Serendipity strikes twice
It’s always so nice… so very nice… when the genetic evidence lines up with the documentary evidence. Taking the two together, combining the paper trail and the clues hidden in our own genetic code, can provide a confidence level for answers to questions that we simply couldn’t have reached in any other way.
And sometimes… sometimes… serendipity plays a role.
A case in point from The Legal Genealogist‘s own family comes from the effort to identify a second great grandmother where the evidence of her parentage was utterly inconsistent.
My great grandfather Jasper Carlton Robertson died in Tillman County, Oklahoma, in 1912. His death certificate identifies his mother as Isabella Gentry.1 Other family records say her maiden name was Rankin,2 and the International Genealogical Index used to say her name was Pugh.3 Since Isabella and her husband, Gustavus Robertson, were married before the 1850 census,4 we’ve had a fun chase trying to trace Isabella’s family back in time through burned courthouses and non-existent records.
Serendipity came into play in this research at one point, some 11 or 12 years ago, when I discovered that a Maxine Smith and Clarence Wilson had written a piece on the man I thought might be Isabella’s father for the bulletin of the Rankin County, Mississippi, Historical Society. I couldn’t get the original bulletin but was able to put my hands on a copy.5 It listed the children, and even said one Gentry daughter married a Robertson, but it had the daughter’s first name beginning with a G and the son-in-law’s first name beginning with an I. If true, this couldn’t be my Isabella’s family. But I couldn’t find out where they’d gotten the information identifying the children.
I tracked down every piece of information I could find linking the Wilsons to the Gentry family and found that Jacob Elijah Gentry, grandson of my candidate father, had a daughter Willow Isabel Gentry6 who married a James Otho Wilson, and they were the parents of Clarence and Maxine.7 The only clue I had to their whereabouts around 2001 or 2002 was that the Wilson family was involved in some way with a radio station in Oregon.
I emailed the radio station, explained who I was and who I was looking for, and as the days stretched into weeks without a reply, I pretty much forgot about it.
And then late one day in early November, 2002, came an email from Jim Wilson. Clarence, he said, was his oldest brother, Maxine his older sister. He knew about Clarence’s and Maxine’s family history research.
It turns out that Maxine had been diagnosed with cancer and wanted to make one more trip to the old family stomping grounds. She and Clarence had rented a camper and taken off through Texas, Oklahoma, and back ultimately into Mississippi. They had done the family research on the trip; Jim thought it kept Maxine alive to work on the article about the family history.
By 2002, Maxine had long since passed on, and Jim didn’t think Clarence could help much — he was nearing 90 years old by then — but he gave me the address of Clarence’s daughter where Clarence was then living. I wrote her a letter and asked if she thought perhaps Clarence and I could talk.
The phone rang one day not long after, and it was Clarence’s daughter. No, she said, he just wasn’t up to a conversation. But just that morning, just before my letter arrived, she had put all of the research notes from his and Maxine’s family history trip into the trash. She didn’t think the trash had been collected yet. Did I want them?
Hidden away in one battered old blue notebook, a single hint to a record it would have taken me years to have found otherwise. The documentary evidence now pointed to Elijah Gentry as Isabella’s father.
Now fast forward to 2015, and serendipity strikes again — this time in the DNA evidence. In my match list at AncestryDNA, up popped a DNA cousin named Brad. Not someone I asked to test, but someone who decided to test on his own.
Whose mother was Maxine Wilson.
And whose maternal grandmother was Willow Isabel (Gentry) Wilson.
Brad graciously consented to let me transfer his raw data to Family Tree DNA where we can actually see how his DNA compares to my closer relations:8
The matches here in this first graphic are between Brad and one of my uncles, two aunts and a cousin in that Gentry line.
And the matches here in this second graphic are between Brad and two other key Gentry cousins.
The DNA backs up the paper trail.
At a confidence level that neither, alone, could have achieved.
SOURCES
- Oklahoma State Board of Health, death certificate 3065 (1912), Jasper C. Robertson; Bureau of Vital Statistics, Oklahoma City. ↩
- Texas State Board of Health, death certificate 1583 (1952), Mrs. Mattie Crenshaw; Bureau of Vital Statistics, Austin. ↩
- It no longer says that, thankfully. But it did. See Karen Brode, “IGI Index,” Rootsweb CLANBOYD-L Archives, discussion list, 7 Sep 2002 (http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/CLANBOYD/2002-09/1031421881 : accessed 9 Mar 2012). ↩
- 1850 U.S. census, Winston County, Mississippi, population schedule, p. 373 (stamped), dwelling 809, family 816, Isabella “Robinson”; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 Mar 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication M432, roll 382. ↩
- In 2011, I was able to get a photocopy of the original manuscript contributed by Maxine Smith to the Rankin County Historical Society, now in the vertical files of the Rankin County Library, Brandon Genealogy Room. ↩
- 1910 U.S. census, Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, Castle, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 137, p. 135-B (stamped), sheet 1-B, dwelling/family 9, Willow Gentry in Jacob Gentry household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 Mar 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication T624, roll 1265. ↩
- See 1930 U.S. census, Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, Castle, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 4, page 33-A (stamped), sheet 3-A, dwelling/family 53, Clarence E. and H. Maxine Wilson in J. Otho Wilson household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 Mar 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication T626, roll 1917. ↩
- The lack of analytical tools at AncestryDNA continues to be a source of frustration… See generally Judy G. Russell, “The raw story at AncestryDNA,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 24 Mar 2013 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 2 Aug 2015). … But I digress. ↩
Great blog post, Judy. Thank goodness you got your hands on that research before it went out in the trash.
I’m sure you noticed this (and that’s probably why you included it) but that article in the bulletin that lead you to Maxine and Clarence, where the Gentry daughter was “G” and Robertson husband was “I”? I think they just transposed the first letters, reverse them and you get “I” Gentry and “G” Robertson?
It turned out to be a bit more complex than that, Emma: the source, it turned out, was a deed showing I.R. and G.B. Robertson among the heirs of Elijah Gentry. The question was: which one was the daughter and which the son-in-law? Only by looking at the document itself (and I would eventually have found it, just not until years later!!) was it possible to construct a credible argument that I.R. (Isabella) was the daughter and G.B. (Gustavus) was the son-in-law, rather than — say — Isaac and Gertrude!
How Maxine would bless you for rescuing that blue notebook – and how you must bless her for the legacy she left! We all owe a great debt of gratitude to those who did such excellent work before us…and without benefit of the Internet. There are some real gems buried in their notes and old family group sheets.
I hope her son is as happy as I am at how things turned out!
Wow! Just awesome!
Cool, isn’t it?
“But just that morning, just before my letter arrived, she had put all of the research notes from his and Maxine’s family history trip into the trash. She didn’t think the trash had been collected yet.” Oh I just cringed reading that. Iwish people would just donate materials to Genealogical societies, archives etc….Its not too soon to set out where you want your genealogical collection/photos etc to go when you die. When my great aunt died her family kept the bible and pictures but her briefcase full of genealogical notes and letters was offered to me. No one else wanted them.
Thank heavens they thought to offer them to you, Kelly!
Judy, that was a heart-stopper to hear all that research had just been thrown out in the trash. Talk about just-in-time delivery!
It sure makes you think about how your own research will — or won’t — be preserved, doesn’t it?
I’m wondering what the colorful DNA graphics show and how it proves the relationship? I only have a rudimentary understanding of DNA testing but am quite interested in this topic since I too have several suspected ancestry relationships I would like to prove through DNA.
In a chromosome browser (which is what the graphics are from), you can see where the DNA in one person (the background color) is matched by the DNA of other persons (the other colors). When several members of a family all have a segment of DNA in the same area of their genetic code (called genome), and it’s a segment of substantial size, then it is reasonable to infer that all inherited it from the same set of ancestors. In the case of all of these persons, the only ancestors they might have had in common are Elijah Gentry and his wife Wilmoth — and those colored segments represent shared DNA among three of their children.
When the document trail and the DNA match up it almost seems to easy, but nit so much in this case where persistence + serendipity played a role.
It always looks easy in retrospect, doesn’t it? 🙂
Judy,
I am very pleased to be a part of your research, and almost inadvertently, a source through DNA to confirm your work with the Gentry’s and Robertson’s. I carry the passion in my family for learning about our family tree, as did my mother Maxine Wilson Smith–birth name-Helen Maxine Wilson. I have researched my Gentry line back to John Gentry, born in 1510 in Essex, England; and my Wilson line back to Thomas Wilson, born in 1380 in London, England. If I can be of any further assistance, please ask.
My best,
Bradley A. (Wilson Gentry) Smith
Thanks so much, Brad! You’ve been terrific to work with — and I’ll definitely be asking about your links back beyond Nicholas the immigrant!! (The paper trail proof is thin there, I think.)
Really sad is when someone dies and there is no immediate family. My grandmother was sure that a distance relative had her grandfather’s sword however she was not on good terms with that family. I contacted that family and they weren’t interested in helping with the family research even regarding their branch since they were all single and no-one was interested in them. They didn’t know what was in their storage area in the apartment building and had no interested in going down to that dark, dangerous place. I had thought about a trip to see what they had, if they would let me but it was a distance away and hotels expensive. There may be only one left now and I can’t contact him. We will never know what they have/had.
As the historian in the family (as well as the family historian) family memorabilia and treasures have been finding their way to me for years. I’m also single, and recognize that I owe it to future generations to make sure that these artifacts, as well as my research, are preserved. My cousins are not interested in family history or the family memorabilia. I have a very detailed will that indicates that items associated with the family will go the historical societies in the counties that they are from, and my research goes to the state genealogical society in the state that my family lived in. I hope that in the future a new generation that loves the family will come, but I’m not going to risk the treasures to the hands of those who will not treasure them.