Ancestor #2: One Thing Leads to Another

 

One reason I have trouble wrapping up a research project is that, in family history, one thing always seems to lead to another. We may call what we are building a family tree, but in reality, it is more like a daisy chain. One family name always links us to another.

That's the way it seems to be for me as I lay out my plans for researching my Twelve Most Wanted for 2024. Yesterday, I may have mentioned that my plan for January is to research the Carter line on account of my fourth great-grandmother, Margaret Chew Carter, but that leads to the question: where did she get a middle name like Chew?

That, of course, means spending some time this coming February on the Chew family name and history. Chew, as it turns out, was Margaret's mother's maiden name. And that Chew line, as we'll find out, is connected with another colonial American surname, Beverley.

It will take some digging through old history books and documents to find information on this specific Chew family line during that time period of the early 1700s. Once again, utilizing what can be found on local history of that time period may deliver some insights regarding what we might otherwise miss about the specific family line, but it will be worth the effort of exploring that time period. There is still so much to learn, even if we come up empty-handed from a document search on this woman's family. However, based on what I've already observed, I'm sure we will find so much more.