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.
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