Looking Sideways to Move Forward

 

Sometimes, in order to move ahead with a family history research project, we need to look sideways before we can take our first step forward. In the case of finding more on the newly-discovered matriline of Rosanna Jackson Mitchell, that is exactly what we need to do to learn anything more on her middle daughter Martha.

Martha Mitchell was easily found in the family's listings in the 1860 and 1870 census enumerations. Raised in Chickasaw County, Iowa, where her family had settled after leaving their Ohio home, Martha's appearance there was predictable—until, at least, she came of age to marry or leave the home. At that point, a possible marriage to someone by the name of Frank Lehman may have been what removed her from the home of her father, Walter Mitchell.

I say "possible," because it was a derivative record in which I found the information—one, unfortunately, lacking any identification of that Martha Mitchell's parents. But that roadblock didn't keep me stumped for long. It was barely another six months until an entry at Find A Grave intimated the rest of her story: that she had died on October 27, 1875—if, that is, the headstone's listing for Elisabeth Lehman was one and the same as the married woman Martha Mitchell became.

Could Elisabeth have been Martha's middle name? Having no way to know from actual documents, I decided to "sidestep" the issue by turning to the records of her brothers. A family member's collateral lines have often been one way to find otherwise hidden clues.

First, I turned to her next-older brother,Thomas à Kempis Mitchell. A volunteer had posted Thomas' obituary to his memorial at Find A Grave. Easy enough, I thought, until looking over the 1937 newspaper clipping, I noticed Thomas' only surviving sibling was his sister, Mrs. Sarah Nugent. I needed an earlier date of death among the siblings if I were going to find any sign of their sister Martha.

Step by step, I went through the older brothers. William, who died in 1924, had a lengthy obituary which honored his character and documented the current residences of his seven children, but made not one mention of his siblings—not even his sister Sarah, who would definitely have been a survivor at that earlier date.

Moving to the next oldest brother, Joseph, I found an obituary which reminded me of the hard life so many of our ancestors faced—he died at the age of seventy three on account of injuries suffered when he was gored by a bull while working on his brother Thomas' farm. Though he had no children of his own, the obituary did mention his surviving siblings. Besides Thomas, there were William and Sarah, plus an unnamed brother "residing in the East." But no Martha.

Whether Martha was one and the same as the young, deceased bride of Frank Lehman, I can't say. But seeing no mention of this sister in the obituaries of three of her brothers, I think it is safe to conclude that there is no further possibility of another matriline descending from her mother, Rosanna Jackson Mitchell.