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 the 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. 

A Sixth Great-Grandmother

 

It's a new month, and time to extract ourselves from the convoluted search for Lydia Miller's roots. For our sixth ancestor from my Twelve Most Wanted for 2026, I selected my mother-in-law's sixth great-grandmother, Elizabeth Plummer.

Not that I wanted another challenging research project to follow last month's struggle, but Elizabeth will present an entirely different kind of search. Elizabeth spent most of her adult life—that I know of—in the British colony of Maryland. She supposedly married William Ijams—or Iiams—in 1696. That alone makes her the earliest ancestor I've ever researched.

Fortunately, there are resources reaching back to that date, preserved and accessible thanks to the archival collections of what is now the state of Maryland. This month will be my workout on how to access records from this repository as I pursue this distant relative of my mother-in-law.

In the meantime, I won't entirely give up on last month's chase after Lydia Miller's roots. Behind the scenes, I'll continue building the descendancy charts for each of the Miller patriarchs whose modern-day family members have turned out to be my husband's DNA matches. In addition, not forgetting the realization of the Anspach connection for those DNA matches, I'll be examining that line more closely, too. Perhaps, if anything significant surfaces, I'll share that on a weekend post.

Meanwhile, it's time to begin our June research project. Tomorrow, we'll meet Elizabeth Plummer and see what work we have laid out for us this month. 

Messy or Not, it's Time to Move on

 

Despite a messy research detour while puzzling over Lydia Miller's roots, at the end of the month, it's time to move on. My mother-in-law's second great-grandmother will have to remain a mystery for another year.

Still, there are several observations gleaned from this month's meandering research trajectory. Most helpful was the realization that my husband, the designated DNA tester for this line, had matches reaching back to ancestors bearing that same Miller surname. My goal this month was to isolate those DNA matches who, while related through a Miller line, were not connected through any of the other intermarried lines from my mother-in-law's "endogamy lite" family.

This process yielded DNA matches whose founding ancestor—at least as far as we can tell at this point—was either Jonathan Miller (of unknown parentage) or Solomon Miller, son of George. 

While I wore myself to the bone searching for ancestral connections preceding those Miller men, in retrospect, it occurred to me that perhaps seeking Miller roots might have been the wrong approach. There might have been a second way these Millers were related: through their wives. Jonathan Miller, for instance, had married Catharine Dupler. Solomon Miller, while marrying a woman whose maiden name has seen various spelling permutations—Auspaugh or Anspaugh—may actually have been the son-in-law of David Anspach of Perry County, Ohio.

If that were the case, David's sister Anna Elizabeth Anspach would actually be mother of Jonathan Miller's wife, Catharine Dupler. In other words, Catharine Dupler Miller and Malinda Anspaugh Miller would have been first cousins. The grandfather they shared in common would be Johann Adam Anspach.

Whether that means my mother-in-law shared that Anspach ancestor, I can't yet say, though it is now obvious that these two Miller wives whose descendants ever so slightly match my husband's DNA must be in the picture for future research. Finding Lydia Miller's roots will need to be an ongoing project for next year, but finding that connection through their wives, not the Miller husbands, is at least an encouraging discovery to reference the next time we return to this research puzzle.