Organized Brick Wall Battling

 

When it comes to battling brick wall ancestors, my Twelve Most Wanted project has been my way to organize the process: select one ancestor per month who has me stumped, and spend the entire month poking and prodding every scrap of information I can find on that ancestor. Eventually, though, I realized I was going to hit, well, a brick wall for the research process, itself. I had seen that inevitable sign when I closed out the year's research a couple years ago. But then, something else happened to bring in a new game changer.

That game changer was a new way of searching: using computers trained to read handwriting, applied to searches through multitudes of digitized documents, both civil and ecclesiastical. With the advent of FamilySearch.org's Full Text Search, I could see that it might be possible to find the heretofore unfindable. 

With this year's Twelve Most Wanted projects, that has held true. Granted, at some point, my luck may run out—but perhaps by then, another new development may keep me running down this brick wall ancestor track for another lap.

That's how it's been, in particular, for Simon Rinehart, my mother-in-law's third great-grandfather from Greene County, Pennsylvania. Court documents drawn up after his family's move to Perry County, Ohio, have shed quite a bit of light on his family dynamics—perhaps more than the family would have liked for people to know. Most importantly, Full Text Search teaming up with FamilySearch.org's documents from Perry County showed me the correct lineup for Simon's many children from two different marriages. That is a lot more discovered than what I had when I started this month.

Closing out this month's research project on Simon Rinehart doesn't mean that's the end of the pursuit for this brick wall ancestor's roots. I'll return to his story in a future year. When I do, I hope to focus my attention on obtaining documents from his earlier years in Greene County, Pennsylvania. That is where I believe the answers should lie for those early years when Simon lost his first wife and remarried. That will require finding documents from the earliest years of the 1800s, possibly from a local source if online collections don't include the years I'm seeking.

Every little bit we do discover gives us the fuel to power future searches. This month, while not achieving my goal at the outset of finding Simon's parents, nevertheless brought us far forward through the other discoveries outlined in the month's posts. Behind the scenes, I will continue building the descendancy charts for each of the newly-discovered Rinehart children, mainly to find DNA matches from collateral Rinehart lines. But as for further pursuits on Simon's own story, we'll need to save that for a future year. For tomorrow, it's on to another search—and this time, we'll switch to an ancestor on my father-in-law's side of the family.

Wrapping up Loose Ends

 

When the close of a month approaches, it's time to gather up the loose ends still remaining untied after weeks of struggling with the month's appointed research target. Since June was the month to focus on my mother-in-law's third great-grandfather Simon Rinehart, I can easily say there were several loose ends to attend to. Today and tomorrow, we'll see what remains—and what can be noted and carried forward for the next time I tackle this brick wall ancestor.

The most significant discovery this month was finding the two court records in Perry County, Ohio,  outlining which of Simon's children belonged to each of his two wives. I am just now reorganizing those two sets of descendants in my mother-in-law's family tree. With that done, I can see how his children's dates of birth seem to align in a much more reasonable fashion with the second court record than what we were left with after Simon's will had been contested.

The result now leaves me with only three children descending from Simon's first—and unnamed—wife. Though I still can't properly identify his son Samuel—there may be a name twin back in Greene County, Pennsylvania, Simon's supposed origin—it appears all three of those children were born prior to 1800. 

As for the children of Simon's second wife, Anna, the oldest was born about 1803. This date becomes the place marker suggesting a possible wedding date for Simon's second bride, as well as a latest possible year of death for the unnamed first wife, back in Greene County—each far earlier than I had previously anticipated.

Finding any records in Greene County, however, has still been a challenge. There are simply too many Rineharts in that county—especially name twins—to make it easy to find the right ones. However, for one of Simon's daughters—Nancy, who married an Ankrom back in Pennsylvania—it may be possible to identify a likely candidate from the 1830 census onward.

What about Simon's supposed time spent in Kentucky? After all, his oldest daughter—Sarah, my mother-in-law's direct line ancestor—was said to have been born there, possibly in Bracken County. If Simon did live there for a while, it would have been before 1800. Sarah was said to have been born in Kentucky in 1795.

Looking at county records from FamilySearch.org's Full Text search, I can find a Simon "Rineheart" mentioned in Bracken County records in 1798 and 1799. Whether this detail will be key in finding Simon's first wife, I can't yet say—if, indeed, we even have the right Simon Rinehart and the right Kentucky county.

For now, though this month's exercise didn't result in the goal I was seeking of identifying Simon's parents, I did manage to get a clearer picture of who belonged in his immediate family. Tomorrow, we'll take stock of what we accomplished, and where we need to go from here for the next time I tackle this one of my Twelve Most Wanted from my mother-in-law's family lines.

About Eliza

 

It may seem an unnecessary roundabout effort to trace the step-children from a second marriage, but in the case of Nancy—daughter of Simon Rinehart and his second wife, Anna—the goal of locating any records from her first marriage was proving to be elusive. It wasn't until after the death of her second husband that we finally see any signs of a possible descendant—but whether that married woman named Eliza was actually Nancy's daughter or step-daughter needed verification.

To recap, we've already seen Simon's daughter listed as Nancy Ankrom in the family fallout following the reading of her father's will, and as Nancy Colborn in the court case following her mother's death. Just to be sure, in finding Nancy in the household of David Hull, listed as her "son-in-law," I needed to ensure that there were no daughters of Nancy's second husband, John Colborn, who were named Eliza. Reviewing the court records yesterday resolved that issue.

Having done that, you know I flew to the marriage records for Perry County, Ohio, in hopes that the young couple might have married there, rather than back in Greene County, Pennsylvania, where so many of the Rineharts had once lived. Fortunately, on August 21, 1849, there was such a document in Perry County. David Hull had married Eliza Ann Ankrom, not Colborn.

I followed Eliza from the 1870 census—where she had appeared with her husband David and five children, along with her mother—through all the other enumerations she was listed in, up to the 1880 census, her last appearance before her death in 1891. Because the later census records had shown Eliza's birth place as Illinois, now that I knew her married name, I also checked for her entry in earlier enumerations, where fortunately, her birthplace was listed correctly as Pennsylvania.

From that point, I've begun tracing Eliza's descendants. The main reason for this has more to do with the hunt for DNA matches. If Eliza was indeed Nancy Rinehart's child, that would mean she was also related to my mother-in-law's own family, thus the possibility of finding DNA matches among her descendants. But the other reason for tracing Eliza's line is that ever-present question: did Eliza have any siblings? And did any of those possible siblings mention their father's name in any records?

So far, I've not found any possible siblings for Eliza. I haven't yet located any obituary for her, which would hopefully provide a listing of surviving relatives. Nor have I found any obituary for Eliza's mother, Nancy, who died in 1874. No other documents have surfaced to provide any inkling of possible siblings for Eliza—or the name of Nancy's first husband.

Looking at the dates extrapolated from what I can find, though, shows that Nancy was born in 1803 while Eliza was born in Pennsylvania at the end of February, 1830. At the latest, Nancy could have been married to the elusive Mr. Ankrom in 1829, but based on her age, she could have been married as early as 1821, leaving plenty of time for the arrival of other siblings before Eliza was born.

A corollary question would be when Mr. Ankrom died—and where. Obviously, his daughter Eliza was in Ohio, not Pennsylvania, when she married David Hull in 1849. Could her father have died in Ohio? Or did Nancy and Eliza make the trek to Ohio with extended family after his death in Pennsylvania?

Though there are still many questions left to answer, that number is slowly decreasing as we find additional information to resolve our dilemma. And each additional identifying name will help when we return to examine the documents in Greene County, Pennsylvania, for additional information. 

Learning About the Step-Family

 

Some families are difficult to trace. The distance of generations, even centuries, is not the only impediment; some family dynamics are simply challenging to navigate. Tracing Simon Rinehart's family has been one example, due to the contentious nature between the children of his first marriage and those of his widow, Anna, who was his second wife. But even though we've found court records to guide us through the twists and turns of Simon's family, it looks like the continuing story of one daughter, Nancy, will require us to repeat that step-family examination through yet another iteration.

We've already learned that Nancy was married at least twice: once to a man surnamed Ankrom, then to a widower named John Colborn. And yet, the question remains: did Nancy, herself, have any descendants? Searching for Nancy Ankrom yields very little, other than her 1855 marriage record to John Colborn in Perry County, Ohio. Records showing a woman's own name were rarer before the 1850 census mark, and so far, I've come up empty-handed for that enumeration. Yet, pursuing the court records for Nancy's step-children might be more informative—something that will become more obvious as we continue this quest over the weekend.

Fortunately for us—though not for yet another squabbling family bringing their argument to court—digitized Perry County court records became just the guidance we need to sort out the tangles in that family. John Colborn had died intestate, and one of his sons decided to petition the court for division of John's land.

While we can find John Colborn in the 1850 census, that document was recorded after the death of John's first wife. Because the 1850 census did not include any explanation for how each person in a household was related to the others, we can't just presume that those others listed were his children—though they could be. That's why the discovery of the Colborn court case became so helpful—if, of course, the document correctly represented what was affirmed in the proceedings.

The 1850 census entry for the Colborn household listed twenty year old Martha, then twenty one year old Ephraim and eighteen year old Elizabeth, followed by six year old Alfred. The odd order of ages made me question whether each of these younger Colborns were children of John and his first wife. Ephraim and Elizabeth could also be a couple, although given their ages, Alfred would be too old to be their son.

Perry County court records following John Colborn's May 1866 death spelled out the details for us completely. The plaintiff's name was given as N. B. Colborn, one of John's sons. Also named was another son using initials: E. S. Colborn—Ephraim from the 1850 census? Apparently, Alfred J. Colborn from the 1850 census was actually John's grandson, from John's deceased daughter Mary. Another daughter, Lydia, was listed as wife of Samuel Feigley. Daughter Sarah was listed as wife of—oh, groan, another research challenge—John Brown. (Fortunately, the couple was identified as living in Pickaway County, Ohio, helping to eliminate the thousands of other John Browns who are out there.) Rounding out the list of surviving children was daughter Martha, who was by then wife of Henry J. Trout.

There were other family members included in the court listing of John Colborn's legal heirs. Another deceased Colborn daughter, Charlotte, had surviving children James P. Colborn and Mary Hare—later surnamed Dick—listed in this same readout. And deceased daughter Euphema had left heirs Francis M. Wright, Margaret Wright, and Elizabeth Eddington, wife of Perry A. Eddington.

It may seem odd, while I'm researching the extended family of Simon Rinehart, to take this detour to list another family's descendants. There is, however, a reason for this: I want to discover whether Simon's own daughter Nancy had any children of her own. The document instigating this question is the census following John Colborn's death, after his second wife Nancy had given up her dower rights in the process of dividing the Colborn property.

In 1870, sixty seven year old Nancy Colborn appeared in the household of a man named David Hull. More to the point of this question, Nancy's entry under the column heading "occupation" was a curious—and hopefully helpful, rather than misleading—statement: "lives with son in law." Was David's wife Eliza part of the extended Colborn family? Could the enumerator—as I've sometimes seen happen—have confused step-family for in-laws? Or was Eliza actually Nancy's daughter from a previous marriage?

That's the next step in this twisting family history trail—a step I wouldn't have been able to take without this clue, and certainly one I couldn't take without being equipped with the full listing of Nancy's second husband's children.

Finding Nancy

This month has become one deep dive after another into court records regarding the extended family of Simon Rinehart, my mother-in-law's third great-grandfather. After Simon's 1852 will was disputed in court in Perry County, Ohio, we've since discovered not one, but two separate listings of the names of his children, itemized specifically by each of Simon's two wives.

One task this month has been to identify and trace each of those sets of Rinehart children. While some of his heirs have been easy to find—especially those married daughters whose husbands were specifically named in the court documents—one child, Nancy, had kept me stumped.

Stumped, that is, until I noticed that her married name in the earlier lawsuit was different than that of the second court case. With this additional clue, it's time to find Nancy in whatever additional documents she might have appeared.

The listing in the earlier lawsuit named Nancy's married name as Ankrom. Since the record didn't provide a name for her husband, I presumed he was already deceased.

I presumed correctly. By November 4, 1855, there was a marriage record for a Nancy Ankrom, who had married John Colborn. And that new surname, Colborn, was exactly the one which subsequent court records concerning Simon's widow Anna Rinehart had labeled their daughter Nancy.

Since I hadn't been able to find Nancy Ankrom in any Perry County records, I checked to see whether I'd have any better luck with this new information. Sure enough, there she was in the 1860 census as we would expect, living in Pike Township with her husband John Colborn and a sixteen year old named Alfred Colborn—too old to have been Nancy's son by this second marriage.

By the time of the 1870 census, Nancy Colborn was living in the same Pike Township, but in the household of one David Hull. As for any entry in the 1870 census for John Colborn, there was none that I could find.

Sure enough, John Colborn had died—intestate—by January of 1866, launching another volley of court reports recording the arguments between John's children. Though none of those Colborn children were Nancy's own descendants, in hopes that this might point another researcher in the right direction, we'll take a look at those documents tomorrow—as well as consider whether Nancy had any children of her own from her first marriage.   

When Eight Becomes Seven

 

Sometimes, the only way to learn the rest of the story is to hunker down and read the entire text of court documents. 

Whenever the Rineharts took each other to court, they apparently kept coming back for more litigation. We saw that after Simon Rinehart's death in Perry County, Ohio, back in 1853. Discovering mention of another court case—this time, brought by Simon's son-in-law, Isaac Brown—I went back to look at the details of this subsequent case. That litigation, in turn, brought up arguments between some of the children of Anna Rinehart, Simon's second wife, and his son Jesse. The contention centered around whether Simon had, before his death, given his son Jesse a certain additional piece of land.

Meanwhile, to complicate the matter following the death of their mother, who died intestate, Anna's remaining eight children squabbled over whether her land should be divided eight ways or seven. But don't think we'd arrive at the end of the story with a simple legal decision. During the time those Rinehart descendants' case worked its way through the court system, other events occurred.

For one thing, Anna's three single daughters who had been residing with their parents in the 1850 census—Hannah, Lucinda, and Charlotte—began to experience health problems as they aged. Charlotte, in particular, had been noted in that census to have been "idiotic." Sometime before the death of their mother, Charlotte was in such need of extra care that the Perry County court appointed her brother Jesse as her guardian.

In the midst of the court proceedings due to Anna dying intestate, mention was made of Charlotte's subsequent death in 1861. That, perhaps, might not have been noted, except that in the squabble over division of their mother's land, Jesse brought up the issue of costs borne by him for his sister's funeral and burial expenses, which he felt should be addressed as they considered division of Anna's estate.

There was, however, that one other contention: whether before his death, Simon had given another parcel of land to Jesse, and if that resolved whether Jesse should be included in this later division of Anna's land. 

The resolution of that dispute? I can't say. I'm still reading through pages and pages of court documents. However, one thing is sure: you can learn a lot about a family, just by reading up on all their arguments aired in the public setting of a courtroom. 

When Court Records Get it Wrong

 

One would think court records would be the final authority on what really happened in the cases brought to justice. However, in reviewing the multiple lawsuits ensnaring Simon Rinehart's children—and later, his grandchildren—I've noticed a few tangles. For instance, in one record concerning a guardianship of Simon's daughter Charlotte, the clerk noted an assertion made in a previous record—only he left the date blank, presumably meaning to fill in the correct information later, but never doing so. In another record more to our specific concern, the court record gave a somewhat different list of names for the children of Simon and his second wife.

This complicates things. Which record do I consider to be the reliable one?

We had already seen, after Simon's will was contested in court in Perry County, Ohio, beginning in 1854, that his children from the first wife were listed as Samuel Rinehart, Martha Fordyce, Mary Smith, Thomas Rinehart, and Sarah Gordon. Also, that court case listed Simon's children from his second wife—the surviving widow Anna—as Nancy Ankrom, Jesse Rinehart, Lucinda Rinehart, Charlotte Rinehart, Cassa Brown, and Hannah Rinehart.

That case, and the following counter-suits, went on for pages and pages in Perry County court records, all of which I've read. But then came that discovery, from an old email, that Cassa Brown's husband Isaac had filed another suit after the death of Simon's widow Anna. Anna had died "about" December 18, 1859, and she had died intestate, putting into motion the very land division that Simon's heirs from his first wife had predicted.

What was confusing about finding that subsequent case was that the record included a different grouping of Simon's children. This second petition, which demanded that the Rinehart land be divided equally among Anna's descendants, noted a different listing of heirs. Named in this case were Anna's children and lineal heirs surviving her: Lucinda Rinehart, Hannah Rinehart, Nancy Colborn (wife of John Colborn), Mary Smith (wife of Robert Smith), Martha Fordyce (wife of Jacob), Jesse Rinehart, Charlotte Rinehart, and Cassa Brown (wife of Isaac Brown). 

My first reaction was an "aha!" moment: I was having the worst time trying to locate a Nancy Ankrom in Perry County. I did find one in Greene County, back in Pennsylvania where Simon and his family had originated, but the time period seemed wrong. But now, according to this document in 1860, here she was under a different married name: Colborn. Step number one following this discovery is to return to census and land records to see if I can find Nancy and her husband John—not to mention, check the marriage records.

To my dismay, however, was the regrouping of the children attributed to Simon's second wife, Anna. In the court case following his death, Martha and Mary were listed along with the other children of Simon's first wife, but now they are said to have been children of Anna. None of the others from Simon's first wife (at least according to that previous court listing) were included in this petition to subdivide Anna's land.

I double-checked, just in case anyone claimed that Anna had raised the older children from childhood as if they were her own, or that they were all just one big happy family, despite being step-children. It was clear that missing from this later list were Samuel, Thomas, and Sarah. While I'm still struggling with the true identity of Samuel Rinehart, Thomas and Sarah were both still very much alive when Isaac Brown brought this case to court in 1861, and yet they weren't included in the listing of Anna's children. Should I now presume that Martha and Mary were actually children of the second wife? This brings us back to our original question from the beginning of this post: which court record was correct?

The document also went on to explain that each heir was to get one seventh of the subdivided land of their mother, Anna Rinehart. However, it doesn't require the mind of a rocket scientist to realize that there were not seven, but eight parties listed as heirs. That, however, requires its own explanation, bringing us to a fitting point to lay this lengthy puzzle aside until tomorrow's post.