Sorting it All Out

 

Sometimes, names and dates and family recollections get so scrambled in a researcher's mind that the best way to sort it all out is to use the same diagramming tools we've become familiar with in laying out a family pedigree chart. With that in mind—and reviewing what has become a dizzying array of Rinehart relatives in the Howard Leckey book, The Tenmile Country and Its Pioneer Families—I decided now would be the best time to pull out that Ancestry ProTools option, their "Networks" beta program. 

I set up a network within my mother-in-law's family tree, linked to her third great-grandfather, Simon Rinehart, and called the file what it is: "Rinehart Families in Greene County, Pennsylvania, and Perry County, Ohio." From that point, I'll pull out the Leckey tome and begin with the earliest Rinehart settler the author named, Johan Thomas Reinhart, and work my way through his extended family as they moved from their original landing place in Philadelphia, to a supposed residential detour in Frederick County, Maryland, and then, presumably, onward to Greene County Pennsylvania.

Yes, that does seem like an enormous amount of work, just to find any possible connection to our Simon Rinehart. Yet, I cannot express how frustrating it has been to find family trees posted online, asserting that our Simon in Perry County, Ohio, was actually the one who died in Greene County—or the Thomas Rinehart, whom I have listed from court documents as Simon's son, being linked to a different Rinehart parent, back in Pennsylvania.

They are all cousins of some sort, yes. But how close or how distant may make a difference in whether their descendants show up as DNA matches in my husband's genetic genealogy accounts. I'm beginning to wonder if there were gaps in the Rinehart story presented in the Leckey narrative. Or if it were merely coincidence that Simon's daughter Martha ended up marrying a man in Greene County and staying there the rest of her life. Perhaps Simon's family had originated somewhere else. 

Back to TenMile Country Again

 

The Rinehart line from Greene County, Pennsylvania, is one of my mother-in-law's family lines that I have been working on for a very long time. Given that there was more than one Rinehart claiming the given name Simon, I thought I'd pull up an old book which I hadn't checked for quite some time: Howard Leckey's The Tenmile Country and Its Pioneer Families. 

Though it's an old tome, don't think you can peruse its nearly seven hundred pages online anywhere (although I did manage to stumble upon one resource which, at least today, does share the original, albeit unwieldy, version). First written as a series of newspaper articles, the compilation of which was published in book form in 1950, it has been reprinted in 1977, and then again in 2005. Trying to find a decently priced copy is no easy feat; I've seen offers upwards of seventy dollars, though I got lucky during an in-person Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy winter session, years ago, and found a copy on sale for less than half that price.

Needless to say, I prize my copy, and have consulted it often. In this month's Rinehart review, however, finding the right Simon Rinehart has become the elusive quest. Though there are several Rineharts listed in the book by that name, none removed from Greene County, Pennsylvania, to Perry County, Ohio. All can be traced to other families remaining in Pennsylvania.

I thought I'd get creative in my search this time, and looked for the surnames which married in to this Ohio Rinehart line. The closest I came to finding any results was to search for the Fordyce surname, and keep an eye out for the husband of Simon's daughter Martha. I found her in the Leckey book, alright: listed as "Martha R......" with those repeating dots signifying an unknown maiden name for Jacob Fordyce's bride.

Of course, we already know who Martha R. was, but that is only thanks to looking at this family history puzzle from the other side of the story. But finding mention of any of her siblings, back in Greene County, or any connection to the rest of her Rinehart kin, is missing from that almost-seven-hundred page tome. If we are to find any further mention of Simon Rinehart from his earlier days, we are going to have to find that from some other source. 

Off the Shelf: "Time Anxiety"

 

Not that I'm experiencing time anxiety myself, but Time Anxiety is a book I've wanted to read for the past, oh, thirty nine days. That's when the book was released, a perfect choice for a release date for a book like this: April 15, just in time for every American to release a collective sigh of relief over the national tax deadline.

Author Chris Guillebeau defines "time anxiety" as "the feeling of being crushed by the scarcity of time and the inevitability of things ending." He has been mulling over the problems with time management for a long time, and this newest of his books is a collection of his observations on what he calls a myth: Time cannot be "managed." 

Time management, this author asserts, "is a powerful story built on an entirely false premise." However, there is, he assures us, still much we can do about that.

While reading through Guillebeau's explanation of this predicament, I noticed a few thoughts that can be applied to genealogy—a pursuit which itself, much like the perennial "to do" list, is never really "done." Here's a sampling of some ideas which caught my eye.

• In a practical tip he calls "The Reverse Bucket List," the author urges readers to "make a list of the amazing things you've already done." It's not just a matter of a pat-yourself-on-the-back journey down memory lane; the process may inspire you to set new or revised goals, especially if the review lights up some previously obscured information or resources not available to you the last time you tackled the problem.
• In questioning just what constitutes "enough" for a project, begin by deciding on "a logical finish line" for the goal. Observing that a lack of boundaries for a project conditions us to "the idea that work simply never ends," the author sees the lack of "milestones and end points" as robbing us of a sense of purposeful accomplishment. Genealogy research in general can have that effect, as many of us have experienced. That's why I've chosen my Twelve Most Wanted research cycle for the year: to help me attain finish lines with each goal, even if it only turns out to be a wrap-up summary at the month's end with a next-step list of objectives for the next time I tackle that research question.
• When getting started on a research project, think about where you tend to get sidetracked or encounter stuff that throws you off your planned course. Rabbit trail? Yep, that's me, so I need to do an evaluation of the dips and twists in a typical project cycle, make a note of them, and create tactics for reshaping the behaviors. I don't worry so much about the rabbit trails—they generally lead me to some useful insights in the end—but it is helpful to have a rescue plan on hand to get me back on track when I veer off course.

Time, as Guillebeau observed, is "the greatest nonrenewable resource in the world." For example, unlike many other items—out of milk? go to the store; out of money? find a way to get more—he notes: "if you run out of time—you're done." 

"Time is limited, but desire is limitless" is an observation the author shared which likely resonates with so many who are pursuing questions about their family history. There is always something more we want to know, some new question that looms on the horizon of our latest family discovery. These are two facts in conflict which the book examines—and that those of us fascinated with pursuing our ancestors would benefit from considering, as well. While we have made considerable progress in unearthing our family's stories, there is always more work to be done.

Perhaps we can benefit from a tip in the book as Chris Guillebeau, an author known for his writing and speaking on entrepreneurship, considers what has come to be called "granny hobbies"—activities among which has been counted the pursuit of family history. Such activities, he explains, can bring us into a "flow state where time seems to feel more expansive." Noting a New York Times article on that very subject, he explains that such activities can be associated with "cognitive improvements related to both memory and attention." 

The main point that caught my eye in this section of Time Anxiety is this: doing such activities in groups—think knitting groups, quilting circles, book clubs—is not solely to execute the task, but to incorporate it into community. When we think of the quintessential avocational genealogist, we think of someone in pajamas and bunny slippers, hot cocoa in hand, holed up at home, feverishly scrolling through digitized documents long past midnight. What if we took a page from this chapter of Chris Guillebeau's book and considered genealogy to become a team effort, gathering to build family trees together?

Perhaps I can't take a detour away from genealogy without seeing applications which relate back to that endless pursuit of our family's long story throughout time. Every "granny hobby," as Guillebeau noted, has a "large ecosystem of teachers and practitioners." In the genealogy world, we certainly do. I'd like to see us energize that world even further—especially through local genealogical societies—by coming together in community to encourage each other as we discover more about our own families. That may well be our best option as an antidote to "time anxiety" for those of us who realize our family trees will never become "done." 

      

Double, Triple, Quadruple

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Family History is All About Connections

 

Family history can sometimes seem like a solitary pursuit: the lone researcher, sequestered in her office or musty archive, poring over documents long forgotten in search of that elusive brick wall ancestor. That certainly is how it feels, at times. This week, though, one instance of a person reaching out to send a message set in motion a chain of events connecting several people who had never before met each other.

It all started with a message received on my Ancestry account. A genealogist was reaching out from a family association, in hopes I could connect her to a woman I had listed in my family tree. The genealogist wanted to find this woman in order to access photographs the woman had, years ago, written the genealogist to say she'd be willing to share, if ever the genealogist got around to writing the promised book on the woman's own family line.

Well, now was the time to write that book, but obviously, if the genealogist could find that woman's name in my family tree, it meant only one thing: the woman was no longer alive.

Despite her passing years ago, I clearly remember speaking with that woman when she was still alive, because she herself had published a book on my own family's McClellan line. It was a well-researched book, and I was so excited when I had found it that I purchased not only one copy for myself, but several more to give to family members.

Apparently, I gave away one too many copies of that book. Years later, looking for my copy, I couldn't find it. Nor could my sister find her copy—who knows what happened to the other copies. Trying to purchase another copy was unsuccessful; it was long out of print. Besides, by then, the author had passed away.

But then came that message at Ancestry from this other book-writing genealogist looking for the author of my family's story. And here I was, having moved on from my Florida-based research project last month, yet still looking for the descendants of those Townsend and Charles lines—one of which happened to marry a McClellan.

This month, I was still inputting Townsend, Charles, and McClellan descendants into my tree at Ancestry.com when up popped one of those ubiquitous hints: someone else also had that McClellan ancestor in their family tree. Usually, I don't use that hint option, choosing instead to rely on my own document-based research. But hey, wait a minute: the tree's owner was someone with that same surname. I think I found a cousin!

Looking closely at that tree, I realized the Ancestry subscriber happened to descend from that same specific branch as the McClellan author. Taking a chance, I reached out to that tree owner and told my story about the genealogist from the family association wanting to get copies of those pictures for a soon-to-be-published book. Could this person help? And, oh, by the way, any idea how I could get a copy of that book I lost from the tree owner's immediate family contacts?

There is something magical about posting a message online at night, then waking up the next morning with the answer I'd never expect to receive. I usually give my email address in notes I send via Ancestry's messaging service. What had just happened overnight was that that McClellan contact sent me a digitized version of the book I had long since lost—and promised to work on gathering those family photographs for the genealogist back at the family association, the one whose initial message had gotten this whole search rolling in the first place.

Each one of us sits on a treasure trove of our own family's history: the photos, the keepsakes and memorabilia, the stories. Those details are not just ours, though; they belong to all our cousins, close as well as distant. The blank spot in our tree might be the labeled photograph in someone else's pedigree; the letter passed down to us that was saved by our great-grandparents might have come from another cousin's great-grandmother.

Just as our families intertwined in those past generations of our greats and great-greats, so we can do once again in our interconnected world now. From fun family tree apps like FamilySearch's "Relatives Around Me" or the recent "Relatives at RootsTech," we have quick and easy tools at our fingertips to reach out and touch someone else's life—or at least their family history progress. Connections with cousins can make it possible for us to know the rest of our family's story.  

Time to Cut to the Chase

 

Sometimes, research plans don't work as hoped. In attempting to uncover documentation to confirm the identity of my third great-grandmother's parents, I had hoped to discover the relationship of other Townsends in the territorial Florida county where Delaney Townsend went to marry Andrew Charles in 1841. If luck was on my side and Benjamin Townsend or Allen Townsend did turn out to be Delaney's brothers, then (I reasoned) I would be one step closer to identifying the parents of any of the three of them.

That plan hasn't been working out too well for me. I did find a will for Allen Townsend, but it mentioned absolutely nothing about relatives other than his own children. With Benjamin, as we saw last Friday, I was even less fortunate, for the man died intestate—even some of his children listed in his household for the 1870 census only a couple years before his death weren't mentioned in the distribution of his estate, let alone Benjamin's siblings.

While it occurred to me that the probate judge mentioned so many times in the administration of Benjamin's estate—David Townsend—might be another sibling who moved to town from their native South Carolina, I am concerned that examining his own final documents would be an exercise that reveals little (though I am willing to try that next step). However, when the search trail grows cold and researchers find themselves meandering in circles, it's time to reach out in multiple directions. And I did—and received some helpful information.

With that, it's time to cut to the chase. I had mentioned earlier this month that there are some books written about this tentative Townsend family line from South Carolina. One of those books, now out of print, is accessible through a website online, as well as digitized on the FamilySearch website. I noticed that the first website, hosted by Joe Burval, the book's author, had been updated as recently as last October. Since it included an email address, I reached out to the author to see whether he had any additional documentation besides what he had included in his book.

Joe Burval graciously responded to my inquiry, though the news was disappointing: he has not been able to locate a will for Delaney Townsend's supposed father, John Townsend of Marlboro County, South Carolina. With that lack of evidence, we are left to assemble supporting details in a sound proof argument, if such can be found. Mr. Burval recommended I review his book to see how he approached this problem—not from the generation beginning with John Townsend, Delaney's supposed father, but from two generations preceding that—using multiple records to piece together a cogent explanation of the line of descent.

In a second email, the author added information more pertinent to my own research question. Apparently, as I had seen from other sources, there was an application for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution which contained references to certain privately held records which had been the basis for that Townsend descendant's DAR application and successful bid for membership. Indeed, looking at the NSDAR website, it is easy to see that John Townsend of South Carolina is entered as a Patriot—and easy to find the application in question with the references I needed. Anyone could easily apply to receive a copy of that application, should they need to reference it in their own membership or supplemental application.

What was contained in that DAR application was a "certified" report of entries viewed in the Townsend family Bible, listing an incredible thirteen children of John Townsend and Kesiah Hayes. At the time of this 1948 DAR application, that Townsend family Bible was owned by a Dr. P. Kinney of Bennettsville, South Carolina. And yes, my Delaney Townsend, wife of Andrew Charles, was among those listed.

Granted, I'd feel a lot better about this being the only documentation that can be found to connect Delaney to her parents if I could see it myself with my own two eyes. Who knows where that family Bible is today? But I also am incredulous that there wasn't any further paper trail mentioning any connection between those Townsend settlers in Florida and their elders back home in Marlboro County, South Carolina.

With that in mind, you know I will keep searching. There are a few mentions about family connections in that DAR application that I'd like to follow up on, and there are some stories which will need to be verified—one of which goes back to my own family's Aunt Fannie, the celebrated teller of our family's stories. Perhaps tomorrow would be a good time to review her version of the story about what became of Delaney's children after their mother's death. 

Off the Shelf: Loonshots

 

I am sometimes amused to see how my genealogy pursuits seem to mimic real life in current times. While I've been struggling to discover—if it is even possible—the origin of my father-in-law's Irish ancestors, James and Mary Kelly, I've been reading a book called Loonshots. The book comes with the subtitle, "How to nurture the crazy ideas that win wars, cure diseases, and transform industries." 

I'm not sure I'll ever be the one to cure diseases or transform industries, but one thing's sure: I often nurture crazy ideas—like pinpointing a Catholic family in Ireland with a name as impossibly common as  Kelly. Author Safi Bahcall defines a loonshot as "a neglected project, widely dismissed, its champion written off as unhinged." Yep, that would be me.

The book itself promises to talk about "a new way of thinking about the world around us." The author speaks to "any group with a mission." While I am not a group, I do have a mission—and it sometimes seems impossible.

Of course, the book delves further into the science of physics and what it can teach us about the importance of structure—rather than organizational culture—in transforming the capabilities of groups to succeed. While the business-oriented side of me sees the importance in this shift in thinking, I can't say it applies much to my genealogical pursuits. There's something about history that remains the same, despite the centuries. But I find it ironic that my book choice for this month involves thinking about one-in-a-million chances at success, and the project I had selected for myself for this month's research pretty much mirrors that.

The Kelly family? In Ireland? That may indeed be my genealogical "loonshot." With tenacity, I'll revisit this research problem again in the future. But I can't really say I'll see any more success, the next time around. Sometimes we need to be graceful about releasing some of these puzzles back into the wilds of history from whence we once found them.

Still Off the Shelf: Irish Migrants in the Canadas

 

Some books take time to absorb. Back in July, as I was closing out my search for the Flannery branch of my father-in-law's roots, I received a well-recommended book which promised to broaden my thinking on the subject of Irish immigration. Since I've been traveling this summer, I took the four hundred page book with me on trips where I knew I'd have time to read (think long flights across the continent). And Irish Migrants in the Canadas certainly did give me food for thought.

One concept behind the book was author Bruce S. Elliott's intent to examine the stories behind Irish immigrants from one specific place—County Tipperary in Ireland—during a specific time period and headed to a specific location across the Atlantic. As the foreword explains, rather than discussing that migration as an "abstract process or an aggregate phenomenon," the book's goal was to focus on actual migrants and "trace the lives of a significant number of real people—not aggregated census numbers."

Thus, the author's breakthrough work pinpointed the stories of nearly eight hundred families on their journey from Ireland to Canada and beyond. That "beyond" is key for my father-in-law's family, as is likely for many of Irish descent who not only traveled further inland in Canada, but also migrated south to the United States, as did my father-in-law's ancestors. Many researchers, I'm sure, don't consider this possibility for their American ancestors, though I noticed through Gail Dever's blog, Genealogy à la carte, that an upcoming presentation to be delivered by Canadian Kathryn Lake Hogan for the Fairfax (Virginia) Genealogical Society reveals that there is a lot to be considered with this possibility.

What I am valuing about this book is the depth of thought put into the historical context of these Irish immigrants. Though I likely will not find any mention of my father-in-law's specific ancestors (spoiler: I already peeked at the index of names), the exercise of following the author's thinking behind his research approach will be excellent for developing a sense of what is necessary to understand about any given ancestral situation.

Though this month I am far afield of those Flannery ancestors headed to Ontario, focusing instead on why the Kelly family chose to route through New Orleans to Indiana, I believe the same research discipline will yield helpful details by broadening my perspective. The book may be slow reading, but I am tagging several passages with helpful reminders of how Bruce Elliott approached his study, and contemplating how I can adapt that method to use in search of the story behind each of my ancestral immigrant families.

Not a Moment Too Soon

 

Just as I was puzzling over the lack of direction in searching for Flannery ancestors—as they say, not a moment too soon—a book arrived in the mail for me. And though I'll close out my official Twelve Most Wanted search for my father-in-law's Flannery ancestors with the close of this month, this book will form my continuing education plan for not only this family line, but for that of all our family's other Irish immigrants to Canada.

The book was recommended to me in a reader's comment here at A Family Tapestry in a previous year when I had tackled this same family history question. Being an excruciating procrastinator, I only ordered the book this past month, while reviewing the work I had done on the Flannerys in past years' blog posts. And since I tucked in a week's trip to a conference in Houston this month, the book's arrival on my doorstep meant waiting until I came back home—just in time to wrap up the month's research and move onward.

What arrived on my doorstep was a 424-page paperback second edition of Bruce S. Elliott's Irish Migrants in the Canadas. As professor emeritus of eighteenth and nineteenth century social history at Ottawa's Carleton University, Bruce Elliott used the book's platform to delve into a different approach on examining Irish immigrant arrivals specifically from County Tipperary in Ireland—the perfect focus for my Flannery research problem.

While the index does not appear to include any specific entries on the surnames I'm studying, that is not the point of the volume—although several immigrant families are mentioned specifically by name, which can be helpful for some family historians. The value of the work is to guide us through the bigger picture of the immigration patterns found through the author's extensive research both in North America and in Ireland. The underlying historical forces which coalesced to impel many in County Tipperary to migrate, particularly to Canada, will help form the basis of our understanding of why our own ancestors chose that particular route.

When the time comes for me to revisit my unfinished research on the Flannery family in the County of Brant in Ontario, having studied the chapters in this book will have provided me a broadened understanding of the impetus behind the Flannery family's decision to leave home and family for new possibilities in a New World. 

(Not) Off the Shelf (Yet): Community: the Structure of Belonging

 

Set on top of my husband's desk this weekend was a book I hadn't seen before: Community: the Structure of Belonging, by Peter Block. This was the kind of title which demanded I read it, so I put a sticky note on the cover of that new purchase on his desk to take my place in line as next reader.

You would think that, after just having finished his doctoral studies in leadership, my husband would be thinking about taking a break from the topic, but that is apparently not the case. He had just written up his research on building community within the workplace—or, more specifically, for teams in nonprofit settings—so I could see how Peter Block's book would catch his eye. In my husband's case, he has spent years developing his own thoughts on how to take a team of employees who are (almost literally) at each other's throats and lead them through a team building process to establish shared values and develop mutual goals. So thoughts of community and a sense of belonging speak to him loudly.

Though I certainly haven't undergone as much study on the subject, community building has been something I've been musing about lately, particularly when I think about one specific organization: our county genealogical society. Like many such organizations post-Covid, ours has suffered several set-backs. It is as if we are still emerging from that cocoon of isolation, not sure how to flex our wings, even years afterwards. The book's title spoke to me, too.

While the book was originally published in 2009, an updated version was issued in 2018. Scrolling through the reviews at Amazon, I noticed the page included some excerpts from the updated version of Peter Block's book. In one passage, the author referred to the work of Robert Putnam in the earlier book, Bowling Alone, where Putnam refers to "social capital." As Block explained it, "A community’s well-being simply had to do with the quality of the relationships, the cohesion that exists among its citizens."

That community cohesion has been on my mind a lot lately. I had noticed it at work years ago in projects to bring together disparate groups for a mutual goal. When a community gels, that group can get so much accomplished.

In our own group, our county genealogical society, I believe I'm seeing the development of that same cohesion. I actually think our members became so tired of online-only meetings—despite our relief that at least, during the pandemic, we could still come together, if only virtually—that they were desperate to have face-to-face social interaction. We still hold our monthly meetings online, mainly because we've been priced out of the market for paying for a public venue, but online doesn't afford us much opportunity to feel as if we've connected with each other. We've actually had members begging for us to come up with a way to just get together—no speaker, not even an agenda, other than to see each other face to face.

Now that we've had some in-person opportunities—a potluck at the park, several morning gatherings over coffee and baked goods, monthly special interest group meetings at a local restaurant—it seems the energy has built upon itself. In these past two weeks, in the midst of an ongoing heatwave, I thought numbers would be down at two different events our society hosted. That was certainly not the case: each event had even more participation than usual. There is a synergy building here, an enthusiasm which I can only attribute to whatever that community-building concept is that Block's book refers to. We're deep in the middle of something evolving, but only now do I find a book that might explain what's happening.

Whatever it is, I'm glad to see it unfolding. It gives me pause to consider just what, moving forward, our  genealogy societies really need. It's not only a matter of offering solid programming—which we do, month after month—but it delves deeper into human needs to connect and interact, to create and mutually encourage in the process. Whatever those needs are, when we find the ways to give those needs a voice, then a venue to let it happen, that's when we'll see our societies grow again.

   

  

Rubber Meets Road, Genealogy Style

 

When the ripple effect of copied family trees widens, what's the end result? Well, to borrow another couple images, here's where the rubber meets the road: when I have to untangle the spaghetti bowl of DNA matches which Ancestry's ThruLines tool attributed to only one of the two Metzger brothers we've been examining.

We talked yesterday about an editorial error in a hundred year old history book which caused one Metzger brother to be mis-identified as the other brother. It really only takes a very few people posting that error online for it to multiply to unexpected proportions.

Here's an example. Since my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather was those Metzger brothers' father, Michael, I used her son's DNA test to see what matches he had for the lines of all Michael's children. There are currently eighty one Metzger matches in all for my husband. But when ThruLines breaks down the results by each specific child of Michael, there are no results showing for descendants of his youngest son Henry. However, there are twenty matches listed for descendants of Jacob.

Really? Let's take a closer look. I went through that list of Jacob's supposed descendants, one by one. Since Ancestry's ThruLines shows the breakdown, generation by generation, from jointly-shared ancestor to test-taking descendant of that collateral line, I followed the trail for each one of those twenty.

Now, according to census records, I've been able to spot ten children of Henry Metzger and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Snider: Manaleta, Laura, Michael, Thomas, Mary, Robert, Charles, William, Hugh, and Bertram—enough to help me track which of those DNA matches attributed to Jacob might actually have belonged to Henry.

And guess what? Exactly ten of our DNA matches did belong to descendants of Jacob Metzger. But ten did not; according to documentation, they were actually descendants of his brother Henry Metzger. And the list didn't get redistributed in any even manner. Taking the list of my husband's DNA Metzger matches from the top—with the highest centiMorgan count shared—the first two results should have belonged to Henry, not Jacob as listed. But then, match numbers three through nine did belong to Jacob's line. Then everything switched back to Henry with matches number ten through fifteen. Then it alternated back to Jacob's line for sixteen and seventeen, put in one more for Henry with match number eighteen, then back to Jacob for one more, and ended with number twenty switched to Henry.

Bottom line: ThruLines, as we know, is only as good as subscribers' trees are accurate, which isn't always the case. But it is a tool—and a helpful one, at that. Where the rubber meets the road with this tool is in remembering to always check your work—and everyone else's, too. You never know when a hundred year old editorial mistake may otherwise catch you unawares. 

Ripple Effect, Genealogy Style

 

Have you ever spent a lazy summer afternoon down by the lake, throwing stones into the water and watching the ripples move ever outward? That has become the inspiration for likening that effect to other observations in life, from economics and sociology to even naming episodes from television series, movies, and video games.

I see things a little bit differently. When I consider the ripple effect, my mind goes rather to genealogy and how the effect makes its appearance there. And there is no better example I can think of than the very brothers I want to discuss in today's post: Jacob and Henry Metzger.

Jacob and Henry were the two youngest sons of my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather Michael Metzger. One son was born in 1831 and the other in 1833—only you couldn't really tell which one was which, judging solely by what you could find online in other Metzger descendants' family trees.

I think I've found the root cause for the discrepancy, too: a genealogical ripple effect, thanks to an editorial error in a hundred and forty one year old history book about Perry County, Ohio. The book, History of Fairfield and Perry Counties, Ohio, included biographical sketches of some of each county's leading citizens.

For the section on Perry County, one of those sketches was supposedly about Jacob Metzger—only the one paragraph about the man included the name of his brother's wife and children. Yes, Mary Elizabeth Snider did marry a Metzger man, but the one she married was not named Jacob; her husband was Jacob's younger brother Henry. The birth date provided in the history book, incidentally, also belonged to Henry—as did the name of each child attributed to Jacob. The only reason the last two sons of Henry weren't mentioned in the book was that they were born after the book's 1883 publication date.

So, what can we find about the real Jacob Metzger? His marriage was to a woman named Martha Ann Hersberger on September 9, 1852. Together, they raised sons William, John, and Francis, and daughters Mary, Florence, and Rose, up until her death in 1878. Following that, he had a son named Brice from his subsequent marriage to another wife who died in 1890, named Lizzie Welch. By the time of the 1900 census, Jacob's household included only that last son Brice, plus third wife Mary.

A story like that might not neatly fit within one paragraph of the 1,218 pages of the History of Fairfield and Perry Counties, Ohio. Nor might one want to read of the misfortunes of this thrice-married Metzger man. But somehow his name got affixed to the story of his brother's far less tragedy-ridden life. And oddly enough, I've seen that same report echoed down through the umpteen copied family trees easily found in online genealogical websites—a ripple effect, genealogy style, thanks to what was at first simply an editorial error. 

When It's Not There

 

When we find a specific detail about an ancestor's life, of course we first want to locate a document to verify the assertion. Last week, I encountered information through Harry Wright Newman's book, Anne Arundel Gentry, which indicated that a deed verifying the relationship of Elizabeth Plummer not only to her father Thomas, but also to her husband William Iiams had been destroyed by a courthouse fire. Not to worry, though—at least, according to the Newman book—for many of the records destroyed in the 1704 fire were re-recorded when residents voluntarily brought in their own copies to again be noted in the court documents.

But when I headed to the FamilySearch Labs' Full Text search to locate such a record, I wasn't able to find anything quite like the quoted document from the Newman book. This means finding alternate ways to locate the alleged document, if possible. If it is not available through FamilySearch, then another possibility could be the Maryland Archives. Besides that, someone posted a copy of a will pertinent to Elizabeth's own family on Ancestry. As the Newman book mentioned Elizabeth Plummer Iiams' death as occurring in 1762, that became my next goal to locate. Again, no results for my search.

Using other researchers' writings as a guide to locate documents can work to our benefit, and there are other resources out there for locating these collateral lines connected to our William Ijams (or Iiams) family. Even the extensive notes attached to the Find A Grave memorial for Thomas Plummer, Elizabeth's father, provide a guide of the book and page numbers for records of interest, which may be findable through the Maryland Archives.

I'll be gathering more of these hints to compose a to-do list for my document hunt. Somewhere, those records should be findable. It's just a matter of determining which repository has the actual document. Hopefully, somewhere, the records I need will be findable online. After all, it's a long way to Maryland—unless I can do my research "travel" virtually.

Forsaking the Faith

 

I'm not sure why, but it is always surprising to me, when researching the story of a family which staunchly supported one particular religion over the years, to discover that that belief was not as resolutely adhered to by one's ancestors—nor by one's descendants. As I wander through the generations in my mother-in-law's decidedly Catholic family, I've been surprised to learn that her fourth great-grandfather, William Ijams, was more likely an adherent to the Methodist way of John Wesley. Yet, now that I've traced William's ancestors from his father John to his father William, I now find a new twist: a wife who married into the established Church of England, forsaking the faith of her Quaker parents.

This William's wife, born Elizabeth Plummer, was the namesake child of another Elizabeth. A typewritten note signed by Harry Wright Newman and inserted into his book, Anne Arundel Gentry, explained that Elizabeth Plummer's mother, while often listed under the name Yate, was actually George Yate's step-daughter. She was born a Stockett, a detail we hopefully will cover before the end of this month, a surname which made its appearance in another branch of the Ijams extended family.

Elizabeth Stockett's daughter, Elizabeth Plummer, married William Ijams on August 27, 1696, presumably in Anne Arundel County, part of then-colonial Maryland. Two years later, according to the Newman book,  she was baptized as an adult at All Hallow's Church. Her parents, as Mr. Newman noted, had raised her as part of the Quaker community of West River.

William and Elizabeth Plummer Ijams went on to raise a family of at least nine children themselves, as we've already mentioned. But of Elizabeth's own origin, we might not have known much at all, owing to a fire which destroyed many of the documents at the "State House." Thankfully, William and Elizabeth—as well as many other residents of the region—voluntarily brought their own copies of records such as this deed from Elizabeth's father, mentioning the relationship between Elizabeth, her husband William, and her father, Thomas Plummer.

That, at least, is a story conveyed in the pages of the Newman book. You know what the next step will be for us: to locate the document through the FamilySearch Labs' Full Text search. Because now, we can. If it's there.

Back to the Books

 

While source documents are vitally important as we push our way back in time to more distant ancestors, I keep comparing notes with those trailblazing genealogy books. Since we discussed my mother-in-law's sixth great-grandfather William Ijams yesterday, I thought I'd hop over to the pages of Harry Wright Newman's 1933 book, Anne Arundel Gentry to see what else could be found in addition to the 1734 will of William Ijams we already reviewed.

Sure enough, the names we saw included in William's will lined up exactly with those mentioned by author Harry Wright Newman. The book included a few more details about William Iiams' children, which will also need to be verified. No descendants were missing, though, to my relief.

Noted also were the names of this William's parents: William and Elizabeth Cheyney Iiams—or Eyams, as Newman put the spelling in his introductory comments to that section of the family's chapter. Newman portrayed this earliest William as "the Pioneer," though he also mentioned that any arrival record for the founding settler William had not yet been found.

Newman's best guess is that William Eyams—or Iiams, or Ijams—arrived in colonial Maryland by 1665, not long before his marriage to Elizabeth Cheyney before 1670. The author also noted that this earliest William drew up his will in 1698, but that it wasn't probated until November 10, 1703, in court in Anne Arundel County.

Having that date handy now, let's pop back to the digitized court records for that time period to double check which names William mentioned before his passing in July of 1703. 

According to the Book

 

Discovering a book dedicated to the recounting of one's own family line can be a mixed bag. On the one hand, we need to proceed cautiously, if we do consider the book's contents at all, just in case the published researcher has committed the same errors so many of us unpublished researchers are prone to making. On the other hand, since some of those family history volumes have the added advantage of being written by researchers one hundred—or more—years closer to the ancestors in question, they may contain personal knowledge of which those in our current century may not have been aware. My personal view is to find a reliable published researcher and use him or her as a trailblazer: someone who is pointing out the path back to more distant ancestry. For this, I adopt the motto: Trust, but Verify.

Now that we're tackling the ancestry of my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather, William Ijams of Maryland, for starters, I may as well proceed according to the book. "The book," in this case, would be Harry Wright Newman's Anne Arundel Gentry, a book published in 1933.

We've already seen from the Newman book that William was the eldest son of John Iiams and Rebecca Jones. The book provided the dates at which John Iiams' will was drawn up (October 9, 1782) and probated (April 21, 1783). Taking those dates to the FamilySearch Labs Full Text search engine, I was able to pull up the actual will and confirm what Harry Wright Newman had listed in his book.

It's time to move on to the next generations, so I'll test that process again for each new step. According to Newman's book, John Iiams was son of William Iiams and Elizabeth Plummer. Since the name Plummer seems to echo through subsequent generations of the Iiams and Ijams family, I'm keen to see what I can find on this maternal branch—but also mindful of my goal of following that Ijams line as far back as possible during this month.

Peeking ahead yet another generation, our William's grandfather William Iiams was in turn son of yet another Iiams by the name of William—you see now why that given name seems to have ricocheted throughout the generations of the Ijams family. This elder William—we're now talking about my mother-in-law's seventh great-grandfather—was married to another Elizabeth. (Not that we want to make this more complicated or anything....) 

The maiden name for this ancestral Elizabeth, wife of the elder William, has been alternately entered as "Cheyney" or "Cheney." She was apparently daughter of Richard Cheyney, born about 1652, according to Newman's calculations.

As for her husband William—listed as William Eyams—he was the founding immigrant ancestor of this line in my mother-in-law's ancestry. Though his name is not included in any records of arrivals to the colony of Maryland, we do have a date for his will, which was drawn up in 1698 and presented in court in Anne Arundel County—another document to verify through the FamilySearch Labs Full Text search.

Thus, the trailblazer—in this case, Harry Wright Newman—has laid out specific dates to guide us in confirming the Ijams family's story, once they arrived in the North American British colonies. Now, we'll begin tackling the search for documents and start reading between the lines to see what other information can be uncovered.

Using Trailblazers to Chase Down the Documents

 

When a genealogy book conveniently tells all about an ancestor's family, for some that might be the end of the story. For me, it's just the beginning. I need to chase down the documents to confirm the author of the book got those details right.

Fortunately, in the case of my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather William Ijams, I have one of those handy books: Harry Wright Newman's 1933 volume, Anne Arundel Gentry. Among the twenty two pioneer settlers of that colonial Maryland county mentioned in the book, William Ijams' founding immigrant ancestor claimed a spot. This month, I'll be using the Newman book as my trailblazer to check out what legal documents had to say on his assertions.

According to the Newman book, William Ijams—Newman has his surname spelled Iiams—was son of John and his wife Rebecca Jones. Conveniently, the book mentions John Iiams' date of death to have been in 1783. Armed with my new favorite genealogical search engine, the Full Text search now available from FamilySearch Labs, I located the 1782 will for John Iiams in the Anne Arundel County, Maryland, records, presented to the court there on April 21, 1783.

Unsurprisingly, John's will contained mention of a son named William. Well, let me amend that: if you can buy the idea that the will for "Jhon Jiams" was really the last testament of a man named John Ijams, we are in business. If so, our William had brothers named John, Isaac, and Thomas Plummer Iiams, as well as married sisters Elizabeth Lyons and Ann Stockett. In addition, he had a sister Mary who died before her father's death, who apparently had married a paternal cousin—likely the Thomas Iiams also mentioned—for her two children were named in the will with that same Iiams surname.

Having the family constellation outlined in that document helps as we move forward—or backward in time, as we soon will be doing. Collateral lines will come in handy as we move farther along in the extended family, for this was a family which believed in recycling favorite given names, as we will soon see. Our William was not the only one to have been given that name in his family line.

In the Right Vicinity

Some local histories just resonate with surnames from our family's history. That, according to the history of Richland Township in Fairfield County, is what I've been noticing as I search for signs of my mother-in-law's roots during the early years of Ohio's statehood.

Among the earliest settlers in that vicinity, according to one 1912 book, History of Fairfield County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, were these: Wiseman, Turner, Stephenson, Ijams. All of these, I already know, fall handily into what some genealogists call the "F.A.N. Club" of my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandmother Elizabeth Howard and her husband, William Ijams. Or, to look at this report from the eyes of another genealogical phrase, "cluster genealogy," those surnames lead us to the right cluster.

To see that cluster a bit more clearly, though, we need to take a detour from our main research goal to explore what brought those families from their previous, distant residences to their new homes in the formative years of Ohio's Fairfield County. In a word, that gathering force was religion.

That same 1912 history book noted that the township—indeed, the whole of Fairfield County—saw "the early organization of religious societies and churches," but the first of such meetings were held before any church buildings could be erected. Those meetings were held "in the log cabins of the settlers."

In another book, Pioneer Period and Pioneer People of Fairfield County, Ohio, published in 1901, author C. M. L. Wiseman noted that the church in question—at least for my mother-in-law's family—was Methodist. Included in a list of those who attended services in that early church prior to 1805 were:

Daniel Stevenson and wife, Isaac and Thomas Ijams, John J. Jackson, John Sunderland, Edward Teal...William Turner.

Perhaps you, as I do, see that cluster of familiar surnames taking shape—the very surnames I've been following as we look for the matrilineal descendants of Elizabeth Howard and her husband, William Ijams.

When attendance overtook building capacity, church meetings were held out of doors in 1803, and then again in 1807, a year said to have drawn over one thousand people to such a "camp meeting." The site of the camp meetings, and the log cabin itself, was noted as "near the old graveyard" and "in sight of the home of Daniel Stevenson." Before we explore further how these surnames intertwine with the daughters of Elizabeth Howard and William Ijams, let's take a step back, tomorrow, to learn a bit more about what that author meant in 1901 when he talked about the old graveyard. 

The Power of Speed

 

Real value is no longer created by traditional measures of productivity. It's created by personal interactions, innovation, creative solutions, resilience, and the power of speed.

~Seth Godin, 

The Song of Significance

Finally getting down to reading a recent acquisition in my anti-library, I felt a quote literally leap off the pages of entrepreneur Seth Godin's latest, The Song of Significance. It was that phrase, "the power of speed," which resonated. After all, if it hadn't been for FamilySearch's latest development in speed-researching (otherwise known as Full Text search at FamilySearch Labs), I couldn't have gone speed-sliding down my mother-in-law's matriline quite so deftly.

Think of it: FamilySearch.org, by virtue of having accessed a faster way to page through endless legal documents, has created real value for those who need such creative solutions. The mind-numbing guesswork of paging through unindexed files, reading—no, oops, not the right page once again—line after line of indecipherable handwriting has finally come to its end. If, of course, the Labs Full Text test turns out to be a keeper.

The FamilySearch Labs example gets me thinking in broader application categories. What, for instance, if we applied that Seth Godin maxim to our current situation with waning member participation in local genealogical societies? Could the thought of personal interactions, innovation, or creative solutions speak to our dilemma there? I know that once Covid forced us to couple our traditional meeting format with the newer tech of online connectivity, we gained some benefits—but lost some personal interactions and resilience. Does this mean we face a zero sum game?

I tend to take that call to create "real value" as a call to return to personal connections. When our local genealogical society, after wandering the desert of online-only meetings for three years, decided to create a new, in-person get-together event just because, the energy level in the room was palpable. That buzz told me people really need this connection—even if it hasn't been the "way we always do things." All we added was personal interactions—but that is exactly the element we were sorely needing.

Maybe it only takes just one change to resurrect a wilting organization. We'll try others too, of course, but it is reassuring to see what a big response can come from such a simple change. After all, as Seth Godin likes to point out, real change can trigger a network effect of its own—which amplifies the signal we want to send even farther and faster.  

Irish John

 

It was likely in the early years of Augusta County, Virginia, when my seventh great-grandfather John Lewis acquired the nickname, Irish John Lewis. According to his headstone, he did claim to have been born in Ireland—County Donegal, specifically—but with a name like Lewis, it could easily have been assumed he was more Welsh than Irish. According to family reports, though, his roots may actually have been French.

It was what prompted John Lewis' arrival in colonial Virginia about which I am more curious, however. Explaining the setting of the Lewis family's arrival, one genealogy paints his newly-adopted home as "a dense and unexplored forest" which only years later became Virginia's Augusta County. Upon his arrival there, John Lewis became one of its pioneers.

There was a reason why John Lewis left his comfortable home in Ireland. The 1906 Genealogies of the Lewis and Kindred Families gave hints about the episode which ousted him from his Irish home. Lewis was apparently "compelled to flee the country" on account of "having to slay his Irish landlord." Author John Meriwether McAllister speculated that in the far western reaches of the Virginia colony, the Lewis family would be "too far removed from royalty to be any longer the victim of tyranny."

While that may sound like rhetoric fitting for a colonial settler leading up to the American Revolution, John Lewis supposedly arrived in Virginia much earlier than that—in 1732. Of course, I wanted to learn more about that story. Through some stroke of serendipity, I discovered there actually is a Wikipedia entry on John Lewis, which provided a succinct recap of Lewis' escape from Ireland. Better than that, the article also included footnotes, leading me to further sources.

One such account of the event—though painted in the prose of a much earlier era—was the 1845 book by Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Virginia. Howe's painting of the encounter which prompted Lewis' decision to emigrate was as "the result of one of those bloody affrays" in which "a nobleman of profligate habits and ungovernable passions" had decided to repossess the Lewis property under "an alleged breach of condition." The nobleman with his posse surrounded the Lewis home, made his demands—which were rebuffed by Lewis—and fired a shot into the house. This killed Lewis' brother and injured his wife, enraging Lewis, who then rushed out to fight his assailant. In the end, Lewis had killed both the nobleman and one of his assistants, prompting those witnesses and Lewis sympathizers to advise him to "fly the country."

Whether that incident actually happened as the 1845 account painted it will be hard to determine. The Wikipedia article on John Lewis noted that two of three historical writers disputed the narrative. Indeed, a supposed diary of John Lewis' wife Margaret which provided a recounting of the incident, first appearing in a magazine version in 1869, was only in 1976 revealed to actually be a hoax. 

With such a rocky road leading to Lewis reality, how is one to determine the truth of the matter? It hardly seems likely that I'd find a contemporaneous newspaper account of the crime from one of the least-populated counties in Ireland.

What I can do, however, is look for documentation of what became of Irish John Lewis, once he arrived in Virginia, through to his death near Staunton in 1762. And, having achieved such a goal, I'll be satisfied with my progress.