How to deal with 1600-1800 ancestors

Question

My wife's maiden name is Brown. You can imagine how fun it is to search for ancestors like Samuel Brown and Thomas Brown and Francis Brown.

When I look at records like this: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QGXT-DC3T I scratch my head.

On Ancestry, people will save that as a record of their ancestor and claim he served in the Revolutionary War. But it's obvious to me that there was likely more than one Samuel Brown in Virginia during that period.

How can you possibly positively identify people in records that only contain a given name and surname? It seems like a hopeless task.

My wife's 4th great-grandfather was Samuel Brown. He was born 20 Sep 1746 in Virginia. So, he would have been 30 in 1776. A likely age for someone serving in the war at that time.

But how can I possibly know that it's him?

Her 4th great-grandfather on her mother's side is Nathan Alexander Stedman III. That family's history is well-documented, and I know exactly what he did during the war.

But looking for Brown and Burns (her mother's patrilineal side) is like looking for a needle in a very large haystack.

Even newspaper articles are almost useless. I found a newspaper article from the era that Samuel Brown was alive that listed people arrested for a murder. Samuel Brown was one of the names listed, but there was zero context. Samuel Brown from where? How old? What race?

How do you experts deal with this? Is it just a crapshoot? By guess and by golly?

Comments

I am awaiting the answer to this puzzle, having an ancestor called John Henry who arrived from Ireland on a ship, or was born in Virginia, or who was born in England or, or, or  !!

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I have read a website that purports to give the Burns family history going back to Scotland. I have also downloaded a book published in 1969 that purports to give the same history.

They don't even agree on basic facts. I generally try to stick to what I can prove. If someone says ancestor X had six kids, I try to see if I can find anything at all on those kids. If there's nothing to be found, I chalk it up to rumor.

You can only rely on what you can prove, and it becomes a lot harder when there are no middle names and the given and sur names are both quite common.

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Goal: Avoid profile conflation. I have a fair number of common first names linked with common surnames in my family lines. Researching them can drive me Bonkers. Particularly when faced with other same-name persons living in the general area who have to be included in my overall scope.

I begin with a general name search at my favorite research site: I review each primary record; then, it's a case-by-case decision about what record is most appropriate to which like-named profile. It's slow going because each source has to be confirmed why it belongs to profile A and not profile B. To achieve success with this process I'm usually forced to review births, parents, marriages and children's births, land transactions, census records, Wills, etc. What-ever I can get my hands on. I usually end up spending more time on the unrelated profiles than my own family line but if it yields data I feel I can rely on for my ancestors then I chalk up the extra time spent as a requirement of this research experience. Keeping track of everything: I use my Ancestry account to record the like-named profiles thus preserving an audit trail, if-you-will. This could also be done in an worksheet environment such as excel. Copy vital records from familysearch.org and work on your reconciliations there. It doesn't have to be fancy, it just needs to make sense and be accurate. I'm currently working a tricky line where all the 1st and second cousins carry the same first names so I'm thinking of taking a copy of each ancestry profile I've built over to excel where I believe it will be easier to view several generations side by side in a column format. Given this line also has first cousins marrying each other the excel layout approach should help stream-line my review process; I don't have to keep flipping back and forth between profiles like the Ancestry site forces me to do. In excel I can see everything on one page. In the meantime the very best luck with your search.

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Paul,

I'm a Smith.... 'nuff said...

You start mapping family units. You look for baptism and marriage records and look at names of godparents and witnesses who are often family members. You look for probate records  and land deeds. Not just of the target person but for their siblings. You map out timelines. As someone else mentioned, excluding possibilities is as important as compiling possibilities.

And as you do all this, patterns emerge, connections emerge, theories strengthen... and if you're lucky, you find the answer.

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Regarding the Revolutionary war service -- my experience with my Maryland ancestors is that they were farmers and neighbors.  When the moment came to enlist in the militia, a lot of them went and enlisted at the same time.  So if your Jones ancestor had a similarly aged cousin and neighbor with a less ordinary name like, say, Trefelwyn and the neighbor enlisted at the same time as Jones, that's a clue you're on the right track!  (But, unfortunately, just a clue.)

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Thanks. That's a good tip.

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Ugh Jillaine Smith. That's a lot of work.

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Well, there are alternatives.  Surely somewhere there is a book called "Easy Genealogy".  The steps are simple:  (1) Decide what kind of ancestry you would like.  (2) Make it up.  (3)  Publish it on the internet.  Well, it won't be true, but surely it will be wonderful!

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Jack Day, where's the smiley face.

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(5 characters of additional information not available....)

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Why, Jack, I'm shocked and dismayed!  Are you suggesting that something on the internet is not true??????

Answer 1

Did he or his wife receive a pension? That would tell you if he did serve in the war.

Re: common last names, I have a lot of Joneses in my family tree. I just start making lists of Joneses in the area and piece together family units. It takes a while but it's not that much different than other surnames. You just need to keep track a little more.

I will say though that you do spend more time figuring out who someone CAN'T be versus CAN be than in other family groups.

Comments

http://revwarapps.org/ has three files for Samuel Brown. (Paul: I didn't check them - you'd be able to tell easier than I could if they're for your Samuel Brown.)

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Thank you Liz. One record is a possible match: http://revwarapps.org/VAS2717.pdf Can anyone explain what the (Matross) would mean?

Answer 2

Searching on DAR site or SAR site will sometimes help.  Unfortunately, searching for Samuel Brown with birth year or Death Year did not find anything, but possibly just searching for name will find something.

DAR and SAR sites both have a Nathan, b 1762 in Conn., and a Nathaniel, b 1746 in Mass. Stedman

When the SAR applications or DAR Descendants lists are viewable, they can help. 

Answer 3

Trying to figure out which of many my ancestor might be has had me working on various colonial Virginia families for years! Figuring out which facts go with which person is definitely a challenge.

Answer 4

Oh! You do have a puzzle on your hands.

I can't help with that time period in America.

It is difficult to sort out people with very common names. I have Jones ancestors in Worcestershire, England. The 1800s Jones have been complicated but possible by tracking family first names and where they lived, it helped that they lived in the same small place for quite a long time.

I got back to a William Jones born about 1770, married to Sarah Unknown. There are 25+ marriage records for William Jones's to Sarahs in the appropriate time frame and location, I can't see anyway of making any sort of decision about which one is more likely.

It might be easier in England as there are more records in the 1700s, but without a marriage record that says William Jones the puddler( iron worker) to Sarah child of ?? I'm stuck.

I agree with other posters, look for other people who share family first names, land records, wills, church attendance records are often very useful.

Sometimes I have had success just Googling the person's name in a likely location and appropriate date. You might find undocumented family histories that could provide useful clues. Of course you then have to try to verify the information. If possible contact the person who created the family history, sometimes they know more than they think they do.

It does take time but can produce information that isn't on a birth, marriage, death or census record.

Do any family members have unusual or less common first names? If so they were probably named after a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle.

Unfortunately you may never be able to find definitive records.

Edited;typo