Clustering Together

 

In looking up documents regarding brick wall ancestors, eventually we get to a point where we start to notice we've been seeing the same names appearing together, time after time. That realization is worth paying attention to, for it is quite typical for people—friends, associates, neighbors, for instance—to cluster together when facing big decisions in life. This, as one might say, could be a clue.

I was ecstatic when I finally broke through the records impasse to discover the parents of my third great-grandfather Thomas Rainey. Following rapidly on that long-awaited discovery was another: Thomas Rainey's mother's name, Sally Firth, appeared in her father's will. Almost instantly, I had a new set of names of collateral lines to research for DNA purposes.

And then I got stuck. Again.

Sally Firth's sister Elizabeth apparently married Randolph Rawlings. The many permutations of her husband's given name prompted me to see what I could find on Elizabeth's husband, regardless of what his name might have been.

That's when I discovered some documents of interest. Maddening in that the main court record actually left blanks where key dates should have been inserted in the first document I discovered, I hung on to it based simply on a hunch. That hunch was that the names listed in the record might signify more of a connection than just any names in a random list.

The record began, "This indenture made the ___ day of ____ Eighteen hundred + one between...."

Then followed a listing of names, somewhat confusing due to lack of commas. Included in the list were:

• Thomas Firth and Nancy his wife
• Randolph Rawlings and Eliza B his wife
• Howell Duggar and Mary his wife
• Isham Rainey and Sally his wife
• Henry Abernathy and Rebeckah his wife

Those listed in that group represented one party in a legal exchange, with someone named William Firth being the second party. For exchange of ninety pounds "lawfull money" the above party released to William Firth a certain tract of land in Brunswick County, Virginia, containing about 125 acres.

This past week, when I had first discovered Rebecca Firth's marriage to Henry Abernethy—the family's  surname was often misspelled in records as Abernathy—I tried tracing the couple's descendants, mainly to help with placing DNA matches.

The Abernethy family was said to have moved from Virginia to Tennessee. Though I had little luck locating the family in other pre-1850 records, one detail I did notice while chasing these Abernethys was the recurrence of the surname Duggar. This was a surname which I couldn't connect with the family, but the frequency of the pairing told me there might be something to the connection that I needed to know.

Since then, I worked on another Firth daughter's line, that of Elizabeth, who we've since discovered became wife of Randolph Rawlings. That couple, too, appeared in this list. Of course, Isham Rainey, father of my third great-grandfather Thomas Rainey, had married another Firth sibling, Sarah, known as Sally Firth. And Thomas Firth, junior, as we discover from this legal document, must have married someone named Nancy.

With all the couples but one containing relatives connected to this same Firth family, could that mean the Duggars were also family members? Could Mary Duggar (in her signature at the bottom of the document showing as Polly) have been a sister of Rebecca, Elizabeth, Sally, and the younger Thomas Firth? If the principle of cluster genealogy holds true, it's worth checking out that possibility. It's time to examine a few more documents.

Given Under our Hands This Day

 

FamilySearch.org's Full Text Search is becoming my new best friend. When it comes to researching those hard-to-find ancestors from centuries past, the best place—sometimes the only place—to find mention of those near-invisible relatives is in court records. Yes, those tedious-to-read, overly wordy, illegible handwritten documents buried in back rooms of courthouses can bring us exactly the details we're seeking on our kin—if we can find the right records. And Full Text Search can zero in on the most reasonable possibilities.

As we wade through flowery phrases like "In the name of God, Amen," that open pages-long documents, or search for concluding statements such as "given under our hands this day," just to uncover the date confirming we've found the right person's record, our exhausted eyes are rewarded by the goldmine we are chasing. Sure, the handwriting may frustrate us, and the length of documents may weary us, but the good news is that we have it so much better than those family historians who went before us. The computerized digitizing process and transcribing AI systems have now made this process possible in a snap.

For this month, that is excellent news for me. Ever since discovering that I could break through my brick wall and find my third great-grandfather Thomas Rainey's parents' names, it's been far easier to continue down this path beyond that brick wall. I've started working on Thomas Rainey's maternal grandparents back in Brunswick County, Virginia, then branched out to their children, Thomas' aunts and uncles on the Firth side of the family.

We've already started work following the descendants of one Firth sister, Rebecca, who married Henry Abernethy. Then, the next attempt was to decipher the name of another sister's husband, supposedly listing Elizabeth Firth's spouse in one document as "Randle" Rawlings.

I took that question about "Randle" to Full Text Search at FamilySearch.org and played with the possibilities. Searching first for "Randle," some spelling alternatives popped up, beginning with "Randal." Pretty soon, another alternative was offered up at Full Text Search: the more reasonable Randolph.

I didn't want to presume that that was the actual name at first, as I didn't want to mislead the search process by jumping to that conclusion. Doing so might have caused me to miss some other possibilities. But with patience, I noticed that Randle and even Randal seemed to lead nowhere, no matter which keywords I combined with those options.

It was easy to eliminate those other options, even though they popped up in actual documents. The more reasonable option, Randolph Rawlings, soon took the lead with a preponderance of search results. And despite missing some key documents I'd like to see—a will, for instance—the documents Full Text Search offered up turned out to paint a useful picture, indeed.

In particular, one document started me on a new research path with its concluding statement, "Given under our hands this 9th day of January 1828." Following Elizabeth Firth Rawlings from that document's date uncovered an entire cluster of possible family members and business associates of her by-then deceased husband Randolph Rawlings—a project to piece together over the next few remaining days of this month's research project.

Clawing Through Another Brick Wall

 

As often happens in genealogy research, one long-awaited breakthrough precipitates others. Whereas before, that brick wall seemed impenetrable, now it becomes a matter of simply clawing our way through the next brick wall. The research is still tedious, but it's no longer at a standstill.

After having discovered the will for my brick wall third great-grandfather Thomas Rainey's maternal grandfather, of course I was elated—until I realized all the work that awaited at this next iteration. For a man whose last testament was signed in 1794—leaving all but one of his daughters still unmarried—slow progress was understandable. Yes, women back then could be nearly invisible, but documentation on anyone was hard to come by.

I did follow the lines of descent for one sibling of my fourth great-grandmother Sally Firth: her sister Rebecca, wife of Henry Abernethy (and conveniently the mother of a widely known Methodist preacher in Alabama). Even so, trying to identify the lesser-known siblings in that family's next generation has been, so far, beyond my reach.

Today, I explored another Firth daughter, at least far enough to discover some documentation on her own marriage. This daughter, "Betsey" in her father's will, was the only one listed there by her married name, Rawlings. Fortunately, a line item in a ledger of Brunswick County, Virginia, marriages showed an "Eliza" Firth marrying someone entered in the record as "Randle" Rawlings. An additional note in the 1784 ledger identified the bride's father as Thomas Firth, to assure us we had found the right one.

Granted, my question at this point is: was that husband's name actually Randle? Or are we once again witnessing some creative record keeping? I'll follow this line as long as I can to see what else might be uncovered from those early American records. In the process, perhaps that, too, will explain some distant cousin DNA matches.