Lennon on Temple in the Revolution

Genealogists talk a lot about historical context, but Rachal Mills Lennon does something about it. Her 19-page article on John Temple, a Virginian, in the March 2015 NGS Quarterly uses it as a major pillar of her research and analysis and correlation of the scanty evidence available on Temple's Revolutionary War career and pension. (Also, don't miss footnote 67.)

Having read this article, I hope that something similar will help with my Pennsylvania patriot problem.


Rachal Mills Lennon, "Context and Comrades Illuminate a Silent Southerner: John Temple (1758-1838), Revolutionary War Pensioner," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 103 (March 2015): 49-67.

Crossing the Continent with Common Names and Living to Tell the Story

As we genealogists soon learn, an amazing number of people have common names. I ran into a few of them seven years ago while working on my first BCG portfolio: Who were the parents of Ina Smith who married Frank Burdick in Kansas City in 1885?

He was the third generation on my kinship determination project, so I didn't have to deal with this side issue right then. But I was intrigued.

It turned out that Ina's parents were John and Elizabeth Smith. They appeared to have come from Indiana, but which ones were they, and where in Indiana -- and was Elizabeth's maiden name Smith too?

I made several runs at this problem over the years, going from thinking it was hopeless to thinking it was too easy. Now I'm on even keel, and the finished article is in the newly posted March issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, so readers can see how I solved it. This version is a little sharper than the original submission, thanks to peer review and good editors.

Of course, it's not likely that either of these two Smith families is one of yours. But you may have a similar sort of problem with different people. Hope it helps!

 NGSQ is a benefit of membership in the National Genealogical Society. Members can read the latest issue (and many old ones) as soon as it is posted.



"Crossing the Continent with Common Names: Indiana Natives John and Elizabeth (Smith) Smith," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 103 (March 2015): 29-35.

Yet another reason to join the National Genealogical Society

"One of the best ways to learn problem-solving techniques is to analyze NGSQ case studies," writes editor Melissa Johnson, CG, in the brand-new first issue of the on-line NGS Monthly. "Case studies demonstrate how challenging genealogical questions can be answered." Since every problem is a little different, stop looking for one-shot cure-alls and rules, and see the examples published quarterly in NGSQ and analyzed monthly in the new magazine.

If you've tried the National Genealogical Society Quarterly and found it tough sledding, NGS Monthly may be your gateway to a whole new level of research and analysis. If you're a member, the February 2015 issue should be in your email. If not, join here.

Methodology Monday with the genealogy of mislabeled records

Somehow, somewhere in the depths of the 19th Century U.S. Department of War, a unit of Revolutionary War soldiers got moved from Virginia to Connecticut. Probably it happened when the Compiled Military Service Record cards for George Markham's Revolutionary War company were created from a single 1781 original muster roll. It took a massive systematic effort by Craig Roberts Scott, in the current (September) National Genealogical Society Quarterly, to prove that they should be moved back.

The muster roll itself had "Virginia" written on its side, and no original source places them in New England. Scott first found that Markham himself was closely tied to Chesterfield County, Virginia, both before and after 1781. Then he correlated dozens of the individual officers and soldiers in the unit to same-name men on record in that county. One at a time.

A groundbreaking (or rather, ground-restoring) project of this kind doesn't have to be fancy, but it does have to be thorough and systematic. This one also reminds us to pay close attention when a derivative record makes a claim that cannot be confirmed in the original. That's like a sign saying, "DIG HERE."


Craig Roberts Scott, "Captain George Markham's Military Company: Virginia not Connecticut," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 102 (September 2014): 201-30.


Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday with the genealogy of mislabeled records," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 1 December 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Friday from immigrant origins to economic causes

In the current (September) National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Allen R. Peterson pieces together a Sandham family that showed up in Derbyshire out of the blue in 1806. Where did they come from?

The IGI -- used as an index to the underlying records -- suggests a hypothesis. The family may have come from 56 miles away in Lancashire. Comparisons of names and birth and death information from the two places confirm that the parents and 4-5 children are the same in both places at different times.

Why did they move? By digging through records ot taxes, inheritance, and warnings-out involving both ancestors and in-laws, Peterson goes beyond "pure" genealogy, making the case that the parents were probably leaving a marginal agricultural existence and seeking steadier factory work in Derbyshire. Those without English ancestry can learn something here about taking the next step of restoring more than just dates and places in the past.




Allen R. Peterson, "The Origin of Peter and Jane Sandham of Thornsett, Derbyshire," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 102 (September 2014): 189-200.


Harold Henderson, "Methodology Friday from immigrant origins to economic causes," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 28 November 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Friday with Isaac Young

Isaac Young (1799-1872) died in California. Where did Shirley Langdon Wilcox, CG, FNGS, find the clue that led to identifying his father back in Virginia? By reading the 1898 California obituary of a woman who died more than 25 years after him; she had been married to his son Leander's partner in a sawmill. It also helped that Wilcox knew about private laws.

Wilcox's article appears in the current (September) issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly. I won't spoil your pleasure in following her logic step by step, but doing so should be enough all by itself to quash the notion that genealogy means finding out "all about" your ancestor.

To find our ancestor's ancestor, we often have to study his or her friends, neighbors, and associates -- and sometimes associates of his associates! -- as if they were relatives . . . because some of them probably were. This goes double or triple for ancestors, like Isaac, whose origins lie in the "Dark Age" of US genealogy.



Harold Henderson, "Methodology Friday with Isaac Young," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 14 November 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Monday with the Goggins Family

Morna Lahnice Hollister skillfully weaves documentary and DNA evidence together to produce a 200-year male-line family tree for Luchion Goggins (1900-1984), in the lead article in the September 2014 National Genealogical Society Quarterly. Those struggling with African-American research, South Carolina research, or other difficult problems can learn and take heart from the tools she used to solve this one.

Key to the documentary side of the research was correlating different records to confirm accuracy or detect error. Family oral history named Luchion's father. By taking that hint to the census the author found Luchion in his widowed mother's household. Moving back, Hollister used a table to correlate four censuses and show the perplexing 1870 enumeration of the Goggins household as a dubious outlier.

Further back, documentary evidence showed that Luchion's great-grandfather and grandfather were owned by the Herndon family and that Jesse Goggins was a long-time associate and overseer for the Herndons. Y-DNA evidence established a significant probability that Jesse Goggins or one of his male relatives was Luchion's great-great grandfather.

Without DNA evidence such a connection would have been speculative. Without the documentary evidence we wouldn't even be able to speculate, let alone find the right people today to test.



Morna Lahnice Hollister, "Goggins and Goggans of South Carolina: DNA Helps Document the Basis of an Emancipated Family's Surname," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 102 (September 2014): 165-76.


Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday with the Goggins family," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted  3 November 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Top three posts since March

By definition, if you're reading this post, those listed below are probably familiar. But in case you're an outlier, the three most popular posts on this blog in the last six months:

(1) "Cleanup in Aisles 1-1000"  (10 April). This one was controversial, too!


(2) "What I would have liked to know as a newbie" (19 June).YMMV but I'm sure you know the feeling.


(3) "Methodology Monday with Elizabeth Shown Mills, the FAN Club, and DNA" (3 August). Part of my ongoing series to showcase some of the best work being done in genealogy. Includes a list of NGSQ articles using various forms of DNA.




Harold Henderson, "Top three MWM posts since March," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 11 September 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Sunday with NGSQ: A Boren Family in Pittsburgh

Samuel W. Boren's 1898 Pittsburgh death certificate said that he was 69 and that his parents were both named Boren. Ten years later his grandson wrote down a more informative, brief, and entirely unsourced profile of Samuel's birth family. In the June issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, I treated it as a hypothesis and managed to confirm it, relying on indirect evidence and evidence from better-documented siblings.

Key records were censuses, city directories, Methodist newspapers and records, tax lists, property records, and vital records (in a state other than Pennsylvania). Key tools included establishing a migration chronology (mostly in and around Pittsburgh), creating tables to condense and correlate multiple pieces of evidence, and establishing connections between Samuel, each of his two brothers, and their sisters.

Of course, the conclusion that Samuel's parents were John Boren and Elizabeth Moore just sets up two more tricky parentage problems in early 19th-century "Dark Age" western Pennsylvania genealogy.

Like many articles, this one has had multiple incarnations. It is the more finished version of a case presented to half of the January 2014 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy Advanced Evidence Practicum. And it will be one of several proof arguments to be dissected in the January 2015 SLIG course "From Confusion to Conclusion." Samuel was or is my great-great-great grandfather-in-law.



Harold Henderson, "Testing Family Lore to Determine the Parentage of Samuel W. Boren of Pittsburgh," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 102 (June 2014): 97-110.


Harold Henderson, "Methodology Sunday with NGSQ: A Boren Family in Pittsburgh," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 20 July 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Monday with a golden oldie in Kentucky (NGSQ)

It just takes a while for people to "get" indirect evidence. I read and annotated and discussed "The Parents of Joseph Rhodes of Graves County, Kentucky" in the March 2009 NGS Quarterly five years ago. Most of my notes have to do with picking at the details, and I may have been looking for a full account of the family rather than a proof.

When I read it now I'm trying to figure out the logical skeleton of that proof. Tom Jones identifies four common logical skeletons in Mastering Genealogical Proof: single hypothesis, multiple hypotheses, building blocks, and "syllogisms" (AKA if-then statements). Basically the article follows the subject, Joseph Rhodes, forward from his first known record appearance in 1831. Then it follows an older 1831 neighbor, Benjamin Rhodes, forward from his revolutionary war service. There's direct evidence here involving his Benjamin's Edens in-laws, but in the end the author has sifted out eight shiny nuggets of indirect evidence that Benjamin was Joseph's father.

Each individual piece could be explained away; to explain away all eight would be a heroic task. Still, I know good genealogists who don't quite seem to believe in indirect evidence. It just seems fragile somehow -- although it would be much harder to forge, especially given the diversity of records involved in this case.

Reading the article now, I can't help but think the author had a hypothesis in mind for Benjamin as soon as it appeared he was nearby and the right age to be Joseph's father. But the article is presented  more in a building-blocks format, in which first Joseph's and then Benjamin's life stories are surveyed for evidence pro or con. The way the building blocks are constructed -- mostly following the two lives in chronological order -- may make it easier to grasp than other articles with the same skeleton.



Sarah R. Fleming, "Indirect Evidence for the Parents of Joseph Rhodes of Graves County, Kentucky," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 97 (March 2009): 5-15.

Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday with a golden oldie in Kentucky (NGSQ)," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 19 May 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Monday: Extending and Enriching the Story (NGSQ)

Not every genealogical question is, "Who were the parents?" In "Explaining the Sudden Disappearance of Mitch Evins of Georgia and Texas," William M. Litchman tackles the problem of a midlife disappearance. Finding where Evins went turned out not to be the hardest problem, thanks in part to one of those over-the-top census enumerators who listed county and state of birth.

In this case, the hard-core research came in finding court records that help characterize the family (not a laid-back bunch) and testing out the ongoing family story that Mitch's disappearance had to do with his Cherokee ancestry. In the end no source states outright why he took off, but the author gives the readers a much better (if less melodramatic) idea of what the factors may have been.

When we think of top-level genealogy publications, we don't usually think about problems of this kind -- but we should.




William M. Litchman, "Explaining the Sudden Disapearance of Mitch Evins of Georgia and Texas," National Genealogical Solciety Quarterly 102 (March 2014): 41-50.


Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday: Extending and Enriching the Story (NGSQ)," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 12 May 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Monday: When Close Isn't Good Enough (NGSQ)

If your great-grandfather died 22 February 1922 at the age of 46 years, 7 months, and 23 days, how do you find out when he was born? Just plugging the numbers into your favorite date-calculating software may not be enough. Barbara Levergood's 25-page instructional article in the March National Genealogical Society Quarterly explains why, and much more.

His age at death may have been the result of a calculation, but we don't know what kind of calculation. "Such calculations are not primary information, may be incorrect, and may have been calculated using one of several methods," writes Levergood -- and different methods can produce different birth dates when we try to run the original calculation backwards.

It turns out that by taking up genealogy we didn't escape mathematics. Not all genealogical projects require us to determine every date to the day (and of course in any given case non-mathematical sources of error may overwhelm computation mistakes), but often proper technique can save a lot of trouble -- for instance,

• when we need to establish a likely range of dates within which to search for a vital record, or 
• when we need to distinguish spouses or children over several censuses, or 
• when a brief biography gives an approximate initial date for one event and gives other events as happening "three years later," "about ten years after that," and so on -- and we want to know how large the reasonable date range may have become by the end!

Even if you outsource mathematics to a young whiz kid in the household, the article helps correct some of our casual habits of thought. "Common sense" may tells us that a 90-year-old man dying in 1870 was born in 1780, but as Levergood points out, even if the age and year of death are correct, the actual date range for his birth is nearly two years.

Members of the Association of Professional Genealogists will recognize this as a nice companion piece to Steve Morse's article on historical calendar changes in the March APG Quarterly. They're both keepers.


Barbara Levergood, "Calculating and Using Dates and Date Ranges," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 102 (March 2014): 51-75.

Methodology Monday with shared addresses in Philadelphia

Do you check the whereabouts of friends, associates, and neighbors in the censuses and forget the cemeteries?

"Cemeteries are neighborhoods too." That staying has stuck in my mind ever since I first heard it from Elissa Scalise Powell. It could be the tagline for Kay Haviland Freilich's article in the March 2014 National Genealogical Society Quarterly identifying the parents of Philadelphia native Harry Harding (1852-1894).

The 1860 census provided a hypothesis as to Harry's parentage. But it might have remained a hypothesis if Freilich had not found a significant cemetery discrepancy. Harry, his wife, and two children are buried in one Philadelphia cemetery. But their first (stillborn) son is buried elsewhere -- in the same lot as Harry's hypothetical parents.

Read the whole thing, including an elegant two-page table of joint locations of various family members between 1850 and 1906 that support the connection.




Kay Haviland Freilich, "A Family for Harry Harding of Philadelphia," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 102 (March 2014): 11-20.

Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday with shared addresses in Philadelphia," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 28 April 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Monday and the man with two last names (NGSQ)

People who change names without warning shake the ground that genealogists walk on. In US research, especially prior to 1850, it can take serious digging to figure out whether the two names represent two people or one.

In the March 2014 National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Mary Foote W. Lund deals concisely and precisely with such a problem. Using mostly indirect evidence, she shows that Micajah Bennett  fathered four distinctively named Bennett children born between 1800 and 1810. The same four children were directly identified by a seemingly reliable neighbor and relative as children of Micajah Wheeler. The author can't explain why Micajah used both surnames, but she does marshal additional evidence to confirm that there was only one of him.

Two lessons stand out:

(1) Research the whole family; you're probably going to have to anyway. Records from a grandson and from Micajah's father-in-law -- including one created after Micajah's death -- provided key information.

(2) NGSQ-worthy problems do not all require 15 or 20 pages to solve. Small is beautiful.




Mary Foote W. Lund, "Parents of Stephen Preston Bennett of Franklin County, Virginia," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 102 (March 2014): 5-10.


Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday and the man with two last names," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 14 April 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Monday in NGSQ: Tracking Tatums

Pamela Strother Downs serves up a Southern-style methodology treat in the current issue of the NGS Quarterly. Carefully proceeding from a man who died in Louisiana back to Alabama and Georgia, she extends a Tatum line two generations downstream from where they were accounted for in John Frederick Dorman's Adventurers of Purse and Person.

As often in the Q, the map and the table accompanying the article are not just ornamental, and they repay careful study.

The map:  Census records list two landless people in Montgomery County, Alabama, in 1830 as being 28 pages apart. Downs located landowner neighbors and mapped their locations. Without locating just where the landless pair lived in 1830, the map shows that they had to live nearby because their landed neighbors did. This was a key piece of evidence in completing the lineage, and it's a key technique to use and reuse in Dark Age US research, wherever your people may be.

The table paired two timelines of same-name Tatum men to show that an earlier DAR application confused one with the other.

Tatum researchers will appreciate the two extra generations; we all can appreciate seeing good technique in action.





Pamela Strother Downs, "Ancestry of Henry Tatum of Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana: Migration and Mistaken Identity," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 101 (December 2013): 273-90.



Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday: Tracking Tatums," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 10 March 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Monday (NGSQ): Paul Graham reopens a chapter of African-American history in Georgia

There's a strange idea out there that "genealogy" is boring and technical, while "family history" is the fun story-telling stuff. If any article can refute this notion, it's Paul Graham's lead article in the December National Genealogical Society Quarterly, "A Love Story Proved: The Life and Family of Laura Lavinia (Kelly) Combs of Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia."

Graham, whose work is showing up everywhere these days, is one of the few who hold both the AG and CG credentials. This article, which won NGS's 2012 Family History Writing Contest, carefully marshals a variety of indirect evidence to clarify and confirm a long-standing story that Mary Combs, a free woman of color, sold her property in Atlanta in order to purchase the freedom of her enslaved husband -- a tale that had stumped previous writers and historians who tried to verify it.

This is a great article for those who are new to the specific challenges of African-American research, or who are beginning to suspect that there's a whole world of genealogy out there beyond just chasing names on Ancestry or looking them up in indexes.

Just to start, Graham had to get the name straight. No African-American Mary Combs appeared in local records, but Laura Combs did. No deed stating that she bought or sold the city lot exists. But a neighbor's 1854 deed identified her as its owner, and a tax list the following year showed that Laura Kelly, under the name of her legally required guardian -- that same neighbor -- paid taxes on property worth $1000. And the white Combs women who lived on the property in 1859 owned a slave named John.

Already a trail snaking through property records (but not "Mary's"), tax records (under another name altogether), and a city directory.

If you want to know how Graham figured out the rest, join the National Genealogical Society and read the article on line, or make your way to the nearest good genealogy library. We can't even begin to tell the story without having done the technical work.




Paul K. Graham, "A Love Story Proved: The Life and Family of Laura Lavinia (Kelly) Combs of Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 101 (December 2013): 245-66.

Harold Henderson, "Methdology Monday (NGSQ): Paul Graham reopens a chapter of African-American history in Georgia," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 17 February 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Jill Morelli analyzes ten NGSQ articles

I'm delighted to see another blogger, Jill Morelli over at Genealogy Certification: My Personal Journal, publicly reading and analyzing the best work in the field, here and here, under the heading of "Analyzing Ten NGSQ Articles."

She has a different approach to them than I had thought of. Any time the National Genealogical Society Quarterly and other top journals can get a fraction of the social-media exposure that software updates and misleading television shows routinely receive, I'm all for it. Additional publicity here.

Now that I think of it, this blog has gotten away from posting about these journals in recent weeks...


Harold Henderson, "Jill Morelli analyzes ten NGSQ articles," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 3 December 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Sleuthing for Smiths in Alabama and Mississippi

This blog doesn't normally reach so far south of the Mason-Dixon Line, but blog rules were made to be broken. And what better time than to take note of Laurel Baty's methodological tour de force that leads off the current (June) National Genealogical Society Quarterly (online issues free to NGS members)?

Given a Smith family, she deals smoothly with an array of erroneous records, not to mention the ones that aren't there at all: "Three generations of Martha's family left no estate records. Her parents' marriage record is missing, her father owned no land, and he appears in a single census, which supplies no ages and birthplaces."

She maps and lists land, court, and church records to help identify a father who appears in none of them. The footnotes are revealing: the four words "He witnessed no deeds" are backed up by an every-page search of 23 years of Wilcox County, Alabama, deed books. This article will benefit any researcher, in the South or elsewhere, who's troubled by common-name ancestor issues.




Laurel T. Baty, "Parentage of Martha Smith of Alabama and Mississippi: Overcoming Inconsistent, Incorrect, and Missing Records," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 101 (June 2013): 85-102.



Harold Henderson, "Sleuthing for Smiths in Alabama and Mississippi," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 9 August 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Jethro Potter's secret in NGSQ

When a grown man gives his mother three different names over more than half a century, you know you've got trouble. That evidence was the beginning of my article just published in the new June 2013 National Genealogical Society Quarterly.

When Jethro Potter died at the age of 94 in Ohio in 1963, he reportedly had more than two dozen grandchildren. But his parentage was cloaked in mystery and possibly deception. The article identifies his parents by tracing a plausible mother's life forward, a lengthy process that eventually led to five key documents, all of them created decades after Jethro's birth, and only one directly naming the parents. In the course of the research eight Alberson half-siblings and two McCroskey half-siblings were identified.

This all-Midwestern story has many colorful subplots and stories, most of which were not relevant to establishing the genealogical framework. The scene shifted among multiple counties in four states: Ohio (Darke, Portage), Indiana (Randolph, Wells, Jay, Marshall, Starke), Illinois (La Salle, Livingston), and Michigan (Muskegon).

As for records, I did not find or use anything exotic. In the end the 66 footnotes contained standard genealogical fare: census, vital, Social Security, military, court, newspaper, probate, property, cemetery, and funeral home. Many records contained mistakes and omissions requiring the records to be analyzed and correlated and corrected.

This article grew out of two client reports that first grew into a case study for BCG certification. (It is much more condensed and focused than the case study.) Those who are working on credentialing of any sort should keep NGSQ and similar publications in mind if you want your work to last, and especially if you want it to get a really thorough going-over!




Harold Henderson, "Jethro Potter's Secret: Confusion to Conclusion in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 101 (June 2013):103-112.


Harold Henderson, "Jethro Potter's secret in NGSQ," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 24 July 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.] 

Rebuilding the Jaynes family with no direct evidence

Those hoping to qualify for Certified Genealogist status from the Board for the Certification of Genealogists can submit a proof argument that involves conflicting evidence, OR a proof argument that involves only indirect evidence. If you're contemplating the latter route, Mara Fein's article in the March 2013 National Genealogical Society Quarterly provides a nifty example. The keystone is an 1851 Washington County, Ohio, deed -- but in order to make the case Fein had to amass many hints in a variety of records (never an explicit statement) that the five grantors and the grantee were siblings, children of Henry and Catherine Jaynes. (One piece of evidence: the grantee paid $1 for the land.)

As someone who went through the portfolio process twice, I'm not fond of this particular route to certification, because it puts the applicant in a Catch-22: if she should find that the family can be proved with direct evidence, then she's back to square one. For an article, however, that drawback does not apply. Fein's article is also noteworthy in that there are almost no pieces of contrary evidence.

To put it another way, this article is almost the perfect opposite to the idea most of us brought to genealogy as beginners -- that the only way to prove a relationship is to find a records that SAYS what the relationship was. Fein made her case without any such records.

Midwestern researchers will note that the case spreads from Wood County, (West) Virginia, to Washington County, Ohio (right across the Ohio River); Jefferson, Daviess, and Knox counties, Indiana; and Linn County, Missouri. These counties trace what sure looks like a river-based migration path, but it's the aggregate power and logic of painstakingly gathered indirect evidence that carries all before it in this article.




Mara Fein, "Who Was the Father of Henry Norton Jaynes of Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, and Virginia?," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 101 (March 2013): 35-47.


Harold Henderson, "Rebuilding the Jaynes family with no direct evidence," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 31 May 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]