Certainty Without Documentation

 

It's the end of another month, and I'm ready to grumble. My goal for this month was to break through the brick wall keeping me from discovering my fourth great-grandfather Job Tyson's parents. Though I've become weary with reading the scribbled handwriting in court records, I've yet to find any documentation to confirm what others have asserted in either today's online resources or the published reports of past generations. 

That tour of the documents has brought me through Pitt County in North Carolina, Beaufort County in South Carolina, and Wayne and Glynn Counties in Georgia—not to mention that detour to follow his wife's genealogy back to her Sheffield grandfather in Duplin County, North Carolina. Though it was not lost upon me that Pitt County was once known as Beaufort County, North Carolina—a possible source of confusion for researchers—I have not unearthed one document on Job Tyson's related family lines which could point me backwards in time, with the possible exception of his father-in-law West Sheffield's 1830 will.

Yet, in reviewing genealogies which include this family, I notice how certain those reports sound about their assertions concerning Job's roots. How do so many people seem to know this? If they have found a source to support that published information, it would help to be able to review such records. 

With the last day of this short month drawing closer, I doubt I'll find any success in continuing the search in such a limited time. As we complete this week, we'll lay aside this research goal and check in on a few other projects which I've been working on, behind the scenes, from earlier this year.

Since We're in the Neighborhood

If this month's research project—finding the origin of my fourth great-grandfather Job Tyson—has led me to the discovery that Job's wife may have come from Duplin County, North Carolina, we might as well take a closer look. Since we're now in the neighborhood, I thought I'd do some exploring. It helps to get oriented to the places our ancestors once called home.

For that task, my first stop is to glean an overview from various "wiki" resources. Among them are the Wikipedia entry for Duplin County, and the FamilySearch wiki for the same location. 

Using Wikipedia is one quick way to learn about a location from a more modern point of view. County entries usually contain an overview of the place, as far as current-day details are concerned. These entries usually also provide a map and, more suited to my purposes, a brief history of the county which, depending on the time frame of each particular ancestor, may still shed some light on my search. One basic detail I look for is the date in which the county was formed, and which counties preceded that formation, in case I need to delve further into records created in a different location prior to that point.

From the Wikipedia entry for Duplin County, I can see that county was carved out of New Hanover County in 1750. Since Job Tyson's father-in-law West Sheffield was likely born in 1747, that tells me I might need to explore New Hanover County records as well—if any church or land records before that time had survived the series of record destructions incurred over the next couple centuries. More to my current pursuit, however, would be the marriage record for West Sheffield's daughter Sidnah to my brick wall ancestor, Job Tyson.

Regarding record survival over the ages, I generally turn to my second resource for scoping out the neighborhood: the FamilySearch wiki. The specific resource there for Duplin County shows me the battle against the ravages of time may have put me on the losing side. There are land records from 1749 and court records from 1784, but the FamilySearch wiki included a disappointing note: "Many court records are missing."

Still, that means some court records may still be accessible. Although I've been forewarned, now that I know, it's worth a try to check it out. 

Bypassing "Go"

 

Remember that old game, Monopoly, where if you drew the "go to jail" ticket, the instructions told you "do not pass Go; do not collect $200." If the game I've been playing this month were called "Geneapoly," that's exactly the card I'd be dealt now. I don't seem to be able to move anywhere. I'm stuck in genealogy jail.

Since I haven't been able to push back time far enough to find my fourth great-grandfather Job Tyson in records before his arrival in Georgia at the beginning of the 1800s, I thought of a way to bypass "Go"—I could try one other variation on the F.A.N. Club concept. I could look deeper into his wife's family history.

Job's first wife, Sidnah—also called Sidney—Sheffield, was said to have been born in North Carolina. That location was the same as the place where Job Tyson may have originated. Granted, I've tried two different times to locate any mention of Job in North Carolina—and failed. But I'm willing to enter this playing field from yet another angle.

I already have seen mention of Sidnah's father, West Sheffield, being from North Carolina. In fact, he was said to have been a Patriot by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Not that the applications for his eligible descendants all perfectly documented that assertion; even there, the D.A.R. has found problems. 

No matter. That organization also pointed out one other detail of interest: that West Sheffield's father was also listed as a Patriot. Sure enough, looking at the D.A.R. website, I found an entry for John Sheffield, West Sheffield's dad, as well.

In that file, his origin was said to be in North Carolina. But none of this Pitt County stuff that had waylaid me for so long in my search for Job Tyson last week. This time, the North Carolina location was said to be Duplin County, instead.

Armed with this information, I headed to FamilySearch.org and their Full Text Search option to look for a Sheffield will that mentioned Job Tyson's father-in-law, West Sheffield. And just as the D.A.R. entry for John Sheffield had implied, there was a will in Duplin County for him, dated the same day, November 22, 1790, as the D.A.R. entry had noted. Added bonus: the will contained mention of a son named West Sheffield.

If West Sheffield's daughter Sidnah was said to have been born in North Carolina, could that specific location have also been in Duplin County? What about her marriage record? And if her future husband found his bride in North Carolina, does that mean I can find Job Tyson in Duplin County, as well? If nothing else, this discovery points me in another direction than those failed attempts at finding him in Pitt County. Maybe I can get out of Geneapoly jail, after all.

Taking a Closer Look

Taking a closer look at an ancestor's will from 1710 is a far cry from examining a typewritten testament from, say, the twentieth century. If we want to learn any more about Mathias Tison of Bath County, North Carolina, we'll have to buck up and read the handwriting, no matter how unusual it might seem.

Mathias Tison—or Tisson, as the 1710 document styled him—was the father of Susannah, the woman who eventually married John Hardee of Pitt County, North Carolina. John and Susannah, in turn, were progenitors of a friend of mine from our local genealogical society, who discovered our tentative Hardee-Tison connection through using FamilySearch.org's "Relatives Around Me" at a local society meeting.

The question I have now is how to follow the other lines descending from Matthias Tison, to see whether somewhere in the mix is my fourth great-grandfather, Job Tyson.

To launch us on that multi-generational journey, we first need to look at Matthias' own will. But how to read the difficult handwriting? Thankfully, I found a more recent abstract listing each of his descendants named in the will, obtained from a 1987 hardcover book compiled by genealogist Roger Kammerer and published by the Devisconti Scroll Trust. According to that volume, The Tyson and May Genealogy of Pitt County, Matthias' children included "Jhon," Edward, "Corneilyous," Edmond, Thomas, Susanna, "Jhonas," Samuell, and Mathyas. Also mentioned was a grandson, "Arone."

While looking at the Tyson genealogy revealed much of what we've already discovered about Susannah, who eventually married into the Hardee line, a quick glance through the pages concerning the earliest generations revealed only one mention of a descendant named Job—and that, without any further information. While admittedly, this is a volume representing one researcher's discoveries, that does not seem to be a promising sign. The author did note that, "with regret," tracing all known descendants of Mathias Tyson was not possible at that time.

With that, it's back once again to searching for any documentation which can lift us from Job Tyson's generation back at least one step toward the past.

North Carolina Nexus

 

Finding a possible nexus between the Tyson line and the Hardee line, especially leading back to Pitt County, North Carolina, may have been helpful, but the next step is to find actual documentation. For someone said to have been born in 1701—that would be Susannah Tyson, daughter of Mathias and Mary—that next step can cause trouble.

Why? It's fairly simple. Given not only the date over three hundred years ago—not to mention the change of government—the chances of the records we need to verify family connections being in decent condition are slim. Worse, those records might currently be non-existent, if we take into account courthouse fires, wars, and other catastrophes.

One encouraging note, however, was the possible discovery of a will which might have been penned by Susannah's father, Mathias Tyson—or Tisson, as the clerk fashioned that name back on April 5, 1710. I say "possible" because the page upon which the will was written was torn or bent just after the phrase, "last will and testament of." There is one word inserted, but hidden, before the next line continues with Mathias Tison's name.

Granted, at the end of the document, where Mathias Tison left his mark, the clerk inscribed the name as "Mthyas Tisson," which is, I guess, close enough for me.

The document stated that this Mathias was an inhabitant of "Baith County" in North Carolina. As it turns out, there was a county named Bath in North Carolina, but it is now called an extinct county. The county was in existence as part of the British Colony of what is now North Carolina, from the county's establishment in 1696 through 1739.

At that time, Bath County contained three precincts, one of which eventually became known as Beaufort Precinct. When Bath County was officially abolished, Beaufort Precinct became a county in its own right. And, as the years passed, Beaufort County itself eventually was carved out to form additional counties, one of which—as you might have suspected—became known as Pitt County.

Thus, at least for this Tison line which led, through Mathias' daughter Susannah, to her husband and eventually the Hardee family descendant who married Job Tyson's son William, we now have a connection back to Pitt County, North Carolina. But what about Job, himself?

If we can't draw our way up the family tree by virtue of Job's as-yet-unknown father, perhaps we can discover a way down from Mathias Tison back to Job's own generation. We'll take a closer look at Mathias Tison's will tomorrow.

How Twisted and Tedious the Trail

 

If we can't figure out a family line based on one side of a married couple, how about trying the other side? That seemed like a viable premise when I realized that my fourth great-grandfather, Job Tyson, eventually had a daughter-in-law whose roots reached back to another Tyson relationship. Added bonus: that relationship led to the location of the supposed roots of Job Tyson's family, too. Surely, I'd be led straight back to the answer in Pitt County, North Carolina, by following this other line.

That line belonged to the Hardee family of Pitt County—the very line conveniently said to belong to my newfound kazillionth cousin, according to "Relatives Around Me."

To use a trailblazer to outline a family's generations seems straightforward, at face value: find a published genealogy maintaining that connection—in my case, the Tyson and Hardee families of Pitt County—and then verify by finding documentation.

That was easily said. Not so easily done, at least in this case. So far, I've wandered through several manuscripts, thankfully posted either at FamilySearch or at Ancestry. While reading, I've outlined the names and dates of pertinent family members.

Next step: find the documents. That's the not-so-easily done part of the equation. So far, I have eighteen tabs open on my computer. My brain can't hold all that information in one night's setting. Though not quite to the stroke of midnight, I had to give up last night, even though it meant trying to remember everything once again in the morning.

It is likely time to pull out the old yellow warning sign to post on each name I've entered—tentatively—in my family tree. Having a place to diagram the relationships helps, but snaring any unsuspecting passer-by into thinking that posted entry was correct would be a disservice to fellow researchers. But sometimes, finding the facts can take time, yet remembering everything found without a work space can be a challenge.

So far, I've outlined the proposed generations of Job's daughter-in-law, William Tison's first wife Mary Ellis Hardee, back to her ancestor John Hardee, who married someone named Susannah Tyson. Next will be to find adequate documentation to verify the stories handed down through those typewritten genealogies of past generations of the Hardee and Tyson families. There are several resources yet to consult, leading down a twisted and tedious trail, indeed.

When Two Families Collide

 

It was at a local genealogical society meeting when, just for fun, several of those in attendance pulled out their phones, logged in to the FamilySearch app, and fired up "Relatives Around Me." The goal was to see whether—at least, according to the universal tree at FamilySearch.org—anyone in the meeting room that day was sitting near a distant cousin. You never know when, generations past, two families' ancestral lines might have collided.

It turned out that one woman in the meeting just happened to get a result indicating that she and I were distant cousins. Her ancestor? Someone surnamed Hardee. Mine? My brick wall fourth great-grandfather, Job Tyson. Supposed shared origin for those two? Pitt County, North Carolina.

Now, I know that sometimes the universal tree at FamilySearch.org can contain mistakes. I didn't get too excited about that discovery back then—and even now, I'm struggling to find documentation to cement the connection. But I didn't ignore it, either. My newfound cousin and I have been collaborating, as time permits, to seek out the explanation for how those two lines are related.

But Hardee. And Pitt County. While I'm stuck with that designation of Pitt County, North Carolina, for the origin of my Tyson ancestors, I did remember that Relatives Around Me readout pointed to that other surname, Hardee or Hardy. I kept looking for an explanation that might make sense. This weekend's discovery of a Hardee family history manuscript, a copy of which I found posted at Ancestry.com, reminds me that this is a worthwhile route to re-examine.

Sure enough, pushing the line back far enough—starting from Job Tyson's son William Tison, to William's wife Mary Ellis Hardee—I then continued the Hardee line, according to what was written in the David Hardy manuscript. Mary's father, Thomas Ellis Hardee, was said to have been son of John Hardee and Sarah Ellis.

Following the family line upwards from there two additional generations, the Tyson surname once again popped up in this Hardee manuscript. This time, the manuscript contained a mention of the wife of another John Hardee: he had married someone named Susannah Tyson. The line entry for this couple noted they were in Pitt County, North Carolina.

With that brief outline, I now had another possible connection between the two families. More importantly, the line brought the Hardee family from Camden County in Georgia—not far from where Job Tyson lived in Glynn County, and the same county where the witness to Job's will, another ancestor named Charles McClellan, also lived at that time.

With connections seemingly pointing in the right direction, it was time to check out this assertion with actual documentation, a task on my to-do list for this week. 

Exploring the Back Stories

 

We're halfway through the month, and so far I've been unable to find any solid connection between my fourth great-grandfather Job Tyson and either possible location of his birth. Lacking any further leads—at least until yesterday's discoveries—I decided it was time to explore collateral lines for any sign of the Tyson/Tison back story.

That's essentially what has been happening behind the scenes over the past two weeks: looking for the back story. Since today was time for my biweekly count, I was surprised to see what an impact that effort could make. All during the time I was writing about not finding any documentation to connect Job Tyson to either North or South Carolina—two alternate possibilities for his roots—I've been exploring the ThruLines connections to the Tyson family and building a line of descent for each of those collateral relatives.

What was the result for this two weeks of grunt work? I actually added 263 more documented individuals to my family tree, all from this Tyson line descending from Job and his wife, Sidnah Sheffield. That pushes the tree's total to 41,574. Bringing a family's history down to the present time from a point on the timeline spanning over 225 years can add a lot of names—and I'm nowhere close to being done.

The test results blossoming from holiday DNA tests are now finally hitting my count, as well. I've gained ten more matches at Ancestry DNA, more than my usual one or two for each biweekly stretch. Though it doesn't help my focus for this month's candidate for my Twelve Most Wanted, I also found a Zegarski match to my father's side of the family tree. I'll be watching for more from the Tyson or Tison side of the story as the rest of these holiday tests keep appearing in my results. Likewise for every other company where I've tested.

Meanwhile, though I'm not researching anyone on my in-laws' side of the family, once again that tree grew by one additional name, thanks to follow up work after a phone call from a relative. It's so exciting to see younger members of the family taking interest in the details of their own family history, especially when they, too, are awaiting DNA test results and want to know how they connect to the bigger picture.  

A Detour Through the Sidelines

 

Sometimes, when I'm stumped with a collateral line, I go wandering. This time, still puzzling over the origin of my fourth great-grandfather Job Tyson, I started looking at DNA matches while exploring what became of Job's many children. Yes, I took a detour. Since I couldn't advance the record to Job's parents (or even siblings), I went exploring the sidelines of this Tyson family.

Reviewing the records I had already assembled about the children of Job Tyson and his wife, Sidnah Sheffield, my eye settled on one of their sons, William. There, I spotted one detail which stopped me: William had married a woman whose maiden name was Hardee.

That Hardee surname, I had learned when I first decided to make this Tyson project my Twelve Most Wanted focus for February, was the surname which my newly-discovered kazillionth cousin—thanks to FamilySearch's Relatives Around Me—had focused on. She was a Hardee descendant, and she knew exactly where, deep within their history, the family had once lived: in Pitt County, North Carolina, the same location where I simply cannot place our Job Tison.

Nearly holding my breath, I tried to draw up a quick and dirty sketch of that family line. Starting from William Tison, himself, his declaration for a passport provided his date and location of birth: August 6, 1812 in Glynn County, Georgia. I had already recorded that William had been married twice. As often happened in that time period, his first wife had apparently died young before 1850, making discovery of her family blurred in that time period of invisible women. However, as I spotted in a summary publication of D.A.R. members, this woman's surname was Hardee.

Hardee? In Georgia? How might she fit into the larger picture, and explain Job Tison's connection with the Hardee line—not to mention, tie him back in North Carolina? This woman, Mary Ellis Hardee, was apparently daughter of Thomas Ellis Hardee and his wife, Mary Ann Berrie.

This, though, was merely from a typewritten genealogy, The Hardy-Hardee Family, compiled by David L. Hardy (according to the source for the Ancestry.com collection from which this was drawn; but possibly David Lyddall Hardee, as noted in this manuscript collection). And how often we find errors in such collections.

No matter. Any published or unpublished genealogy can serve as a trailblazer, helping to find otherwise hidden details, if we only take a disciplined approach to verifying—or rejecting with support—the assertions made in the manuscript. That, in fact, is what I'll be doing next week, seeing what assertions can be corroborated in this case with actual documentation. If the genealogy turns out to be accurate, perhaps it will lead us to an explanation of just how our Job Tison was said to have originated in Pitt County, North Carolina, after all.

Catch Them if you Can

 

Perhaps this is just my unlucky day. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of my missing ancestor, Job Tyson, back in what was supposed to be his old stomping grounds. The tip was that he might have been seen in the old Beaufort District of South Carolina, since my attempt at snagging him in Pitt County, North Carolina, had left me empty-handed.

Granted, that last sighting would have been sometime between 1790 and the early years of the 1800s, when Job Tyson settled down in Glynn County, Georgia. But even though I could find mention of someone by that name in North Carolina, the dates and circumstances just didn't line up. I had to follow the lead of some clues, no matter how weak they might have been. When it comes to chasing brick wall ancestors, you try to catch them—wherever—if you can.

First, I tried searching for Job Tyson in Beaufort District, South Carolina. I selected as wide a date range as possible, just in case he needed to return home to clear up any legal business, long after his departure for Georgia. Though I performed my search on the FamilySearch Full Text Search, I found no results.

Yes, I also needed to try my search using the alternate spelling for his surname: Tison. Again, no results.

Then, remembering the disjointed history of the Beaufort District—first it was, then it wasn't, a geopolitical division—I tried changing the label on the specific location to see if I could get any better results. According to one website, the designation of the Beaufort District—actually, all Districts in South Carolina—was abolished in 1800, and replaced by its four underlying counties: Granville, Hilton, Lincoln, and Shrewsbury. 

Back to the Full Text Search I went, this time searching for Job Tyson—or Tison—using each of the four new county designations, just in case. Nothing.

As a last-ditch effort, I also tried searching in each of those South Carolina locations for Charles McClellan, who eventually became a witness to Job Tyson's will in Georgia. Again, nothing.

My only consolation could be that not everyone faithfully remains in the same location for over ten years, so as to ensure their appearance in the subsequent decennial census enumeration. Perhaps our Job Tyson was one of those people, continually on the road until he finally found a place he could call home.

Ancestor Fatigue

 

It's been back to Pitt County, North Carolina, to put FamilySearch's Full Text Search through its paces. Entering my fourth great-grandfather's surname there by each of the two spelling variants—Tison and Tyson—I had plenty of documentation to consider. It looked like Pitt County might be tipping the genealogical scales in its favor with all the records this search for Job Tyson was providing. 

No matter how convenient it might be that FamilySearch's Full Text Search not only highlights my search terms but provides a transcription of the sometimes difficult to read handwriting, reading through court records of any time period can become wearying. In addition, with the Tyson family doing no differently than any affluent southern family of that time period in the 1700s by dealing in enslaved persons, there were several deeds entailing the trading of specific, named human beings. I was reaching ancestor fatigue in my search for Job Tyson's origin.

Then came two documents which were worthy of further consideration. One was an indenture drawn up on February 4, 1790—the same year in which we had found Job Tison listed in the census in South Carolina. The indenture named the two parties: John Tyson of Lincoln in North Carolina, and Job Tison in Pitt County, where the document was recorded. The purpose of the document was to record the exchange of property from John to Job for land on the north side of Black Swamp, for which Job paid what looked like 250 "Spanish mill'd dollars." 

The record noted that the land was originally patented by a man named John May on October 8, 1754, and apparently willed to his daughter, Elizabeth May. While the indenture was drawn up in February, the record noted that it was signed "in April Court" in 1790.

This caught my attention because 1790 was supposedly the year in which Job Tison married Sidnah, daughter of West Sheffield. Perhaps it was time to make arrangements to set up housekeeping.

A second document was of even more interest. Dated November 19, 1785, once again in Pitt County, this record was initiated by John Tison, with his residence this time listed as Pitt County. The record began, "for natural love and affection I have unto my grandson John Tison, son of Job Tison...." 

This line had my attention. Was this John Tison the answer to my research question for this month?

The record went on to detail a specific tract of land, lying on the east side of Black Swamp, originally patented to a Thomas Tison in 1738. The document also mentioned a second tract of land, granted to John Tison by "the Earl Granville."

This record, though drawn up toward the end of 1785, was presented in January Court in 1786. The names of two witnesses also caught my eye: Frederick Tison and Benjamin May. I was beginning to wonder whether names of the Tison collateral lines were unfolding before my eyes with these two documents.

But wait a minute. I had to think this thing over a bit. Maybe this ancestor fatigue was getting to me. It might have been great to discover a record which mentioned Job Tison, the very ancestor I've been looking for, but was it my Job Tison?

Hauling my mind back to reality, I looked up records I already had for Job Tison. Question number one: did my Job Tison have a son named John? And question number two: was he alive by 1786?

While my Job Tison did indeed have a son named John—John Mason Berrien Tison—he was born long after that record was drawn up in court in Pitt County, North Carolina. Indeed, if Job and Sidnah were married about 1790, there would not have been any children of this couple as early as 1785, let alone a grandson old enough to gain his grandfather's favor. 

While these two documents, to bleary, search-wearied eyes, may have seemed tempting, they simply do not work with the scenario already unfolding for the family of the Tison man who spend his adult life in Glynn County, Georgia. Perhaps a better approach would be to repeat the same exercise, only this time focus on the Beaufort District in South Carolina.

Juggling and Genealogy

 

Genealogy can be a juggling act, and my current obsession with the roots of Job Tyson has put me squarely in that category. I've been searching for my fourth great-grandfather's parents and birthplace, bouncing back and forth between several resources. Behind the scenes, I'm still grinding my way through a long list of DNA matches from the Tyson line. I've tapped the supercharged capabilities of FamilySearch's Full Text Search to find legal records. And I've relinquished hopes of finding Job, as supposed by others, in Pitt County, North Carolina and I've begun looking elsewhere.

I've also been hopping between online genealogy resources. And that's where I discovered something: depending on deciphering capabilities, one company's search engine might not snag the same details from handwritten documents as another company might.

Case in point (conveniently for me, involving our Job Tyson's story): the 1790 census. As you likely presumed, any forms used by enumerators for the first-ever United States census had to be hand-drawn as well as completed by hand. So searching for details on what information was included in such a tally might make the example from the National Archives seem deceiving. You'd have to scroll to the bottom of the census form posted on their website to read, "The U.S. Government did not furnish uniform printed schedules until 1830."

More pertinent to our situation was this information provided on the FamilySearch blog, stating the main categories covered in the nation's first population survey. The most glaring detail was the very length of the list: only six categories. Put simply, the 1790 census sought to gather data on who was eligible for military duty, should the need arise again. Questions included:

• Name of head of household
• Household's count of free white males 16 years of age or older
• Household's free white males under 16
• Household's free white females
• Any other free persons in the household
• Number of enslaved persons in the household

Of course, one of the hazards of preserving historic content over the centuries has been to keep it preserved, no matter how long it has been in existence. Every family historian has encountered those groan-worthy moments when we discover that some records simply haven't made it through the ravages of time.

Such has been the case with the 1790 census with returns of some states, some of which the United States Census Bureau has noted were destroyed by fires during the War of 1812. Happily, two states of interest in our pursuit of Job Tyson were not among those listed as lost by the Census Bureau.

One of those states, of course, was North Carolina, where some researchers had posited that Job Tyson once lived in Pitt County. And while I've found mention of many men with that surname—or its variant spelling, Tison—in Pitt County records, I've recently been exploring records from a second state: South Carolina.

Remembering last week's exploration of the friends and associates of Job Tison in his later years when he lived and died in Glynn County, Georgia, I'm just now beginning to connect the dots between Job and a man whose name had appeared on the Tison will, Charles McClellan. While my McClellan line also has me stumped as to their origins, I have verified that this was the Charles McClellan who was in my direct line. And I can see that there was a good possibility that the McClellans once lived in South Carolina. Might they have met up with Job at that location before they all moved to Georgia?

While I was unable to find Job Tyson in the 1790 census when I searched for him at Ancestry.com, checking FamilySearch.org yielded a surprising result: there was a Job Tison listed in the Beaufort District of South Carolina. That was the same location I've seen attributed to my McClellan line, as well.

The census entries seemed to be roughly alphabetized, and just a few lines below Job's entry was another Tison entry for someone named Aaron. Both heads of household had the same numerical entries listed next to their name: one male sixteen or over, one female member of the household, and one enslaved person. Whether Job and Aaron were brothers or cousins, I don't yet know, but at least this gives me some guidance as to where else to seek my Tyson line in those earlier years. I now have another category to add to my genealogy juggling act. 

Image above: 1790 U.S. Census entry for two Tison households in Beaufort District, South Carolina, courtesy of FamilySearch.org.

How Young is "Young"?

 

I confess: I'm getting impatient with Job Tyson's descendants. As I go, relative by relative through my Tyson DNA matches, I am not finding any who can shed light on Job's own origin. I even got impatient enough to try tracing his father-in-law's DNA matches, since West Sheffield was also said to have originated in the same colony as Job: North Carolina. When that yielded no guidance, I turned to my last resort: a visit to FamilySearch's Full Text Search to find any sign of Job Tyson—or Tison—in Pitt County, North Carolina.

Whether you consider the result of that search a success or not depends on how you might define the term, "young."

My first search result, looking for a Job Tyson in Pitt County, was for a legal notice in a Raleigh newspaper. In fact, that 1808 report seemed helpful in that it spelled out the names of several Tison family members, as such legal battles often do. But was it my Job Tison? I couldn't be sure, so I kept looking.

Eventually the Full Text Search results pointed me to an old history book, Henry T. King's 1911 work, Sketches of Pitt County. The book explained that "Deserters and Royalists who were too active" were often confined to local jails. Such was the case with the Pitt County jail. At that point, I ran into a curious entry:

Job Tyson, a young man, who had enlisted, after the fall of Charlestown, for the defense of the State, accepted a parole from Lord Cornwallis, when he passed through. Becoming uneasy for his safety, he fled to South Carolina, and not knowing, could not avail himself of the proclamations of conditional pardon. Having never taken up arms against the State, when he returned many of the most prominent citizens of the county petitioned Governor Burke for his pardon, which was no doubt granted. 

Was that our Job Tison? I had to look further.

Full Text Search had me covered. There was another entry among my search results. In volume sixteen of the transcribed State Records of North Carolina, was a legal entry. Addressed to His Excellency, Thomas Burke, Governor of the State of North Carolina, the petition read,

The inhabitants of Pitt County humbly sheweth: That Mr. Job Tyson having taken a parole from Lord Cornwallis...and hath not acted an inimical part against it, so far as to take up arms, but he being young and apprehensive, that his conduct was sufficient to bring him to severe punishment, left this State and went into South Carolina so that he being ignorant of the several proclamations offered to delinquents could not avail himself thereof. 

The petition went on to defend this Job Tyson as someone who had "taken up an active part in defense of this State...when the British first reduced Charlestown." Besides, the petitioners continued, since this Job was "a person intirely [sic] young," if the governor were to accept him back into the fold, the petitioners assured him that Job Tyson would "become a useful member of Society."

Hmmm...the fall of Charlestown? When might that have happened? I had to look that one up. The siege, it turned out, began on March 29, and lasted through May 12, 1780. The petition itself was drawn up in 1782.

Though the petitioners kept stressing the fact that this Job Tyson was "intirely" young and "apprehensive," I wouldn't have thought they were referring to a mere boy. Admittedly, I haven't found any documentation of Job's birthdate, let alone his place of birth. However, several women who applied for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution who were descendants of Job and his wife Sidnah (whose father was a Patriot) have given his year of birth as 1770.

If that 1770 date were correct, that would put our Job into those petitioners' scenario as a ten year old boy, "intirely" young, indeed. While the connection with Pitt County, and even his escape to South Carolina, may be tempting details to fold into our narrative, I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that apprehensive Job Tyson as my ancestor quite yet. 

Onward to search for more documentation. 

 

When Friends Become Family

 

While conducting a search for the friends, associates, and neighbors of a brick wall ancestor may seem rigorous, the effort doesn't seem so daunting when you realize some members of a "F.A.N. Club" eventually become family. As we explore the Georgia men behind the names appearing in Job Tyson's will—and then in the will of West Sheffield—we'll find additional intermingling with that one surname appearing in the Tyson legal documents: McClellan.

Two McClellan men in 1824 witnessed Job Tyson's will. One, whose identity I don't yet know, was named Joseph McClellan—the same name, albeit not the same middle initial, as the McClellan mentioned in West Sheffield's own will. Later in that same year of 1824, Joseph personally appeared in court in Glynn County, Georgia, to confirm that the document in question was indeed the last will of Job Tyson.

The other McClellan man whose signature was affixed to the Tyson will was Charles McClellan, who eventually became father-in-law of Job's daughter Sidnah. Charles thus was my fourth great-grandfather, whose McClellan line has been a focus of my research for years. Researching the extended McClellan family line meant discovering that Charles had a brother, Andrew, who also seemed to move in tandem with Charles over the years, helping to track them back to their supposed origin.

While it is frankly possible to be misled by reporting parties of centuries long gone, all we can do is work to corroborate the reports we find. In the McClellan case, any hopes of finding the brothers in the same pre-Georgia locations as Job Tyson were dashed. When we fast-forward to the 1850 census for the first chance to view such information, Sidnah's husband George McClellan reported his birthplace to be in South Carolina, not the North Carolina location attributed by reports to Job Tyson.

In fact, I was able to find entries in the 1800 census for two households—one for George's father Charles, the other for Charles' brother Andrew—in the Orangeburg District of South Carolina. It took a lot of exploring to find anyone related to this F.A.N. club who was connected to a North Carolina origin. That family was headed by Jacob Highsmith, who was father-in-law of Andrew McClellan. Andrew's wife Sarah was said to have been born in Pitt County, North Carolina. Indeed, turning to the 1800 census for Pitt County, there was Sarah's father Jacob Highsmith heading the top of this page in the record.

Since we're now in the neighborhood, I couldn't help but take a look at the Tison entries there. Sure enough, there were plenty of Tisons in Pitt County in 1800, including that one I had previously mentioned, for "Joab" Tison. Same as our Job? Hard to tell at this point. I'd still like to find more details on Job's origin before presuming we have found our answer.

Friends, Associates, and Matchmakers

 

What better way to determine an ancestor's origin than to discover where he met his future spouse? If puzzling over just how Job Tyson first met the good friends who witnessed his will didn't provide us any guidance, there are others in the Tyson "F.A.N. Club"—friends, associates, and neighbors—who could still help point the way for us. Perhaps they even played the role of matchmakers.

One of those other F.A.N. Club possibilities was a man named West Sheffield, father of Sidnah Sheffield, who eventually became Job Tyson's wife. Fortunately for us in this exploration, unlike Sidnah who, like most women of the early 1800s, was virtually invisible, her father West Sheffield left a paper trail of useful documents.

Since West Sheffield served in the American Revolution, there are some records concerning key points of his life. He was, for instance, recipient of both land grants for his service in the war, as well as headrights for land in Camden County, Georgia as early as 1812. While Camden County was near Job Tyson's Georgia residence in Glynn County, Job's marriage to West Sheffield's daughter about 1790 may have indicated that the two families met elsewhere, as so far, I have found no records of residence in Georgia before that early 1800s date.

Job Tyson's wife outlived him by over twenty years. Fortunately for us, Sidnah lived until 1855, leaving us a trace of her reported earlier whereabouts through her entry in the 1850 census. To find that, though, means learning that after Job's death, Sidnah quickly remarried. Thus in 1850, by then twice-widowed, Sidnah, now surnamed Peck, was living in her own household next door to her son John Tison. She reported for herself her birthplace in—wait for it—North Carolina.

The question, of course, would be whether Sidnah met her intended, Job Tyson, back in her native state, or somewhere else. Keeping in mind that her father West Sheffield was a Patriot, I checked for his record through the D.A.R. website. There, his record stated that while he served from Georgia, he was born in North Carolina in 1747. Indeed, looking at a published biographical sketch of West Sheffield, obtained from volume 3 of Folks Huxford's Pioneers of Wiregrass Georgia, the writer gave Sidnah's year of birth as 1776. Was the Sheffield family living in North Carolina then, if her father served in Georgia?

By the time of Sidnah's wedding, it's unclear where her family was located. I have so far been unable to locate a marriage record. Still, if we fast-forward to the 1850 census for each of her oldest three daughters, they were reported to have been born in the earliest years of the 1800s in Georgia, not in North Carolina.

With that possibility exhausted of finding any link to tie Job Tyson back to his parents' home in any location other than Georgia, there is one more lead to explore for this examination of the Tyson F.A.N. Club. When I reviewed West Sheffield's own will, I noticed a familiar name pop up among the witnesses: McClellan. That, as I had mentioned yesterday, was a surname appearing twice in Job Tyson's own will—first for witness Charles McClellan, and then another entry for someone listed originally as "J. H." McClellan, and then spelled out as Joseph H. McClellan.

Looking now at West Sheffield's own will from 1830, someone listed as "J. A." McClellan, then signed as Joseph McClellan, once again made an appearance. Could this Joseph be the same as the witness in the Tyson will? If so, we need to see what we can find about the origin of those McClellans. 

With a "y" or an "i"

 

Those of us who have been researching our family's history for any time have realized how casually spelling has been treated over the centuries. While today's generations may be quite particular about whether everyone spells their given name with a "y" or an "i," clerks in past centuries spelled a surname as they saw fit, not necessarily as the subject of the document preferred.

Thus, when I first began researching my fourth great-grandfather, I discovered that the Georgia record keepers in Glynn County chose to spell his surname as Tyson. That was in 1820, but even the time-faded page made clear that Job's surname was Tyson.

Since then, compiling the few documents I could find on that ancestor revealed that his name might also be spelled Tison, as was shown in records of the long and drawn out settlement of Job's estate. By that point, though, I had already posted articles about my research of this family using the keyword prompted by my first discovery—spelling the surname as Tyson—so that set my path on the blog. But for research? Every step became a double approach, looking for each of two spellings—or inserting the handy wildcard symbol when using search engines which offered that option.

Once having set my mind to being open to such spelling variations, perhaps I chose a more liberal path than I should have followed, for when I finally found a record tying my Job Tison to his supposed roots in Pitt County, North Carolina, I just figured the record for "Joab" Tyson in the 1790 census would simply be one more example of my spelling predicament. I assumed this was someone's best attempt at phonetic spelling of a less common given name.

Having thought this over, once I decided to work on Job's puzzle for this month's Twelve Most Wanted, I realized a possible error. While people today might assume that Joab could be an alternate and phonetic variation on the name Job, its biblical source shows us that those were two different names with different pronunciations. Job, the name of the long-suffering ancient man of the Old Testament, was a name pronounced with a long "o" sound, not a short "o" for the word referring to one's work or career. The name Joab, another biblical name, was actually pronounced with two syllables, Jo - ab.

Yes, I already knew that. I just got caught up in the spelling conundrum and made an assumption. Of course the biblical characters Job and Joab were two separate individuals with different names. But that was then, and now I was working on records from the eighteenth century.

That realization now had me left with not one document at all which could connect Job Tison to North Carolina. Perhaps, I thought, a detour down a different document trail might lead me to a more helpful vantage point for finding Job's origin, whether it was in North Carolina or elsewhere. I decided to take a second look at the friends, associates, and neighbors for my Tison family in Glynn County, Georgia, to see whether any clues could be found to point the way backwards in time for this Tison family.

What Got it all Started

 

When, at the beginning of each year, I outline my research plan for breaking through ancestral brick walls, I usually take a look at where, in my family tree, I'm currently stuck. No matter how much research I tackle, there's always some place where I'm stumped about ancestors. At the end of each year, twelve of those sticking points become my research plan's Twelve Most Wanted for the subsequent year.

That wasn't exactly how it worked for February's plan this year. My goal to research Job Tison of Glynn County, Georgia, came rather from a spark of inspiration. I shared that story, back in December when I was outlining my Twelve Most Wanted for 2026.

To give you a quick recap, last fall during a local genealogical society meeting, I had asked all our members, friends, and visitors to pull out their phones and launch the "Relatives Around Me" function from the FamilySearch.org app. Just taking a few minutes to do that in the midst of such a meeting is an instant guarantee of launching multiple sets of attendees abuzz in conversation. 

One new member at the meeting came up to me, surprised that we were listed as seventh cousins, twice removed. Only a genealogist would even understand what that response meant.

Curious, I inquired which family line connected us. It was the family which included my fourth great-grandfather, Job Tison. When that happened last October, I already knew that Job Tison had been one of my brick wall ancestors. I had seen that other people stated his roots were back in Pitt County, North Carolina, but I couldn't find any documentation to tie Job Tison to both locations.

Since that day, my new-found cousin and I—and our two laptop computers—got together at a local coffee shop for a jam session on locating Tison records. That prompted her to exclaim how much she enjoyed the collaborative effort, and how she wished our group could do something like that more often.

That exchange with my fellow genealogical society member last October not only inspired me to schedule Job Tison as one of my research projects for this year, but to devise a way to gather together with others to collectively research our brick wall ancestors. That became the inspiration for a class series I and a co-instructor will facilitate later this month at a local community college.

In the meantime, the most encouraging outcome of that exchange was that my friend confirmed her family's connection back east to—yep, you guessed it—Pitt County, North Carolina. Her family didn't move on to Georgia, as my Job Tison had, but remained in North Carolina for generations after that. 

While such discoveries through "Relatives Around Me" should include a cautionary tale regarding verifying connections through documentation, the discovery of a possible nexus centered in Pitt County has encouraged me to pick up the search once again. There is definitely something to be said for the generating encouragement of collaborative effort. Sometimes, we need that encouragement to pick back up and keep going.

. . . but Where Did he Come From?

 

There are some ancestors we trace for whom we can find all sorts of data about their adult life: their family, friends, business associates, neighbors. When it comes to the early years of that ancestor's life, though, there may be a blank slate. Nothing. For ancestors like that, though I'm pleased with the ample details that can be found about their later life, I'm still left with a vacuum that begs for an answer. Yeah, I know all sorts of details about his later life—but where did that ancestor come from?

That's the question I'll be grappling with during February, when it comes to researching one of my fourth great-grandfathers, a man named Job Tison. I can find plenty about his later life, that he moved to Glynn County, Georgia, and opened up a wayside inn on a major route of travel and business. I can find that Job Tison died in 1824, but it took over thirty more years to completely settle his estate. I can find details and documents about almost all of his children, and even his wife, despite her life spanning an era in which women were virtually invisible. But to connect Job Tison back to his supposed home in Pitt County, North Carolina, I'm lacking in signs of a reliable paper trail.

I had tackled this question about Job Tison as one of my Twelve Most Wanted, back in 2022—unfortunately during the same month as I got hit with a miserable case of Covid. Despite being stuck flat on my back for over two weeks then, I managed to write my customary wrap up post, complete with suggestions for what to do the next time I tackled this ancestor's story, and an addendum to remind me that I might have not one but two different Tison lines to trace in my family's history.

For this month, we'll reach out to several resources to trace the life of Job Tison backwards from his death in Glynn County, Georgia, in 1824 towards the earliest years of his life in the 1770s in what was then colonial North Carolina. Hopefully, the technology advances we've gained since I last tackled these questions about Job Tison in 2022 will augment this year's effort. 

There is one more spark that inspired me to return to the question about Job Tison's roots, a story I've enjoyed sharing since its occurrence last fall, one which I will share with you tomorrow.

The Stated Goal — And Then Some

 

Work on last month's research plan got me thinking it was a productive month. Now that it's time for my biweekly count, we'll get to see just how busy that month actually was.

Truth be told, I wasn't solely working on my stated goal for the first of my Twelve Most Wanted in January; I had some side projects also clamoring for attention. Thanks to some open-ended questions from last year when I muddled over my father's Polish ancestry, I've still been working on all my Zegarski connections from Czarnylas in Pomerania. That is mostly due to a collaboration with a distant DNA cousin who is also pursuing those Zegarski roots.

Another side project has been thanks to a recent phone call from my husband's niece, who had several questions about specific family lines. A long talk—and an invitation sent for her to view my in-laws' family tree for herself—prompting me to revisit that work, myself. I just couldn't help myself; I ended up adding a few more details to that tree, resulting in an increased count for my in-laws' tree, despite that project not being scheduled until this spring.

The main focus in January, though, has been in building out the family line of my fifth great-grandfather, John Carter of Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Granted, as I build out those lines to the present time, some branches extend towards sixth and seventh great-grandchildren for those families whose generations aren't quite so long as my own branch has tended to be.

While that is a work still in progress—and will be for a long time to come—the numbers are encouraging. The Carter branch stretched to take in 274 additional descendants of John Carter and his (likely) three wives. My tree now has a total of 41,311 documented individuals included.

On the other side of the equation, my in-laws' tree—which should have stayed stock still until April—gained an additional fifteen people, just from that one unexpected conversation with a niece. That tree now contains documentation for 41,752 family members.

Yet to come will be the impact from another joyful announcement, this time from my own niece, who just texted me the news that her application for membership to the Mayflower Society has been accepted. Time to get busy and put in an application on my own behalf—which, of course, will find me adding more collateral lines for that branch of the family, as well.

The main focus for this new month, however, will be to stick with my plan for the second of my Twelve Most Wanted for 2026. This month's research direction came through a delightful in-person discovery at our own local society meeting last fall, leading to some conversations which inspired my decision to do more in-person classes and events for our local genealogy scene. We'll talk about that tomorrow, as I introduce my brick wall ancestor from colonial North Carolina, Job Tison. 

Keeping an Eye on Elijah

 

If my suspected third great-grandfather William Laws had lived next door to a man with the same surname who was aged over twenty years older, I'd say it might be a safe bet to assume the two were father and son. Risky, I know, since I don't yet have any documentation to show for my guess—but that means it's time to go looking for any such records.

While the two men lived in Yancey County, North Carolina, during the enumeration of the 1850 census, taking my question to FamilySearch Labs Full Text search with those details did not produce much helpful information. I tried linking the two names together, but while there were several hits for my query, none of them produced records in Yancey County.

Remembering the shifting borders of ever-evolving counties in the 1800s, I checked for history on Yancey County's formation. The county, it turns out, was created in 1833. If William himself was forty eight at the time of the 1850 census, I reasoned that there was plenty of time beforehand for William and Elijah to show up in records prior to 1833.

Based on that, my next step was to check what county or counties gave up territory that resulted in the newly-formed Yancey County: Burke County and Buncombe County. Back to the FamilySearch Labs to check for any records in either of those counties—nothing for Burke County, and in Buncombe, one sole mention of an Elijah Laws in the land description for a grant dated 1819. Signs of our Elijah? Hard to say at this point.

While there were no other mentions of Elijah Laws in those two counties, there were several mentions of an Elijah Laws in Wilkes County, including a summons to appear as a witness at the county courthouse in 1805. While Wilkes County was not exactly adjacent to the future Yancey County, it was nearby in the western portion of the state.

More to my purpose, though, was how reminiscent this find was of the results of my searches for William Laws, supposedly Elijah's son, in which William's own sons seemed to be always just one step ahead of local law enforcement before they finally slipped over the line into Tennessee.

With the end of January coming quickly to a close—and thus my time to tackle this research question any further—I'll add this to my ongoing to-do list for further research in a future year. Perhaps by then, more documents will be digitized, making it somewhat easier to locate the right Elijah Laws to determine if he and William Laws were indeed related—and how.