When (Half) Siblings Squabble

 

"Long ago and far away" may sound more like lyrics for a 1970s love song, but right now in real life, that's my problem as I research the children of my fifth great-grandfather John Carter. Apparently, the passage of centuries—not to mention wars and courthouse fires—can make vital documents disappear.

While John Carter and his family may irk us with nagging questions—such as the true identity of his wives—absence of explanations or even documents in such sources as marriage records or wills is not always the roadblock at the end of the research tunnel. If we are fortunate, those half-siblings of different mothers may grow up to see their squabbles grow to full force and erupt in a subsequent generation.

Much as I had discovered last summer when researching my mother-in-law's Rinehart ancestors in Ohio, the disposition of property, or even how a will was drawn up, may spark a smoldering anger that takes years to burst into a flaming legal battle. Though unfortunate for family peace, the resulting court records may clearly draw the lines between the children of one mother and those of the other.

In reading the research report of John Carter's family by one genealogist, fellow of the American Society of Genealogists George Harrison Sanford King, I spotted word of such a possible legal battle. After listing the names of each of John Carter's children, this researcher mentioned,

Several long and tedious suits arose in the chancery courts over the estate of Robert Carter...and several of these reached the Fredericksburg District Court where the voluminous papers are now filed.

A list of the several case names were then provided:

File #139: Hamilton versus Samuel

File #144: Hamilton versus Sutton

File #194: Marshall versus Samuel

File #195: Marshall versus Garnett 

The best detail about this King report is his observation that "these papers clearly separate the two sets of children." Granted, since the suits involved Robert Carter, son of John Carter and his final wife Hannah Chew, the separation was between the specific children of Hannah Chew and all other children as half-siblings, so there is still the question of whether there was one other wife or two. But at least one subset of the Carter children was now clearly identified by their mother.

Discovering this new set of court papers requires us to look further into that realm of blurry copies of handwritten reports, in the hopes that it will lead to more clarifying information. In this trek through those legal records, I am thankfully not alone. Just as I had mulled over what could be found on John Carter's family two years ago, fellow genea-blogger Patrick Jones had also done so, two years ago. In his case, access to what he calls "extensive files" in the Virginia chancery records sheds light on his branch of the Carter line.

Just as Patrick had stumbled upon documents regarding the woman who was likely the true first wife of John Carter, reaching even farther down the related lines of John Carter's extended family may provide us the answers to the questions those original documents had prompted. Just as family members had squabbled in court over property distributions in one generation, there are surely more such disputes to lead us to a clearer picture of the Carter family's true composition.