A Sisyphean Task

 

Truth be told, though I left the Jackson family behind at the close of last month, I still can't help but try to complete one task I like to do with each of my Twelve Most Wanted ancestors for each year: I take the collateral lines of each of these Twelve Most Wanted and research their family's line of descent down to our present time. I like to include this task, primarily to help spot possible DNA matches who have also descended from that same ancestral line. 

Now, even though we're into a new month, behind the scenes I've been trying to do so with the Jackson family. There's one problem with such a practice, once we encounter a family like this. Though admittedly, it's a rough go, trying to trace ancestors in America before the mid-1800s, the real struggle is not one of finding elusive court records. It's in dealing with the sheer numbers of this unusual family. I'm afraid I've set for myself a Sisyphean task.

Granted, most families from those earlier time periods had many children. That, in a way, was a plan for survival, given the reality of many children dying before adulthood. In the Jackson family's case, however, each of their thirteen children did live to adulthood. Not only that, but they married and, in most cases, had many children of their own. Multiplying that case by the many generations separating Lyman Jackson's era and our own generation gives pause. 

Just looking at the numbers in this Jackson case tells how impossible that task may be. For Lyman Jackson and his wife Deidama Dunham, they saw ten sons and three daughters live to adulthood, marry, and have families of their own.

Taking a hypothetical number and extrapolating out this case, I asked the AI search engine at Google just how many people I'd be researching if those thirteen Jackson children married and had thirteen children of their own, then repeated the process for another generation. 

The answer: 4,758 people in three generations, assuming all children lived a full life, married someone from outside the family, and subsequently had their own family of thirteen children.

No wonder I feel as if I never can catch up with myself.

A Little Spring Cleaning Detour

 

There is a little wood and wicker three drawer cabinet which I've repurposed to store some of my research odds and ends—you know, the notes-to-self reminders that I'll do when I get a "round tuit." Evidently, I must have recently added one file folder too many, because yesterday, it began creaking. Not long afterwards, I noticed this cabinet was doing its best to imitate the Leaning Tower of Pisa. There are many instances in which history is worthy of emulation but this was not one of them. It was time to investigate.

Among all those notes-to-self in those filled drawers, I rediscovered some records gleaned from on-site research in places that ancestors used to call home. I found records from the Fort Meade Historical Society, from the little town in Florida where my McClellan ancestors once lived, and remembered our family's visit to their museum, which displayed a dentist's chair once used by my great-grandfather. From another long-distance genealogy trip, I rediscovered a map of the Roman Catholic parish in Ireland now known as Ballina-Boher, with the townland of Tountinna highlighted in yellow to draw attention to the place where my father-in-law's Tully ancestors once lived.

There were, of course, many other slips of paper, reminding me to check on specific details of this or that ancestor. From some of my earliest research forays, there were actual photocopies of documents, items which I'll now need to scan and upload to my digitized records.

Fortunately, several of these reminders have made a timely appearance, for I've already planned to work on these family lines in upcoming months. For those notes regarding my mother's family, this is a great prompt to add those maternal ancestors to my Twelve Most Wanted list for next year. There is always more work to do on these brick wall ancestors.

Organized into groups of similar tasks, these odds and ends of notes written to myself in past years are now laid out into a work flow that will hopefully vanquish the paper piles, but at the same time, looking at each one and remembering what first sparked those reminders has been a pleasant trip down my genealogical memory lane. Research may seem tedious at times—and provide me with motivation to move on to the next task when the frustration of dead ends looms—but it is always enjoyable to look back and remember the trip from beginning puzzle to latest stopping point. Somehow, a little spring cleaning detour turns out to provide me with more energy to pick up that trail once again. 

A New Month, an Old Research Puzzle

 

For the past six years, I've made it my habit to slice and dice through the brick walls of four family trees—my maternal and paternal lines, and those of my in-laws—using a system I call my Twelve Most Wanted. For each of the first three months of the year, I select one frustratingly elusive family member of the bygone generations in my mother's line to focus on per month. For the subsequent quarter, I then move to three brick wall ancestors from my mother-in-law's family tree. The second half of each year is dedicated to the fathers: in the fall, my attention turns to my father-in-law's Irish heritage, and come wintertime, I wrestle with those hard-to-find Polish records on behalf of my own father.

One ancestor to focus on each month sometimes means great research progress. Other times, it means I need to fold up the dossier despite the unanswered questions. Come the end of the month, that can be a difficult choice to make. The only consolation is in writing up a to-do list for the next time I pick up the challenge in a new year.

So it is with this month's challenge, my mother-in-law's second great-grandmother Lydia Miller who, at a young age, became the widow of William Gordon in Perry County, Ohio. While in many cases, I return to a previous Twelve Most Wanted's candidate only years afterwards, the last time I worked on Lydia, I could barely bring myself to close the case on her—even temporarily. It was exactly eleven months ago when I needed to make that choice; I could hardly get back to her story fast enough.

The main reason I've been so keen to return to Lydia's story is that, at nearly the close of the month last year, I made a breakthrough discovery—but ran out of time to fully explore the possibilities that that discovery introduced. With to-do list in hand from the end of the month's report last May, this month we'll return to (hopefully) learn the rest of Lydia Miller's story.

Not Least, and Certainly Not Last

 

The end of the month means time to wrap up April's Jackson project. One final item on the month's agenda is to mention what's been found on one remaining child among the thirteen Jackson children of Lyman and Deidama: a daughter they named Rosanna. 

While this is the last mention of the Jackson children, Rosanna was certainly not the last in order of appearance. She, being the first-born, arrived October 9, 1782, according to letters preserved by the family and recorded in The Family History of Michael Jackson. According to that genealogy, we also learn that Rosanna was married twice: first to someone named John Rudd, then after his death to Robert Morrell.

Though I had read this at the beginning of this month's project, I had quite a hard time finding any records to verify that information. Granted, I've encountered problems verifying some of the other names in the Jackson book, too, but there usually was some clue to help me piece together a more accurate version of the story. Not so in Rosanna's case.

Rosanna, having been widowed by the loss of John Rudd, remarried, but was said to have lost her second husband within a year of their 1842 marriage, according to the book. However, I was able to find a sixty-eight year old woman named Rosanna living in Erie County, Pennsylvania, with her husband, Robert Morrell, in the 1850 census. Perhaps the book meant to enter his date of death as 1853 instead of 1843.

Checking further on Rosanna, by then surnamed Morrell, I did find a woman by that name in the 1860 census. This time, Robert Morrell was not listed in the household, which was headed by Elmina van Riper, who was herself likely a widow at that point. Seeing the name Michael Jackson in the household listed next to the van Riper home, I'm presuming that Michael was Rosanna's own brother Michael—and Michael the father of Elmina, which helps assure we have located the right family group.

There is far more work that needs to be done to verify all the information on the descendants of the thirteen Jackson children. Since today marks the end of this month's project, such efforts will need to take a back seat as we move on to other projects, but that possibility of finding DNA matches connected to this Jackson line still beckons me to occasionally find a slice of time to tuck in this extra effort. For the most part, the Jackson genealogy served as a helpful trailblazer, and I'd like to complete the process for all the collateral lines listed, and attach documents to the book's assertions.

The book, itself, may have saved much work in pushing the Jackson line back another generation, for it included information on Lyman Jackson's father and grandfather, not to mention his wife's father's Dunham line as well. The work is already laid out for us when we return to work on this Jackson line from my mother-in-law's family—just waiting for the addition of some supporting documentation.

With the start of a new month, tomorrow we'll launch into another of my mother-in-law's brick wall ancestors, Lydia Miller. Last year's exploration of this line opened up much unexpected information, and I'm looking forward to connecting the dots that popped up with that discovery, now that we're moving to the fifth of this year's Twelve Most Wanted. 

Number Six for the Record

 

Among the thirteen children of Lyman and Deidama Dunham Jackson, there are two yet to review. One is the couple's eldest daughter, Rosanna, who during this entire month has kept me stumped; we'll acknowledge what still needs to be done in her case with tomorrow's post. The other—number six out of the Jackson thirteen, for the record—was John Jay Jackson, my mother-in-law's third great-grandfather.

It would do us some good to note a few details here from the Horace Mortimer Jackson book we've been using as our trailblazer, The Family History of Michael Jackson. For the record, the Jackson book noted John Jay Jackson to have been born February 7, 1792. This was likely in Otsego County, New York, where many of the Jackson children were born.

From that point, many of the expected details on John Jay's own biographical sketch were lacking. Much like the book's entry for his youngest sister, Lucy, reading the entry became a matter of filling in the blanks for myself. I'll use today's post to fill in a few of those blanks for John Jay from records I've found in recent years.

The first opportunity to fill in the blanks in the Jackson book came with John Jay's own wife's name. The book offered "Miss —— Ames." Some zealous researcher, upon seeing the error, wrote in the correct name in the copy of the subsequently digitized book: Sarah Ijams. And that was exactly the identity of John Jackson's first wife.

As to whether the couple had six children, we need, first, to sort out some details. The book stipulates that there were three daughters, two of whom were named in the sketch: Comfort and Nancy. (The third daughter merited another one of those blank lines.)

While there was a daughter named Nancy—my mother-in-law's direct line ancestor—whether the second daughter was named Comfort, I have yet to verify. The other daughter has been recorded as Elizabeth C. Jackson, who died young and unmarried in 1842. Whether the "C." stands for Comfort, I haven't been able to document. However, since John Jackson's first wife, Sarah Ijams, had migrated to Perry County, Ohio, along with her sister, whose name happened to be Comfort, named after an older relative in the Ijams line, our Elizabeth could have carried her aunt's name as her own middle name. 

And the third daughter? My guess is Rosanna, by 1840 married to Walter Mitchell.

While we might be considered generous in allowing two out of three for the book's effort at naming the daughters of John Jay Jackson, it is not quite the same case with his sons. Robert and Joseph I can find, but William as a son of John Jackson eludes me.

However, as the book noted, John married twice, the second wife, filling in the blanks, being Mary Cecelia Grate. Children of this second wife did indeed include a son named Lyman, as the book affirmed. However, three more daughters joined the family with this second marriage: Mary Cecelia, named after her mother, Caroline, and the child the couple lost at four years of age, Clarissa.

To make sure I haven't missed anything, it would help to make a thorough search for signs of that possible extra son, William. After all, a son with that name would have been his maternal grandfather's namesake. And with the book's details mentioning possible service during the Civil War, it is quite likely that such a son could have been lost in casualties.

To recap, as I've said so many times before, genealogy books can be helpful as way finders, especially now that we have the capability of checking each other's work through documentation. It's been helpful to spend this month verifying facts from the Jackson genealogy as I build out the extended tree of John Jay Jackson's twelve collateral lines. Hopefully, recording all these branches in my online tree will lead to connecting with some DNA matches, as well.

Tomorrow with the close of this month, we'll recap progress made and draw up plans for the next time we revisit this Jackson line, before we jump to next month's feature from the Twelve Most Wanted for 2026.

Drawing Blanks

 

Following the path of a genealogical trailblazer can be helpful—until that guide ends up drawing blanks. In the case of the youngest child in Lyman and Deidama Dunham Jackson's family, that is indeed what happened when we look to their youngest child. 

Using the 1906 book, The Family History of Michael Jackson, we have so far traced most of the thirteen Jackson children. In many cases, the guidance of researcher Horace Mortimer Jackson has pointed us in the right direction. Perhaps in this final case, as so often happens, the baby of the family got shorted. 

Here's what the book tells us about the thirteenth Jackson child. First of all, her name was Lucy Deidama, garnering her mother's given name as her middle name. The author gives her date of birth as February 6, 1808, and indicates that she eventually married someone named Elisha Alderman.

That is the point in the brief narrative where we start drawing blanks. Of her death, the author provides merely a line "——" for the date. No place is given, not for her death, nor for her birth.

There were, however, several children listed. Of the eight named, however, even there we find a blank: the fifth child, a daughter named Calista, was said to have married "——" Clapp. With a given name like Calista, I thought it might not be that hard to determine the first name of Mr. Clapp—until I realized that husband's last name might not even be correct.

If it hadn't been for that old familiar destination for so many of the Jackson children who decided to leave home in Pennsylvania and move westward, I might not have found any further details to round out that scant history in the Jackson genealogy. But it wasn't long before I realized Lucy's family had left Pennsylvania's Erie County for Knox County in Illinois. Elisha Alderman had decided to follow so many of his Jackson in-laws.

While the 1850 census showed only six of the possible eight Alderman children in Knox County, that was enough of a jumping off place for me to trace the family's lines of descent. I started with the name I thought would be easiest to follow: their son who was listed in the Jackson book with the unusual name of Gilderoy. From that point, I've made it down to the current century with some of that son's descendants.

Granted, that makes one line of at least eight in this uncertain readout of the children of Lyman Jackson's youngest daughter. There is much more to still untangle, especially given the blanks left in that trailblazer's guidebook. But no matter how many blanks the author inserted in his narrative, there are still enough clues to enable a twenty-first century researcher with digitized records access to piece together the full story.

A Long Slide Down to the Present

 

This month began by listing what I had already learned about my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather, Lyman Jackson, in preparation to delve further into that man's family line and history as this month's selection from my Twelve Most Wanted for 2026. Starting from Lyman's birth in Connecticut in 1756, we followed him to his marriage in Vermont and the new family's migration westward, first to upstate New York, and then to Erie County, Pennsylvania.

It's been a lot of years since that time—not to mention a lot of miles—but this past weekend, I finally diagrammed one line of Lyman's descendants all the way to the current decade. Starting with Susannah Jackson Kennedy's move to Knox County, Illinois, and subsequent family lines moving to Kansas, then Nevada, and ultimately to Santa Rosa, California—site of that devastating 1906 earthquake mentioned in one family history book—I've finally finished that long slide down to the present, sticking close to each of those lines of descent.

Imagine my surprise, then, to arrive in our current century and discover that one Jackson descendant married and moved to an address in California which is an easy amble down the street and around the corner from where I currently live. That makes our neighbor my husband's fifth cousin once removed.

Granted, we have yet to meet these newfound Jackson cousins. I'm just in awe over being able to discover such a connection, not simply from a family with origins as far away as Connecticut, but as far removed as an ancestor who lived in the mid-1700s.

Before this month is over, there is still one more task to complete. Lyman and Deidama Dunham Jackson had yet another child whom we need to track. Tomorrow, we'll consider the baby of the Jackson thirteen, Lucy, the eventual wife of Elisha Alderman. With eight children mentioned in the genealogy drawn up by researcher Horace Mortimer Jackson, there's still a lot of missing verification left for us to find.