Thursday, June 1, 2023

Back to the 1700s — Again

 

Every now and then, I cycle back through research projects I had tackled—rather unsuccessfully—during previous years. This month will be one of those repeat projects.

For the last of three ancestors of my mother-in-law for this year's Twelve Most Wanted, our focus for June will be on her third great-grandfather, Matthias Ambrose. While a designation like third great-grandfather may seem so relatively close—at least to those of us keen on researching our family history—this is a man who lived in the late 1700s, dying sometime in 1804.

What I already know about Matthias is that he was the father of Elizabeth Ambrose, of my mother-in-law's direct line. Making research a bit more convenient—not to mention, giving me a handy nudge toward researching collateral lines—Elizabeth and her sister Susannah married two brothers, Joseph and John Henry Flowers. Together, these two daughters and their husbands moved from their home in Pennsylvania to what was then the frontier in central Ohio.

Elizabeth and Susannah were not the only children of Matthias Ambrose and his wife Maria Barbara Mathews. There were at least nine other children whom I can trace for further clues on this Ambrose family. That, we will likely do during this month, considering Matthias has yielded us sixty six DNA matches on his Thru-Lines listing at Ancestry.com.

Whether Matthias was always a resident of Bedford County, Pennsylvania—the place where his will was filed in 1804—I can't yet say. This, too, will be something to focus on during this month of research.

While I already know some details of Matthias Ambrose's life and family, there is much more to learn. Since we only have a month to uncover as many details as possible, we'll get a start on the discovery process tomorrow.

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