Lyman's Two Grandsons Cornelius

 

Why is it that sometimes, looking at the place where you'd most expect to receive the help you needed, you come away empty handed? Here I am, finally locating a Jackson family member's own typewritten manuscript about his family history, but what do I find when I turn to the entry on Cornelius, son of Michael Jackson? Nothing.

That's the Reader's Digest version of my search this month to determine whether Lyman Jackson actually had two grandsons by that name, Cornelius, or only one. For the more inquisitive, here are the resources that did fish me out of my research mess.

First stop was to the unpublished manuscript concerning the Lyman Jackson family and associated lines, composed by a judge in Atchison County, Kansas, and handily digitized and freely accessible through FamilySearch.org. While I did glean many details on the extended family, when I came to the entry for Lyman's son Michael—father of one of two Jackson grandsons named Cornelius—for that Cornelius, I found nothing besides his name.

This was especially disappointing, considering that out of the six children born to Michael Jackson and his wife, Ruth Hendryx, his was the only line without further information. Granted, three of his siblings received nothing more than a line of information, mostly providing the name of a spouse and, in one case, where that couple currently lived. But one sister's entry contained enough information to stretch for eight lines of text. Why did Cornelius rate so little? Was the author as confused as I am about the identities of those two grandsons with the same name?

Fortunately, there was a way around this dilemma, and that points us back to D.A.R., where I first found the entry on Lyman Jackson's own participation in the American Revolutionary War. From the lineage books of the charter members of D.A.R., it just so happened that one member, a great-granddaughter of Lyman Jackson, was daughter of none other than this same Cornelius Jackson.

With that discovery, we now have a report of this Cornelius' dates of birth and death (1822-1893) and confirmation that he was son of Michael, not Abner (the other Cornelius' father). The D.A.R. entry also confirms the name of this Cornelius' wife—Mary H. Munger.

Having that confirmation, I can now proceed with greater confidence through the many hints which popped up on my Ancestry account for this Cornelius. Some of them apparently had confused the two cousins with the same name, and I can now redirect those hints to the other cousin with the same name. 

For those records which apply to the right guy, I can safely add them to his profile page. And, of course, the D.A.R. entry also provides the name of at least one child of this Cornelius and Mary, allowing me to move forward through the right line of descendants. Not to mention, the other Cornelius, son of Abner and Mary (Stokes) Jackson, will also have his linked records cleared specifically to him without further question.

What a relief to find this. Now, with only another day to wrap up this research project, I'll see what I can add about Lyman Jackson himself, our starting off point this month. I haven't been able to locate him in any other place than his last residence in Erie County, Pennsylvania. I'd like to see whether I can find any earlier records before we clear out this month and move on to another research project.