Stepping Backwards to Move Forward

 

Sometimes, a step backwards can get us moving forward.

After working on my mother-in-law's Ijams and Plummer line for half a month, I thought I'd check on the most distant ThruLines report for that family line at Ancestry's DNA to see if there were any updates. There were—well, there were, if you count a diminishing number of results as progress. 

In the past, Ancestry's ThruLines had shown five or six children descending from William Ijams, grandson of Elizabeth Plummer Ijams, and fifth great-grandfather of my husband, who is the surrogate tester standing in for my mother-in-law. Today, however, there were only two descending lines, and each of them, thankfully, can be confirmed through documentation.

Since connections with fifth great-grandparents is as far back as ThruLines shows for autosomal DNA tests, William himself would have to stand in as proxy for his paternal grandparents' DNA composition—the best I could do under these testing conditions.

Today, however, those stray other lines—names listed in previous ThruLines results that I hadn't been able to confirm through documentation—have simply vanished. Poof! If the DNA test candidates represented by those ThruLines results were indeed distant cousins, they obviously must have been connected through a different genetic route. Perhaps, someone had presumed there was a connection and had made a mistaken entry in their own tree which, repeated as others copied that tree, got picked up by ThruLines.

Though it is theoretically possible to find DNA matches who share a most "recent" common ancestor at a level of seventh great-grandmother, as Elizabeth Plummer Ijams would have been to my husband, it is not likely to confirm such a match. On average, DNA matches who are eighth cousins, as such a descent from seventh great-grandmother would yield, would share 0.000763% of their genetic makeup, according to a chart drawn up by Hope Carnicle, reported by a post on the ISOGG.org wiki.

In other words, eighth cousins could share up to forty two centiMorgans. Or they could share none.

In most cases, we'd never see such DNA matches, because the odds are against us. In my mother-in-law's case, a second strike would come in the form of multiple intermarriages over those many generations spanning her family's heritage, so even if a segment match registered, we'd have to delve deeper to determine which ancestor actually contributed that match. It might not be the ancestor we were suspecting.

In the end, while this change in results at Ancestry's ThruLines report doesn't strictly lead us to matches who share Elizabeth Plummer's DNA, it does zero in on those matches who actually were descendants of Elizabeth's grandson William Ijams. A far more accurate report may do nothing more than bolster my confidence in the tool, but a gesture like that can go a long way, in my opinion.

"How Far Back?"

 

The other night, I became my husband's plus-one at an event hosted by an organization he advises. At such social gatherings filled with people I don't know, conversation invariably turns to, "what do you do?" When my answer is genealogy, now, thanks to multiple television series, the response has moved far beyond the inevitable question of past decades, "genealogy, what's that?" The question has now advanced to, "Oh? How far back have you gone?"

While I like to spread the word about family history, even that question used to make me wince. Genealogy for me has never been a race to the past. I don't like to get hyper-fixated on one ancestral line. Especially for those who solely trace their surname, my answer would have been beyond boring; that patriline for me has been an immovable brick wall up until only recently, thanks to DNA testing.

With this month's Twelve Most Wanted focus on Elizabeth Plummer, however, I'm actually approaching a fairly decent answer. No, I haven't traced my line to Charlemagne—though there are signs someone has in Elizabeth's case—and I certainly haven't been so bold as to presume connections to Adam (or even Eve). But I'd say approaching the 1600s in colonial Maryland is far more distant than my mother-in-law ever hoped I'd get with her research.

For that advance, I have many to appreciate. First is to be thankful for those who helped launch me on my research journey in those first formative years—everyone from the librarian who launched my eight-year-old self from the children's library across the hall to where the "grown-ups" went to get their books, to the many online friends in genealogy forums of the early nineties.

Mostly, I'm grateful for the pioneers of online family history resources. Just the other day, I met with our webmaster as our genealogy society prepares to launch an updated version of our website, and we found ourselves discussing broken links to bygone sites of online genealogy's formative years like RootsWeb. Before that, people during the earliest years of publicly-accessible online technology experimented with "listservs" and social forums where newbies could ask questions without fear of blowback, trolls, or other forms of techno-rudeness. People helped people find their roots.

Beyond that, I'm ecstatic about those technology whizzes who kept experimenting over the decades, bringing us gifts like the first online searchable 1880 census index at FamilySearch.org. We've come a long way since then, of course, and we've not stopped improving yet. I'm over the top about FamilySearch's Full Text Search, which has made excerpts from those billions of pages of digitized documents from around the world find a home in my very own family tree.

And just like that, a will drawn up by a man who died in the 1690s gives me in the twenty-first century a snapshot of his family portrait. In words, of course—but just imagine how hard it would have been to find those specific words by a mission to personally access and read all pertinent record sets without that computer-assisted direction.

To say that I found Thomas Plummer's 1694 will is not entirely correct. FamilySearch.org found it. While in answer to a trivial question posed by a stranger at a party, I can say "eighth great-grandfather," it was really all those dedicated computer engineers whose efforts over decades have yielded us the ability to go that far back—with ease.

Baby of the Family

 

Researching a sixth great-grandmother is apparently easier than I had thought. At least I can say that about my mother-in-law's sixth great-grandmother, Elizabeth Plummer Ijams. Despite appearing in documents drawn up by a liberal hand at spelling—not to mention letter formation itself—Elizabeth has been far easier to find in colonial Maryland than I had expected, something more than I can say for our ancestors in Europe from even the more recent 1800s.

The latest attempt at pursuing Elizabeth's trail has been looking for her father's will. Thomas Plummer, the man identified in the Harry Wright Newman book, Anne Arundel Gentry, was easily found in the court records for that county, a copy of which will has thankfully been digitized at FamilySearch.org. In that 1694 record, we learn that Elizabeth was the baby of the Plummer family, the last of four daughters named in their father's will.

In the stylized handwriting of the court's clerk, Thomas' surname was rendered as "Ploumer" in the July 12, 1694 will. In that document, Thomas specified his "only son Thomas," who received his hundred acre plantation known as "the Seamas Delight" in Calvert County.

But for the stylized handwriting, I'd now know the married names of Elizabeth's older sisters. "Margrett" was by then wife of someone named Hugh, but whether that surname was "Proily" or "Doily" or another variation, I can only guess. This will take additional research to confirm.

Following the eldest daughter was a far easier couple to decipher: second daughter Mary had married William Jackson. Easier to read, but likely much harder to locate with such a common name.

Third daughter Susana had me stumped at first, with husband Francis' surname rendered as something vaguely similar to "Swarson." Thankfully, that name was repeated more clearly in an additional item towards the end of the will as Swanson.

And then there was the baby of the family. Elizabeth, apparently not yet married, had been granted eight hundred pounds of tobacco, in addition to 164 acres of land in Anne Arundel County in a parcel known as Bridge Hill.

The names of these estates become a helpful clue as we wind our way through the generations, tracing each of the next owners of the property through time, until the parcel is sold out of the family entirely. Sometimes, in piecing together mystery genealogies, all we have to go by can sometimes be those whimsical names given to a piece of land.

Disappearance of the Children

 

At first glance, comparing the wills of William Ijams and his wife Elizabeth gives us two different lists of heirs. Not that the names of their children do not match between the two documents, but that the heirs listed in the later will comprise a much smaller list of family members. Why the disappearance of all those Ijams children?

When William Ijams drew up his last testament in 1734, his was a large family. William named five sons and four daughters when he filed that will in Anne Arundel County, Maryland: John, Plummer, William, Richard, Thomas, Ann, Elizabeth, Mary, and Charity.

Granted, William included so many contingencies in his will that it left me wondering whether he knew some of his sons might not outlive him—or at least not produce heirs of their own to whom they could pass their inheritance, should tragedy strike son as well as father. So when I saw the reduced list of heirs named in his wife Elizabeth's own will in 1762, I assumed that was indeed the case: tragedy surely had struck the extended Ijams family.

Not necessarily so, I'm realizing now as I rethink this list from Elizabeth's own will.

Filed in the same colonial Maryland county, Anne Arundel, Elizabeth's 1762 will mentioned only three sons: John, "Plumer," and Thomas. Of the four daughters only one was named—thankfully with her married named, Ann Williams. An additional name, Ruth Ijams, was noted to be Elizabeth's daughter-in-law, but the will did not identify which son had married Ruth, though I presume it would have been one of the three sons mentioned in Elizabeth's will.

Yet a stipulation added at the end of the document mentioned, "if any one of the rest of my children," seeming to indicate that there were indeed other surviving children. For those others, Elizabeth seemed to indicate that she felt, according to her husband's will, that those other children were not entitled to anything else.

Nor are we, the silent witnesses two centuries later, entitled to know their names, unfortunately. The rest of them may have all survived—or at least some of those descendants. But which daughters married, if any, and what their married names might have been, Elizabeth's will won't be informing us. Nor will that document explain what became of William or Richard Ijams, the two sons left out of their mother's listing.

There likely were other ways to trace those descendants, should any Ijams descendants wish to do so. Other than our curiosity regarding Elizabeth's will, I likely won't do so, either. My interest would solely be in pursuing Elizabeth's son John, who would be in my mother-in-law's direct line.

More to my point would be to push back yet another generation to see where Elizabeth might have been mentioned in the documents drawn up by her own parents.

Evolution of a Letter

 

To find mention of a woman in colonial America, the most likely place to look might be in her husband's records. Thus, in my search for Elizabeth Plummer, wife of William Ijams, it would be reasonable to look for mention of her name in his will. Since William died in 1734 in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, it would seem a reasonable step to look there for his will.

There is only one problem with that assumption: the evolution of the letter "J." If you thought it would be a simple matter to look for a surname like Ijams, think again. That letter "J" can play tricks on the unsuspecting researcher. I've struggled with that very topic, every time I return to this Ijams research.

Take, for instance, my post written three years ago on the history of the letter "J." I assure you: the struggle is real.

I didn't, however, anticipate the one variation which took me by surprise this month when seeking a will for Elizabeth's husband William Ijams. I hardly expected to see the will indexed under the name "Jiams," but that is exactly how it was handled.

Let's take a look at the situation. In a document signed on June 28, 1734, Elizabeth's husband set out to put his house in order. He made provisions for his wife Elizabeth from his personal estate, and bequeathed property to his sons William, John, and Plummer. In addition, he named sons Richard and Thomas, as well as daughters Elizabeth, Mary, Charity, and Ann.

The only problem? His name was indexed as "Jiams."

Looking more closely, I checked for every time the document used what to me—and apparently to others, as well—looked like the letter "J." Perhaps it is no surprise, seeing this excerpt of the will, to realize that it began with the statement, "Jn the name of God Amen J William Jiams of Ann Arundell County in the Province of Maryland...."

No, those Js are not typos. Every handwritten letter appearing to be the letter "J" actually made more sense as an "I." Thus, the man writing that document in such a stylized hand was referring to someone named William Iiams, most likely husband of the Elizabeth I'm researching. 

The next task, I discovered, was to actually find Elizabeth setting her hand to a last will and testament of her own. We'll need to fast forward, tomorrow, to 1762 to compare the children's listings from the two documents.

Stuck at the Crossroads

 

In chasing my brick wall ancestors, I sometimes feel like the cartoon character standing at the crossroads, saying, "Which way did they go?"

Following a trailblazer sometimes helps with such research, but that's a proposition which requires follow-up. See how that adds up for my mother-in-law's sixth great-grandmother, Elizabeth Plummer, who became wife of William Ijams (or Iiams).

I found a brief entry in the Harry Wright Newman book, Anne Arundel Gentry. The book explains that William "Iiams," who married Elizabeth "Ploummer" on August 27, 1696, had a deed recorded at the State House concerning sixty four acres of a tract of land in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, known as "Dodon."

The Newman narrative explained that the deed was likely brought to the State House to be filed "after the fire at the State House." Checking the timeline of county history I had recently found for Maryland's Anne Arundel County, I saw nothing regarding such a fire, though I did see an entry for 1696 in which construction on the State House was begun in that year.

The entry, as quoted in the Newman book, indicated that Elizabeth was the legatee and daughter of Thomas Plummer, who in turn was the grantee of someone named Francis Stockett. The grant, originally occurring in July, 1686, transferred property rights concerning sixty four acres of "Dodon" from Francis Stockett to Thomas Plummer.

Another purchase of land, also mentioned in this deed, involved a hundred acre parcel called "Bridge Hill," which Elizabeth's father Thomas Plummer had obtained from another Stockett man, this one named Henry, along with Henry's presumed wife, Katherine. 

This passage in the Newman book indicated that Elizabeth was daughter of "Thomas and Elizabeth (Yate) Ploummer." Yet, between that page and the previous one was a typewritten insert, hand signed by Harry Wright Newman, stating that 

Elizabeth, the wife of William Plummer, is now proved to be the step-daughter of George Yate and not "daughter" as expressed in his will...therefore, she was born Elizabeth Stockett. Elizabeth, the wife of William Ijams, is consequently of Stockett descent and not Yate.

I believe the intent of the insertion at this point in the Anne Arundel Gentry book was to indicate that Elizabeth Plummer, wife of William Ijams, was daughter of Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Plummer (not William), and that the senior Elizabeth, though raised by her step-father George Yate, was actually descended from a man named Stockett.

However, seeing the two Stockett men mentioned in the deed filed by William Ijams gives me pause. Which one of the two was the elder Elizabeth's father?

Furthermore, and to the point of yesterday's post, in his rush to correct an entry on the following page of his book, the author may have propagated yet another error—all to say that it's best that, though gratefully when it proves helpful, we follow trailblazers cautiously.

Above image from insert after page 394 in Harry Wright Newman's 1933 book, Anne Arundel Gentry.

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.