Doubts and Doubling Up

 

The more a family's lines of descent engender doubts, the more we need to double up on documenting the actual history. I'm finding that to be the case as I search for the descendants of John Carter's daughters.

Right now, I've been reviewing records of the daughters of John's first wife, Sarah Kenyon. At this point, my focus is on his fourth child, Ann, who had married William Heslop before supposedly dying in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, in about 1829. 

Genealogist George Harrison Sanford King had used Ann's daughter Sarah as his poster child for consideration that Ann's mother—and John Carter's first wife—was actually Sarah Kenyon and not Elizabeth Armistead, as had been claimed by another genealogist, Joseph Lyon Miller, in his book, The Descendants of Capt. Thomas Carter of "Barford." The King argument was clear: that it was significant that daughter Sarah's full name was Sarah Kenyon Haslop—hardly a family name that would have been expected if Sarah's maternal grandmother and namesake had been an Armistead instead of a Kenyon.

Since the King manuscript mentioned that Sarah Kenyon Haslop—or Heslop—had died testate in Spotsylvania County, I decided to take a look. There, in the county's court records for September 7 of 1857, was Sarah's will. Two details to notice with that will: that Sarah apparently died unmarried without children of her own; and that immediately following the recording of that will in Spotsylvania County records appeared the will of one James Heslop.

So who was James Heslop? Could he have been her husband, and I had misunderstood the contents of Sarah's own will? Or could he have been her father's relative? To resolve these questions, I took a look at the county's death register for that year of 1857.

Disappointingly, for Sarah's entry, her parents were listed as "Wm + N Heslop"—not quite the name I was hoping to see for Sarah's mother Ann. Could it have been the result of sloppy writing or misheard information? Perhaps I was looking at a record for the wrong person.

But then, once again, I noticed the entry right next to it: for James Heslop. Digesting all the information entered, it appeared that James died at age 79, while a month later, Sarah Heslop died at age 80. Parents were listed as the same couple for both Heslop death entries. James' death record included the listing of a wife's name, though in those frustrating initials: "L. A. Heslop." And the reporting party for both entries was the same person: "W. Heslop," said to be son of James and nephew of Sarah.

Obviously, that was a helpful clue—although whether it applies to our Sarah Heslop, I can't say for sure yet. However, returning to Sarah's will, there was more to muddy the waters, requiring further doubling up on documents to verify whether we are on the right track. For with Sarah's will, she named specific nieces and nephews to receive her property—and wouldn't you know it, but some of those details also don't seem to line up with what had been reported previously.

When in doubt about records, double up. 

Logging the Digital Research Trail

 

Problem: what to do when building a family tree using one genealogy service, yet the digitized document verifying the connection is only available on a different genealogy website.

As I take that long slide down to the present from John Carter's own daughters, I'm running into many cases where applicable digitized records are found at FamilySearch.org, yet not at Ancestry.com where I'm building my main family tree. Granted, the most likely place to find records from the 1700s is either through government archives or at a specialized website like FamilySearch, so that is usually the first place I look. Yet I don't want to lose track of all the other places where I've searched for records. I want to find a way to keep a research log on my main tree even though the resource found originated at another location.

Although I have caved and started building family trees at several other genealogical services—that's one way to resolve this dilemma—I also decided, when possible, to simply harvest the specific web address for the document. From that point, I paste the URL into my main tree, at the appropriate date in the ancestor's timeline, using the "edit" function for inserting notes. I want to be able to go back and double-check a document, the next time I pick up my work where I had left off. 

As long as the website at which I first found the document enables researchers to harvest a specific web location for that precise document page, this has become my go-to method for inserting documents from a different online source into a relative's profile page in my main tree. It's often as simple as cut and paste. It simply needs a consistent system to keep applying such discoveries to that family tree.

Now, as I begin the tedious work of adding the identities of John Carter's daughters' children, this will become even more important. I'm finding records from additional online resources, and I don't want to lose the ability to replicate the search by letting a document location slip through my digital fingers.

Right now, by virtue of the argument provided by genealogist George Harrison Sanford King, I've been focusing on the descendants of John Carter's (likely first) wife, Sarah Kenyon. By virtue of their daughter Elizabeth Carter marrying Owen Thomas, but then dying, widowed, when her daughter Sarah Kenyon Thomas was still a child, it was easy to see that situation noted in the wills of both the child's own father and her maternal grandfather, both of whom made provisions specifically for her. 

I've been working my way from the lifetime of that child—Sarah Kenyon Thomas—down through six generations to our current times. The closer I get to the present century, the easier it is for me to find records on Ancestry.com, where I'm building my tree—from birth and death records to census records and the other resources we use to confirm an ancestor's lifespan. But for those earlier generations—particularly that time period prior to the 1850 census—the go-to documents were court records. And for some of those records, we need to broaden our search parameters to use resources outside the Ancestry universe.

I have learned that one-stop shopping is not the most effective model for many tasks in life. I've lately added genealogy to that list. We can get a broader picture of our ancestors' life story when we expand our search to utilize records and resources from more than one website. Just as I had discovered last fall and winter when wrestling with my father's Polish forebears, I am now seeing the same apply to tracing these descendants of my fifth great-grandfather, John Carter of Spotsylvania County, Virginia.

However, no matter where we find those necessary records to piece together an ancestor's life, we still need to draw up a record tracing our research wanderings. We need to find a way to retrace our steps if necessary.

Progress on the Carter Count

 

In this month's attempt to build out the Carter branch of my family tree, it turns out that the last two weeks brought as much progress as anticipated. That's to be expected for the descendants of a man who lived in the 1700s. After all, my fifth great-grandfather had several children by at least two wives, if not three—many of whom lived to adulthood and raised families of their own. Let's see how the count went for this two week period.

When I began, I had 40,824 in my family tree on the fourth of January. I had just come off a holiday season where I was vainly trying to trace my father's Polish ancestors, and I was not making anywhere near the level of progress that I had hoped. Then, I switched focus with a new year and new research goal.

Two weeks later, I'm closing my biweekly count with 41,037 researched individuals in my tree. That shows an increase of 213 names, almost all from January's research project for my Twelve Most Wanted: John Carter of Spotsylvania County, Virginia.

Though I don't usually report it on this blog, I also track my increase in DNA matches. For this past two weeks, the increase in DNA cousins definitely was showing the first results of winter holiday sales: at least at Ancestry DNA, I had eight additional matches who are fourth cousins or closer, bringing my total of those "close" matches to 2,710. Usually, my "close" match count edges up by one or two per biweekly report.

Granted, not all—maybe not any—are DNA connections to the Carter line. Still, I'm looking forward to exploring those in my matches who do connect to that Carter line.

Since my focus this month is on my mother's ancestors, there was no activity logged on my in-laws' tree, which remains at 41,737 individuals. I'll return to researching that side of the family when we shift to my mother-in-law's roots next April.

This coming week, I'll be back to building out the lines of John Carter's children, particularly his daughters. The goal is to continue outlining the matrilineal descent for the children of his wives, based on available court records and other documents.

Research Synergy: Where Collaboration is Key

 

When it comes to researching distant ancestors with umpteen children, grandchildren, and beyond through five generations, it takes a team of researchers to keep it all straight. That's why I'm an advocate of reaching out and connecting with other researchers tracing the same family lines. Whether that means a teamwork approach—you tackle this child's line of descent; I'll take that second-born child—or sharing in the mad scramble to analyze documents found, having someone else to bounce ideas off of can not only make a difference, but add a bonus of a shared victory dance at the end of the line.

So it's been with the discovery of a fellow genealogy blogger, Patrick Jones of Frequent Traveler Ancestry, who had made similar discoveries two years ago about a wife of John Carter—Sarah Kenyon—not mentioned in published genealogies. It was two years ago when Patrick posted about several court records from which can be gleaned information to partially reconstruct family relationships between the Carter half-siblings. We have since been sharing information and observations about what we are finding. And we both have discussed how the use of mitochondrial DNA testing may sort out the centuries-old mysteries of John Carter's wives.

Patrick is currently tracing the line of John Carter's daughter Frances through her marriage to Rice Curtis, their children and grandchildren, as revealed in—what else?—court documents. He's sharing what he is finding in his own blog, sorting it out from Frances Carter Curtis' own will, detailing her family's relocation from her childhood home in Virginia to Davidson County, Tennessee, where the will was filed. 

While I've been spending my weekdays scouring court documents regarding my fifth great-grandfather John Carter this month, behind the scenes I'm still catching up on the unsolved mysteries of last winter, when I wrestled with my father's Polish ancestors. On that line, too, I have met up with a distant cousin—coincidentally a DNA match—who is also researching that particular family. That is a good thing, for there are many descendants yet to find, including missing ones in Poland whose disappearing trail may actually have wandered across an ocean to America. Sometimes it's hard to reconnect the two parts of one person's life trajectory when it involves migration across an ocean.

Two sets of eyes are better than one when it comes to spotting details, or unearthing a record that hadn't been considered before. Even more comes into play when those two sets of eyes can claim two different sets of DNA matches, and can compare and contrast the lines of their respective DNA cousins. When one team member doesn't have key matches, but the other one does, that fuels research synergy.

The Long Slide Down to the Present

  

After wills and deeds and, yes, even squabbles among family members aired in the district court room, I've amassed enough names to begin the next formidable step. From that lofty perch atop the pedigree chart of my fifth great-grandfather John Carter, I envision my next task to be tracing a long slide down the lines of descent to our present time.

I've already begun the process with some of the names recently discovered—or, to put it more accurately, those names more recently amended, based on convincing arguments. I have a patterned way to navigate those lines of descent: from one Carter child, I then document the marriage, then find listings of that couple's children. Beginning with the oldest child of that couple, I then chart that child's eventual marriage and children, then do the same for the next generation in that line, then the next generation, until I've reached the present time.

Once I've taken that long slide down to the present—or for as far as I can keep going—I rewind the process for the second-born child, then third. Eventually, all lines of descent for all John Carter's children will be documented in like manner in my family tree—at least those for whom documentation is available.

As we have already seen in this case of John Carter's family, some of those early discoveries were buried in court records for extended family members, whether parents of in-laws, or half siblings, or others who felt they righteously had a slight which only the court system could right.

Sometimes, this process simply can go no farther than court records can guide us. That realization may seem discouraging, considering the war-torn history of Virginia, home to this Carter family for generations, but I'm actually looking forward to checking the numbers when I do my biweekly count this weekend. I think seeing the numbers will be encouraging.

Then, too, the estimate via ThruLines calculations of my DNA matches linked to this Carter line will undoubtedly change as I add more names to this line of descent on my tree at Ancestry.com. After all, ThruLines is not only based on DNA results, but is partially guided by other subscribers' information on their tree. But in which way, I'm not yet sure.

Keep in mind: mistaken input, mistaken output. And yet, with so many people opting to use the old Carter genealogy book compiled by Joseph Lyon Miller in 1912 to build their tree—declaring Elizabeth Armistead, but not Sarah Kenyon, as wife of John Carter—I may actually see my number of Carter ThruLines matches drop. (I revised my tree to follow the argument in the George Harrison Sanford King paper which supports that Sarah Kenyon was mother of at least John Carter's first four children.) With all these adjustments and additions, both my biweekly count and the ThruLines count will be something to watch as we close in on the end of this month's research goals. 

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.

 

  

 

 

 

 

Exhibit A versus Exhibit B

 

It seems an easy way out to depend on published genealogies of our ancestors, especially those whose life span stretched over that century mark crossing from United States records to colonial British North American records. Exhibit A in that case might be said to be the Joseph Lyon Miller volume, The Descendants of Capt. Thomas Carter of "Barford," Lancaster County, Virginia, published in 1912, which includes a chapter on the "Descendants of John Carter of Caroline and Spotsylvania."

That volume, as has long been noted, contains information on two wives of John Carter. All well and good, you might think—until we reach the part about wife number one being named Elizabeth Armistead. 

The last time I had focused on John Carter's family as part of my annual Twelve Most Wanted, I stumbled upon wills of extended family members which had indicated that John Carter's first wife was not named Elizabeth Armistead, but Sarah Kenyon. Yet the Miller genealogy seemed to make no reference to that possibility.

Enter Exhibit B. Thanks to some exploration at FamilySearch.org using their Full Text Search option, I stumbled upon a typewritten manuscript drawn up by genealogist George Harrison Sanford King. Among other details, this report was concerned with the identity of John Carter's first wife.

As I read through this particular manuscript, I could see George Harrison Sanford King's painstakingly careful outlay of details in support of Sarah Kenyon as John Carter's wife. Let's just say that, in the case of Exhibit A versus Exhibit B, in the first ten pages, he had me convinced—although I admit, I was already partial to that point of view, having found some of those court records, myself.

However, pages one through ten of this manuscript are only skimming the surface of the legal paperwork drawn up concerning this extended family. We've only just begun learning the full story. By page ten it's too soon to draw up a judgment regarding the wives of John Carter just yet. Besides, as the manuscript reveals—and the court records bid me to observe—things are about to become rather messy in the Carter family's story.