Someone Else Might Know

 

At a loss for how to solve my research problem this month—finding the parents of my second great-grandfather Alexander Boothe—I decided to step out and take a look at who else might know something about this family. My specific route was to DNA—but not just the ThruLines possibilities I mentioned yesterday. This time, I went searching for potential matches at other testing companies which might share the Boothe and related surnames tied to this branch of my family.

Specifically, I headed to my DNA match list at MyHeritage. First, I tried the obvious: search for that Boothe surname in the trees of my matches. That didn't produce significant results, so my second attempt borrowed a more unusual surname from the hints back at AncestryDNA: McAlexander, the maiden name of the wife of Daniel Boothe, the suggested father of my Alexander, according to ThruLines. Again, nothing special showed up.

From that point, I turned to my recent readout from MyHeritage's tool, called AutoClusters, the very development which had helped me break through another brick wall on my paternal side a few years ago. AutoClusters had pinpointed sixteen clusters—some so small, they only contained three people. No matter; when I had found my paternal grandfather's roots that previous time, there were only a few people in that cluster, as well. Small can still be powerful.

In the process of reviewing all these clusters, I realized I could also cross-check those DNA matches at MyHeritage with my extensive family tree at Ancestry. After all, in the eleven years since I sent in my first test sample, I've been busy building out a very "bushy" family tree, in the hope of pinpointing how all these matches were related to me. Surely someone out there might know about my second great-grandfather's roots—or at least their genes could tell me something.

In the process, I've now identified and labeled some clusters based on our shared ancestor, including some brick wall ancestors I had struggled with in past months. While my Boothe question may remain unanswered this month, there's always the hope that someone from that line will eventually show up in my DNA results.

Three Boothe Ancestors

 

When brick wall ancestors have brought research progress to a dead stop, DNA testing can provide the bypass to reach an answer. In my case, I have three DNA matches who each claim a different Boothe ancestor. At least two of those matches' ancestors were children of Daniel Boothe, the Ohio resident who some people claimed to be parent of my brick wall ancestor Alexander Boothe. Let's start today by taking a look at one of them.

Unlike the other two DNA matches, this one's ancestor was listed in ThruLines results for both Daniel and his wife Mary. The match's progenitor was the couple's daughter Evelina. According to ThruLines, this match would be my fourth cousin once removed, a distant cousin indeed. Perhaps that's why we share only one segment of nine centiMorgans, a slim sliver of genetic material indeed.

Since we had already found Evelina's supposed parents in the 1850 census, living alone as an elderly couple in Lawrence County, Ohio, the search was on to find this Boothe daughter listed elsewhere for that census. That required an additional step, for by that point Evelina was already married. The date of their marriage had been back in 1837, still in Lawrence County, so by the time of the 1850 census, Evelina and her husband, Shadreck Ward, were already proud parents of four daughters.

I found a brief glimmer of possibility with this connection. Despite the family's residence in Ohio, the two oldest daughters, May and Martha, were reported to have been born in Virginia. Since May was born in 1839 and Martha in 1840, I looked for a family with that composition in the 1840 census. There they were, living in Cabell County, then part of Virginia (though now in West Virginia), one county removed from Lawrence County, which was across the state line to the northwest.

This was not near Randolph County, where I had found another Daniel Booth living in earlier years—Randolph County being nearly two hundred miles away—so I dismissed any thoughts of Evelina moving to be closer to grandparents. At any rate, the Ward household had apparently lived in Virginia only briefly, as both the 1850 census and 1860 census showed them back in Lawrence County, Ohio. Evelina died in 1886 and was buried in Lawrence County, indicating what likely was a lifelong residence in that location, other than that brief move across the state line. Indeed, that 1860 census had reported her own birthplace as Ohio, a possible sticking point, considering her 1818 date of birth would have been only two years after my Alexander was said to have been born in Nansemond County, Virginia, hundreds of miles to the east.

With only nine centiMorgans shared between myself and this descendant of Evelina, such a slim margin could be attributed to other reasons. We both could be related through another, as yet undiscovered, family line. Or we could simply share more distant relatives—or merely the fact that our ancestors were from the same regional origin, sharing history from centuries previous to this Boothe family puzzle.

Considering that the other two ThruLines Boothe matches, descended from supposed siblings of my Alexander, shared even less genetic material, they too could be considered identical by state, rather than identical by descent. Looking at the records showing various men named Daniel Boothe, as we did yesterday, causes me to doubt the fact that we're even looking at one specific individual—let alone a man who could have been my Alexander Boothe's father. In the next few days, we'll wrap up this exploration, noting possible next steps for continued research in future years.

Deconstructing Daniel

 

March has been a month of negatives. In pursuit of my candidate for this month's Twelve Most Wanted, my second great-grandfather Alexander Boothe's unidentified father, the bulk of this month's exploration has been devoted to finding documents to signify why possible choices would not be the right man. In this process of elimination, there is one more candidate we need to consider: the suggestion given by Ancestry DNA's ThruLines tool, Daniel Boothe.

It's time to deconstruct that proposal about Daniel Boothe. Let's start with the information gleaned from family trees of the few DNA matches I have who are linked to that supposed ancestor. According to ThruLines, this Daniel was born in 1785 and died in 1853. Plugging in those dates, coupled with his name, I almost instantly was led to the Find A Grave entry for someone with that same information.

Unfortunately, that entry did not include any photographs of the headstone or supporting documentation. While I appreciate information provided by Find A Grave volunteers, documentation trumps mere hearsay masquerading as genealogy. Despite the lack of the usual headstone picture, though, one other detail stood out to me immediately: unlike my Alexander, native to Nansemond County in Virginia, this Daniel was born in New York and died in Ohio. This was a far different narrative than Alexander's own migration story from Virginia to Tennessee.

Digging deeper into Daniel's story, only three years earlier than his death—but in the same Ohio county of Lawrence—I could find Daniel's entry in the 1850 census. There, along with his wife Mary, these two aging parents lived alone in their home, with no sign of any children whose descendants could some day discover that they share DNA with my Alexander's great-great-granddaughter. 

Though the 1850 census would be the last census where I could find this couple with all family members named—not just counted—I checked for previous records on the couple. The 1840 census revealed that Daniel was still living in Lawrence County, Ohio, along with his wife, two sons in their later teen years, plus a daughter between the ages of ten and fourteen. Daniel's family was even living in Lawrence County in 1830, according to that decade's census.

The only ray of hope from that more recent 1850 census was the sign that Daniel's wife was born in Virginia. Sure enough, there was a Daniel Boothe who married a Mary McAlexander in Patrick County, Virginia, on April 24, 1806, so it was back to Virginia I went to see if I could trace Daniel back to that temporary stopping place before his move to Ohio.

Success came with an 1820 census entry for the young family in Randolph County, then part of Virginia, and again in 1810. In fact, there were census entries for three Boothe families in Randolph County, suggesting the reasonable argument that while Daniel might have married his bride in Patrick County, following the wedding in the home county of Mary's parents the couple might have moved to Daniel's own home county.

It was there, however, that I ran into trouble: court records from Randolph County reported an estate sale for one Daniel Boothe, deceased, which was appraised on May 12, 1827. Among the purchasers listed in the sale's inventory report were Isaac Booth and Sarah Booth.

That's when the thought hit me: what if there were still a man named Daniel Boothe residing in Patrick County, the Virginia location of the Boothe-McAlexander wedding? 

To check for that possibility, I located two likely indicators. The first was an entry in Find a Grave. Again without a photograph of any headstone, the memorial gave this Daniel's dates as 1776-1857—dates quite different from those supplied by ThruLines for my DNA matches. The second record was this Daniel's entry in the 1850 census. Showing his wife's name as Susan, not Mary, that aberration might be explained by the death of the previous wife, as suggested by the volunteer who created the Find a Grave memorial—or could be advising us that this wasn't the right Daniel.

With the three possible Daniels found in records, much more research would be needed to follow what became of the children of each possible candidate, in hopes that at least one document would provide an explanation of where my Alexander might have fit into that family constellation. Right away, though, I can think of three possible candidates among those said to be children of Daniel and Mary: the three who were named as ancestors of my DNA matches from that original Boothe couple in Ohio.

Double, Triple, Quadruple

 

Double-checking facts found for a brick wall ancestor? Maybe make that a triple-check. Or possibly a quadruple-check. Just in case someone gave a wrong report.

In the case of the Boothe men in Nansemond County, the fact that three of them were said to have been sons of Henry—no, whoops, make that Abram or Abraham—gave me cause for concern. Either it was one father or the other. Can't have both results for the same sons. So, given my predicament in trying to figure out where my brick wall second great-grandfather Alexander Boothe might have fit in, I decided to look for more confirmation.

Despite a genealogy book featured on Ancestry.com stating that Robert, Kinchen, Nathaniel, and Andrew were sons of Henry Boothe, I had already found one tiny detail reporting otherwise. That report was one single answer on the death record for Andrew Boothe, who died in Nansemond County in 1860. According to his brother, Andrew's parents were actually Abram and "Cherry" Booth.

So I went looking. I needed to double check that report. Could I find another Boothe sibling whose death record confirmed those same parental names?

Well, I found something, alright, but it added another tailspin to my journey. Found in the same death register for Nansemond County was the entry for a sister (see line number thirty two) who—at least according to the reporting party, her son Edwin Duke—also claimed Abram Boothe as her father (although naming her mother as Charlotte, not Charity or Cherry). Only problem was: the woman's given name contained a questionable first letter. What was her actual name? 

Since her son Edwin Duke was identified as the reporting party, and the death occurred in 1853, it was a simple matter of finding the family in the 1850 census. There, the woman's name was given, in a clear hand, as sixty five year old Pennina Duke, assumed wife of Jacob. Checking further, a similar name was mentioned in a collection of North American family history books assembled at Ancestry.com—but also accessible through Internet Archive under the specific 1909 title, A Genealogy of the Duke-Shepherd-Van Metre Family. That time, her name was rendered as Penniniah Booth—and thankfully, her fifth child was indeed named Edwin. (Her first-born, incidentally, was given the name Abraham, if that Genealogy was correct.)

No matter whether that woman's name was Penniniah or Pennina, that's a far cry from the report claiming Henry Boothe named his daughter Lottie. Perhaps, indeed, he did—but he apparently was not the father of this Booth woman, nor her brothers Nathaniel, Robert, and Andrew. Granted, some grandchildren may not have been as familiar with their grandparents' names as we might like, but I have a nagging suspicion that Henry Boothe was not the man we thought he was.

Having examined documents for each of the supposed sons of Henry—now, presumably, actually Abram—we'll take a final look at what we've found in this exploration, come the last day of this month. In the meantime, we have another puzzle to unravel from its family-myth moorings: the claim that my second great-grandfather's dad was actually a man named Daniel Boothe. Time to begin quadruple-checking all over again.

When Death Records Get it Wrong

 

While it may seem that the holy grail for genealogists is the documentation verifying our ancestors' life details, I've had my own complaints about the use of one particular type of documentation: death records. While they may get it right when we look for verification of date and even time of a relative's death, the other details on a modern death certificate can range from reliable to ridiculous.

Take my prime bugaboo with death certificates: mother's maiden name. To illustrate what I mean, we need only to take a step back and view the scenario at the moment of that unpleasant interview between official record keeper and designated spokesperson for the bereaved family. Think about it: the family has just received the worst possible news about a loved one, and is currently experiencing predictable waves of grief and, sometimes, incredulity. Then some stranger pops on the scene, abruptly demanding information on the identity of the deceased.

I can't tell you how many times I've realized that the respondent to such interviews, in the midst of personal grief, reverts from answering questions about the relative, and instead begins answering for one's self. Take the question, "Mother's maiden name?" That question follows in a logical progression from name, details about residence, maybe even about usual occupation, to date and place of birth. All well and good—until we hit that sticking point of the mother's maiden name. I'm not sure why I've seen so many informants blurt out as answer to that question their own mother's maiden name, but there it is, plain as can be, on the deceased's completed death certificate.

Chalk it up to nerves, I guess. Family members have gone through a lot by the time a loved one has passed—whether that death was an unexpected surprise, or the end of a very long and difficult illness. So when I find an old death record in Nansemond County, Virginia, for the suspected relatives of my second great-grandfather, Alexander Boothe, I can't be sure the report about the man's parents is actually correct.

The reporting party at Andrew Boothe's death in 1860 was his older brother Nathaniel. A savvy businessman known for his successes, Nathaniel was not likely to flub this mention of his brother's parents' names. After all, he shared those same parents; this was life-long knowledge. According to Nathaniel Boothe, their parents were named Abram and Cherry Booth—at least, that's what the official record keeper noted.

When we go exploring on genealogical websites, though, we can find records indicating otherwise. Take, for example, this find from a book originally published by Clearfield Company in 1963, volume seven of Historical Southern Families. There, on page 109, we discover:

Family tradition states that Henry Boothe m Elizabeth Rabey, dau of Kedar Rabey of Nansemond County, and they were the parents of Robert, Kinchen, Nathaniel, William, Andrew and Lottie Boothe, who were b between 1779 and 1805. This tradition also states that William Boothe, son of Henry, owned a tavern in Gatesville, N C,  and that Lottie (Charlotte) Boothe m James Rabey.

Well, doesn't that put together a splendid package?! A genealogical report even outlined the connections a bit further. But what happened to Nathaniel's own report that his brother's parents (and thus his own) were Abram and Cherry? Must we assume that, grief-stricken, he reported the wrong names on his brother's death record?

Almost as an afterthought, the article continues with this curious addendum about Nathaniel and another brother, Robert. The two had apparently purchased 

land in Nansemond which had belonged to an Abraham Boothe, near the original Boothe grants. Abraham Boothe was dead by 1812, when his estate was carried on the tax lists. He left a widow, Charity (Cherry) Boothe, who d in 1825, when Nathaniel, Kinchen, Robert and Charlotte bought items at the sale of her property.

Ironically, that passage in the book concluded, "Abraham Boothe's relationship to this family is not known."

Last of the Nansemond Boothe Men

 

There were six Boothe men listed in the 1840 census for Nansemond County, Virginia, birthplace of my second great-grandfather Alexander Boothe. Still unable to verify Alexander's parents' names, my quest this month has been to sift through all available records to examine the stories of each of the other Boothe men in that county who might be kin to Alexander.

Last on our list is Andrew Boothe, someone we encountered briefly when noticing that his final appearance in census records was in the household of Nathaniel Boothe in 1860. Not having any confirmation of family connections at that time—the 1860 census gave the names of each resident in the household, but not the relationship—all I could do was note the occurrence. 

Now, we'll focus in on Andrew himself, finding him in each decade's records in hopes of gaining a brief sketch of his life story, at least the part indicating any possibility that my Alexander might have been related to him.

Unlike our exploration of Kinchen Boothe, one of the other Boothe residents in Nansemond County, I was not able to locate Andrew in the 1820 census. This likely meant that Andrew was still living in the home of his own parents, possibly still a minor. The younger the person was, the less likely it would be that he was father of my Alexander, who was reported to have been born in 1816.

Jumping ahead a decade to the 1830 census, I located Andrew Boothe's household. Showing as a thirty-something male along with a woman in her twenties, Andrew's household was completed by two possible sons under five years of age. We can guess that Andrew was married sometime after 1820 but by 1825—but unless marriage records can be found for that time period in Nansemond County, we'll never know for sure.

The 1840 census revealed a growing family for Andrew, but prompts questions about whether he had the same wife. Predictably, Andrew had aged by ten years, but indications were that his wife was more than ten years older than the wife showing in the 1830 census. Of course, that could have meant that his wife was at the top of the range for the previous age bracket given—twenty to twenty nine—and for the 1840 census, she had just passed a birthday moving her from, say, thirty nine to forty to fit into that forty to forty nine year bracket.

Or, Andrew was a widower who married a woman slightly older than his previous wife. Hard to tell from such broad age brackets, given how so many people seemed to estimate their age.

The 1850 census was our chance to get a less fuzzy snapshot of the family constellation, keeping in mind that some of the children noted by tick marks in previous enumerations might now be married and in their own households—or possibly had met a premature death. There at the head of his household was a sixty year old Andrew, said to have been born in Nansemond County. Along with him was his forty five year old wife, Priscilla, and two daughters. One, aged fifteen, was listed as Amelia, while the younger, named Elizabeth, was ten years younger. None of the sons from previous enumerations was showing in this 1850 Boothe household.

A far different story was revealed by the 1860 census, as we've already noted. Andrew was living with Nathaniel Boothe. Both men appeared to have lost their wives, though Nathaniel's son Joseph was still in the household. Not much later, on October 25 of that same year, sixty year old Andrew died of "paralysis." In the county's death register, Andrew's parents' names were given as Abram and Cherry Booth. The reporting party was listed as brother Nathaniel Booth.

Thus, that reasonable guess that the two men were brothers was confirmed by one line in the younger one's death record. Looking a bit further, an 1856 marriage record for Henry Skinner and Andrew Boothe's elder daughter—under the name Permelia—confirmed her mother's name was Priscilla. Fast forwarding even further, a 1913 death record for Mrs. Mary E. Brinkley—likely the five year old Elizabeth in Andrew Boothe's 1850 census readout—gave us the maiden name for Andrew's wife: Spivey.

Seeing that Andrew's death record gave his specific relationship to Nathaniel—as brothers—can we now assume the other Boothe men in Nansemond County were also part of the same family? It seems tempting, except for one snag: I've run into an old genealogy book which indicates otherwise. Let's take a look at that report tomorrow.

Daniel and D N A

 

One use of DNA testing for genealogy is to help point us beyond brick wall ancestors to their possible parents. With my second great-grandfather Alexander Boothe, I need that sort of help. Stuck as I've been with records from his birthplace in Nansemond County, Virginia, I thought this weekend might be a good time to jump to this other mode of research. After all, once the weekend is over, we do need to return to our search through early 1800s census records for the rest of the Boothe men mentioned in that federal enumeration.

One of the "helpful" tips at Ancestry.com's DNA ThruLines tool pointed me in the direction of possible parents for Alexander: a man named Daniel and his wife, the former Mary McAlexander. Sure enough, on ThruLines I had one DNA match said to have descended from their daughter Eveline. If, however, rather than looking at the matches for that daughter of Daniel Boothe, I looked at the ThruLines result for the proposed mother of my Alexander, there were actually matches from descendants of three children of Daniel and Mary: one match descending from Tamar, one from Sarah, as well as the one from Eveline.

Could any of this be correct? After all, though all DNA matches to descendants of a third great-grandparent will be slim,  they still could be viable connections if supported by reliable documentation.

I started looking for that paper trail. I began by searching for someone named Daniel Boothe with the dates provided by the trees of these DNA matches—though keeping in mind that ThruLines is a tool based not only on shared DNA but also a preponderance of subscribers' family trees which include this couple as their ancestors.

The dates for this Daniel Boothe showed a birth year in 1785, certainly nothing unreasonable. That would be an expected date for a father of a man born in 1816, like my Alexander. The date of death for Daniel was given as 1853. Again, nothing beyond a normal lifespan.

It was when I began looking more deeply into records associated with this Daniel Boothe that I ran into problems. With a given name like Daniel combined with a not-rare surname like Boothe, there were bound to be multiple possibilities. The further I looked, the more documents I pulled up, the less certain I was that my Alexander would be son of Daniel and Mary.

The bulk of the details convinced me to write up what I found, in hopes others might join in the conversation about whether we should collectively assert this as fact when the records don't seem to support the notion. Following the paper trail, though, will take more than one post—and will need to get in line behind Monday's focus on the one remaining Boothe man in Alexander's native Nansemond County. After Andrew on Monday, we'll take the requisite time to turn our attention to this other puzzle about Daniel.