Gordons Getting Unstuck

There is one hazard which comes with relying on the genealogical research of someone else: that someone might be wrong. Granted, there are many cases in which another researcher's material is correct. When it is well-supported with multiple forms of documentation plus the good fortune of being clear of research landmines—such as cousins all having the same name and age—following another researcher's lead can possibly be safe, once you've tested the line of reasoning for yourself.

But this is the John Gordon family we're talking about. It's not exactly a Smith scenario, but still a fairly common surname—there are 161,833 people with the Gordon surname, according to the 2010 census, placing its rank as 161 out of all surnames in the United States (incidentally, Smith is still hanging in there at number one).

So should I get all jumping-up-and-down screaming when I find a nifty record for a John Gordon in pre-Revolutionary times? If you said—as I did—"Not so fast," you'd be on the right track for some solid research sensibility. But thanks to my Bright-Shiny Syndrome susceptibility, I couldn't help but look, when I found a tempting article on some Gordons recently.

Oddly enough, my Bright-Shiny path this time snagged my unsuspecting self from a safe haven: the hints at Ancestry.com. I kept running into member postings touting information on obscure, privately-created websites—on links which would not connect—which seemed to imply something I'd really like to know more about: the possibility that our John Gordon served in the Revolutionary War. Our John Gordon could have been a patriot!

Of course, looking up such a name on the Ancestor Search page at the national Daughters of the American Revolution website would not necessarily prove anything. After all, it's a case of that common name. There could be dozens of John Gordons coming to the defense of their home. How could I tell which one was the right one? Or if ours was even included in the listing at all?

There was one handy way to differentiate our John Gordon from all the rest that might have been on a potential list: the name of John's wife. Fortunately, there were many assertions that John Gordon had married a woman by the name of Mary—or Mary Hellen—Duke, and that was exactly the entry I found when I went looking for any John Gordons among the patriot files at D.A.R.

Finding another Revolutionary War patriot among my mother-in-law's ancestors—remember, this is the woman who had thought her grandparents had just "gotten off the boat" from Europe—may sound enticing to those who seek membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution, but I found something else to my liking, as well: the possibility of breaking through the John Gordon brick wall to discover the name of his father.

And that leads to another shared document from an obscure website which I would never have found without a mention in an Ancestry.com hint posted by another subscriber. If that article is indeed correct, after years of searching, I now have a tentative name and identity for John Gordon's father.

Gordons on the Other Side

Do you sometimes begin to feel surrounded by duplicate names in your family tree? Those are not always a case of over-zealous parents naming their children after a beloved relative. Sometimes, those "duplicates" are really signs that you have a form of pedigree collapse. If two first cousins married, for instance, the result would mean their children shared six, rather than eight, great-grandparents. One couple on that tree holds two different positions.

While this scenario, in our day, may seem strange—or frowned upon—the fact is that many families included such situations in prior centuries. There were many contributing factors to such arrangements. For those in cultures with limited transportation—for instance, where walking was the primary form of travel—an eligible bachelor might be limited to a day's walking distance for his choice of bride. Likewise, among island populations or other groups restricted by geography, choices for potential spouses would be limited. The same effect was seen in communities built up by recent immigrants, where culture and language influenced associations and, thus, marriage choices.

Whatever the reason was in my mother-in-law's heritage, it turns out she was the recipient of genes from two sides of the family which turned out to descend from one couple: John and Mary Duke Gordon of colonial Frederick County, Maryland. Yesterday, we outlined the line of descent for the Gordons on her paternal side; today, we'll take a brief look at her maternal Gordons.

In both cases, the Gordon lines descend from John Gordon's son, William B. Gordon. Born in Frederick County, Maryland, in 1772, William was the one who gradually meandered westward, through Monongalia County (in what was then still Virginia), to Greene County, Pennsylvania, and finally to Perry County, Ohio.

In Monongalia County, William met and married Mary Carroll—the one who has me wondering about any possible connection with the Carroll who was the sole Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence—and then promptly moved to southwestern Pennsylvania. There, his wife gave birth to at least eleven children, before dying (probably of exhaustion) in 1812. Among those eleven children was her oldest son, James, from whom my mother-in-law's paternal Gordon connection descended.

Complicating matters was Mary's death at the point of her youngest child's tender toddler age. Her bereft husband promptly went out and did what any reasonable man of that era might have done: found himself another wife.

Enter the second Mary, and the saga of how my mother-in-law's maternal line became related to the Gordons, as well. Just as the first Mary's eldest son became the Gordon progenitor on her paternal side, the second Mary's eldest son was to be the patriarch from whom her maternal line descended. This son—William H. Gordon—was born in Greene County, Pennsylvania, in 1817. Along with those in his father's entire family still alive (with the exception of one married daughter by that time), William H. Gordon immigrated to Perry County, Ohio, where they may have arrived as early as the 1830s.

William H. Gordon has not been the easy research subject one might have hoped. There is, indeed, a headstone erected "in memory of" William Gordon junior in 1840, but there are circumstances making me wonder whether this is the right descendant of a patriarch also known by that name. In addition, this William Gordon lost his young wife—I think—and their second son (also, helpfully, named William) at about the same time. The sole survivor of that small family was a boy they named Adam Gordon—the one who, eventually, became my mother-in-law's maternal grandmother's father.

And thus, with the marriage of my mother-in-law's father and mother, we see reunited another family: the lines of the two half-brothers who both claimed William B. Gordon as their father.

Above: Portion of pedigree chart showing Adam Gordon's father William H. Gordon, his paternal grandfather William B. Gordon, and his great-grandparents John and Mary Duke Gordon, originally of Frederick County, Maryland.
 

Gordons on One Side

How many people can say they are their own cousin? Surely that sounds strange—until you begin researching lines which had been in this country for hundreds of years. It turns out several colonial settlers in the 1600s and 1700s thought nothing of having their children marry their cousins. In a situation in which there was a limited pool of eligible spouses, it made sense to select a mate who was known to the family, and cousins often filled the bill.

Whether that was the situation in my mother-in-law's case, I can't say. But I did discover that the Gordons on her paternal side of the family were eventually related to the Gordons on her mother's side of the family. Today, we'll look at that paternal side, and follow up tomorrow with the maternal side.

It was actually her father's paternal grandmother who was a Gordon. Though this woman was known as Nancy Gordon, apparently her real name—at least, according to her 1891 headstone—was Ann or Anna. From Nancy, the Gordon line stretches back to Greene County, Pennsylvania, through her father James to his father William B. Gordon. It is Nancy's mother who also causes me research headaches, for she—Sarah Rinehart—was the daughter of the one of the two Simon Rineharts whom I can't yet place within the Rinehart family. For now, though, we'll focus on Sarah's husband James Gordon's line, and his father, William B. Gordon.

It was William Gordon who points us in the right migration direction, for though he died in my mother-in-law's home turf in Perry County, Ohio, he came there from the southwest Pennsylvania territory known as Tenmile Country, and he arrived there, eventually, from his 1772 birthplace in Frederick County, Maryland.

William Gordon, in turn, was son of John Gordon and Mary Hellen Duke, the couple I mentioned yesterday as the progenitors of all the Gordons connected to my mother-in-law's family. In addition, William, who was married twice and could boast of a robust family with each wife, was the likely reason my mother-in-law never realized she was her own cousin—but that, too, is a story for another day.

Researching this Gordon family and all its twists and turns has been a challenge requiring me to take a close look at the many collateral lines of these Gordon patriarchs. Using the whereabouts of both William Gordon and his father, John Gordon, has allowed me to trace their movement westward during the very earliest days of this nation. And being able to spot those geographic locations where they settled allows me to find the records detailing their lives as the Gordon clan migrated from Frederick County, Maryland, eventually westward to Ohio by 1827.

Above: Portion of pedigree chart showing Nancy Gordon's father James, her paternal grandfather William, and great-grandfather, John Gordon of Frederick County, Maryland.

Getting to Know the Gordons

Years ago, just after my husband and I were married, I felt it would be a thoughtful gesture to extend to my in-laws the same courtesy as I had done for my own, of building their family tree. When it came to my father-in-law's line, despite his untimely passing when my husband was just a boy, we were fortunate to have a dedicated family historian in my husband's Uncle Ed, the keeper of the family "stuff" which had been passed down for generations, so there, it was just a matter of adding to what was already known.

It was not quite as easy to research my mother-in-law's line. We started the process with a series of long-distance phone interviews. First steps, of course, involved the details which she could personally recall: her parents' names, where and when they were born. Successfully negotiating that series of interviews, we pressed on to her grandparents.

After that, the process bogged down. Lacking personal memories, my mother-in-law simply assumed the typical American story: well, they probably had just "gotten off the boat." In other words, they were likely recent immigrants.

How far from the truth that turned out to be. As I pushed back, generation to generation, I found myself still researching people living on American soil—American soil, that is, until it was merely colonial land and the dates faded back to the early 1700s.

Such was the case with her Gordon ancestors. In fact, she had Gordons on both sides of her family, and each side descended from the same ancestral couple: John and Mary Duke Gordon. Over the years, I met many other Gordon researchers, and together we pursued those Gordons backwards in time from Perry County, Ohio, to the Tenmile Country of southwestern Pennsylvania, and beyond that, to earlier residences in the colony of Maryland.

It became quite clear that, yes, there must have been a boat, but it didn't arrive on the shores of North America quite when my mother-in-law assumed it did. But neither I nor my fellow Gordon researchers were ever able to push beyond John Gordon or his wife, Mary Helen Duke.

It is apparently now time to revisit that saga. Not only am I finding several books which reference John Gordon and his descendants—and future in-laws, the Rineharts, who I am also pursuing among my Twelve Most Wanted for this year—but some of the very people with whom I used to puzzle over this challenge via genealogy forums have turned out to be some of the authors of research publications outlining some exciting findings.

If they are correct, that means we have some documented details pointing to John's parents, with information on not just their names and dates, but contextual descriptions of who they were and what life was like for them. And you know how I am about finding stories. Those wisps of paper containing the financial transactions and legal proceedings involving the Gordon family tell miniature tales of their own—in addition to pointing the way to the identity of John's parents.

The trick in finding out anything more about my mother-in-law's mystery Rineharts, in fact, requires us to sort out their corresponding Gordon connections. So, for starters, we'll trace our way back through each of my mother-in-law's two Gordon lines, starting tomorrow, using the growing list of books which mention their names.

When I started this journey, I had no idea my mother-in-law's insignificant ancestors would turn out to be people whom a researcher thought important enough to write about, but—thankfully—that is turning out to be exactly such a case.

Back to Those Twelve Most Wanted

I'd like to say I have a book burning a hole in my pocket, but I can't. Besides being a statement which horribly mixes metaphors, I doubt a brick the size of nearly seven hundred pages would be able to fit inside my pocket, much less wear a hole through it. Still, it's high time I put Howard Leckey's Tenmile Country through its paces.

There's one particular reason I'm glad to now be home again and ready to tackle some research: Leckey's book includes quite a bit of detail on at least two of my mother-in-law's family lines. And those two, intertwined over the generations, include some of those Twelve Most Wanted ancestors I outlined in my new year's plans for 2020.

The main line involves the Gordon family, one with roots reaching just to the later edges of colonial American history. The other line involves the Rinehart family, which, as you can imagine, takes in all the possible spelling permutations that could occur when German immigrants met English settlers in the frontier reaches of a new country. That frontier region, handily, was what Leckey termed the Tenmile country.

I've already detailed the complicating factors in this search, primary among them being two Rineharts having the same given name: Simon. Somehow, they are connected with the Gordons. That means, of course, that I'll have to reach farther back in time to untangle just which Gordons married which Rineharts. The Leckey book, hopefully, will provide some guidance there, which we'll tackle this week.

Over the years, I've developed a love-hate relationship with printed genealogies. These hundred-year-old books contain the memories of people now long gone—but those memories can be just as faulty as those contained in online trees of our "modern" times. But just as I do with the online trees of my peers today, I view these resources as gifts of trailblazers. Sometimes, they point in the right direction, but they still need someone with a critical eye to check out these clues for ourselves.

This week, we'll see what we can find to corroborate the genealogies contained in the Leckey book and other local history books from a century ago. Apparently, there are more resources than just this book to compare with what little I already know about those two families.

Off the Shelf: This is Marketing

"You can't be seen until you learn to see." That's the subtitle of marketing guru Seth Godin's latest book, but it's also a message worth considering, especially for those of us wondering just what it is that keeps our genealogical societies from growing. As the world around us changes, what is it, indeed, that would entice someone new to join the ranks of a genealogical society?

Author Seth Godin, known for his unmistakable flair for attention grabbing with book titles like Purple Cow and Meatball Sundae, has shifted the proverbial cart and horse, putting something far more valuable before the marketer's coveted eyeball count. It is only through learning how to see through others' eyes that we earn the privilege of being noticed.

We need to stop seeing like the seller and begin grasping the need from the viewpoint of the buyer. As Seth observed, not many people enjoy the feeling of being sold, but there are a lot of people out there who can enjoy the sport of buying. To take it one step beyond the simple psychology of shopping, "People don't want what you make; they want what it will do for them."

If you are simply yearning for the chance to promote yourself, your message won't get very far. The message, according to Godin, needs to be your story. More than that,

it has to resonate with the listener, to tell them something they've been waiting to hear, something they're open to believing. It has to invite them on a journey where a change might happen.

Your story, in the end, needs to deliver on a promise. A promise you've made to the people you've invited into the world of your story.

If concepts like "story" and "promise" and—as we discussed yesterday—culture and connections seem to be a reasonable mix with what you're attempting to accomplish in your genealogical society, then that is the lens through which you'll find This is Marketing most helpful as you grow your organization. Godin lays out a simple primer for marketing—"in five steps"—and re-orients our thinking about not only how to get the word out about our group, but how to discover what would make our group indispensable to others.

Not just to many others, though. As Seth Godin puts it, we need to seek the "smallest viable market" to influence—big enough to make a difference, but small enough for our audience to feel the impact. Small enough to feel the impact in a way that inspires them to spread the word because what we do has added enough value to their life that they just have to share their story about it.

Of course, I can't distill this book down into one simple post here in a way which would present you with its full impact. As small as the book is—not much bigger in size than a paperback, and not much longer than two hundred fifty pages—it is full of brief vignettes that pack enough of a thought wallop to get you contemplating its application for days to come. I know it's bearing fruit on my focus on growing our own local society. This is one of those books which gets a person thinking and re-thinking and meditating upon what can be possible with the slightest shift of perspective. The leverage those thoughts yield seem capable of doing some heavy lifting in organizational change.

The Sociology of Genealogy

Well, I'm back home from my trip to Florida. And it looks like the cross-country flight was long enough to see me through to the back cover of one book, and beyond that to the start of another one. I'll save most of my comments on that new book for another post, but I couldn't help thinking about some thought-provoking statements which caught my eye right away.

The book, like the one I just finished, is one about marketing—something I think about often, considering my mission to keep local genealogical societies vitally pertinent in a changing world. That changing world includes the seemingly irresistible force to convert genealogy into a solitary pursuit—the reclusive researcher, pajama-clad with hot chocolate in hand, still hunkered down at her computer at three in the morning, instead of the networking family historian of earlier eras.

Truth is, genealogy has long been a pursuit of connecting the dots: between researchers, between distant cousins, between people who wish to share information on their extended families. We have always been a social bunch. If sociology is, by definition, the study of how humans act in groups, we are missing a bigger story by ignoring our heritage as genealogical societies, online forums, bulletin board adherents, and other collectives. Our strong suit in genealogy has always been our coming together to solve research problems and to educate ourselves and improve our research skills.

That's why this book caught my eye: it looks not at marketing in the traditional sense, but in a way that melds almost seamlessly with our outlook as advocates of genealogical societies. This particular book focused on two themes I favor: story, and connection.

Just a sampler from a weary traveler, with more to come tomorrow.

"If you want to make change, begin by making culture. Begin by organizing a tightly knit group. Begin by getting people in sync."

"If you can bring someone belonging, connection, peace of mind, status, or one of the other most desired emotions, you've done something worthwhile."

"We make connections. Humans are lonely, and they want to be seen and known. People want to be part of something. It's safer that way, and often more fun. We create experiences."

The book? Marketing guru Seth Godin's This Is Marketing. If you are involved with a local genealogical society, you may not think you need to sell your organization as a product, but—surprise—getting out the word to those who would care to join requires some thinking about marketing. We'll take a closer look at this tomorrow.