The Family Tree Problem Solver: Tried-And-True Tactics for Tracing Elusive Ancestors (33 page)

5.
Extensively study the family in the frontier community where you are sure you know who they are. Reconstruct the family within that community. Then, think about how that family would have been configured at a different time; for example, how would they have appeared in 1840, 1830, and 1820? Avoid moving your research into eastern communities where you find the surname appearing, even if it is a rare one. Such fishing expeditions are rarely successful. You might spend years tracking people who had no relation to your ancestor.

Because people rarely disregard their past and completely start over, your best clues to discovering the origin of your ancestor are likely to be found in the frontier community to which he migrated. He probably retained business relationships as well as personal ones from the old community. Personal property from his past — including slaves — may surface in the new community as well.

6.
Respect your elders, because it's usually the younger people who are hardest to track. A man who appears to be twenty to thirty years old and who moved to a new community just before the census was taken will be very difficult to find ten years earlier. To trace him, the researcher must link him with an older person in his new home, because a more mature man is more likely to have created records in a previous community and to appear as head of household in earlier censuses. Remember that an unusual name is no guarantee of smooth sailing — clerks just may have become more imaginative when trying to spell it. When you're attempting to discover pioneer origins, age is a more important factor to consider than a name, because mature individuals generally have more extensive personal and business histories.

7.
Think big as well as small. Explore federal as well as county and state records. What federal records may have been created in a new territory? What entitlements might people have applied for? Consider veteran's benefits, bounty land, preemption grants, territorial petitions, depredations claims, and so forth. People in past centuries were no more inclined to pass up benefits and opportunities than they are now.

8.
Search surrounding areas — apples don't fall far from the tree. Before the Civil War, people tended to hopscotch across the west. Rather than relocate from North Carolina all the way to Missouri, or from Massachusetts to Illinois in a single move, people frequently established short lived interim homes as they migrated across the continent. People also were as likely to move within a state as from one state to another. Significant records would have been generated in the course of each migration. You can follow the trail more successfully when you understand traditional migration patterns for the period you are studying. For example, it was not unusual for a family from the upper South to live in southern Indiana or Illinois for a while before settling in Missouri, Arkansas, or Texas. A map showing the Tennessee, Cumberland, Licking, and Ohio Rivers will show you why.

9.
Every record has potential value. Because you never know which record will provide the key, a researcher must pursue them all. Certainly, some records are more likely to reveal significant secrets than others. Probate minutes are more likely to reveal notable connections than county court minutes. Land records are more likely to produce links than tax records. Nevertheless, when the obvious records do not reveal the necessary connections, the researcher must turn to the harder-to-search, more obscure records that might reveal valuable nuggets of information.

10.
Compare, contrast, and correlate records from the old community with records from the new.
Here are my suggestions for doing this effectively.
(a) Follow the record, not just the individual and his name. (b) Search the record for
subtle
clues rather than boldface headlines. (c) Notice associates in your ancestor's old community and see if they turn up in the new. (d) Determine as accurately as possible when your family left the area where you know who they are. I once saw a query in which the researcher asked whether the man who died in Alabama in 1843 was the same man who bought land in Kentucky in 1807. Thirty-six years is far too large a gap to be very useful. Try to establish connections within a period of just a few years — or preferably, just a few months — of when your family arrived or left the area where their identity is clear.

11.
Identify conditions that may have motivated your ancestor to leave a community, such as debt, an unhappy domestic life, poor or overworked soil, the inheritance of land by other siblings, or perhaps even harassment from local law enforcement officers.

Debt records can be found in various places: circuit court minutes, newspaper articles or published court dockets, sheriff's sales, and mortgages (both real and chattel). Don't forget criminal records, particularly for young men.

12.
Study the history of the period so you can determine what opportunities and land opened up within the five years prior to your family's departure. What Indian titles had been cleared? Were there 1812 bounty lands available? How about Oregon Donation lands?

Examples: North Carolina's “land grab” act of 1783 resulted in a rush to enter warrants in Tennessee. Many of Kentucky's early settlers moved into Indiana between 1803 and 1810. In 1818, people from eastern Tennessee flooded into Cherokee Indian lands in what became Monroe and McMinn Counties. The rush to Missouri began after 1819, when the first federal land office opened.

13.
After you discover the origin of your ancestor, notice who stayed behind. Too often our research moves when our ancestor does, so we fail to study the records created after our ancestor departed. We must remember, however, that important documents involving that individual may continue to be generated for a long time. These may include deeds, powers of attorney, wills, land partitions, or court suits relating to the death of the individual's parents. For example, Kindred Rose was sixty-six years old and had been away from his old home for thirty-five years when he gave power of attorney to settle his part of his father's estate in Tennessee.

14.
Try to connect records created in one place with records created by a man of the same name in another. Another query I read asked, “Was Richard Bray (Barren Co. 1813–1819 and Monroe Co. KY W1820–1847) the same Richard Bray in Chatham County, North Carolina in 1800 and Surry County, North Carolina in 1810?”

If this had been my research problem, I would have begun by examining the tax records for Barren County, Kentucky, to determine the date on which Richard Bray first appeared. Was he taxed there in 1813? What was he taxed for? Did he own land? Slaves? How many horses?

When the study moved to Chatham and Surry Counties, I would have tried to determine whether the man living in that area showed the same lifestyle, enjoyed the same economic status, and associated with the same people as the man in Barren County. Most importantly, I would have followed the records in Surry County after 1810. Too often we move our search because we either think or know that our ancestor moved. People often can be connected to significant documents that were not created or recorded until after they moved away. In order to determine whether the two men are the same, I would have to play devil's advocate to see if I can find records for the Richard Bray in North Carolina after the appearance of the Richard Bray in Kentucky. Of course, I would hope that I don't find him, but I would have to look. Are there any records in North Carolina that directly conflict with records created at the time the man was supposed to be in Kentucky?

Did the man in Chatham County appear to be selling out? When he sold land, was he selling all his land or just a small portion? Was he trying to raise capital for a move, or was he giving his new son-in-law a small parcel? If he didn't own land in North Carolina but did in Kentucky, how did he afford it? Was he entitled? Did he inherit? Answering these questions would help me determine whether both Richard Brays are the same man.

15.
Finally, don't give up. Tracking the origins of ancestors who lived on the frontier is, frankly, fun — but it's not easy. Researching this period is challenging, but rewarding. Over a hundred of the people for whom I am searching still elude me. The work requires not only extensive study of primary records, but creativity and logic as well. But people can be found — and you can be the one to do it.

¹
The hardiness map was developed by Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts (used with permission).

An
old Spanish proverb tells us that he is always right who suspects that he makes mistakes. The ten mistakes that I will discuss in this chapter are those commonly made in genealogical research. For those of you who think these mistakes are too obvious to belong in an advanced methodology book, be aware that most good genealogists have made and will continue to make these mistakes. It is only by being wary and constantly on the lookout that we can avoid falling into these traps. The mistakes described below may make us laugh, not only because we may recognize ourselves and our colleagues in them, but because we are all human and humans do humorous things.
As we discuss common research errors, no one should feel singled out for doing something foolish.
We all follow the same patterns, and we've all committed the same types of errors. There is nothing wrong with making mistakes. The trick is to treat them as learning experiences so we can avoid doing the same thing again.

Mistake 1:
Learn to use just one or maybe two good sources, and then stick with them.

The census is most often recommended as the initial source for beginning genealogists. It is readily available and is likely to contain good information about our ancestors. Problems may arise, however, if you begin to use the census exclusively, or depend on it as your sole source of information for establishing family connections. Remember that the census provides only a skeleton for our research; we will have to search other records for the muscle, tissue, and vessels we need to reconstruct our ancestors' lives.

In addition to the census, beginning genealogists usually rely on birth and death records — those wonderful registries of vital statistics that became readily available during the twentieth century. If you have found one of those informative death certificates that lists the birth date and place of the individual who died, the names of his parents and their birthplace, as well as his mother's maiden name, you know that great amounts of information may be contained on that one little piece of paper. Birth records may be just as rewarding — but beware of becoming too dependent on those vital certificates. They are useful as you begin to identify the families from which you descend; but what will happen when you need to trace an ancestor who was born in Kentucky around, say, 1880? You send for a birth certificate, only to be told that no vital records for that period exist. If you've come to depend on such documents for all of your information, you are stuck.

Probate records are another source that genealogists quickly learn to depend upon. After checking the census and determining that an elderly person moved into a particular region and then disappeared, we often assume that he died there, and the next thing we do is send for a will. If there is no will, research grinds to a halt. If we do find a will and the ancestor that we are looking for is named among the children of the decedent, we've got it. Parent, child — right? Must be the same guy!

Or was he? Individuals who left wills always seem to end up with many, many, many children that they never had in real life. It's too easy to assume that the man named in the will is one's ancestor. Lots of people from many branches of the family may assume the same thing. For example, Christian Newcomer of Manor Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, left a will in 1805 in which he named his sons John, Christian, Peter, Abraham, and Jacob. His daughters were Ann, Barbara, Elizabeth, and Magdalene. Probably every person who ever had ancestors named Newcomer living in Lancaster County has tried to attach his own John, Christian, Peter, Abraham, Jacob, Ann, Barbara, Elizabeth or Magdalene to that will, because that particular Christian Newcomer has had at least seventy-two children assigned to him by different genealogists.

Some fundamental mistakes that may occur when we use census and probate records exclusively include confusing people of the same name, overlooking people who appeared and disappeared again between censuses, and assigning children to families to whom they do not belong. To avoid these errors, it's necessary to consult other documents such as circuit court minutes, other kinds of court records, tax records, deeds, veteran's benefits, guardianship records, and newspapers. Don't confine your research to just one source, even if it seems to be a very helpful one. Look at everything you can possibly find.

Mistake 2:
Continue to hang on to a good theory.

The late, well-known genealogist Milton Rubincam often referred to those distressing people once believed — erroneously — to be part of his pedigree as “my former ancestors.”
Further research may indicate that you, too, must prune some perfectly wonderful people from the branches of your family tree.
From time to time, probably all of us will have to rethink, reanalyze, and even redo our research.

George Morgan of Wayne County, Pennsylvania, married a widow named Deborah Headley about 1802. I was trying to find her maiden name. Preliminary research indicated there were several
Hoadley
families living in the area, and since my information had come from a Daughters of the American Revolution application, I thought it possible that a mistake had been made with one letter and that I actually should be looking for
Hoadleys
instead of
Headleys
. The Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania, where Wayne County was located, had been settled primarily by people from Connecticut. The Morgans, for instance, had come from Groton, Connecticut, so I checked some vital records from Connecticut to see if I could find any Hoadley families that might have migrated to Pennsylvania. I also checked several Hoadley genealogies and found that there was a group that had come from Branford, Connecticut, and settled in the Wyoming Valley. In Branford's vital records, I hoped to find a man named Hoadley who had married a Deborah
; if I could find this, maybe I would have the right family. Sure enough: a Ralph Hoadley had married Deborah Frisbee on 5 May 1786 — a possibility. Deborah had to have been young enough at the time of her marriage to Ralph in order to have had children after 1802, when she was married to George Morgan. Therefore, I looked for her birth record and found that she had been born in Branford on 8 July 1766, so she was just twenty when she married Ralph. Looking at more Hoadley vital record entries, I learned that Ralph Hoadley had been nice enough to die 8 July 1796, leaving Deborah free to marry George Morgan in 1802. That became my hypothesis: Deborah Frisbee had married first Ralph Hoadley, and then as Hoadley's widow, had married George Morgan.

I continued my search. Deborah Hoadley, widow of Ralph, died 18 May 1807. Oops! Back to the drawing board. It was difficult for me to abandon a hypothesis that had looked so promising. When you think you already have the answer, it's hard to keep looking for data that may disprove it, but, it's essential. Don't get too attached to a particular individual — as I was to Deborah Frisbee — or too excited about tracing a particular name. I had really begun to hope that
my
Deborah was part of the family that invented the round things you throw in the park to your Labrador retriever, but it was not to be.

Honest blunders are not serious errors. Serious errors occur when facts are manipulated, squeezed, and somehow molded to fit a favorite, preconceived hypothesis — even when those facts contradict each other. The temptation to manipulate the truth often occurs with the problem of identical names. So often we work diligently to gather enormous amounts of data on one family, only to learn that the person we've been pursuing was not our own ancestor but someone of the same name. It's awful to have to admit that all the work we've accomplished thus far has been for naught, and that it will never fit into any of our pedigree lines; but if we refuse to do so, we will perpetrate some serious errors.

John Tweedy was an early settler in St. Louis. Among his descendants was a grandson, Thomas D. Tweedy, who late in life joined the Grand Army of the Republic in Oregon. In his application papers, which his descendants had kept, Thomas stated that his grandfather, John Tweedy, had fought in the War of 1812. According to the War of 1812 service records, a man named John Tweedy served in Illinois. A John “Twitty” was listed in the Union County, Illinois, 1820 state census. How many men of the right age could there be named John Tweedy? After the War of 1812, many soldiers simply crossed the river from Illinois into Missouri. I was tempted to stop my work there, assuming that I had found Thomas Tweedy's grandfather, but I persisted.

Checking records in St. Louis County, Missouri, I found an 1829 deed in which John Tweedy had given a number of slaves to his children. He named those children as Joseph, Washington Walton, Adler, Calista, Mariah, Marshal, Watson, Robert, Elizabeth, Martha, John Alfred, and Landon.

There was a problem. The John “Twitty” household listed in the 1820 Union County, Illinois, census consisted of:

The John Tweedy household in 1830 in St. Louis consisted of:

The two households clearly didn't match. When I tracked John Tweedy's children to the 1850 census, two indicated that they had been born in the early 1820s and gave their birthplace as Virginia. Could the John Tweedy who served in Illinois have returned to Virginia? Was there a John Tweedy listed in the 1820 census in Virginia?

Plainly, this family fit much better with the family in Missouri in 1830. Campbell County, Virginia, documents such as tax records, deeds, and probate records indicated that this was indeed the family who had moved to Missouri. John Tweedy had remained in Campbell County until about 1824, when he moved directly to Missouri. The man in Illinois shared his name, but he was not the same individual. Much of the work I had done on the John Tweedy in Illinois had to be discarded. No one likes to abandon work already done. It's so much easier and more enjoyable to continue pursuing avenues that seem to lead toward our destination — but if they're the wrong avenues, we'll inevitably have to turn around and go back. This brings us to the next mistake.

Mistake 3:
If the records conflict, just come up with a good reason for the discrepancy.

Beginning genealogists have to be warned that records frequently contain errors. Ages found in the census cannot always be believed. The birthplace listed for an individual in one census may conflict with the birthplace shown for the same individual in a later decade. Names are not always what they seem, either. The census taker may not have accurately spelled the name of the person for whom you are looking. Some people didn't even spell their own names the same way all the time. (I've found instances where one name was spelled three ways on the same page.) Parents' names on death certificates may not be correct. Beginning genealogists have to be warned that family traditions are not necessarily facts, and that actual documentation is required to corroborate information.

It is dangerous, however, to assume that the inconsistencies we find in old documents are simple errors that can safely be ignored.
As I've worked in libraries and archives, I've noticed a disturbing trend. Many researchers who find information that conflicts with something they already believe tend to sweep away the inconsistencies with “good reasons” — or rather, with excuses and rationalizations. I hear people say, “The census taker must have missed him that year.” Don't be tempted to sweep away missing entries or conflicting data as so much trash. If census takers missed as many people as some researchers claim, we wouldn't have much census material to work with. Considering the conditions under which counts were taken, the censuses are remarkably accurate. Although we know that they are incomplete, only a lazy genealogist would assume that “missing” data can never be found. Remember also that you must examine the actual census rather than just look in the index. If you can't find a listing for the family you seek, check to see if other neighbors also were missed. Determine whether boundary changes or family migrations could account for the omission. Check for all phonetic variations in spelling. Otherwise, you're neglecting necessary steps for finding the data you seek.

Ancestors who are missing from the expected tax rolls generate another excuse I often hear from some genealogists: “He must have been exempt from taxes that year.” The researcher is sure the individual was in the county being searched. He was married there; his wife has been identified there. Why is there no trace of him on the tax rolls? “He must have been exempt.” But was he?