52 Ancestors Week 29: Challenging

Question

Time for the next 52 Ancestors challenge!

Please share with us a profile of an ancestor or relative who matches this week's theme:

Challenging

From Amy Johnson Crow:

Challenging. What would genealogy be without a few challenges. (And yes, this is similar to a theme we had at the beginning of the year. I'm willing to bet you have more than one challenging ancestor -- I know I do!) Who has been a challenge to find? What location is challenging to research?

Share below!

Participants who share every week can earn badges. If this is your first time participating and you don't have the participation badge, or if you pass a milestone (13 in 13, 26 in 26, 52 in 52) let us know here. Click here for more about the challenge. 

Comments

One of my challenging ancestors is my Great Grandfather, Theodore Ceruti, Ceruti-35, who was said to come from Sardinia to Ragged Island, Bahamas. Y-DNA shows that he was not Italian. We don't know his parents or even that "Theodore Ceruti" was his birth name. My father said that his father did not want to talk about his family origins apart from life in the Bahamas. This is not the only genealogical brick wall we have on the Ceruti side of the family, but it is one of the most interesting. According to FamilyTree DNA, we have many Y-DNA relatives named "Field" or "Fields" which is British, including the noted astronomer, Sir John Field. Research shows that we have not accounted for all Sir John's descendants. I think Ceruti-35 could have been one of them.

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My perpetual challenging ancestor is my third great-grandmother Marinda Tarbox Jaquith, for whom the only concrete evidence is a marriage record. She apparently died ca. 1860 and is likely a descendant of John Tarbox of Lynn, MA. There are Tarbox families scattered all over southern New Hampshire, so I have lots of hints...and lots of dead ends.

Answer 1

My challenge is not about  a particular ancestor. It is about staying on track! I start with one surname, the idea being to source them all better. Trouble is I keep getting side-tracked and find myself pursuing the ins and outs of some relative of a relative. Before I know it I have forgotten where I started!

Now my watchlist is growing too big, but who to discard?

Comments

It's so tempting to keep pulling the threads once you start down a trail (if you'll excuse the mixed metaphor).  I have found an added bonus to some of these distantly related people is that when I dig further I find that they have a sibling or cousin who is actually married to a closer relation.  So in the end it has sort of saved me doing the research later - except there are always new threads to follow!

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You are NOT alone Marion.   It's easy to get scattered and leave a profile before a thorough job is done!   I try to remind myself,  it's easier to "find the facts"  when you're still familiar with the whole family and their neighbors.....   (It works sometimes.)

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I believe many of us can relate to this challenge, Marion.

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I hear you, Marion...the spider web keeps growing. One positive outcome of digging so many rabbit holes, though, is getting caught up in researching a distant cousin, following threads of her family and, as a result, being able to help a total stranger find his lost relative!

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Thanks for the star Sherry

Answer 2

One of my biggest challenges was Delilah Huffman Ames.  Here is what I have posted to her WikiTree profile:

This is a woman whose surname we did not know for many years. It was found entirely through DNA. I had a large group of unidentified, interrelated DNA matches, and I was examining those whose ancestors lived in Burton, Illinois. John Ames, Delila's husband, had been such a dead end (both in terms of records and DNA connections) that I wondered if Delila had had our ancestor Martha by another man. I found the family of Solomon Huffman living in Burton, then by chance discovered in a match's tree that he had a sister named Delila. Once I identified Delila's parents as William Huffman and Sarah Childers, I found we had dozens of DNA matches through Huffman and Childers ancestors, including those in two Ancestry DNA circles.

Comments

Just amazing, what a great use of DNA - so glad you found this connection.

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Well done!

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This is a great example of how DNA can be used to tunnel under the genealogical brick walls. I hope it can help discover the true identity of my great grandfather.

Answer 3

Location: East Tennessee due to the loss of census records in the early 1800s. Sickening!

Comments

Any ancestor in particular?

BTW: our family from TN, my grandfather told me that his grandfather told him, that his grandfather told him that they brought a bible from Germany, a huge specimen with thick leather bindings and inside had the family tree and secrets and it was carried away in a Tennessee flood.

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I blame Davy Crockett. =)

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Oh, the old Bible in the flood! Its a good story though.

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More seriously, some of these themes underline the fact that ancestral records were historically a sign of social privilege. We each feel the same pain when we lose the thread and I'm mindful that there are many people who simply have no way to trace beyond human memory: due to fire, flood, war, slavery, migration, and so forth.

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For me I don't find a problem with Census records - it's the marriage records that were destroyed when the Blountville Courthouse was damaged during the Civil War.

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I'll probably never find the maiden name of my GG Grandmother  Ellender (Unknown) McReynolds

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Unknown-202544

 because of courthouse fires in Bradley County (Eastern) Tennessee....... perhaps family records will one day surface.

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That is not the only Census loss. I read that a fire in the Commerce building in Washington, DC destroyed many records from the 1890 Census. We have only partial 1890 records from some states and no records at all from the states of origin of some of my family.

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I've never found an 1890 census for my ancestors...

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SJ, a couple:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Patterson-12629

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Finley-2160

Answer 4

22 years later since I discovered her, still can't find the parents of my 4x great-grandmother Elizabeth (Fisher) Ranck (abt. 1814 - aft. 1853).

Still looking...

Comments

Elizabeth Fisher ... sounds like the same sort of needle in the haystack I have with John Robinson.  It might be easier if she was named Smith.

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SJ with all your Ranck family in that wonderful photo. I have a feeling someday you will find her Fisher family.

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I hope so Alexis.  Unfortunately, the county courthouse burned down in the 1880's or 90's and with it went the wills, land records, birth records, etc.  Her children are listed in the 1850 census but her marriage and parents pre-date when family members were recorded in the census (1840 and earlier).

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Have you tried looking at the census for Fisher families who lived near the Rancks about the time she and Jesse would have married?  You might find some candidates for her father.

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Yes of course, in the 20+ years I've looked I've researched all the Fishers of White Deer Township.  The problem is, there are no county records.  And the census data before 1850 doesn't show which household she lived in.  So I need to find outside records and so far I've found none.  For her husband, I found his father listed in the book "The Rank of the Rancks," and this details his family line all the way back to the Palatinate in the 1600's.

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Laurie Giffin:  I have a John Robinson too in Tennessee, stuck.

Answer 5

The trials and tribulations of Italian genealogy: https://allroadhaverhill.blogspot.com/2019/07/52ancestors-week-29-challenging.html All my friends in the Italy project would probably agree with this blog. It's tough! But, it's worth it!!!

Answer 6

I think I posted about Charles Decker in the earlier challenge...I'll stick with him.  I've had a few possible leads DNA-wise; in terms of the paper trail, he had a sister-in-law (wife of his wife Ada's brother) named Luella Decker, a descendant of someone named Hiram Decker of Pennsylvania. 

Answer 7

My biggest challenging quest has been to get my great great  grandmother, Adaline Hutton McIntire, with her correct family. I have her original newspaper obituary, so I knew she was completely wrong on other sites. I now have her death certificate and her father's will. I photographed her 1845 family signature quilt over a year ago, and two weeks ago a women contacted me that she had bought a 1847 family signature quilt with some of the same names. She and I now realize it is the same family, and I have a C. middle initial for Adaline. This is still my main challenge, but it is starting to take shape even if it is in the shape of two quilts. 

Comments

What a wonderful story of quilts, Alexis.  I'm glad they helped you to "piece" together her story!

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Thank you Laurie, I was certainly surprised to hear from the lady that bought the quilt. She told me that I could use any of the photos she sent, but not her name.

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You told me about the quilt, but I didn't know that was related to one of the major focuses of research!  That was fabulous before, and now it's even moreso!!  I can imagine how pumped I would feel if I came across a clue like that about Nick! LOL

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The woman that bought the quilt must be a real collector, and she is also into researching them. Adaline was a big part of my joining WiKiTree.

Answer 8

John Robinson is my most challenging ancestor so far. The only footprints he left were a widow and children. Everything you find in his profile is taken from someone else, like pieces of a puzzle that contribute an estimate of his name, and of his birth, death and marriage. Most of the family members were identified through DNA matches and their mother's name, as their records show a father as John, Jonathan, or Joseph, and the surname Robertson. He doesn't fit any of the Robinson or Robertson families in PEI or New Brunswick at the time. 

I've learned a lot about genealogy, nibbling away at his puzzle!

Answer 9

One of my challenges for my husband's tree has been finding and now proving the identity of the father of his 2x Great Grandmother Mary Augusta Furniss. I have been getting familiar with British records in finding that she was the daughter of a single mother with no record of a father's name on her birth certificate. I was able to find that when Mary was four years old the person I believe was her father returned to Derby from Australia to marry her mother, Sarah Furniss. For whatever reason, when they returned to Australia Mary was left behind with her grandparents. I discovered that her father's name is not listed on her marriage certificate, her maiden name is listed as Furniss on the birth certificate for her oldest child and as Hoey on the birth certificate for her next child. All other children were born in America. 

So I think I have a trip to Middletown, Connecticut to see if I can get any additional information from her death certificate. The other option is attempting to figure out if the DNA matches he has in Australia are because of the shared ancestry with just Sarah Furniss or if they can help me confirm John Hoey as father of her illegitimate daughter.

Answer 10

My one great-great-great-grandfather on my mother's side.  (Seems I'm always going up those branches for problems!)

For as long as I can remember he was Scottish.  It was handed down from before my Mum was born.  But, somewhere along the way, probably because he died young and his daughters were double-orphans before they were ten years old, the reality became blurred.  However, because I keep "worrying" at knots, I have now verified that he was not Scottish (yet another pill for my LDS cousin to swallow), but Irish.  He didn't exactly come to Australia alone, even though he appears to have travelled solo.  His entire family except his father all came, too.  I have had the most wonderful journey of discovery during the CoAT (Connect-a-Thon), because one rabbit hole led to another rabbit hole and another and another .. and now I have a whole slew of rellies nobody my generation ever knew about (nor my Mum's generation).  I also, in the rabbit holes, I confirmed a family "legend" wasn't.  It was fact.  We just never knew the trail before.  Now I do and have it documented.  I am collaterally related to Henry Dangar .. and just wish my Mum were still alive so I could share it with her, after all the hours and hours she and I spent in the State Library of Queensland going over microfiche and microfilm looking for that very connection she was sure was there.

So, because of the great-Grand (and I may have mentioned this already in G2G), I am WISES or WISSE, or SWISE, not just" WISE!  (Before this I was just ESS, or SSE, or SES.  then the Welsh discovery occurred .. and I could probably write a whole 'nother screed on that!  (But I won't, so relax!))

Comments

Thats is great sleuthing Melanie.

I actually read up on Henry Dangar at the beginning of this year. After reading about some historical facts  events that happened in Central Queensland and one Trove article lead me to another etc. What a surprise!

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I am nine-degrees from Henry's Aunt .. Ann Dangar .. but NOT blood related to her.  (Connection finder didn't find a connection to Henry, because it's too many steps.)

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It was the Anning Family of Charters Towers that lead me to Henry. Now that you minded me I better go back and tag those Trove articles. I am working on a theory about Aussie Rogues moving a litlle further north each year.

Thank you for the links 

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Here is the result of using the connection finder thingy .. My first cousins four times removed are first cousins twice removed to Henry Dangar.

Isn't genealogy fun! 

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It tis! It tis!

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Oh but he probably was Scottish:

Scot's Irish.

I have one ancestor, John Kerr, who appears on two or three successive census records as having been born in Scotland.  We have since learned that he was born in Ireland.  He was - culturally speaking - very Scottish.  The Scots Irish never assimilated with the Irish and maintained a different and distinct culture.  If the family lore is that he was Scottish, it probably comes from him claiming Scottish descent, the grandkids remembering it and passing it down.

To give an idea of the fierceness of the Scots attitude towards their Scottish heritage, there is a saying that is attributed to John Kerr that was handed down to a grand-daughter who, in her old age, wrote it into the family tree.  When he was asked if he was Irish John replied, "Just because a man is born in sh*t, doesn't make him a pig."

He felt so strongly that he wasn't Irish that he would tell the census taker that he was from Scotland.

That statement and the bloody wars that were fought in Ireland (clear up and into the 20th century) show that there was no love lost between the transplanted Scottish "colonists" and the local Irish.  Genocides that included the slaughter of entire villages to include little children and babies shows the extent to which the Scottish invaders considered themselves "not Irish."  Think of the existing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and you'll get the idea of some past relations between Scots Irish and Irish.  The more recent war in Northern Ireland between the IRA and the UK military is a more recent reminder.

All that said, he may have indeed been born in Ireland but chances are his family was only there for two or three, maybe four generations and came from Scotland before that.

For as long as I can remember he was Scottish.  It was handed down from before my Mum was born.

I've seen this again and again in Scot's-Irish genealogies.  In once case that I remember a man was writing about his Scottish ancestry and so far as he could tell, his single 4x great-grandfather was the lone Scots-Irish in the family.  Yet, six generations later, as a boy, he was being raised to be a proud Scot.  He remembers his grandmother instructing him as a child, "And no matter what, always remember that you're Scottish!"  He wrote out the math: parents 50% of DNA, grandparents 25%, great-grandparents 12.5%, ggg 6.25%, gggg 3.125% - he speculated that he was three percent Scottish, genetically speaking, and always grew up feeling that he was 100% Scottish.  So your family memory of "he was Scottish since before my Mum was born" matches right on target for a Scots Irish ancestor.

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That is interesting SJ.

I thought the Graham's in my family were Scottish but someone told me recently that they were actually Irish. Something about border changes I think? I will have to look more into it. Thanks for sharing

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The English King forcibly removed some Irish Nobles from their land and then replaced them with Protestant "colonists."  The colonists were in many cases border-lands residents (those who lived on the English-Scottish border) - in many cases they were evicted and forcibly transplanted to Ireland and in other cases they were enticed by the English King with promises of land.  They called them colonists but in reality they were invaders.  Today, the academic definition of their invasion would be "genocide."

"Border changes" indeed 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch-Irish_Americans#Migration

The first major influx of Scots and English into Ulster had come in 1606 during the settlement of east Down onto land cleared of native Irish by private landlords chartered by James.^[42] This process was accelerated with James's official plantation in 1609, and further augmented during the subsequent Irish Confederate Wars. The first of the Stuart Kingdoms to collapse into civil war was Ireland where, prompted in part by the anti-Catholic rhetoric of the Covenanters, Irish Catholics launched a rebellion in October. In reaction to the proposal by Charles I and Thomas Wentworth to raise an army manned by Irish Catholics to put down the Covenanter movement in Scotland, the Parliament of Scotland had threatened to invade Ireland in order to achieve "the extirpation of Poperyout of Ireland" (according to the interpretation of Richard Bellings, a leading Irish politician of the time). The fear this caused in Ireland unleashed a wave of massacres against Protestant English and Scottish settlers, mostly in Ulster, once the rebellion had broken out. All sides displayed extreme cruelty in this phase of the war. Around 4000 settlers were massacred and a further 12,000 may have died of privation after being driven from their homes. The number of native Irish that died as a result of the Scottish colonisation is over 1,000,000, other estimations are higher. This caused Ireland's population, combined with the Irish catholic refugees fleeing to drop by 25%.^[43]

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Oh! Thank you SJ

Ever since meeting Melanie I have a whole different view on what was passed down through the generations.

You wouldn't know what we Grahams were supposed to not forget....No one in my family downunder has a clue.

Have a you beaut Sunday 

Answer 11

I thought my greatest challenge was my maternal great-grandfather, Marcus Jackson Lawson, who walked out on his wife and family in Virginia, disappeared and was not heard from again.  We found his trail by uncovering his subsequent marriage in West Virginia to a 22-year-old girl, 30-some years his junior (oh, my!)  We don't know where he died.  After years of fruitless research, I've had to accept that he must have died indigent, buried in a pauper's grave.

Now my challenge is to find the parents of my paternal 3rd-great-grandfather, Benjamin Culy, who lived in Whaplode, Lincolnshire, England.  He and his wife Ann Ward kept St. Mary's church quite busy baptizing, and then burying their small children, including Ann herself. After such tragedy, Benjamin immigrated with his surviving family to the United States, settling in Washtenaw, Michigan.  Now that I've earned my pre-1700s badge, I hope to find my 4th-GGP's.

Answer 12

The beginning of the year was a long time away for me!  I don't remember what I reported then, but given that there are so many challenges, here's hoping I don't repeat myself.  I'll throw out a few.  First of all, our Forbes line hits a dead end at William Forbes of 1756.  There are lots of Forbes before that, but I haven't found any clues as to the missing links between William and his ancestors.  Secondly, I'm really dry on sources for the German side of my family.  I know my great grandparents migrated from Samara, Russia, and were part of the German settlements there in Russia, and while I have plenty of Ancestry hints showing ancestors going way back, I'm finding it difficult to find the sources for many of those ancestor connections.  Lastly, I am still in search of source documents Susan Soule's mother's LNAB.  Susan is my 3rd great grandmother, making Bridgett my 4th GGM.  I've gathered stories from relatives (close and distant) that all indicate she was Bridgett Sprague, but no hard evidence yet.

Answer 13

I've already spoken about my most challenging ancestor, but one location that is awful is Gloucestershire/Herefordshire. There is a website called the Forest of Dean trust who have transcribed records for them, but not for every area and it just so happens that my Herefordshire brick walls are in areas that they don't have transcribed records for.

Answer 14

I have many Irish ancestors in which the only records I have available for them are their mentions in Scottish records for their children who have emigrated. One such example is William Robertson, who I can work out from the marriage record of his daughter Ann that he died before 1876 and that he was a power loom weaver.

Answer 15

At the beginning of the year I wrote that my Serbian side is my biggest challenge. In my German branch my biggest challenge is the greatgrandfather of my grandfather. The mother of his children brought 8 children to the baptism, but all the children got the marker "illegitimate". I try to find some hints in the baptism entries. And there is at many baptisms one woman I still can't put in any relationship to the family. I wonder if she belongs to the father's family. More research is needed.

Answer 16

I am completely stuck on Robert Rainey, the father of my G2 grandfather William Rainey.  I only know Robert's name from William's marriage certificate but I cannot find any definitive records for Robert himself, so I have nothing to put in a profile for him.  I have found another branch of Raineys in the right geographical area, who are distantly related to me through marriage to other branches of my family.  They also have an ancestor Robert, but the children of the Roberts are about twenty years different in age - which of course is just about possbile. I'm at a loss on where to go next with this bunch!

I couldn't remember what I'd posted before on "Challenge" so I went back to check... only to find that as I started in week 3 I didn't do this previously.  For once it wasn't just my memory   I do have several other candidates but I'll save them for a later post!
 

Answer 17

Genealogy presents so many challenges, so where to start?
It is challenging trying to read faded illegible parish registers from the 18th century and earlier, searching for people with names that are often badly spelled or transcribed, trying to distinguish between many records for people with the same name, finding non-conformists in England prior to 1837 where records were not kept by the state or established church, researching families in places where the records are not available online, and so on.
One person who meets a lot of these criteria and I would like to find more about is my G3 grandfather Thomas Fifield. He was born about 1810 in England. His father's name was Matthew according to his marriage certificate. He was a Baptist and was baptised as an adult in 1833. He only lived until 1843 but at least there are records of what happened in the last 10 years of his life. It is the earlier period that is challenging.
He was probably from Oxfordshire or Gloucestershire where many records are not online or are difficult to find because Fifield is often badly transcribed from difficult to read registers. There are records of only one Fifield family with father Matthew in the right area at the right time but no baptism record for a son named Thomas. That could be because he was from a completely different family who might have been Baptists for many years and he would not be found in the usual records. It is so frustrating!
 

Answer 18

My biggest challenge has been my Grandmother's father, Johnson Radford Drake (1864-1950) ancestors.

I have often joked that he must have been in the Government Witness Protection Program, since he seemed to just appear out of nowhere.

I recently located his death certificate.  It provided that his father was of the same name, Johnson R Drake.  However, it provided "Unknown" for his mother's name.

His son, Arthur Drake, reported his death.  It seems odd that he would not have known is grandmother's name.

Anyone out there know any more about this branch of the Drake family?  Billsims@aol.com

Comments

Yeouch!  Rough way to die!  Sorry for his accident.

It seems odd that he would not have known is grandmother's name.

In my 22 years of genealogical research I've seen mom's name go missing and the kids & grandkids didn't know it:

1.  Mom died when kid was young and it was painful for dad and he never talked about his past wife.

2. Mom ran off with some other guy and dad never mentioned her name again.

Were I in your shoes, I'd look for marriage records for Johnson Senior where the wife does not appear on subsequent census or other records.

good luck in your search

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Thanks for taking the time to respond...

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I only learnt my (paternal) Grandmother's name because I asked her one time what her initials (B M) meant.  Otherwise all I would have known was what was on the letters and cards we got from her at specific points during the year.

Her father-in-law was the reporter of his own father's death and did not know his grandmother's name.

Women frequently did not have names in documents, or in much else.  They were the daughter of their father (but not their mother).  They were the wife of their husband, then his widow or relict.  They may have been the mother of their children, but only by way of "Mrs (husband's name)".  If they were the eldest daughter, they were "Miss father's last-name" until they married.  Younger sisters were first name last name until either they married, or the eldest sister married .. which was when second sister became "Miss father's last-name".

Answer 19

I have faced many challenges in researching family history. As well as hard-to-find records, whether they exist or are accessible I find myself most challeged by records other languages according to unfamiliar customs where records are incomplete due to changes in governance. My husband's grandfather was born in Erfurt, Germany and was most fortunate to come to Canada before the world wars. Finding his family story has been a challenge every step of the way. He refused to speak of the world he left behind, but eventally went to visit his brother, Hans Frohberger, in 1952. Only a smattering of German records are online, but Erfurt house lists are, though I need to learrn a great deal more German to understand them, and the handwriting and abbreviations stymie my interpreter. Erfurt's variable government is perhaps part of the problem. It is located in the former East Germany, under Russian rule. Trying to create a timeline to help me, and have found at least four earlier adminstrations. One stow step at a time has found more. It's time to plod on.

Answer 20

This Week 29 for the Military challenge, I am honoring https://www/wikitree.com/wiki/Dewey-5906|Admiral George Dewey.  His profile provides enough to highlight why he was a man of importance. 

Admiral Dewey is the only person to ever attain the rank of Admiral of the Navy, the highest possible rank in the United States Navy.  His final rank, Admiral of the Navy, is often referred to as a Six-Star Admiral rank, (disregarding the fact that the insignia of the rank had only four stars) and he is the only person to ever hold this rank. He was one of only four Americans in history (the other three being Admiral William T. Sampson, Admiral Richard E. Byrd and General John J. Pershing) who were entitled to wear a US Government issued medal with their own image on it. The Dewey Medal was a military decoration of the United States Navy which was established by the United States Congress on June 3, 1898. The medal recognized the leadership of Admiral of the Navy George Dewey during the Spanish–American War, and the Sailors and Marines under his command.  The Dewey Medal was created to recognize the forces of the U.S. Navy and United States Marine Corps who participated in the Battle of Manila Bay. Source: Wikipedia contributors, "George Dewey," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Dewey&oldid=905768826.

The reason that I chose Admiral Dewey for this week's honor is because my wife, https:/www.wikitree.com/wiki/Clark-4938|Jane Clark-Richards' maternal grandfather was https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Paul-5906|George Dewey Paul and he was named after the famous Admiral.  When building our family tree on WikiTree, I asked Jane "Why was your grandfather named George Dewey Paul?"  He had six brothers, only one, the first, Frank Wilbur had a middle name, and George was not a family first name. The answer was "maybe he was named after that 'Dewey' who ran for President against, and lost to, Harry Truman (in 1948.)  Wrong!  George Dewey Paul was born on 1900.  A quick name search led me to the famous Admiral Dewey, who did in fact briefly join the presidential race in 1900, but dropped and supported the ultimate victor, William McKinley. George Dewey Paul was obviously named after him.  George Paul was the grandson of immigrant paternal grandparents from Germany and Prussian Belgium as well as his maternal grandfather, who was killed serving in the U.S. Army at the Battle of Birch Coulee during the U.S.-Dakota Indian War in Minnesota in1862.  His parents showed their patriotism and pride to be American and named their son after one of America's greatest war heroes at that time and still alive.