When All the Details Line Up

 

It's encouraging, when looking for a brick wall ancestor, to finally find the document in which all the details line up and we can say with assurity that we have discovered the name belonging to the previous generation. In some cases, the one court document I found which mentions James Turner assures me of his connections to my mother-in-law's family. In other cases, though, it brings up more questions.

James Turner, if you recall, was son-in-law of my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandmother. And that distant great-grandmother was a matriarch on my mother-in-law's matriline, a potential common ancestor for the three exact matches my husband has on his—and thus his mother's—mtDNA test results. All I need to do is determine just how those female descendants for that matriline might figure into the puzzle.

After discarding the possibility of several of the women descending from Elizabeth Howard, that fourth great-grandmother, due to lack of daughters to pass down that mtDNA signature, we are currently circling the family of Elizabeth's daughter Rachel. Because Rachel was married in 1802, before Ohio had even attained statehood status, it would be a very slim chance indeed for me to find mention of her own name in legal documents—with one exception.

That exception was my hope to find a will for her husband, James Turner—and that her husband predeceased her. That hope, however, was quashed when my search for such a legal document in Fairfield County came up empty-handed.

It was as far as a last will and testament go that I was foiled in my research attempt. In its place, however, I found something else which turned out to be quite helpful—except for one detail.

The document was an indenture dated January 11, 1843. By the time of the 1840 census, James had already declared his age to be in his seventies. His wife was not far behind him. And the document being drawn up in court on that date in 1843 served as an exchange of property between the elderly couple and another man named James M. Turner.

The record was helpful in that it identified Rachel specifically as James' wife. In addition, we could possibly infer that James M. Turner may have had some relationship to the originating parties in that he exchanged a mere two hundred dollars in exchange for the property (worth about $8,000 in today's economy, not a bad price).

There was, however, one glitch in that document which didn't seem to line up. Toward the end of the first page of the court record, in specifically describing this property of James Turner, the wording stated, 

...which lot or section of land was granted by the United States unto the said William Turner by Letters made Patent...

Wait. Which said William Turner? I went back to reread the document—not relying on the AI transcription provided by FamilySearch Labs' Full Text search function, but reading that handwriting for myself. If there was a "said" William Turner previously mentioned, I have yet to find it.

However, the indenture provided some other very specific details, like the date in which that original transaction occurred (August 13, 1805), and the description of the property location (Section 28, Township 17, Range 17). I blasted over to the Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office Records to see whether there might be any record of a William Turner receiving land in Ohio.

There was. In Fairfield County. At that precise location: Section 28, Township 17, Range 17. On that same date: August 13, 1805. 

Don't you love it when all the details line up?

Better yet, if James Turner had somehow received that land from someone named William Turner, perhaps William was James' father, just as James M. Turner, next recipient of that property, might have been son of the elder James.

Of course, that's just a guess on my part. But at least it points me in a possible direction to continue my search. After all, it will take some cluster genealogy to help point out what became of Rachel and James Turner's currently invisible daughters.     

Turning to the Turners

 

Stomping around the wilds of pre-statehood Ohio without genealogical trail, map, or compass can be a disorienting experience. Looking for someone with a name as common as Turner does not help the situation. And yet, intrepid researchers on a quest to map out their family tree remain undeterred. Let's see what we can discover about James Turner, husband of Rachel Ijams.

Granted, I would not be looking for Rachel Ijams if it weren't for her mother, formerly Elizabeth Howard of Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Elizabeth was my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandmother, and sat squarely in the path of her matriline. My husband's mtDNA results bid me chase that trail as far as I possibly can. Thus, all the female descendants of that line are in the crosshairs of my spyglass.

Having failed to find any continuing female lines of Rachel's sister Mary, it was time to move on to the next eligible family member: Rachel. What little I already knew about Rachel I gleaned from the probate proceedings for her father's 1815 will in Fairfield County, Ohio. Thankfully, Rachel was married by the time she signed to acknowledge receipt of William Ijams' legacy, since his will only obliquely mentioned his female offspring as "my daughters." The one clue—best one so far—was that in 1802 in Fairfield County, still part of the Northwest Territory, Rachel married a man by the name of James C. Turner.

Yes, I know Turner as a common surname can be a research challenge. At least I can find James Turner in census records in the early years of Ohio statehood. From the 1820 census, we learn that James and Rachel were likely the parents of two sons around the age of ten, and three daughters under the age of ten plus two more in their early teen years. If each of those daughters lived to adulthood, that would give me five chances to find potential mtDNA matches.

Easier said than done by far, of course. When we fast-forward to the 1830 census, still in Fairfield County, only one female remained in the household—a possible daughter in her later teen years. The others could already have married—or they could have met the demise of so many in those early years, fallen to death-dealing diseases.

By the time of the 1840 census, James Turner and his wife—we can only presume she was still Rachel—remained alone in their household, with James in his seventies and his wife in her sixties. On a hunch, I took a look to see if any other Turner households were listed in this census at the precise location of James Turner's entry in Richland Township. As it turns out, there were five. Of course, that could mean they were nephews of our James just as much as it could signify his own sons. There is no way to tell at this point, though I am tempted to explore our James' F.A.N. Club to see if I can uncover any leads.

With James supposedly in his seventies by the time of the 1840 census, I would have been surprised to see any mention of him in the 1850 census, as much as I would have hoped it were possible. It was time to explore other options to uncover details about this family. Unfortunately, looking to old county history books yielded little more than we already know. The History of Fairfield County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, a 1912 book edited by Charles Christian Miller, provided the slightest of nods to James and Rachel's roots.

Among the first settlers were: William Wiseman, Theodore Turner, Stephenson and Ijams families and Judge William McClung.

Granted, the very first name in the list—William Wiseman—caught my eye, as we will turn to that name next in our search for matrilineal descendants, but I can't yet say whether James was even related to the list's second name, Theodore Turner. The only consolation in that passage is that I know another Ijams daughter did indeed marry a Stephenson. We are in the right place and on the right track—but not far along enough to yield us any usable information.

There was, however, another resource to check: the latest tool to smash through genealogical brick walls, FamilySearch Lab's Full Text search. Looking for James Turner in Fairfield County, Ohio, did produce some records. Not quite what I was seeking—it would be handy to locate James' own will, for instance—but it is worth some consideration. We'll take a look at those court records tomorrow.

Providence's Progeny

 

On the trail of all the female descendants of my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandmother Elizabeth Howard didn't seem to be that challenging of an assignment. At least that's how it seemed at the beginning. But after running into several daughters whose female offspring birthed only sons—if any children at all—I was beginning to despair of reaching my matriline-mapping goal with that handy mitochondrial DNA test.

Then, I found Providence. And among Providence's progeny, there were three daughters: Elizabeth, Sarah, and Mary Eugenia—not one, but three chances to make progress with my research goal.

Don't assume things will go well for us here, though. Providence, daughter of Elizabeth Howard's daughter Mary Ijams, was married to Thomas Dain, an Indiana man whose death in 1865 came with no documentation that I can find (so far), other than his monument in the Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis.

With Thomas' passing, he left Providence with their youngest daughter—Mary Eugenia—still at home. Born after the 1850 census, which listed her two older sisters, Mary Eugenia did not marry until her 1874 wedding with Jacob Smith.

It's fortunate to have found that record, for the 1900 census revealed exactly what I've been looking for: more daughters among the descendants of Elizabeth Howard. In fact, Mary Eugenia and Jacob had two daughters: Bernice and Myla. Bernice, however, never married. And Myla, soon wife of Frank Merrill Talbot, followed the family pattern by producing three sons for the next generation. No daughters.

Don't think looking to Mary Eugenia's older sisters will help us out in our quest. Her oldest sister Elizabeth's marriage produced one son. Period. And the middle sister, Sarah, has eluded me ever since her disappearance after the 1850 census.

With that, we'll retrace our steps back through the generations until we arrive at the generation of Elizabeth Howard's other daughters. Tomorrow, we'll see if we have better results in following Mary Ijams' sister Rachel, wife of James Turner, back in Fairfield County, Ohio.

Finding Females Before the Fifties

 

Since I realize that caving to the allure of alliteration may leave me wide open to misinterpreted hits from spammers, let me clarify that title: I'm now looking for the females in Walter Teal's family from before the fifties—the 1850s, that is, not their fifties. 

I'm still on the trail of my mother-in-law's matriline, looking for any mtDNA matches, specifically any women descending from her fourth great-grandmother Elizabeth Howard. Elizabeth's daughter Mary Ijams had married Walter Teal in Fairfield County, Ohio, in 1805, but somehow may have disappeared before her husband showed up in the 1840 census in Wabash County, Indiana.

It's hard to tell on those enumerations prior to 1850. While tally marks within age brackets can give us somewhat of a picture of a family's composition, they certainly can't tell us the names of any of those women in the household. But at least the document reveals that there was one possible daughter of Walter and Mary still remaining in the 1840 household: someone between the ages of fifteen and nineteen. Who could it have been?

Stepping back another ten years, Walter's household in the 1830 census had shown two other possible daughters: at that time, both were between the ages of fifteen and nineteen. If they were still alive by the time of the 1850 census, that would mean Mary had at least three daughters we need to find—assuming all three had lived to adulthood.

Fortunately, one of the daughters showed up in a transcription of a record in the Teal family's new home in Indiana. That transcription, a marriage index for Indiana weddings, clearly showed the parents' names as Walter and Mary Teal, but as for the bride's name, it was rendered as either Prudence or Providence. Likewise, the married surname display had problems, but appeared to be Jessup.

That's a start. Another marriage index supplied a bit more of the story. The groom was Jacob N. Shallenberger—or possibly Shallenborg. The bride was listed as Jessup. Apparently, if this was our Walter and Mary's daughter, she was married more than twice.

Sure enough, other documents began to fill in the blanks. Moving to earlier records than Shallenberger, Providence was once married to someone named Jessup. And before that, was married to someone named Thomas Dain. The good news in all of this? I could find that earliest couple in both the 1850 and the 1860 census—complete with the names of all their children.

Especially the daughters.

Where's Walter?

 

When relatives disappear, the natural question arising in a genealogist's mind is: where did they go? Since I've lately been working on the female ancestors comprising my mother-in-law's matriline, thanks to testing that full mitochondrial DNA signature, I can't simply wonder what became of her third great-grandmother's sister Mary Ijams. I need to ask what became of her husband. Thus, my question this week is: where's Walter Teal?

We've already seen that Walter Teal was the man who married Mary. Though the only accessible digitized copy of their marriage record somehow managed to cut off Mary's maiden name, we fortunately have documentation of her receipt of her portion of her father's inheritance—thankfully, received after her marriage to Walter Teal.

Because this detail leaves us researching a woman during the invisible decades for women in the early 1800s, I can only hope I found the right Walter Teal when locating such a name in the 1830 census for Fairfield County, Ohio, the same place where the couple had married twenty five years earlier. But when we turn to the 1840 census to look for Walter's family, there is no mention of this head of household in the place where they had lived for decades. 

However, using the Full Text search at the FamilySearch Labs, it was apparent that Walter's name had been mentioned in a number of deeds in Fairfield County over the years. Perhaps this made me a little less apprehensive of the discovery that there was indeed a Walter Teal in the 1840 census—but not where we thought we'd find him. This time, a Walter Teal showed up in Indiana. Was this our guy?

Once again, the census wasn't really of any help in identifying who else might have been part of Walter's household. We can see from the readout that whoever was in the Teal home—we have no way to know whether they were relatives or, perhaps, farm hands—it was headed by a man between the years of fifty and fifty nine, exactly ten years difference from the report we found back in Ohio for the 1830 census.

The 1840 entry was for a household in Pleasant Township in Wabash County, Indiana. Along with that older man in the Teal household was one between fifteen and nineteen years of age, along with two younger boys, one of whom was five years or younger. The data for the women in the family paint a far different picture than what we had gleaned from the previous enumeration, however. The oldest woman this time was in her thirties. She was accompanied by one other female, aged fifteen through nineteen.

This might have been our Walter, alright, but it certainly couldn't have been his wife Mary. Looking elsewhere for confirmation—or at least explanation of what might have happened in the past ten years—I spotted a General Land Office record for someone named Walter Teal. It was, as I had hoped, for property in Wabash County, Indiana. Thankfully, where his name was to be entered in the document, the actual detail stated: "Walter Teal of Fairfield County, Ohio."

It may be possible that Walter's wife Mary had died before the 1840 census, and that he had remarried. Depending on when he acquired the Indiana property, Mary may have died before he made the decision to leave Ohio—or she may have made the trip with him, then died shortly afterwards. It is my guess that that youngest child in the household could serve as a clue as to how long it had been since Mary's death—if we are unable to locate any death record for her in either state.

In my pursuit of the family's matriline, though, it will be to those possible daughters of Mary that I will turn my attention next. Not only that, but in following the family—hopefully to some point beyond the 1850 census—we can see whether that matriline was carried forward to future generations. 

Sometimes Fast Means Slow

 

No matter how fast we can now read our way through the unindexed wills at FamilySearch, thanks to the AI assist at FamilySearch Labs latest Full Text search project, that faster approach can still slow things down. In other words, "fast" can sometimes mean "slow" when it comes to research progress.

Since today marks my biweekly progress report, I thought the count wouldn't look so inspiring. After all, the Full Text search capability means we can find potential documents more quickly, but that doesn't take into account the reading of the documents after they are found. Nor does it account for the fact checking I do via supporting documents for each will I've discovered through the Labs. In other words, it's been slow going, even after finding wills and deeds speedily.

Still, in the past two weeks, I've documented 132 individuals in my mother-in-law's matriline. In pursuit of just how those mitochondrial DNA matches connect to my in-laws' tree, it now includes records for 34,318 relatives. I guess that isn't too bad, considering I discovered an incorrect marriage reported in two genealogy books, and had to revise some entries—not to mention backpedaling on the next generation in that matriline. I'm now stumped as to who might have been my mother-in-law's sixth great-grandmother, back in colonial Maryland, since William Ridgely's wife Elizabeth was evidently not the daughter of Lewis Duvall.

I guess the Full Text search at FamilySearch Labs helps discover those errors faster, too. 

The Power of Speed

 

Real value is no longer created by traditional measures of productivity. It's created by personal interactions, innovation, creative solutions, resilience, and the power of speed.

~Seth Godin, 

The Song of Significance

Finally getting down to reading a recent acquisition in my anti-library, I felt a quote literally leap off the pages of entrepreneur Seth Godin's latest, The Song of Significance. It was that phrase, "the power of speed," which resonated. After all, if it hadn't been for FamilySearch's latest development in speed-researching (otherwise known as Full Text search at FamilySearch Labs), I couldn't have gone speed-sliding down my mother-in-law's matriline quite so deftly.

Think of it: FamilySearch.org, by virtue of having accessed a faster way to page through endless legal documents, has created real value for those who need such creative solutions. The mind-numbing guesswork of paging through unindexed files, reading—no, oops, not the right page once again—line after line of indecipherable handwriting has finally come to its end. If, of course, the Labs Full Text test turns out to be a keeper.

The FamilySearch Labs example gets me thinking in broader application categories. What, for instance, if we applied that Seth Godin maxim to our current situation with waning member participation in local genealogical societies? Could the thought of personal interactions, innovation, or creative solutions speak to our dilemma there? I know that once Covid forced us to couple our traditional meeting format with the newer tech of online connectivity, we gained some benefits—but lost some personal interactions and resilience. Does this mean we face a zero sum game?

I tend to take that call to create "real value" as a call to return to personal connections. When our local genealogical society, after wandering the desert of online-only meetings for three years, decided to create a new, in-person get-together event just because, the energy level in the room was palpable. That buzz told me people really need this connection—even if it hasn't been the "way we always do things." All we added was personal interactions—but that is exactly the element we were sorely needing.

Maybe it only takes just one change to resurrect a wilting organization. We'll try others too, of course, but it is reassuring to see what a big response can come from such a simple change. After all, as Seth Godin likes to point out, real change can trigger a network effect of its own—which amplifies the signal we want to send even farther and faster.