Conflicting Sources

For whatever reason, happily I have had several researchers contact me this spring, wanting to compare notes and share information. Sometimes six months will go by without any new contacts, and then all of a sudden, things start to pick up! No complaints here....it's definitely a good thing.

Yesterday I was pleased to see a message in my inbox from a fellow BENNETT researcher. This is one of my husband's lines. One of his great-grandmothers was a BENNETT, and I've followed her family line from either Virginia or North Carolina (depending on the source) through Kentucky and finally to Boone County, Missouri. The researcher I heard from said this migration pattern looked familiar, and wondered if I wanted to compare notes.

In preparation for this, I took a harder look at my BENNETT file. Over the last couple of years, I've been moving my census data from the "General Notes" section of each individual's page to "Events" section. This works well with Legacy, and I like the way it prints out in my reports. While looking at my BENNETT file, I saw that I still had the censuses in the "Notes" area, and I proceeded to "clean up" the file, and put everything where it belonged. I have also obtained some new source material since I last worked on the BENNETTs -- books on Boone County MO marriages and cemetery records, as well as the Missouri Archives website with death certificates online. So it seemed like a good time to see if I could fill in some blanks. That's when I found a major conflict.

According to one source ("Tombstone Records of Boone County, Missouri, by Mrs. E.E. Evans and Mrs. J. F. Thompson), Page and Matilda BENNETT both died in 1867. According to Evans and Thompson, Matilda died in January of that year, and Page in June. However, this seems unlikely, since I have census images of them appearing in the 1870 U.S. Census, in Cedar Township, Boone County, Missouri! My guess is that their headstones were hard to read, and that Mrs. Evans or Mrs. Thompson misread the stone. I tried to find their stone (or stones) in the Nashville Baptist Church Cemetery, but didn't have any luck -- I'll try again another day.

Meanwhile, I'm making a list of other sources I could use to try to find accurate dates of death for this couple. I don't believe Boone County, Missouri has death certificates for that time period, but I will check on that. I believe they do have probate records, so that's one avenue to try. Another option will be to search the Newspaper Library for obituaries -- it's possible that the month and date information are correct, but just not the year. Either way, it looks like I've got another mystery to solve!

Brickwall: Wilson

I was puttering around in my genealogy the other day, not sure which direction to go, when I received an e-mail from a "new" cousin. Bob had either seen my database online on Rootsweb or one of the several messages I have floating around the message boards...but either way, he contacted me suggesting that we were probably searching for the same people. It's always nice to have someone to research with, so I was glad to hear from him.

The couple that our mutual family line seems to stop with are Cornelius Wilson, born about 1823 in Kentucky and Jane Boyd, b. about 1822 in Ohio. They were married in 1841 in McLean County, Illinois, but lived in the county next door, Tazewell County.

We find the couple in Mackinaw, Tazewell County, Illinois in the 1850 census, with three children:

C. Wilson, 27, M, Farmer, KY
Jane Wilson, 26, F, OH
Mary E. Wilson, 5, F, IL
Alex'r C. Wilson, 2, M, IL
Jane Wilson, 2/12, F, IL

Six years later, Cornelius died, and is buried in Hardscrabble Cemetery, in Deer Creek Township, Tazewell County.

In the 1860 census, Jane appears, still in Mackinaw Township, Tazewell County, Illinois:

Jane Wilson, 34, F, $75-Personal Estate, OH
Mary Wilson, 15, F, IL
Alex. Wilson, 12, M, IL
Caroline Wilson, 9, F, IL
Wm. E. Wilson(twin), 7, M, IL
Emily Wilson(twin), 7, F, IL
Franklin Wilson, 6, M, IL

In 1862, Jane Boyd Wilson married Obediah Hall, in McLean County, Illinois. What become of Mr. Obediah Hall is currently still a mystery to me...however he does not appear on the next census (1870), although it appears that he and Jane did have a child together:

Hall, Jane, 45, F, W, Keeping House, $200-Real Estate, $100-Personal Estate, OH
----, William, 18, M, W, Farm Laborer, IL
----, Franklin, 16, M, W, Farm Laborer, IL
----, Grant, 5, M, W, IL
Sullivan, William, 2, M, W, IL

William and Franklin above are listed with the last name of "Hall", but their surname is actually Wilson...as they are children from Jane's first marriage to Cornelius Wilson. William Sullivan, age 2 listed in the 1870 census is the son of Jane's daughter Mary, who I believe married John Sullivan in Tazewell County in 1866. I have not located Mary or John in the 1870 census yet.

We know that daughter Emma (the twin) married Mark Asbury Short in 1867 in Tazewell County. My "new found" cousins that contacted me and got me working on this family again descend from Emma Wilson Short. We also know that Mary E. Wilson Sullivan eventually settled in Bloomington, McLean County, Illinois. She shows up in Normal, IL in the 1880 and 1900 censuses, and in Bloomington in the 1920 and 1930 censuses. Although the 1900 census claims that she has six living children, William is the only one that I can connect with her. There may well be other Sullivans out there that connect to this Wilson line, but I haven't located them yet!

Like all genealogical puzzles, every time you get an answer, you find at least two more questions! Here are mine:

1. Did Obediah die before 1870? If so, where is he buried?
2. When and where did Jane Boyd Wilson Hall die, and where is she buried?
3. What became of Mary E. Wilson Sullivan's husband John, and the rest
of her children?
4. Where in Kentucky was Cornelius Wilson born, and who was his family?
5. Where in Ohio was Jane Boyd born, and what about her family?

Obviously, there is much to be done here, and I love a good puzzle!