Family Stories-Fact or Fiction

I think nearly every family has stories about their ancestors passed down from generation to generation. Some of these are very much factual but most of them are totally fiction. I have several cases of such stories in my family tree.


Story #1--My g.g.g.grandfather, James Parker was born in 1779 in Maryland and moved to Maysville, Kentucky sometime before 1802 when he married my g.g.g.grandmother, Susannah Donovan. From there he moved to Richland County, Illinois about 1819 and founded the town of Parkersburg. Now what else would he name it? Anyway, the Richland County History says--and I quote--"James Parker, a comrade of Daniel Boone and an old Indian fighter" Cool! So I look up Daniel Boone and find that he was born in 1734, a good 45 years before James was born. And by the time James would have been old enough to be a comrade and Indian fighter, Daniel had moved to Missouri. Now, granted, Boone lived in Maysville for a while living there from 1784 to 1788. My James would have been between 5 and 9 years old then. A tad young to be a comrade of Daniel's. But I do have another link to Daniel Boone and this one is fact. Daniel's sister Hannah Boone married Richard Pennington who was an uncle of my g.g.g.grandmother Sarah Pennington--who by the way never met James Parker as far as I know.


Story #2--My hubby is adopted and I have been lucky enough to trace both his adoptive and natural lines. Several years ago we found that he had a half sister. She gave us a lot of information on the family along with this little tidbit. Their g.g.grandmother was the sister of Mary Todd Lincoln! Wow. Double cool! So, of course, I did some research. Now, Mary Todd had lots of brothers and sisters but it seems that all of them were born in Kentucky. Now, I can't find the last name of hubby's g.g.grandmother but she married a James Walker probably in Indiana. She was born about 1814 in Pennsylvania. Hmmm, doesn't quite line up somehow, especially when her name was also Mary! But, hey, did you know that Mary Todd's mother's maiden name was Parker??? Maybe there is a link there--but I sincerely doubt it.


Story #3--- My g.g.g.g.grandfather, William "Indian Billy" Ice, was born 1730 in Hampshire County, Virginia. When he was a child (no one seems to know how old), his father and older brother John went in to "town" for supplies. This was a trip that took several days. The mother, Margaret, stayed at home with the younger children. During this time, the Shawnee Indians attacked the home and apparently killed Margaret and possibly one of William's sisters. He and the other two sisters were kidnapped and taken back to Ohio where they were raised by the Indians. A number of stories have been told about how Billy escaped from the Indians. One states that he was out with a group of Indians when he and an Indian boy were left alone. He became afraid of the boy, escaped and went to Pittsburgh where he was hidden. There are several stories about how he then went to France, then back to America to work on the Mason Dixon line where he was discovered by his stepmother and reunited with his father. Since his father had moved after his capture, he didn't know where he was. Other stories state that Billy was made a Chief by the Indians. Still other stories state that he served as an interpreter after he returned to civilization. So, how many of these are fact and how many are fiction, I doubt anyone even knows.

Story #4-Mary, the sister of Indian Billy was kidnapped at the same time he was. Family tradition states that Mary Ice was the wife of the Shawnee Chief Pucksinwah and the mother of his children including Tecumseh the great Indian chief.Most histories state that Pucksinwah's wife was a Creek Indian. Some say that Tecumseh had blue or hazel eyes . Pictures show that he wore a medallion around his neck which some people felt was a profile of a white woman, his mother. Apparently, though, this was a medallion with the likeness of King George III on it. Family history states that Mary returned to visit her family when she was very old but despite pleas from her family returned to live with the Indians. I have talked to a couple of college professors who teach Ohio history and they say that this family story is totally fiction and that Tecumseh's mother was an Indian not a white woman.
Descendants of Mary Bayles (wife of Andrew Ice who was half brother of Mary and Indian Billy Ice) and family historian, Norman F. Kendall state that Mary Bayles was the mother of Tecumseh but also state that his father was Young Eagle which is known to be untrue. This tradition states that Mary Bayles returned to her family with Tecumseh and he lived among the whites until age 15 but threats against his life prompted William "Indian Billy" Ice to return him to the Shawnees. I have read many books and stories about Tecumseh and nowhere have I read that he lived with the whites for several years. Soooo-it would look like this is another fictional family story. I'm not sure why these families wanted so badly to be so closely identified with Tecumseh.

Story #5-This one is apparently fact and is documented in several histories of New Amsterdam. My 7th great grandfather, Laurens Duyts, was born in Denmark in 1610. He came to New Amsterdam in 1639. His passage was paid by a man named Jonas Bronk in exchange for work clearing some land in New Amsterdam. This land later became known as the Bronx. Laurens also got into some trouble with Gov. Peter Stuyvesant for committing adultery and for selling his wife into adultery! "For selling his wife, Ytie Jansen, and forcing her to live in adultery with another man and for living himself also in adultery, he was to have a rope tied around his neck, and then to be severely flogged, to have his right ear cut off, and be banished for fifty years. He went to Bergen, New Jersey and died there." Ouch!! Oh yeah, and after his banishment, he married Ytie's sister.

I would love to be able to time travel and go back and meet and talk to these ancestors and get the real facts. Some of these stories remind me of the old game where a bunch of people would sit in a circle. The first person would whisper something to the person next to him and so on. Then the last person in the circle would say aloud what they were told. It usually was totally different from the beginning sentence. I'm sure that many of these stories started off so much different from the way we heard them.

I guess what I'm saying is--don't always take what you hear about your ancestors as the absolute truth!

Pure Dumb Luck and Lots of Gut Instinct

I'm sure a professional genealogist would run for the hills if they read what I am about to post but here goes anyway. I am convinced that a LOT of genealogy success is the result of dumb luck and gut instinct. Over the years, I have fallen into more finds just out of dumb luck or being in the right place at the right time or thumbing through just the right book. I also have had a lot of instances of having a gut instinct about something and sure enough, I find out it is true. Yesterday was an example of both of these occurrences.

I went to our local library to do some research for a friend. Our library has a rather extensive genealogy/local history section. This is the same library that was closed from last August 13 to sometime in December because of our 100 year flood, This was the first time I had been there since the flood and I was amazed to find that the underground parking garage and basement where all of the electrical, phone, etc. plus used bookstore, offices etc was still being worked on. And because of this, the library has no AC. The upstairs area where the main library is was not affected by the flood--thankfully. Anyway, I digress.

I did my research for Bob and as I was getting up to leave I noticed that right in front of me there were quite a few books on Monroe County, Ohio, I have done more research than I care to think about in and about this county. Unfortunately, it is one of the two counties I'm researching (Wabash County, Illinois being the other) where the courthouse was burned down in the 1800's. Well, in Wabash County's case, it was a tornado. Anyway, I noticed that there were a few books about Monroe County that I hadn't seen before. So, I sat down and started going through them.

I am looking for my g.g.grandfather, Isaac Pearce--not Pierce but Pearce, it seems. Isaac was born about 1780 supposedly in Delaware but it could have been Pennsylvania and died April 29, 1861 in Monroe Co., Ohio. My g.g.grandmother Mary (don't know her surname) died Jan. 15, 1846 in Monroe County. I got this date from the local Monroe County newspaper, The Spirit of Democracy. The article didn't give her birth date but said she was 50 making her born in 1796. Isaac remarried between 1846 and 1850 to a Lydia (didn't now her surname). Lydia had been previously married to a Mr. Agin.

A couple of items I found in one of the books yesterday were the following:
#1 Spirit of Democracy (newspaper from Monroe Co., Ohio) April 6, 1869 Vol 26 #6 "Legal Notice-Will of Isaac Pearce dec'd-destroyed by fire, copy admitted to record March 30, 1869"

#2 Spirit of Democracy Dec. 1, 1868 Vol 25 #40,"Settlement Accounts for Hearing Dec. 17, 1868 J.R. Pennington Executor for Isaac Pearce partial".

I was curious who this J.R. Pennington was and why he would be the executor of my g.g.grandfather's estate. So of course I started looking up the Penningtons. I found that J. R. was John R. Pennington, the son of Thomas Pennington and Sarah Randolph.

Then I found this:
Ancestors of Monroe County, Ohio
Thomas Pennington Jan 10, 1803-Nov 7, 1890 md Sarah Randolph born Nov 18, 1802-died July 1, 1871 or 1874
Their child: Maria Jane Pennington born May 13, 1839-died Dec. 8, 1901 Monroe Co., Ohio
Maria Jane Pennington married James Randolph Agin born Nov 22, 1835-died March 16, 1912 Crane Nest, Monroe co. Oh. They were married 1863 Crane Nest, Ohio
James Randolph Agin was the son of Jacob Agin born 1811-died Feb 16, 1876 and Phoebe born 1812-died Feb 1882.

So here was the link between the Penningtons, the Agins, and my g.g.grandfather, Isaac Pearce and step g.g.grandmother, Lydia.

When I got home, I started going through my old notes and found that Lydia was living with Thomas Pennington in 1880 and although his wife was dead, Lydia was listed as his sister in law.(And why didn't I catch this before?? Who knows!) So, I did some online research and found that Lydia was indeed the sister of Sarah Randolph Pennington and was born September 16, 1813 in Redstone, Fayette County, Pennsylvania. She was the daughter of Richard Fitz Randolph and Lydia Mackay. Richard and Lydia had 12 children, several of whom ended up in Monroe County, Ohio.

And guess what, their oldest daughter was named Mary and was born in 1796!! My g.g.grandmother, Mary, who died in 1846 was born in 1796 in Pennsylvania. I got that information from the 1880 census of my great grandmother--Isaac and Mary's daughter, Elizabeth D. Pearce Sayers.

OK, I don't have proof that my g.g.grandmother Mary was indeed Mary Randolph, especially since Mary Randolph supposedly married a Maxwell Edwards. Isaac Pearce and Mary did not marry until about 1821 when he was about 40 and she was about 25. I have been totally unable to find anything on a Maxwell Edwards from that time and place so there is every possibility that Maxwell died and Mary then married Isaac Pearce. And when she died, Isaac married her sister who just happened to be a widow.

Anyway, being in the right place and the right time and finding those books on Monroe County helped me to find the Agins, Penningtons and Randolphs. And, my gut instinct is working overtime telling me that my Mary was indeed Mary Randolph. Now, I just have to find out how Mary Randolph met Isaac Pearce and got married. Then I have to be in the right place at the right time and find out who Isaac's parents were.

Later: Well, shoot!!! I just did some more searching and found that Maxwell Edwards was the son of Thomas Edwards and--you guessed it--Mary Randolph. And they settled in Perry County, Ohio where Mary died in 1862!!! NOT my Mary! Oh well, so much for gut instinct. Back to the drawing board. BUT, I did find out who my step g.g.grandmother, Lydia, was at least.