One of the typical errors that we make when we first start researching our roots is to not properly document the information that we find. It’s probably safe to say that we’re all guilty of this to a certain extent. Perhaps a more problematic error, however, is that of not looking far enough when conducting searches and settling for the first bits of data that we find and not going any further. Simply put, the more collaborating data we can gather to support an idea, the more faith we can put in our ideas and the more reliable and valuable our research becomes.

If you think of your research in terms of a scientific approach, it may become easier to visualize a good approach for conducting the research needed. Start with the idea that you are trying to prove and consider the steps necessary to verify the data. When it comes to proving an idea to be true, keep in mind that using someone’s online genealogy data is not likely to be considered valid proof for any but the most casual researcher. Think about the types of records that might exist for the time period involved and see how many exist that support your idea. Records that were produced closer to the time period in which you are interested will usually prove more valuable than more modern resources As a case in point, in the most recent article in the Spotlight, several different types of older resources are used to pinpoint the modern location of an old cemetery.

Since my two primary hobbies are genealogy and gardening. my husband likes to describe me as “collecting dead people and playing in the dirt”, so I often find myself wondering what thoughts might be going through the listener’s mind when they hear that description. Are they wondering if the two are related, and, if so, how? To his credit, he didn’t even balk when we wandered through a graveyard or two while honeymooning in Chester County - ok, it may have been three. He’s a history buff himself, so he really does understand, mostly. He did mention at one point though that it was a good thing that we don’t actually live in Chester County, as I would probably disappear for weeks on end in the stacks at the historical society, rather than just my occasional day trips now. And either he’s really good at faking interest, or he actually does get a kick out of some of the more unusual stories that I come across while researching. How tolerant is YOUR family of your hobby?

Well, at least I BELIEVE I am, but I have a missing link.

The above Isaac had a son named John (1712-1791), who in turn had a son named John (1746-1795). The younger son’s wife was Susanna Jackson (a descendant of Ephraim Jackson (1658-1731) of Concordville PA and probably unrelated to the Isaac line). This John and his family were Loyalist sympathizers during the Revolution, and left for the Pennfield Colony near Beaver Harbour in Nova Scotia (now New Brunswick) in 1783…after his property had been seized by PA authorities for having sold blankets to the British Army in Philadelphia, and supposedly having joined the British Army there in 1780.

This Jackson family apparently had trouble adjusting to the pioneering life in Canada, and the parents, as Quakers, apparently ‘disowned’ one another…after the birth there in 1788 of a son named Thomas, the only child of theirs actually born in Canada. (Thomas’ birth was recorded in Chester County Quaker records). The mother, Susanna, petitioned the Philadelphia Quaker Yearly Meeting in 1788 for assistance in returning to the US. It was granted, and she was able to return to the Wilmington, Delaware domain of the Society of Friends, along with some of her children, including the infant Thomas. (The father, John, instead went to the domain of the Baltimore MD Yearly Meeting, at the meeting in Gunpowder, where he died, probably as a reinstated Quaker, in 1795.)

The last record I’ve been able to find of Susanna and her son Thomas is from 1799, when their Quaker records were transferred from one of the local Quaker Monthly Meetings in New Castle County, DE, to the Kennett Monthly Meeting in nearby Kennet Square, PA.  From that point on, I’ve not been able to find anything more on her or definitively on her son Thomas, although there were many Thomas Jacksons living in Chester and nearby PA, MD and DE counties between 1800 and 1850.

Thomas is my potential missing link.

From US Censuses taken in Illinois and Michigan between 1860 and 1880, my KNOWN greatgrandfather, John C. Jackson, reported that he had been born in Pennsylvania in about 1815, and that his parents were born in Canada. Given that Jackson is a common name, and was especially so among the 19th Century Quaker communities, there were many Thomas Jacksons in Chester County in those years. Which one MAY have been the man who MAY have been the father of my greatgrandfather, I have no idea.  The first record I’ve been able to find about my known greatgrandfather is that, in October, 1855, in Lake County, Illinois, he married a widow named Anastacia Redmond Nolan, and they in turn became the parents of my grandfather, John Charles Jackson, born there in 1859.  Another of their children was a Thomas Jackson, born in the 1860’s, but no longer censused after 1870.

The chances are remote that I’ll ever solve this missing brick from my wall in the person of this presumed Thomas Jackson, but there is always a glimmer of hope. 

Sandy Ferguson has been very patient with me for the last couple of years as I have been searching for this Thomas, and I could not have gotten this far in this project without her help.

Bob Wilson

Beaufort SC

July 7, 2010

When researching our roots, we may have a  tendency to overlook some areas that might prove fruitful, just because they may not seem to apply to our immediate search. Or, we may ignore such information because we feel that we already have enough info on the person, so don’t feel the need to look at more records.

As a case in point, I was recently looking at ancestral lines for my aunt’s ancestors. Specifically, I was looking for her mother’s birth data, since I had come across conflicting data. In the process, I discovered that ships passenger logs quite often include both the passenger’s birth date as well as their birth place. Ah HA! Taking the info from the ship’s list allowed me to verify the SSN death record, which in turn let me verify the obituary (which had no birthdate). Knowing then that I was on the right track, I could find her parents and on up the line.

To help keep this concept fresh, I’m adding a section in the Forum for Tips and Tricks so feel free to your own suggestions there. And please remember that the best way to get answers to questions on this site is to post a Query rather than sending me feedback. Using a Query allows all the visitors to the site to see your question, rather than just me, so you’re far more likely to get some help!

I’m attempting to track down information pertaining to a Chester PA resident — May Humphreys Stacey (1840[?]-1886).
 

His sister. Augusta Lawler Stacey, married my great-grandfather, Edward Curtis, so May was my great-great uncle. His father was Davis Bevan Stacey; mother Sara Van Dycke.
 

At age 17, May joined an expedition to the American Southwest to test the feasibility of camels for military operations, and his journal of that trip was published in 1929 by the Harvard Univ. Press as “Uncle Sam’s Camels”.
 

During his extensive service in the Civil War (1861-65), May kept an almost daily journal. He was a captain with the 12th U.S. Infantry Regiment.
 

I have two of his journals and they have detailed accounts of Antietam, Fredericksburg, and the 1863 draft riots in New York City, plus a great deal in-between.
 

However, my two volumes don’t cover his early experiences in the Peninsula Campaign and Second Manassas and later in the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Courthouse, Petersburg siege, and Appomattox.
 

Is there means by which I can track down any relatives of mine who also have roots in Chester PA in an attempt to discover who might possess what I think are two (?) missing war journals? 
 

Gren Whitman
P.O. Box 651
Rock Hall MD 21661
410-639-7551
grenwhitman@verizon.net

When I visit old burial grounds. I generally take lots of pictures, including many of gravestones that may not be directly related to my lines. As a result I often end up with people that I can’t tie into any of my existing lines, even though the surname may be the same. Since one of my goals is to properly identify all of these folks, it sometimes presents quite a challenge. One of these challenges come from the burial ground of New Garden Friends Meeting, where I found four Gregg graves that belong to a group of siblings but I cannot place them. The stones, which are all of a very similar style, are as follows:

Margery Gregg: 1812-1895
Isaac H. Gregg : 1816-1904
George Gregg: 1821-189x
Harmon Gregg: 1826-1895

From the 1850 Census for Kennett is the entry that matches this group:

Mary Gregg 78
Isaac H 34
Samuel 31
George 29
Harmon 24
Margery 37

So, their mother was Mary, apparently a widow by 1850, with an unknown husband who died somewhere between 1826 and 1850. All of the names are common within the Gregg family but I have not been able to identify which family group they belong to. If you can identify this group, please drop me a line as I’d like to be able to place them properly.

In the course of research , it’s not unusual to come across stray entries that leave questions, so it’s always a pleasure to be able to tie some of these loose ends up eventually. For me, one of those has been the question of what happened to Walter Bingaman after he killed two of his three children in a fit of religious fanaticism in 1925.  Though the case took place in Chester County, the answer was found in the archives of the Reading Eagle:

Reading Eagle. Jan 29, 1926

FATHER WHO KILLED CHILDREN ACQUITTED

Victim of Religious Mania Insane at Time, State’s Witnesses Agree

West Chester, Jan 30. Walter R. Bingaman, 38, of Warwick township, left the court room here in company with his two brothers,a free man, having been acquitted within 10 minutes by a jury of the murder of his tow children while insane. He and his wife plan to leave for Florida within a few days.

A dozen physicians, called by the State, testified to the fact that Bingaman was insane at the time of the trial, and District Attorney Sproat announced at the opening that he would not press for a first degree verdict.

Physicians who had examined Bingaman within a short time testified that he is sane at this time. There were three woman jurors.

Bingaman was charged with murder of his two children, Priscilla, three years, and William, 18 months old. The family lived in a small farmhouse in Warwick township and were apparently happy until Bingaman became a convert at a small church and developed religious mania. He spoke at many meetings and seemed to lose sight of all things except his religious work. It became so strong that he neglected his labors and family and had frequent quarrels with his wife.. This continued until the afternoon of Jan. 30 last year, when he beat his wife and drove her from home. She went to the home of her parents near Malvern, after reporting the circumstances to neighbors, but they made no investigation.

Later, the case was called to the attention of the county authorities and the next morning County Detective Mullin and District Attorney Sproat made an investigation and found the bodies of the children on the floor of a second story bedroom and beside them the body of George Christman Bingaman, 73 years old, father of Walter.

He had apparently died from heart trouble caused by fright when he discovered the crime. IN a bed in the same room Bingaman was found apparently in a stupor. He was arrested and the next day sent to Chester county insane hospital where he remained until a few days ago.

Bingaman himself has no recollection of the tragedy according to his story.

Sometimes, researching a particular family can lead to some rather interesting connections. Here, in the little Maryland town in Carroll County where I live is a small community bank with a long history in the area and a nice collection of artifacts. Among the pieces of history that they have retained over the years is a very nice tall case clock made by Eli Bentley of Taneytown. Though I have not  yet found out how the clock came to be owned by the bank since it was made more than a hundred years before the bank was established in 1932, I do know a fair amount about the clockmaker himself. Eli Bentley was born in West Marlborough township in 1752, the son of Joseph Bentley and Mary Thatcher. The Thatchers were Quakers but the Bentleys were Baptists, so Mary was disowned from meeting at Concord for marrying Joseph about 1747, though she was eventually re-instated years later at Bradford meeting. Eli remained in Chester county in West Whiteland until sometimes in the 1780’s, when he left for Maryland and settled in Taneytown, so there are Bentley clocks bearing West Whiteland for a place of making as well as clocks showing Tawnytown (the old spelling in common use at the time).

In 1772, Eli married Mary Hunter in Philadelphia and they started a family. Because of Eli’s Thatcher connection, he is a distant cousin of mine, but it was even more interesting to me to follow his wife’s line. Mary Hunter was the daughter of John Hunter and Ann Parry and the granddaughter of John Hunter and Margaret Albin. John and Margaret Hunter were already in my database as their daughter Mary married William Hill and connected to my Brintons, but I hadn’t made the connection to their son John who married Ann Parry until now. John and Ann were not only the parents of Eli’s wife Mary but also of Ann Hunter who married Thomas Bull of Warwick, another well-known Chester family that tied into some of my own lines.

When I moved here more than ten years ago, I had no idea that I would find genealogy connections here as nearly all my known family roots were in Pennsylvania, but in the years since, I have found quite a few of them. It just goes to show that our connections may turn out be much closer than we think!

As a child growing up in Coatesville, my mother shared stories about our ancestors who lived in the Welsh Mountains. She told of the Natives, escaped slaves, and disenfranchised whites who settled there.  When we visited the people there I feld a sense of awe at it’s beauty and sadness at the poverty of some residents. It seemed the further away I lived the more fascination there was for the Welsh Mountains. I researched and documented my family history over a period of twenty years, and wrote two books, Pieces of the Quilt: The Mosaic of An African American Family, and Notes and Documents of Free Persons of Color. I am currently working on my third book, Minqua: People of the Welsh Mountains, and on a Documentary of the same name.

As a Mixed-Raced descendant of the Welsh Mountains I hold a unique perspective on the people who lived there. Two of my ancestors, Henry Green and Uriah Martin, came out of the Mountains to fight in the Civil War. Several ancestors lived and worked on farms in the area to earn money. They were not just those people, they contributed to the history and culture of the area.

If there is anyone who would like to share their family stories please contact me at, ntawls@gmail.com.

The Minqua site link is: http://minqua.ning.com

Those of you who have Quaker ancestors in your family tree may be interested in a new site that I am working on devoted to Quaker genealogy in the Mid-Atlantic region. This is a brand new project, but is already off to a good start with lots of data added and much more to come.  The site address is http://usgensites.com/quakers - I hope to see you there!