To Trust a Trailblazer

 

One predicament in finding our way to documentation from previous centuries is to actually locate such records. Finding aids can be key, but when it comes to researching our seventeenth-century ancestors, those trailblazers were more likely to embed their wisdom in the pages of books than to post them online. The question becomes: can we trust such a trailblazer? Does the printed page make a report more reliable than a digitized synopsis? Or more suspect?

As I did last year in chasing after the details of my mother-in-law's ancestors in Maryland, I've relied on the published works of one specific genealogist: Harry Wright Newman. A genealogist focused on the history of early settlers to the colony of Maryland, Newman published at least nine genealogical works during his lifetime—at least I've found there are more than nine which are currently accessible online.

Two of those books I've already benefitted from examining. The Flowering of the Maryland Palatinate, includes a brief history of the arrival of the first settlers from England to Maryland aboard The Ark and the Dove, a copy of which book I own. The second Newman book I've examined, Anne Arundel Gentry, is available online and features biographical sketches and genealogies of the colonial county's early families, including the in-laws of my focus ancestor for this month, Elizabeth Plummer, who became wife of William Ijams.

The trailblazer factor comes into play when we consider the challenge of searching for records that are, in some cases, approaching four hundred years old. Of course, technology—in particular, AI assisted searches through handwritten documents—is bringing us all closer to successful outcomes, but it helps to have the guidance of someone who has already passed down that research path.

But are those trailblazers reliable? I had asked myself that question before, and in Mr. Newman's case, I had already considered that question last year. Just to be sure, though, I revisited that question. While the consensus gleaned from my search last year seemed to provide a seal of general approval, I was somewhat taken back with this year's search results. 

While Harry Wright Newman was known to many as a professional genealogist, he also served abroad as a commercial attache at various American embassies until his retirement from that service in the 1950s. In the genealogy world, he was perhaps best known as one of the first directors of the American Society of Genealogists, where he was also elected as a Fellow of the society in 1942.

A small detail in that listing of all Fellows honored for the quality of their genealogical publications is that the honor is meant for a lifetime. In other words, before anyone else can be elected to that cadre of fifty esteemed researchers, by tradition, some other fellow has reached the end of his lifetime. And yet, the small note on line number fifteen for Mr. Newman indicates that in 1950, he resigned from that designation.

Because we can in this Internet age, I searched to find more information on this detail, and found but one comment. I can't vouch for how reliable that entry is. In a now-defunct yet still readable online forum, Google Groups, I found one person's opinion that Mr. Newman was "capable of excellent work," but that he should be used with caution. The comment continued with an explanation for his possible demise, but concluded that no fraudulent entries had ever been spotted within the Newman books.

So...do I trust what I've found on the Ijams and Plummer ancestors in Maryland's early colonial years? That's why I want to remember the role of a trailblazer: someone who marks the path for the benefit of others who follow. It's up to us to confirm or reject whether that path points us in the right direction. We'll take a look at some of the details tomorrow.   

Building out the Lines

With one week devoted to wrapping up Lydia Miller's story and another week tracking Elizabeth Plummer Ijams, the current biweekly report has produced 287 new additions to my in-laws' family tree. Granted, most of that increase is due to building out the lines of descent for Lydia's two families—Gordon and Palmer—but I suspect we still have much more to learn about this month's Plummer and Ijams pursuit.

With those newly-added relatives, that tree now includes 43,463 documented individuals. Of course, while I focus on my mother-in-law's sixth great-grandmother Elizabeth this month, there's hardly time to take a peek at my side of the family. That tree now is holding at 41,939 individuals, and will likely remain that way until the fall, when I turn to my father's tree.

Meanwhile, with this coming week, it will be back to the records, seeking mention of yet another invisible woman, this time in documents from the late 1600s and early 1700s.

Whether digging deeply into colonial Maryland records produces the same amount of resources for the Plummers as Lydia's nineteenth-century lifespan yielded for us last month is yet to be seen. Right now, the quest for Elizabeth's story involves far more searching than it does documentation. Thankfully, there are some trailblazers out there to help guide our research path. We'll take a peek at what can be found in the writings of one genealogist tomorrow. 

Taking a Tip From Last Month

 

Since June is my month to research my mother-in-law's Ijams ancestors, I've been stretching back through the generations far beyond the usual reach of autosomal DNA testing. After all, Elizabeth Plummer was my mother-in-law's sixth great-grandmother, thus making her seventh great-grandmother to the surrogate test taker in this line (my husband). It would be a rare hit indeed to be able to find a DNA match who was an eighth cousin descended from that seventh great-grandmother.

Rare—but not impossible. Keeping in mind my experience from last month's research project, I thought I'd take a tip from what I did to find—and isolate—matches who were related to Lydia Miller. Last month, I used an unusual but related surname which I knew would be far easier to isolate than the ubiquitous Miller surname. I then took that surname—Anspach—and plugged it into the search bar for all my husband's DNA matches. That was how I came up with three viable Miller DNA matches without having to sort through numerous unrelated Millers.

This month, I'm looking for a maiden name which, although not as common as Miller, certainly is more popular than Anspach. I took that Plummer surname and repeated the process I had used to figure out how Lydia Miller's unknown ancestors connected to my mother-in-law's family.

I can't say that I had the same luck I had experienced with the previous month's process. Apparently, there were more Plummers in collateral branches of our DNA matches than I had seen for last month's Anspach attempt. 

Thinking again, I decided to try that same approach with a variation: instead of Plummer, I next searched for Ijams. But Ijams starts to edge into "endogamy lite" territory. The search results brought up matches who descended from related surnames which have also woven themselves into this intermarried family. That wasn't going to lead me to any answers, either.

Apparently, every research quest varies enough to require a different approach. Last month's tip doesn't seem to work for this month's research problem. While I did find a place in the family tree for several interrelated Metzger and Snyder DNA matches connected to this line, this still leaves me searching for any Plummer-Ijams matches among the thousands yet to place in my mother-in-law's tree.

While the forward-looking approach hasn't yielded any discoveries this month, perhaps delving back into Maryland history may provide some insight in the Plummer family and how they got from the home they left in the mother country to a fresh settlement in a wild and new world.

A Lifespan Within a Timeline

 

Finding one document to pinpoint Elizabeth Plummer Ijams' life on the timeline of colonial Maryland history cemented an idea in my mind: whoever Elizabeth's parents were, they surely must have been among the first British settlers to take up residence in the colony.

Granted, Elizabeth's will placed her death some time after May 5, 1762, but we already know from her husband's will in 1734 that back then, she was already mother to at least nine children. Whenever she was born, Elizabeth's birth most likely occurred in the late 1600s. As I begin researching this ancestor, I want to place her lifespan within a timeline of local history.

Like many American history researchers, I already was aware of the 1620 arrival, further north, of the Mayflower. But looking up the history of the Maryland region where Elizabeth's family lived—Anne Arundel County—I was surprised to see the first entry in that timeline: 1608. That, it turns out, was barely a year following the 1607 settlement of the Jamestown colony in Virginia.

That 1608 date, it turns out, marked the arrival of an explorer, not the founding of a settlement. Reviewing the rest of the timeline of historic events in Anne Arundel County revealed a tumultuous series of events, once the colony was formed.

The first settlers to Maryland didn't arrive until 1634, aboard two ships: The Ark and the Dove. Whether Elizabeth's parents—or even grandparents—were aboard either of those two vessels, I am a long way from discovering. We'll first need to delve into Elizabeth's own life and locate what we can secure from documentation, but it is clear that the Plummer family must have been among some of the first British transplants to arrive on a newly-settled continent.

To Begin at the End

 

You know the genealogy drill: begin at the end and work your way backwards in time, from death to birth. It was in such a search for indications of the last days of Elizabeth Plummer Ijams that I started by looking for a will.

Actually, to be more precise, knowing that Elizabeth, my mother-in-law's sixth great-grandmother, had died in 1762, I was fairly certain that I wouldn't find such a document. After all, most women of that time period didn't have property to dispose of, legally. I was sure the only mention I'd find of Elizabeth would be in her husband's will.

There was, however, a mention of such a document for her in a note affixed to a Find A Grave entry for Elizabeth. The note referred to a publication, the Maryland Calendar of Wills, of which there were several volumes, some available online at FamilySearch. Not finding the volume noted in the Find a Grave entry—volume twelve—I gave up and went looking elsewhere.

After trying some other resources—a register of Maryland wills at FamilySearch and a note at the Maryland Genealogical Society regarding their indexing project—I gave up Googling and went back to Ancestry.com to see what I could find. 

Surprise, there it was: the 1762 will drawn up by Elizabeth, widow of William Ijams, providing her last instructions to her children about her property in Anne Arundel County in colonial Maryland. Such a contrast it was to see the listing of her surviving children, so many years after her husband had drawn up his own will in 1734.

Reading between the lines on those two documents may help us piece together what became of Elizabeth's family in the interim, part of the task we'll need to undertake as we explore the life and times of this distant ancestor in my mother-in-law's roots. But first, we'll take some time to orient ourselves to the general history of the region that Elizabeth once called home.

Finding the Way

 

Searching for an ancestor like Elizabeth Plummer brings with it challenges not encountered in the usual genealogical research. That is for one specific reason: Elizabeth lived in the 1600s in colonial Maryland, not in the more modern era of multiple government-mandated records. When digging into a new research arena such as this, it's best to get some help in finding the way to such centuries-old documents.

While I've had plenty of experience following the trail of more recent ancestors in places like Ohio or Virginia, it's been a rare ancestor for whom the foray has led to Maryland. Venturing into colonial records for such ancestors brings me even more of a challenge.

My first inclination, in heading into unfamiliar research territory, is to look to the FamilySearch wiki. But I don't simply take that step; there are ample ways to get lost in all the diversions awaiting us at that front door. Rather than that, I use a different tactic: I Google what I want to find within the wiki by using it as a subheading. Thus, I might search for "FamilySearch wiki colonial Maryland." That search approach allows me to pick the links I want to follow, then examine each one individually.

Just in a few minutes' exploration, I discovered several useful links, all at FamilySearch.org, to bookmark for this month's exploration of Elizabeth Plummer's family.

Unsurprisingly, a wiki article headlined "Maryland Colonial Records" provided links to specific record sets held at FamilySearch.org. But it also included a helpful synopsis of colonial history in Maryland, particularly exploring the political background impacting land and church records with changing regimes. In addition, this link also included a bibliography of helpful books providing abstracts of key record sets.

My search also provided a list of links under the wiki headline, "Maryland Online Genealogy Records." It's a snap I won't be traveling to Maryland anytime soon, so "online" is my favorite word right now. This wiki page provides subheadings for types of records, such as vital records, land records, biographies, cemetery records, and some items I'm keenly interested in, such as probate and tax records.

For those appreciating a more in-depth review, the wiki "Maryland History" provides a timeline of colonial and early state history, including the border disputes leading up to the drawing of the Mason-Dixon Line. In addition, this wiki page provides a bibliography of useful books on Maryland history, for those who appreciate a more detailed accounting of what life was like for their Maryland ancestors.

To widen the lens even further, the FamilySearch wiki on United States Colonial Records provides a broader picture of the widespread immigration which occurred from the colonial era onward. Particularly useful on this page is the chart labeled "Thirteen Colonies Records at a Glance," which provides earliest dates of availability for church records, land records, and court records for each of the thirteen original colonies.

Of course, outside the many records compiled at FamilySearch.org, there is the Maryland State Archives itself, including the featured online items there.

All told, while that will involve a lot of searching and evaluation of records, a list like that provides enough wiggle room for me to surely find more on the family of my mother-in-law's sixth great-grandmother Elizabeth Plummer.   

Just Because we Can

 

There are some ancestors we research simply because we can. Elizabeth Plummer is such a case. My mother-in-law's sixth great-grandmother, Elizabeth was an antecedent of William Ijams, the more-recent fourth great-grandfather in my mother-in-law's line whom I've long since traced from his native Maryland to Fairfield County, Ohio.

The Ijams roots, fortunately, have been recorded in various genealogy books over the years, providing the help of a trailblazer to point the way. As we've seen last month, however, there is always the possibility that such a published resource may include mistakes, or even typos at the least. The best policy is to access original documents, if possible. This month will be my experiment to locate those for William's paternal grandmother.

There are a few details I already have spotted about Elizabeth Plummer. One is the year of her death: 1762. At least that is the date reported by a volunteer on Find A Grave, said to have been based on the date of her will. The challenge is to locate a copy of that actual document.

Likewise with Elizabeth's marriage to the senior William Ijams, reportedly in 1696, according to compiler Robert Barnes in his book, Maryland Marriages 1634-1777.  This is simply another detail to verify through original documents. A helpful addition to all that verification would be to confirm the identities of her nine children.

Besides exploring repositories providing digitized copies of colonial Maryland records, we'll need to spend part of this month exploring the more updated verification of the Ijams line through DNA. While a specific subset of Elizabeth's female descendants might possess her unique mitochondrial DNA signature, such would not be the case with my mother-in-law. And Elizabeth's own autosomal genetic makeup would likely be too far removed from appearances through her modern-day counterparts. However, her grandson, William Ijams, appears as a fifth great-grandfather in my husband's line, and so far we have sixty six DNA matches in that ThruLines result to verify. Perhaps we may stumble upon some interesting details as we add that aspect to this month's research tasks.

But first, before we dive into this quest to learn about Elizabeth Plummer, let's look at what resources are available to us for researching any records from colonial Maryland.