tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50349983847999208842024-03-19T02:56:32.328-07:00A Family TapestryJacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.comBlogger4637125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-23258382582947798962024-03-19T02:56:00.000-07:002024-03-19T02:56:00.239-07:00What's in a Story?<p> </p><p>As I work my way back through the generations on my by-now colonial Virginia Lewis family, I encounter few verifying documents but, out of the blue, stumble upon a remarkable story. When family stories come to us from the early 1700s—or even earlier than that—how do we go about verifying the tale? More to the point, what, exactly, goes into the making of a family story? How does one's history turn into family legend?</p><p>I'm not sure I'll ever find the answer to such a question, but I have found one such story. Before we dive into the story, though, I need to set the stage with some genealogical orientation.</p><p>Right now, I'm edging my way backwards in time from the generation of my fifth great-grandmother, Elizabeth Lewis, wife of Thomas Meriwether Gilmer, to her parents. Fortunately, one of Elizabeth's sons wrote a book in 1855 sharing stories he recalled from his family's ancestry. It was there in George Gilmer's <i>Sketches of Some of the First Settlers of Upper Georgia</i> that we learned the names of Elizabeth's parents: <a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/16/mode/2up" target="_blank">Thomas Lewis and Jane Strother</a>.</p><p>It wasn't long until I found another book specifically on the Lewis family and zeroed in on Elizabeth's father Thomas Lewis. There in John Meriwether McAllister's 1906 book, <i>Genealogies of the Lewis and Kindred Families</i>, the author identifies Thomas Lewis as <a href="https://archive.org/details/genealogiesoflew00mcal/page/180/mode/2up" target="_blank">the second son of John Lewis and Margaret Lynn</a>.</p><p>The book goes on to list each of Thomas' thirteen children, including the names of their spouses. However, not long after that discovery, I learned that the author had gotten one of those spouses' names wrong—at least, according to the files of the Daughters of the American Revolution. For the record, D.A.R. had flagged the entry for <a href="https://services.dar.org/members/DAR_Research/search_adb/?action=full&p_id=A070144" target="_blank">Patriot Thomas Lewis</a>, noting that "problems have been discovered with at least one previously verified paper." Checking the notes on their website, it appears that the problem involves that very spouse—Thomas McClanahan—who had apparently married a different Margaret than <a href="https://archive.org/details/genealogiesoflew00mcal/page/180/mode/2up" target="_blank">the same-named sister of our Thomas Lewis</a>. </p><p>Taking that discovery as a token of the fallibility of genealogy books, no matter how well-intentioned the author, you can be sure I now proceed with due caution. Still, my curiosity was captured by the mention in more than one place about the circumstances behind the arrival in America of Thomas and his immigrant parents. In almost understated tones, <a href="https://archive.org/details/genealogiesoflew00mcal/page/178/mode/2up" target="_blank">the <i>Lewis</i> book explained</a> that "after the departure of John Lewis from Ireland, on account of having slain his Irish landlord," he arrived in the colony of Virginia in 1732.</p><p>Say what?! Now, that's got to be a story. A family story, undoubtedly, but did it really happen? If so, how am I to document an event like that? And if it didn't really happen, how do I go about deciphering the truth of the matter to get the slightest inkling of what might <i>really</i> have happened?</p><p>Whether I can find the answer to any of those questions, at least I have two written versions of the event, albeit contained in those unsourced hundred year old genealogy books. For the sake of the story itself—whether it turns out to be true or not—tomorrow, let's take a look at what the Lewis family <i>said</i> had happened to bring them to America.</p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-4521124065564242872024-03-18T02:53:00.000-07:002024-03-18T02:53:00.129-07:00Genealogy by Wikipedia, Part II<p> </p><p>Whenever I stumble upon a promising old genealogy book on one of my family lines, I already know to contain my exuberance until I've verified the key assertions by documentation. Still, finding yet another old family history tome, this time on my Lewis line, I couldn't help but feel cheery about it. Despite the rather pedestrian title, <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/genealogiesoflew00mcal/page/n15/mode/2up" target="_blank">Genealogies of the Lewis and Kindred Families</a></i>, the book's author claimed a name which I could relate to: John Meriwether McAllister. This line has some of those Meriwethers, too.</p><p>However, finding the 1906 near-posthumous publication was eclipsed by another discovery. Forget dusty old books on library shelves—or even in digitized collections. It turns out I can now actually research my old family lines by simply looking up their names on Wikipedia. Yes, <a href="https://afamilytapestry.blogspot.com/2024/02/genealogy-by-wikipedia-and-other-modern.html" target="_blank">genealogy by Wikipedia</a>—a concept I never expected to consider, at least until my ancestral early arrivals in North America had roots digging deep enough into colonial business.</p><p>It was back in the pages of George R. Gilmer's 1855 <i>Sketches</i> book that I discovered the names of my fifth great-grandmother's parents: <a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/16/mode/2up" target="_blank">Thomas Lewis and Jane Strother</a>. Because Elizabeth Lewis was born to them in the 1760s, I was fairly sure the only document which I could turn to for verification would be her father's will, so I was quite fortunate to have the guidance of these tentative names.</p><p>It didn't take long to discover that Elizabeth's father Thomas had had a hand in politics in his colonial Virginia home. I'm not even sure what prompted me to try my hand at finding his name listed in Wikipedia, but there it was: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Lewis_(Virginia_politician)" target="_blank">a brief entry on Thomas Lewis</a>, billed as a Virginia politician. Like all Wikipedia posts, the article included several references which I'll be checking out. Better yet, the Wikipedia article on Thomas included mention of his father, John Lewis—imagine searching for a name as common as that—and led to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lewis_(Virginia_colonist)" target="_blank">a separate Wikipedia entry</a> on the patriarch and apparent founding immigrant in that Lewis line. You can be sure I'll be harvesting that entry for reference leads, as well.</p><p>With even more names to search for in those old Virginia wills, I consider it fortunate that FamilySearch Labs has recently come out with their Full Text search. I will certainly be putting that innovation through its paces as I work to confirm the entries in this newly-discovered old Lewis genealogy book this week.</p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-90935263070354852512024-03-17T02:48:00.000-07:002024-03-17T02:48:00.139-07:00From a Mother of Mothers<p> </p><p>This month, I've been taking my research cue from a mother of mothers—my fifth great-grandmother on my matriline, that is. Elizabeth Lewis, wife of Thomas Meriwether Gilmer, has been my focus mainly in the hope of pushing back through the generations even further to determine just how I match four "exact matches" on my mitochondrial DNA test.</p><p>The mtDNA test, you may recall, is the specialized DNA test which can confirm deeper ancestral roots than can the commonly-taken autosomal DNA test. Not only can it reveal our ancestors' geographic wanderings and ethnic heritage of that one specific branch of our family tree, but it can also tie us together with other matches reaching far back in time. The reason? The slower mutation rate for mitochondrial DNA allows us to "see" farther back in time.</p><p>Still, taking the mtDNA test does not mean we are handed answers to our genealogical questions on the proverbial silver platter. In my case, I have only four matches who are considered "exact matches"—in other words, there is no mutation evident in comparing our tests. While that may sound precise, an exact match can mean I share a common ancestor on my matriline with my match which might reach back two hundred years—or even farther back in time.</p><p>Of my four matches, only one had posted a tree which reached back to our ancestral nexus. That shared ancestor was born about 1700, not a bad stretch for a DNA test. As for the other matches, our mutual connection might be years beyond that three hundred year mark.</p><p>Still, I keep pushing back on the matriline—as well as mapping out all descendant lines connected to each mother of mothers. Now that I'm up to my matrilineal fifth great-grandmother, and since that can still be a genetically reachable ancestor for the autosomal test, I've also been keeping an eye on my ThruLines matches linked to Elizabeth Lewis, as well as her husband, Thomas Gilmer. Right now, that readout shows sixty two autosomal DNA matches with other descendants of Thomas Gilmer, and fifty nine matches linked to Elizabeth herself.</p><p>As I work my way through those ThruLines matches, confirming connections for each entry, adding those matches to my tree becomes another way that family tree keeps growing. Right now, I have 38,196 people in my family tree. With an increase of 169 over the past two weeks, the rate of increase has slowed from previous biweekly advances. However, I can safely say the reduced research speed can be attributed to having to resort to records of the 1700s and early 1800s to confirm family connections. And reading those handwritten documents can certainly put the brakes on research speed—even with the help of <a href="https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/session/unlock-the-power-of-full-text-searching-for-historical-records" target="_blank">AI innovations at FamilySearch.org</a>.</p><p>As I continue my biweekly progress checks, the route I am now taking becomes more challenging. My next step will be to move to Elizabeth's own parents, focusing especially on her mother. From there, I'll repeat that same process for another generation—and keep going, as long as I can find supporting documentation available.</p><p>Incredibly, at this point, that document source is still housed in North America, though by this point, we will begin edging into the British colonial era. Fortunately for my purposes, Virginia—both state and colony—serves as a fascinating repository of historical documents, which may allow us to push further back in time than we could otherwise have hoped.</p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-55066390741909438022024-03-16T02:54:00.000-07:002024-03-16T02:54:00.127-07:00Off the Shelf: They Were Her Property<p> </p><p>As I explore farther into my family's past, especially as I follow my matriline deeper into the South and eventually into its colonial era, it is an inescapable fact that the details I am pulling up in wills include an ever-increasing involvement with the American—and British-American—convention of slavery. At such a juncture, I thought this might be a fitting time to pull a book off my library shelf which addresses the issue I am witnessing: Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers' <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/They-Were-Her-Property-American/dp/0300218664" target="_blank">They Were Her Property</a></i>.</p><p>Because pre-1850 family history research must rely on different record sets than what we'd normally pursue for later years in the United States, I've been reading many wills. The main reason for that choice of document was to find a father's inclusion of each child by name—including married names for daughters—to verify I was following the right family.</p><p>In that line of pursuit, it became quite obvious that, while the sons might inherit land and farming equipment or become the new recipient of bonds or other financial instruments due the estate, daughters were sometimes bequeathed with a different kind of "property"—the enslaved people whose work sustained the land's production.</p><p>That became crystal clear, for instance, when I found <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/3558811:8799?ssrc=pt&tid=17705079&pid=28440786627" target="_blank">Elizabeth Lewis Gilmer's own will</a> far from the state where she raised her family. Dying <a href="https://afamilytapestry.blogspot.com/2024/03/to-again-move-great-distance.html" target="_blank">in 1855 in Alabama</a> at the home of her son-in-law, Elizabeth's recorded last wishes made clear one detail: there were many names to be found in that document, and not all of them were names of her family members. </p><p>Seeing mention of phrases like "a negro boy named Bryant" or "a negro girl named Louisa, daughter of my negro woman Nancy," I realize I am witnessing an example of what author Stephanie Jones-Rogers is referring to in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/They-Were-Her-Property-American/dp/0300218664" target="_blank">her book</a>. Part of me wants simply to volunteer to add this multitude of other names I'm finding to the website project, <a href="https://beyondkin.org" target="_blank">Beyond Kin</a>, but another part of me wants to let someone else do the heavy research lifting and spell out for me this phenomenon of women inheriting other people and passing them along to grandchildren at their "owner's" death.</p><p>Granted, I realize while this text will not be riveting reading, it will indeed be eye-opening. Other than portraying slavery as the awful institution we now realize it was, our typical history reviews seldom delve very deeply into the day-to-day unfolding of its impact. At this juncture in my family history research, I need to open this book's pages and let them inform me of details omitted by a cursory high school—or college—lecture on the subject.</p><p>On the other hand, this book's focus on the complicity of women in continuance of the institution of slavery may be a bit overreaching, as a very few readers had brought up in one bookseller's website. To single out white women as if they were the sole driving force behind the perpetuation, one reader observed, was to be "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3IHAYSKICT6I/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0300218664" target="_blank">disingenuous</a>." Another critiques the writer who "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RVN3GMGAUVCIE/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0300218664" target="_blank">judges history by the sensitivities of our own time</a>."</p><p>These thoughts become the two pillars through which I pass as I consider this author's thesis. But to read the book—to have the experience of living through its pages—is one task which needs to be faced.</p><p>As for the other—<a href="https://beyondkin.org/category/how-tos/videos/" target="_blank">transcribing the names</a> of the unfortunate strangers captured and enmeshed in a life not of their choosing (nor even of their immigrant ancestor's choosing)—I hope to contribute my part in gleaning these names so that those researching their own family's roots can find the answers they are seeking, as well.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicZ_skQ1easN0CJUGTjdzmYQt0G9_tT8NWLry1w9dA7lkhe71kbaPKQKxJjeGgjbQBzVQo7VRnSUn7CTUxVDc9HhWU1EawH2RLeeJbpHZ1VXyKY-XcftwVX5mW-9qoKJ_KvSuEWhMJXyzGIHeJSXlO5FcVo3qoRbHKaPcbnfXxAG6DVMqEY-R3GMc9ZUta/s1500/They%20Were%20Her%20Property%20-%20Stephanie%20Jones-Rogers.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1022" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicZ_skQ1easN0CJUGTjdzmYQt0G9_tT8NWLry1w9dA7lkhe71kbaPKQKxJjeGgjbQBzVQo7VRnSUn7CTUxVDc9HhWU1EawH2RLeeJbpHZ1VXyKY-XcftwVX5mW-9qoKJ_KvSuEWhMJXyzGIHeJSXlO5FcVo3qoRbHKaPcbnfXxAG6DVMqEY-R3GMc9ZUta/s320/They%20Were%20Her%20Property%20-%20Stephanie%20Jones-Rogers.jpeg" width="218" /></a></div><br /><p><i>Above: Cover art for the 2019 book by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, </i>They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South<i>; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/They-Were-Her-Property-American/dp/0300218664" target="_blank">image courtesy Amazon.com</a>.</i></p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-31853199753635152032024-03-15T02:57:00.000-07:002024-03-15T02:57:00.135-07:00Elizabeth's Early Years<p> </p><p>More than Thomas and his Gilmer family line, it was his wife Elizabeth about whose early years I was most curious. Elizabeth, my fifth great-grandmother, was also significantly placed in my family tree as someone belonging on my matriline—that DNA-significant line reaching far back into the deep ancestral story of one's mother's mother's mother. Since the mitochondrial DNA test I took revealed somewhat of Elizabeth's matrilineal ancestry buried deep within mine, I wanted to trace that line on paper as far back as I could.</p><p>Though I'm thankful for the trailblazers who had published pertinent family histories on lines such as the ones we've examined this year, I was not surprised to see the cursory review provided in George Rockingham Gilmer's 1855 book, despite Elizabeth being his own mother. In <i>Sketches of Some of the First Settlers of Upper Georgia</i>, he devoted all the space of two paragraphs to her story.</p><p>What I've learned so far: Elizabeth <a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/14/mode/2up" target="_blank">married Thomas Gilmer at a rather young age</a>, somewhere in Virginia where their respective families had lived. Oh, and before the young couple left for Georgia to raise their rather robust family, she had lived with <a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/16/mode/2up" target="_blank">her parents, Thomas Lewis and Jane Strother</a>. Of her siblings—especially the oldest three brothers, whose <a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/48/mode/2up" target="_blank">military service was noted</a>—the author spent a few more words of description.</p><p>In his younger years, Elizabeth's father Thomas Lewis had been plagued with poor eyesight and thus could not follow the calling of his brothers into military service. He instead resorted to the study of law, and learned the surveyor's skills. Apparently, he played a role in early Virginia political matters as well, as I am learning through the discovery of other resources, including another book published in the early 1900s specifically on this same Lewis family. Of course, the main question is whether the assertions in that Lewis genealogy can be verified through documentation, a question I ask myself with each genealogy book I find on the lines in my family's ancestry.</p><p>Next week, we'll take a closer look at that book, and learn how far back we can trace that Lewis family in colonial Virginia and beyond. After that, it will be to my matriline and Jane Strother that we will turn our attention.</p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-33879900774340940702024-03-14T02:53:00.000-07:002024-03-14T02:53:00.131-07:00A "Rosetta Stone" of Family Relationships<p> </p><p>I don't know how I could accurately piece together any family tree without learning as much as possible about the entire family constellation. Sisters, brothers, in-laws, grandchildren: these all paint a clear picture enabling me to increase my certainty that I am pursuing the right family line. That dependence on collateral lines certainly spared me from tossing out a research hit which turned out to become the "Rosetta Stone" of my Gilmer family's many relationships. At first glance, I thought it didn't fit my family.</p><p>It all started when I couldn't find any will to link my fourth great-grandmother Mary with her father, Thomas Meriwether Gilmer. Though I had the anecdotal accounts of her family, thanks to the 1855 book, <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/n5/mode/2up" target="_blank">Sketches of Some of the First Settlers of Upper Georgia</a></i>, despite its author being her brother, George Rockingham Gilmer, we all know how family legends and outright bragging can get out of hand. If nothing else, such works may serve as trailblazers, but certainly not as replacement for documentation.</p><p>Since <a href="https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/" target="_blank">FamilySearch Labs</a> had recently announced their Full Text search tool, I grabbed <a href="https://learngenealogy.com/familysearch-experimental-full-text-search/" target="_blank">the tutorial</a> written by longstanding genealogy writer Kimberly Powell and jumped on the trail. I was looking for anything that could lead me to Thomas Meriwether Gilmer's will. Since I have noticed some men using initials or nicknames rather than full names in documents—not to mention the compounding problem of liberal license to "creatively" spell names—I thought I'd begin with simply searching for the surname. However, since Gilmer produced too many search results, I narrowed the spectrum to a reasonable time period, as well. I wasn't willing to specify one state, though, seeing how Mary's own family had moved from state to state.</p><p>It was a good idea to leave that search range as broad as possible, but it did yield too many hits for someone as impatient as me. Back to the drawing board I went to reformulate my search terms. This time, I came up with the brainy idea to use Mary's brother's name as an additional keyword, simply because it was such an unusual name. In the extended Gilmer family, there were several namesakes for Thomas' father, whose given name was a family name passed through generations: Peachy. Searching for Peachy, I reasoned, should cut short my overabundance of search possibilities to a manageable level.</p><p>Right away, a result rose to the top of the list, but the location took me by surprise: Arkansas. That certainly wasn't on my radar—yet. And though FamilySearch Labs limits the collections they are currently testing to two record sets—Mexico Notary Records and U.S. Land and Probate Records—the court procedure which introduced the records with that singular Gilmer name, Peachy, didn't seem quite right to me.</p><p><a href="https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89W3-46Y9?view=fullText&keywords=Gilmer,Peachy%20R%20Gilmer" target="_blank">The record</a> appeared to be part of a series of appearances in court, with one document leading to a separate one, then another, then more. Adding to the confusion, though the record was indicated to have been filed in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hempstead_County,_Arkansas" target="_blank">Hempstead County</a>, Arkansas, the document was a petition being addressed to the judge of probate in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chambers_County,_Alabama" target="_blank">Chambers County</a>, Alabama. </p><p>The petition was being made by someone named William M. Marks, not a name I was familiar with—my first inkling that perhaps FamilySearch Labs' experiment had gone awry. The petition was concerning one recently deceased man by the name of William B. S. Gilmer—inducing a sigh of relief once I spotted a familiar surname in this unusual record.</p><p>The petition went on and on. Despite the faint handwriting and the fact that the FamilySearch Labs project not only is testing their Full Text search but their AI capabilities at transcribing handwritten documents, I chose the route of reading the handwritten version to better glean the context. The several pages contained name after name of Gilmer family relatives. The more I read, the more I realized the knowledge I already had of the collateral lines in my Mary's generation were coming in handy, even if they were derived solely from the good governor's snarky text.</p><p>In the end—several pages later—I realized the gist of the tale was that the court seemed to require contact of all living relatives of this William Gilmer to attend to the reading of his will. As I read through the pages—thankfully—I had pen and paper in hand to jot down the name and relationship of each Gilmer relative mentioned in the series of documents.</p><p>There were plenty of names to write. Niece after niece, nephew after nephew, the list went on. Thankfully, many of the names were followed by the identification of each person by their spouse or parent, as well as the location where each one was currently living. For those who were still minors, they were mentioned within age groupings.</p><p>As I considered the long list I was assembling, I did spot names which seemed to belong to Mary's family. Once I spotted the date at which the will was drawn up—in June of 1863—and then discovered the February 1865 date at which the validity of the will was tried, that provided the final orienting point for me.</p><p>The will represented the final wishes of <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/91511005/william-benjamin_strother-gilmer" target="_blank">William Benjamin Strother Gilmer</a>, who was indeed a brother of my fourth great-grandmother, Mary Meriwether Gilmer. William's wife, incidentally, was the former Elizabeth Marks, providing us a clue as to why someone named William Marks had presented the petition which started me on this exploration. Though I have yet to confirm this, William Marks was likely a brother of William Gilmer's wife.</p><p>I certainly couldn't have hoped for a better outline of the extended Gilmer family of Georgia and Alabama—and I certainly couldn't have predicted that it would come from an entry in the court records of Hempstead County, Arkansas. This discovery will certainly guide me for several more days in putting each name in proper place in the extended family tree of Mary, her siblings, and all their descendants. </p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-80267625811500226082024-03-13T02:55:00.000-07:002024-03-14T19:07:44.362-07:00To Again Move a Great Distance<p> </p><p>Early in her married life, my fifth great-grandmother Elizabeth Lewis may have followed her husband from Virginia to Georgia, but in her later years and widowhood, it was her children who induced her to once again move a great distance to settle in a new home.</p><p>For the mother of at least eleven children, making a choice like that might have been difficult. After all, her most well-known son, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_R._Gilmer" target="_blank">George Rockingham Gilmer</a>, served twice as governor of Georgia, and was certainly not going to move from the home state which he had <a href="https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/G000216" target="_blank">represented in Congress</a>. Besides that, her eldest daughter—my fourth great-grandmother, the twice widowed Mary Meriwether Gilmer Taliaferro Powers—also remained in Georgia.</p><p>However, by the time of the 1850 census, the first United States enumeration to include the names of each person resident in a household, Elizabeth's name showed up <a href="https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-672S-TL9?view=index&action=view" target="_blank">in the household of one "Benaga" S. Bibb</a> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_County,_Alabama" target="_blank">Montgomery County</a>, Alabama. The reason? He was apparently her son-in-law. Along with Elizabeth's daughter Sophia, Benajah Bibb's wife, several others of Elizabeth's now-adult children had also moved to Montgomery County—or, if not, had taken up land in nearby Mississippi, or even moved to Texas. </p><p>Finding her most recent residence so far from the place where she had raised her family back in Georgia was—to me at least—helpful, because that is what leads us to <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/3558811:8799" target="_blank">her will</a>, and a listing of some members of her extended family. With that document, once again, we see another example of a product of her era, for some of the "property" which she bequeathed to her granddaughters named enslaved persons at the time of her residence in Alabama leading up to her 1855 death, opening our eyes as researchers to the up-close details of what life was like in that time period.</p><p>A brief entry in the local newspaper in September of that year gave Elizabeth's age as ninety two. <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/349600908/?match=1&clipping_id=143264605" target="_blank">The obituary</a> also provided the names of several of her surviving children, as well as notice of the loss of her son Charles. Apparently, her son George must have recently published <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/n5/mode/2up" target="_blank">Sketches of Some of the First Settlers of Upper Georgia</a></i>, for Elizabeth's obituary quoted a passage from the former governor's book.</p><p>While George Gilmer's book certainly wouldn't serve as genealogical documentation, <i>per se</i>, the names listed in his mother's will certainly helped place several of her children in her family tree, and inform us as to the descendants of those children—in particular, those of her married daughters. That becomes useful to me in trying to place my DNA cousins in their correct place in our family tree. </p><p>Beyond the help gleaned from Elizabeth's own will, my latest discovery—thanks to the FamilySearch "labs" whole-text project—unearthed another family will which is now taking its place as my "Rosetta Stone" of Gilmer family relations.</p><p>And to think that, at first, I assumed it wasn't even what I was searching for.... </p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-49246936831324108432024-03-12T02:52:00.000-07:002024-03-12T02:52:00.143-07:00"Ceaseless Industry and Untiring Care"<p> </p><p>While the above words may seem suited to the description of a saint, it was actually in honor of his own mother that George Rockingham Gilmer wrote those words in his 1855 book, <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/n5/mode/2up" target="_blank">Sketches of Some of the First Settlers of Upper Georgia</a></i>. I, for one, am glad he went beyond platitudes to describe this woman further.</p><p>Elizabeth Lewis, of whom the author had remarked regarding her "<a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/16/mode/2up" target="_blank">ceaseless industry and untiring care</a>," was a young bride of Thomas Meriwether Gilmer, who was himself <a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/14/mode/2up" target="_blank">not quite twenty one</a> when the couple married. Within the year, the newlyweds moved from their home in Virginia to a new settlement on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_River_(Georgia)" target="_blank">the Broad River</a> in Georgia.</p><p>Fortunately for my research purposes this month, the Gilmer book provides details on Elizabeth's own family. This helps move me one step further in tracing my own matriline, for that is the part of my genealogy where Elizabeth Lewis stands. According to the author, Elizabeth was daughter of Thomas Lewis and his wife, Jane Strother. This couple both belonged to Virginia families whose surnames I had spotted while researching my Carter and Chew lines in the past two months, so I'm eager to step backwards another generation and explore what can be found there.</p><p>Though the Gilmer book included even more accolades for Elizabeth Lewis, there were at least a few details which I can use as springboards to launch into researching this next generation on my matriline. For one, the author mentioned that, as of his writing, she had turned eighty nine—and had been a widow for thirty five years. Following the mention of her many qualities, the book did go on to describe each of her children and their families, which makes for a helpful guide as I build this branch in my family tree.</p><p>As for Elizabeth Lewis, though, I'd like to learn far more than how her "pleasant relish" for the good things of life illustrated her lifestyle, or her "unfailing patience" balanced that good life with a note of the challenges of pioneer settlement. I'm curious to push further back in time and see what can be discovered about her native Virginia and the family which first claimed her as their daughter. But first, as far as documentation goes, thanks to her long life, there are records we can pull up to paint a clearer picture of her last days. </p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-62382730757183901272024-03-11T02:51:00.000-07:002024-03-11T02:51:00.131-07:00Sketches of the Family<p> </p><p>Mary Meriwether Gilmer, my fourth great-grandmother, was someone whose family came alive to me thanks to the biographical sketches drawn up by her brother, George Rockingham Gilmer. It was the 1855 Gilmer book, <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/n5/mode/2up" target="_blank">Sketches of Some of the First Settlers of Upper Georgia</a></i>, in which we first learned to appreciate the plainspoken writing style of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_R._Gilmer" target="_blank">former Georgia governor</a>. Right away, in finding her brother's <a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/16/mode/2up" target="_blank">description of Mary</a>, we had gleaned the author's <a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/18/mode/2up" target="_blank">opinion about her two husbands</a>.</p><p>In those same pages, we can read the author's personal opinion about each of his siblings, as well as his description of their parents. There, the author paints quite the picture of his father, Thomas Meriwether Gilmer. "<a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/14/mode/2up" target="_blank">His frame of body was small, and his limbs of proper proportions and much muscular strength</a>," the author starts out, innocently enough, but then can't seem to keep his blunt self from making additional comments.</p><p>Despite small hands and feet, "regular" features—even noting "his teeth good"—the author divulged that his dad had been "very fat from childhood." As a student in Virginia, Thomas Gilmer discovered he could float on water "without any effort" and made his preferred route home from school the nearby Shenandoah River, upon which current he found he could "easily outstrip the usual speed of his school companions."</p><p>As amusing (and yet enlightening) as those vignettes about family quirks and personalities might have been, George Gilmer folded in a few family legends which didn't quite seem to hold water. One was the author's comment that his father, in his younger days, had served "<a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/16/mode/2up" target="_blank">a tour of militia duty under the Marquis La Fayette</a>." However, if that military service had been performed at all, it couldn't have been during the American Revolutionary War. For one, <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/94094814/thomas-meriwether-gilmer" target="_blank">Thomas Gilmer's date of birth</a> would have made him too young to participate at the beginning of that struggle. In addition, as the records of the Daughters of the American Revolution now indicate, there is "<a href="https://services.dar.org/members/DAR_Research/search_adb/?action=full&p_id=A045180" target="_blank">no service found in any acceptable sources</a>."</p><p>Sometimes, family stories can be enlightening, even entertaining. At other times, perhaps they are just...stories.</p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-15149597527661310242024-03-10T03:57:00.000-07:002024-03-10T03:57:00.125-07:00Solving for the Unknown<p> </p><p>Genealogy, as I've always seen it, can be quite like an algebra equation: you need to separate the known values to one side of the equation to solve for the unknown entity isolated on the other side. </p><p>Right now, I've been grappling with an unknown: the names and identities of the children of my fourth great-grandmother Mary Meriwether Gilmer and her second husband, Nicholas Powers.</p><p>Unfortunately, Nicholas Powers did not leave a will—at least, not one I could find anywhere in the state of Georgia, the Powers family's residence, during the mid 1800s when he most likely died. However, I was able to find a court document indicating that someone named Nicholas F. Powers had been appointed administrator over the estate of "<a href="https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C3QP-TSH6-T?view=fullText&keywords=Nicholas,Powers,Nicholas%20Powers" target="_blank">Nicholas Powers late of Oglethorpe County</a>." The catch? The document only identified three children: Nicholas, Sarah, and Thomas.</p><p>It occurred to me that I <i>did</i> have a way to isolate the unknown entity in this genealogical equation to learn more about the family of Mary and Nicholas: DNA testing. While the relationship would be distant, it was still within reach. I decided to take a look.</p><p>Since my ancestor Mary Meriwether Gilmer had been previously married to a man who was my own direct line ancestor, Warren Taliaferro, I first looked up how many matches I shared with people who descended from Warren. According to Ancestry.com's ThruLines tool, I currently have sixty four DNA matches who share a genetic connection to Warren. </p><p>Normally, you'd expect about the same number of matches to also connect with Warren's wife, Mary. But in this case, because the young widow had married Nicholas after Warren's death, descendants of those Powers children—however many there actually were—increased Mary's match count to seventy seven.</p><p>Sure enough, when I clicked through to see who made up the difference in the two counts, there were descendants of three Powers children in the mix. However, don't count on that easily solving my genealogical algebra problem. The three Powers ancestors were listed by these DNA matches as George, Mary Caroline, and Thomas. </p><p>Well, Thomas I've <a href="https://afamilytapestry.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-other-husband.html" target="_blank">already found in documentation</a>, but Mary Caroline? And George is on the borderline, as I haven't found him in any records so far, either, though links to <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/87036252/george-rockingham-powers" target="_blank">his Find A Grave memorial</a> display family names which sound like Powers and Gilmer namesakes to me. </p><p>I've begun checking each of the seven DNA matches descending from Thomas Powers, as at least I have documentation confirming his descent from my fourth great-grandmother. Surprisingly, the closest match shares twenty six centiMorgans with me, all in one segment, when it could have been quite possible that we would share absolutely no genetic material at all. The paper trail confirmed the connection, encouraging me to review the rest of the list, too. As for George and Mary Caroline, though there is a slight smidgeon of DNA that <i>could</i> tie us to the same ancestor, it is a very weak link. Better to look first for positive signs in the paper trail, before trying to solve for that unknown.</p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-87621461873327068632024-03-09T02:47:00.000-08:002024-03-09T02:47:00.170-08:00Getting to Know the Neighbors<p> </p><p>There is a concept in genealogical research known by its snappy moniker, the F.A.N. Club. Depending on whom you ask, that acronym could stand for "<a href="https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/session/1-your-ancestors-fan-club-using-cluster-research-to-get-past-brick-walls" target="_blank">Family, Associates, and Neighbors</a>" or "<a href="https://www.theoccasionalgenealogist.com/2018/03/genealogy-fan-club-cluster-collateral.html" target="_blank">Friends, Associates, and Neighbors</a>." In my ancestor's case—Mary Meriwether Gilmer and her brothers in early 1800s Georgia—apparently, that F.A.N. Club could signify both at the same time.</p><p>Yesterday, while trying to discover whatever happened to <a href="https://afamilytapestry.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-other-husband.html" target="_blank">Mary's second husband</a>, Nicholas Powers, I ran across a <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8057/images/4185983_00151?treeid=17705079&personid=28440786684&hintid=1032879310456&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true&pId=1823334" target="_blank">census record for 1840</a>. When I saw that hint posted to Nicholas Powers' profile page on my tree at Ancestry.com, I was pretty sure that was my ancestor's family. However, I wasn't in much of a rush to view the document, because I already knew my fourth great-grandmother's name would not appear in that listing. For that enumeration, only heads of household were listed by name. Besides that, Mary's husband Nicholas was not one of my direct ancestors; it was her first husband Warren Taliaferro who claimed that designation.</p><p>Still, I had to take a peek at <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8057/images/4185983_00151?treeid=17705079&personid=28440786684&hintid=1032879310456&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true&pId=1823334" target="_blank">that 1840 census page</a>. Though my main purpose in looking it up was to narrow the possible date range for when Nicholas actually died, I was curious to see who else was living in the neighborhood. I guess you could say I was looking for the "N" in the F.A.N. Club for Mary and Nicholas.</p><p>Almost immediately, I spotted another name I recognized from my family tree: Hay T. Landrum. Hay's name was listed right above Nicholas Powers' entry. Not only were they neighbors in Oglethorpe County, Georgia, but they were—at least, according to my calculations—family in the same neighborhood. Hay's wife Sarah was daughter of Nicholas' wife Mary. In fact, since Nicholas was likely the only father Sarah really knew—he stepped in as step-dad only a few years after she was born—it is not surprising to discover that she and Hay named one of their sons after her step-father Nicholas Powers.</p><p>It is when I cannot find any documentation for the key points in an ancestor's life that I begin resorting to that F.A.N. Club again. In hopes that some familiar names would be repeated enough times in my ancestor's life story to lead me to the details I am missing, I trace every possible clue. There is certainly an abundance of those F.A.N. Club clues in Nicholas Powers' case, even if I haven't been able to find a will for him.</p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-44884098422728863272024-03-08T02:55:00.000-08:002024-03-08T02:55:00.145-08:00The Other Husband<p> </p><p>If <a href="https://afamilytapestry.blogspot.com/2024/03/what-others-were-saying.html" target="_blank">George Gilmer had disparaging remarks</a> to make about his sister's husband, Warren Taliaferro, with that commentary he was only warming up. When it came to the other husband, George's sister Mary's second marriage, he likely had far more reason to be critical. While Warren Taliaferro at least had a will, second husband Nicholas Powers apparently did not.</p><p>I found that detail—or rather, noticed its absence—when repeating yesterday's search routine using the <a href="https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/" target="_blank">FamilySearch Labs</a> Full Text search feature. This time, I was on a mission to find the will of Nicholas Powers. There were two reasons I wanted to find this. First, of course, was to confirm the approximate date at which he had passed. The second reason was to get a more accurate listing of Nicholas' children, since I was concerned the count for the Powers children was not correct in George Gilmer's book.</p><p>Despite my success yesterday with the search for Warren Taliaferro's will, no will came up for second husband Nicholas Powers. Instead, there were multiple entries for deeds which included the Powers name. To narrow the search, I added his wife Mary's name, which helped reveal part of the story.</p><p>From that attempt, I have been able to glean a few indications. The first was that someone named Nicholas F. Powers served as administrator for "Nicholas Powers late of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oglethorpe_County,_Georgia" target="_blank">Oglethorpe County</a>" in <a href="https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C3QP-TSH6-T?view=fullText&keywords=Nicholas,Powers,Nicholas%20Powers" target="_blank">a document dated May 3, 1853</a>. An earlier indenture, <a href="https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSLZ-GS56-V?view=fullText&keywords=Nicholas%20Powers" target="_blank">drawn up in April of the same year</a>, identified Mary M. Powers as wife of Nicholas Powers, and listed their children as Nicholas, Sarah, and Thomas—three children hardly being the "<a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/18/mode/2up" target="_blank">six from her last</a>" husband that her brother had reported in his book.</p><p>The third discovery I found was somewhat curious. Entered toward the end of a deed recorded in Oglethorpe County, a specific parcel of land was sold "excepting forty feet square in the North west corner of my Garden where my Eldest Child and <a href="https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSLZ-GSPX-L?view=fullText&keywords=Nicholas%20Powers" target="_blank">Nicholas Powers deceased is buried</a>." The document was signed by a W. T. Williams on August 31, 1849.</p><p>Our Mary's Nicholas? Hard to say, though in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oglethorpe_County,_Georgia#Demographics" target="_blank">a county of twelve thousand residents</a>, it might have been doubtful that there were two couples by the same names. Without a will, the only way to determine the names of all their children would be to search through the many other deeds listing Nicholas' name in hopes there were further provisions for the fatherless children. As for Mary, herself, we may learn more by focusing on her own siblings—especially the brothers who had been named as executors in her first husband's will. </p><p><br /></p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-15522388677581128752024-03-07T02:51:00.000-08:002024-03-07T20:40:22.371-08:00What Others Were Saying<p> </p><p>If it seems odd to us to find a centuries-old document dating the marriage of <a href="https://afamilytapestry.blogspot.com/2024/03/meet-met.html" target="_blank">a teenager as young as Mary Elizabeth Taliaferro</a>, I wonder what the people of that fourteen-year-old's community might have thought at the time. Apparently, we don't need to wonder for long what others were saying, for one local man was quite willing to make public his take on Mary Elizabeth Taliaferro's father—and step-father.</p><p>That man was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_R._Gilmer" target="_blank">George Rockingham Gilmer</a>, maternal uncle to my third great-grandmother Mary Elizabeth Taliaferro. After serving two terms as governor of the state of Georgia, as well as several terms in the United States House of Representatives, George Gilmer settled down to write his recollections of several Georgia pioneers he knew personally. He published that collection in 1855 in a book he called, in typical run-on fashion of the era, <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/n5/mode/2up" target="_blank">Sketches of Some of the First Settlers of Upper Georgia, of the Cherokees, and the Author</a></i>.</p><p>Of his sister, Mary Meriwether Gilmer, he styled her as "<a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/16/mode/2up" target="_blank">a woman of good capacity</a>," but of her choices of spouses, he was less approving: "She married successively two very indolent, inefficient men, whom by her industry she saved from poverty."</p><p>The first of those two men, as we've already surmised, was Warren Taliaferro (alternately recorded in some editions of the book—as well as in other records—as Warner). Mary's second husband, according to George Gilmer, was <a href="https://afamilytapestry.blogspot.com/2024/03/about-reverend.html" target="_blank">the Reverend</a> Nicholas Powers, "<a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/18/mode/2up" target="_blank">a handsome Irishman</a>." </p><p>While that might have seemed a curious observation—and one so public, as well—it was the author's next comment which was more to the point of my pursuit. What about their children? </p><p>Unfortunately, Tell-All Gilmer did not provide names, though he did say that his sister had ten children, "<a href="https://archive.org/details/sketchesofsomeof01gilm/page/18/mode/2up" target="_blank">four by her first husband, and six by her last</a>." As to any further details, we will have to resort to the usual means to detect the specifics. With that, I resort to another report that everyone's been talking about—though it is buzz generated by a far more modern crowd.</p><p>After RootsTech, I noticed several blog posts detailing a document search development powered by AI. A "<a href="https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2024/02/29/gamechanger/" target="_blank">game changer</a>," as it has been acclaimed by one blogger, Judy Russell. Longtime genealogy writer Kimberly Powell detailed the step-by-step process to use <a href="https://learngenealogy.com/familysearch-experimental-full-text-search/" target="_blank">the experimental full-text search feature</a> being tested at FamilySearch. I paid close attention, and then popped over to Randy Seaver's blog to read about <a href="https://www.geneamusings.com/2024/03/testing-full-text-search-in.html" target="_blank">his experience putting the feature through its paces</a>.</p><p>I wanted to test this tool for myself, and looking for Warren Taliaferro's will seemed the perfect starting point. For one, despite his given name being so variable—Warren in some cases, Warner in others—I wasn't sure what result I'd find. I knew that Taliaferro was a surname unusual enough to keep me from facing the wearying possibility of multiple false leads.</p><p>Fortunately, when I tried using <a href="https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/" target="_blank">the FamilySearch Labs tool</a>, I didn't limit the search to one location, for Warren Taliaferro's will was not where I expected it to be filed. Though the family lived in Georgia when I found them, Warren also had another residence in South Carolina. Now that I think it over, that makes great sense, as he was brother to another direct-line ancestor of mine, Zachariah Taliaferro, who I knew also lived in South Carolina.</p><p>The FamilySearch Labs experimental Full Text search brought me to two different copies of Warren Taliaferro's will—<a href="https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939L-FX9D-4Y?view=fullText&keywords=Warren%20Taliaferro" target="_blank">one handwritten</a>, the other a later, <a href="https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C959-4QW7?view=fullText&keywords=WARREN%20TALIAFERRO,Warren%20Taliaferro" target="_blank">typewritten version</a>. Each of the wills was transcribed and that transcription appeared in a sidebar alongside the digitized image of the document itself. I chose to examine each one and compare it with its displayed original, as it seemed from the results that the AI either stuttered or had a slight case of dyslexia at times.</p><p>If I had wondered yesterday whether my Mary Elizabeth Taliaferro was really part of Warren's family, the will laid those concerns to rest. If we can believe what George Gilmer said about his sister and brother-in-law, the couple did indeed have four children—or, at least, those were all who were named in the document. Warren identified his two sons, Zacharias and Charles, as well as two daughters. Along with mention of Lucy "Gilmore" Taliaferro, we can all be relieved that the other daughter's name was listed as Mary Elizabeth Taliaferro. So she <i>was</i> part of this family, after all.</p><p>That, however, calls into question the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oglethorpe_County,_Georgia" target="_blank">Oglethorpe County</a>, Georgia, <a href="https://afamilytapestry.blogspot.com/2024/03/a-package-deal.html" target="_blank">guardianship bond we reviewed yesterday</a>, naming all the "orphans and minors" of Warren Taliaferro, a list which went on far longer than the four named in Warren's October 1815 will in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendleton_District,_South_Carolina" target="_blank">Pendleton District</a>, South Carolina. It is observations like this which make me want to take far more literally comments in wills such as Warren's directive to divide his property "<a href="https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939L-FX9D-4P?view=fullText&keywords=Warren%20Taliaferro" target="_blank">into as many equal parts as I shall have children alive at that time</a>" of his death.</p><p>George Gilmer, incidentally, was one of two brothers of Warren's wife Mary whom Warren had appointed as executors of his will. Perhaps George wryly spoke from personal experience.</p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-29951831526183155322024-03-06T02:48:00.000-08:002024-03-06T02:48:00.239-08:00A Package Deal?<p> </p><p>To figure out just how it was that Mary Elizabeth Taliaferro ended up named in <a href="https://afamilytapestry.blogspot.com/2024/03/about-reverend.html" target="_blank">a marriage license dated the same day as that of her widowed mother</a> would take some searching for old, old documents. On the face of it, the situation gave the appearance of a package deal: I marry you, if I can also marry off your daughter.</p><p>The only problem with that hypothesis was that Mary Elizabeth was not the youngest of her parents' children. That might have been the case for her own future daughter, my second great-grandmother, the orphaned Mary Elizabeth Warren Taliaferro Rainey. But we now have found indications that the mother, Mary Elizabeth, was likely a daughter of Mary Meriwether Gilmer and Warren—or Warner, as he was alternately called—Taliaferro. Thus, the reason why the baby of the Rainey family ended up bearing the name of her older—and tragically deceased—brother, who had been named after his maternal grandfather.</p><p>Looking through court records to find any explanation for what happened leading up to her mother's second marriage—and her surprisingly early marriage as well—didn't seem to produce any satisfactory explanation, but I did learn more about the entire family in the process.</p><p>In the court proceedings in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oglethorpe_County,_Georgia" target="_blank">Oglethorpe County</a>, Georgia, one transaction <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8635/images/007701150_00180?pId=902866" target="_blank">recorded September 24, 1818</a>, served the purpose of posting bond as security for the appointment of one Peachy R. Gilmer as guardian of the children of the deceased Warren Taliaferro. The Taliaferro children named in the document were Lucy G., Zachariah T., Sarah H., Charles, and Sophie, identified specifically as "orphans and minors of Warran [sic] Taliaferro, deceased."</p><p>Note the absence of any mention of older daughter Mary Elizabeth. There is a clear reason for that: Mary Elizabeth had already gotten <a href="https://afamilytapestry.blogspot.com/2024/03/about-reverend.html" target="_blank">married to Thomas Rainey</a> in June of that same year.</p><p>Or was that the reason? After all, in looking at that document designating the guardian of Warren Taliaferro's orphaned children, another possible reason Mary Elizabeth's name wasn't mentioned could have been that this was not even her family. We need more information to confirm that assumption.</p><p>To find any further details regarding the deceased Warren Taliaferro, I wanted first to look for his will. And that became my perfect excuse to try out a new search tool which, it seems, everyone is talking about. We'll check out that new way to see what we can find, tomorrow. </p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-1850775098836465032024-03-05T02:53:00.000-08:002024-03-05T02:53:00.128-08:00About the Reverend<p> </p><p>The search was on to discover my roots—specifically, the mother of my orphaned second great-grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Warren Taliaferro Rainey. Because the name Taliaferro kept showing up in what I could find about this family, I was fairly certain that was M.E.W.T. Rainey's mother's maiden name. However, in looking around the page where the younger Mary Elizabeth's marriage entry had been made in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oglethorpe_County,_Georgia" target="_blank">Oglethorpe County</a>, Georgia, I noticed some interesting details.</p><p>For one, the name of the minister who performed the marriage ceremony for young—and I do mean <i>young</i>—Mary Elizabeth and her beau Thomas F. Rainey was Nicholas Powers. The Reverend Powers had signed a statement indicating that he had performed their marriage ceremony <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/4766/images/40660_307978-00130?pId=20476710" target="_blank">on June 9, 1818</a>. Remembering that Mary Elizabeth had, in later years, reported her age such that her year of birth would have either been <a href="https://afamilytapestry.blogspot.com/2024/03/meet-met.html" target="_blank">in 1804 or 1806</a>, I did the math. Yep: this girl was either fourteen or—worse—twelve at the time of her marriage to Thomas Rainey. Surely, that couldn't be correct.</p><p>That marriage date was gleaned from one Oglethorpe County record, but there was more than one entry for Mary Elizabeth's wedding date. In another ledger, listing only the date and names of bride and groom, the entry date for Mary and Thomas' wedding was <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/4766/images/40660_307978-00255?pId=20482326" target="_blank">given as May 30</a>, not June 9. Could that have been the date when the marriage license application was made? </p><p>While puzzling over that discrepancy, my eyes wandered over the page. What should I spot, just below the Rainey and Taliaferro entry, but another Taliaferro entry. This one also was dated the same: May 30, 1818. The Taliaferro in question for this entry was someone named Mary, but rather than Mary E., as our Mary's record had been entered, this other Mary was "Mary M."</p><p>And the groom? The Reverend Nicholas Powers, himself.</p><p>Of course, the next question was: who was this Mary M. Taliaferro? She couldn't have been a sister of our Mary, I reasoned. It would be unlikely to see two sisters with the same given name. Perhaps this was an entry for two Taliaferro cousins who coincidentally got married on the same day—or at least applied for their marriage license at the same time.</p><p>As it turned out—at least, if we can trust <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/88077522/nicholas-powers?_gl=1*bm3hrj*_gcl_au*MTM3NDkyODc4NS4xNzA2NDAxODYz*_ga*MTIyNjQ1ODY5My4xNjc2NzYwMDE1*_ga_4QT8FMEX30*NTk4MjU5OGUtM2U2Zi00NGM2LWE5ZGItNjVjMDYwNjYyYjkwLjEyMDAuMS4xNzA5NjE2MTY5LjU5LjAuMA..*_ga_LMK6K2LSJH*NTk4MjU5OGUtM2U2Zi00NGM2LWE5ZGItNjVjMDYwNjYyYjkwLjcxNS4xLjE3MDk2MTYxNjkuMC4wLjA." target="_blank">this clue at Find A Grave</a>—the other Mary was someone named Mary Meriwether Gilmer. The reason she was identified in her marriage record as Mary Taliaferro was that she had been the widow of someone <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/88077194/warren_taliaferro" target="_blank">named Warren Taliaferro</a>. On the same day that the Reverend Nicholas Powers applied for a license to marry the widow Mary Taliaferro, Thomas Rainey had applied to marry the exceedingly young daughter of that same widow, and her future step-father had performed the ceremony ten days later.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVywoheNxxxtYegt5vS4pJM_VsLdTv0MgKFVLxtLXD16hVvQp1rV-QuFYbOE9iE_olc4QBGx-L5UnuiucRrOxVNJgwBAI9PBNrT0bsEWZHCv6yO1olczw2fttDSj26wSjZsyx0Lkq_wm5Dy9nlYVzPQX2NGFUC6gMZIt9vqAECdkuk8GJvpiKL0VxhvuCe/s1778/Oglethorpe%20Co%20GA%20weddings%20-%20Taliaferro.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="477" data-original-width="1778" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVywoheNxxxtYegt5vS4pJM_VsLdTv0MgKFVLxtLXD16hVvQp1rV-QuFYbOE9iE_olc4QBGx-L5UnuiucRrOxVNJgwBAI9PBNrT0bsEWZHCv6yO1olczw2fttDSj26wSjZsyx0Lkq_wm5Dy9nlYVzPQX2NGFUC6gMZIt9vqAECdkuk8GJvpiKL0VxhvuCe/w419-h113/Oglethorpe%20Co%20GA%20weddings%20-%20Taliaferro.jpeg" width="419" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><div><i>Above: Entry from the marriage records of Oglethorpe County, Georgia, showing the entry dated May 30, 1818, for Thomas F. Rainey and Mary E. Taliaferro immediately above that on the same day for Nicholas Powers and Mary E.'s mother, Mary M. Taliaferro; entry <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/4766/images/40660_307978-00255?pId=20482326" target="_blank">courtesy Ancestry.com</a>.</i></div>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-8618487436467213382024-03-04T02:45:00.000-08:002024-03-04T02:45:00.129-08:00Meet M.E.T.<p> </p><p>It is always wise to start with what you know, when launching a search for the unknown predecessors lying behind those brick wall ancestors in your family tree. At one time, my third great-grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Taliaferro was one of those mystery ancestors. Only because of the help gained by using the mitochondrial DNA test was I able to break past the point before that, when all I knew about my second great-grandmother was that she was an orphan from Georgia who <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/4766/images/40951_294608-00558?pId=20016255" target="_blank">married Thomas Taliaferro Broyles</a> and moved to Tennessee six years before her untimely death in 1877.</p><p>It wasn't easy to find the orphan's parents. Before DNA, all I knew, thanks to an entry in a family Bible, was that my second great-grandmother's maiden name was Mary Rainey—and even the spelling of her surname was suspect, due to handwriting issues. Eventually, the discovery that the daughter lived with her older brother Thomas in the <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7163/images/4263496_00480?pId=65209" target="_blank">1870 household of one Charles Taliaferro</a> in Columbus, Georgia, led me to the previous census record where, <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7667/images/4211372_00246?pId=10799937" target="_blank">in 1860</a>, the two siblings lived in a household headed by one Mary E. Rainey.</p><p>The older Mary was, at that time, apparently widowed, for there were several young people living in the home with her—but no husband. In typical fashion for <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7667/images/4211372_00246?pId=10799937" target="_blank">the 1860 census</a>, the household was itemized, giving the names of the men below the head of household, then the women who, in bookend fashion, followed—first the oldest daughter Martha, then the youngest daughter, "Mary W. E." </p><p>The problem was that looking for the family in the previous census meant that baby Mary Elizabeth Warren Taliaferro Rainey would not be included in the household, since the 1860 census had indicated she was born about 1851. Noting the names of the older children, though, I pushed back to <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8054/images/4193235-00386?pId=18580264" target="_blank">the 1850 census</a> to discover baby Mary's father's name: Thomas F., same as the brother with whom she had been living after her parents' deaths. From there, I also obtained a copy of the elder Thomas' will, filed in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_County,_Georgia" target="_blank">Campbell County</a> on <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8635/images/007701270_00112?pId=1546098" target="_blank">June 7, 1858</a> which, although not identifying the other children, did name two daughters, including—thankfully—Mary Elizabeth Warren Taliaferro Rainey.</p><p>Now that I knew her parents' identities, it was time to learn more about them. Unfortunately, I haven't learned much about Thomas, husband of the elder Mary Elizabeth and father of the longer-named daughter. As for his wife, Mary Elizabeth, I discovered through her husband's will that, in addition to naming his wife as executrix, the same Charles Taliaferro in whose household I originally found the younger Mary Elizabeth and her brother Thomas living had been named executor of the elder Thomas Rainey's 1858 will. That, combined with the repeated reference to Warren Taliaferro, both as name of the couple's deceased son and the appendage to their youngest daughter's name, sure seemed to point the way to a Taliaferro surname for Thomas Rainey's wife.</p><p>As it turned out, there was <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/4766/images/40660_307978-00130?pId=20476710" target="_blank">an 1818 marriage record</a> recorded in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oglethorpe_County,_Georgia" target="_blank">Oglethorpe County</a> for one Thomas F. Rainey and his bride to be, Mary E. "Talafero." What was concerning, though, was that if the bride was indeed our Mary E. Taliaferro, she would have been quite a young bride. Based on the ages given in the 1850 and 1860 census enumerations, she would have been born in either 1804 or 1806.</p><p>The initial thought might have been, given the different location of the county, that this was not our Mary. However, it was the name of the minister which hinted we might have the right bride, after all. This minister of the gospel signed his entry in the court records as <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/4766/images/40660_307978-00130?pId=20476710" target="_blank">Nicholas Powers</a>. Like many other clues we find in family history research, this name had more than one connection to Mary Elizabeth's family, as we'll learn tomorrow. </p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-88754392777186732242024-03-03T02:52:00.000-08:002024-03-03T02:52:00.135-08:00Plowing Through Piles of Paperwork<p> </p><p>Researching ancestors who lived in the United States prior to the 1850s can put the brakes on progress. Instead of breezing through the many documents we rely on for more recent family connections, finding records to connect those more distant generations finds me plowing through piles of paperwork. Wills, mostly, and property records become the mainstay—those handwritten faded pages which too often leave me bleary-eyed.</p><p>So when I turn to my biweekly count, my habitual ritual for checking research progress, I expect to see numbers sadly lackluster. After all, harvesting names and ages of family members from a hundred-year-old census record is a process which moves far quicker than stumbling through word after word of near-illegible handwriting in a last testament which may or may not turn out to be, say, <i>my</i> John Carter and not someone else's.</p><p>Surprisingly, even after my pursuit of John Carter's most recent wife's parents—John Chew and Margaret Beverley—that walk through the documents didn't slow me down in the least. I somehow managed to add 285 new family members to my tree. Of course, keeping in mind that process includes the long slide back down to the present generation for DNA testing purposes—my preferred way to figure out those many DNA matches—each pursuit of an ancestor eventually includes the more modern, and quicker, process of adding the newest generations.</p><p>With that blend of the tedious search for the long-since past and the quicker discovery of the recent members of collateral lines, my tree is now up to 38,027 documented individuals. Whether that process will hold true for the next two weeks—I'm back to square one, looking at Mary Meriwether Gilmer, my March focus for my Twelve Most Wanted for 2024—I can't yet say. For a woman whose last days barely made it past that 1850s dawning of improved access to documents of genealogical interest, she will likely lead us back to those days when women were much harder to locate in public records. We'll find out soon enough what the next two weeks will hold in the way of research progress.</p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-9105667605722808022024-03-02T02:53:00.000-08:002024-03-02T02:53:00.126-08:00It's NOT All About Me<p> </p><p>Every so often, while I'm working on my family tree online, a window will pop up with a question: someone would like me to complete a market survey about my experience in using that genealogy service. While I'm not averse to helping a company offer exactly what its customers find useful, I began to stale on such questionnaires when I realized one thing: the anticipated average subject in those surveys does not seem to be on the same wavelength as I am.</p><p>To put it bluntly, I do not "do" genealogy to feel better about myself. I don't spend hours working on my tree, or squinting my way through impossible-to-read hundred-year-old records, just to get a better sense of how I fit in. It's not a matter of personal pride. Or belonging. Or anything about me. In fact, my motivation would be just the opposite: piecing together the story of my ancestors is not all about me in the least. I do it for the sheer amazement I feel when I learn about the fascinating people whose names fill the branches in my family tree.</p><p>It's about the stories. <i>Their</i> stories. More than that, it's about the obstacles each ancestor needed to overcome in his or her life—with each life very different than the life, even, of close kin. As each life unfolds, it beckons me onward through a story much like those which make us wonder, "What happened next?"</p><p>How can I answer survey questions such as the ones I've seen lately, when all I can offer in response is "None of the above"?</p><p>Granted, I may be an outlier. Perhaps, addicted to solving puzzles. Or contributing to the community effort of making available the stories I've found that might turn out to be about someone else's ancestor. Whatever it is, it's a quest to discover stories, especially the stories of people who continue to amaze me.</p><p>Take this month's research project: finding the details about my third great-grandmother Mary Elizabeth Taliaferro Rainey's mother, Mary Meriwether Gilmer. I already know I am heading into a family filled with surnames which appeared in our country's history—but whether this line leads to those distant connections, I don't yet know.</p><p>As I start the month, one task I tackle is to look at all the DNA matches for that specific ancestor. In the case of Mary Meriwether Gilmer, the children from her two marriages bring me enough descendants to yield seventy seven DNA matches—and that is just at Ancestry.com's ThruLines database. I suspect I'll be quite busy this month, behind the scenes, just checking the records to confirm that many matches from one company's test, let alone the other four where I've tested.</p><p>Along the way, as I reach out to other researchers on any given month's Twelve Most Wanted project (or those others reach out to me), the collaboration brings a more multi-dimensional view of the ancestor in question. The stories are still in the shadows, but as the facts emerge, the tale takes shape, and I once again fall in love with the rich and varied details which make <i>that</i> ancestor exactly the unique individual whom I'm now discovering. It's for <i>their</i> lives, <i>their</i> story, that I keep at this process. And that is reward enough.</p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-77006992053117424512024-03-01T02:50:00.000-08:002024-03-01T02:50:00.136-08:00Taking a Ride on the Matriline<p> </p><p>It isn't often that my family history explorations follow a straight path, but for this month's focus, that is the route we will take. Don't think this will be an easy ride, though. The route we'll take runs straight back through history on my matriline, that one descending line on the pedigree chart that leads from mother to maternal grandmother, to <i>her</i> mother, ever changing surnames as we make the flying leap from generation to generation.</p><p>Our springboard will be the mother of my orphaned second great-grandmother with the impossibly long name: Mary Elizabeth Warren Taliaferro Rainey. Her brief life had to do double duty on the family history namesake post, carrying the name not only of her own mother, but that of an older brother whose untimely death the family never wanted to remain forgotten.</p><p>Mary Elizabeth Warren Taliaferro Rainey suffered a similar fate, herself, dying after the birth of her fourth child and only son. Fast forward several generations and I found this woman shrouded in mystery, almost forgotten by her daughter, my great-grandmother, who, at barely three years of age, was raised by a step-mother. Any oral tradition of passing along the family stories was interrupted at these two points: the loss of the younger Mary Elizabeth and that of her mother.</p><p>For this month's focus on my Twelve Most Wanted this year, I want to retrace that matriline. Especially now that, thanks to mitochondrial DNA testing and a match who has accurate tree-building skills, I have been able to identify that earlier ancestor—Mary Elizabeth Taliaferro, wife of Thomas Firth Rainey—I have the springboard to launch into deeper exploration of that elder Mary's roots. And it's about time.</p><p>We'll have plenty to keep us busy this month, as her matriline moves us back from pre-Civil War Georgia to again visit roots in Virginia. As we continue down that line, this time we'll take a closer look at what can be found on family names such as Gilmer, Lewis, and Strother, pushing back as far in time as we can with documentation searches. If we are exceedingly fortunate, we may even land as far back as the beginning of the eighteenth century in colonial Virginia.</p><p>Before we get lost in such research daydreams, though, we need to start with what we know. Come this Monday, we'll meet at the station to begin this ride along the matriline toward our first stop: an introductory meeting with my third great-grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Taliaferro.</p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-87384803889985837202024-02-29T02:51:00.000-08:002024-02-29T02:51:00.140-08:00One Last Detail<p> </p><p>Exploring the court records of colonial Virginia in search of information on my fifth great-grandfather John Carter has been quite the education. The process opened my eyes to the business transactions and family matters of the well-to-do during that era of time. Wills, deeds, guardianship bonds, and other records provided the first glimpse of everyday events, at least at the crisis points of life. But in addition to discovering documentation to support the existence of a previously unrecognized wife of John Carter—Sarah Kenyon, mentioned in her father's will clearly as John's wife—there is one last detail before we close out this month's research, another aspect of life which needs to be examined.</p><p>My fellow genea-blogger Patrick Jones of <i>Frequent Traveler Ancestry</i> mentioned it to me as we exchanged notes regarding our discoveries this past month—and included his observations <a href="https://jonesandrelated.blogspot.com/2024/02/estate-of-sarah-kenyon-heslop.html" target="_blank">in at least two</a> of <a href="https://jonesandrelated.blogspot.com/2024/02/heslop-legacies.html" target="_blank">his blog posts</a> on the Carter line. The fact of the matter is that John Carter, along with the related families I examined—Kenyon, Chew, Beverley—owed much of their business success to the labor of enslaved workers.</p><p>It may not have been quite as evident, when examining <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/62347/images/007645806_00316?pId=460109" target="_blank">John Carter's will</a>, since he did not <i>name</i> any enslaved persons in that document, but the indication is there. Abraham Kenyon, John Carter's father-in-law, was more specific in <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/62347/images/007644932_00138?treeid=17705079&personid=312553307723&usePUB=true&_phsrc=Dxt35400&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=277285" target="_blank">his will</a>, specifying a man named "Jerey" and a woman named "Jeney" to be given to his daughter Sarah, John's wife. Examining more records from Spotsylvania County where these ancestors lived would provide more details on names and identities—and, at some point, will be discovered to be the ancestors of other people now researching their roots.</p><p>Finding a way to share this information has been the thrust of several presentations and articles I've experienced over the years. I had first grappled with the question of "what to do" the same year I heard LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson make the call for genealogists to be a "<a href="https://afamilytapestry.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-northerner-walks-into-class-on.html" target="_blank">force for social change</a>" at the 2019 <a href="https://slig.ugagenealogy.org/index.php" target="_blank">Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy</a>.</p><p>I've since run across many suggestions for taking action to share information found in slave-holders' estate papers, the most recent being an article appearing in the online version of <i>Family Tree Magazine</i>, written by <a href="https://www.ngsgenealogy.org/bod/" target="_blank">NGS Board member</a> and genea-blogger <a href="http://www.carolinagirlgenealogy.com/p/about-me.html" target="_blank">Cheri Hudson Passey</a>. Cheri advises: "<a href="https://familytreemagazine.com/general-genealogy/what-to-do-when-you-find-enslavers-in-your-family-tree/" target="_blank">Do something positive with the negative when finding out that your ancestors were enslavers</a>." Indeed, she has posted documents and extracted information to share in <a href="http://www.carolinagirlgenealogy.com/search/label/Enslaved" target="_blank">several of her blog posts</a> to help descendants of the enslaved find their roots.</p><p>One of the websites Cheri recommends for guidance in how to follow suit on this process is <a href="https://beyondkin.org" target="_blank">The Beyond Kin Project</a>. Noting that the descendants of slaveholders are "uniquely positioned to revolutionize genealogy for [our] African American colleagues," Beyond Kin provides introductory explanations regarding the rationale behind the project, details research strategies, and how-to descriptions of the process of sharing the information we are finding on our ancestors. The project's goal is a collective effort to help each other find what we are all looking for: more information on our ancestors.</p><p>While finding specific names from the estate of John Carter will be somewhat of a challenge for me—I can't even find any records for one of his <i>wives</i>—I have done research regarding the formerly enslaved individuals from other parts of my family. Hopefully, that will provide one tiny clue to help other researchers advance their own quest to discover the stories of their family's past.</p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-79202058531466434652024-02-28T02:48:00.000-08:002024-02-28T02:48:00.141-08:00Genealogy by Wikipedia (and Other Modern Conveniences)<p> </p><p>Every so often, a researcher might get lucky and discover an ancestor so well-known as to appear in widely-distributed publications. Such was the case, I discovered, when I began wrestling with the question of the likely kin of my fifth great-grandfather John Carter of colonial Virginia. As it turned out, not only was there more than one John Carter in that particular colony, but there was conjecture that our John Carter might have been related to the likes of Robert "King" Carter, considered the richest man in the colony.</p><p>Fine, I thought: I'll just look him up on Wikipedia. And from that start, I gleaned the basics of a possible family tree for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Carter_I" target="_blank">Robert Carter</a>. Among other details about the man's life, the key detail I sought was Robert Carter's parentage. Sure enough, his dad was another someone named <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carter_Sr." target="_blank">John Carter</a>. But was this the right John Carter, same as the John Carter who was supposedly my John Carter's father? After all, that Robert Carter had <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carter_Jr._(burgess)" target="_blank">a half-brother named John Carter</a>, too.</p><p>As you can imagine, I went from online entry to entry, tracing details on family related to this well-known colonial Carter. Indeed, in one of the Wikipedia entries, while the senior John Carter was noted to have "founded the more famous branch" of the Carter family, the writer of the article considered the founding immigrant of the other branch—our John Carter's ancestor, Thomas Carter of "Barford"—to possibly have been related, "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carter_Sr." target="_blank">since both came from the same English village</a>" and both eventually settled in Lancaster County.</p><p>Looking at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verville_(Merry_Point,_Virginia)" target="_blank">the Wikipedia entry for that Barford estate</a>—also known as Verville—I can see the history of the property was outlined, detailing the purchase by Thomas Carter's father-in-law <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Dale_(burgess)" target="_blank">Edward Dale</a> as a wedding present to the couple. And yet, even there, the article theorizes that Thomas Carter "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verville_(Merry_Point,_Virginia)" target="_blank">may have been related to planter Col. John Carter</a>" (father of Robert Carter), supporting that conjecture by observation of business transactions between the two.</p><p>While we may easily gain entry to a wealth of information through our modern access to technology, there is one other modern convenience which we may credit for untangling this volley of conjectures. That "convenience" is based on the science of genetics—putting the question of kinship to the test through the tool of DNA testing.</p><p>A <a href="https://christchurch1735.org/images/Research-and-Discover/Lumsden_DNA.pdf" target="_blank">paper published in 2020</a> by the Lancaster Virginia Historical Society examined the possibility of relationship between not two, but three Carter men in colonial Virginia. One of those three was John Carter, father of the famed Robert "King" Carter. The other was Thomas Carter—my John Carter's ancestor "of Barford," as Joseph Lyon Miller of <a href="https://archive.org/details/descendantsofcap00byumill/page/n7/mode/2up" target="_blank">the 1912 Carter genealogy</a> portrayed him. The third Carter man, also named Thomas, was characterized as "Thomas Carter of Isle of Wight."</p><p>Authors Robert Mike Terry and Robert D. Lumsden used for their research <a href="https://www.familytreedna.com/public/carter?iframe=yresults" target="_blank">the database from the Carter Y-DNA surname project</a> hosted by testing company Family Tree DNA. Comparing the readouts from three groups of Carter participants specifically identified as descendants of one of the three target Carter ancestors—John, father of Robert "King" Carter; Thomas Carter of "Barford" (or more correctly, of Lancaster County); or Thomas Carter of the Isle of Wight—the researchers compared differences in mutations of each subject's DNA results to draw conclusions about their research question.</p><p>Their observations? After explaining the concept of genetic distance in comparisons of Y-DNA test results in general, the authors looked at the specific count of mutations between the subject groupings descended from each of the three Carter ancestors. Finding a genetic distance of <i>thirteen</i> between the group of Thomas of Lancaster descendants and those of John of Lancaster, they explained that any distance scoring over five would push the relationship beyond what they called a "genealogical time frame." In other words, there would likely be no way to confirm relationships by documentation, as the common ancestor shared between the two groups would have to be someone alive nearly two <i>thousand</i> years ago.</p><p>Worse, comparing descendants of John to Thomas of Isle of Wight yielded a genetic distance of fifteen. Comparing descendants of the two Thomases stretched to a genetic distance of seventeen—pushing the likelihood of a shared common ancestor back over 2,500 years ago.</p><p>In their conclusion, while authors <a href="https://christchurch1735.org/images/Research-and-Discover/Lumsden_DNA.pdf" target="_blank">Terry and Lumsden noted</a> that "only traditional genealogical research can document a family history," DNA testing—in their particular case, the use of Y-DNA—"can validate the stated pedigrees." Through their examination of test results for several documented descendants of the three Carter lines, Terry and Lumsden have provided compelling reasons to discard the reports of Carter descendants from previous centuries regarding conjecture over family connections. In addition, their lead in applying this modern tool to one genealogical question opens my eyes to ways to resolve other questions about our Carter ancestors—particularly the question of our John Carter's wives, which could also be put to the test using another tool, the mitochondrial DNA test for the matrilines leading back to each possible wife.</p><p>As Terry and Lumsden noted, while authors of those past works on the Carter lines may have offered their speculations "<a href="https://christchurch1735.org/images/Research-and-Discover/Lumsden_DNA.pdf" target="_blank">based on the then best available information</a>...we must now disregard these assertions in light of the genetic genealogy tools that earlier researchers did not have."</p><p>For now, that settles my sister's question about whether our Carter line was related to the famed "King" Carter family. It certainly spares me from endless hours of attempting to find documentation as I pushed back through the generations. However, having spent the first part of this year traveling through the many records of John Carter's related lines, there is one more item of research business I need to bring up before we close the chapter on February's pursuit of my Twelve Most Wanted. Tomorrow, we'll look at that last detail on my to-do list.</p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-29042704201823819612024-02-27T02:46:00.000-08:002024-02-27T02:46:00.180-08:00Aunt Fanny's Stories<div><br /></div><i><blockquote><blockquote>...And I have heard said we are kin to old Robert Carter who is buried at old Christ Church in this County but have never found out how. He was very rich—some say the richest man in Virginia.</blockquote></blockquote></i><div><br /></div><div>It was while telling one of those typical immigrant stories—in this case, it was about two brothers—that Aunt Fanny Carter recounted the family's stories to a John Carter who preserved them in <a href="https://archive.org/details/descendantsofcap00byumill/page/2/mode/2up" target="_blank">a manuscript dating back to 1858</a>. This John Carter, however, was not <i>my</i> John Carter, but another man dubbed John Carter of "The Nest," most likely his residence in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancaster_County,_Virginia" target="_blank">Lancaster County</a>, Virginia.</div><div><p style="text-align: left;">As he recalled this Aunt Fanny recounting, my fifth great-grandfather John Carter was a descendant of someone named Thomas Carter. Yet, she like so many others couldn't stop the tale just there; she went on to suppose there were "<a href="https://archive.org/details/descendantsofcap00byumill/page/4/mode/2up" target="_blank">two brothers</a>" who made their way to colonial Virginia, one of whom settled on the other side of a river, "but further I can't say."</p><p style="text-align: left;">It was <a href="https://archive.org/details/descendantsofcap00byumill/page/4/mode/2up" target="_blank">Fanny Carter's words above</a> which were supposedly quoted, first in the 1858 Carter manuscript, then by Joseph Lyon Miller in his 1912 genealogy book, <i>The Descendants of Capt. Thomas Carter of "Barford." </i>Perhaps from this slight introduction, you might be wondering, who was Robert Carter?</p><p style="text-align: left;">When I run across little enigmas like that in pursuing my family's story, I first take the simple route of checking online for a quick answer. My go-to website? Wikipedia, which let me know that this particular <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Carter_I" target="_blank">Robert Carter</a> was a merchant and <a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/carter-robert-ca-1664-1732/" target="_blank">politician</a> from Lancaster County whose skills in those areas prompted his peers to dub him "King" Carter.</p><p style="text-align: left;">It was this same Robert Carter whose fame prompted my banker sister to inquire whether our family was actually related to him. After all, this is the kind of minutiae which family historians are supposed to keep at their fingertips, right?</p><p style="text-align: left;">It did not help that Robert Carter was son of a man named <a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/carter-john-ca-1613-1670/" target="_blank">John Carter</a>. Born about 1664, his father John could not have been of the same generation as my John Carter. But he could indeed have been a relative, based on both men's birth in the same colony, despite being years apart.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Frustratingly, my John Carter was also said to have <a href="https://archive.org/details/descendantsofcap00byumill/page/278/mode/2up" target="_blank">had a father named John</a>. That father was himself born in 1674. Adding to that detail was another curiosity: our John Carter's father, at least <a href="https://archive.org/details/descendantsofcap00byumill/page/270/mode/2up" target="_blank">according to Joseph Lyon Miller</a>, had as his <i>god</i>father a man also named John Carter—of "Corotoman." To complicate the narrative—though the Miller book doesn't come out and say so—Corotoman was the name of the family residence <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corotoman" target="_blank">purchased and settled by the John Carter</a> who was father of Robert "King" Carter.</p><p style="text-align: left;">To be asked to stand in as godparent implies some sort of family connection between the one Carter line and the other. If it can be found at all to be documented—barring ravages of time, weather, war, and courthouse fires—we'll be pursuing that possibility in the next couple days before the close of this month. </p><p style="text-align: left;"> </p></div>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-89715992277374157252024-02-26T02:49:00.000-08:002024-02-26T02:49:00.397-08:00Incomplete<p> </p><p>Have you ever come to the end of a school semester and somehow realized you were not able to complete the course work? That's how I feel today, facing down this week and seeing the end of the month looming large. Still to do: find any documentation which can either directly or indirectly confirm the marriage of my fifth great-grandfather John Carter and a woman by the name of Elizabeth Armistead. At the end of this month, I'll likely concede I deserve a grade of "incomplete."</p><p>Problem: just because everyone says it's so does not make it true. Everywhere I've turned, wondering if anyone else has found what I've failed to find, all I uncover is the same litany: that the couple did get married. How do these people know? Because <a href="https://archive.org/details/descendantsofcap00byumill/page/n445/mode/2up" target="_blank">a genealogy book published in 1912 said so</a>. No documents. Not even any indirect evidence or thorough proof arguments. Nada.</p><p>I can see some ways that more research could possibly lead to answers. Prime among those ways is embedded in a likely Elizabeth Armistead's father's will. According to the 1719 <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/62347/images/007646164_00064?pId=1516334" target="_blank">will of one Francis Armistead</a>, his daughter Elizabeth was bequeathed eighty five acres of land in Richmond County where her father had been living at the time of his death.</p><p>The beauty of that discovery is that Elizabeth, when her father died, was <a href="https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/61462/images/vavitalrecords-000665-432?pId=10316" target="_blank">not quite three years of age</a>. It would be a long time before this child would come into her own and possess that land. In the meantime, based on the traditions of the time, she would likely have had a guardian appointed to oversee the care of her property, even if her mother were the one taking care of her personal needs. And those guardianship proceedings would have been noted in court records.</p><p>In Elizabeth's case, if that guardianship appointment had been recorded, it should have shown up in Richmond County court documents for us to see. I have yet to find any such mention. I'm still looking, of course. The hope is that, having made that discovery, it might reveal where Elizabeth grew up, and where she was living at the time of her marriage to John Carter—if, indeed, that is what became of her before her untimely death. It's all a matter of completing the process by closing in on the minutiae of her life story, and letting those details lead us one step further.</p><p>Tracking any record of that property itself should also reveal some information in our search. For instance, if the land was sold, there would be a court record of the sales transaction. If the land remained Elizabeth's property as she entered into marriage—and then died, likely intestate—there should be some way to trace how the land was inherited, and by whom. Of course, any disputes over the disposition of the land after her passing should also show up in court records. Yet, do I find any? Not yet. That's still an incomplete task, no matter how I've searched so far.</p><p>This same search process yielded us information on another wife of John Carter who many researchers had not even been aware of—Sarah, the daughter of Abraham Kenyon who became mother of at least two of John Carter's children, yet whose name was not even mentioned in the Carter genealogy book so many still rely on. And yet, for Elizabeth Armistead, I have not yet been able to find any source to show the disposition of her inherited property after her death.</p><p>Searching through court records can be a tedious process, definitely not one that makes for scintillating reports. Though I will likely keep up the process through the rest of the month—and revisit it at a later date—let's move on tomorrow to the next point in my agenda for this month's research goals: to see whether our John Carter had any family connections with someone who was considered the wealthiest man in the colonies: Robert "King" Carter.</p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-58113404491450122772024-02-25T02:44:00.000-08:002024-02-25T02:44:00.147-08:00Since it's her Birthday<p> </p><p>Though—warning!—we are about to traipse down a rabbit trail, please indulge my escape from the main research path to remark on a curiosity in my struggle with Armistead-Carter liaisons in colonial Virginia. Yes, I'm getting ahead of myself with today's post, but hey, today would have been her birthday. Can't miss an opportunity like that.</p><p>It was February 25 a long time ago—four hundred fifty nine years ago, to be exact—when Colonel John Armistead's wife Judith gave birth to a daughter. They named the child after her mother, and soon went back to everyday life at their home in Gloucester County. After all, they had two more daughters and four more sons to welcome in the next twenty five years. Baby Judith Armistead was just the beginning.</p><p>That, at least, was what <a href="https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/about/LRHZ-H8N" target="_blank">her "About" page reveals on FamilySearch</a>, though <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14461294/judith-carter" target="_blank">her Find A Grave memorial</a> insists that her date of birth was actually <i>23</i> February 1665. Not for any reason to quibble about date discrepancies do I bring up this Armistead connection, however, but for the identity of the person whom she married about twenty three years later. That, incidentally, was the man once dubbed "King" Carter by his contemporaries in the colony's political and financial spheres, otherwise known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Carter_I" target="_blank">Robert Carter</a>.</p><p><a href="https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2008/202/14461294_121665483211.jpg" target="_blank">Her headstone</a> memorialized several details of Judith Armistead Carter's life: not only her parents' names and that of her spouse, but also the length of her marriage and how many children she bore. Yet, it's not for that reason I bring this up, either. I have plans to touch on the subject of our John Carter's connection to the far better-known Robert Carter before this month is out.</p><p>What I am looking at is how often the same surnames seem to cross paths in families of the colonial era in Virginia. In fact, though I have not yet checked out this point for myself, those same parents of Judith Armistead—later the wife of Robert Carter—supposedly happened to have a son named Francis Armistead, at least <a href="https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/LJ5M-ZLR" target="_blank">according to information on FamilySearch</a>. Is that actually so?</p><p>Francis Armistead, in turn, was father of Elizabeth Armistead, the young woman whose early death confounded our ability to find documentation on her marriage to our John Carter. Did these colonial Virginians really keep things all in the family?</p><p>Bright shiny objects like this have a strange pull on my attention. After all, I do mean to check on the possible relationship between my fifth great-grandfather John Carter and the famed "King" Carter. And I will get to that before this coming week is out, I promise. But I am now up to four counties' record collections which I'm scouring for mentions of the Armisteads—<i>any</i> Armisteads—and I am becoming easily distracted.</p><p>I'm sure you understand. After all, it was her birthday. Perhaps. </p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034998384799920884.post-61828979263326731902024-02-24T02:55:00.000-08:002024-02-24T02:55:00.125-08:00The Road Ahead<p> </p><p>Sometimes, piecing together a family's story involves not only the immediate relatives, or what some people call the direct line. I've found many cases which I could not solve without branching out to siblings—sometimes siblings over several generations. In the case of our Carters, though, those collateral lines (and the records of their property) are leading us on a merry chase through many counties in colonial Virginia. At this point, I need a plan for sorting out each iteration of the research road ahead.</p><p>With this month's research puzzle, the closing days have brought me to a point in which I wonder whether my fifth great-grandfather John Carter ever had a wife named Elizabeth Armistead <i>at all</i>. There is no record that I can find of a marriage between the two in colonial Virginia where they lived. </p><p>Logically, there would be no mention of Elizabeth in John Carter's will, simply because she predeceased him—if, that is, she was ever his wife. That has concerned me, ever since we learned that there was another woman named Sarah Kenyon who had been John Carter's wife before his final marriage to Hannah Chew, but who was not mentioned in genealogy books focused on the Carter line. Why no mention of the one, yet no documentation for the other? The only way I can see out of this tangle is to reach further among extended family members for any sign of Elizabeth or other members of her Armistead family.</p><p>That prospect brings me to the point of expanding this search far and wide beyond the simple task I originally thought it would involve. Let's take a look at the research road ahead, to see what this effort might require.</p><p>First of all, if the possible marriage between John Carter and Elizabeth Armistead ever did happen as <a href="https://archive.org/details/descendantsofcap00byumill/page/n445/mode/2up" target="_blank">the Carter genealogy book asserted</a>, any record of the event might have been filed in a county other than John's final residence in Spotsylvania County. Looking for signs of the Armistead family yesterday, I realized that trail would lead us to search court documents in at least four counties. Besides Spotsylvania, <a href="https://afamilytapestry.blogspot.com/2024/02/before-hannah.html" target="_blank">we saw yesterday</a> that a likely father for Elizabeth filed his will in Richmond County. Then, too, John Carter had property in Caroline County, another possibility for a marriage arrangement. Even farther-fetched than that, Elizabeth's young widowed mother Sarah had remarried, bringing her—and possibly her two young Armistead children—to her second husband Joseph Russell's home in the colony of Maryland, giving us yet another location for records regarding a marriage.</p><p>Besides that direct search for any indication of a marriage between Elizabeth Armistead and John Carter, we will likely need to find records affiliated with each branch of the respective families to locate any mention of others in the extended family—particularly any additional mentions of Elizabeth, herself. It may be a long, winding trail that leads us to the answer of when—and whether—Elizabeth and John Carter were married.</p><p>As these multiple documents become part of our search, it will be even more important to draw up a timeline to help track the dates of each occurrence in the extended family's story. I already find my head swimming as I consider the events in Elizabeth's family history; melding hers with her brother's and with other members of the blended Russell family—not to mention the multiple people on the Carter side of the family—will take some timeline work.</p><p>That said, hopefully the court documents which will provide the answers are still in existence and digitized for our benefit. Beyond that, hopefully they will make their appearance before the month runs out at the end of this coming week.</p>Jacqi Stevenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03471698670217119444noreply@blogger.com0