Supposed Siblings and Their Possible Patriarch

 

I confess: I cheated. This wearying search for possible siblings and parents of my mother-in-law's brick wall ancestor Lydia Miller has nigh worn me out. So when I spotted an Ancestry hint that perhaps Lydia's possible sibling Jonathan Miller was son of a man named Henry Miller, I decided to check it out. 

Since Jonathan was said to have been born in Pennsylvania—at least, according to his Find-A-Grave entry—it made sense to look for such a father both in Jonathan's home in Perry County, Ohio, and for his supposed home town back in Pennsylvania.

Checking the 1830 census in Perry County, Ohio, however, led me nowhere. That was the first census in which Jonathan had appeared in Ohio after his 1824 marriage to Catharine Dupler, but the significant number of Miller residents in 1830 in Perry County told me the search might be challenging. Besides, the lone Henry Miller in Perry County that year, himself a man under forty, turned out to be far too young to have been father of Jonathan, himself born in 1802.

The suggestion at Ancestry, however, was to check out a Henry Miller still residing in Pennsylvania. While on its surface, a card transcribed from Mennonite Church records, offered up as documentation of Henry Miller by Ancestry hints, seemed plausible as father of Jonathan—and thus, possibly, of our brick wall ancestry Lydia Miller.

Plausible, that is, until a closer look revealed that that Henry Miller couldn't possibly have been father of Lydia. If Lydia's own burial record contained the correct age, her date of birth would have been in 1820. Pennsylvania Henry, according to the card gleaned from Mennonite records, had died by 1812. Indeed, one Henry Miller, dying intestate in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, became subject of a court appointment of administrators late in that same year.

While this Henry might well have been father of Jonathan Miller, he certainly couldn't have filled those same shoes for Lydia. It's back to the drawing board for another hypothesis on just who Lydia's father might have been.

Not Least, and Certainly Not Last

 

The end of the month means time to wrap up April's Jackson project. One final item on the month's agenda is to mention what's been found on one remaining child among the thirteen Jackson children of Lyman and Deidama: a daughter they named Rosanna. 

While this is the last mention of the Jackson children, Rosanna was certainly not the last in order of appearance. She, being the first-born, arrived October 9, 1782, according to letters preserved by the family and recorded in The Family History of Michael Jackson. According to that genealogy, we also learn that Rosanna was married twice: first to someone named John Rudd, then after his death to Robert Morrell.

Though I had read this at the beginning of this month's project, I had quite a hard time finding any records to verify that information. Granted, I've encountered problems verifying some of the other names in the Jackson book, too, but there usually was some clue to help me piece together a more accurate version of the story. Not so in Rosanna's case.

Rosanna, having been widowed by the loss of John Rudd, remarried, but was said to have lost her second husband within a year of their 1842 marriage, according to the book. However, I was able to find a sixty-eight year old woman named Rosanna living in Erie County, Pennsylvania, with her husband, Robert Morrell, in the 1850 census. Perhaps the book meant to enter his date of death as 1853 instead of 1843.

Checking further on Rosanna, by then surnamed Morrell, I did find a woman by that name in the 1860 census. This time, Robert Morrell was not listed in the household, which was headed by Elmina van Riper, who was herself likely a widow at that point. Seeing the name Michael Jackson in the household listed next to the van Riper home, I'm presuming that Michael was Rosanna's own brother Michael—and Michael the father of Elmina, which helps assure we have located the right family group.

There is far more work that needs to be done to verify all the information on the descendants of the thirteen Jackson children. Since today marks the end of this month's project, such efforts will need to take a back seat as we move on to other projects, but that possibility of finding DNA matches connected to this Jackson line still beckons me to occasionally find a slice of time to tuck in this extra effort. For the most part, the Jackson genealogy served as a helpful trailblazer, and I'd like to complete the process for all the collateral lines listed, and attach documents to the book's assertions.

The book, itself, may have saved much work in pushing the Jackson line back another generation, for it included information on Lyman Jackson's father and grandfather, not to mention his wife's father's Dunham line as well. The work is already laid out for us when we return to work on this Jackson line from my mother-in-law's family—just waiting for the addition of some supporting documentation.

With the start of a new month, tomorrow we'll launch into another of my mother-in-law's brick wall ancestors, Lydia Miller. Last year's exploration of this line opened up much unexpected information, and I'm looking forward to connecting the dots that popped up with that discovery, now that we're moving to the fifth of this year's Twelve Most Wanted. 

Drawing Blanks

 

Following the path of a genealogical trailblazer can be helpful—until that guide ends up drawing blanks. In the case of the youngest child in Lyman and Deidama Dunham Jackson's family, that is indeed what happened when we look to their youngest child. 

Using the 1906 book, The Family History of Michael Jackson, we have so far traced most of the thirteen Jackson children. In many cases, the guidance of researcher Horace Mortimer Jackson has pointed us in the right direction. Perhaps in this final case, as so often happens, the baby of the family got shorted. 

Here's what the book tells us about the thirteenth Jackson child. First of all, her name was Lucy Deidama, garnering her mother's given name as her middle name. The author gives her date of birth as February 6, 1808, and indicates that she eventually married someone named Elisha Alderman.

That is the point in the brief narrative where we start drawing blanks. Of her death, the author provides merely a line "——" for the date. No place is given, not for her death, nor for her birth.

There were, however, several children listed. Of the eight named, however, even there we find a blank: the fifth child, a daughter named Calista, was said to have married "——" Clapp. With a given name like Calista, I thought it might not be that hard to determine the first name of Mr. Clapp—until I realized that husband's last name might not even be correct.

If it hadn't been for that old familiar destination for so many of the Jackson children who decided to leave home in Pennsylvania and move westward, I might not have found any further details to round out that scant history in the Jackson genealogy. But it wasn't long before I realized Lucy's family had left Pennsylvania's Erie County for Knox County in Illinois. Elisha Alderman had decided to follow so many of his Jackson in-laws.

While the 1850 census showed only six of the possible eight Alderman children in Knox County, that was enough of a jumping off place for me to trace the family's lines of descent. I started with the name I thought would be easiest to follow: their son who was listed in the Jackson book with the unusual name of Gilderoy. From that point, I've made it down to the current century with some of that son's descendants.

Granted, that makes one line of at least eight in this uncertain readout of the children of Lyman Jackson's youngest daughter. There is much more to still untangle, especially given the blanks left in that trailblazer's guidebook. But no matter how many blanks the author inserted in his narrative, there are still enough clues to enable a twenty-first century researcher with digitized records access to piece together the full story.

Thankful for the Trailblazers

 

Researching the men among our distant ancestors may be difficult enough, once we move from "modern" times to previous centuries, but turning to the women from those past generations presents even more of a challenge. Perhaps on account of this, I'm thankful for the trailblazers of earlier generations who thought to write down what they discovered about their family history, both of men and women.

As we move from the youngest of the ten sons of Lyman Jackson and Deidama Dunham to the next child, we step from that world of somewhat documented men to the invisible world of women. In this case, thankfully, we can rely on old family letters and records preserved in one book focused on the descendants of Lyman's father—The Family History of Michael Jackson—to serve as trailblazer for the three remaining Jackson children, daughters all. And more to the point, with the many digitized records available to us online now, we can confirm or reject many of the assertions made in such century-old genealogy tomes.

Following the birth of Norman Landon Jackson, the youngest of Lyman's sons, the next child was the last child to have been born to the couple in New York before the family moved to Erie County, Pennsylvania. This daughter, born on January 17, 1805, the Jacksons named Susannah Samantha.

By 1828, Susannah was a married woman, the wife of Henry Kennedy. Seeing that married surname sparks a question. As the Jackson sons had already demonstrated themselves to marry sisters—the Hendryx sisters for Jackson brothers Michael, David, and Abner—seeing the name Kennedy causes me to wonder whether Susanna's husband was related to the two Kennedy women who married Lyman junior and Royal Jackson. That is a research question I've yet to answer.

By the time we've arrived at researching the life story of the Jacksons' twelfth child, it comes as no surprise that Susannah and her husband Henry showed up in the 1850 census in Knox County, Illinois, destination for several of her Jackson relatives. We've seen that pattern before. And the census narrows the date range for when the Kennedys left their home in Pennsylvania, for their four year old son Byron was born there before the family made the trek westward to Illinois in time for the 1850 census.

Things did not go well for the Kennedy family in Illinois, for not long after their arrival, Susannah was widowed and remarried in Knox County on February 18, 1856. By the time of the 1860 census, Susannah and her son Byron were living in the household of her second husband John Robson, along with two of John's sons from a previous marriage.

Though in Susannah's case, the outline of her children's history in the Jackson genealogy book is sparse, it appears that following the trail provided by the book's author does at least help trace the family yet another generation—though the details need to be brought into clearer focus. This, as with all uses of published genealogy books, is a task for me to complete behind the scenes, but it has already been informative to peek ahead and compare notes with digitized records. Books can certainly point the way, especially when we are working with families whose recorded generations stretch back centuries, but those reports are best coupled with the documentation we can easily access online in our own times.

Sometimes, It Takes Just One

 

This month's project for my Twelve Most Wanted had me thinking I'd be busy all month long, just tracing the many descendants of Lyman Jackson and his wife, Deidama Dunham. After all, not only are we talking about a couple whose lifespans bridged colonial years and a revolution, but progenitors of a family which ultimately resulted in ten sons and three daughters. Unsurprisingly, many of those children followed in their parents' footsteps.

However, arriving at their tenth child, Royal Gilbert Jackson, that pattern didn't remain unbroken. Marrying Sophia Kennedy and setting up their home in Erie County, Pennsylvania, the couple may have had only one child. At first, I wondered if that was the reason why I didn't see any descendants of Royal and Sophia in my husband's DNA matches. Following that line, though, made me realize that sometimes, it can take just one ancestor to result in many descendants.

Tracing Royal's life story has been challenging so far. When I took his name and dates to FamilySearch.org's Full Text Search, little appeared for my effort. It seems Royal Jackson followed his father's example and deeded property rather than utilizing a will. At least that, at first glance, is my conjecture.

According to family histories preserved over the years, Royal and Sophia had one child, a daughter whose name in one history was listed as Emeline. She, in turn, supposedly married someone with the surname Cheeseman. Finding any verification of such a detail, however, was hampered by one problem: Emeline apparently went by two different given names.

Eventually, I found her name by that specific format mentioned in family histories—Emeline Jackson—in the death certificate of a son. Thankfully, this son bore the telltale mark of being his grandfather's namesake, for he was named Royal Cheeseman. This son's father's name, according to his death record, was William Cheeseman.

That confirmation led to the realization that Emeline also went by a different given name which sometimes appeared as Laurena E., and sometimes as Lorine E. What was clear, once all the correct Cheeseman documents were assembled, was that this Jackson descendant, even if she was an only child herself, went on to have several children. Daughters all, except for the couple's one son, Royal Cheeseman, but this only child became a source of many descendants—and, hopefully, a connection leading to additional DNA matches, as well.

Abner 'n' Phosa

 

As we continue pursuing the ten sons and three daughters of Lyman Jackson, we are now up to his seventh son, Abner. And yet again—yes, adding another Lyman to the list—we find one more Jackson descendant who made sure to name one of his own sons after his father. Only in Abner's case, he went above and beyond in borrowing the names of his siblings to round out the namesakes represented by his own family.

Abner Jackson was born in 1795 in the community of Richfield in the then-newly-formed Otsego County, New York. Along with his parents and siblings, he eventually moved to Erie County, Pennsylvania. Marrying Tryphosa Jane Hendryx, sister of his brother Michael's wife Ruth, the couple went on to have a large family of their own.

Perhaps owing to her less common name, Abner's wife often went by the nickname 'Phosa, or 'Phosa Jane. This nickname, in turn, sometimes showed in transcriptions of handwritten records as "Phora."

Abner and 'Phosa remained mostly in western Pennsylvania, though notes preserved from some relatives in family history books mentioned their temporary residence in Ohio. The 1870 census supports that report, showing Abner and "Thosey" living near his namesake son and his family in Columbiana County that year.

It has been fairly straightforward to follow several of Abner and 'Phosa's children through the next two generations. This task, repeated down to our present time, will hopefully inform the ThruLines tool at Ancestry DNA, which currently pinpoints seventy one of my husband's DNA matches as Jackson descendants. Not that seventy one is too small a number for me, but I suspect that count might grow even larger with a little more work on our family tree. Ten sons and three daughters from the late 1700s can result in a far more remarkable pool of descendants than that. 

A Grandson Returns Home

 

The search for the ten sons and three daughters of Lyman Jackson continues, but in this case, it is a grandson, not a son, who returns home to Erie County, Pennsylvania, where Lyman himself had finally settled. Once again, we find our clue from a century-old county history book, but this time, rather than a report from far to the west, the book is a publication from Erie County.

Lysander Jackson, Lyman's grandson, was also son of someone named Lyman. His father, born in 1790,  was his grandfather's namesake, but unlike the senior Lyman, Lysander's father ended up traveling to Wisconsin, where he served as a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

According to his biographical sketch in the 1884 History of Erie County, Pennsylvania, Lysander was born in Erie County in 1823, and remained there—at least for all but two census enumerations—for most of his life. In his early adult years, Lysander apparently moved to Ashtabula County, Ohio, seeking work, but returned home soon afterwards. Married to Elizabeth McKee of his home county in Pennsylvania, he and his wife had only one child, Sarah. Years later, the couple could be found living with his brother-in-law back in Ohio for the 1900 census, but returned again to Pennsylvania before Lysander's death there in 1907.

Thanks once again to the published story of a grandson, we are able to trace the line of another of the senior Lyman Jackson's sons. Despite seeing those sons move far from their home in Pennsylvania, at least two of Lyman's grandsons made sure to keep the family story alive for another generation.

Another Son Stays Home

 

Researching ancestral lines stretching back to colonial times in America can prove challenging. In questioning which of Lyman Jackson's ten sons remained with him in his last residence in Erie County, Pennsylvania, I've found indications that some lines of descent moved westward. So far, I had only found one son who remained with his father in Erie County. But I may have just located another son who chose to stay—or return—home in Erie County.

My quest for this week has been to trace the remaining children of my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather Lyman and his wife Deidama—particularly those who moved westward. My assumption was that all but his son Michael had left Pennsylvania to obtain land elsewhere, especially considering that many of the men in that large family were of an age to have either served in the Revolutionary War, or in the War of 1812 which followed so soon afterwards.

Third child on the list of Lyman's descendants was Ebenezer. Lacking records, it seemed reports had him living—or traveling—both to places westward and residences back where Lyman himself had once lived in upstate New York. While Ebenezer may seem to be a rare choice for a given name in our day, I still needed to ensure that the few places where I spotted that name—Ebenezer Jackson—would not lure me into following a name twin.

However, thanks to a biographical sketch of one of his grandsons, published in 1893, far from the Jackson family's Pennsylvania home in the Biographical Review of Dane County, Wisconsin, Edson B. Jackson chose to include the story of both his father, John Lyman Jackson, and his grandfather, Ebenezer Jackson. Whether these accounts are complete and factually accurate, hopefully documentation will reveal. The task now will be to use this publication as a pathfinder, and see whether records can support this account.

According to this account, apparently after serving in the War of 1812, Ebenezer originally settled in Wyoming County, New York, in a place called Sheldon. Sometime before this, Ebenezer had married a woman from Otsego County named either Betsey Prindle or Pringle. The location of that marriage is not surprising, considering that Ebenezer's father Lyman had been reported in the 1800 census in that same county.

The biographical sketch went on to note that Ebenezer eventually moved to Albion in Erie County, Pennsylvania, "where he lived until he died." Though that comment may seem unhelpful, the sketch did include a date of death—August 7, 1857—providing us a way pointer to help locate a will to confirm the names of the seven children listed in the book.

Admittedly, family history books can often include embellishments, but this sketch has provided enough information to help us trace Ebenezer's family through documentation in those early years and confirm—or correct—what information has already been published.

Seeking Lyman's Other Sons

 

The project to find replacements for a will for Lyman Jackson had its first encouragement when I located a deed transferring property in Erie County, Pennsylvania, his final home. There, I located the record for a property exchange with Michael Jackson, one of Lyman Jackson's ten sons. The search to find any similar documents for Lyman's other sons, however, produced nothing useful.

The search then moved from using FamilySearch.org's AI-assisted Full Text Search to the decidedly low-tech approach of using my own eyeballs to go down the list of Lyman's sons, one by one, to see who else might have stayed in Erie County. 

The answer, arriving just in time with son number nine, was Royal Gilbert Jackson. Born in 1799 and living only until 1842, Royal Jackson may have remained in the last place his father called home, but otherwise, he left a scant record.

Much like the Jackson descendants of that certain ongoing pioneering spirit which we've already found, the rest of Lyman's ten sons and three daughters—those who could be found documented in records—were featured in states other than Pennsylvania. Next week, we'll move on to follow their trails westward.  

No, Not That Michael Jackson

 

There are some names which just catch the eye and make one wonder: is it that one? But in this case, the answer would be no, not that Michael Jackson—though he was his grandfather's namesake.

Then, again, that Jackson family had a habit of reusing favorite names. That, of course, made researching my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather Lyman Jackson's family more challenging. With Lyman himself being son of someone named Michael Jackson, it was predictable that he would name one of his ten sons after his own father. Nor did it keep those ten sons from wanting to echo that same pattern for the next generation.

Suddenly, the need to become wary of name twins escalates, which makes me doubly regret that Lyman Jackson apparently chose an alternate route to the traditional last will and testament. Rather than having one handy document which listed each child by name (hopefully), in Lyman's case, we'll need to scour the deed books of Erie County, Pennsylvania, for mention of any indentures of land prior to his 1835 passing.

That's where Michael Jackson comes in. Apparently in Erie County on May 2, 1825, Lyman and his wife, Deidamia Jackson, for the payment of several hundred dollars from one Michael Jackson, transferred ownership of one specifically identified tract of land. The whole document was witnessed by two additional Jackson sons, David and Royal, and entered into the Erie County deed books on July 27, 1824.

With that one legal transfer, Lyman and his wife cemented the likelihood that at least this one son wouldn't be wandering westward like some of the other Jackson descendants. If that were the case for this one son, perhaps the process might be repeated for other Jackson children, a possibility which I need to research several more times, judging from the robust size of this Jackson family.

Seeking the Ones Who Stayed Behind

 

After discovering that some Jackson descendants followed in their parents' footsteps and continued their pattern of westward migration, I wondered whether anyone stayed behind where Lyman and Deidama Jackson had settled.

My brilliant thought was to pull up the records left behind by Lyman Jackson, my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather, in Erie County, Pennsylvania, where they last lived. The best way to do that, I figured, was to look at FamilySearch.org's Full Text Search.

When I saw the seventy possibilities listed in reply to my inquiry, I assumed some would be more generic results—perhaps something with the name "Jackson" showing alongside "Erie" in the same document.

Not so. It appears that all seventy of those search results merit a closer examination. The only downside: no sign of the will I was hoping to find. Instead, judging by all the deeds listed in the search results, Lyman may have chosen to dispose of his property through other legal means rather than by drawing up a will.

In those seventy results were three or four mentions of Lyman Jackson's name in old history books, themselves becoming possible sources to guide us further in this month's research project. In addition, I found several depositions recorded on behalf of what was likely Deidama's application for pension after her husband's death, as Lyman served in the Revolutionary War. Some apparently contained pertinent information regarding his earlier life, also meriting a closer look as we pursue a fuller story of this ancestor's life.

However, as I sift through those seventy documents this week, I can't lose sight of my original reason for calling up all these legal records from Erie County, Pennsylvania: I want to find Lyman Jackson's will—or at least some pointers to help me locate the subsequent whereabouts of the rest of his thirteen children. Did any of those children stay behind in Pennsylvania? If not, where did they move next? I'm on the lookout for some way pointers.

United, They're Traceable

 

Trying to find ancestors in America prior to the 1850 census can be challenging. Without a listing of all household members by name, individual relatives seem to disappear into the nameless data. When their names reappear in that expanded 1850 record, far from the home where they were born decades prior, we can't always be sure such common names signify the specific ancestor we're seeking.

There is one exception to that predicament, however. While we couldn't necessarily be sure of the right identity, assuming the ancestor had traveled alone, the fact that those who migrated westward in those early years of the 1800s often did so in the company of many others may turn a fruitless search into a more favorable outcome for us researchers. United, those traveling ancestors were often more traceable.

It was a fortunate discovery, while researching the descendants of my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather Lyman Jackson, to find his grandson Royal along with two of his siblings in a census record, long after they had all left their home in Erie County, Pennsylvania. Granted, I wouldn't have spotted that coincidence, had I not taken the time to actually look at the document in question. That little now-habitual exercise has paid off well in research dividends.

Researching those ancestors whose American life story unfolded prior to the 1850 census enumeration can be challenging. As children of pioneers took up their parents' pioneering spirit and continued that westward movement, it could sometimes be challenging to trace each family member. And yet, given the time period, people often moved in clusters—for mutual support, sure, but primarily for safety.

Apparently, when Lyman's grandson Royal began his move westward, he, too, heeded that admonition to travel in numbers. Those numbers—judging from his landing place in Wisconsin in time for the 1850 census—gained names and faces, at least if we can rely on the similarity of his neighbors' names to those of the siblings in his family.

One entry below Royal Jackson's household was that of Charles M. King, whom I already had learned was husband of Royal's oldest sister Rosanna. By the time of the 1850 census, the King household included four sons as well as Royal's sister Rosanna, giving me more names to research as I complete the picture of Lyman Jackson's many descendant lines.

In addition to that discovery was the appearance of another brother on that same census page. Apparently, on his way to Wisconsin, Ebenezer Dunham Jackson had stopped in Summit County, Ohio, to obtain a marriage license to wed Angeline Hine in 1845. By the time this Jackson family was recorded in the 1850 census in the town of Adams in Green County, Wisconsin, the household included three young sons.

While not making much progress in tracing each of these Jackson lines individually, taking time to study the entire page of the census enumeration for just one of them yielded the discovery of two additional siblings. Once again supporting the concept of cluster genealogy, we discover that those pre-1850 American families, when traveling united, are more easily traceable. 

A Path to the Past

 

You know the drill in genealogy: you start with what you know, then move incrementally backwards into the past, seeking documentation to confirm the validity of each step. In this month's case, though, I'll be following that path to the past more slowly than if we'd been on a chase to merely name the ancestors of this month's selection of my Twelve Most Wanted. I already know Lyman Jackson was the father of my mother-in-law's third great-grandfather, John Jay Jackson. And I've already discovered that Michael Jackson, in turn, was Lyman's father.

This month, we'll take the details already found on Lyman Jackson's life and zoom in to see what additional information we can glean on this family. For one thing, Lyman Jackson and his wife, Deidama Dunham, were said to be parents of thirteen children. I don't yet know how many of those Jackson children left descendants of their own, but I'm thinking our DNA account should contain far more than the seventy DNA cousins who have been spotted by Ancestry.com's ThruLines tool up to this point. I'll be busy adding lines of descent—times thirteen—to this couple's family tree.

From what I've already found, Lyman Jackson was buried in 1835 in Albion, a township in Erie County, Pennsylvania. Checking the 1830 census for that same location, there is a listing for the household of one Lyman Jackson, along with entries for the families of his sons, Michael, David, and Royal.

Leaping over ten years to reach the next census, we find Lyman Jackson was still in Erie County, according to the 1820 census. In addition, three of his sons were listed in their own separate households: "J. D." (probably Jesse Dunham Jackson), Michael, and Abner. However, for this decade, the Jackson households were located in Conneaut Township.

Even in the 1810 census, we find Lyman Jackson and his household still located in Erie County, where the population at that time was less than four thousand people.

Rewinding history yet another decade, Lyman and his family were no longer in Pennsylvania for the 1800 census. They had moved the distance of 350 miles to Exeter in Otsego County, New York. At this earlier date, the corresponding entry for one Michael Jackson was likely not Lyman's son, but his father.

Another significant move occurred during the previous decade, for in the 1790 census, Lyman Jackson was showing in the records of the town of Pownal in Vermont. Among the names of heads of households there can be spotted the name of Obadiah Dunham, father of Lyman's wife Deidama.

For a time period in which travel would have been considered difficult at best, this large family managed to navigate at least two significant moves—to say nothing of what brought Lyman from his birthplace in Simsbury, Connecticut, up north to Vermont.

Looking at an itinerary like that just begs me to dig a bit deeper into the story behind each of those moves for the Jackson family.

Some Answers Come Quickly

 

Most months, I begin my search for the designated ancestor from among my Twelve Most Wanted for the year by saying I want to discover that brick wall ancestor's parents. However, I no sooner started work on this month's ancestor than I learned the answer to that question.

The focus for this month, my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather Lyman Jackson, was noted by his entry at the D.A.R. website to have been born in 1756 in Simsbury, Connecticut. In a digitized version at Ancestry.com of the Lucius Barnes Barbour Collection, a multi-volume set of transcriptions of Connecticut vital records, two Jackson entries confirm that location. One is the line item for the February 29 birth of Lyman, son of Michael Jackson; an entry above that is for his brother Jesse, born at the end of 1759.

The last time I had worked on Lyman Jackson as one of my Twelve Most Wanted was almost three years ago in May of 2023. Granted, I had started that month's research by focusing on Lyman's son John Jay Jackson, my mother-in-law's third great-grandfather, who had spent most of his adult years in Ohio after having served in the War of 1812. By the end of that month, I had found John in his father's home and began the effort to push back the generations yet one more time.

This month, I'd like to pick up that chase, but not merely to pursue another generation's names and pertinent dates. For Lyman, this will involve a chase through the newly-formed states in a new country, following this Revolutionary War Patriot and his wife and thirteen children as they moved from New England to upstate New York, and eventually to the western side of Pennsylvania. More importantly, I'd like to zero in on life during that time period, especially in the earlier years of the history of the places the Jacksons once called home, over two hundred years ago.

Time for a Do-Over

 

Welcome to June, when we move on from Lydia Miller's surprise last month to the next ancestor in my Twelve Most Wanted who needs a do-over for 2025. This month, we will be reviewing my mother-in-law's third great-grandfather, Simon Rinehart.

Up until this point, I had assumed that Simon was born in Pennsylvania just before the start of the American Revolution, and that he eventually migrated to Perry County, Ohio. But the more I look over this man's entry in my mother-in-law's family tree, the less I'm certain I have all his information correct.

Prime among the goals is to seek further confirmation of Simon's parents and siblings. I hope to put FamilySearch's Full Text Search through its paces this month in hopes of finding documentation to either confirm the information I already have, or rewrite it entirely. I have my doubts about what I had previously entered on this man, and keeping in mind the surprise discoveries made in last month's ancestor hunt, it would do me well to pay attention to those hunches.

Tomorrow, we'll review what details I already have on Simon Rinehart, then zero in on the information which causes me the most angst. The main goal will be to confirm each assertion with solid sources. As the month progresses, a secondary goal will be to review the one hundred DNA matches my husband shares with Simon's descendants. A glaring clue there also reminds me that not all is correct in that line. With this month, we have our work cut out for us—but it will only be resolved if I can locate sufficient documentation to shed some light on this muddled mess.

Another Unfinished Saga

 

Another month's research project has come to a close, and it's time to wrap up what's been done this April and what needs to be picked up in the future. For now, I'll bid goodbye to another unfinished family saga—this time, for Nicholas Snider and his young family sailing to Pennsylvania from some unknown place in Germany.

What we already knew at the start of the month was that Nicholas Schneider and his wife, Anna Elizabeth Eckhardt had sailed with their young son Jacob from somewhere in Germany. By the time of the 1810 census, their family had grown to six people and they were living in Adams County, Pennsylvania. In the next ten years, somehow Nicholas and his son Jacob had obtained land in Perry County, Ohio, and moved his growing family there.

From that point, Nicholas—now sporting a surname with revised spelling, either Snyder or Snider—appeared in each decennial census through 1850. After that, the final official mention of his name was when his will was presented in court on April 27, 1855.

Nicholas and Anna Elizabeth left multiple descendants—265 of which I've been tracing through DNA matches—but so far no one has led me to verification that would answer my question: where did the Snider family come from? Unfortunately, that answer will have to wait until I revisit this question in a future year.

In the meantime, I can draw up a to-do list of sorts, something to jump start my search, the next time Nicholas is slated as one of my Twelve Most Wanted. The main goal at that point will be to search, page by page—unless those records have been indexed by that point—through the passenger records from Germany in the earliest years of the nineteenth century. Handwritten—and not necessarily done with the aplomb of a church cleric—these records are hard on the eyes, if even legible at all.

Another point I want to develop further: tracing Nicholas Snider's F.A.N. Club in Pennsylvania and the brief moment he brought his family to Maryland before their move to Ohio. On the list for records to garner: tax and land records in Adams County, and—on a wild offshoot—lists of men who served during the war of 1812, when Nicholas was not present for the baptism of his daughter Maria, back at home.

For records to search, I want to familiarize myself with the archival collections in Pennsylvania, a state in which I haven't done much research. While there is much to find on FamilySearch.org, as well as through my subscription at Ancestry.com, there are so many other resources available, both locally and at the state level, that should not be overlooked—especially, I might add, when we are dealing with a brick wall ancestor.

With that to-do list in hand, I'll send off Nicholas Snider and the mystery of his origin and connection to his native Germany, and welcome in a new research project with the beginning of May.

When Even Housework Sounds More Tempting Than Homework

 

Have you ever become so weary of working on a goal that task avoidance sets in and anything else—I mean anything, as in even housework—seems like the better thing to do? I'm afraid that's what has become of my quest to push back just one more generation on my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather, Nicholas Snider.

Just one more generation—how hard can that be? But after pushing through for a full month with this genealogical homework assignment, I'm still wandering in circles. Granted, tackling 265 DNA matches can take up a wee bit of one's time—but right now, I only have eighteen more to go on Conrad's descendants, and he was the youngest of Nicholas Snider's children to match my husband's test. After that, I'll have to tackle the question of just why ThruLines decided to designate one of Nicholas Snider's grandsons as a son, but once I review those fourteen matches, hopefully the reason will become clear.

But trawling through page after page of non-indexed passenger records for the early 1800s? I just couldn't bring myself to do this last-hope task today. That's how spoiled I've become, so used to tapping in a name on my keyboard and seeing just the right page out of hundreds of possibilities appear on my screen.

I admit, I'll eventually haul myself over to the computer, sit down before the screen, and make myself page through the digitized records of early arrivals at the port of Philadelphia—the supposed port of Nicholas Snider's family's arrival. Or I can put that task on my to-do list for the next time I revisit this question about Nicholas Snider's roots. It is a tempting thought.

Not that I'm chomping at the bit to advance even a day earlier to May's candidate for my Twelve Most Wanted. For next month, I'll be tackling someone just as impossible. The question of her identity is only complicated by her untimely death during a period in Ohio history when records—not to mention, population settlements—were sparse. It may be time to practice those F.A.N. Club research techniques once again.

As for Nicholas Snider, hopefully I'll complete the DNA match review by tomorrow. And that will be time to recap what we've found, assess what still needs to be completed, and roll that task forward to another year's Twelve Most Wanted list.

"Nothing to See Here"

 

"Move along now; nothing to see here" may be a cliche from old cop movies, but it might fit quite nicely for an end-of-month predicament with my latest genealogical detective work. I'm not finding anything further on my research goal—immigrant Nicholas Snider—despite persistent effort.

Yes, today I did take the time to trawl through the baptismal records from Conewago Chapel in search of any Sniders—or those many other spelling permutations of the surname—living in Adams County, Pennsylvania, at the same time as my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather Nicholas. Did I find anything of significance? Short answer: no.

Despite the abysmal handwriting which scrawled out the information I was seeking, I managed to find a mere five other couples with the surname Snider (or spelling variations) living in Adams County who also attended the church where Nicholas had his children baptized. One of the baptisms I found was likely too early to have happened while Nicholas and his family were there. Another was too late, since by then Nicholas had moved his family west to Ohio. But there were two baptisms within the time frame which would be just right.

The first entry was a baptism for Joseph "Shneider" on September 24, 1797. Though the handwriting was challenging to read, my best guess is that the parents were Antonii (?) and Catharina. Sponsors for this baby were also Shneiders, but again the handwriting challenged me to guess: Antonius and Carlara (?).

The latest entry was for a son of Francis Snyder and his wife Elizabeth Rhineheart, who was baptized on October 29, 1817. By then, our Nicholas would be heading west, so I didn't expect to see his name listed as godparent. However, the surname of the godparents looked like "Khune"—which I doubt was correct—but certainly not any variation on the name Snider.

But what about the other two baptisms? A Catharina Shneider, baptized on June 4, 1801—again, likely before Nicholas arrived in this country—was the daughter of Peter and Catherine. What encouraged me to dig deeper was the name of the godparents: Martin and Catherine Gossman. Well, I'm assuming that surname was Gossman; it was written with the double "s" style of handwriting prevalent at the time; otherwise it would appear to be Gofman. At any rate, Gossman has been a surname that has intermarried with later generations of Nicholas Snider's descendants, something to follow up on when I revisit this research questions.

The final possibility for baptisms showing other possible kin to our Nicholas would be the January 3, 1816, baptism of Sara Shneider, daughter of John and Elizabeth Reinhard Shneider. This date might be within the timeframe before Nicholas and his family moved away from Adams County, so I was hoping to find something when I read the sponsors' names, but no luck here. The godparents named were John and Apolonia Becher.

Looking again at the godparents' names for Nicholas' own children yielded no clues, either. After these few attempts, I began wishing for the same search capabilities as I've found for the Irish baptismal records I've used in researching my father-in-law's roots. There, it was possible to search for godparents' names as well as the child's name or the parents' names. I'd be curious to see if Nicholas and his wife Anna Elizabeth had been named as godparents for anyone else in the Conewago Chapel records, if for nothing else than to build their F.A.N. Club listings.

Tomorrow will be one more chance to find Nicholas Snider in early records during his first days after arriving in this country from Germany. Whether I can find an actual document containing his name in passenger records, I'm not sure. But we'll give it one more try before we wrap up and move along. 

Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back

 

You just have to be careful if you are building a family tree of people who lived in places like Perry County, Ohio. That's where my mother-in-law grew up, a place where high school students had best produce their family pedigree if the first date night went well—friends could unknowingly be cousins.

Thus, when I rewind my mother-in-law's family tree to the generations before her time, I end up adding spouses who, whoops, turned out to be cousins of some sort. Time to merge identities on that family tree—I already have that spouse's parents listed in a different branch of the family tree.

So it's no surprise, in doing my biweekly count today, to see I hadn't advanced quite as much as I thought I'd have gone, in adding Snider DNA matches to my mother-in-law's tree. It had felt like I had added so many more individuals—until I realized how many identities I had merged. Those branches on the family tree are indeed twisting and turning.

Still, I've added 519 more individuals to my mother-in-law's tree, mainly by verifying the Snider DNA matches I've been working on this month. And that number is certainly plenty for two weeks of work. Her tree now includes 38,371 individuals.

Since this month's research goal for my Twelve Most Wanted was to focus on the family of her second great-grandfather Nicholas Snider, the bulk of the work has been on connecting the 265 DNA matches listed on Ancestry.com's ThruLines tool for this ancestor. It's been a slow slog. But that also precludes any progress on my own family tree, which is holding steady at 40,223 people. It won't be until the mid-autumn when I'll return to working on that tree. I anticipate that my in-laws' tree will bypass that number easily before October gets here.

In the next three days, I'll try to slam-dunk those additional Snider DNA matches, as well as review two historical documents in hopes of building a F.A.N. Club network for Nicholas Snider: passenger records for his supposed arrival from Germany in 1804, and church records from Conewago Chapel in Adams County, Pennsylvania, where some of his children were baptized. After those three brief days of working on this goal, it will be time to pack it up with a summary for the next time I work on this line—and then, move on to my research goal for May.

Happy Belated D N A Day

 

National DNA Day has come and gone, and I didn't even take the time to wish you a happy one this April 25. Some genetic genealogy companies chose to celebrate the occasion by offering sales through the weekend on their testing products. As for me and my house, we opted to celebrate by taking a walk on the beach. No reason in particular, though perhaps being close to the ocean has been bred into my genes. Oh, and my husband did wear a genetic genealogy T-shirt to breakfast at the hotel, a little gift from a long-past conference hosted in Houston by Family Tree DNA.

Right now, the fact that my husband's autosomal DNA test has yielded me over twenty thousand DNA matches to sort through and catalog, I confess I'm in need of a vacation. Granted, the only DNA matches who really count are those hovering around the fourth cousin mark or closer. For those, I struggle with only 1,420 matches—and not all of those are connected to my mother-in-law's lines.

Granted, the 265 DNA matches who are specific descendants of her second great-grandfather Nicholas Snider are the ones concerning me this month. And even though those matches are laid out clearly by Ancestry.com's ThruLines tool—only fifty one more to go!—it can be a slog to run through each name and accurately document that match's relationship.

Now that I'm trying out Ancestry's Pro Tools, that ThruLines project is only the start. Next will be a thorough examination of the shared matches revealed by Pro Tools to see if there are any other clues to dig through on this family's hidden mysteries from generations back. Yet, with only four more days to go in this month, this appears to be a daunting project. And I still don't know much more about Nicholas Snider's roots than I did when I started this month.

There are some months when the selected project from my Twelve Most Wanted for the year reveal the answers I've been seeking. Other months, well, I have to make concluding notes and button up the task for another year's attempt at solving the mystery. Though it is clear that learning more about the local history of Adams County, Pennsylvania, may be enlightening, this may turn out to be a belated situation of more project than month in which to accomplish it.