One last time this month—at least for this puzzle regarding my fourth great-grandfather Isham Rainey—I've headed back to those DNA matches that Ancestry.com's ThruLines tool has hypothesized are my cousins from that same line. This means, too, that I'll need to revisit the probate records concerning the estate Isham left behind for his family to resolve.
Did I mention messy? As in perfect bedtime reading for the insomniac?
As if sorting through the intestate Isham Rainey's belongings weren't sleep-inducing enough, there is the question of George Mealer. George, it appears from some records, was Isham's son-in-law, through marriage to his daughter Sarah Rainey. And yet, when I read through the 1845 court records in Monroe County, Mississippi, about the administration of Isham's estate there, the mention of someone named George Mealer pops up.
But wait! The George Mealer married to Isham's daughter was back in Georgia, where Isham himself once lived. In fact, it appeared that George Mealer died there, perhaps late in 1831—intestate, what else?—in Oglethorpe County, himself. So who was this other George Mealer? And were court listings of Mealer relatives reliable indicators of our Rainey kin? Or not?
Through the wearying catalog of legal documents contained in the two various cases, it was possible to glean a listing of the children of George Mealer, son-in-law of Isham Rainey—enough to launch me into a more recent time period where it might be possible to trace those Mealer children and their descendants through to a time period known for more well-documented records. That, in turn, may help determine how some mystery DNA cousins are related to me. All that stands between me and at least the discovery of one set of Isham Rainey's grandchildren is a huge stack of reading material in the form of mind-numbing legalese.
I'll let you know how it goes, tomorrow morning.
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