. . . but Where Did he Come From?

 

There are some ancestors we trace for whom we can find all sorts of data about their adult life: their family, friends, business associates, neighbors. When it comes to the early years of that ancestor's life, though, there may be a blank slate. Nothing. For ancestors like that, though I'm pleased with the ample details that can be found about their later life, I'm still left with a vacuum that begs for an answer. Yeah, I know all sorts of details about his later life—but where did that ancestor come from?

That's the question I'll be grappling with during February, when it comes to researching one of my fourth great-grandfathers, a man named Job Tison. I can find plenty about his later life, that he moved to Glynn County, Georgia, and opened up a wayside inn on a major route of travel and business. I can find that Job Tison died in 1824, but it took over thirty more years to completely settle his estate. I can find details and documents about almost all of his children, and even his wife, despite her life spanning an era in which women were virtually invisible. But to connect Job Tison back to his supposed home in Pitt County, North Carolina, I'm lacking in signs of a reliable paper trail.

I had tackled this question about Job Tison as one of my Twelve Most Wanted, back in 2022—unfortunately during the same month as I got hit with a miserable case of Covid. Despite being stuck flat on my back for over two weeks then, I managed to write my customary wrap up post, complete with suggestions for what to do the next time I tackled this ancestor's story, and an addendum to remind me that I might have not one but two different Tison lines to trace in my family's history.

For this month, we'll reach out to several resources to trace the life of Job Tison backwards from his death in Glynn County, Georgia, in 1824 towards the earliest years of his life in the 1770s in what was then colonial North Carolina. Hopefully, the technology advances we've gained since I last tackled these questions about Job Tison in 2022 will augment this year's effort. 

There is one more spark that inspired me to return to the question about Job Tison's roots, a story I've enjoyed sharing since its occurrence last fall, one which I will share with you tomorrow.