Thrilling Discoveries

My most thrilling moments in genealogy research

It is not very hard to develop an impressive family tree on Ancestry. It is enormously satisfying to be able to add several generations of ancestors in an afternoon sitting. However, it cannot compare to the excitement of breaking through a brick wall, solving a family mystery, discovering a fascinating story, or connecting with a person or event of historical significance. 

I have had quite a few memorable break-throughs in my research. Reflecting back on the last ten years of working on my family tree, here are some of the highlights:

1. Discovering our Mayflower connections on both sides! My paternal Mayflower ancestor is Stephen Hopkins (there may be a maternal connection to him as well). Also, on the maternal side is John Howland and Elizabeth his wife and her family, the Tilleys. John Howland is remembered for falling off the ship in the middle of the ocean. There is a famous painting about it. 

2. Learning that there are many religious leaders in our direct line, including some famous ones like Roger Williams, founder of Providence, R.I., and Joseph Bosworth, a leader of the Mormon church under Joseph Smith himself. My 3rd great grandfather, Orrin Bishop Judd, was a respected theologian and Bible translator (until he caused a divorce scandal), who founded the American Bible Society. Some of my ancestors established churches in the colonies that still exist today. 

3. Connecting to significant historical events. In addition to fighting in all the major wars in America (1812, Revolutionary, and Civil), my ancestors fought Indians in Colonial times (in both Virginia and New York), fought Indians during the pioneer days out west and as first settlers in the Dakota Territory, survived the Grasshopper Plague of 1874, befriended General Custer before the Last Stand, knew the Marquis de Lafayette personally, and assisted a famous paleontologist to dig up the first dinosaur bones discovered in America. My ancestors established towns like Hartford, CT, and governed colonies in New England. My closest Confederate Army veteran, George Powell, was taken POW three days before the end of the Civil War at Farmville where 100 years later I went to college. 

4. Solving old family mysteries tops the list of thrilling moments. I have written about these extensively in this blog. A recap:

The biggest mystery concerned my grandmother who grew up in an orphanage in Texas and knew almost nothing about her family. All she knew about her parents were their names (which turned out to be inaccurate) and faces - she had two small photos of them which she carried with her all her life. 

There were several big AHA! moments in the process of finding my grandmother's family:

• Mom remembering that her mother had changed her name! As a teen in the orphanage, she changed her first name from Ethelyn to Teresa. I had puzzled over this discrepancy for months.
• finding her father's business address on Douglas Avenue on a map of Wichita - explaining why my grandmother had incorrectly remembered her father's middle name as Douglas. It was actually Dozier. 
• finding her mother's gravestone on Findagrave, at an asylum cemetery in Woodward Oklahoma.
• digging up many news articles about her father, including a caricature in the newspaper that unquestionably matched the small photos she carried. There was a newspaper paragraph that revealed his fate as an inmate in an asylum. 
• finding a photo of her cousin (whom she never knew existed) who could have been her twin. 
• tracing her grandfather back to his roots in Virginia (full circle!). 
• Discovering a connection to Chemokin, a farm located near our family's beloved farm in Mechanicsville where I spent summers as a child.

The second mystery was concerning "The Rift" between my great grandmother Ida and her twin sister Addie. This was a longstanding source of curiosity in my family - everyone knew there was a rift, but no one knew why. That mystery was solved by the discovery of newspaper articles about their mother's death. A lawsuit was filed by Addie against her mother Margaret, which ultimately led to Margaret's death after she had a stroke on the train coming from Richmond to Norfolk to answer the lawsuit. 

Using a variety of methods

Deciphering handwritten letters and U.S. Census abbreviations, providing context by using maps and historical resources, and zooming in on locations using Google Earth have all been methods of solving mysteries and providing these thrilling moments of discovery. Actually visiting cemeteries, and especially the sites of family homes has added a recent new dimension. Standing on the ground that my ancestors walked centuries before is a profound experience. 

There are still mysteries to be solved. 

Detective work: recent discoveries

My family tree is pretty solidly developed through my 2 X great grandparents on every branch, which is amazing! But on a couple of lines, I have hit a wall. I  started taking genealogy classes at the public library hoping to break through some of those walls. My new-found skills have actually turned up some enlightening nuggets of information.

While in class last week, I was browsing and half-listening while the instructor modeled a research example using census documents. The instructor explained an unusual feature of the 1930 census where the "age at first marriage" was given. I was in the back of the class, browsing my own family in the census when I came across an item for my great grandmother Ida Rene Bryant... in the 1930 Census, her "age at first marriage" was 16! I had only just recently discovered the shocking fact that she had been married at 19 to Lewellen Eley. Now I find that she had another marriage before that! That makes a possible fifth marriage for her. Her descendants only knew about two marriages.

Ida Rene Bryant's marriages
age 16 - ?? ??
age 19 - Lewellen Eley (divorced or annulled)
age ?? - ?? Williams (widowed)
age 26 - William Butler (widowed)
age 37 - George Abbott (my great grandfather)

Other dead ends that are driving me crazy:

Robert Scott Allen
Another brick wall is in the Allen line, my mother's maternal side. I have not been able to get past my 2 X great grandfather Robert Scott Allen. I believe his parents are John Allen and Rebecca Scott, but can't prove it with unimpeachable sources. I did find new information about Rebecca Scott, though, in her father's will.  Her parents are not who I thought they were. It was a case where two pairs of siblings married the same family. Her father and mother died when she was young and there is not much documentation about them.

John Dillingham and Calvin V. Crofford
The problem of John Dillingham's parentage is the subject of debate and speculation among his descendants on both sides of the ocean. My family lore says he was born in Wales and came to Indiana from Connecticut. Some say he was born in Providence, RI. His daughter Anna married Calvin Crofford (Crawford), but the Crawfords are a dead end as well.

George James Powell
My Nannie's grandfather. I believe he died after the war in 1865. I cannot find any documentation of his parents, though there are many connections with other Powells having the same unusual names, such as "Littleton" and "Bell". The Powells have a long history in Henrico and Accomack Counties.

These aren't the only brick walls in my research, but are the ones I am most anxious to resolve.