Three Chances — Maybe

 

The research task this month has been to follow the matriline leading from my husband to his mother, to her mother, and on up the line from daughter to mother through the generations. The reason for this search has been to sketch out the possible other descendants of that as-yet-unknown matriarch to determine the connection between my husband and his mtDNA matches.

Finding yet another ancestral sister in that matriline has opened up possibilities to help determine just how these mtDNA matches connect to my mother-in-law's line. This month, we discovered another sister of my mother-in-law's second great-grandmother, a woman born in Ohio about 1821 by the name of Rosanna Jackson. Having found her, I discovered Rosanna had married Walter Mitchell, and the couple eventually had three daughters: Mary, Martha, and Sarah. But before you assume that gives me three chances to find the path to those matrilineal matches, there is one caveat I need to introduce: youngest daughter Sarah was most certainly daughter of Rosanna's husband Walter Mitchell, but we'll have to look closer at the records to see whether she was actually Rosanna's own daughter.

Why? Because about the time Sarah was born, Rosanna had died. At least according to her headstone, Rosanna had died in Iowa on October 14, 1862. According to the earliest census in which I can find Sarah's entry, the U.S. Census for 1870, Sarah was listed as eight years of age, giving a year of birth around 1862. But in that enumeration, we also realize that the wife in the Mitchell household was not Rosanna, but another wife by the name of Bridgett. Since Bridgett was sixty eight years of age at that same time, it is unlikely that she would have been the mother of Sarah, but a lot can happen in the undocumented years in between decennial enumerations—not to mention reporting errors and other possible recording mishaps. I'd feel more confident in that assertion of Sarah's birth to Rosanna in 1862 if I could find records affirming that maternal connection.

Another problem with the assumption that we have three chances to locate possible matrilineal matches through Rosanna's line lies with the identity of oldest daughter Mary. While Mary appeared in the 1860 census as an eight year old in the Mitchell household in Chickasaw County, Iowa, she was not listed in the subsequent census. True, by the time of the 1870 census, Mary could have been married and starting a household of her own, so it is no surprise to see her missing from her father's household. But there was one other troubling clue, and it came inscribed on her mother's headstone.

If Mary Mitchell, born in Ohio in 1852, was one and the same as the "Mary G." listed on Rosanna Mitchell's headstone, she apparently died in December of 1862. Thus, no possibility of any children—let alone daughters—from Rosanna's daughter Mary. Admittedly, as many families of the time did, Walter and Rosanna could have named a subsequent daughter by that same name, and if so, we can still search for a descendant named Mary. I'll leave that possibility open, but I tend to doubt that was so, based mainly on Rosanna's own death about that time.

Those discoveries leave us with two main tasks in searching through this matrilineal connection: determine whether baby Sarah was indeed daughter of Rosanna, and search for signs of any other sister named Mary Mitchell. Once we clarify those two details, we'll be off to start building a descendancy chart for each of Rosanna's remaining daughters, whoever they turn out to be.  

Still Looking for Daughters

 

Discovering a previously-missed daughter in the Ijams line I'm working on this month put another task on my research to-do list. Daughters mean possible connections to my mother-in-law's matriline, and the discovery this month of another daughter for Sarah Ijams and John Jay Jackson means more work ahead.

Sarah Ijams was my mother-in-law's third great-grandmother. As for DNA significance, Sarah was ancestral to my mother-in-law's matriline, which means any of her daughters could have passed along that same mitochondrial DNA signature. In the case of that newly-realized daughter, Rosanna Jackson, her marriage to Walter Mitchell produced at least three possibilities: her daughters Mary, Martha, and Sarah.

Our task this week will be to explore the lines of descent for each of those three daughters, looking particularly at the daughters of the next generation, those girls born to Mary, Martha, or Sarah. Once we find any candidates, we'll proceed with the same process for the next generation, and then the generation following that, looking only at daughters of daughters.

Once we arrive at any remaining daughters in that long line of female-only descent, the next step will be to see whether any connect to the mtDNA matches we have for my husband's own mtDNA test. Remember, though we are restricting our search to daughters of daughters, mothers do pass down their mtDNA signature to their sons, as well—it's just that sons cannot pass that same result to any of their children.

Thus, though we may need to peek at some genealogical clues for Rosanna and Walter Mitchell's sons, that would only be to guide us regarding their sisters—such as married names. Other than that, we'll need to be sure to keep strictly on task exploring those candidates who can pass along Rosanna's matrilineal code.

There's Always Something

 

When I hear people say that they are "finished" building their family tree, I always have to re-translate that idea in my own mind. Someone like that might have tired with the process of searching for ancestors, but you and I know there is always something—or someone—more to find. Whether that is owing to a new insight regarding an intractable mystery ancestor, or revelation of a previously missing clue, new discoveries bring more research possibilities. 

It will be no surprise to learn that, in the past two weeks, I've added 348 names to my in-laws' tree, which now holds documentation for a total of 34,831 individuals. Since I've been concentrating on my mother-in-law's Ijams ancestry—the descendants and, hopefully, the ancestry of her fourth great-grandfather, William Ijams—progress had been hampered as I tried to push backwards to previous generations specifically using documented resources. But then, a surprise discovery thanks to the ThruLines tool at Ancestry.com broke opened an entirely new source of distant cousins—and another matrilineal route to explore for mtDNA purposes.

Following that, another surprise discovery that I may share ancestral Broyles connections with a fellow member of our local genealogical society has sent both of us on a chase to discover just how close that connection might be. Since our most recent common ancestor may point us to the level of seventh cousin or possibly a connection more distant, it's no surprise to see that the initial sketches of the connection have already added an unexpected sixty names to my own family tree, which now contains 38,366 names. And even though my research goal this month is to focus on the Ijams line in my mother-in-law's family, I'll continue working on this Broyles project behind the scenes. It's so fun to discover our friends and neighbors can also be relatives.  

Missed an Entire Branch

 

Drove right by that fork in the road, I did. Didn't even see it. The sense of being blind to something so obviously staring me in the face can be startling to realize. And that, essentially, is how I felt when I discovered I had missed an entire branch of my mother-in-law's family tree.

That "fork in the road" was an additional daughter whose life story fell into the cracks in a century when married women were almost as invisible as they were as unmarried daughters. Being born, marrying, and dying all before the 1850 U.S. Census could have called any attention to their existence, these women can be hard to find on paper. That is pretty much what happened to William Ijams' granddaughter Rosanna.

Born to one of William's youngest daughters—Sarah, wife of John Jay Jackson—Rosanna arrived during the early years of Ohio statehood. Since she was born about 1821 and married in 1840, I had entirely missed her existence. It was only thanks to a DNA test at Ancestry.com—and a tip from the ThruLines tool there—that one of Rosanna's descendants showed up as a match to my husband, beginning the head-scratching process of examining available documents in hindsight.

Perhaps because the process began with a DNA test, it made sense to bolster the data I'd need for any future possible cousin matches. Since that discovery, I've been working on adding all the descendants of Rosanna and her husband, Walter Mitchell, as collateral lines on my mother-in-law's family tree. My real focus at this point is the matriline leading up to Rosanna, since her female descendants will also be passing along the same matriline that my mother-in-law passed along to her son, my husband. And right now, I'm still stuck with some mtDNA matches whose connection to that most recent common ancestor—whoever that ancient mother might have been—is still a mystery. 

At least now I've got a few more resources to help point to the answer.

Taking Time for Family

 

Keeping track of the stories of past generations, we family historians sometimes seem to become focused more on those who are long gone than those family members in our current circles. Though my research has lately transported me to centuries past and homes across the continent, this month I'll be taking time to be with more recent members of our extended family.

Thoughts like these were running through my mind yesterday as we made the long drive south to attend the funeral of a cousin's husband—the same cousin whose brother's grandchild will bid us fly to the midwest for a wedding at the other end of this month. Yes, I spend lots of time getting to know seventh great-grandparents on the east coast, but taking time to be with current family is far more important. Ancestors are fun to get to know, but there are no connections quite like the loved ones in our immediate circle.

While posts for the next few days will understandably be quite understated—there won't be any time to put into research tasks while away—you know those thoughts of family will still be running through my mind. How can we compare anything to family? Such a mix of ambiguities and unexpected outcomes as each of us morph and reinvent ourselves and our relationships as quickly as the decades fly by us. Each of us is a study in enigmas. It can take a lifetime just to say we know even one of our relatives—let alone the ancestors we've never met. But if we don't take the time to be present and absorb their ambience, how can we ever begin to understand?

According to the Book

 

Discovering a book dedicated to the recounting of one's own family line can be a mixed bag. On the one hand, we need to proceed cautiously, if we do consider the book's contents at all, just in case the published researcher has committed the same errors so many of us unpublished researchers are prone to making. On the other hand, since some of those family history volumes have the added advantage of being written by researchers one hundred—or more—years closer to the ancestors in question, they may contain personal knowledge of which those in our current century may not have been aware. My personal view is to find a reliable published researcher and use him or her as a trailblazer: someone who is pointing out the path back to more distant ancestry. For this, I adopt the motto: Trust, but Verify.

Now that we're tackling the ancestry of my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather, William Ijams of Maryland, for starters, I may as well proceed according to the book. "The book," in this case, would be Harry Wright Newman's Anne Arundel Gentry, a book published in 1933.

We've already seen from the Newman book that William was the eldest son of John Iiams and Rebecca Jones. The book provided the dates at which John Iiams' will was drawn up (October 9, 1782) and probated (April 21, 1783). Taking those dates to the FamilySearch Labs Full Text search engine, I was able to pull up the actual will and confirm what Harry Wright Newman had listed in his book.

It's time to move on to the next generations, so I'll test that process again for each new step. According to Newman's book, John Iiams was son of William Iiams and Elizabeth Plummer. Since the name Plummer seems to echo through subsequent generations of the Iiams and Ijams family, I'm keen to see what I can find on this maternal branch—but also mindful of my goal of following that Ijams line as far back as possible during this month.

Peeking ahead yet another generation, our William's grandfather William Iiams was in turn son of yet another Iiams by the name of William—you see now why that given name seems to have ricocheted throughout the generations of the Ijams family. This elder William—we're now talking about my mother-in-law's seventh great-grandfather—was married to another Elizabeth. (Not that we want to make this more complicated or anything....) 

The maiden name for this ancestral Elizabeth, wife of the elder William, has been alternately entered as "Cheyney" or "Cheney." She was apparently daughter of Richard Cheyney, born about 1652, according to Newman's calculations.

As for her husband William—listed as William Eyams—he was the founding immigrant ancestor of this line in my mother-in-law's ancestry. Though his name is not included in any records of arrivals to the colony of Maryland, we do have a date for his will, which was drawn up in 1698 and presented in court in Anne Arundel County—another document to verify through the FamilySearch Labs Full Text search.

Thus, the trailblazer—in this case, Harry Wright Newman—has laid out specific dates to guide us in confirming the Ijams family's story, once they arrived in the North American British colonies. Now, we'll begin tackling the search for documents and start reading between the lines to see what other information can be uncovered.

A Process Break to Reminisce

 

It may be the middle of the week in the beginning of a research month which is far, far from my stated end goal, but today I need to take a process break. Why? On this day, thirteen years ago, we were celebrating Mother's Day. How do I know? Because thirteen years ago, I flung the first of 4,687 blog posts out into the ether, with the idea of sharing the family stories I inherited. I wanted to serve as genealogical guinea pig, reporting on my escapades as they unfolded. And I thought it might be a good idea to launch such a series on a family-friendly day like Mother's Day. After all, it was my mother's ancestors who were careful to pass down so many of those stories I knew from childhood.

After the nearly two million page views—both human and, I suspect, AI-initiated—and 15,636 encouraging comments from fellow family history aficionados, I hope to continue stringing together enough words to resonate every day. But one never knows which posts will wend their way to someone who will find them helpful, or inspiring, or even amusing. Sometimes, even years afterwards, I do hear from people researching the same lines as I am—added bonus if they are actual cousins—but that is not the case for most of the top posts here over the years.

When I look at the posts which snagged the most eyeballs, they seem to fall into a very few basic categories. Some were retrospectives on recent genealogy events, but others involved reflections on the current status of local genealogical societies, or the pathos we unexpectedly uncover as we plod along our research pathways. Then, too, there were the rare moments when genealogical pursuits or skill sets collided with breaking news. On a lighter side, even my orphan photo rescuing projects seemed to resonate. 

It's always hard to determine which posts will connect with readers. Cousin bait has been a prime motivator, at least on this writer's end, but that doesn't mean the same will motivate readers, themselves. Above all, the process of blogging about family history demonstrates our innate desire to find commonalities through family connection, no matter how distant—not just that we are family, but that seeking family is more a team sport than an individual endeavor.