leckey tome and begin with the earliest Rinehart settler the author named, Johan Thomas Reinhart, and work my way through his extended family as they moved from their original landing place in Philadelphia, to a supposed residential detour in Frederick County, Maryland, and then, presumably, onward to Greene County Pennsylvania.

Yes, that does seem like an enormous amount of work, just to find any possible connection to our Simon Rinehart. Yet, I cannot express how frustrating it has been to find family trees posted online, asserting that our Simon in Perry County, Ohio, was actually the one who died in Greene County—or the Thomas Rinehart, whom I have listed from court documents as Simon's son, being linked to a different Rinehart parent, back in Pennsylvania.

They are all cousins of some sort, yes. But how close or how distant may make a difference in whether their descendants show up as DNA matches in my husband's genetic genealogy accounts. I'm beginning to wonder if there were gaps in the Rinehart story presented in the Leckey narrative. Or if it were merely coincidence that Simon's daughter Martha ended up marrying a man in Greene County and staying there the rest of her life. Perhaps Simon's family had originated somewhere else. 

Back to TenMile Country Again

 

The Rinehart line from Greene County, Pennsylvania, is one of my mother-in-law's family lines that I have been working on for a very long time. Given that there was more than one Rinehart claiming the given name Simon, I thought I'd pull up an old book which I hadn't checked for quite some time: Howard Leckey's The Tenmile Country and Its Pioneer Families. 

Though it's an old tome, don't think you can peruse its nearly seven hundred pages online anywhere (although I did manage to stumble upon one resource which, at least today, does share the original, albeit unwieldy, version). First written as a series of newspaper articles, the compilation of which was published in book form in 1950, it has been reprinted in 1977, and then again in 2005. Trying to find a decently priced copy is no easy feat; I've seen offers upwards of seventy dollars, though I got lucky during an in-person Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy winter session, years ago, and found a copy on sale for less than half that price.

Needless to say, I prize my copy, and have consulted it often. In this month's Rinehart review, however, finding the right Simon Rinehart has become the elusive quest. Though there are several Rineharts listed in the book by that name, none removed from Greene County, Pennsylvania, to Perry County, Ohio. All can be traced to other families remaining in Pennsylvania.

I thought I'd get creative in my search this time, and looked for the surnames which married in to this Ohio Rinehart line. The closest I came to finding any results was to search for the Fordyce surname, and keep an eye out for the husband of Simon's daughter Martha. I found her in the Leckey book, alright: listed as "Martha R......" with those repeating dots signifying an unknown maiden name for Jacob Fordyce's bride.

Of course, we already know who Martha R. was, but that is only thanks to looking at this family history puzzle from the other side of the story. But finding mention of any of her siblings, back in Greene County, or any connection to the rest of her Rinehart kin, is missing from that almost-seven-hundred page tome. If we are to find any further mention of Simon Rinehart from his earlier days, we are going to have to find that from some other source. 

Thomas Rinehart, Take Two—And Simon, Too

 

It is evident, from the material I recently unearthed from a dusty box of old files, that there were two individuals linked to that Rinehart family I've been researching from Greene County, Pennsylvania, and that one of them, named Thomas, may have been confused for the other. Once again, those many Rinehart namesakes over the generations warn me to tread carefully as I seek information on my mother-in-law's own line.

Right now, we've been exploring the children named in the lawsuit disputing the validity of Simon Rinehart's will. Simon had died in 1853, leaving a sparsely-worded will which, bestowing all his earthly possessions to his beloved—though unnamed—wife, essentially aced out all the children from Simon's deceased first wife from what might otherwise legally have been their inheritance along with the children of his second wife.

Among those children of Simon's first wife was a son named Thomas. While I can find someone named Thomas Rinehart in the census records for Perry County, Ohio, possibly linking his immigration there from Pennsylvania with that of Simon himself, there was also a Thomas Rinehart resident back in Greene County, Pennsylvania, the place of their origin. 

That Thomas, according to a photograph posted on a Find A Grave memorial, was born slightly before our Thomas, in 1783. That Thomas, in turn, was son of another Thomas Rinehart, who was noted to have been a D.A.R. Patriot (actually under the surname spelling Reinhard).

What was interesting about that elder Thomas was the name of his wife: Hannah. That was the same name as our Thomas' wife. Though each Thomas was born at a different time, it is not hard to see why some researchers might miss that detail and substitute the one for the other.

More importantly than that, however, was to review the names of this Thomas' other family members. At the very end of the listing in that same memorial was the name Simon Rinehart. That particular Simon died, according to the engraved stone, in 1852.

On that Simon Rinehart's Find A Grave memorial, someone had posted a copy of his death record from 1852. According to that record, Simon's father was named Barnet Rinehart, and his mother, Ruth. In addition, that Simon was married to someone named Sarah.

Given that his date of death was so close to that of our Simon—October 29, 1852, as opposed to January of 1853—it might not be surprising to learn that I've since seen family trees substituting the dates of the one Simon for that of the other. Not surprising—until you realize that the 1852 Simon died back in Greene County, Pennsylvania, while our Simon had left his old home there for Ohio twenty years prior. 

While it may be clear to us that neither of the two Thomases, and certainly the two Simons, were the same person, I give this as an illustration for how some people have confused various members of families who, over the generations, have been rather fond of namesakes. And really, if it hadn't been for discovering the Perry County court document clearly spelling out which of our Simon's children belonged to which of his two wives, I wouldn't have known that the Thomas in Perry County, Ohio, was indeed son of Simon Rinehart of that same county.

There is so much more we can discover now about our ancestors, thanks to combining computer-driven full text search capabilities with a wealth of previously-digitized court records. 

Never Too Late for Spring Cleaning

 

Spring cleaning hadn't been foremost on my mind the other day, when my niece asked for a copy of a family document. She is working on an application to become part of The Mayflower Society, and her recent request pushed me to dig out some old files I hadn't worked on for years. 

Well, maybe make that decades.

The search led me to some boxed up files which I had removed, years ago, from a file cabinet to make room for more recent records.

To my surprise, what should be the first thing my hand pulled out of that dusty box—hint: it wasn't what I was looking for—but a folder labeled "Rinehart" and some correspondence regarding Greene County, Pennsylvania.

Call that serendipity. 

In addition to a photocopied series of biographical entries from the History of Fairfield and Perry Counties, Ohio including Jesse Rinehart's entry in that 1883 book—now easily accessible thanks to Internet Archive—was a photocopied report faxed to me in 1999. I received that report from a fellow Rinehart researcher whom I had met online during those earlier days of genealogy forums and resources such as RootsWeb. He had wanted to share something written by a man named Bruce Anderson, who back in 1981 had compiled a report called "The Rineharts of Perry County, Ohio."

Yes, precisely the family I'm still puzzling over.

What was interesting about the eleven pages of that report was the reference to specific case numbers from the Perry County court system. Of course, now we have almost instant access to some of those same court records, thanks to FamilySearch.org, and specifically owing to the FamilySearch Labs' Full Text Search option. But seeing those other references tells me that there are more court records than the series I had located. There is more to search to fully grasp the entirety of that generation's history in Perry County.

The file I found in that dusty box also included a series of emails which I had exchanged with another Perry County researcher, concerning what we each had found on the Rinehart line which our families share in common. I have yet to complete that stack of reading, but I'm going through that file with a pen and some sticky notes, to mark specific details I need to confirm through documentation—now that it is so much easier to find those records online.

Some family stories we chase for a short while and catch up with the elusive answer in one quick sprint through local records. Others have us wandering in circles for decades. This Rinehart line has been one of the latter. In retrospect, I can see where some conjectures from previous decades can now be proven incorrect—but I also see some hints which, though missed in previous research rounds, may now lead to clearer answers. I'm looking forward to following those trails with fresh eyes, this time around.

Tracking Thomas Rinehart

 

Discovering the full listing of the names of Simon Rinehart's children, thanks to the court proceedings in which they were at odds with each other, has been helpful. Finding any further information on each of those descendants has certainly not been helpful. While it was easy to find an older daughter, Sarah, by virtue of her position as my mother-in-law's second great-grandmother, finding the rest of her full siblings has been a challenge.

Tracking Thomas Rinehart, one of Sarah's full brothers listed in the court records, has been one of those more challenging searches. The main difficulty is that the Rinehart family originated in Greene County, Pennsylvania, where the Rinehart name figured among the county's earliest pioneers. It was, apparently, a family whose preference for namesakes was kept alive for generations, yielding multiple opportunities for even the most avid genealogist to be steered wrong.

The court case which erupted in 1854 concerning the validity of Simon Rinehart's will noted the whereabouts of some of his adult descendants, but was unclear on the precise residence of some of the others. Among the less clear was Thomas' location. If we take the blanket statement of the siblings living in Perry County, Ohio, we could count Thomas in with that bunch. But where was Thomas?

Using a fairly wide parameter for approximate age, I did a search for Thomas in Perry County, and found one possibility in the 1850 census. This Thomas "Rineheart" was born about 1794 in Pennsylvania, a good first sign. Among his several children were names resonant with the Rinehart line: Hannah, Jesse, and Simon. Those same names, however, echoed through the generations of this old family from TenMile Country, making it hard to confirm one namesake's specific identity.

Looking further, I found what was likely his burial location in Perry County, thanks to a memorial on Find A Grave. But was this the right Thomas Rinehart? Checking for name twins back in Greene County, where the family once lived, I could find men by that same name there. Furthermore, seeing a birth year of 1794 troubles me, as that would be barely twenty years after his father's own year of birth. Not finding a marriage record for Simon and his first wife hampers deciding on a reasonable date range for the birth of their five children listed in that court record.

There is much more to explore before I'm convinced of the certainty of this Thomas Rinehart's familial identity. Since migrations in the early 1800s usually occurred in the company of family and neighbors, Simon could have moved to Ohio among many cousins or nephews, as well as closer kin. Those listed on the same page as Thomas in that 1850 census mostly seemed to share the surname Randolph, which is not a surname I've found tied to Simon's own line—so far.

Perhaps one approach will be to create a network of Rineharts in Perry County, Ohio, and Green County, Pennsylvania, to see what connections can be found among this greater party of migrating Rineharts. This I can now easily create through Ancestry.com's ProTools options. Perhaps that will also provide the bigger picture concerning the extended Rinehart family, both in Perry County, and back in Greene County, Pennsylvania. 

When Surnames Ricochet Through their Surroundings

 

While stumped in my search for Thomas Rinehart, that son of Simon Rinehart who decided to file suit in Perry County, Ohio, against his half-siblings after his dad's death, I cast my search parameters far and wide, and came up with one tantalizing insertion in an 1847 newspaper:

Filed in Monroe County, Ohio, on May 18, 1847, by attorneys Archbold & Wire for the plaintiff, Daniel Clark, the suit named Thomas Rinehart, Simon Rinehart, Arthur Ingraham, William McCarty, and M. Marling. Thomas and Simon Rinehart are names we've already seen, and the Ingraham name—or sometimes spelled Ingrham—has been a surname linked with the extended Rinehart family back in Greene County, Pennsylvania. But why were these names being mentioned in a court in Monroe County, Ohio?

According to the newspaper insertion, a bill then pending in court, 

states in substance that said Arthur Ingraham has two judgments in said Court against said McCarty and Marling, for a large sum, to wit: upwards of eight hundred dollars. That said Arthur Ingraham is in fact the assignee of Simon Rinehart, and that said Simon Rinehart is the assignee of Thomas Rinehart, who is in truth and in fact the real owner of said judgments, and is largely indebted to the complainant; and that the assignment to Simon Rinehart, and through him to Arthur Ingraham, is a shift and device to defraud the creditors of Thomas Rinehart. Said bill prays that the judgment debt due from McCarty and Marling may be applied to the payment of his debt due from said Thomas Rinehart. The defendants Thomas, Simon, and Arthur, living out of this State, are notified to plead, answer or demur in sixty days after the close of next term of said Court, or the bill will be taken as true and confessed.       —Said term will commence on the fourth Monday in June next.

Was that our Thomas Rinehart? After all, I'm not quite sure whether he lived in Ohio or back in Pennsylvania. And Monroe County, Ohio, is a mere seventy miles from Greene County, Pennsylvania, making it close enough for the Rinehart family to have acquired land or done business in that area. (Business, indeed! The eight hundred dollars noted in that 1847 document would be worth at least thirty one thousand in today's dollars.)

Whether this is our Thomas or not, it will likely pay for me to search through court records for his name in connection with that of Simon Rinehart, as well.

Insert above from the Woodsfield, Ohio, newspaper, The Spirit of Democracy, published on page three of the May 22, 1847, edition; image courtesy of Newspapers.com. 

Situation: Stuck

 

Stuck on one clue for that brick wall ancestor? When I run into such situations, I try my best to find the answer—and when I fail, I move on. Research problems can always be revisited at a later date, especially when more resources would be required to resolve research questions.

Finding that memorial marker erected at the final resting place of Robert Smith, just as his daughter's last wishes had dictated, seemed to rip right through all the research progress I had made on tracing just that one daughter of Simon Rinehart. Simon's daughter Mary, at least according to court records after his death, had married someone named Robert Smith. But when I finally caught up with the memorial marker for the specified Robert Smith in Hocking County, Ohio, it contained the name of his two wives. And it appeared that Mary had a different last name than what I was expecting.

The name, although blurred in the photograph at Find A Grave, seemed to be Mary Ankrum or Amkrum. No matter which way it was spelled, it didn't spell R-i-n-e-h-a-r-t. Now what?

I tried looking for marriage records for Robert Smith and Mary Ankrum, including all the spelling permutations I could imagine—with a wildcard symbol thrown in for good luck. Thinking that our Mary might have been married before she married Robert, I tried looking for other marriage records for Mary Rinehart, both in her home, neighboring Perry County, and Robert's residence in Hocking County. Still nothing.

Since Maria Smith, the one whose will stipulated the erection of the memorial for her father, was the firstborn daughter of Mary and Robert, one would presume that she would know her mother's maiden name. I'd say I've stumbled upon the wrong Robert Smith and family—except I've been wrong about being wrong before. So I'm putting that search on hold for now and moving on to the rest of Simon Rinehart's children.

That strategy, however, is not working much better than my quest to find the right Robert Smith, husband of Mary Rinehart. There were two other siblings mentioned in that 1854 court record concerning the validity of Simon's will: Samuel Rinehart and Thomas Rinehart, the one who had initiated the court case disputing the will.

It turns out both of them appear to be as difficult to find as if they were surnamed Smith. But I did find one curious legal notice inserted in a newspaper about seven years before the paperwork for the 1854 lawsuit was filed. While it may turn out to be merely a coincidence that the names appeared to be related, tomorrow we need to at least take a look at who was named in that other court case.