What if it was All for This?

 

There are times, in the course of routine work, when we find ourselves thinking, "What if this was all for nothing?" The tedium of repeated effort may lead to discouragement—to say nothing of disillusionment. Wrestling with missing, misplaced, or mangled paperwork can add to frustration as we attempt the impossible task of piecing together a paper trail leading us to the brink of our ancestors' missing stories. Sometimes, it seems to be all for nothing.

And then, some tiny point of significance shines a positive light on the frustration.

This past weekend, I became audience to the recounting of a family tale which, given all signs assumed by prior generations, was never meant to be known.

...but then, DNA...

It was earlier this spring when I alluded to an unexpected DNA discovery concerning a close connection with an adoptee. Behind the scenes, we've been communicating, first through Ancestry.com's messaging system, then by email, then by phone calls. The connection was easy to confirm; then came the stage of personal connection, and eventually this adoptee was able to meet one birth parent, face to face.

Last Sunday, I got to hear the entire story of the parent-child reunion. For me, it invoked, as one of my husband's favorite Irish authors likes to call it, a dewey-eyed moment. There is already something about the awe-inspiring mystery of genetic connection, that in-a-flash instant sensing that this is family, no matter how unknown the "stranger" may be. But to hear that such an even-closer relationship finally consummated the connection which, but for circumstances, would have been a lifelong privilege was moving beyond words.

Just hearing about that meeting left me emotionally fragile. Mulling over the full significance for days. And wondering why the knowing of it could have such an impact, even to those removed from the immediacy of the situation.

Almost instantly, the thought came to me: what if it was all for this? The relentless effort. The struggle to circumvent that abrupt stop when tracking brick wall ancestors. The frustration of paper trails vanishing just when the most-hoped-for answer seemed almost within grasp.

Somehow, that work—all of it, even the aggravating gaps—does leave a trail for others to follow. We researchers and writers throw the crumbs of our work out there—sometimes even for fifteen years at a time—and somehow a passer-by stumbles upon these tiny bits and picks up the trail. And finds an answer that means more than we can tell. 

Maybe yes, it was all for this, after all. And on the dawn of another blogiversary, I tell myself those are the finds that make it all worthwhile to keep on searching for those answers. They may be answers for me, but they may also turn into answers for someone else out there, hoping to uncover even bigger pictures of where they fit in the human family. 

Making the End Run

 

When hitting an impasse—something in genealogy akin to a "brick wall" ancestor—it is now possible to make an end run around such research roadblocks. That, in Lydia Miller's case, is what I hope to do this month with the luxury of one tool genealogists of past centuries never had: DNA testing. 

Now that I've discovered the sizable family descended from Lydia and her second husband, Benedict Palmer, I've been watching for signs of DNA matches who claim that Palmer heritage. But finding any results has, so far, been a disappointment. Just using Ancestry.com, one of five DNA companies where my husband, Lydia's descendant, has tested, I can already see that ThruLines currently lists twenty seven DNA matches for him. However, when I look to the corresponding count for William Gordon, Lydia's first husband, the match count is that same exact number.

Just to be sure, I've checked each of those twenty seven matches to ensure that they descend from both Lydia and William. Yep, that's the case, for every one of those matches. Over the weeks, no matter how many Palmer descendants I've added to my mother-in-law's family tree, that DNA match count has remained the same. I would have presumed, if anyone from the Palmer side had tested at Ancestry, that the count would be lopsided between Lydia and William Gordon, with the high score going to Lydia on account of Palmer matches. Not so, despite adding multiple Palmers to my tree.

Of course, rather than only relying on Ancestry's ThruLines tool, I can also search for matches with the Palmer surname included in their family tree—but considering how many Palmers there are out there, that search might yield more work than it's worth. 

There are other options, too. Ancestry is only one of several testing companies, and I will be scouring the data at the other DNA companies, too. In fact, one collaborator with whom I'm already corresponding actually is a DNA match through 23andMe. There may be more at MyHeritage or Family Tree DNA, too.

Another option I am taking is to look for researchers who are already demonstrating diligence in researching the same Palmer line I'm interested in. I just found one Ancestry subscriber who has been quite consistent in uploading photographs and personally-acquired documents to his tree to share with other researchers. Getting in touch with someone like that can lead to a fruitful collaboration. You can be sure I'm also keeping an eye out for anyone like that to ask to take a DNA test—especially leading up to a holiday like this weekend's Mother's Day, filled with sales offerings from testing companies.

Next week, we'll take a look at what possibilities can be out there for piecing together a family tree through DNA—but keep in mind there are caveats, as well. Still, DNA may be the best way to clarify just who Lydia Miller actually was, and at least to confirm that Lydia Gordon of Perry County, Ohio, was one and the same as Lydia Palmer of Mercer County.

What we Still Don't Know About Lydia

 

The challenge about researching Lydia Miller, my mother-in-law's second great-grandmother, is that her 1820 origin is unclear. While we do know much about Lydia and the details of her later life, the time period of her early life lies within that murky era in which women were often invisible, and pioneer families might slip through the cracks in governmental record keeping. In short, there's a lot yet to learn about Lydia—but hey, that's what this month's focus for the Twelve Most Wanted this year is all about.

Granted, Lydia would have been included in her family's appearance in census enumerations dating before 1850, but only as a tick mark within a broad age range category. Get that birthday wrong, and that unnamed female could suddenly be in the wrong slot, throwing us off the chase. But then, the question becomes: which family would we be seeking her in? Lydia would be in plenty of company with a popular surname like Miller in Ohio. We don't even know which Ohio county would have been home to this Miller family; all we know is that she married her first husband, William Gordon, in Perry County.

Even her date of birth could be called into question, except that we don't really have a primary source to rely upon; the date I'm working with—October 15, 1820—is extrapolated from the age at death given on her headstone.

Given that I've yet to locate an obituary following Lydia's 1895 death in Mercer County, I'm at a loss to even say whether her first son, Adam Gordon, kept in touch with his mom after her move across the state of Ohio with her second husband, Benedict Palmer. Considering that, I doubt that any obituary, if found, would mention any of Lydia's surviving siblings, despite their usefulness to us in pinpointing Lydia's own birth family.

With so little that has been found on the personal history of this woman, it's been a struggle to determine her parents' names. There is, however, one option available to researchers now that hadn't been part of the strategy for previous generations of family historians: DNA. Thus, genetic genealogy will become part of my strategy for discovering Lydia Miller's roots with this month's research effort. We'll consider the possibilities there, tomorrow.

What we Do Know About Lydia

 

There are several details which I can affirm are already known about Lydia Miller, my mother-in-law's second great-grandmother and my focus for this month's Twelve Most Wanted. Knowing at least these few points will be helpful for pressing forward with the search for Lydia's family—but many of the details didn't quite fall into place until after discovering one major fact: that she had married twice.

"Lidia" had married William H. Gordon in the Catholic Church in Somerset, Perry County, Ohio, in April of 1838. Soon afterwards, her oldest son Adam was born, followed by another son who died in infancy. By the end of 1840, Lydia's husband William had also died.

Meanwhile, one county to the west, another man had just repeated a similar scenario. In Fairfield County, Benedict Palmer had married Catherine Hovermill in February of 1839. By March of 1840, the Palmers both welcomed their son Jerome into the world and bid a final goodbye to his young mother, only nineteen years of age at her death.

Widow and widower found each other and pledged their troth in Perry County on May 1, 1842. For whatever reason, Lydia placed her son Adam in the care of her recently-widowed mother-in-law, yet brought Benedict's son Jerome with them, as the newlyweds set up housekeeping back in Fairfield County.

By 1842, the couple's eldest son, Edward, was born. Between that point and the 1850 census, two more sons and a daughter were added to the household. By 1860, the family had moved westward, though still within the same state of Ohio. By then, Lydia had given her husband two more daughters and a son, with one more daughter yet to come in 1862.

By then, the family was settled and farming in Montezuma in Mercer County, the location where much of the family remained through the next generation, and even beyond that point. So far, I've been tracing the Palmer family's lines of descent, observing that over the generations, many of them remained in Mercer County.

That is pretty much the extent of what I do know about Lydia at this point. There is, of course, much that I don't know. We'll take an inventory tomorrow of where this family chase may lead us with the exploration yet to come through the rest of this month.

When we Last Left Lydia

 

It was May 31 just one year ago when I had to close the books on my search for Lydia Miller's parents. Lydia had been May's focus for my Twelve Most Wanted last year, simply because she had evaded detection for more years than I care to recall. But what was more difficult than simply calling off the chase for yet another year was the fact that, only days prior, I had discovered that Lydia hadn't died a young mother, after all. In fact, as a young widow, she had remarried—not only that, but she had moved to a new county on the far end of the state to become mother to eight more children.

That unexpected discovery made me wish I had found out at the beginning of the month, not the end. Behind the scenes—while I was supposed to be researching yet another brick wall ancestor—I kept building out the tree for Lydia Miller and her new family in Mercer County, Ohio.

Eventually, though, I had to set the task aside and focus on the work at hand for June, then July, then...well, you get the idea. This is one month I wished I could have kept at the research trail, but I had made myself the promise that I would keep rotating through research challenges as a principle to help keep from burning out on one information dead end.

When I had started that research goal last May, all I had was the detail that "Lidia" Miller had married William H. Gordon in 1838 in Perry County, Ohio. In a very short amount of time, she gave birth to two sons, the eldest of whom became my mother-in-law's great-grandfather, Adam Gordon.

The other major detail about Lidia—one I thought I knew, given the appearances—was that she, along with her husband and second son, had died by 1840, or at least before 1850, when her eldest son was being raised in his paternal grandmother's home.

How wrong I was. It turns out that Lydia, as a widow, had married a young widower who was then the father of one son, himself. By the time I discovered documentation verifying that turn of events, we were fast approaching the end of the month.

Despite working feverishly to trace that new family's line of descent, the month closed out long before I had done this new task justice. This month will become our chance to revisit Lydia—once Miller, then Gordon, then Palmer—and see what else we can learn about this entirely new family. Hopefully, by the end of this month, we may also look to the opposite direction to close in on the story of just whose daughter Lydia Miller was, herself.  

A Sisyphean Task

 

Truth be told, though I left the Jackson family behind at the close of last month, I still can't help but try to complete one task I like to do with each of my Twelve Most Wanted ancestors for each year: I take the collateral lines of each of these Twelve Most Wanted and research their family's line of descent down to our present time. I like to include this task, primarily to help spot possible DNA matches who have also descended from that same ancestral line. 

Now, even though we're into a new month, behind the scenes I've been trying to do so with the Jackson family. There's one problem with such a practice, once we encounter a family like this. Though admittedly, it's a rough go, trying to trace ancestors in America before the mid-1800s, the real struggle is not one of finding elusive court records. It's in dealing with the sheer numbers of this unusual family. I'm afraid I've set for myself a Sisyphean task.

Granted, most families from those earlier time periods had many children. That, in a way, was a plan for survival, given the reality of many children dying before adulthood. In the Jackson family's case, however, each of their thirteen children did live to adulthood. Not only that, but they married and, in most cases, had many children of their own. Multiplying that case by the many generations separating Lyman Jackson's era and our own generation gives pause. 

Just looking at the numbers in this Jackson case tells how impossible that task may be. For Lyman Jackson and his wife Deidama Dunham, they saw ten sons and three daughters live to adulthood, marry, and have families of their own.

Taking a hypothetical number and extrapolating out this case, I asked the AI search engine at Google just how many people I'd be researching if those thirteen Jackson children married and had thirteen children of their own, then repeated the process for another generation. 

The answer: 4,758 people in three generations, assuming all children lived a full life, married someone from outside the family, and subsequently had their own family of thirteen children.

No wonder I feel as if I never can catch up with myself.

A Little Spring Cleaning Detour

 

There is a little wood and wicker three drawer cabinet which I've repurposed to store some of my research odds and ends—you know, the notes-to-self reminders that I'll do when I get a "round tuit." Evidently, I must have recently added one file folder too many, because yesterday, it began creaking. Not long afterwards, I noticed this cabinet was doing its best to imitate the Leaning Tower of Pisa. There are many instances in which history is worthy of emulation but this was not one of them. It was time to investigate.

Among all those notes-to-self in those filled drawers, I rediscovered some records gleaned from on-site research in places that ancestors used to call home. I found records from the Fort Meade Historical Society, from the little town in Florida where my McClellan ancestors once lived, and remembered our family's visit to their museum, which displayed a dentist's chair once used by my great-grandfather. From another long-distance genealogy trip, I rediscovered a map of the Roman Catholic parish in Ireland now known as Ballina-Boher, with the townland of Tountinna highlighted in yellow to draw attention to the place where my father-in-law's Tully ancestors once lived.

There were, of course, many other slips of paper, reminding me to check on specific details of this or that ancestor. From some of my earliest research forays, there were actual photocopies of documents, items which I'll now need to scan and upload to my digitized records.

Fortunately, several of these reminders have made a timely appearance, for I've already planned to work on these family lines in upcoming months. For those notes regarding my mother's family, this is a great prompt to add those maternal ancestors to my Twelve Most Wanted list for next year. There is always more work to do on these brick wall ancestors.

Organized into groups of similar tasks, these odds and ends of notes written to myself in past years are now laid out into a work flow that will hopefully vanquish the paper piles, but at the same time, looking at each one and remembering what first sparked those reminders has been a pleasant trip down my genealogical memory lane. Research may seem tedious at times—and provide me with motivation to move on to the next task when the frustration of dead ends looms—but it is always enjoyable to look back and remember the trip from beginning puzzle to latest stopping point. Somehow, a little spring cleaning detour turns out to provide me with more energy to pick up that trail once again. 

A New Month, an Old Research Puzzle

 

For the past six years, I've made it my habit to slice and dice through the brick walls of four family trees—my maternal and paternal lines, and those of my in-laws—using a system I call my Twelve Most Wanted. For each of the first three months of the year, I select one frustratingly elusive family member of the bygone generations in my mother's line to focus on per month. For the subsequent quarter, I then move to three brick wall ancestors from my mother-in-law's family tree. The second half of each year is dedicated to the fathers: in the fall, my attention turns to my father-in-law's Irish heritage, and come wintertime, I wrestle with those hard-to-find Polish records on behalf of my own father.

One ancestor to focus on each month sometimes means great research progress. Other times, it means I need to fold up the dossier despite the unanswered questions. Come the end of the month, that can be a difficult choice to make. The only consolation is in writing up a to-do list for the next time I pick up the challenge in a new year.

So it is with this month's challenge, my mother-in-law's second great-grandmother Lydia Miller who, at a young age, became the widow of William Gordon in Perry County, Ohio. While in many cases, I return to a previous Twelve Most Wanted's candidate only years afterwards, the last time I worked on Lydia, I could barely bring myself to close the case on her—even temporarily. It was exactly eleven months ago when I needed to make that choice; I could hardly get back to her story fast enough.

The main reason I've been so keen to return to Lydia's story is that, at nearly the close of the month last year, I made a breakthrough discovery—but ran out of time to fully explore the possibilities that that discovery introduced. With to-do list in hand from the end of the month's report last May, this month we'll return to (hopefully) learn the rest of Lydia Miller's story.

Not Least, and Certainly Not Last

 

The end of the month means time to wrap up April's Jackson project. One final item on the month's agenda is to mention what's been found on one remaining child among the thirteen Jackson children of Lyman and Deidama: a daughter they named Rosanna. 

While this is the last mention of the Jackson children, Rosanna was certainly not the last in order of appearance. She, being the first-born, arrived October 9, 1782, according to letters preserved by the family and recorded in The Family History of Michael Jackson. According to that genealogy, we also learn that Rosanna was married twice: first to someone named John Rudd, then after his death to Robert Morrell.

Though I had read this at the beginning of this month's project, I had quite a hard time finding any records to verify that information. Granted, I've encountered problems verifying some of the other names in the Jackson book, too, but there usually was some clue to help me piece together a more accurate version of the story. Not so in Rosanna's case.

Rosanna, having been widowed by the loss of John Rudd, remarried, but was said to have lost her second husband within a year of their 1842 marriage, according to the book. However, I was able to find a sixty-eight year old woman named Rosanna living in Erie County, Pennsylvania, with her husband, Robert Morrell, in the 1850 census. Perhaps the book meant to enter his date of death as 1853 instead of 1843.

Checking further on Rosanna, by then surnamed Morrell, I did find a woman by that name in the 1860 census. This time, Robert Morrell was not listed in the household, which was headed by Elmina van Riper, who was herself likely a widow at that point. Seeing the name Michael Jackson in the household listed next to the van Riper home, I'm presuming that Michael was Rosanna's own brother Michael—and Michael the father of Elmina, which helps assure we have located the right family group.

There is far more work that needs to be done to verify all the information on the descendants of the thirteen Jackson children. Since today marks the end of this month's project, such efforts will need to take a back seat as we move on to other projects, but that possibility of finding DNA matches connected to this Jackson line still beckons me to occasionally find a slice of time to tuck in this extra effort. For the most part, the Jackson genealogy served as a helpful trailblazer, and I'd like to complete the process for all the collateral lines listed, and attach documents to the book's assertions.

The book, itself, may have saved much work in pushing the Jackson line back another generation, for it included information on Lyman Jackson's father and grandfather, not to mention his wife's father's Dunham line as well. The work is already laid out for us when we return to work on this Jackson line from my mother-in-law's family—just waiting for the addition of some supporting documentation.

With the start of a new month, tomorrow we'll launch into another of my mother-in-law's brick wall ancestors, Lydia Miller. Last year's exploration of this line opened up much unexpected information, and I'm looking forward to connecting the dots that popped up with that discovery, now that we're moving to the fifth of this year's Twelve Most Wanted. 

Number Six for the Record

 

Among the thirteen children of Lyman and Deidama Dunham Jackson, there are two yet to review. One is the couple's eldest daughter, Rosanna, who during this entire month has kept me stumped; we'll acknowledge what still needs to be done in her case with tomorrow's post. The other—number six out of the Jackson thirteen, for the record—was John Jay Jackson, my mother-in-law's third great-grandfather.

It would do us some good to note a few details here from the Horace Mortimer Jackson book we've been using as our trailblazer, The Family History of Michael Jackson. For the record, the Jackson book noted John Jay Jackson to have been born February 7, 1792. This was likely in Otsego County, New York, where many of the Jackson children were born.

From that point, many of the expected details on John Jay's own biographical sketch were lacking. Much like the book's entry for his youngest sister, Lucy, reading the entry became a matter of filling in the blanks for myself. I'll use today's post to fill in a few of those blanks for John Jay from records I've found in recent years.

The first opportunity to fill in the blanks in the Jackson book came with John Jay's own wife's name. The book offered "Miss —— Ames." Some zealous researcher, upon seeing the error, wrote in the correct name in the copy of the subsequently digitized book: Sarah Ijams. And that was exactly the identity of John Jackson's first wife.

As to whether the couple had six children, we need, first, to sort out some details. The book stipulates that there were three daughters, two of whom were named in the sketch: Comfort and Nancy. (The third daughter merited another one of those blank lines.)

While there was a daughter named Nancy—my mother-in-law's direct line ancestor—whether the second daughter was named Comfort, I have yet to verify. The other daughter has been recorded as Elizabeth C. Jackson, who died young and unmarried in 1842. Whether the "C." stands for Comfort, I haven't been able to document. However, since John Jackson's first wife, Sarah Ijams, had migrated to Perry County, Ohio, along with her sister, whose name happened to be Comfort, named after an older relative in the Ijams line, our Elizabeth could have carried her aunt's name as her own middle name. 

And the third daughter? My guess is Rosanna, by 1840 married to Walter Mitchell.

While we might be considered generous in allowing two out of three for the book's effort at naming the daughters of John Jay Jackson, it is not quite the same case with his sons. Robert and Joseph I can find, but William as a son of John Jackson eludes me.

However, as the book noted, John married twice, the second wife, filling in the blanks, being Mary Cecelia Grate. Children of this second wife did indeed include a son named Lyman, as the book affirmed. However, three more daughters joined the family with this second marriage: Mary Cecelia, named after her mother, Caroline, and the child the couple lost at four years of age, Clarissa.

To make sure I haven't missed anything, it would help to make a thorough search for signs of that possible extra son, William. After all, a son with that name would have been his maternal grandfather's namesake. And with the book's details mentioning possible service during the Civil War, it is quite likely that such a son could have been lost in casualties.

To recap, as I've said so many times before, genealogy books can be helpful as way finders, especially now that we have the capability of checking each other's work through documentation. It's been helpful to spend this month verifying facts from the Jackson genealogy as I build out the extended tree of John Jay Jackson's twelve collateral lines. Hopefully, recording all these branches in my online tree will lead to connecting with some DNA matches, as well.

Tomorrow with the close of this month, we'll recap progress made and draw up plans for the next time we revisit this Jackson line, before we jump to next month's feature from the Twelve Most Wanted for 2026.

Drawing Blanks

 

Following the path of a genealogical trailblazer can be helpful—until that guide ends up drawing blanks. In the case of the youngest child in Lyman and Deidama Dunham Jackson's family, that is indeed what happened when we look to their youngest child. 

Using the 1906 book, The Family History of Michael Jackson, we have so far traced most of the thirteen Jackson children. In many cases, the guidance of researcher Horace Mortimer Jackson has pointed us in the right direction. Perhaps in this final case, as so often happens, the baby of the family got shorted. 

Here's what the book tells us about the thirteenth Jackson child. First of all, her name was Lucy Deidama, garnering her mother's given name as her middle name. The author gives her date of birth as February 6, 1808, and indicates that she eventually married someone named Elisha Alderman.

That is the point in the brief narrative where we start drawing blanks. Of her death, the author provides merely a line "——" for the date. No place is given, not for her death, nor for her birth.

There were, however, several children listed. Of the eight named, however, even there we find a blank: the fifth child, a daughter named Calista, was said to have married "——" Clapp. With a given name like Calista, I thought it might not be that hard to determine the first name of Mr. Clapp—until I realized that husband's last name might not even be correct.

If it hadn't been for that old familiar destination for so many of the Jackson children who decided to leave home in Pennsylvania and move westward, I might not have found any further details to round out that scant history in the Jackson genealogy. But it wasn't long before I realized Lucy's family had left Pennsylvania's Erie County for Knox County in Illinois. Elisha Alderman had decided to follow so many of his Jackson in-laws.

While the 1850 census showed only six of the possible eight Alderman children in Knox County, that was enough of a jumping off place for me to trace the family's lines of descent. I started with the name I thought would be easiest to follow: their son who was listed in the Jackson book with the unusual name of Gilderoy. From that point, I've made it down to the current century with some of that son's descendants.

Granted, that makes one line of at least eight in this uncertain readout of the children of Lyman Jackson's youngest daughter. There is much more to still untangle, especially given the blanks left in that trailblazer's guidebook. But no matter how many blanks the author inserted in his narrative, there are still enough clues to enable a twenty-first century researcher with digitized records access to piece together the full story.

A Long Slide Down to the Present

 

This month began by listing what I had already learned about my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather, Lyman Jackson, in preparation to delve further into that man's family line and history as this month's selection from my Twelve Most Wanted for 2026. Starting from Lyman's birth in Connecticut in 1756, we followed him to his marriage in Vermont and the new family's migration westward, first to upstate New York, and then to Erie County, Pennsylvania.

It's been a lot of years since that time—not to mention a lot of miles—but this past weekend, I finally diagrammed one line of Lyman's descendants all the way to the current decade. Starting with Susannah Jackson Kennedy's move to Knox County, Illinois, and subsequent family lines moving to Kansas, then Nevada, and ultimately to Santa Rosa, California—site of that devastating 1906 earthquake mentioned in one family history book—I've finally finished that long slide down to the present, sticking close to each of those lines of descent.

Imagine my surprise, then, to arrive in our current century and discover that one Jackson descendant married and moved to an address in California which is an easy amble down the street and around the corner from where I currently live. That makes our neighbor my husband's fifth cousin once removed.

Granted, we have yet to meet these newfound Jackson cousins. I'm just in awe over being able to discover such a connection, not simply from a family with origins as far away as Connecticut, but as far removed as an ancestor who lived in the mid-1700s.

Before this month is over, there is still one more task to complete. Lyman and Deidama Dunham Jackson had yet another child whom we need to track. Tomorrow, we'll consider the baby of the Jackson thirteen, Lucy, the eventual wife of Elisha Alderman. With eight children mentioned in the genealogy drawn up by researcher Horace Mortimer Jackson, there's still a lot of missing verification left for us to find.

A Biweekly Reflection

 

It's been two weeks now since I've begun adding descendants to my mother-in-law's family tree from the line of her fourth great-grandfather Lyman Jackson. While some lines have easily multiplied over the generations, there have been others which present more challenges in confirming their place in the lineage. Still, it was a nice surprise to see just how the many Jackson descendants have rounded out her family tree.

Over just these past two weeks, I've found 419 new Jackson descendants to add to that tree. That means my in-laws' tree now includes 42,625 direct line ancestors and the descendants of their collateral lines. All of these newly-added individuals are supported with documentation.

Granted, I have a long way to go before I complete the lines of descent for each of the Jacksons' thirteen children, but this is a significant start. While the numbers look impressive, though, I had hoped it would budge the needle on the count of DNA matches for Lyman and Deidama's Jackson descendants at Ancestry.com's ThruLines tool. Not yet, apparently. The count is still stuck at 71 DNA matches.

Collaborating with DNA matches on my own side of the family tree—a constant conversation in its own right—I managed to find an additional eighteen descendants to enter on that side of the family. That grows my tree to 41,926—even though I don't plan on researching that side of the family for another five months. Despite my "Twelve Most Wanted" research plan, the truth of the matter is that once we collaborate with cousins, the questions and conversations are ongoing—and so are the results!

Weaving Those Family Lines

 

I'm still at it, trying to trace the descendants of the one daughter of Lyman Jackson I've been researching for almost a week now. Susannah, next to youngest child of Lyman and Deidama Dunham Jackson, had married Henry Kennedy and moved west from her parents' home in Pennsylvania to a county in Illinois where some of her relatives had previously settled. Her children, in turn, had followed the same pattern, moving in stages across the American west.

With no way to assure myself that discovery of someone with her children's names were not merely name twins—after all, some of them showed up in records hundreds of miles from their Illinois home—I started looking around in those records for familiar names. If one Kennedy descendant surfaced in, say, Kansas, could I find any others from the family in that same new town? This was time to weave together all those extended family lines, tracing not only Susannah's children, but their children as well, to see how the families clustered.

The answer to my question, in the cases I've already researched, has been in the positive. At first, I was surprised, but upon further examination, I realized that line upon line, what might hold true for researching one individual family might hold true for cousins—or, complicating the equation, even half-siblings from second marriages of widowed parents.

In all, I've got seven Kennedy siblings to trace on their multi-decades move westward. I'm not finished yet, but the pattern, which seems to be holding firm, has become a guide for me in following a large family whose many stopping places along their westward migration seem designed to shake everyone off their trail. I'm hanging on to that cluster concept on every twist and turn—and hoping the process will also yield distant Jackson cousins who might just become DNA matches for added confirmation. 

Shaking it Up

 

Some family stories are just that—simply stories. Checking for details, the documents may lacking. When I saw the published report about one descendant of Lyman Jackson—his grandson Byron Kennedy—supposedly losing his own son to an earthquake in California, I had to check it out. That research question, however, led me down a bumpy path, prompted undoubtedly from the aftermath of the American Civil War, leading to a series of moves westward through the continent, partially unpredictable, had there not been siblings whose similar moves could be used for comparison.

Despite that, it is likely that I haven't been shaken loose in this genealogical chase. For one thing, an entry in any hundred-year-old genealogy book claiming "whereabouts unknown" can now easily be corrected through the many digitized resources now available to us. In Byron Kennedy's case, as it turns out, it may well be likely that he, himself, moved to California. In fact, the 1900 U.S. Census shows someone by that name living in Santa Rosa, California whose birth in Pennsylvania lines up nicely with our Byron's story.

That very location—Santa Rosa, California—was the one identified in the Jackson book as the place where Byron Kennedy's namesake son had supposedly died in an earthquake in 1906. That detail, too, could easily be verified. Though the most widely reported earthquake of that year was the one in San Francisco, Santa Rosa also suffered, being situated on the same fault line.

The impact, though focused on a series of city blocks downtown, was devastating. The destruction of historic buildings, followed by fires fueled by ruptured gas lines, did cause a significant number of deaths in what was then a city far smaller than San Francisco. Photographs of the aftermath, preserved in the digital archives of the Sonoma County Public Library, give a far more visceral effect than the sanitized State Earthquake Investigation Commission maps of the wiped-out downtown area, now preserved through the David Rumsey Map Collection.

Could Byron Kennedy have lost a son in the aftermath of the Santa Rosa earthquake? That someone could have lost his life in the collapsed buildings or ensuing fires is without question. Whether Byron Kennedy's own son was trapped in such circumstances is harder to determine.

However, just based on what can be found in the 1900 census, the only child remaining at the Kennedy home was their daughter Belle. Furthermore, following Byron's own death in 1912, the reading of his will listed three remaining children—all daughters. Granted, Byron did have a son who predeceased him in 1903, but he named that child Charles, not Byron.

Admittedly, tracing this branch of the Kennedy descendants of Susannah Samantha Jackson has led me on a convoluted trail. Piecing together the full story, in this case, requires tracking all branches of the Kennedy line at the same time—several independent family lines shaken up, only making sense in concert with each other. Just as the genealogical "FAN Club" concept teaches us to be aware of clusters in families, these Kennedy descendants demonstrate how tracing everyone at the same time helps identify the missing story lines in subsequent generations.  

Checking, Just in Case

 

When following the trail of genealogical crumbs left in books published years ago, I'm not above considering such leads, but I still make sure to check out the details, just in case. Yesterday, when we reviewed published accounts of Lyman Jackson's twelfth child, Susannah Samantha, there were some details that simply cried out for verification—and updates.

Among those details in the 1909 Horace Mortimer Jackson publication, The Family History of Michael Jackson, was information on the man Susannah married after her first husband, Henry Kennedy, had died. The book noted that Susannah then married someone named William Robinson. Checking to confirm that detail via documentation, it turns out that name was a close approximation, but not entirely correct. Susannah's second husband was actually recorded as John Robson.

While it is unlikely that Susannah, at age fifty one, would have had any further children in this second marriage, the lesson is well-taken: no matter the assertion, double-check with documentation.

There were other details about Susannah's history in the Jackson genealogy book that I want to double-check. For instance, the book stated, concerning Susannah's son Byron, that though he was married, his wife's name was unknown and that "their whereabouts are unknown." Furthermore, according to this account, they had a son named after his father, who was supposedly "killed in the earthquake at Santa Rosa, California, in 1906." 

Conveniently, I'm situated not far from Santa Rosa and, having personally known people who lived through a more recent earthquake in that same city, I'm aware that such a report could be quite possible, despite a much better known earthquake in another city nearby grabbing the majority of headlines in 1906. These are details which we can now verify digitally in many cases—a research step I intend to take, if for nothing other than to confirm or amend this published story.

Following the lines of the children can help confirm the entire family's story, not only in Susannah's case, but also regarding the instance of her sister Lucy, the youngest of all the thirteen Jackson children of Lyman and Deidama. Especially in Lucy's case, as we'll see tomorrow, I'll need some guidance from actual documentation, wherever it can be found.

Thankful for the Trailblazers

 

Researching the men among our distant ancestors may be difficult enough, once we move from "modern" times to previous centuries, but turning to the women from those past generations presents even more of a challenge. Perhaps on account of this, I'm thankful for the trailblazers of earlier generations who thought to write down what they discovered about their family history, both of men and women.

As we move from the youngest of the ten sons of Lyman Jackson and Deidama Dunham to the next child, we step from that world of somewhat documented men to the invisible world of women. In this case, thankfully, we can rely on old family letters and records preserved in one book focused on the descendants of Lyman's father—The Family History of Michael Jackson—to serve as trailblazer for the three remaining Jackson children, daughters all. And more to the point, with the many digitized records available to us online now, we can confirm or reject many of the assertions made in such century-old genealogy tomes.

Following the birth of Norman Landon Jackson, the youngest of Lyman's sons, the next child was the last child to have been born to the couple in New York before the family moved to Erie County, Pennsylvania. This daughter, born on January 17, 1805, the Jacksons named Susannah Samantha.

By 1828, Susannah was a married woman, the wife of Henry Kennedy. Seeing that married surname sparks a question. As the Jackson sons had already demonstrated themselves to marry sisters—the Hendryx sisters for Jackson brothers Michael, David, and Abner—seeing the name Kennedy causes me to wonder whether Susanna's husband was related to the two Kennedy women who married Lyman junior and Royal Jackson. That is a research question I've yet to answer.

By the time we've arrived at researching the life story of the Jacksons' twelfth child, it comes as no surprise that Susannah and her husband Henry showed up in the 1850 census in Knox County, Illinois, destination for several of her Jackson relatives. We've seen that pattern before. And the census narrows the date range for when the Kennedys left their home in Pennsylvania, for their four year old son Byron was born there before the family made the trek westward to Illinois in time for the 1850 census.

Things did not go well for the Kennedy family in Illinois, for not long after their arrival, Susannah was widowed and remarried in Knox County on February 18, 1856. By the time of the 1860 census, Susannah and her son Byron were living in the household of her second husband John Robson, along with two of John's sons from a previous marriage.

Though in Susannah's case, the outline of her children's history in the Jackson genealogy book is sparse, it appears that following the trail provided by the book's author does at least help trace the family yet another generation—though the details need to be brought into clearer focus. This, as with all uses of published genealogy books, is a task for me to complete behind the scenes, but it has already been informative to peek ahead and compare notes with digitized records. Books can certainly point the way, especially when we are working with families whose recorded generations stretch back centuries, but those reports are best coupled with the documentation we can easily access online in our own times.

The Last Son

 

The last in a long line of sons of Lyman Jackson and Deidama Dunham was Norman Landon Jackson. The tenth son and eleventh child born to the Jacksons, Norman likely made his 1801 appearance in upstate New York before the Jacksons' final move to Erie County, Pennsylvania.

While his parents and a few brothers chose to remain in Pennsylvania, Norman was among the Jackson siblings who decided to move west. For a while, he could be found in Knox County, Illinois, along with his brothers Obediah and David Bardsley Jackson. However, he eventually settled farther west, in Minnesota territory. There, in the 1857 territorial census, Norman Jackson and his wife, along with his son Eli's household, were listed in a place once known as Jackson Lake in Blue Earth County. 

Left behind in Illinois were his two daughters. Back in Knox County, Lois married Andrew Tapp in 1847, and shortly afterwards settled in Black Hawk County, Iowa, before the 1856 state census.  Her sister Louisa followed suit, marrying John Ferris and settled in Black Hawk County, Iowa, before the 1860 census.

As for Norman Landon Jackson, he died in the place where he had settled in the 1850s. His memorial in Blue Earth County, Minnesota, bears the dates 1801 and 1869, spanning a life which took him from upstate New York, to Erie County, Pennsylvania, then westward through Indiana to Illinois, and eventually onward to what was once known as Minnesota Territory.   

Sometimes, It Takes Just One

 

This month's project for my Twelve Most Wanted had me thinking I'd be busy all month long, just tracing the many descendants of Lyman Jackson and his wife, Deidama Dunham. After all, not only are we talking about a couple whose lifespans bridged colonial years and a revolution, but progenitors of a family which ultimately resulted in ten sons and three daughters. Unsurprisingly, many of those children followed in their parents' footsteps.

However, arriving at their tenth child, Royal Gilbert Jackson, that pattern didn't remain unbroken. Marrying Sophia Kennedy and setting up their home in Erie County, Pennsylvania, the couple may have had only one child. At first, I wondered if that was the reason why I didn't see any descendants of Royal and Sophia in my husband's DNA matches. Following that line, though, made me realize that sometimes, it can take just one ancestor to result in many descendants.

Tracing Royal's life story has been challenging so far. When I took his name and dates to FamilySearch.org's Full Text Search, little appeared for my effort. It seems Royal Jackson followed his father's example and deeded property rather than utilizing a will. At least that, at first glance, is my conjecture.

According to family histories preserved over the years, Royal and Sophia had one child, a daughter whose name in one history was listed as Emeline. She, in turn, supposedly married someone with the surname Cheeseman. Finding any verification of such a detail, however, was hampered by one problem: Emeline apparently went by two different given names.

Eventually, I found her name by that specific format mentioned in family histories—Emeline Jackson—in the death certificate of a son. Thankfully, this son bore the telltale mark of being his grandfather's namesake, for he was named Royal Cheeseman. This son's father's name, according to his death record, was William Cheeseman.

That confirmation led to the realization that Emeline also went by a different given name which sometimes appeared as Laurena E., and sometimes as Lorine E. What was clear, once all the correct Cheeseman documents were assembled, was that this Jackson descendant, even if she was an only child herself, went on to have several children. Daughters all, except for the couple's one son, Royal Cheeseman, but this only child became a source of many descendants—and, hopefully, a connection leading to additional DNA matches, as well.

Brothers Marrying Sisters

 

Thanks to all the work I've been able to do with DNA matches this month, I had already outlined several descendants of the next son of Lyman Jackson. Researching the descendants of David Bardsley Jackson, the eighth son and ninth child of Lyman and Deidama, became a curiosity owing to one point: like two of his brothers, he married a Hendryx. And with that choice, he also married his first cousin.

David Jackson's wife Lucy Hendryx was daughter of Mehitabel Dunham Hendryx, who in turn was sister of David's mother Deidama. To complicate matters, David's older brother Michael had married Lucy's sister Ruth, and we've already learned that David's brother Abner had also married one of the Hendryx sisters, Tryphosa. 

At a closer relationship level, I imagine such marriage arrangements would make for some interesting DNA matches, but in my mother-in-law's case, though she does have several instances of pedigree collapse in her heritage, that is not the case for this Jackson line. Her direct line Jackson ancestor, John Jay Jackson, married someone outside this family connection along the Jacksons' migration route from Vermont through upstate New York to Erie County, Pennsylvania.

Still, it is interesting to realize that descendants of both David and Abner show up in our Jackson DNA matches, but not any descendants of Michael—yet. However, I wouldn't be surprised if patient waiting and diligent checking over time might yield some new matches to descendants of all the Jackson children.

From Dynasty to DNA

 

Now that I've sorted out most of the various namesake grandsons of Lyman Jackson—as well as the many other descendants of his ten sons and three daughters—it's time to see whether those DNA connections to my husband's fifth great-grandfather make sense. After all, he currently has seventy one Jackson matches. It's time to get busy.

Lately, I've been using the "Shared Matches" from Ancestry's ProTools collection, enabling me to blast through entire family lines in some cases. Of course, this includes the current culmination of a twelve-year-long project to build out my mother-in-law's family tree to include all the descendants of all her ancestors. By the time we get back to fifth great-grandparents, that can add up to a lot of descendants, indeed.

Having just worked on the line of descent from Lyman Jackson's seventh son, Abner, I was ready to see what matches ThruLines had already attributed to specific sons of the patriarch Lyman. Among those seventy one DNA matches, there are descendants from the lines of Jesse Dunham Jackson, whom I researched earlier this month, and Abner Jackson, whom we touched on yesterday. Of course, the majority of DNA matches—currently fifty five—come from our direct ancestor, Lyman's son John Jay.

Of the remaining Jackson siblings, I have yet to research two sons and one daughter for whom we have six DNA matches. My hope, though, is that this additional work building out the family tree to include all the collateral lines plus all their descendants will point out additional matches for whom Ancestry has yet to pin a shared ancestor. 

From that step, I then look at each match's shared matches, sorted in order of relationship from closest downward, to see how I can place those other unidentified matches within the Jackson tree. It's an ongoing process and, yes, time consuming, but it does help sort those DNA matches into informative connections. The more work done on this process, the easier it becomes to place newer DNA matches within this Jackson family constellation. 

Abner 'n' Phosa

 

As we continue pursuing the ten sons and three daughters of Lyman Jackson, we are now up to his seventh son, Abner. And yet again—yes, adding another Lyman to the list—we find one more Jackson descendant who made sure to name one of his own sons after his father. Only in Abner's case, he went above and beyond in borrowing the names of his siblings to round out the namesakes represented by his own family.

Abner Jackson was born in 1795 in the community of Richfield in the then-newly-formed Otsego County, New York. Along with his parents and siblings, he eventually moved to Erie County, Pennsylvania. Marrying Tryphosa Jane Hendryx, sister of his brother Michael's wife Ruth, the couple went on to have a large family of their own.

Perhaps owing to her less common name, Abner's wife often went by the nickname 'Phosa, or 'Phosa Jane. This nickname, in turn, sometimes showed in transcriptions of handwritten records as "Phora."

Abner and 'Phosa remained mostly in western Pennsylvania, though notes preserved from some relatives in family history books mentioned their temporary residence in Ohio. The 1870 census supports that report, showing Abner and "Thosey" living near his namesake son and his family in Columbiana County that year.

It has been fairly straightforward to follow several of Abner and 'Phosa's children through the next two generations. This task, repeated down to our present time, will hopefully inform the ThruLines tool at Ancestry DNA, which currently pinpoints seventy one of my husband's DNA matches as Jackson descendants. Not that seventy one is too small a number for me, but I suspect that count might grow even larger with a little more work on our family tree. Ten sons and three daughters from the late 1700s can result in a far more remarkable pool of descendants than that. 

Another Grandson Named Lyman

Much as I had suspected, Lyman Jackson would have more than one grandson named after him. While I'm building out the family tree for my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather, I've been noticing how many of his grandsons seemed to have shared this man's story. I've also spotted a few of those descendants sporting this grandfather's given name, so as I moved on through Lyman's ten sons to Obadiah Jackson, I wasn't surprised to find another namesake grandson.

Obadiah, the sixth son and seventh child of Lyman Jackson, was born in 1794, likely after the family had moved to upstate New York. Judging from the census return for 1830, Obadiah had moved once again with his father and older siblings to Erie County, Pennsylvania. But by 1850, he was far from that latest Jackson home in Pennsylvania.

The 1850 census revealed Obadiah's new residence in Knox County, Illinois, where he claimed the value of his real estate to be six hundred dollars. There with him were his wife, Mary, and several children. All but the oldest—Lyman—were born in Illinois.

In 1850, Lyman was listed as a nineteen year old harness maker in his father's household. Though I haven't yet located him in the 1860 census, before the following enumeration, Lyman was married and raising a family of his own.

Looking back to Lyman's father, I searched for a copy of Obadiah's will, to see a listing of all his children, but to no avail. While I did find a will, it was brief—far too short to confirm the names of any of his children. The document basically gave everything of Obadiah's property to his wife, Mary Ann, also appointing her as his executor. If there were any other legal instruments used to transfer property to his children, I'll need to revisit FamilySearch.org's Full Text Search to find any deeds mentioning Obadiah's name.

Lyman, in turn, remained for the rest of his life in Knox County, Illinois, marrying and raising a family of his own. As with all the other grandchildren of the senior Lyman Jackson, I'll revisit the children of Obadiah and continue documenting their lines of descent for guidance as I work through the DNA matches who turn out to be descendants of the Jackson lines. With many of the elder Lyman Jackson's ten sons and three daughters marrying and having large families of their own, there will be plenty to keep me busy for the remainder of this month.

Thankful for the Third Generation

 

As I work my way through the family tree of Revolutionary War Patriot Lyman Jackson, I'm realizing what a challenge it is to confirm anyone's line of descent during the earliest years of this nation. To trace any of the descendants of his ten sons or three daughters, one would have to rely on court records, tax records, land records or other obscure documents in those years predating death certificates or even post-1850 census enumerations.

In the case of this Jackson family, though claiming a fairly common surname, they had one thing going for them: Lyman Jackson's grandchildren were quite willing to keep the family's stories alive. We've already discussed how helpful it was to find the story of grandson Lysander Jackson, in whose published biographical sketch he was sure to credit the accomplishments of his grandfather, the senior Lyman Jackson. I've since run into other Jackson grandsons' stories preserved in biographical sketches in county history books from the late 1800s.

I'm thankful for the willingness of that third generation to keep those Jackson family stories alive for future generations. It puts me in mind of a quote I ran across recently—which itself models the illustration of the importance, yet fragility, of passing along a comment from one person to the next.

The quote, as I most recently heard it, was from fellow genealogy blogger Randy Seaver. He had shared it in a presentation he had made in northern California, not far from my own home. Speaking to the Genealogical Society of Santa Cruz County, Randy reminded us that "it only takes three generations to lose a piece of oral family history."

This thought he had credited to another genealogist, Judy Russell, who had shared that quote in her keynote presentation at the fourth annual RootsTech conference back in 2014. Recapped by Judy Russell in her own blog, The Legal Genealogist, she mentioned finding the quote in an article published at the end of 2013 in Examiner.com by a Texas genealogist, Judy Everett Ramos.

That, however, was not the fountainhead of that provenance trail. Judy Everett Ramos, in turn, had drawn her inspiration from the actual source of that quote, a longstanding archivist at the National Archives in Fort Worth, Texas, named Aaron Holt. The cogent part of that statement, going back to Judy Russell's blog post, was

it only takes three generations to lose a piece of oral family history. ...It must be purposely and accurately repeated over and over again through the generations to be preserved for a genealogist today.

As I work my way through this one Jackson family's story from colonial times through the nineteenth century, I'm realizing how key that third generation was in ensuring that their ancestors' stories were preserved for the future. Whether in oral transmission or preservation in writing, their stories have not been entirely lost because someone chose to pass those details along to yet another set of descendants who were willing to do their part. 

A Grandson Returns Home

 

The search for the ten sons and three daughters of Lyman Jackson continues, but in this case, it is a grandson, not a son, who returns home to Erie County, Pennsylvania, where Lyman himself had finally settled. Once again, we find our clue from a century-old county history book, but this time, rather than a report from far to the west, the book is a publication from Erie County.

Lysander Jackson, Lyman's grandson, was also son of someone named Lyman. His father, born in 1790,  was his grandfather's namesake, but unlike the senior Lyman, Lysander's father ended up traveling to Wisconsin, where he served as a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

According to his biographical sketch in the 1884 History of Erie County, Pennsylvania, Lysander was born in Erie County in 1823, and remained there—at least for all but two census enumerations—for most of his life. In his early adult years, Lysander apparently moved to Ashtabula County, Ohio, seeking work, but returned home soon afterwards. Married to Elizabeth McKee of his home county in Pennsylvania, he and his wife had only one child, Sarah. Years later, the couple could be found living with his brother-in-law back in Ohio for the 1900 census, but returned again to Pennsylvania before Lysander's death there in 1907.

Thanks once again to the published story of a grandson, we are able to trace the line of another of the senior Lyman Jackson's sons. Despite seeing those sons move far from their home in Pennsylvania, at least two of Lyman's grandsons made sure to keep the family story alive for another generation.

Another Son Stays Home

 

Researching ancestral lines stretching back to colonial times in America can prove challenging. In questioning which of Lyman Jackson's ten sons remained with him in his last residence in Erie County, Pennsylvania, I've found indications that some lines of descent moved westward. So far, I had only found one son who remained with his father in Erie County. But I may have just located another son who chose to stay—or return—home in Erie County.

My quest for this week has been to trace the remaining children of my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather Lyman and his wife Deidama—particularly those who moved westward. My assumption was that all but his son Michael had left Pennsylvania to obtain land elsewhere, especially considering that many of the men in that large family were of an age to have either served in the Revolutionary War, or in the War of 1812 which followed so soon afterwards.

Third child on the list of Lyman's descendants was Ebenezer. Lacking records, it seemed reports had him living—or traveling—both to places westward and residences back where Lyman himself had once lived in upstate New York. While Ebenezer may seem to be a rare choice for a given name in our day, I still needed to ensure that the few places where I spotted that name—Ebenezer Jackson—would not lure me into following a name twin.

However, thanks to a biographical sketch of one of his grandsons, published in 1893, far from the Jackson family's Pennsylvania home in the Biographical Review of Dane County, Wisconsin, Edson B. Jackson chose to include the story of both his father, John Lyman Jackson, and his grandfather, Ebenezer Jackson. Whether these accounts are complete and factually accurate, hopefully documentation will reveal. The task now will be to use this publication as a pathfinder, and see whether records can support this account.

According to this account, apparently after serving in the War of 1812, Ebenezer originally settled in Wyoming County, New York, in a place called Sheldon. Sometime before this, Ebenezer had married a woman from Otsego County named either Betsey Prindle or Pringle. The location of that marriage is not surprising, considering that Ebenezer's father Lyman had been reported in the 1800 census in that same county.

The biographical sketch went on to note that Ebenezer eventually moved to Albion in Erie County, Pennsylvania, "where he lived until he died." Though that comment may seem unhelpful, the sketch did include a date of death—August 7, 1857—providing us a way pointer to help locate a will to confirm the names of the seven children listed in the book.

Admittedly, family history books can often include embellishments, but this sketch has provided enough information to help us trace Ebenezer's family through documentation in those early years and confirm—or correct—what information has already been published.

Time to Check Progress — Once Again

 

New projects can reinvigorate the quest to find ancestors. Thanks to a recent message from a collaborator on my mother-in-law's side of the family, efforts have been supercharged for that branch of the family tree—not to mention this month's search for collateral lines for her Jackson roots. Since it's time to check the numbers once again, it's easy to see how those projects can impact progress.

Since this month is the first time this year in which I've moved my focus to my mother-in-law's line, the baseline count—which held steady for most of the past year, give or take a few birth announcements or funeral announcements—had remained at 41,793. Now, after just shy of two weeks' work, that same tree has now rocketed past that number by 413 new entries. That tree now has 42,206 thoroughly documented individuals.

Of course, there are many more additions to come, judging by the Jackson readout on the ThruLines results at Ancestry.com.  As I continue to work on this month's planned Jackson project—and add in those efforts prompted by contacts from collaborators—I expect the numbers will continue to climb in the next two weeks, as well.

Meanwhile, on my own side of the family tree, progress will lie dormant by plan. I'll return to researching that family later this fall, after two more months of work on my mother-in-law's line, followed by three months seeking news of the Irish side, courtesy of my father-in-law. Right now, my own tree remains at 41,908 documented individuals.

One aspect of working through this Twelve Most Wanted plan is revisiting the DNA results in each of the five companies where my husband and I have tested, to check new matches which have appeared since last year. In the case of the Jackson line, my focus for April, there are several new additions. My hope is that, adding more information to the lines of descent from Lyman Jackson will help point out the connections to those many currently-undiscovered matches. There are thousands of connections yet to be reconnected to family lines, including that Jackson line, I'm sure.  

Collaboration is Key

 

When it comes to researching our family's history, each of us knows a little something about our ancestors that another cousin might not know. On the other hand, someone among all those cousins—or even siblings!—might have a photo of an ancestor that we don't have. To piece the story together, collaboration is key.

When it comes to my own immediate family, it might seem reasonable to assume I'd be one who has amassed the most information on those ancestral lines. Imagine my surprise, then, when in a phone conversation about family history the other day, my sister calmly mentioned, "Oh, I have some photographs about that." And she did!

A few days ago, a distant cousin on my mother-in-law's side of our family sent me an email. We have intermittently been exchanging research notes over years—I've lost track of how long—but a new discovery through DNA seemed to reveal a lead to a brick wall ancestor's roots, and this researcher wanted to bounce the idea off me. We'll surely follow that conversation to see where it leads. Whether it becomes a productive pursuit or not, at least we've explored the possibility. You never know until you test out the theory whether it will yield a viable answer. Partnering to explore ideas and brainstorm solutions makes a difference.

Collaboration can enable us to combine details which neither researcher would have seen on his or her own, and examine possible outcomes for genealogical theories. Collaboration can make the work go faster by focusing a group on one given research question at a time. It can provide encouragement when the effort is flagging, and a cheering team when a discovery is finally achieved. And working together can help guard us from unrealistic or unsupported assumptions.

Over the decades in which I've been struggling to find my family's stories, I've met some fellow genealogists who have been wonderful collaborators, for which I've been grateful. Some are no longer with us and are sorely missed, and some, whether for a season of demanding work duties or a season of life, are not currently in the game. Others are new acquaintances, met online and messaged over time through digital means—and maybe, in some cases, will someday be a connection over phone calls or even face-to-face meetings. 

No matter how we connect, though, the important part is that we do connect—a way that enriches the research and makes the wins worth celebrating together.

Seeking Lyman's Other Sons

 

The project to find replacements for a will for Lyman Jackson had its first encouragement when I located a deed transferring property in Erie County, Pennsylvania, his final home. There, I located the record for a property exchange with Michael Jackson, one of Lyman Jackson's ten sons. The search to find any similar documents for Lyman's other sons, however, produced nothing useful.

The search then moved from using FamilySearch.org's AI-assisted Full Text Search to the decidedly low-tech approach of using my own eyeballs to go down the list of Lyman's sons, one by one, to see who else might have stayed in Erie County. 

The answer, arriving just in time with son number nine, was Royal Gilbert Jackson. Born in 1799 and living only until 1842, Royal Jackson may have remained in the last place his father called home, but otherwise, he left a scant record.

Much like the Jackson descendants of that certain ongoing pioneering spirit which we've already found, the rest of Lyman's ten sons and three daughters—those who could be found documented in records—were featured in states other than Pennsylvania. Next week, we'll move on to follow their trails westward.  

No, Not That Michael Jackson

 

There are some names which just catch the eye and make one wonder: is it that one? But in this case, the answer would be no, not that Michael Jackson—though he was his grandfather's namesake.

Then, again, that Jackson family had a habit of reusing favorite names. That, of course, made researching my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather Lyman Jackson's family more challenging. With Lyman himself being son of someone named Michael Jackson, it was predictable that he would name one of his ten sons after his own father. Nor did it keep those ten sons from wanting to echo that same pattern for the next generation.

Suddenly, the need to become wary of name twins escalates, which makes me doubly regret that Lyman Jackson apparently chose an alternate route to the traditional last will and testament. Rather than having one handy document which listed each child by name (hopefully), in Lyman's case, we'll need to scour the deed books of Erie County, Pennsylvania, for mention of any indentures of land prior to his 1835 passing.

That's where Michael Jackson comes in. Apparently in Erie County on May 2, 1825, Lyman and his wife, Deidamia Jackson, for the payment of several hundred dollars from one Michael Jackson, transferred ownership of one specifically identified tract of land. The whole document was witnessed by two additional Jackson sons, David and Royal, and entered into the Erie County deed books on July 27, 1824.

With that one legal transfer, Lyman and his wife cemented the likelihood that at least this one son wouldn't be wandering westward like some of the other Jackson descendants. If that were the case for this one son, perhaps the process might be repeated for other Jackson children, a possibility which I need to research several more times, judging from the robust size of this Jackson family.

Seeking the Ones Who Stayed Behind

 

After discovering that some Jackson descendants followed in their parents' footsteps and continued their pattern of westward migration, I wondered whether anyone stayed behind where Lyman and Deidama Jackson had settled.

My brilliant thought was to pull up the records left behind by Lyman Jackson, my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather, in Erie County, Pennsylvania, where they last lived. The best way to do that, I figured, was to look at FamilySearch.org's Full Text Search.

When I saw the seventy possibilities listed in reply to my inquiry, I assumed some would be more generic results—perhaps something with the name "Jackson" showing alongside "Erie" in the same document.

Not so. It appears that all seventy of those search results merit a closer examination. The only downside: no sign of the will I was hoping to find. Instead, judging by all the deeds listed in the search results, Lyman may have chosen to dispose of his property through other legal means rather than by drawing up a will.

In those seventy results were three or four mentions of Lyman Jackson's name in old history books, themselves becoming possible sources to guide us further in this month's research project. In addition, I found several depositions recorded on behalf of what was likely Deidama's application for pension after her husband's death, as Lyman served in the Revolutionary War. Some apparently contained pertinent information regarding his earlier life, also meriting a closer look as we pursue a fuller story of this ancestor's life.

However, as I sift through those seventy documents this week, I can't lose sight of my original reason for calling up all these legal records from Erie County, Pennsylvania: I want to find Lyman Jackson's will—or at least some pointers to help me locate the subsequent whereabouts of the rest of his thirteen children. Did any of those children stay behind in Pennsylvania? If not, where did they move next? I'm on the lookout for some way pointers.

United, They're Traceable

 

Trying to find ancestors in America prior to the 1850 census can be challenging. Without a listing of all household members by name, individual relatives seem to disappear into the nameless data. When their names reappear in that expanded 1850 record, far from the home where they were born decades prior, we can't always be sure such common names signify the specific ancestor we're seeking.

There is one exception to that predicament, however. While we couldn't necessarily be sure of the right identity, assuming the ancestor had traveled alone, the fact that those who migrated westward in those early years of the 1800s often did so in the company of many others may turn a fruitless search into a more favorable outcome for us researchers. United, those traveling ancestors were often more traceable.

It was a fortunate discovery, while researching the descendants of my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather Lyman Jackson, to find his grandson Royal along with two of his siblings in a census record, long after they had all left their home in Erie County, Pennsylvania. Granted, I wouldn't have spotted that coincidence, had I not taken the time to actually look at the document in question. That little now-habitual exercise has paid off well in research dividends.

Researching those ancestors whose American life story unfolded prior to the 1850 census enumeration can be challenging. As children of pioneers took up their parents' pioneering spirit and continued that westward movement, it could sometimes be challenging to trace each family member. And yet, given the time period, people often moved in clusters—for mutual support, sure, but primarily for safety.

Apparently, when Lyman's grandson Royal began his move westward, he, too, heeded that admonition to travel in numbers. Those numbers—judging from his landing place in Wisconsin in time for the 1850 census—gained names and faces, at least if we can rely on the similarity of his neighbors' names to those of the siblings in his family.

One entry below Royal Jackson's household was that of Charles M. King, whom I already had learned was husband of Royal's oldest sister Rosanna. By the time of the 1850 census, the King household included four sons as well as Royal's sister Rosanna, giving me more names to research as I complete the picture of Lyman Jackson's many descendant lines.

In addition to that discovery was the appearance of another brother on that same census page. Apparently, on his way to Wisconsin, Ebenezer Dunham Jackson had stopped in Summit County, Ohio, to obtain a marriage license to wed Angeline Hine in 1845. By the time this Jackson family was recorded in the 1850 census in the town of Adams in Green County, Wisconsin, the household included three young sons.

While not making much progress in tracing each of these Jackson lines individually, taking time to study the entire page of the census enumeration for just one of them yielded the discovery of two additional siblings. Once again supporting the concept of cluster genealogy, we discover that those pre-1850 American families, when traveling united, are more easily traceable. 

When the Pioneers Keep Pioneering

 

When working on an American ancestor from the mid-1700s, such as my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather Lyman Jackson, it is not surprising to see such a man described as a "pioneer." But when I begin tracing that pioneer's descendants, and run across a mention of his great-granddaughter listed in a news report as a pioneer, I'm surprised. Apparently, some pioneers keep on pioneering. Perhaps it is in their DNA.

For that very purpose of tracing the descendants of Lyman Jackson to confirm DNA matches to that line, I've been building a line of descent for each of his thirteen children. This, as you can imagine, may take some time. (Hopefully, I'll have this task completed by the end of the month, though this itself will be a challenge.)

Starting with the oldest of the Jackson children, I've been methodically sliding down each line of descent to our current time—and, hopefully, to some DNA matches. This past week, my focus has been on their eldest son, Jesse Dunham Jackson. Said to have been born in 1784, Jesse—perhaps besides using the initials "J. D." may have also gone by his middle name, Dunham—was a challenge to trace. 

However, I was able to pick up on one line of his descendants, Jesse's son Royal Montgomery Jackson, thanks to his 1912 death certificate. Clearly far from his grandfather's final resting place back in Erie County, Pennsylvania, Royal Jackson had died in Missouri. And yet, it took one more generation before I ran into that label of "pioneer" for one of the Jackson descendants.

Royal Montgomery Jackson's third daughter, Candace, was born in Illinois around 1845, but before she was five years of age, her family, along with Royal's brother and brother-in-law and their families, had moved to the town of Adams in Green County, Wisconsin. By the time Candace was married in 1866, she was even farther west, in Daviess County, Missouri.

That, however, was not the end of this Jackson descendant's journey. Along with her husband, Thomas J. Sweany, this next generation was into gold mining in Ketchikan, Alaska, by the time of the 1900 census. Perhaps needing a little less excitement in their own golden years, the Sweany family moved back to the States by the time of the 1910 census, where they had stayed at a hotel on Summit Avenue in Seattle.

It wasn't until twelve years later when an obituary appeared in the October 24, 1922, Seattle Star regarding  a "Pioneer's Funeral Set for Wednesday." The pioneer? Mrs. Thomas Sweany, a.k.a. Candace Jackson, great-granddaughter of Lyman Jackson, called by the newspaper a "pioneer resident of Washington." Perhaps the farther west one moves, the easier it is to be considered a pioneer.