Ok, so I have two major discoveries this week that are related to each other.
It happened from a chance discussion with another Weddington researcher on Ancestry.
Background: On the Weddington Name Study, I discuss the Kentucky Weddington families. There has been an open question on whether Jacob C Weddington Sr (1777 - 1869) and Henry Weddington (aft. 1780 - abt. 1836) were actually brothers. All we had as evidence was a mention of it in a book published in 1888. But this book also had other statements that have been potentially suspect too. So I could not be sure that there weren't other errors. I descend from Jacob.
In this discussion with this other researcher on Ancestry, she mentioned that both her, and her mother, have DNA matches to people who were supposedly descended from the aforementioned Henry Weddington. Yet, she and her mother were descended from Jacob, like myself.
She gave me a quick lineage for two of the DNA matches that she had.
The first rabbit hole was the discovery of notes that I had not seen before, of legal cases in Kentucky that showed that Henry Weddington had 5 illegitimate children with another woman, Rebecca Ford (married last name) while he was still married. One note details a case where it was "common reputation in the neighborhood" that these 5 Ford children were Henry Weddington's, and that Henry's son, William Weddington, acknowledges the Ford children as his half-siblings.
Well, I had never heard about this before. So I'm on the hunt for the actual source of these legal cases. I've found one of them so far, thanks to the help of Sandy Patak and a researcher friend of hers who pointed me in the right direction. A photocopy of what I found so far is attached to all the relevant profiles.
Going back to the DNA match lineages that was sent to me, I see that one of the DNA match lineages is through the Ford children of Henry Weddington. I went and connected up all of the Weddington / Ford profiles correctly on WikiTree, and I went back to look through potential DNA matches on WT, and my DNA matches on Ancestry. I found two DNA matches to myself: one DNA match through GEDmatch (from a WT connection), and another DNA match on Ancestry. Both of these DNA matches are through Ford lineages to Henry Weddington.
What does this mean? I now have multiple pieces of evidence to show more confidence that:
- Jacob Weddington and Henry Weddington are brothers
- The 5 Ford children are actually Henry Weddington's children, as claimed
Having these Ford lineages is fantastic because it gives us a great opportunity for more DNA matches to continue the confirmation process of everything above. I know that DNA is not perfect, and we are talking some distant relationships. It will require triangulation (and even that isn't perfect). But this is great news nonetheless. Because this has been one of my major goals with the Weddington Name Study.
I'm still working on research and getting everything updated. And no, we don't yet know why Henry Weddington had 5 other children with Rebecca Ford. All I have seen is just a note that said that Rebecca married her Ford husband, and that soon after he abandoned her. The legal case that Rebecca Ford filed in 1840 seemed to be soon after Henry Weddington died (which I'm trying to find out so I can get a better death date for him). It mentions that Henry died intestate, so she was likely trying to claim some part of the estate for her and/or her children, who by that time were legally acknowledged and bound to Henry.
Beyond that, I've done the usual: CC7, photos, RAWK (Erin Robertson), Suggestion list, etc.