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. 

Old Mail

 

I spent the weekend re-reading old mail. Not many people send mail anymore, even of the electronic kind, but I'm glad I made a habit over the years of saving the notes which were most noteworthy. 

Among those notes in my old files was a stack of emails exchanged with avid researchers on the trail of Simon Rinehart and his children. Those letters date back to the late 1990s—and it's disturbing to think I'm still stuck with the same questions today. However, bit by bit, I'm unearthing some details and I wish I could reconnect with some of those decades-old correspondents. If they're still as stumped as I am, I'm sure they'd love to see what I've discovered—as I would be to know if they found any answers, too.

While I've discovered—thanks to court records from Perry County, Ohio—that Simon Rinehart had far more children than my fellow researchers and I had been able to find back then, reading through those old emails this weekend told me that Simon's son Thomas also had more children than I have been able to document.

And there are additional court records to unearth, too, apparently. One email from a researcher who could only find two daughters for Simon happened to mention a court case brought by Isaac Brown and his wife Cassa against three single sisters still living at home with Simon's widow.

That case—which I've yet to find—mentioned several more names, some of which I recognize, but others which have me stumped. For instance, one party to the lawsuit was a man by the name of John Colburn who had married someone named Nancy. Can I presume this is the Nancy mentioned in the Rinehart court case I could find? If so, no wonder I haven't been able to find Nancy in other records, based on the different married name given her in the case I did locate.

Another letter mentioned a full listing of Thomas Rinehart's children, containing far more names than I had been able to locate from his entry in the 1850 census. I presume this listing also was the result of searching through court cases, so I'll need to find that record, as well.

It's time to put FamilySearch.org's Full Text Search back to work on these shreds of information I've harvested from those old letters. This week, we'll take a closer look at those old notes and try to replicate the information conveyed over twenty years ago. When we're talking about families who lived in the early to mid 1800s, those records should still be there with the same information. It's just a matter of locating those dusty files—digitally.  

"The More I Search, the Less I Know"

 

A detour on my decades-long meandering journey to find more on Simon Rinehart brought me back to some correspondence exchanged with a fellow researcher online. This was back when viewing a census from the 1800s required ordering a microfilm on interlibrary loan, so thankfully, many felt the need to share what they had found. Back then, I was bemoaning the difficulty of tracing Simon from his supposed birthplace in Greene County, Pennsylvania, to some unknown location in Kentucky, then either back to Pennsylvania or perhaps directly onward to Perry County, Ohio. Explanatory documentation was simply not there to be found.

Outlining these disjointed facts I had uncovered to my fellow Rinehart researcher, once I cranked my way through the microfilmed census, I remarked, "The more I search, the less I know!"

Indeed, it did feel that way. And, unfortunately, in Simon's case, it still feels that way this month. Despite AI-assisted searches through a multitude of court records on FamilySearch.org's Full Text Search, I can't say I've made much headway. My consolation prize for my efforts has been extended lines of descent for more of Simon's children than I ever previously imagined he had. And that has resulted in this growing Rinehart branch of my mother-in-law's family tree.

Since it's time for my biweekly report, I took a look at the progress. In the past two weeks, I added 410 more individuals to my mother-in-law's tree, which now has 40,220 documented individuals. And yet, what do I have to show for it? Other than the court records showing the big, blow-out legal argument the two halves of Simon's children endured, I don't really know much more about Simon, himself.

Granted, adding all those newly-discovered descendants has begun a trickle of DNA matches as I add to Simon's branch of the family tree. Where, earlier this month, Ancestry's ThruLines tool had suggested 100 DNA matches linked to Rinehart descendants, the tool now reports 109 possible matches. As I add more descendants, I anticipate that number of matches inching upward, as well.

I suspect a breakthrough will not come until I can access records from Greene County, Pennsylvania—either online or in person. Since I don't have plans to travel that far east for quite some time, the answer to Simon's research puzzle may have to wait. But I've learned from experience on this line that more search efforts for this ancestor may yield me even more questions than I have right now.

Now Indexing No Longer

 

An entry posted this past Thursday by John Reid on his blog, Anglo-Celtic Connections, pointed out a change developing at FamilySearch.org. Volunteering to index microfilmed records is now a thing of the past. AI will do all the heavy lifting of transcribing documents; volunteers will now provide the follow-up double-check.

It's been quite some time since I last volunteered to do indexing at FamilySearch—likely when the 1950 U.S. Census was made public and the race was on to make it searchable. Then, the recently-debuted Artificial Intelligence driven handwriting recognition machines took over the hard work, and volunteers did the spot-checking of possible mistaken entries. Most of the tasks for the human volunteers seemed quite streamlined; the speed with which the records went live to the public attested to that game-changing approach.

Reading John Reid's post last Thursday prompted me to revisit the indexing page on the FamilySearch website to glean more details. Apparently, back in March, the FamilySearch blog began a series of articles highlighting what was coming next for this new way of volunteering. I had already seen that the old tab used to select indexing opportunities had received its new label, "Get Involved," but reading up on the change spelled out the greater role AI was playing in bringing so many digitized records online faster than ever before. Indexing is evolving. And I'm grateful, both as a researcher and as a volunteer, to experience the benefits of these changes.

With Patience and Persistence

 

Brick wall ancestors can languish there on the pedigree chart, their status unchanged for decades. It takes a lot to change that brick wall status. But with patience and persistence—not to mention, a big assist from advancing computer search capabilities—that status can see some changes.

As I go through each one of the children of my mother-in-law's brick wall ancestor, Simon Rinehart, I'm adding quite a bit of data to each generation's family group sheet. As I go, I'm watching for signs that I am at least nudging the status quo on that family's DNA ThruLines report at Ancestry.com. While I'm adding individuals to the family tree at a decent clip—this weekend's biweekly count will quantify that increase—I hadn't seen any changes in the ThruLines count for Simon this entire month.

Until today. 

Suddenly, instead of one hundred DNA matches linked to Simon, of which seventy also connect to his first wife, finally the number jumped up by nine matches. I wasted no time getting to that readout to verify the connections.

Granted, some of the lines of descent outlined by the ThruLines tool still rely on trees confusing Greene County, Pennsylvania, Rineharts for their name twins who left there for new territory in Perry County, Ohio. Still, there are at least three DNA matches whom I was able to verify, based on comparisons between our trees and documentation, including the very woman I had contacted so many years ago about our mutual Rinehart connections. How fun it is to re-connect with online genealogy friends from so long ago.

The work of outlining the descendants of each of Simon's children—including those from both marriages—is beginning to pay off, though ever so slightly and in such a glacially slow manner. As I've been able to find each of Simon's children in documentation, I've traced them and their descendants down to the current generation. Some of those lines appear to be robust, with multiple children in each generation's families. Other lines seem sparse, with maybe only one or two children per family, or with descendants who died childless or unmarried.

After twenty days of this process over the month so far, it is encouraging to see ThruLines pick up on some additional possible DNA matches. I'm hoping this is a delayed response, as updates only happen periodically, and that I'll reap more matches as the month moves on. We'll see soon enough how many Rinehart descendants I did manage to add in the last two weeks.

It may seem like a lot of work for very little result at first, but with patience and persistence, eventually the answers will begin to appear. Every bit of additional information can bring us closer to the breakthrough that we've waited for so long. 

The Other Side of the Family

 

Trying to piece together the story of an ancestor—especially a brick wall ancestor—can be challenging. Thankfully, in the case of my mother-in-law's third great-grandfather Simon Rinehart, we have a court document outlining not only the names of each of his children, but their connection to each specific one of his two wives.

So far, I've examined the children of Simon's first—albeit unfortunately unidentified—wife, as they would be full siblings of my mother-in-law's direct line ancestor. I've managed to trace the lines of all but one of the children from that first marriage: Martha, wife of Jacob Fordyce of Greene County, Pennsylvania; Mary, wife of Robert Smith of Hocking County, Ohio; Thomas, who along with his wife Hannah and their several children, migrated to Perry County, Ohio, as had Simon his father; and Sarah, wife of James Gordon, our direct line.

As for that one remaining child from the first marriage, Samuel, it was unclear from the court record whether he had migrated to Perry County along with the others in his immediate family, or had remained in Pennsylvania. Complicating that research is the fact that there are others in this extended Rinehart family possessing the same given names. I am concerned that our Samuel may have been confused with another Rinehart by the same name, and want to proceed carefully by sorting out the extended family.

There are, however, several others of Simon's children whom I'd like to research, in the hopes that someone in at least one branch of that family may have some knowledge of information I'm lacking. Some of the simplest details are missing from both sides of Simon's family—like the maiden name of each wife—but chances are a bit better for finding such information on the younger branch of that Rinehart family, so I'll take a few days to review what I can find on this family from the second wife.

As before, the easiest descendants to research are those daughters for whom we already have the court record stating the name of the woman's husband. From the younger family, the only one with a husband named in the court records for Simon Rinehart was his daughter Cassa, wife of Isaac Brown.

Granted, Brown is a common surname almost as frustrating to research as Smith, but in Cassa's case, it wasn't hard to find Isaac. The couple, along with their many children, were listed in Perry County for both the 1850 and the 1860 census.

That, however, was the end of the family's residence close to their siblings in Perry County. By the time of the 1870 census, Isaac and Cassa had moved their family to Wood County, Ohio, settling in the village of Tontogany. The family apparently remained there until Cassa's death in 1885, and her husband's death following, two weeks afterwards.

I can't help but wonder, now that I've read through the pages upon pages of family strife documented in Perry County court records, whether the Brown family felt the need to move far from the disputing Rinehart siblings. We read those reports, separated from the strife by well over a century, but those family members lived through the turmoil, day after day.   

Sorting it All Out

 

Sometimes, names and dates and family recollections get so scrambled in a researcher's mind that the best way to sort it all out is to use the same diagramming tools we've become familiar with in laying out a family pedigree chart. With that in mind—and reviewing what has become a dizzying array of Rinehart relatives in the Howard Leckey book, The Tenmile Country and Its Pioneer Families—I decided now would be the best time to pull out that Ancestry ProTools option, their "Networks" beta program. 

I set up a network within my mother-in-law's family tree, linked to her third great-grandfather, Simon Rinehart, and called the file what it is: "Rinehart Families in Greene County, Pennsylvania, and Perry County, Ohio." From that point, I'll pull out the Leckey tome and begin with the earliest Rinehart settler the author named, Johan Thomas Reinhart, and work my way through his extended family as they moved from their original landing place in Philadelphia, to a supposed residential detour in Frederick County, Maryland, and then, presumably, onward to Greene County Pennsylvania.

Yes, that does seem like an enormous amount of work, just to find any possible connection to our Simon Rinehart. Yet, I cannot express how frustrating it has been to find family trees posted online, asserting that our Simon in Perry County, Ohio, was actually the one who died in Greene County—or the Thomas Rinehart, whom I have listed from court documents as Simon's son, being linked to a different Rinehart parent, back in Pennsylvania.

They are all cousins of some sort, yes. But how close or how distant may make a difference in whether their descendants show up as DNA matches in my husband's genetic genealogy accounts. I'm beginning to wonder if there were gaps in the Rinehart story presented in the Leckey narrative. Or if it were merely coincidence that Simon's daughter Martha ended up marrying a man in Greene County and staying there the rest of her life. Perhaps Simon's family had originated somewhere else.