One Small Problem . . .

 

After all the effort, over this past month, to confirm the father of Mary Carroll Gordon, my mother-in-law's third great-grandmother, I'm still left with one nagging thought. It may turn out to be a matter of one small problem, but it is a sticking point, nonetheless: why would a woman who had been dead for over a decade be named as an heir in her father's will?

If that father was indeed the Anthony Carroll of Monongalia County whom we've been studying this past month, he certainly did name someone in his will whom we can presume was our Mary—well, if we assume that the "Polly Gorden" in Anthony's will was nickname for Mary, that is. And I count it as an assuring sign that a hundred year old history book in nearby Preston County, West Virginia, explained that Anthony Carroll was married four times, including to the woman who was listed as mother of a daughter the couple named Mary.

On the bright side, that book—A History of Preston County, West Virginia—also mentioned that Mary Carroll, daughter of Anthony, married a local man by the name of William Gordon, which she did before the couple left Monongalia County for nearby Greene County, Pennsylvania. Another positive indicator was that William and Mary named one of their sons Anthony, presumably after her own father.

However, depending on which account we follow—either the Howard Leckey book, The Tenmile Country and its Pioneer Families, or the headstone pictured at Mary's Find A Grave memorial—Mary died in either 1814 or 1812. Anthony—if he was her father—died in 1830. He drew up his will at the end of the previous August. Surely by that time, he would have gotten word of his daughter's death, wouldn't he?

Knowing how many errors I've been able to spot in the various local history books which were the offerings of a nostalgic previous century, that one thought keeps nagging at me. What if "Polly Gorden" was an entirely different person? Why aren't there other tokens of our Mary's connection to the Carroll family?

I'm beginning to draw up a mental list of documents to look up, once we are all able to get back to traveling and researching family history in person. I may as well commit that list to paper—or at least file it virtually as a future to-do list. I can't quite yet hit the road to visit any repositories in Monongalia County, or even in southwest Pennsylvania, but it wouldn't hurt to prepare for the eventuality that someday, we will be back to researching family history on site where that family once lived. 

But it Couldn't be, Could it?

 

Sometimes, it seems we get so tightly wound around a genealogical research question that it feels as if, while chasing the answer, we are running in circles.

Take this James "Walls" mentioned in Anthony Carroll's 1830 will in Monongalia County. I'm particularly interested in Anthony Carroll because he quite possibly could be father of Mary Carroll Gordon, my mother-in-law's third great-grandmother. It would be helpful to find some documentation tying the two together, but no matter how I try to find more information by snooping through those collateral lines, I still come up short.

The fourth heir mentioned in Anthony Carroll's will as one of his children was someone whose name was given as James Walls. We've already noted that Anthony Carroll's fourth wife—at least, as long as we can believe the report published in a local history book from a nearby county—may have previously been married to a man named Walls, signifying a step-son relationship to Anthony Carroll. However, there is one other possibility to consider.

As intermarried as these families living in frontier Virginia territories might have been, we can't just pass this topic by without considering that James "Walls" might have possessed a surname claimed by several of Anthony Carroll's fellow residents in Monongalia County. I say that, however, not only because there were several members of the Wells family living in the county, but because another Gordon relative actually married someone by that name.

Before we consider that likelihood, let me note that this is why I needed to back-pedal and inspect that timeline of the Carroll family, including Anthony's possible daughter Mary and her marriage to William Gordon. The Gordon family, as it turns out, was a rather large family. William Gordon's parents—John and Mary Duke Gordon—had at least nine children, of which William was sixth, born about 1772.

The eldest of William's many siblings was a daughter named Elizabeth, likely born in 1761. She it was, as we've already discovered, who married Christopher Guseman, the one whose son Godfrey eventually married Anthony Carroll's daughter Margaret.

Elizabeth and Christopher also had a daughter, whom they named Elizabeth. She apparently was married at quite a young age to a man much senior to her by the name of James Wells.

Since this elder James Wells died by 1816, he certainly couldn't be mistaken for the James Walls who appeared without explanation in Anthony Carroll's will. However, Elizabeth and James Wells had named one son James. According to Howard Leckey's Tenmile Country and Its Pioneer Families, that son James was identified in guardianship proceedings as having been under the age of fourteen at the time of his father's death. Leckey also noted that more than one guardian had been appointed for those several underage Wells children.

Although a long shot, it would be curious to see whether Anthony Carroll would have had anything to do with his son-in-law's nephew's upbringing.

Or are these convoluted suspicions the type of possibility that only stumped genealogists would dream up?

It's About Time

 

To orient ourselves to the historical sequences in our ancestors' lives, we need the underpinning of dates and locations. The launching platform we've built so far for some research questions, however, provides scant details with which to even begin our quest.

Take the research question I've been grappling with this month. I'm trying to determine the identity of Mary Carroll Gordon's parents. Mary, my mother-in-law's third great-grandmother, was the first wife of William Gordon of Monongalia County in old Virginia, who moved with her husband to what later became Greene County, Pennsylvania. There, they raised their many children. And there, at a relatively young age, Mary died.

If it weren't for the headstone left as her memorial, I wouldn't even know any orienting details about her lifespan. What the marker reveals in the Gordon family cemetery in Greene County, Pennsylvania, is that Mary, wife of William Gordon, died June 3, 1812. The headstone also provides her age—best I can read it—as thirty eight years, nine months and twenty four days. A Find A Grave volunteer entered her date of birth on that website as August 10, 1773.

Therein lies the problem, not only with determining the exact timeline for Mary's life, but for ascertaining correct dates. As it happens, the Howard Leckey book, The Tenmile Country and its Pioneer Families, lists Mary's birth as occurring August 29, 1773. More concerning, her date is provided not as the headstone's 1812, but as 1814.

Two hundred years later, not many people would find themselves quibbling about a two year discrepancy. But genealogists would. Generally speaking, such dates become added to a string of identifiers helping us know we are, without a doubt, talking about the right individual.

Likewise, as we've already seen, we are hard pressed to find accurate dates for Mary's presumed father, Anthony Carroll of Monongalia County, across the disputed state line in Virginia. While hundred year old local history books report Anthony's date of death as 1832, we find his will presented in court in February of 1830.

With such blurred timeline details to guide us, all I can say for this family is that the birth of Mary's children, beginning with eldest son James Gordon in 1794 (at least, according to the math on his headstone), seems to allow for a mother who could have been born around 1773.

And yet, those calculations don't quite help us pin down the time frame for Mary's possible father, Anthony Carroll. He could have been a young father. He could, just as easily, have been more advanced in age by the time of his youngest child's birth, especially if we accept the possibility that the report of his earlier life, according to A History of Preston County, West Virginia, was correct, at least about his four wives.

All that to say, when we try to determine who that fourth person named of Anthony Carroll's "children" in his will might have been, it is near impossible to pin a date of birth on "James Walls" or engage any other research toe-hold on his identity. While I can guess that James Walls might have been son of Anthony Carroll's fourth wife—labeled as "a Mrs. Walls" by the History of Preston County—there simply is no documentation available online that I can find so far to verify or contradict that assumption, barring a trip to investigate the actual records held in that location.

However, there is yet another possibility—although a remote one—to examine, concerning the possible identity of James "Walls."  I say remote, because I'm not entirely convinced, given the dates we've already mentioned. But neither can I pass it by without at least a mention. We'll take one last look at this other branch of an intertwining family line next week.

Collateral Damage

 

When the search for details on direct ancestral lines results in no leads whatsoever, one tactic is to look at what information can be found on the ancestor's siblings. Collateral lines are those family members who are not in one's direct line of descent from a given ancestor. The possibility is that, while documentation may be lacking in one direct line, something is sure to show up, once the researcher delves into those other lines.

Here I sit, stuck on the research sidelines, because after three weeks of searching, I have failed to produce any information connecting Mary Carroll Gordon to her parents—other than a mention of "Polly Gorden" in her possible father's will. True, the western outpost of colonial Virginia where her father chose to settle—the region soon to become Monongalia County, once the colonies revolted from British rule—was sparsely populated and not well equipped to fulfill the normal functions of an organized government (not to mention, be able to protect from the ravages of fire, which eventually destroyed their few records in 1796).

But if I couldn't find any further connection to Mary's previous generation, I had three other family members mentioned in Anthony Carroll's will for which to create a family tree and trace the next generation's records for wills, property and tax records, and other signs of their continued existence in Monongalia County.

So far, no luck.

To make matters even worse, I'm not yet convinced that I've located the right person for that supposed step-brother of the Carroll children, a man named in Anthony's will as James Walls. The other day, we discussed those research woes having to do with the uncertainty of spelling in those early records—was the name really Walls? Or could it have been Wales? Or Wall? Or even Wells, a surname which provided ample possibilities in the Mon County vicinity.

It was Wells which became the surname throwing me a curve. Remembering that Mary Carroll, once she was married to William Gordon—the Gordons being another family in the Monongalia County vicinity—had moved to Pennsylvania, I wondered whether there were any mentions of that surname claimed by Anthony Carroll's supposed stepson in the new region.

Turning to local historian Howard Leckey's book, The Tenmile Country and Its Pioneer Families, what should I stumble upon but someone with almost the same name, who had married into the Gordon family. And had a son named James, as well. 

This did not bode well for any neatly packaged theories derived from collateral lines. Not only did I have a James Wells—a more likely surname than Walls—but I had someone with a demonstrated connection to another part of the extended family. Could it be that the transcription of Anthony Carroll's will included a misspelling of James' surname?

It was then that I realized there was something missing from the equation: a timeline for these collateral lines. With lack of documentation comes lack of dates. It would help to have such details more clearly defined, which means we'll need to look first at what dates we have for Mary Carroll Gordon and the others mentioned in Anthony Carroll's will—plus the James Wells who married into the extended Gordon family—before we can evaluate whether this discovery represents a viable possibility for the missing fourth heir of Anthony Carroll's "children."

So much for the idea of easily gleaning clues from those collateral lines. Before that technique can be of any use to us, we still need more information.

Covering Ground While Standing Still

 

One difficulty in dealing with my research goal to discover the parentage of Mary Carroll Gordon was realizing the number of places this woman's family lived during a lifetime which began before the birth of our own nation. To see her possible father mentioned as originating in Great Britain and settling first in Annapolis, before traveling over rugged terrain to reach Monongalia County in the far western reaches of colonial Virginia sets the stage, mentally, for us to assume that when Mary married William Gordon in Monongalia County and moved to Pennsylvania, that she likewise faced an enormously challenging journey.

Not so, it may turn out. Much like a limber tourist to the Four Corners monument might plunk down one limb in each of four southwestern American states, these Carroll and Gordon ancestors of my mother-in-law might have owned property contained within what, in their time, was considered all part of one county.

We noticed the first sign of that possibility yesterday, in pondering the identity of the fourth "child" mentioned in Anthony Carroll's will: a person by the name of James Walls. Whether finding the right James Walls, we stumbled upon an account of one person by that name who at first had settled in what was then Monongalia County—until the county lines were redrawn to form the new Preston County.

It will probably be helpful, at this point, to review what we had learned last week about the geography of this remote back corner of colonial Virginia. In what could be called by some a greedy land grab, the Virginia colony had entertained some impossibly grandiose notions as to what their domain should encompass. Their neighbors to the north, in Pennsylvania, had done likewise.

Actually, these geographic designations were originally set by what apparently were conflicting charters granted by two different English kings—one to Lord Baltimore by King Charles I, creating the colony of Maryland, and the other to William Penn by King Charles II. In time, the border disputes which arose prompted a fair appraisal in the form of a land survey, thus engaging the services of two land surveyors by the names of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon.

The dividing line they proposed, while figuring prominently in future years of America's history, somehow fell short, just when approaching the very territory where Anthony Carroll and some of the Gordon family members had settled. That region, if you remember, just a few years later was established by colonial Virginia as the District of West Augusta. Because the Mason-Dixon line had not been extended beyond the western border of Maryland, both Virginia and neighboring Pennsylvania laid claim to the land lying within the District of West Augusta.

That, as it turns out, puts us right inside the original domain of Monongalia County, itself a far more encompassing region than in subsequent years. So large was its claim that, at its start in 1776, three counties which eventually became the domain of Pennsylvania were included in Monongalia County. And two of those counties—Washington County, from which Greene County was later carved—figure in the continuing story of Mary Carroll and her husband, William Gordon.

When the border dispute was resolved by the extension of the Mason-Dixon line westward in 1781, part of that land claimed by Virginia in Monongalia County became part of the state of Pennsylvania. While I might have imagined that Mary, after her marriage to William Gordon—likely in 1793 in Monongalia County—traveled long distances to arrive at the couple's new home in "Tenmile Country" in Washington County, what might actually have happened was that the land they lived on simply experienced a shift in political control from one county—and state—to another.

All of Mary and William's children—and the best I can tell was that there were eleven of them, beginning with their son James in 1794—were born in either Washington County, Pennsylvania, or the newer Greene County after 1796. Perhaps even then, that designation of a newer location was simply due to politics, not the buying or selling of property on the part of the Gordons.

All along, they could have been standing still on the same turf. And I, in turn, need to disabuse myself of the notion that Mary, having left her father's home, had traveled far beyond her community to settle in a distant land. They all lived within the greater river basin of the Monongahela, whether in one state or the next.

The Trouble With Spelling

 

I don't suppose it would be entirely necessary to determine just who James Walls, heir of Anthony Carroll, actually was. I do have one reason for my search, however. Depending on who James Walls was—and how he was related to his benefactor—I might simultaneously uncover information which could help answer other research questions. For one, it might identify who Anthony Carroll's wife Temperance was, and if she had been previously married to someone named Walls. For another, it might straighten out yet another relationship mess I've stumbled upon. That, as it turns out, has to do with some spelling issues during that same time period of Anthony's will—the early 1800s.

I've searched for information on James Walls, believe me. And I've realized one thing: in the area of Monongalia County, the western region formerly part of the state of Virginia, there were several similar surnames to be found, all claiming James as a given name. In addition to James Walls, there was the predictable James Wells. Besides that, though, there was James Wills. And, in nearby Preston County, there was a James Wales—and yes, I looked, and can't excuse that as simply poor handwriting; it actually looks like Wales.

If that time period was rife with clever clerks who considered the knack of creative spelling to be a way to demonstrate their intelligence, how will I ever know I've found the right James Walls?

One thing I did find: Anthony Carroll—the one who named James Walls in his will—lived in what at the time was called the "Eastern District" of Monongalia County. He was easily spotted in the 1820 census under that heading. Of course, creative spelling rendered his surname as "Carrill." But we can use our imagination, too.

So, it would be no surprise to find, in the 1830 census, an entry in that same Eastern District for someone named James Walls. But trying to find him in the 1820 census, I can only come up with someone named James Wells. Same person? Impossible to tell from that entry alone.

Remembering our discovery that so much more was written on Anthony Carroll's family in the history book published for neighboring Preston County than for Monongalia County, itself, I wandered over to that neighboring county to see what could be found there for anyone named James Walls.

Fortunately, there was something to be found in A History of Preston County, West Virginia. The entry on one featured community member by the name of John Ormand Walls began with this promising observation on his family's roots: "The Walls family, of Grant District, are descendants from James Walls...."

Of course, we have to realize that, despite the nearness of the two counties, there was no guarantee that this James Walls was the same as the one we are seeking. However, the continuation of that sentence in the history book provided some insight: "...who settled in that part of the county before its separation from Monongalia."

I took a look at a map. Sure enough, somewhat to the northwest of Preston County was what is the remainder of Monongalia County, now all in West Virginia. What we have, at least in this situation, could be someone who, at one point, lived in Monongalia County—until the county lines were redrawn, carving out the new county—and suddenly, he was a resident of Preston County.

That, apparently, was what happened. Preston County, formed in 1818 from Monongalia County, may well have included what had previously been claimed as part of the "Eastern District" of the former county. While James Walls was clearly listed in Monongalia County in the 1830 census, that doesn't necessarily preclude his owning property in what eventually became the other county.

Whether the James Walls in the History of Preston County turns out to be the same as the James Walls mentioned in Anthony Carroll's will, I can't yet determine. But stumbling upon this detail points up one condition to remember: boundaries change. In the case of the vast colonial region which once encompassed Monongalia County, not only was it affected by this relatively benign boundary change, but there also were other boundary disputes which may come into play as we continue to explore the possible relatives of Mary Carroll Gordon. The lesson to be learned: know your geography—even the minutiae of historical changes to those borders.    

Another Anthony

 

When searching for ancestors, do you ever look up the wrong person?

I realize that is an odd question. Of course we all make mistakes. But what I mean is, do you ever deliberately look up the wrong person in your search for an elusive ancestor?

Right now, I'm stuck in my pursuit of the parents of my mother-in-law's third great-grandmother, Mary Carroll Gordon. It seems reasonable that the unsubstantiated claims in several publicly posted family trees could be right when they affirm that Mary Carroll's father was a man in Monongalia County named Anthony Carroll, and that her mother was named Temperance Dunaway. After all, Anthony's own will provides for a daughter by the name of Polly Gorden, who could well have been our Mary.

But what of our discoveries last week, in which a hundred year old history book from a nearby county—Preston County, now in West Virginia—provides another set of stories? These, too, were unsubstantiated, but could well have originated from, say, a family Bible's records, or stories passed down the generations in another branch of the Carroll family. After all, those passages were included in the biographies of two Preston County men: Hardin Duvall Carroll, and his father, James H. Carroll.

It was in that very same biographical entry that we found the back story on our Anthony Carroll: that, arriving from England, he settled first in Annapolis, then settled in that frontier region of what eventually became Monongalia County. It was also that same narrative which produced the erroneous date of Anthony Carroll's death as 1832, when we can see from the court reports that his will was filed in February of 1830.

With nagging doubts swirling in my mind, it might seem reasonable to be solely focused on verifiable facts. Perhaps my weakness for the Bright Shiny Objects of rabbit trails has overcome me once again, but I couldn't help notice some parallel details in a family history of another Anthony Carroll.

The discovery came about like this: I wondered what the possibility would be of finding documents I needed if I shifted my search to another provider. I've done this quite a bit, composing a search query on a different website in hopes the terms would trigger different results at other companies. So I switched from searching at Ancestry.com, and moved to FamilySearch.org. There, I tried looking for marriage records for, first, Anthony Carroll and a wife named, simply, Temperance—and then, secondly, a search for his marriage to someone with a surname Walls.

This search attempt didn't produce anything specific to help my speculation that the second James mentioned in his will—James Walls—was son of Anthony's supposed fourth wife. However, I did spot something of interest: records concerning a different Anthony Carroll.

The time frames were too far off to have belonged to our Anthony Carroll, of course. And this one lived in Preston County, not Monongalia County. But I found it a curious discovery that this Anthony happened to have, for his wife, a woman named Temperance. 

This clearly could not have been our Anthony, as the search result I just mentioned was for the 1850 census—long after our Anthony was gone. But could the stories about the two Anthonys have been telescoped to meld into one family saga? This younger Anthony, after all, was likely son of the original Anthony's son James Carroll.

In pursuit of answers triggered by this new discovery, I admit the research path will either lead me (hopefully) to further information on our Anthony Carroll, or I will learn far more than I care to know about someone else's family. Still, the chance to benefit my own research is worth the risk, and I'll spend some more time learning about this other Anthony Carroll's family.

In the meantime, there is one other task yet to complete: following the trail of the heir of Anthony Carroll named James Walls.

Rabbit Trail Redux

 

From the looks of it, one could presume that "rabbit trails" have a bad reputation among family history researchers. I'd like to propose we reconsider that viewpoint. After all, what is a researcher, if not one embued with inquisitiveness and the willingness to check out possibilities. If nothing else, our pursuit of that Bright Shiny Object beckoning us to confirm—or reject—a possibility can lead us to an answer. Yes. Or no. Possibly even maybe. That should be sufficient to reduce the myriad options down to a manageable few research directions.

Even though our wild chase after a possible Guseman relationship caused our crash into a null set, we are not quite finished exploring the Guseman connections to my mother-in-law's third great-grandmother, Mary Carroll Gordon. As it turns out, there is another Guseman hypothesis out there, proposed by the writer of one of those nineteenth-century county history publications.

You know those tomes: the books with such imaginative titles as History of Monongalia County, most of them published any time between the late 1880s and the early 1910s. They were also called by some, "mug books," for their flattering vignettes of the leading members of the town, occasionally embellished with their likeness.

We've talked about one such book before: The Tenmile Country and Its Pioneer Families, by Howard Leckey. Never mind that that 1950 book focused on a somewhat different region—Tenmile Creek of southwestern Pennsylvania—it happens to contain several entries on the Gordon family, among many others, including one Guseman we'd be particularly interested in following.

As much as I've researched the many lines of the Gordon family, how could I have missed this? But there it was, on page 435—I told you this was a tome—the eldest daughter of John Gordon and Mary Duke, Elizabeth, marrying a Guseman.

According to researcher Howard Leckey, Elizabeth Gordon was born in 1761, just to provide some perspective. Her marriage was back at the location of the Gordon's previous family home in Frederick County, Maryland, though by the time of the birth of her second child, her family was living in Monongalia County, Virginia.

Elizabeth, by the way, was older sister to William Gordon, who eventually become husband of Mary Carroll, that third great-grandmother of my mother-in-law. And now that we've entangled ourselves in the intertwining lines of the Gordons and the Carrolls, let me add yet another knot: Elizabeth Gordon and her husband Christopher Guseman—at least, according to the Leckey book—were parents of Godfrey Guseman, the man who eventually became husband of Mary Carroll's supposed sister Margaret.

At least, that's according to one of those history books. And presuming that Anthony Carroll was indeed the father of both Margaret and Mary. I'm not quite sure of that Guseman-Gordon connection, even at this point. But wandering down these rabbit trails certainly has opened my mind to more possibilities to explore. After all, in seeking to cement further family connections, we may need to revisit Anthony Carroll's own will to see if we can detect the identity of one more person he mentioned among his children: the Carroll heir named James Walls.

Concerning Coburn's Creek

 

Perhaps one would never suspect it, but be forewarned: the 1830 will of Anthony Carroll is about to lead us down a rabbit trail which may—or may not—prove fruitful in our assembling of the cluster of names associated with the Carroll, Gordon, and Guseman families of Monongalia County in old Virginia.

Recall, for a moment, that in his will, Anthony Carroll stipulated the customary instructions to pay "all my just debts and funeral expences."

Out of concern that, perhaps in liquidating the "perishable part" of his estate, the reconciling of debts and assets might come up short, Anthony had conditionally instructed his executors to sell his "land lying on Coburns Creek."

Of course, the curious family historian would want to know just where such ancestral property might have been situated. And this is the beginning of our long slide through Monongalia County history, almost to the formation of the county itself, in 1776. 

You see, before Monongalia County was part of West Virginia, it began its history, carved out of what once was the Virginia county of Augusta. However, disabuse yourself of the modern notion of counties, for at the formation of Augusta County in 1738, the land was part of such a sparsely populated territory as to not even have an organized government until seven years after its formation.

Furthermore, Augusta County was such an immense territory as to swallow up most of what has now become West Virginia, plus the whole of Kentucky, as well. That, plus containing an indefinite western boundary which eventually precipitated a boundary dispute—which will figure into our story in a few days—yielded an unwieldy matter of governance.

The solution, in 1774, was to designate this vast wilderness of then-colonial Virginia as the District of West Augusta. It was from this immense chunk of land that, in 1776, three counties were carved, one of which was Monongalia County.

Don't hold your breath about the creation of a governing body to direct the activities politic of this nascent American county, though. The act forming the three new counties out of the erstwhile District of West Augusta stipulated that the qualified voters of that year were "to meet at the house of Jonathan Coburn...on the 8th of December following," weather permitting, of course.

So there it was: that name Coburn. Whoever Jonathan Coburn was, he was resident in Monongalia County by 1776. Presumably, his was a house which included property adjacent to the creek which bore the same misspelled surname—although that is merely a presumption of mine at this point. Of course, that research path would require construction of a viable pedigree, plus likely a thorough examination of property records.

Let's follow that "Coburn" trail just a bit farther. As it turns out—creative spelling being a favorite pursuit of the inventive mind of that era—the name was actually Cobun, not Coburn, though Colburn was another variant. And there were signs of further family members in the area.

One such entry in the History of Monongalia County mentioned a Cobun relative by the name of William Sanford Cobun, born not in Monongalia County, but in nearby Preston County in 1838. He was the son of Samuel W. Cobun, who early in his son's life had moved the family to Barbour County before his own untimely death.

At that point, William's widowed mother moved the family to Monongalia County. Why move there? I suspect it was because the former Susan Guseman—who had originally married Samuel "Coburn" in Monongalia County on May 28, 1837—had family back in Mon County, herself. Though likely not the "Susan Murdock" mentioned in Godfrey Guseman's 1838 will as his sister, this little discovery does give rise to considerations of how interwoven those early Mon County families once had been.

Add that to our growing cluster of friends, associates, and neighbors of the ancestors and relatives of my mother-in-law's third great-grandmother, Mary Carroll Gordon. We are in the genealogical vicinity, in exploring this "F.A.N. Club," but not close enough, yet, to confirm any of the details we need to know about Anthony Carroll or his son-in-law, Godfrey Guseman.

 

Constructing the Cluster

 

How do you tackle a research problem when you know next to nothing about the southern families in question? You consider all the connections you can find as "suspects" and create a list of the cluster of the target ancestor's friends, associates, and neighbors.

For instance, in the Monongalia County case of Godfrey Guseman, likely husband of Anthony Carroll's daughter Margaret, we have a few resources to help us gather such a list. Remember that, during the time period of the War of 1812, the preferred approach to military defense was to raise a company of men as part of a state militia. In the county where Godfrey Guseman resided in the early 1800s—Monongalia County, at that time part of the state of Virginia—there was such a company formed by Captain Samuel Wilson, with Godfrey Guseman as his lieutenant.

Included in this company were a few other names of interest. For one thing, we already have spotted the other men carrying the same surname as Godfrey: Joseph, Isaac, and John.

In addition, recalling that the ancestor who prompted me to start this month's research quest—my mother-in-law's third great-grandmother, Mary Carroll Gordon—also had relatives by marriage in the same county, it is no surprise to see another Gordon included in Captain Wilson's company: Philip D. Gordon. Philip, as it turns out, was older brother to Mary Carroll's husband, William Gordon.

Turning from this one indicator of friends and neighbors—and likely family—to another source for community names, let's look back at the references we've already found in the wills of Mary's possible father, Anthony Carroll, and her sister Margaret's husband, Godfrey Guseman. Interestingly, both wills mention names associated with specific properties.

In Godfrey Guseman's will, he mentions "the mill property on the Monongahela now occupied by James Kern." And Anthony Carroll's will makes note of "my land lying on Coburns Creek."

It is instructive to turn to the local history books of the 1800s to find mentions of various early mill properties in Monongalia County. In one such book, published in 1883, an entry mentions, "Abram Guseman came from Martinsburg in 1779, and settled on Decker's Creek, and built the Hagedorn mill."

Another entry in the same book explains,

Hagedorn's Mill was built about 1807, by Abram Guseman, and was in the possession of the Guseman family until 1869, in which year it was bought by Lewis Hagedorn and Peter J. Weinig.

In addition, we've already seen the significance of the surname Kern in this family cluster, so we know to pay attention to tips found in the Monongalia County history book about that name, as well. Apparently, the first mill in the "Morgan District" of the county was erected by a man called Michael Kern. Whether that was someone connected with Godfrey Guseman's son-in-law, James Kern, I can't yet say, but in addition to the mill north of Morgantown, another member of the Kern family—Michael junior—built one south of the town, as well. Add those Kern names and their mills to the cluster around the Carrolls and the Gusemans, too.

But what about the property mentioned in Anthony Carroll's will, on "Coburns" Creek? And the additional clue which came in the mention of Godfrey Guseman's sister, Susan Murdock, in his own will? These two clues, as it turns out, lead us outside their home county into neighboring turf. We'll turn there next to see whether there are any other names which can be useful to add to our cluster.

Godfrey's Stipulations

 

It is fascinating to see just how differently two men can express themselves in a single-page document which, on its face, would seem to be a rather perfunctory listing of last wishes. In exploring the family relations of my mother-in-law's third great-grandmother, Mary Carroll Gordon, we first encountered the will of her possible father, Anthony Carroll, in 1830, whose wording was brief and to the point. Now, in considering the will of Godfrey Guseman, Anthony's son-in-law—who died only eight years afterwards—we see an entirely different personality coming through the written words.

For one thing, while Anthony got right to the point—"I, Anthony Carrol do hereby make my last will and testament"—Godfrey employed far more of the flowery language we've come to expect from that time period of the early 1800s. He started off with a phrase oft seen in New England documents, "In the name of God, Amen," then waxed on with the traditional "considering the uncertainty of this mortal life."

Considering that uncertainty, perhaps Godfrey was less uncertain than his written sentiments might lead one to believe, drawing up his will on Christmas Eve of 1837. He was dead by the following March.

From the document he drew up, we learn several key points about his family relationships, including one unexpected detail which is downright rabbit trail worthy, should we wish to follow the indicators of property ownership to help clarify family connections.

First, of course, our goal is to find confirmation that Godfrey's wife was the "Pegey" whom Anthony Carroll listed in his own will. As it turns out, Godfrey listed his wife as Margaret, to whom he bequeathed one third of his estate, including "use of the mansion house" if she wished to remain at that residence. Unfortunately, the will did not provide any additional clues as to Margaret's identity—not even the typical clue of one of her Carroll relatives named as executor or witness to the will.

Godfrey's will also named his two children, who were essentially to split the remainder of their father's property. His son, Amaziah, was designated as sole executor, as well as "agent or trustee" to ensure that Margaret's "portion of the estate is properly managed and taken care of." Godfrey's daughter was doubly identified as "Mary Guseman now Mary Kern."

In stipulating the division of the property, Godfrey included the detail of the "mill property on the Monongahela"—a nearby river—"now occupied by James Kern," which he specifically excludes from the half of the property awarded to his son. That mill property is granted to his daughter Mary "and her children." Since that property was "now occupied by James Kern," it is most likely that James Kern was Mary Kern's husband—but we'll be sure to find documentation to confirm that detail.

Unlike so many wills of the time which named descendants but not collateral lines or any connections to the previous generation, Godfrey's will mentioned one other family member. Identifying one Susan Murdock as his sister, he granted her "use of the house and garden she now occupies," opening up the possibility that his sister might have been widowed, and maybe also childless.

There were three witnesses listed to confirm that the document was indeed the last will of Godfrey Guseman: Christopher Nicholson, Joseph Reed, and Samuel Tibbs. In many cases, such witnesses represented key relationships with the testator—often trusted family members or business associates. In this case, it doesn't appear that any of those three men were connected with the Carroll family—at least, not based on what little I've been able to glean about that cluster of relatives so far. 

As for the extended Guseman family, I know next to nothing at this point. But what is fairly easy to see is that Godfrey Guseman had enough property to demonstrate that he was successful at his endeavors. Perhaps that mention of a mill property may be worth following up on, after all. If direct documentation doesn't provide the connections we wish to see tie Godfrey's wife to our Carroll ancestry, we can at least seek inferences from the cluster of associates forming around their day to day lives.

Possibilities for Peggy

 

We started this month with the goal of discovering something about the parents of Mary Carroll Gordon of Monongalia County, once the domain of the state of Virginia. Despite our research goal to focus on the identity of the parents of my mother-in-law's third great-grandmother, we find ourselves exploring the details we are discovering on the family of one Anthony Carroll, who could possibly be Mary's father.

Though it is important to stick with a research goal, it is sometimes helpful to branch out to explore what can be found on other potential members of the family. These collateral lines can sometimes—possibly—reveal details which weren't provided in the course of strictly researching the specific individual we are focused upon.

With that, we are now exploring the descendants of Anthony Carroll, as mentioned in his 1830 will. While we will certainly return to study the "Polly Gorden" who was mentioned as his daughter—Polly hopefully signifying a nickname for Mary, the one we are keenly interested in—today, let's see what we can find on "Pegey Guseman," the one listed as sister of Polly. 

Since we already ascertained that Anthony Carroll was living in Monongalia County by at least the time of the 1810 census—and likely before that point—it stands to reason that a married daughter by the name of Guseman might also belong to a family found in records pre-dating Anthony's 1830 will.

First, checking the census record for the same year as Anthony's death, we find two men by the name of Guseman on the same page, followed by one more on the subsequent page. Since only heads of household were listed in census records pre-dating the 1850 census, our possibilities for Peggy's husband now become John A. Guseman, Godfrey Guseman, and Isaac Guseman. 

It appears all three Guseman men were in Monongalia County long before that point. Taking a look at a list of the county's militia company assembled for the war of 1812, we actually see four Guseman men listed in Captain Samuel Wilson's company: Lieutenant Godfrey Guseman, Corporals Joseph and Isaac Guseman, and Private John Guseman.

Fortunately for us, despite the earliest marriage records for Monongalia County long ago appearing "obliterated, defaced and injured from use so as to be partly illegible," their court system, in 1917, authorized the clerk of the court to prepare a typewritten index of those first marriage records for use by the public. This is now provided in a digitized form, in which I found an entry for the marriage of one Margaret Carrol and a man by the name of Godfrey Guseman on July 28, 1800. 

Further cementing that relationship, not long after the passing of Margaret's father, Anthony, Godfrey himself drew up his will, which was presented to the same county court during the March term of 1838. 

Godfrey's own will confirmed that his wife was identified as Margaret Guseman—although whether she was the sole woman by that name in Monongalia County, we can't yet say. Nor can we affirm yet that this Margaret Guseman was one and the same as the "Pegey" Guseman mentioned in Anthony Carroll's will eight years earlier. We'll need some more time for additional exploration, starting first with the details included in Godfrey's own will.

About Anthony

 

It certainly helps to locate a will of an ancestor, especially if it enables us to discover the full mention of names in that family. Unlike some other wills I've encountered—listing, for instance, "my wife" or "my five children" without so much as the mention of any names—the possible father of my mother-in-law's third great-grandmother, Mary Carroll Gordon, was careful to include the names of those to whom he bequeathed his possessions. 

Before we explore anything about the names listed in Anthony Carroll's 1830 will, let's see what we can discover about the man, himself. At the point of his death, Anthony's will was presented to the court in Monongalia County in what was then the state of Virginia. The date was only mentioned as the "February term 1830," but that clearly indicates that the many online trees showing Anthony's date of death in 1832 would not apply to this Anthony Carroll of Monongalia County.

So what can we find about this Anthony Carroll? Since he died, at the latest, sometime before the end of February of 1830, he wouldn't have appeared in the 1830 census, which was taken beginning on June 1. However, because the population of Monongalia County, at that point, was relatively small, it was not a difficult process to page through the handwritten records to see whether there were any Carroll family members still living in the same county. After all, Anthony's widow was likely still living there, since he had stipulated that she remain at his property after his death.

The census records for Monongalia County, with heads of households listed in roughly alphabetical order—all the surnames beginning with "C" in the same place, for instance—we can see right away whether there were any Carrolls mentioned on the two pages which covered that category. Sure enough, we can find an entry for a man by the name of William Carroll, and another entry for someone named John Carroll.

One of the benefits of the 1830 census was that the age categories used in previous decennial enumerations had been expanded to be more specific, especially for the older adult ages. Thus, we can tell that William Carroll was a man of at least thirty years of age but under forty. We can also see that his household included a woman aged between thirty and forty years, as well, plus six children all under the age of fifteen. If this were a relative of Anthony's widow, it does not appear that she was included in this household.

Turning to the household of John Carroll, we find another head of household aged between thirty and forty, along with a woman of the same age category. Together, they were responsible for five girls under the age of fifteen. However, once again, there was no sign of an older woman who might fit the age category of Anthony's widow.

Turning back in time to the 1820 census, we now can pick up signs of Anthony's whereabouts in Monongalia County. With this earlier census, the enumeration was completed over a thirteen month period, beginning on August 7. The age categories were more general than those utilized for the 1830 census, masking any delineation of adults older than forty five.

There, under the first page containing surnames beginning with the letter "C" we find Anthony "Carrill" or "Cassill," as it is indexed at FamilySearch.org. Unfortunately, the headings for the census pages are cut off from the digitized version—or, perhaps, were never included as headers in the first place. Complicating the matter is the fact that the format provided for the 1820 census does not align well with what we can see from the handwritten form for Monongalia County. Nevertheless, we can tell that there were three tick marks for the Carroll household. Whatever that meant, at least it indicated that, by 1820, Anthony Carroll was resident in Monongalia County.

Moving back to the 1810 census, Anthony was still resident in Monongalia County. Once again, the enumeration period for this census began in August of that year, and listed only heads of households, plus delineations of age categories for all others residing in the same household. For this census, we can find Anthony listed as "Anth. Carroll." With no headings included at the top of the census page, we can only assume that the entries for his household indicate one male forty five and older, one female within the same age range, plus two girls under ten and one fifteen years of age or younger.

Before that point, I can't locate Anthony Carroll in Monongalia County. This is not surprising, though, for several of the other families which have intermarried with this line had arrived there from somewhere in Maryland—and eventually moved on to the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania, not far away from Monongalia County.

With that, it's time to consider what we can find about some of those related families, especially those who were mentioned in Anthony's will. Let's look first to see what we can find about Anthony's daughter, the one listed as "Pegey Guseman" in that 1830 document.    

From One War to the Next

 

There are many people throughout human history whose life span could be delineated by the historic events shaping their own existence. For this month's research pursuit, I'll be turning to the story of one woman whose earliest life memories might have been the war which catapulted this nation into existence, and whose short life ended with the year in which it could have lost that very independence.

Mary Carroll, first of the three ancestors of my mother-in-law whom I'll be pursuing this spring, was not quite three years of age when America's founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, taking on a war with what was then the world's super-power. She spent most of her life—at least, as much as I've been able to determine—in the far reaches of, first, the colony of Virginia, and then the neighboring region of western Pennsylvania. And in the prime of life—possibly owing to difficulties with childbirth—she passed away in June of 1812. 

Owing to the twin research difficulties of locating documentation in the early years of American history plus the challenges of finding records in the frontier regions of that nascent country, it has been far easier to locate Mary Carroll in her later years as the wife of William Gordon. It was Mary Carroll who bore at least eleven of the Gordon children, mostly in Greene County, Pennsylvania.

Despite those limitations, my goal for this month is to uncover more documentation for Mary Carroll Gordon and her forebears. Though I have seen the names Anthony Carroll and Temperance Dunaway given for Mary's parents, this month's goal means finding documentation to help connect Mary to her parents—and, possibly, connect the dots even further back in time than that.

 

 

Assembling a Targeted Research Bibliography

While I was regretting, on this family visit, not bringing the book I had found at SLIG—the Tenmile Country book which contained so much information on my mother-in-law's Gordon ancestry—it occurred to me to look online and see if anyone had digitized it. I knew there was only a slim chance that I'd see that Leckey book online, as it wasn't old enough to have lapsed into the public domain, but I searched for it, anyhow.

And found another book on the Tenmile Country.

As luck would have it, there weren't any mentions of my mother-in-law's family in that tome, so no chance for me to share with interested parties. However, in the process, I discovered a few other books. There was one on Greene County, Pennsylvania, where my mother-in-law's Rinehart ancestors once lived. Then, too, I was able to find a "mug book" for next-door Washington County, Pennsylvania. And yet another volume tantalizingly specific to the Genealogical and Personal History of the Upper Monongahela Valley, West Virginia.

All these books contain background information on the region—one that meanders along with its namesake river through the two different states of West Virginia and southwest Pennsylvania. Even better, they include mentions of specific families, including a good number which married into my mother-in-law's lines.

Rather than re-invent the wheel, each time I want to research ancestors from this region surrounding the Monongahela River, how much easier it would be for me in the long run to keep a listing of all the digitized books in my own personalized "card" catalog. After all, if we heed admonitions of bloggers like James Tanner, we'll put to practice the realization that so many of the world's books are already digitized—we just need to know how to find the volumes we're seeking. Case in point being this very example of my mother-in-law's roots in the Monongahela Valley region, an example making me wonder just how many books I can find on that very topic which will yield me information on her own direct lines.

For Auld Lang Syne: Reaching Back a Couple Years

It's not only this year's stories that have been cause for connecting to people around the world. Even after almost two years, I've gotten comments and emails from relatives of the people I've written about.

If you've been a reader here at A Family Tapestry for a while, perhaps you recall what I often refer to as my most outrageous family history discovery ever: the story of John Syme Hogue. Descendant of a longstanding respectable Virginia family with connections to the likes of our nation's first Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Marshall, John Syme Hogue was a distant cousin on my maternal grandmother's line.

It was not under such auspices that I first encountered John Syme Hogue's story, however. In research that chased that early twentieth century man from West Virginia across the midwest and into western Canada before his brother snatched him from the claws noose of death in Ontario, I uncovered a story which kept unfolding unbelievably from one episode to another. This is the stuff movies are made of, not real life. But this really was his life.

After his brother, Andrew O'Beirne Hogue, brought him home from his last escapade, John's life seemed to settle into a surreal normalcy—hard to believe, considering all that had preceded that earlier chapter in his life. And yet, I always wondered whether those who knew John after he returned home had any idea what had transpired before that return to normalcy. I had found a way to contact some of his descendants, but sent an introductory letter devoid of any hints of that wild, earlier life, in case family members weren't aware of what he had been rescued from. I never heard back from them.

Fast forward to this past summer, and a comment which appeared at my concluding post for the John Syme Hogue story. A descendant of John's brother—that sainted sibling who doubled as best friend and sage counselor—reached out to contact me. Sure enough, he seemed to indicate that what I suspected might indeed have been the way things were: that family now may not be aware of John's incredible personal saga.

While it's no secret that what intrigues me about family history is not just the names and dates of these ancestors but their stories, I'm not simply content to hear the part of the story I've been able to uncover through document research. I want to know the rest of the story—the impact it had on others in the family, the repercussions it had in the person's life from that point onward. That's what I still hope to discover about John Syme Hogue and his descendants and relatives. I still wonder whether, when John arrived back home for good, his past history was swallowed up in a rehabilitating silence—meant all for the good, of course—but never again referred to, despite its being part of his legacy.

Some day, I hope to revisit this story from a different slant: the repercussions it had on others, both in West Virginia and in Canada. Did whatever emotional energy that originally drove him to do what he did just evaporate when he returned home? Or did he find a more productive direction in which to channel his energies? What was life like for him, once he returned home?

And, most important question in my mind, did anyone in the next generation have any awareness of what went on before John Syme Hogue returned home and took up his humble position in the family's mining operations once again?

The only ones who can reflect adequately on these answers would be the ones who actually knew him. Which is why it was such a welcome, yet out-of-the-blue, moment when a descendant of John's brother got in touch.

With blogging and the ability to connect via comments, you never know who you will find yourself connecting with. After all these years since the story actually happened, hopefully, it will become a more welcome time to reflect and recollect what family remembered of those days long ago.   

Genealogical Hindsight

If I had it all to do over again, I probably should have heeded that nagging voice that kept screaming at me, "Just look up the name." But then, if I had done just that, where would be all that delicious process of discovery?

I'm not sure efficiency is the goal of every genealogical researcher. Perhaps yes, if you are doing it for money. But I'm not. I'm doing it for the journey, as much as I am doing it for the yearning to know where I came from. It's much different when you let that flower unfold on its own than when you force those petals to yield to pressure.

True, if I had just looked up the name that kept bugging me—Charles Robb—I would have instantly confirmed my recall was on the right track. But look at the span of generations I wouldn't have paid much mind in the process. The bonus was the delight of discovery—unfolding in its own way and catching me by surprise.

This may not sound like appropriate validation for the meandering techniques I used—to say nothing of my procrastinating ways—but now that I look back on the path taken, I guess it was just what I needed.

I found many more details than I posted in the story about this particular line of descent from my sixth great grandmother, Jane Strother, and her husband, Thomas Lewis of Augusta County, Virginia.

For instance, in discovering the connection with Charles Robb, I learned that an old, now historic home—the Wallace Estill House—has been mentioned as the senator's "ancestral home." Listed among the buildings in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, the Wallace Estill House description preserves a version of the history of this same Estill family we've been recounting here over the past several days. I likely would never have gone seeking it if I hadn't first meandered through everything I could find on this family's line of descent.

A direct-line dash through the generations may yield bragging rights to ancestors way back in the 1500s, but I sense the tug of a dichotomy: a genealogist, in the end, may either be able to accomplish depth or breadth in his or her research. If you've been following along here at A Family Tapestry for any length of time, you've surely observed my penchant for seeking out the story, exploring implications of the broader context, tracing the interwoven facets of family heritage linked across the generations.

So while it may seem rational to insist on zooming to the "right" judgment call and seeking the fastest route to the answer, perhaps it would be more kind of me to stop beating myself up about not listening to my inside voice. It's okay that I didn't look up that name. So he was famous. In the end, for the sake of the journey, I'm glad I didn't find out sooner.

Above: "Rose Blossoms," oil on cardboard by German artist Anna Peters (1843 - 1926); courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Finding an Unnamed Baby

It's a long way from the 1749 wedding of my sixth great grandparents Jane Strother and Thomas Lewis to the moment at which Susan Gay Estill said "I do" to Scottish immigrant Charles Spittal Robb in 1907. Five generations, in fact.

Suffice it to say, as well, that that name which tickled my memory—Charles Robb—could not possibly have aligned with a date as far back as 1907. That hardly mattered, of course, because—you know me, the procrastinator—I never bothered to listen to that nagging voice in the back of my mind. I didn't take the time to do a search on it—then. I needed a few more nudges, first.

I did, however, think something should be done about it. So when I found verification of the couple's children's names, I gave the list the once over. And—oh, look! They had a son named Charles.

Charles junior, I thought, would be the name that would hit pay dirt and clue me in to whatever it was in the back of my mind urging me to look it up. But no. As it turned out, a search through available genealogical records on Gay Estill Robb's third child, Charles Stuart Robb, failed to turn up any verification as to his whereabouts, subsequent family relationships, or, for that matter, claims to fame. While I could come up with confirmation of the dates and locations of his birth and death—and the fact that he served in the army—there was little else I could discover about him.

Apparently, this was not the Charles Robb I was looking for. So, I reverted to my standard research procedure: start from the oldest child, find all documentation I could on him, his wife, and children. And move on from there.

That was how I got back on track and started—thankfully—with the Robbs' oldest son, James. Born in 1908, James was bestowed with his paternal grandmother's maiden name as his middle name—the same middle name his father had carried. Arriving on the first of November in Randolph County, West Virginia, James Spittal Robb continued to call that place home until sometime after the arrival of his brother Charles in 1912, but before his sister Margaret's birth in 1918.

By the time of Margaret's arrival, the family had settled in Bethesda, Maryland, where their father, the Scottish immigrant, had become involved in real estate. By the time of the 1930 census, James' father's business concerns turned to "investments" in the "coal and timber" industries. According to the 1940 census, the elder Robbs had moved into Washington, D.C., where the senior Charles Robb listed himself as a member of the committee of H.O.L.C.—Home Owners' Loan Corporation, the New Deal creation under President Franklin D. Roosevelt formed to provide refinancing options to homeowners at risk of foreclosure.

That, of course, was long after the Robb children had left home to strike out on their own. In fact, by the time of the 1940 census, their son James had already been married for nearly four years, and was the proud father of an infant son.

Lest you thing that was the prompt that sent me, finally, scurrying to Google that well-known name, think again. Not only was James far removed from his hometown in West Virginia—not to mention, his high school stomping grounds in Bethesda, Maryland—but he and his wife had failed to reveal just what they had named their baby. As far as the 1940 census went, that firstborn son was called, simply, "infant."

Above: "Pleasant Game in the Yard," by German portrait painter Theodor Kleehaas (1854 - 1929); courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.
 

With This Ring I Thee Wed

As we move through the generations, we narrow our focus for this recounting of how I stumbled upon a name vaguely familiar from the world of politics, and yet, for my DNA research purposes, the search involved an ever-widening pursuit. While this may seem tedious, the way I attempt to figure out how I connect with my eighteen hundred—and counting!—DNA matches is to reach as far back in time as I can with each ancestor, then trace forward the lines of every single one of their descendants. Thus, a tree of over ten thousand names.

I work through this process in as methodical a manner as possible, of course. It's hard to keep track of what lines have been completed and which ones still need work. So, from one ancestor, I attach all relevant hints generated for that person's entry in my Ancestry.com tree. If that person was married, the process is repeated for the spouse. If there are children, each one is covered in order from oldest to youngest in a nesting process. In other words, while working on the oldest child, I then tackle the hints for that child, then that child's spouse, then that child's children in order from oldest to youngest, following the lines of descent for each of the child's children in the same manner.

I had been working through that process with the Estill family—believe me, there are so many of them, I thought I would never get out of Winchester, Tennessee, where one branch had settled—when I came upon the eldest daughter of John Floyd Estill and his wife, Lucie Lee Dice, whom I mentioned yesterday.

Again came that sweeping process of checking out every Ancestry hint, attaching appropriate documents to her record, and checking for any marriage and family information. After this oldest child of John Floyd and Lucie Lee Estill, I'd have four more children to attend to, using the same process.

But before I could get to the siblings of Susan Gay Estill, I encountered what turned out to be a huge detour into recent political history. I was stopped on her timeline when I hit the year 1907. That was when Gay, as she was called by family, was married. Sometime before that date of October 30, Gay Estill had met a man who had been born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1873, but who had arrived in America with his parents by the time he was seven years old.

Upon their arrival in this country, his parents had settled in the state of Maryland. By the time of the 1900 census, he had moved to West Virginia—which happened to be where Gay Estill was living with her family.

While I have no idea what the exact wording might have been in the exchange of vows on that date of October 30, 1907, at the conclusion of that ceremony, Gay Estill emerged with a new name: Mrs. Charles Spittal Robb.

Perhaps now that you see that name, you, too, are wondering about some family connections.

Above: "The Wedding Register," 1920 oil on canvas by British artist Edmund Blair Leighton; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Cousin Collections

It was the quest to find all of my distant cousins which led me to the discovery of a fifth cousin who had won the title of Miss North Carolina, back in 1956. In fact, I've stumbled upon quite a few stories, thanks to this goal—which means more stories coming up to share, as well.

If you are the research type who insists, "Direct ancestors only, please," you may wonder why I bother with tossing my net so wide. The simple answer is, it all started with my mystery cousin. If you've stuck around here at A Family Tapestry for the past few years—oh, like back to the fall of 2014—you may have recalled that moment in which I received an email announcing an exact mtDNA match with someone who is an adoptee.

Since that time, it's been a top priority project for this mystery cousin and I to push our way back through the generations to see who our most recent common ancestors might have been. It's a good thing that reuniting with those birth parents wasn't contingent upon my finding the right woman on my matriline. (I still haven't found her, though my cousin at least has now met his birth mother and has a solid idea of the women in his family tree.)

Granted, that introduction happened over two years ago. Yet here I am, still trudging along on my family lines, pushing back through the generations from mother to mother's mother to mother's mother's mother to—well, you get the idea.

With each generation I push back in time, I then double back, tracing all the descendants of that woman. In one way, it's a tedious process. In another way, it sure fills in plenty of blanks in my family tree. And, as an added bonus, I find myself stumbling upon some names that get me wondering.

You knew there had to be a reason for telling you all that, of course. And there is. Right now, I've pushed back to the level of my sixth great grandmother, Jane Strother, and her husband, Thomas Lewis of Rockingham County, Virginia.

Then came the long trek back to the present. On my side, the line went through Jane's daughter Elizabeth, who married Thomas Gilmer, and saw her female descendant in my direct line associate with such notable colonial surnames as Meriwether and Taliaferro before settling on the Rainey which led to the second great grandmother who married Thomas Taliaferro Broyles, whom I've mentioned before.

In this particular iteration of the search, I compared my own line from Elizabeth Lewis, wife of Thomas M. Gilmer, to that of her older sister, Agatha Lewis. Agatha was twelve years older than Elizabeth, having been born in 1753 to Elizabeth's 1765 arrival.

Agatha was married twice. For our purposes here, it's a descendant of her first husband, John Frogg that I'll be focusing on. They named their daughter Elizabeth Strother Frogg. This Elizabeth, in turn, married someone by the name of Estill, and for the subsequent three generations, I found myself tracing the descendants of that same Estill surname—seemingly endlessly.

Eventually, I ran into one daughter in that most recent Estill generation, and my research finally broke out of the Estill mold in which I had been captured. As I moved into this new surname—admittedly, also breathing a sigh of relief that I was now back into the 1900s and in definitely more familiar territory—something kept nagging at me from the back of my mind.

That surname, the one she had married into: it seemed so familiar. Wasn't there a senator by that name somewhere?

Above: "In Café Bauer," 1898 work by German Impressionist painter Lesser Ury; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.