Organized Brick Wall Battling

 

When it comes to battling brick wall ancestors, my Twelve Most Wanted project has been my way to organize the process: select one ancestor per month who has me stumped, and spend the entire month poking and prodding every scrap of information I can find on that ancestor. Eventually, though, I realized I was going to hit, well, a brick wall for the research process, itself. I had seen that inevitable sign when I closed out the year's research a couple years ago. But then, something else happened to bring in a new game changer.

That game changer was a new way of searching: using computers trained to read handwriting, applied to searches through multitudes of digitized documents, both civil and ecclesiastical. With the advent of FamilySearch.org's Full Text Search, I could see that it might be possible to find the heretofore unfindable. 

With this year's Twelve Most Wanted projects, that has held true. Granted, at some point, my luck may run out—but perhaps by then, another new development may keep me running down this brick wall ancestor track for another lap.

That's how it's been, in particular, for Simon Rinehart, my mother-in-law's third great-grandfather from Greene County, Pennsylvania. Court documents drawn up after his family's move to Perry County, Ohio, have shed quite a bit of light on his family dynamics—perhaps more than the family would have liked for people to know. Most importantly, Full Text Search teaming up with FamilySearch.org's documents from Perry County showed me the correct lineup for Simon's many children from two different marriages. That is a lot more discovered than what I had when I started this month.

Closing out this month's research project on Simon Rinehart doesn't mean that's the end of the pursuit for this brick wall ancestor's roots. I'll return to his story in a future year. When I do, I hope to focus my attention on obtaining documents from his earlier years in Greene County, Pennsylvania. That is where I believe the answers should lie for those early years when Simon lost his first wife and remarried. That will require finding documents from the earliest years of the 1800s, possibly from a local source if online collections don't include the years I'm seeking.

Every little bit we do discover gives us the fuel to power future searches. This month, while not achieving my goal at the outset of finding Simon's parents, nevertheless brought us far forward through the other discoveries outlined in the month's posts. Behind the scenes, I will continue building the descendancy charts for each of the newly-discovered Rinehart children, mainly to find DNA matches from collateral Rinehart lines. But as for further pursuits on Simon's own story, we'll need to save that for a future year. For tomorrow, it's on to another search—and this time, we'll switch to an ancestor on my father-in-law's side of the family.

Wrapping up Loose Ends

 

When the close of a month approaches, it's time to gather up the loose ends still remaining untied after weeks of struggling with the month's appointed research target. Since June was the month to focus on my mother-in-law's third great-grandfather Simon Rinehart, I can easily say there were several loose ends to attend to. Today and tomorrow, we'll see what remains—and what can be noted and carried forward for the next time I tackle this brick wall ancestor.

The most significant discovery this month was finding the two court records in Perry County, Ohio,  outlining which of Simon's children belonged to each of his two wives. I am just now reorganizing those two sets of descendants in my mother-in-law's family tree. With that done, I can see how his children's dates of birth seem to align in a much more reasonable fashion with the second court record than what we were left with after Simon's will had been contested.

The result now leaves me with only three children descending from Simon's first—and unnamed—wife. Though I still can't properly identify his son Samuel—there may be a name twin back in Greene County, Pennsylvania, Simon's supposed origin—it appears all three of those children were born prior to 1800. 

As for the children of Simon's second wife, Anna, the oldest was born about 1803. This date becomes the place marker suggesting a possible wedding date for Simon's second bride, as well as a latest possible year of death for the unnamed first wife, back in Greene County—each far earlier than I had previously anticipated.

Finding any records in Greene County, however, has still been a challenge. There are simply too many Rineharts in that county—especially name twins—to make it easy to find the right ones. However, for one of Simon's daughters—Nancy, who married an Ankrom back in Pennsylvania—it may be possible to identify a likely candidate from the 1830 census onward.

What about Simon's supposed time spent in Kentucky? After all, his oldest daughter—Sarah, my mother-in-law's direct line ancestor—was said to have been born there, possibly in Bracken County. If Simon did live there for a while, it would have been before 1800. Sarah was said to have been born in Kentucky in 1795.

Looking at county records from FamilySearch.org's Full Text search, I can find a Simon "Rineheart" mentioned in Bracken County records in 1798 and 1799. Whether this detail will be key in finding Simon's first wife, I can't yet say—if, indeed, we even have the right Simon Rinehart and the right Kentucky county.

For now, though this month's exercise didn't result in the goal I was seeking of identifying Simon's parents, I did manage to get a clearer picture of who belonged in his immediate family. Tomorrow, we'll take stock of what we accomplished, and where we need to go from here for the next time I tackle this one of my Twelve Most Wanted from my mother-in-law's family lines.

About Eliza

 

It may seem an unnecessary roundabout effort to trace the step-children from a second marriage, but in the case of Nancy—daughter of Simon Rinehart and his second wife, Anna—the goal of locating any records from her first marriage was proving to be elusive. It wasn't until after the death of her second husband that we finally see any signs of a possible descendant—but whether that married woman named Eliza was actually Nancy's daughter or step-daughter needed verification.

To recap, we've already seen Simon's daughter listed as Nancy Ankrom in the family fallout following the reading of her father's will, and as Nancy Colborn in the court case following her mother's death. Just to be sure, in finding Nancy in the household of David Hull, listed as her "son-in-law," I needed to ensure that there were no daughters of Nancy's second husband, John Colborn, who were named Eliza. Reviewing the court records yesterday resolved that issue.

Having done that, you know I flew to the marriage records for Perry County, Ohio, in hopes that the young couple might have married there, rather than back in Greene County, Pennsylvania, where so many of the Rineharts had once lived. Fortunately, on August 21, 1849, there was such a document in Perry County. David Hull had married Eliza Ann Ankrom, not Colborn.

I followed Eliza from the 1870 census—where she had appeared with her husband David and five children, along with her mother—through all the other enumerations she was listed in, up to the 1880 census, her last appearance before her death in 1891. Because the later census records had shown Eliza's birth place as Illinois, now that I knew her married name, I also checked for her entry in earlier enumerations, where fortunately, her birthplace was listed correctly as Pennsylvania.

From that point, I've begun tracing Eliza's descendants. The main reason for this has more to do with the hunt for DNA matches. If Eliza was indeed Nancy Rinehart's child, that would mean she was also related to my mother-in-law's own family, thus the possibility of finding DNA matches among her descendants. But the other reason for tracing Eliza's line is that ever-present question: did Eliza have any siblings? And did any of those possible siblings mention their father's name in any records?

So far, I've not found any possible siblings for Eliza. I haven't yet located any obituary for her, which would hopefully provide a listing of surviving relatives. Nor have I found any obituary for Eliza's mother, Nancy, who died in 1874. No other documents have surfaced to provide any inkling of possible siblings for Eliza—or the name of Nancy's first husband.

Looking at the dates extrapolated from what I can find, though, shows that Nancy was born in 1803 while Eliza was born in Pennsylvania at the end of February, 1830. At the latest, Nancy could have been married to the elusive Mr. Ankrom in 1829, but based on her age, she could have been married as early as 1821, leaving plenty of time for the arrival of other siblings before Eliza was born.

A corollary question would be when Mr. Ankrom died—and where. Obviously, his daughter Eliza was in Ohio, not Pennsylvania, when she married David Hull in 1849. Could her father have died in Ohio? Or did Nancy and Eliza make the trek to Ohio with extended family after his death in Pennsylvania?

Though there are still many questions left to answer, that number is slowly decreasing as we find additional information to resolve our dilemma. And each additional identifying name will help when we return to examine the documents in Greene County, Pennsylvania, for additional information. 

Learning About the Step-Family

 

Some families are difficult to trace. The distance of generations, even centuries, is not the only impediment; some family dynamics are simply challenging to navigate. Tracing Simon Rinehart's family has been one example, due to the contentious nature between the children of his first marriage and those of his widow, Anna, who was his second wife. But even though we've found court records to guide us through the twists and turns of Simon's family, it looks like the continuing story of one daughter, Nancy, will require us to repeat that step-family examination through yet another iteration.

We've already learned that Nancy was married at least twice: once to a man surnamed Ankrom, then to a widower named John Colborn. And yet, the question remains: did Nancy, herself, have any descendants? Searching for Nancy Ankrom yields very little, other than her 1855 marriage record to John Colborn in Perry County, Ohio. Records showing a woman's own name were rarer before the 1850 census mark, and so far, I've come up empty-handed for that enumeration. Yet, pursuing the court records for Nancy's step-children might be more informative—something that will become more obvious as we continue this quest over the weekend.

Fortunately for us—though not for yet another squabbling family bringing their argument to court—digitized Perry County court records became just the guidance we need to sort out the tangles in that family. John Colborn had died intestate, and one of his sons decided to petition the court for division of John's land.

While we can find John Colborn in the 1850 census, that document was recorded after the death of John's first wife. Because the 1850 census did not include any explanation for how each person in a household was related to the others, we can't just presume that those others listed were his children—though they could be. That's why the discovery of the Colborn court case became so helpful—if, of course, the document correctly represented what was affirmed in the proceedings.

The 1850 census entry for the Colborn household listed twenty year old Martha, then twenty one year old Ephraim and eighteen year old Elizabeth, followed by six year old Alfred. The odd order of ages made me question whether each of these younger Colborns were children of John and his first wife. Ephraim and Elizabeth could also be a couple, although given their ages, Alfred would be too old to be their son.

Perry County court records following John Colborn's May 1866 death spelled out the details for us completely. The plaintiff's name was given as N. B. Colborn, one of John's sons. Also named was another son using initials: E. S. Colborn—Ephraim from the 1850 census? Apparently, Alfred J. Colborn from the 1850 census was actually John's grandson, from John's deceased daughter Mary. Another daughter, Lydia, was listed as wife of Samuel Feigley. Daughter Sarah was listed as wife of—oh, groan, another research challenge—John Brown. (Fortunately, the couple was identified as living in Pickaway County, Ohio, helping to eliminate the thousands of other John Browns who are out there.) Rounding out the list of surviving children was daughter Martha, who was by then wife of Henry J. Trout.

There were other family members included in the court listing of John Colborn's legal heirs. Another deceased Colborn daughter, Charlotte, had surviving children James P. Colborn and Mary Hare—later surnamed Dick—listed in this same readout. And deceased daughter Euphema had left heirs Francis M. Wright, Margaret Wright, and Elizabeth Eddington, wife of Perry A. Eddington.

It may seem odd, while I'm researching the extended family of Simon Rinehart, to take this detour to list another family's descendants. There is, however, a reason for this: I want to discover whether Simon's own daughter Nancy had any children of her own. The document instigating this question is the census following John Colborn's death, after his second wife Nancy had given up her dower rights in the process of dividing the Colborn property.

In 1870, sixty seven year old Nancy Colborn appeared in the household of a man named David Hull. More to the point of this question, Nancy's entry under the column heading "occupation" was a curious—and hopefully helpful, rather than misleading—statement: "lives with son in law." Was David's wife Eliza part of the extended Colborn family? Could the enumerator—as I've sometimes seen happen—have confused step-family for in-laws? Or was Eliza actually Nancy's daughter from a previous marriage?

That's the next step in this twisting family history trail—a step I wouldn't have been able to take without this clue, and certainly one I couldn't take without being equipped with the full listing of Nancy's second husband's children.

Finding Nancy

This month has become one deep dive after another into court records regarding the extended family of Simon Rinehart, my mother-in-law's third great-grandfather. After Simon's 1852 will was disputed in court in Perry County, Ohio, we've since discovered not one, but two separate listings of the names of his children, itemized specifically by each of Simon's two wives.

One task this month has been to identify and trace each of those sets of Rinehart children. While some of his heirs have been easy to find—especially those married daughters whose husbands were specifically named in the court documents—one child, Nancy, had kept me stumped.

Stumped, that is, until I noticed that her married name in the earlier lawsuit was different than that of the second court case. With this additional clue, it's time to find Nancy in whatever additional documents she might have appeared.

The listing in the earlier lawsuit named Nancy's married name as Ankrom. Since the record didn't provide a name for her husband, I presumed he was already deceased.

I presumed correctly. By November 4, 1855, there was a marriage record for a Nancy Ankrom, who had married John Colborn. And that new surname, Colborn, was exactly the one which subsequent court records concerning Simon's widow Anna Rinehart had labeled their daughter Nancy.

Since I hadn't been able to find Nancy Ankrom in any Perry County records, I checked to see whether I'd have any better luck with this new information. Sure enough, there she was in the 1860 census as we would expect, living in Pike Township with her husband John Colborn and a sixteen year old named Alfred Colborn—too old to have been Nancy's son by this second marriage.

By the time of the 1870 census, Nancy Colborn was living in the same Pike Township, but in the household of one David Hull. As for any entry in the 1870 census for John Colborn, there was none that I could find.

Sure enough, John Colborn had died—intestate—by January of 1866, launching another volley of court reports recording the arguments between John's children. Though none of those Colborn children were Nancy's own descendants, in hopes that this might point another researcher in the right direction, we'll take a look at those documents tomorrow—as well as consider whether Nancy had any children of her own from her first marriage.   

When Eight Becomes Seven

 

Sometimes, the only way to learn the rest of the story is to hunker down and read the entire text of court documents. 

Whenever the Rineharts took each other to court, they apparently kept coming back for more litigation. We saw that after Simon Rinehart's death in Perry County, Ohio, back in 1853. Discovering mention of another court case—this time, brought by Simon's son-in-law, Isaac Brown—I went back to look at the details of this subsequent case. That litigation, in turn, brought up arguments between some of the children of Anna Rinehart, Simon's second wife, and his son Jesse. The contention centered around whether Simon had, before his death, given his son Jesse a certain additional piece of land.

Meanwhile, to complicate the matter following the death of their mother, who died intestate, Anna's remaining eight children squabbled over whether her land should be divided eight ways or seven. But don't think we'd arrive at the end of the story with a simple legal decision. During the time those Rinehart descendants' case worked its way through the court system, other events occurred.

For one thing, Anna's three single daughters who had been residing with their parents in the 1850 census—Hannah, Lucinda, and Charlotte—began to experience health problems as they aged. Charlotte, in particular, had been noted in that census to have been "idiotic." Sometime before the death of their mother, Charlotte was in such need of extra care that the Perry County court appointed her brother Jesse as her guardian.

In the midst of the court proceedings due to Anna dying intestate, mention was made of Charlotte's subsequent death in 1861. That, perhaps, might not have been noted, except that in the squabble over division of their mother's land, Jesse brought up the issue of costs borne by him for his sister's funeral and burial expenses, which he felt should be addressed as they considered division of Anna's estate.

There was, however, that one other contention: whether before his death, Simon had given another parcel of land to Jesse, and if that resolved whether Jesse should be included in this later division of Anna's land. 

The resolution of that dispute? I can't say. I'm still reading through pages and pages of court documents. However, one thing is sure: you can learn a lot about a family, just by reading up on all their arguments aired in the public setting of a courtroom. 

When Court Records Get it Wrong

 

One would think court records would be the final authority on what really happened in the cases brought to justice. However, in reviewing the multiple lawsuits ensnaring Simon Rinehart's children—and later, his grandchildren—I've noticed a few tangles. For instance, in one record concerning a guardianship of Simon's daughter Charlotte, the clerk noted an assertion made in a previous record—only he left the date blank, presumably meaning to fill in the correct information later, but never doing so. In another record more to our specific concern, the court record gave a somewhat different list of names for the children of Simon and his second wife.

This complicates things. Which record do I consider to be the reliable one?

We had already seen, after Simon's will was contested in court in Perry County, Ohio, beginning in 1854, that his children from the first wife were listed as Samuel Rinehart, Martha Fordyce, Mary Smith, Thomas Rinehart, and Sarah Gordon. Also, that court case listed Simon's children from his second wife—the surviving widow Anna—as Nancy Ankrom, Jesse Rinehart, Lucinda Rinehart, Charlotte Rinehart, Cassa Brown, and Hannah Rinehart.

That case, and the following counter-suits, went on for pages and pages in Perry County court records, all of which I've read. But then came that discovery, from an old email, that Cassa Brown's husband Isaac had filed another suit after the death of Simon's widow Anna. Anna had died "about" December 18, 1859, and she had died intestate, putting into motion the very land division that Simon's heirs from his first wife had predicted.

What was confusing about finding that subsequent case was that the record included a different grouping of Simon's children. This second petition, which demanded that the Rinehart land be divided equally among Anna's descendants, noted a different listing of heirs. Named in this case were Anna's children and lineal heirs surviving her: Lucinda Rinehart, Hannah Rinehart, Nancy Colborn (wife of John Colborn), Mary Smith (wife of Robert Smith), Martha Fordyce (wife of Jacob), Jesse Rinehart, Charlotte Rinehart, and Cassa Brown (wife of Isaac Brown). 

My first reaction was an "aha!" moment: I was having the worst time trying to locate a Nancy Ankrom in Perry County. I did find one in Greene County, back in Pennsylvania where Simon and his family had originated, but the time period seemed wrong. But now, according to this document in 1860, here she was under a different married name: Colborn. Step number one following this discovery is to return to census and land records to see if I can find Nancy and her husband John—not to mention, check the marriage records.

To my dismay, however, was the regrouping of the children attributed to Simon's second wife, Anna. In the court case following his death, Martha and Mary were listed along with the other children of Simon's first wife, but now they are said to have been children of Anna. None of the others from Simon's first wife (at least according to that previous court listing) were included in this petition to subdivide Anna's land.

I double-checked, just in case anyone claimed that Anna had raised the older children from childhood as if they were her own, or that they were all just one big happy family, despite being step-children. It was clear that missing from this later list were Samuel, Thomas, and Sarah. While I'm still struggling with the true identity of Samuel Rinehart, Thomas and Sarah were both still very much alive when Isaac Brown brought this case to court in 1861, and yet they weren't included in the listing of Anna's children. Should I now presume that Martha and Mary were actually children of the second wife? This brings us back to our original question from the beginning of this post: which court record was correct?

The document also went on to explain that each heir was to get one seventh of the subdivided land of their mother, Anna Rinehart. However, it doesn't require the mind of a rocket scientist to realize that there were not seven, but eight parties listed as heirs. That, however, requires its own explanation, bringing us to a fitting point to lay this lengthy puzzle aside until tomorrow's post. 

Old Mail

 

I spent the weekend re-reading old mail. Not many people send mail anymore, even of the electronic kind, but I'm glad I made a habit over the years of saving the notes which were most noteworthy. 

Among those notes in my old files was a stack of emails exchanged with avid researchers on the trail of Simon Rinehart and his children. Those letters date back to the late 1990s—and it's disturbing to think I'm still stuck with the same questions today. However, bit by bit, I'm unearthing some details and I wish I could reconnect with some of those decades-old correspondents. If they're still as stumped as I am, I'm sure they'd love to see what I've discovered—as I would be to know if they found any answers, too.

While I've discovered—thanks to court records from Perry County, Ohio—that Simon Rinehart had far more children than my fellow researchers and I had been able to find back then, reading through those old emails this weekend told me that Simon's son Thomas also had more children than I have been able to document.

And there are additional court records to unearth, too, apparently. One email from a researcher who could only find two daughters for Simon happened to mention a court case brought by Isaac Brown and his wife Cassa against three single sisters still living at home with Simon's widow.

That case—which I've yet to find—mentioned several more names, some of which I recognize, but others which have me stumped. For instance, one party to the lawsuit was a man by the name of John Colburn who had married someone named Nancy. Can I presume this is the Nancy mentioned in the Rinehart court case I could find? If so, no wonder I haven't been able to find Nancy in other records, based on the different married name given her in the case I did locate.

Another letter mentioned a full listing of Thomas Rinehart's children, containing far more names than I had been able to locate from his entry in the 1850 census. I presume this listing also was the result of searching through court cases, so I'll need to find that record, as well.

It's time to put FamilySearch.org's Full Text Search back to work on these shreds of information I've harvested from those old letters. This week, we'll take a closer look at those old notes and try to replicate the information conveyed over twenty years ago. When we're talking about families who lived in the early to mid 1800s, those records should still be there with the same information. It's just a matter of locating those dusty files—digitally.  

"The More I Search, the Less I Know"

 

A detour on my decades-long meandering journey to find more on Simon Rinehart brought me back to some correspondence exchanged with a fellow researcher online. This was back when viewing a census from the 1800s required ordering a microfilm on interlibrary loan, so thankfully, many felt the need to share what they had found. Back then, I was bemoaning the difficulty of tracing Simon from his supposed birthplace in Greene County, Pennsylvania, to some unknown location in Kentucky, then either back to Pennsylvania or perhaps directly onward to Perry County, Ohio. Explanatory documentation was simply not there to be found.

Outlining these disjointed facts I had uncovered to my fellow Rinehart researcher, once I cranked my way through the microfilmed census, I remarked, "The more I search, the less I know!"

Indeed, it did feel that way. And, unfortunately, in Simon's case, it still feels that way this month. Despite AI-assisted searches through a multitude of court records on FamilySearch.org's Full Text Search, I can't say I've made much headway. My consolation prize for my efforts has been extended lines of descent for more of Simon's children than I ever previously imagined he had. And that has resulted in this growing Rinehart branch of my mother-in-law's family tree.

Since it's time for my biweekly report, I took a look at the progress. In the past two weeks, I added 410 more individuals to my mother-in-law's tree, which now has 40,220 documented individuals. And yet, what do I have to show for it? Other than the court records showing the big, blow-out legal argument the two halves of Simon's children endured, I don't really know much more about Simon, himself.

Granted, adding all those newly-discovered descendants has begun a trickle of DNA matches as I add to Simon's branch of the family tree. Where, earlier this month, Ancestry's ThruLines tool had suggested 100 DNA matches linked to Rinehart descendants, the tool now reports 109 possible matches. As I add more descendants, I anticipate that number of matches inching upward, as well.

I suspect a breakthrough will not come until I can access records from Greene County, Pennsylvania—either online or in person. Since I don't have plans to travel that far east for quite some time, the answer to Simon's research puzzle may have to wait. But I've learned from experience on this line that more search efforts for this ancestor may yield me even more questions than I have right now.

Now Indexing No Longer

 

An entry posted this past Thursday by John Reid on his blog, Anglo-Celtic Connections, pointed out a change developing at FamilySearch.org. Volunteering to index microfilmed records is now a thing of the past. AI will do all the heavy lifting of transcribing documents; volunteers will now provide the follow-up double-check.

It's been quite some time since I last volunteered to do indexing at FamilySearch—likely when the 1950 U.S. Census was made public and the race was on to make it searchable. Then, the recently-debuted Artificial Intelligence driven handwriting recognition machines took over the hard work, and volunteers did the spot-checking of possible mistaken entries. Most of the tasks for the human volunteers seemed quite streamlined; the speed with which the records went live to the public attested to that game-changing approach.

Reading John Reid's post last Thursday prompted me to revisit the indexing page on the FamilySearch website to glean more details. Apparently, back in March, the FamilySearch blog began a series of articles highlighting what was coming next for this new way of volunteering. I had already seen that the old tab used to select indexing opportunities had received its new label, "Get Involved," but reading up on the change spelled out the greater role AI was playing in bringing so many digitized records online faster than ever before. Indexing is evolving. And I'm grateful, both as a researcher and as a volunteer, to experience the benefits of these changes.

With Patience and Persistence

 

Brick wall ancestors can languish there on the pedigree chart, their status unchanged for decades. It takes a lot to change that brick wall status. But with patience and persistence—not to mention, a big assist from advancing computer search capabilities—that status can see some changes.

As I go through each one of the children of my mother-in-law's brick wall ancestor, Simon Rinehart, I'm adding quite a bit of data to each generation's family group sheet. As I go, I'm watching for signs that I am at least nudging the status quo on that family's DNA ThruLines report at Ancestry.com. While I'm adding individuals to the family tree at a decent clip—this weekend's biweekly count will quantify that increase—I hadn't seen any changes in the ThruLines count for Simon this entire month.

Until today. 

Suddenly, instead of one hundred DNA matches linked to Simon, of which seventy also connect to his first wife, finally the number jumped up by nine matches. I wasted no time getting to that readout to verify the connections.

Granted, some of the lines of descent outlined by the ThruLines tool still rely on trees confusing Greene County, Pennsylvania, Rineharts for their name twins who left there for new territory in Perry County, Ohio. Still, there are at least three DNA matches whom I was able to verify, based on comparisons between our trees and documentation, including the very woman I had contacted so many years ago about our mutual Rinehart connections. How fun it is to re-connect with online genealogy friends from so long ago.

The work of outlining the descendants of each of Simon's children—including those from both marriages—is beginning to pay off, though ever so slightly and in such a glacially slow manner. As I've been able to find each of Simon's children in documentation, I've traced them and their descendants down to the current generation. Some of those lines appear to be robust, with multiple children in each generation's families. Other lines seem sparse, with maybe only one or two children per family, or with descendants who died childless or unmarried.

After twenty days of this process over the month so far, it is encouraging to see ThruLines pick up on some additional possible DNA matches. I'm hoping this is a delayed response, as updates only happen periodically, and that I'll reap more matches as the month moves on. We'll see soon enough how many Rinehart descendants I did manage to add in the last two weeks.

It may seem like a lot of work for very little result at first, but with patience and persistence, eventually the answers will begin to appear. Every bit of additional information can bring us closer to the breakthrough that we've waited for so long. 

The Other Side of the Family

 

Trying to piece together the story of an ancestor—especially a brick wall ancestor—can be challenging. Thankfully, in the case of my mother-in-law's third great-grandfather Simon Rinehart, we have a court document outlining not only the names of each of his children, but their connection to each specific one of his two wives.

So far, I've examined the children of Simon's first—albeit unfortunately unidentified—wife, as they would be full siblings of my mother-in-law's direct line ancestor. I've managed to trace the lines of all but one of the children from that first marriage: Martha, wife of Jacob Fordyce of Greene County, Pennsylvania; Mary, wife of Robert Smith of Hocking County, Ohio; Thomas, who along with his wife Hannah and their several children, migrated to Perry County, Ohio, as had Simon his father; and Sarah, wife of James Gordon, our direct line.

As for that one remaining child from the first marriage, Samuel, it was unclear from the court record whether he had migrated to Perry County along with the others in his immediate family, or had remained in Pennsylvania. Complicating that research is the fact that there are others in this extended Rinehart family possessing the same given names. I am concerned that our Samuel may have been confused with another Rinehart by the same name, and want to proceed carefully by sorting out the extended family.

There are, however, several others of Simon's children whom I'd like to research, in the hopes that someone in at least one branch of that family may have some knowledge of information I'm lacking. Some of the simplest details are missing from both sides of Simon's family—like the maiden name of each wife—but chances are a bit better for finding such information on the younger branch of that Rinehart family, so I'll take a few days to review what I can find on this family from the second wife.

As before, the easiest descendants to research are those daughters for whom we already have the court record stating the name of the woman's husband. From the younger family, the only one with a husband named in the court records for Simon Rinehart was his daughter Cassa, wife of Isaac Brown.

Granted, Brown is a common surname almost as frustrating to research as Smith, but in Cassa's case, it wasn't hard to find Isaac. The couple, along with their many children, were listed in Perry County for both the 1850 and the 1860 census.

That, however, was the end of the family's residence close to their siblings in Perry County. By the time of the 1870 census, Isaac and Cassa had moved their family to Wood County, Ohio, settling in the village of Tontogany. The family apparently remained there until Cassa's death in 1885, and her husband's death following, two weeks afterwards.

I can't help but wonder, now that I've read through the pages upon pages of family strife documented in Perry County court records, whether the Brown family felt the need to move far from the disputing Rinehart siblings. We read those reports, separated from the strife by well over a century, but those family members lived through the turmoil, day after day.   

Sorting it All Out

 

Sometimes, names and dates and family recollections get so scrambled in a researcher's mind that the best way to sort it all out is to use the same diagramming tools we've become familiar with in laying out a family pedigree chart. With that in mind—and reviewing what has become a dizzying array of Rinehart relatives in the Howard Leckey book, The Tenmile Country and Its Pioneer Families—I decided now would be the best time to pull out that Ancestry ProTools option, their "Networks" beta program. 

I set up a network within my mother-in-law's family tree, linked to her third great-grandfather, Simon Rinehart, and called the file what it is: "Rinehart Families in Greene County, Pennsylvania, and Perry County, Ohio." From that point, I'll pull out the Leckey tome and begin with the earliest Rinehart settler the author named, Johan Thomas Reinhart, and work my way through his extended family as they moved from their original landing place in Philadelphia, to a supposed residential detour in Frederick County, Maryland, and then, presumably, onward to Greene County Pennsylvania.

Yes, that does seem like an enormous amount of work, just to find any possible connection to our Simon Rinehart. Yet, I cannot express how frustrating it has been to find family trees posted online, asserting that our Simon in Perry County, Ohio, was actually the one who died in Greene County—or the Thomas Rinehart, whom I have listed from court documents as Simon's son, being linked to a different Rinehart parent, back in Pennsylvania.

They are all cousins of some sort, yes. But how close or how distant may make a difference in whether their descendants show up as DNA matches in my husband's genetic genealogy accounts. I'm beginning to wonder if there were gaps in the Rinehart story presented in the Leckey narrative. Or if it were merely coincidence that Simon's daughter Martha ended up marrying a man in Greene County and staying there the rest of her life. Perhaps Simon's family had originated somewhere else. 

Back to TenMile Country Again

 

The Rinehart line from Greene County, Pennsylvania, is one of my mother-in-law's family lines that I have been working on for a very long time. Given that there was more than one Rinehart claiming the given name Simon, I thought I'd pull up an old book which I hadn't checked for quite some time: Howard Leckey's The Tenmile Country and Its Pioneer Families. 

Though it's an old tome, don't think you can peruse its nearly seven hundred pages online anywhere (although I did manage to stumble upon one resource which, at least today, does share the original, albeit unwieldy, version). First written as a series of newspaper articles, the compilation of which was published in book form in 1950, it has been reprinted in 1977, and then again in 2005. Trying to find a decently priced copy is no easy feat; I've seen offers upwards of seventy dollars, though I got lucky during an in-person Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy winter session, years ago, and found a copy on sale for less than half that price.

Needless to say, I prize my copy, and have consulted it often. In this month's Rinehart review, however, finding the right Simon Rinehart has become the elusive quest. Though there are several Rineharts listed in the book by that name, none removed from Greene County, Pennsylvania, to Perry County, Ohio. All can be traced to other families remaining in Pennsylvania.

I thought I'd get creative in my search this time, and looked for the surnames which married in to this Ohio Rinehart line. The closest I came to finding any results was to search for the Fordyce surname, and keep an eye out for the husband of Simon's daughter Martha. I found her in the Leckey book, alright: listed as "Martha R......" with those repeating dots signifying an unknown maiden name for Jacob Fordyce's bride.

Of course, we already know who Martha R. was, but that is only thanks to looking at this family history puzzle from the other side of the story. But finding mention of any of her siblings, back in Greene County, or any connection to the rest of her Rinehart kin, is missing from that almost-seven-hundred page tome. If we are to find any further mention of Simon Rinehart from his earlier days, we are going to have to find that from some other source. 

Thomas Rinehart, Take Two—And Simon, Too

 

It is evident, from the material I recently unearthed from a dusty box of old files, that there were two individuals linked to that Rinehart family I've been researching from Greene County, Pennsylvania, and that one of them, named Thomas, may have been confused for the other. Once again, those many Rinehart namesakes over the generations warn me to tread carefully as I seek information on my mother-in-law's own line.

Right now, we've been exploring the children named in the lawsuit disputing the validity of Simon Rinehart's will. Simon had died in 1853, leaving a sparsely-worded will which, bestowing all his earthly possessions to his beloved—though unnamed—wife, essentially aced out all the children from Simon's deceased first wife from what might otherwise legally have been their inheritance along with the children of his second wife.

Among those children of Simon's first wife was a son named Thomas. While I can find someone named Thomas Rinehart in the census records for Perry County, Ohio, possibly linking his immigration there from Pennsylvania with that of Simon himself, there was also a Thomas Rinehart resident back in Greene County, Pennsylvania, the place of their origin. 

That Thomas, according to a photograph posted on a Find A Grave memorial, was born slightly before our Thomas, in 1783. That Thomas, in turn, was son of another Thomas Rinehart, who was noted to have been a D.A.R. Patriot (actually under the surname spelling Reinhard).

What was interesting about that elder Thomas was the name of his wife: Hannah. That was the same name as our Thomas' wife. Though each Thomas was born at a different time, it is not hard to see why some researchers might miss that detail and substitute the one for the other.

More importantly than that, however, was to review the names of this Thomas' other family members. At the very end of the listing in that same memorial was the name Simon Rinehart. That particular Simon died, according to the engraved stone, in 1852.

On that Simon Rinehart's Find A Grave memorial, someone had posted a copy of his death record from 1852. According to that record, Simon's father was named Barnet Rinehart, and his mother, Ruth. In addition, that Simon was married to someone named Sarah.

Given that his date of death was so close to that of our Simon—October 29, 1852, as opposed to January of 1853—it might not be surprising to learn that I've since seen family trees substituting the dates of the one Simon for that of the other. Not surprising—until you realize that the 1852 Simon died back in Greene County, Pennsylvania, while our Simon had left his old home there for Ohio twenty years prior. 

While it may be clear to us that neither of the two Thomases, and certainly the two Simons, were the same person, I give this as an illustration for how some people have confused various members of families who, over the generations, have been rather fond of namesakes. And really, if it hadn't been for discovering the Perry County court document clearly spelling out which of our Simon's children belonged to which of his two wives, I wouldn't have known that the Thomas in Perry County, Ohio, was indeed son of Simon Rinehart of that same county.

There is so much more we can discover now about our ancestors, thanks to combining computer-driven full text search capabilities with a wealth of previously-digitized court records. 

Never Too Late for Spring Cleaning

 

Spring cleaning hadn't been foremost on my mind the other day, when my niece asked for a copy of a family document. She is working on an application to become part of The Mayflower Society, and her recent request pushed me to dig out some old files I hadn't worked on for years. 

Well, maybe make that decades.

The search led me to some boxed up files which I had removed, years ago, from a file cabinet to make room for more recent records.

To my surprise, what should be the first thing my hand pulled out of that dusty box—hint: it wasn't what I was looking for—but a folder labeled "Rinehart" and some correspondence regarding Greene County, Pennsylvania.

Call that serendipity. 

In addition to a photocopied series of biographical entries from the History of Fairfield and Perry Counties, Ohio including Jesse Rinehart's entry in that 1883 book—now easily accessible thanks to Internet Archive—was a photocopied report faxed to me in 1999. I received that report from a fellow Rinehart researcher whom I had met online during those earlier days of genealogy forums and resources such as RootsWeb. He had wanted to share something written by a man named Bruce Anderson, who back in 1981 had compiled a report called "The Rineharts of Perry County, Ohio."

Yes, precisely the family I'm still puzzling over.

What was interesting about the eleven pages of that report was the reference to specific case numbers from the Perry County court system. Of course, now we have almost instant access to some of those same court records, thanks to FamilySearch.org, and specifically owing to the FamilySearch Labs' Full Text Search option. But seeing those other references tells me that there are more court records than the series I had located. There is more to search to fully grasp the entirety of that generation's history in Perry County.

The file I found in that dusty box also included a series of emails which I had exchanged with another Perry County researcher, concerning what we each had found on the Rinehart line which our families share in common. I have yet to complete that stack of reading, but I'm going through that file with a pen and some sticky notes, to mark specific details I need to confirm through documentation—now that it is so much easier to find those records online.

Some family stories we chase for a short while and catch up with the elusive answer in one quick sprint through local records. Others have us wandering in circles for decades. This Rinehart line has been one of the latter. In retrospect, I can see where some conjectures from previous decades can now be proven incorrect—but I also see some hints which, though missed in previous research rounds, may now lead to clearer answers. I'm looking forward to following those trails with fresh eyes, this time around.

Tracking Thomas Rinehart

 

Discovering the full listing of the names of Simon Rinehart's children, thanks to the court proceedings in which they were at odds with each other, has been helpful. Finding any further information on each of those descendants has certainly not been helpful. While it was easy to find an older daughter, Sarah, by virtue of her position as my mother-in-law's second great-grandmother, finding the rest of her full siblings has been a challenge.

Tracking Thomas Rinehart, one of Sarah's full brothers listed in the court records, has been one of those more challenging searches. The main difficulty is that the Rinehart family originated in Greene County, Pennsylvania, where the Rinehart name figured among the county's earliest pioneers. It was, apparently, a family whose preference for namesakes was kept alive for generations, yielding multiple opportunities for even the most avid genealogist to be steered wrong.

The court case which erupted in 1854 concerning the validity of Simon Rinehart's will noted the whereabouts of some of his adult descendants, but was unclear on the precise residence of some of the others. Among the less clear was Thomas' location. If we take the blanket statement of the siblings living in Perry County, Ohio, we could count Thomas in with that bunch. But where was Thomas?

Using a fairly wide parameter for approximate age, I did a search for Thomas in Perry County, and found one possibility in the 1850 census. This Thomas "Rineheart" was born about 1794 in Pennsylvania, a good first sign. Among his several children were names resonant with the Rinehart line: Hannah, Jesse, and Simon. Those same names, however, echoed through the generations of this old family from TenMile Country, making it hard to confirm one namesake's specific identity.

Looking further, I found what was likely his burial location in Perry County, thanks to a memorial on Find A Grave. But was this the right Thomas Rinehart? Checking for name twins back in Greene County, where the family once lived, I could find men by that same name there. Furthermore, seeing a birth year of 1794 troubles me, as that would be barely twenty years after his father's own year of birth. Not finding a marriage record for Simon and his first wife hampers deciding on a reasonable date range for the birth of their five children listed in that court record.

There is much more to explore before I'm convinced of the certainty of this Thomas Rinehart's familial identity. Since migrations in the early 1800s usually occurred in the company of family and neighbors, Simon could have moved to Ohio among many cousins or nephews, as well as closer kin. Those listed on the same page as Thomas in that 1850 census mostly seemed to share the surname Randolph, which is not a surname I've found tied to Simon's own line—so far.

Perhaps one approach will be to create a network of Rineharts in Perry County, Ohio, and Green County, Pennsylvania, to see what connections can be found among this greater party of migrating Rineharts. This I can now easily create through Ancestry.com's ProTools options. Perhaps that will also provide the bigger picture concerning the extended Rinehart family, both in Perry County, and back in Greene County, Pennsylvania. 

When Surnames Ricochet Through their Surroundings

 

While stumped in my search for Thomas Rinehart, that son of Simon Rinehart who decided to file suit in Perry County, Ohio, against his half-siblings after his dad's death, I cast my search parameters far and wide, and came up with one tantalizing insertion in an 1847 newspaper:

Filed in Monroe County, Ohio, on May 18, 1847, by attorneys Archbold & Wire for the plaintiff, Daniel Clark, the suit named Thomas Rinehart, Simon Rinehart, Arthur Ingraham, William McCarty, and M. Marling. Thomas and Simon Rinehart are names we've already seen, and the Ingraham name—or sometimes spelled Ingrham—has been a surname linked with the extended Rinehart family back in Greene County, Pennsylvania. But why were these names being mentioned in a court in Monroe County, Ohio?

According to the newspaper insertion, a bill then pending in court, 

states in substance that said Arthur Ingraham has two judgments in said Court against said McCarty and Marling, for a large sum, to wit: upwards of eight hundred dollars. That said Arthur Ingraham is in fact the assignee of Simon Rinehart, and that said Simon Rinehart is the assignee of Thomas Rinehart, who is in truth and in fact the real owner of said judgments, and is largely indebted to the complainant; and that the assignment to Simon Rinehart, and through him to Arthur Ingraham, is a shift and device to defraud the creditors of Thomas Rinehart. Said bill prays that the judgment debt due from McCarty and Marling may be applied to the payment of his debt due from said Thomas Rinehart. The defendants Thomas, Simon, and Arthur, living out of this State, are notified to plead, answer or demur in sixty days after the close of next term of said Court, or the bill will be taken as true and confessed.       —Said term will commence on the fourth Monday in June next.

Was that our Thomas Rinehart? After all, I'm not quite sure whether he lived in Ohio or back in Pennsylvania. And Monroe County, Ohio, is a mere seventy miles from Greene County, Pennsylvania, making it close enough for the Rinehart family to have acquired land or done business in that area. (Business, indeed! The eight hundred dollars noted in that 1847 document would be worth at least thirty one thousand in today's dollars.)

Whether this is our Thomas or not, it will likely pay for me to search through court records for his name in connection with that of Simon Rinehart, as well.

Insert above from the Woodsfield, Ohio, newspaper, The Spirit of Democracy, published on page three of the May 22, 1847, edition; image courtesy of Newspapers.com. 

Situation: Stuck

 

Stuck on one clue for that brick wall ancestor? When I run into such situations, I try my best to find the answer—and when I fail, I move on. Research problems can always be revisited at a later date, especially when more resources would be required to resolve research questions.

Finding that memorial marker erected at the final resting place of Robert Smith, just as his daughter's last wishes had dictated, seemed to rip right through all the research progress I had made on tracing just that one daughter of Simon Rinehart. Simon's daughter Mary, at least according to court records after his death, had married someone named Robert Smith. But when I finally caught up with the memorial marker for the specified Robert Smith in Hocking County, Ohio, it contained the name of his two wives. And it appeared that Mary had a different last name than what I was expecting.

The name, although blurred in the photograph at Find A Grave, seemed to be Mary Ankrum or Amkrum. No matter which way it was spelled, it didn't spell R-i-n-e-h-a-r-t. Now what?

I tried looking for marriage records for Robert Smith and Mary Ankrum, including all the spelling permutations I could imagine—with a wildcard symbol thrown in for good luck. Thinking that our Mary might have been married before she married Robert, I tried looking for other marriage records for Mary Rinehart, both in her home, neighboring Perry County, and Robert's residence in Hocking County. Still nothing.

Since Maria Smith, the one whose will stipulated the erection of the memorial for her father, was the firstborn daughter of Mary and Robert, one would presume that she would know her mother's maiden name. I'd say I've stumbled upon the wrong Robert Smith and family—except I've been wrong about being wrong before. So I'm putting that search on hold for now and moving on to the rest of Simon Rinehart's children.

That strategy, however, is not working much better than my quest to find the right Robert Smith, husband of Mary Rinehart. There were two other siblings mentioned in that 1854 court record concerning the validity of Simon's will: Samuel Rinehart and Thomas Rinehart, the one who had initiated the court case disputing the will.

It turns out both of them appear to be as difficult to find as if they were surnamed Smith. But I did find one curious legal notice inserted in a newspaper about seven years before the paperwork for the 1854 lawsuit was filed. While it may turn out to be merely a coincidence that the names appeared to be related, tomorrow we need to at least take a look at who was named in that other court case. 

Looking for the REAL Robert Smith

 

When it comes to researching the family history of people possessing really common surnames, I'll admit it: I have a bias. I really don't like chasing after documents for folks named Smith or Jones. Even finding documents for the "right" Smith with the right given name in the right place can mean absolutely nothing. There may be another person by that same name, just around the corner.

That's the way it's been, looking for Robert Smith in 1850s Hocking County, Ohio. I got a promising start by discovering a statement in a court record asserting the fact that Mary Rinehart, daughter of Simon, was wife of Robert Smith of Hocking County. How explicit can this get? But finding the real Robert Smith? Now, that's another story.

Just when I had discarded one Robert Smith in that county, by virtue of his birth and family life in England, I discovered another Robert Smith in the same county. Added bonus: this Robert's wife was named Mary. I thought I had found what I was searching for, and began adding information on their children from census records, right into the Rinehart branch in my mother-in-law's family tree. 

I added Robert's wife Mary, and their seven children from the 1850 census, and was ready to follow the family lines down through the generations, when I spotted one detail that stopped me in my tracks: Robert Smith was named in an ancestral line in an application to the Sons of the American Revolution. When I followed the line of descent to the next generation, Robert's son, I saw something that didn't add up: Robert's wife's name was given as Maria Pitcher, not Mary Rinehart.

Out went all the details I had just entered in my mother-in-law's family tree. I pulled up that old delete button and slashed away, removing each of the children I had just added to Robert's family.

But after all the genealogical carnage, I had second thoughts. I went back to the 1850 census record. Sure enough, there was a gap in ages between the oldest child listed in the household—George, aged twenty five—and the next child, fourteen year old daughter Maria. Since the court records back in Perry County—the ones regarding two sets of children from different wives in Simon Rinehart's will—stated that Robert's wife was Simon Rinehart's daughter Mary, was it possible that Robert Smith was married twice, too?

I looked. Sure enough, there was an 1822 marriage record for Robert Smith and Maria Pitcher in Hocking County. And for the date of Maria's death, an old headstone in the Old Logan Cemetery reported that Maria Smith, consort of Robert D. Smith, died in 1832.

Back into the family tree went those children of Robert and Mary. As I worked my way through the children of Robert's second marriage, I ran across a will left by his daughter Mariah, an unmarried woman who died in 1873. Mariah appointed her brother Culver to be executor of her will, which contained a stipulation that, for the property he was to receive, he was to take two hundred dollars for "the erection of suitable tombstones at the graves of my father, Robert D. Smith, and his first wife."

Right next to the memorial for Robert's first wife, Maria, stood that "suitable tombstone," as Culver Smith was instructed to provide. Seeing that picture, however, made me want to start that family tree all over again, yanking the names I had just plugged back in, and looking once again for the real Robert Smith in Hocking County.

Why? Because on that same memorial stone to her father was listed not only the name of Robert's first wife, but his second wife, as well. And her name was listed as Mary Ankrum, not Rinehart.

When Searching for Smith

 

Any time I face having to research a family member named Smith, I proceed cautiously. Well, that's not entirely true; first I fervently hope I never have to run into a predicament like that in the first place...but marriages do happen, and sometimes they involve suitors named Smith.

In the case of Simon Rinehart's will, contested by the children of his first wife, I had the helpful listing of all Simon's living children, as of the 1854 date in which they had filed the lawsuit in Perry County, Ohio. Even though I was overjoyed to receive a full listing of all Simon's children—I had missed the majority of them in previous work on this family line—I noted (with dismay) that one of Simon's daughters had married a man by the name of Smith.

Groan.

To make matters worse, this daughter's given name was Mary. I guess I am fortunate that her husband's name was not John Smith.

Setting aside those complaints, I did realize that the court records specified just where Mary and her husband—named Robert Smith—had settled by the time the complaint was filed in court. Though Mary likely was born back in Greene County, Pennsylvania, where Simon Rinehart had originated, the court record identified the couple as residents of Hocking County, Ohio.

Hocking County has a history much like that of Perry County, and in fact was a neighboring county, lying to the southwest of Perry County. Just as Perry County was formed in 1818 from neighboring counties, Hocking County was likewise organized. Both gained land from Fairfield County, as well as from other nearby counties, upon their establishment.

Finding Robert Smith in Hocking County was a search that, for the first attempt, did not turn out well. I began by searching through the census record for the decade after the 1854 court case. For that search, estimating Mary's age based on the year of birth for her sister Martha, I presumed that Mary would have married a man born during the early 1800s. I made the search parameter as wide as possible on Ancestry.com, setting the target year as 1810 and expanding the range ten years in each direction.

Bingo! I found Robert Smith! But he was a man without a wife, though several older children in the household hinted at a deceased wife by 1860. Second drawback: this Robert Smith was born in England, not Pennsylvania. Though admittedly that could have been possible—after all, some immigrants from England did historically pass through Pennsylvania—I noticed that his children were also listed as having been born in England. This gave us a profile which didn't fit what I was looking for.

With a second attempt, I pulled the possible date range for our Robert Smith's year of birth to an earlier setting—but not too much earlier. I wanted a range that overlapped the first attempt, just in case I had missed something.

Sure enough, there was a second Robert Smith, also resident in Hocking County. Added bonus: in the 1850 census, he claimed to have a wife whose name was Mary. And both Robert and Mary were reported to have been born in Pennsylvania.

The children's names did not seem to echo any family names from previous generations in the Rinehart clan. From oldest household member George Smith at age twenty five down to the youngest, five year old Wesley Smith, all were born in Ohio, not Pennsylvania, giving us a date marker to estimate their arrival from Pennsylvania. This date estimate puts the Smiths' arrival in Ohio much earlier than Simon Rinehart's arrival, as Simon was still showing in Greene County, Pennsylvania, in the 1830 census.

Does this mean I've found Simon's daughter Mary and her husband Robert Smith? Not necessarily so. After all, this Robert wasn't the only Robert Smith in Hocking County. There could be more.

As I'm doing for Mary's sister Martha Rinehart Fordyce, I'll start building a proposed family tree of descendants, not just in my search for more documentation, but to scope out any possible DNA matches linking my husband's family with this Smith family.

Stepping Sideways: Sarah's Sister

 

In some ways, I can be a chicken when it comes to genealogical research. I like to move from what I know in incremental steps. And those sideways steps in this search for Simon Rinehart's children will stop first with Sarah's sister, Martha. 

Looking at those "sideways" steps—or in more accurate vernacular, collateral lines—can sometimes reveal information that couldn't be found by focusing only on a specific, direct-line ancestor. In Simon Rinehart's case, I've discovered a number of details that need to be, ahem, clarified. In hopes of stumbling upon such details, I'm planning to poke around in the lines of all his children, not just his daughter Sarah, who was my mother-in-law's second great-grandmother. 

Now that I've reviewed all that I know about Sarah Rinehart Gordon, the next step is to examine each of Simon's children by his first wife. My initial attempt, over the weekend, didn't prove successful, so I adapted a new policy: when offered additional information about a child's spouse, take that route first. Finding two people in the same household can be a far more successful venture than looking for whatever became of one single individual. Thus, the search for Sarah's married sisters.

According to the court records from Perry County, Ohio, where Simon Rinehart had died, we have a listing of each of his descendants, separated into two groups: those from his first wife, then those from his second wife. In addition, the list provided the name of the surviving husband in the case of three of Simon's children: two daughters from his first wife, one from his second.

Since we'll begin with the children of Simon's first wife, that leaves me two options—and one of those options involves searching for someone named Mary who married a man named Smith. Since I'm such a research chicken, guess which research route I didn't opt for first?

That leaves us with Simon's daughter Martha, who remained in Greene County, Pennsylvania, after her father left for Ohio. According to the court records, Martha married Jacob Fordyce, whom I easily found in Greene County records, including the 1850 census, which listed eight children in their household—though a news clipping posted on Martha's memorial on Find A Grave indicated that she had "given birth to ten children, nine of whom she reared to adult years."

It was easy to see family resonance in the names selected for two of Martha's sons—the two sons Jacob later appointed as his executors. The elder, Jesse, was likely named for an ancestor in the Rinehart family, which ancestral name had also been chosen by Simon himself in naming another son from his second marriage. The second son named as Jacob's executor was listed in his will as "S. R." Fordyce, the initials standing for "Simon Rinehart," the name of Martha's own father.

Beyond that family resonance in Rinehart namesakes among Martha's sons, though, I learned very little about Simon through this daughter—and gained no clue whatsoever to guide me in ascertaining who Martha's mother had been. However, it was encouraging to see two DNA matches from among Martha's descendants—with hopefully more to come, now that I'm building out Martha's Fordyce line of descent in my mother-in-law's own tree.

Occupation: Old Maid

 

Yes, government documents can record the most unexpected things. Take this 1870 census record I found while searching for Simon Rinehart's first family, back in Greene County, Pennsylvania. One of the easier search tasks I found was to look for Simon's daughter Martha, whom court records had conveniently identified as the wife of Jacob Fordyce. Locating the aging Martha in her husband's household, I took a look at the rest of those listed at Jacob's place in 1870. Among those at the address was one Mary Fordyce, aged sixty six—older than Jacob, himself—whose occupation was listed as "old maid."

As I work through the court documents on the lawsuit brought by Simon's older children after his death, I've apparently gleaned quite a few names from these collateral lines. It's been just one week now that I've been on that task, having wrapped up work on Lydia Miller in the previous week. Between the two efforts, my biweekly count has zoomed ahead by 523 names, all documented individuals belonging to my mother-in-law's ancestry. My in-laws' tree now contains a total of 39,810 researched people.

On my side of the family? Nada. It's been a focused two weeks. I've been pedaling through microfilmed pages as fast as I can. Even I've been surprised at how much can be gained just from the leads in a few court documents. That work has all been dedicated to researching my mother-in-law's lines, as I stick to plans from my Twelve Most Wanted list for this year. Next month will be time to move on to my father-in-law's family lines for the next quarter, so I won't be revisiting my own tree until October—unless something unexpected happens to lure me back, say, to record a birth announcement, or details from a wedding or funeral.

Still, there is one additional source of progress to consider, and that is finding new DNA matches. It seems I usually gain about twice as many DNA matches as my husband in each biweekly period, and you know I can't pass up the chance to plug those newly-discovered cousins into my tree.

As I work my way through this month's research project, focusing on my mother-in-law's Rinehart line, I have noticed one thing, though. Like Mary Fordyce, our occupational Old Maid, it seems there are several branches of Simon's many children's lines which included a greater percentage of siblings who chose not to marry.

From our vantage point, looking backwards in time through those many branches, I've wondered why only a few children of a Most Recent Common Ancestor ended up becoming a DNA match. Now that I've filled in the blanks, I can see the answer more clearly: in some families, there were more than the expected number of children who ended up unmarried. I'm finding that to be so in the lines descending from Simon Rinehart.

A Match Takes Two

 

Now that I've found a reliable listing of all the surviving children of Simon Rinehart, my mother-in-law's third great-grandfather who died in Perry County, Ohio, I wondered whether DNA testing would provide any further guidance. I looked at the number of matches—one hundred at this point—and thought I'd find plenty of supporting genetic information...until I looked at the ThruLines breakdown of the lines of descent proposed at Ancestry.com. Surprise: those hundred DNA matches came through only four lines of descent. Seventy matches alone were from my mother-in-law's direct line ancestor, Simon's daughter Sarah. The few remaining others were scattered among two of her full siblings, plus one name I cannot account for. Where were the rest of the Rinehart siblings in this match list?

Granted, it takes two test-takers to make a DNA match, but we are talking about eleven children of Simon Rinehart—five from his first wife and six from his second wife. Aren't there any other descendants from among this eligible group who have tested their DNA?

And where does this other mystery sibling come into play in the ThruLines list at Ancestry.com? Listed as "Reason" or "Resin," this supposed child of Simon was apparently a son, not a daughter, judging from the ThruLines diagrams. While the shared genetic material is admittedly small, the seven proposed matches from this line mostly share only one segment.

The problem may come from one dismaying fact: Simon Rinehart was apparently a popular namesake, back in our Simon's hometown in Greene County, Pennsylvania. He was surely named after an older relative from among the county's pioneer settlers. I imagine we will need to stick very close to both the paper trail and the genetic confirmation in working on this Simon Rinehart's lines, in case we confuse him for a cousin by the same name.

On the other hand, I sure wish more of our Simon's descendants from the list confirmed in the Perry County court case would test their DNA. It might help me trace the rest of those others from that list—some of whom are already proving hard to document in any resources other than the court records themselves.

"Start With What You Know"

 

As we work our way through this month's research problem—confirming the family members directly related to Simon Rinehart of Perry County, Ohio—it would be good to stick with the genealogical principle, "Start with what you know." Now that I've discovered the complaints filed in court by Simon's older children from his first wife, I've learned that there is a lot about this Rinehart family that I don't yet know. No problem; those first steps still need to start with familiar territory.

What I know the best about this family is the name of Simon's daughter Sarah, my mother-in-law's second great-grandmother, who had married James Gordon. Even so, I had struggled to find much detail on her life's story. I know from her entry in the 1850 census in Ohio that despite having a father born in Pennsylvania, Sarah herself was born in Kentucky. There is obviously a lot more to her story than I've been able to uncover so far.

That 1850 census also revealed a few other details. One was that, by then, Sarah had reported her age to be fifty two, putting her date of birth just before the start of the 1800s. The other important detail was that Sarah was, by then, a widow living with four of her children, as well as a possible granddaughter.

Rewinding history for a bit to find Sarah's husband James in a census record, we find him in the same location in Perry County—Jackson Township—for the 1840 census. He wasn't in that location for long; his will, which he drew up in July of that same year, was presented in court and noted in a court entry which was, unfortunately, not dated. His headstone, however, bore the date July 15, 1840, two days after he signed his last testament.

Sarah, herself, lived another thirty six years, buried in 1876 in a different cemetery in another part of the county from her husband's final resting place. Thirteen years after that, her eldest son Basil Gordon—the only one mentioned by name in his father's will, having been appointed his executor—was buried in the same cemetery as his mother, Sarah. 

That is what I do know about this one child of Simon Rinehart, the man whose enigmatic will had unwittingly provided me with a complete readout of the names of his children from both his marriages. And that is very little. However, it is more than I had known about any of Simon's other children. One by one, we'll need to visit records for each of these descendants and see whether we can find any further information on their own lives—as well as delve deeper into Sarah's own story.

A Genealogical Scorecard

 

There's nothing like a rousing argument to clearly mark the dividing line between two sides. A court case pitting those two disputing factions can become our genealogical scorecard, when it comes to strife over inheritances. That is exactly what has been granted us when, back in the 1850s, Simon Rinehart's children contested his will.

By the time Simon drew up his will—at least, according to his older children—he was suffering the effects of failing health. Or, to put it in the words of the complaint filed on April 24, 1854 in Perry County, Ohio, Simon had been "greatly afflicted with mental weakness, the result of sickness, extreme age, and physical debility."

That complaint, thankfully for us, began with a listing of the names of Simon Rinehart's children. Even better, the document explained that some of the parties were "children by a former marriage"—and specified their names.

Thus, the meager list of descendants I had assembled prior to discovering this packet of court records suddenly more than doubled. All I had been able to find, prior to this discovery, was Simon's daughter Sarah—my mother-in-law's direct ancestor—his son Jesse, and the three daughters who lived in Simon's household in the 1850 census. 

Now, I also have verification that Simon had been married twice. Though I still don't know the name of Simon's first wife, I can align his sons Samuel and Thomas with that first marriage. In addition, I learned the name of the husbands of that first wife's daughters. Martha Rinehart married Jacob Fordyce, and as of the court case, the Fordyces still lived in Greene County, the Pennsylvania home Simon had left sometime after marrying his second wife. However, Mary Rinehart, wife of Robert Smith, now lived in Hocking County, Ohio, near her father's final home in Perry County. And Sarah Rinehart Gordon, by then a widow, was living in Perry County.

These, as the court record noted, were "children by a former marriage."

The document continued sorting Simon's progeny. The record next noted the descendants of Simon's widow, Anna. Besides his son Jesse and the three unmarried daughters still living in Simon's household—Lucinda, Charlotte, and Hannah—the document mentioned Cassa and her husband Isaac Brown, and another daughter who was also apparently widowed, Nancy Ankrom.

Lest there be any further confusion about Simon's children, the court continued: these were children of his "second and last marriage." Each child from this second marriage was noted to currently be residing in Perry County.

Now that we have this genealogical scorecard so clearly laid out for us, our next step is to see what we can find on each of these Rinehart descendants.