When the Pioneers Keep Pioneering

 

When working on an American ancestor from the mid-1700s, such as my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather Lyman Jackson, it is not surprising to see such a man described as a "pioneer." But when I begin tracing that pioneer's descendants, and run across a mention of his great-granddaughter listed in a news report as a pioneer, I'm surprised. Apparently, some pioneers keep on pioneering. Perhaps it is in their DNA.

For that very purpose of tracing the descendants of Lyman Jackson to confirm DNA matches to that line, I've been building a line of descent for each of his thirteen children. This, as you can imagine, may take some time. (Hopefully, I'll have this task completed by the end of the month, though this itself will be a challenge.)

Starting with the oldest of the Jackson children, I've been methodically sliding down each line of descent to our current time—and, hopefully, to some DNA matches. This past week, my focus has been on their eldest son, Jesse Dunham Jackson. Said to have been born in 1784, Jesse—perhaps besides using the initials "J. D." may have also gone by his middle name, Dunham—was a challenge to trace. 

However, I was able to pick up on one line of his descendants, Jesse's son Royal Montgomery Jackson, thanks to his 1912 death certificate. Clearly far from his grandfather's final resting place back in Erie County, Pennsylvania, Royal Jackson had died in Missouri. And yet, it took one more generation before I ran into that label of "pioneer" for one of the Jackson descendants.

Royal Montgomery Jackson's third daughter, Candace, was born in Illinois around 1845, but before she was five years of age, her family, along with Royal's brother and brother-in-law and their families, had moved to the town of Adams in Green County, Wisconsin. By the time Candace was married in 1866, she was even farther west, in Daviess County, Missouri.

That, however, was not the end of this Jackson descendant's journey. Along with her husband, Thomas J. Sweany, this next generation was into gold mining in Ketchikan, Alaska, by the time of the 1900 census. Perhaps needing a little less excitement in their own golden years, the Sweany family moved back to the States by the time of the 1910 census, where they had stayed at a hotel on Summit Avenue in Seattle.

It wasn't until twelve years later when an obituary appeared in the October 24, 1922, Seattle Star regarding  a "Pioneer's Funeral Set for Wednesday." The pioneer? Mrs. Thomas Sweany, a.k.a. Candace Jackson, great-granddaughter of Lyman Jackson, called by the newspaper a "pioneer resident of Washington." Perhaps the farther west one moves, the easier it is to be considered a pioneer. 

New Life

 

There is a woman in our city—some call her an angel—who has dedicated herself to rescuing and rejuvenating the homeless. Unlike officials of some governmental programs, she personally understands how people can slip to that condition, and what it takes for them to regain their wellbeing. Her work—and stories of new life—are truly inspirational.

There may be a time when many of us slip to the point where we need a new grasp on life. Perhaps it is in such stories of new life that the message of Resurrection Day resonates—that unexplained yet profound change that makes all things different. Every story of such change becomes a point to meditate in gratitude, whether during a faith-based holiday like Easter, or on what would otherwise have been considered just an ordinary day.

I hope for you that today becomes far from the ordinary.

Above: "Vita Liljor," watercolor by Swedish artist Anders Zorn (1860-1920); courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Thirds

 

I once was acquainted with a woman who had married her third cousin. While it may be unusual for the general public to even understand what third cousins actually are, this couple knew how their families connected.

With the advent of DNA testing, many more of us have had to learn exactly what it is that makes some of us third cousins—or even some more convoluted connections, such as third cousins once removed, or half grand-nephews. I've had more than my fair share of such relationships—just on Ancestry.com's DNA test alone, I've got almost forty five thousand DNA matches who are beyond fourth cousins to me. But a question just the other day about relationships like these third cousins and beyond stopped me short and made me consider something.

In emailing one of the DNA matches with whom I've had a running dialog, she asked whether I had ever before actually met a third cousin. In considering that thought, I had to admit, well, no (though I am about to do so this year). Though our minds can comprehend the concept—we merely claim a set of second great-grandparents in common—this is seldom a part of most people's lived experience. We are a culture in which family members move away to new locations, then lose touch with relatives left behind as we become part of our new neighborhoods and jobs.

DNA testing may have fostered a new desire to connect with long-lost relatives. I know one member of our local genealogical society who has purposefully reached out to connect with distant cousins, eventually having the chance to travel and meet some of them in person. While "Relatives at RootsTech" or "Relatives Around Me" on the FamilySearch app may be fun ways to discover connections online, it is merely a cerebral experience. Rather than simply poking a few buttons on our phone, it takes effort—not to mention trust—to reach out to an unknown someone for the goal of actually meeting distant family, face to face.

While some of the distant cousins with whom I've already connected online come from family lines I do know and understand—my in-laws' cousin connections, for instance—this latest discovery flows from the opposite side of possibilities. I sent a message to someone from my father's side of the family—that Polish lineage which I had been seeking out of a dearth of information. I knew nothing and desperately was hoping to learn from someone who surely knew more about those roots.

Collaboration online can be a helpful, even fascinating, process, but I imagine meeting in person will introduce a different dimension to the research process. While I'm sure there will be awkward instances which people walk away from, thinking, "I can't believe we are related," I'm sure there will be meetings filled with observations about unexpected connections, too. Whichever way it goes, I'm looking forward to being part of such an experience soon.

A Path to the Past

 

You know the drill in genealogy: you start with what you know, then move incrementally backwards into the past, seeking documentation to confirm the validity of each step. In this month's case, though, I'll be following that path to the past more slowly than if we'd been on a chase to merely name the ancestors of this month's selection of my Twelve Most Wanted. I already know Lyman Jackson was the father of my mother-in-law's third great-grandfather, John Jay Jackson. And I've already discovered that Michael Jackson, in turn, was Lyman's father.

This month, we'll take the details already found on Lyman Jackson's life and zoom in to see what additional information we can glean on this family. For one thing, Lyman Jackson and his wife, Deidama Dunham, were said to be parents of thirteen children. I don't yet know how many of those Jackson children left descendants of their own, but I'm thinking our DNA account should contain far more than the seventy DNA cousins who have been spotted by Ancestry.com's ThruLines tool up to this point. I'll be busy adding lines of descent—times thirteen—to this couple's family tree.

From what I've already found, Lyman Jackson was buried in 1835 in Albion, a township in Erie County, Pennsylvania. Checking the 1830 census for that same location, there is a listing for the household of one Lyman Jackson, along with entries for the families of his sons, Michael, David, and Royal.

Leaping over ten years to reach the next census, we find Lyman Jackson was still in Erie County, according to the 1820 census. In addition, three of his sons were listed in their own separate households: "J. D." (probably Jesse Dunham Jackson), Michael, and Abner. However, for this decade, the Jackson households were located in Conneaut Township.

Even in the 1810 census, we find Lyman Jackson and his household still located in Erie County, where the population at that time was less than four thousand people.

Rewinding history yet another decade, Lyman and his family were no longer in Pennsylvania for the 1800 census. They had moved the distance of 350 miles to Exeter in Otsego County, New York. At this earlier date, the corresponding entry for one Michael Jackson was likely not Lyman's son, but his father.

Another significant move occurred during the previous decade, for in the 1790 census, Lyman Jackson was showing in the records of the town of Pownal in Vermont. Among the names of heads of households there can be spotted the name of Obadiah Dunham, father of Lyman's wife Deidama.

For a time period in which travel would have been considered difficult at best, this large family managed to navigate at least two significant moves—to say nothing of what brought Lyman from his birthplace in Simsbury, Connecticut, up north to Vermont.

Looking at an itinerary like that just begs me to dig a bit deeper into the story behind each of those moves for the Jackson family.

Some Answers Come Quickly

 

Most months, I begin my search for the designated ancestor from among my Twelve Most Wanted for the year by saying I want to discover that brick wall ancestor's parents. However, I no sooner started work on this month's ancestor than I learned the answer to that question.

The focus for this month, my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather Lyman Jackson, was noted by his entry at the D.A.R. website to have been born in 1756 in Simsbury, Connecticut. In a digitized version at Ancestry.com of the Lucius Barnes Barbour Collection, a multi-volume set of transcriptions of Connecticut vital records, two Jackson entries confirm that location. One is the line item for the February 29 birth of Lyman, son of Michael Jackson; an entry above that is for his brother Jesse, born at the end of 1759.

The last time I had worked on Lyman Jackson as one of my Twelve Most Wanted was almost three years ago in May of 2023. Granted, I had started that month's research by focusing on Lyman's son John Jay Jackson, my mother-in-law's third great-grandfather, who had spent most of his adult years in Ohio after having served in the War of 1812. By the end of that month, I had found John in his father's home and began the effort to push back the generations yet one more time.

This month, I'd like to pick up that chase, but not merely to pursue another generation's names and pertinent dates. For Lyman, this will involve a chase through the newly-formed states in a new country, following this Revolutionary War Patriot and his wife and thirteen children as they moved from New England to upstate New York, and eventually to the western side of Pennsylvania. More importantly, I'd like to zero in on life during that time period, especially in the earlier years of the history of the places the Jacksons once called home, over two hundred years ago.

Painting a Broader Portrait

 

A new month, at least here at A Family Tapestry, signals a time to delve into the details on yet another ancestor in my family's history. Based on plans laid out at the close of the preceding year, I schedule the search for what I call my Twelve Most Wanted in the upcoming year. I spend the first three months of the year focused on three selections from my mother's line. Once that first quarter of the year is completed—hint: that would be today—I move on to the first of three selections from my mother-in-law's ancestors.

For April's selection, I want to focus on Lyman Jackson, my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather. Since we've researched this man in previous years, I don't intend to merely rehearse the bare basics of this ancestor's life story. This year, I want to dig deeper, painting a broader portrait of this colonial American who came of age right as his fellow colonists chose to declare war on Great Britain.

Rather than collecting dates as mere numbers, I want to place Lyman Jackson's vital statistics on a timeline of both national and local history. Rather than pinpointing locations on a map, I hope to explore details of the places where he and his family lived in their westward migration from the Connecticut town where he supposedly was born in 1756.

Lyman and his wife were an unusual couple, not in the fact that they had at least thirteen children, but that each one of those Jackson descendants lived to adulthood. With a family of that size, this Jackson couple bestowed a considerable legacy to future generations through this heritage, if nothing else. Indeed, there are at current count seventy of those descendants who are DNA matches on that Jackson line, at least according to Ancestry.com's ThruLines tool.

Through not only DNA tools, but court records (thanks to FamilySearch.org's Full Text Search) and local history records, we'll hopefully find a rich source of tools to help us paint that broader portrait of my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather during this month. 

Good Things Coming in Threes

 

What is that saying about good things coming in threes? This third month of 2026 may have been filled with lots of family history discoveries for the Firth and Rainey lines—as well as groan-worthy never-ending court case files—but that is not to say it's been the only genealogy work I've done this month. Behind the scenes, I've made some enjoyable connections with other researchers—oddly enough, in threes—collaborating on catching up with those elusive ancestors who've kept us chasing them, sometimes for decades.

For several months now, I had been noticing one researcher's name pop up, every time I pulled up another ancestor in my father's paternal line. It didn't take long to realize this woman is a thorough researcher who believes in locating records for even the hardest to find among our Polish ancestors. I decided to reach out to her, both on account of what I had noticed, and because I saw that she happened to be a DNA match of mine. We've struck up an ongoing conversation by email over the past half year, and I recently discovered our family's travel plans will soon take us to the very city where this DNA cousin lives. We are looking forward to actually meeting, face to face.

Another researcher I had been in touch with years ago has recently retired from a demanding career and is returning to family history puzzles with a vengeance. A few months ago, he reached out to let me know he is now back in the game and looking forward to collaborating on some challenging ancestors. He's got some fresh ideas about how to share the stories of our ancestors, which I think are spot on, and hope to collaborate with him as well.

Those two connections have been rewarding enough, but the third connection takes the cake. Once again, the credit starts with a DNA match, but this time it involves a close connection to an adoptee. While I want to respect this person's privacy by not sharing identifying information, our first contact was facilitated when this adoptee tentatively reached out to me. This message could not have been more circumspect for such an email. From that first contact to further email correspondence, and then phone calls, I was able to help this person connect with immediate family, as well as learn more about extended family. The conversations seemed eerily as if we had known each other for our entire lives, a most rewarding process to have become a part of.

These are apparently among some of the surprising turns of events that can happen when we learn more about our family history. Time consuming yet heart-warming, they remind me that genealogy is not only about dull, dry dates, places, and names, but about the real, live people whom those ancestors connected us to in the first place.