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.