Linda and Becky's Excellent Adventure, Part 2: The Castles

We got up on Sunday morning with plans to find a popular breakfast buffet in Berea. It was not to be. My car wouldn't start. We called Triple A and waited about an hour for someone to come jump the car. He suggested we drive for a while to build up the battery, so we headed out of town. I can't imagine that the buffet in Berea would have been any better than the brunch buffet we found in Winchester, Kentucky. I think it's the best fried chicken I've ever had. The car started just fine after we rolled our full selves out of the restaurant.

After about an hour and a half through fairly scenic highway, we arrived in West Liberty. Now you have to give me a break here, because I was never the driver when we visited West Liberty before. I was a little lost, and it didn't help that there was a major tornado there in 2012, and a lot of the town doesn't look the same. After wandering around a while, I finally found the road out of town and then the turn on Centerville Road to the cemetery.

Linda was thrilled to see the same sign that thrilled my brother and me--the one that says "Day Branch Road." 

Again, I knew that "our" cemetery was up a hill off of this dead end road. I just couldn't find the right place. I had the right hill in my mind's eye, but there were at least three hills that could have been it. (I wrote about our first attempt to find the cemetery in the post, "My Old Kentucky Home." Our successful second attempt was described in the post, "Genealogy on the Road: West Liberty, Kentucky.") We drove until I knew I had passed the place I was looking for, and I turned around and drove back up the road. At the exact moment that we drove by a house, a man and woman walked out of it and started to get into their car. 

I stopped the car, and Linda leaned out to shout, "Could we ask you a question?" We all got out of our cars and met in the driveway. Linda asked, "Would you happen to know where the Castle cemetery is?" The woman replied, "I think I do. I'm a Castle." In two previous trips to West Liberty, my brother and I had never met a Castle. A lot of people we talked to remembered Virgil Castle, but he had passed away long before. On our first trip we talked to Linville Castle on the phone, but I had heard that he had since passed away. We had no idea that any Castles were still living in West Liberty, and here was one standing in front of us! What were the chances that at the exact moment we passed her mother's house, our cousin Jeneen would be getting into her car??

Becky, Linda Castle Hess, Jeneen Castle Roach

Jeneen and her husband Tommy were helping her mother move that day. We visited for a few minutes, trying to find our family connections. (Our common ancestors, we determined, were Goldman Davidson and Rachel Sargent Castle. My great-grandfather, George Turner Castle, and Jeneen's 2nd great-grandfather, James Harvey Castle, were brothers. Virgil Castle was Jeneen's grandfather.) Tommy took our picture, we exchanged addresses and emails, and then we followed Jeneen and Tommy up the road, so that Jeneen could point out her window at the right road to the cemetery. 

We turned the car up the road, and I thought almost right away that this was the wrong road. It was only the width of the car but still far more accessible than the path to the cemetery that I remembered. Still, we kept driving to the top, where we found an abandoned house. Now I knew it was the wrong road. 

We got out of the car and looked around, just to be sure, surprising a cute little family of deer that seemed almost tame. I was positive we were in the wrong place, so we got back in the car. It wouldn't start. We were down a country road, up a hill where no-one lived, and we were stuck. But we didn't even have time to panic, because a car drove up behind us, honking its horn. It was Jeneen and Tommy to the rescue! She had realized it was the wrong road and had come back to tell us. 

We now had help but still didn't know how we were going to get the car started. We eliminated ideas one by one: no jumper cables; a car couldn't get close enough to jump us anyway; automatic, so we couldn't just put it in neutral and back down; the closest Triple A serviceman was a couple of hours away. Tommy and Jeneen's friend John came up on his four-wheeler, and he had tools. Of course, I couldn't have a battery that was easy to get out, but the guys finally removed it. Our only option was to drive back into West Liberty and buy a new battery, which we did. 

Now this might sound like a bad thing, but having car trouble turned out to be a blessing in disguise. We got to spend a lot more time with Jeneen and talked a lot more about the Castles; we learned things, and so did she. She wasn't even certain who was buried in the little Castle cemetery plot on the hill. Four of the headstones were for her 3rd great-grandparents, Goldman Davidson Castle and Rachel Sargent Castle, and her 2nd great-grandparents, James Harvey Castle and Elizabeth Nickell Castle. She didn't even know about Donia's foot! (See "Genealogy on the Road: West Liberty, Kentucky").

In turn, she pointed out the original home place of her grandparents, Virgil and Net Castle, and her mother's home on original Castle land. 

Eventually we said our good-byes again, and Jeneen pointed us to the right road to the cemetery. "Path" is a better word. We had to park the car on Centerville Road and walk up the hill to look for the headstones. They were not easy to find. Linda and I peered through the little pine forest in several places before we finally saw the stones. Of course, the little family plot was more overgrown than the last time I was there, and Linda spent several minutes cutting thorny vines away from the fallen stones while I cleared moss from Grandma Castle's marker. The shade of the tall trees surrounding the plot made it hard to even take photos of the stones, but we did the best we could.

We finally left West Liberty and started our 12-hour drive home to Oklahoma. We were glad to see this sign on our way out of town. 

Today had definitely been an excellent adventure.

The Castle coincidences don't end there. I came home and looked through a box of my grandmother's things, looking for a map she had drawn of the West Liberty area 75 years after she lived there.  I've known about the map since before the last time my brother and I were there, but I don't know why I keep forgetting to take it with me to Kentucky. I found the map, but I also found a letter to my grandmother from Virgil Castle's wife, Net, dated March 8, 1982. Virgil had been sick, and Net had been doing a lot of the farm work. Then she wrote this: "Aunt Fannie, watch in the next week's paper (The Licking Valley Courier, to which my grandmother subscribed). My granddaughter's picture will be in the paper. She won 2 big trophies for speech making and her picture is in the paper. She is a real smart little girl. She is 12 years old." Guess who she was talking about? Jeneen!

DNA Circle: Jacob Castle

The Jacob Castle in whose DNA Circle I have been recently placed is not Jacob Castle, the Longhunter, but his son Jacob. Many "facts" about Jacob have shown up in family trees and even in publications, but we are going to examine the evidence to see what is fact and what has not been proven. (Note: I've been as guilty as everyone else of accepting some of these  facts without questioning them.)

"Fact" 1: Jacob Castle was born in Pennsylvania in 1749, the son of Jacob Castle and a Shawnee woman named Sowege, or Gliding Swan.

I can't find evidence for any of these facts. In the 1740's Jacob's father Jacob was living in Virginia. No birth record for the younger Jacob exists; he claimed his age as 80-90 on the 1830 Russell Co. VA census, so he could have been born as early as 1740. Unfortunately for the many descendants who love the story of Jacob's marriage to Gliding Swan, there is no credible evidence that such a person even existed. Some people have found a marriage record for a Jacob Castle to a woman named Mary Elizabeth which took place in Pennsylvania; then they have made the assumption that Mary Elizabeth is Gliding Swan, or that Sowege changed her name to Mary Elizabeth. I could not locate that marriage record at all, although others have referred to it. Jacob Castle the elder may certainly have had native wives, but I doubt that any traditional marriage ceremonies were performed, and I don't know how you would ever document the various children by these marriages. As with any legend, there could be truth behind the story, but no proof that I could find.

Many researchers cite a book called Shawnee Heritage by Don Greene and Noel Schutz as the origin of the name of Sowege and the details of the marriage. The trouble is, the authors did not give documentation for the information they published. Some Shawnee tribe members have criticized the book, and in fact, have said that Sowege is not even a Shawnee word.

"Fact" 2: Jacob Castle the younger married in 1769 to a half-Wyandot woman named Mary Shane.

There is no record of the marriage of Jacob and Mary that I can find. Most trees that list Mary Shane as the wife of Jacob Castle show evidence for her baptism in Philadelphia in 1747. The baptism of Mary lists her parents as Dennis and Catherine Shane, names that sound more Irish than native American. A marriage record for Zachariah Castle in 1867 lists his parents as Jacob and Mary Castle, so Mary was probably his mother's name; I just have no proof that she was Mary Shane or half-Wyandot.

"Fact" 3: Jacob Castle the younger lived to be 100 years old.

This one may actually be true. On the 1830 Russell Co. VA census Jacob gives his age as 80-90. On the 1840 Russell Co. census Jacob is enumerated as Male 100 & over. Ancestry members have corrected his age on the 1840 census to 92 to allow for his death at 100 in 1848 or 1849; however, I have found no evidence for his exact death date, except for Ancestry trees that have copied from each other.

Castles on 1830 Russell Co. census

"Fact" 4: This is a photograph of Jacob Castle.

NOT Jacob Castle (1749-1849)

In my opinion, genealogists need to be historians, too, or they fail to see the significance in the facts they uncover, or they believe facts or photos that can't possibly be true. Jacob Castle died in the 1840's at an advanced age, so this photograph would have to have been taken in the 1810's or 1820's. The daguerreotype was only invented in 1839 and paper photography much later. This man is not wearing clothing typical of the 1840's. Coats and neckties such as the one he is wearing were not the style until the late 1800's. 

This photograph has been copied to so many trees on Ancestry, and very few thought to question whether it was really Jacob Castle. It may be a Jacob Castle, but it's not the one that is the subject of this post. One good thing might have come from this photo, if it were real. We might have finally put to rest the other silly claim that Jacob Castle the elder was albino and passed on those traits to his son Jacob.

The Ancestors

So what else do we really know about Jacob?

My Castles come from Russell County, Virginia. The first census in which Jacob Castle appears is Russell Co. in 1820. On the 1820 census Jacob is enumerated in the column for age 45+. He was probably in his 70's. His family consisted of a male aged 26-44 and another male aged 10-15, along with two females, one aged 26-44 and another aged 45+. Just guessing, I would say that along with Jacob's wife, he had a son or daughter and spouse living with him, and that the male aged 10-15 is a grandson.

By the way, Ancestry will find "Castle" on these various censuses, even though the names are transcribed as "Capell." Why? Because in this time period the name was spelled "Cassell" and double s's were written in a style that looks like a large P. (See my post on Jesse Reed in "DNA Circles: Daniel Reed and Martha 'Patsy' Lewis.") The Russell County enumerator listed the heads of household in alphabetical, rather than residential, order. Along with Jacob on the 1820 census are several other "Capell" heads of household on the same page and on the next page.

They are: Henry, age 26-44; Zedekiah, age 26-45; Zachariah, age 16-26; and William, age 16-26, on the same page with Jacob. On the next page are Elijah, age 26-45; and Nathan, age 16-26.

1820 Russell Co. census

It's certainly possible that some or all of these men are the sons of Jacob Castle. It's hard to tell since the census doesn't show their residential relationship to each other. A further complication arises with DNA testing. The Castle DNA Project shows that descendants who claim Jacob Castle as an ancestor do not have the same y-DNA haplogroup as descendants who claim Elijah Castle as an ancestor. Either there is not a relationship between Jacob and Elijah, or one of the descendants is mistaken about his ancestor.

The 1830 census, again in alphabetical order, enumerates Jacob as aged 80-89 with a female aged 50-59. (A search for Jacob Castle sometimes does not find this census record as his name is transcribed as "Jaocb Cossell.") Also listed in Russell Co. on the 1830 census are: Henry, age 40-50; Zachariah, age 40-50; Joseph, age 40-50 (Was he the one living with Jacob on the 1820 census?); and William, age 30-40.

The 1840 census appears to be residential; at least the names are not in alphabetical order. Enumerated next to each other are John, age 20-30; Joseph, age 50-60; Jacob, age 100+; and Zachariah, age 50-60, on the next page. Elijah, age 40-50, is enumerated several names above this group, and another John, age 20-30, is listed several names later on the same page with Zachariah.

1840 Russell Co. census, showing Jacob Castle at 100 & over

In the mid-century decades the Castle family began to move. Some went to Johnson and Floyd counties in Kentucky. (Jacob's brother Bazle had been living in Floyd County since at least 1820.) Sometime after 1836 when he sold 75 acres in Virginia to his brother Zachariah, my ancestor William also moved to Kentucky. In 1850 he is enumerated on the Pulaski County census with his wife Margaret (Cox) and children William H., Margaret, George Harvey, and Patton. Also on the Pulaski County census is my 2nd great-grandfather Goldman Davidson Castle (mis-transcribed as Solomon), his wife Rachel (Sargent), and their son William, age 4, named for his grandfather. By 1860 G.D. Castle and his family were living in Morgan County, next door to their Castle relatives in Johnson County.

Descendants in the Jacob Castle DNA Circle

There are 45 members of the Jacob Castle DNA Circle. I have DNA matches with four of them. 

Two show their descent from James C. Castle, who they claim as a son of Jacob Castle. However, a document attached to their own trees says that James was a son of William Castle. With each of them I share about 20 cM's across 2 segments. A shared match with one of them is a descendant of Zedekiah Castle but does not show up in the DNA Circle. A shared match with the other has Cassell ancestors.

A third member of the circle is a descendant of Nathan Castle. We share 44 cM's across 4 segments. We may also share Patrick ancestors. The fourth member of the circle is my 3rd cousin, Lori Castle. Our great-grandfathers were brothers, sons of Goldman Davidson Castle. Lori and I share 62 cM's over 4 segments (84 with a longest block of 55 cM's on Family Tree DNA.) Our shared matches on Ancestry and FTDNA include Cox and Sargent descendants and my 1st cousin, once removed, Linda Castle. (See my post "In Memoriam.")

Other members of the circle are descendants of Zedekiah, Zachariah, Joseph, Elijah, and William; Benjamin Castle, who appears on the 1820 census in Scott Co. VA; Inman Castle, who appears on the 1830 census in Johnson Co.; and daughters Margaret (Stapleton) and Lydia (Salyers).

Conclusions

As always, working on this post has required me to look closely at evidence for some facts that I have taken for granted. I was able to make some corrections and deletions in my tree on Ancestry so that the chain of dates, events, and relationships is strengthened. For now I may have done all I can do with the information that is available online.

Lori, Linda, and I share 36 cM's on Chromosome 11, according to Family Tree DNA. It would be nice to know if any other members of Jacob Castle's DNA Circle share DNA with us on Chromosome  11. Come on, Ancestry, give us a Chromosome Browser!

And come on, everybody that attached that bogus picture to the Jacob Castle who died in the 1840's--delete it!

New Ancestor Discoveries

I've been writing about Ancestry DNA's new wrinkle on autosomal DNA matching--DNA Circles. To be considered a member of a DNA Circle based on a particular ancestor, you must have that ancestor in your tree on Ancestry and you must match DNA with at least one other person in the circle. For example, I belong to the Daniel Reed DNA Circle. Daniel Reed is my 4th great-grandfather. Out of 23 members of the circle, I share DNA with 5 members. The other 18 members share DNA with at least one other person in the circle. We all have Daniel Reed in our public trees on Ancestry.

Recently, Ancestry DNA has added another feature that they call "New Ancestor Discoveries." These are ancestors or relatives suggested by DNA evidence alone. In this post I want to look at the 8 "new ancestors" that Ancestry DNA suggests for me, based on my DNA test results and the test results of members who already have these ancestors in their family trees. (See Roberta Estes's blog, dna-explained.com, for her take on the ancestors/relatives Ancestry DNA suggested for her. She calls them Bad NAD's.)

NAD #1 -- Hannah Elizabeth Embry

The following facts were compiled from 595 trees on Ancestry, according to her NAD bio. Hannah was born 10 May 1815 in Garrard County KY. She married on 22 October 1833 in Butler Co. KY. She died 1 September 1877. Her parents were Isaac Embry (1786-1850) and Martha "Patsy" Jameson (1780-1882.) Ancestry says, "DNA evidence suggests that you're related to a group of Hannah Elizabeth Embry's descendants." I match 3 of the 11 members of the Hannah Elizabeth Embry DNA Circle.

Oh, how I wish I could figure out how I am related to Hannah Elizabeth Embry! I feel certain that I have a connection to the Embry and Pharis families of Butler Co. KY, but I have been unable to identify the exact ancestor that connects me to these two families. I suspect he is James Pharis of Jackson Co. TN, whose mother was Delilah Embry. (Many of the families of Jackson Co. TN had ties to Butler Co. KY. Delilah's father John is supposed to have died in Butler Co.) If James is the unidentified father of my 2nd great-grandmother, Elzina Huff, I don't know how I will ever prove it. Hopefully, future DNA test results will point definitively to James or some other Pharis/Embry ancestor. I will definitely keep an eye on future DNA matches to this NAD.

NAD #2 -- Christopher Columbus Snodgrass

Christopher Columbus Snodgrass (1801-1877) was the spouse of Hannah Elizabeth Embry. If, in fact, I am related to this couple, it's to Hannah and not to Christopher; however, since Ancestry relies on family trees to create DNA Circles, they have no way of showing from which spouse the DNA comes. Since my 3 DNA matches are to descendants of this couple, they both show up as my NAD's. Since Ancestry is suggesting relatives, not necessarily ancestors, I guess it doesn't really matter to them that Christopher is not my relative by DNA.

NAD #3 -- William Jackson

Ditto William Jackson. He is the spouse of my 2nd great-aunt, Sarah Elizabeth Wheat. Sarah was the sister of my great-great grandmother, Susana Wheat Ming. William was born in 1812 in White Co. TN, married Sarah in 1834 in Madison Co. AR, and died in 1879 in Pilot Grove, Grayson Co. TX. On the 1860 census of Grayson Co. TX, William and Sarah and 6 of their children are living next to William F. and Susana Ming.

According to Ancestry DNA, once I put William Jackson in my tree, he would disappear from my New Ancestor Discoveries, and that is exactly what happened. He and Sarah are now in my DNA Circles, the only circles I have that are not direct-line ancestors or their spouses. In the case of this NAD, Ancestry DNA did make a helpful suggestion.

NAD #4 -- Martha Jane Kendrick

According to her bio compiled from 104 trees on Ancestry, Martha Jane was born on 22 May 1854 in Kinderhook, Virginia. She is found on the 1860 census in Washington Co. VA. She married first in 1871 to Joel Kaylor and later to Wyndham Clark. By 1900 she was living in Madison Co. AR. She died in Pettigrew, AR in 1947. Her parents were John Kendrick (1831-1865), born in Washington Co. VA and Phoebe D. Morgan (1829-1882), born in Scott Co. VA.

Both the name Kendrick and her mother's birthplace in Scott Co. are clues as to how I could be related to Martha Jane. I do have a Kendrick in my family tree. She is Isabelle Kendrick, my 5th great-grandmother. She is the ancestor of Rachel Sargent, my 2nd great-grandmother, wife of Goldman Davidson Castle. Isabelle was born in 1754 in Stafford Co. VA and died in 1822 in Russell Co. VA. Her parents were Patrick Kendrick (1725-1803) and Jane Fox (1730-1805).

As you may have noticed, Martha Jane and Isabelle were born a century apart. Since there appears to be no direct-line connection between them, common sense would dictate that the connection between them has to be at least a generation or two before Isabelle. The way the NAD's work is that Martha Jane already has a DNA Circle. The fact that she shows up as a NAD to me is a suggestion that I would show up in her circle if I had her in my tree. Of the 4 members of Martha Jane's DNA Circle, I have DNA matches to two of them. Maybe one of their trees will give me a clue to how, or if, Martha and Isabelle are connected.

One of the two DNA matches, Azkjo55, has an extensive tree. In fact, we have two "Shared Ancestor Hints," symbolized by Ancestry's little green leaf. One of our shared ancestors is, sure enough, a Kendrick--two generations back from Isabelle. He is Thomas Kendrick (1699-1770), my 7th great-grandfather. My tree only includes my direct-line ancestor, Patrick Kendrick, son of Thomas, and Azkjo55 only shows her direct-line ancestor, John Kendrick, son of Thomas. However, if Patrick and John were, indeed, brothers, that could definitely be my DNA connection to Azkjo55 and to Martha.

Here's where genetic genealogists (and to be honest, even serious paper genealogists) have problems with Ancestry.
1) There is little evidence on most people's trees that Thomas Kendrick had two sons named Patrick and John. That's not to say that there isn't evidence, but a lot of Ancestry users borrow names from other users without documentation, or with documentation for a completely different person with the same name. Just because 104 people say that Martha Jane Kendrick was a descendant of Thomas Kendrick through his son John doesn't mean that's necessarily true.
2) To really prove a DNA relationship, according to genetic genealogists, you must have triangulation. Three descendants must match on the same DNA segment and show paper evidence (wills, census records, etc.) for the same ancestor. First of all, Ancestry doesn't give segment information, and second, Azkjo55 and I have another possible shared ancestor couple, John Barker and Martha Snead. Without segment information, we will never know if our DNA match is through the Kendricks, the Barkers, or both.

I understand why people might prefer Ancestry DNA to one of the testing companies that show matches along with segment information. It's a lot of work to match up segments with an individual and then find your common ancestor, especially when many of the people who test on Family Tree DNA, for example, don't even upload their family trees. Ancestry does all of that for you. In fact, their viewpoint is that "it's almost impossible for you to find enough matching segments with other users to have confidence that you have a common ancestor. To solve this problem, we created DNA Circles, where we collect evidence across millions of trees and DNA from all Ancestry DNA members. Because of this power of numbers, the evidence that you really did inherit DNA from the same ancestor as everyone else in the circle can increase."

I'm not sure I completely agree with them, but I've decided I'm going to try to use the information they provide, with reservations, and hope that it can help me. I think they can make a unique contribution because they do have a great number of users who have contributed trees and DNA.

I could put Martha Kendrick in my family tree, as I did with William Jackson, and see her NAD disappear to be replaced by a Martha Kendrick DNA Circle; however, since I can't prove to my satisfaction that John and Patrick Kendrick were brothers, I'm going to hold off for now.

NAD #5 and #6

Based on almost 1200 trees, Benjamin F. Burden was born in 1783 in Baltimore, MD. He married Elizabeth Tully on 6 November, 1801, in Nicholas Co. KY. He appears in Butler Co. KY by 1810 and died there on 12 May 1862. Out of 23 members of the Benjamin F. Burden DNA Circle, Ancestry says I match 10 of them by DNA. I match 9 of 21 members of the Elizabeth Tully circle.

I have absolutely no idea how I am connected to Benjamin F. Burden and Elizabeth Tully. While many of the DNA matches to the Burdens include an Embry in their trees, not all of them do. I guess it's possible that I am picking up Butler Co. KY in each of the matches but don't have a true connection with the Burden/Tully descendants. With that many matches, it's worth trying to figure out how we are related.

NAD #7 and #8

My last two New Ancestor Discoveries, at least for now, are Sabrina Cutbirth and David Wilcoxson. Sabrina was born in 1800 in Maury Co. TN and died in 1877 in Farmersville, Collin Co. TX. David was born in 1796 in Rowan Co. NC and died in 1883 in Farmersville. They married in 1825 in Tennessee.

I match 4 of 23 descendants of Sabrina and the same 4 of 20 descendants of David. Two of the 4 matches are in the same family group and administered by the same person. They are both direct-line descendants of Sarah E. Wheat and William Jackson. K.D., the administrator, is a member of four of the same DNA Circles that I am a member of: Zachariah Wheat, Elizabeth Whitley, Robert Stephenson, and Samuel Wheat. Easy, huh? Our connection is with the Wheats or their ancestors--except that the other two matches don't have Zachariah or Samuel Wheat, Elizabeth Whitley, or Robert Stephenson in their trees. 

Even Ancestry's DNA Circles and New Ancestor Discoveries don't always make things easy.

DNA Circles: William Bays and Rachel Barker

The Ancestors

Russell and Scott are adjacent counties in southwestern Virginia. The area that became Russell County belonged to several other counties before being separated from Washington County in 1786. Scott County was formed from Russell and Lee counties in 1815. A number of my paternal ancestors, especially the ones who later resided in Morgan and Magoffin counties in Kentucky, came originally from Russell and Scott counties. They include the Castles, Sargents, Oneys, Kendricks, Days, Barkers, Bayses, Lewises, and Hortons, and not only those, but the Farrises and Davidsons from the Wheat (maternal) side of my family.

In fact, the petition to form Russell County in December 1785 was signed by a Bays, Jacob and Joseph Castle, Patrick Kendrick, John Lewis, Benjamin and William Oney, and Champ Farris. The description of the county included many place names associated with these ancestors, such as the Clinch River, the Holston River, Moccasin Creek, and Powell Valley.

My 4th great grandparents, William Bays and Rachel (Barker?) came from Scott County. William died there in 1827, and Rachel Bays is listed on the 1830 Scott County census as a head of household. While some Ancestry trees list her as Rachel Barker and others as Rachel Broadwater, there is apparently no evidence for either. Both Barkers and Broadwaters were present in the area. Based on circumstantial evidence, it is possible that Rachel was the daughter of John Barker and Martha Snead. (I have numerous Ancestry DNA matches to descendants of John and Martha, but that only proves that numerous Ancestry users think their ancestors are John and Martha.)

William and Rachel's youngest daughter Anna married John Sargent on 15 January 1820 in Scott County; after John's death, she married James Haney in 1841, again in Scott County. Anna and John Sargent's daughter Rachel married Goldman Davidson Castle and became my 2nd great-grandmother.

Children of William Bays and Rachel (Barker?)

I think of myself as a serious genealogist, but I'm going to admit something here that would make many serious genealogists cringe. On my family tree on Ancestry.com I had a list of the children of William and Rachel Bays, but I didn't find them through painstaking research. I copied them from somebody else's tree on Ancestry.com. Other trees listed even more children--with absolutely no documentation, including birth or death dates. I at least tried to document the existence of these nine children and find evidence of their lives, even though I didn't know where their names came from originally.

After looking carefully at these children while writing this post, I knew their names had to come from somewhere, maybe a will or Bible record. I had no doubt that there was some document that linked all these siblings, even though I couldn't find a tree on Ancestry that cited that record. Some of these siblings stayed in Scott County, some moved to other locations in Virginia, others moved to various locations in Kentucky. How would you ever identify them as coming from the same family unless there was some evidence? While I didn't completely trust the names I copied from other people's trees on Ancestry, there did seem to be some facts--origin in Scott Co., residence in other locations associated with this family--that made the names plausible.

And then, when I had almost finished this post, I found the record upon which this list of siblings was based. It was attached on an Ancestry tree to Elizabeth Bays, a child of William and Rachel that I didn't even have on my list. I am grateful to the Bays researcher who found the document--a court case--in the records of the Virginia Chancery Court and transcribed the portion of the file that would be most helpful to genealogists. He also provided the link to the actual record, 

http://www.lva.virginia.gov/chancery/full_case_detail.asp?CFN=169-1836-007#img,

which I read.

Ironically, the court case was brought by my ancestor, Anna Sargent, against her mother and siblings, claiming that she had not received a fair portion of her deceased father's estate. The list of defendants corroborated the list of siblings I copied from Ancestry, with one exception. While many trees list Joel Bays as one of the children of William and Rachel Bays, it turns out it is really his wife Elizabeth who was their child, and her husband Joel was her first cousin. The transcription of the court case was attached to this Elizabeth on a family tree to prove that she, not her husband Joel, was the child of William and Rachel Bays.

The court case gave me quite another shock when the original complaint listed the widow of William Bays as "Rebecca." I just couldn't figure out how William could have remarried since his wife Rachel appears as head of household in 1830 and didn't die until 1846. Apparently, the name Rebecca was an error, as later the court records list the widow many times as "Rachel."

The suit was brought against "1 Charles Bays, 2 Joel Bays and Elizabeth his wife, 3 John Bays, 4 Thomas Cody and Polly his wife, 5 Isaac Gray and Rebecca his wife, 6 John Barker and Sarah his wife, 7 William Bays, 8 Peter C. Bays children & heirs of William Bays deceased and also against Rebecca [sic] Bays widow of said William deceased." It states that William died in 1827, and the estate was divided in 1831. 

Original complaint brought by Ann Sergeant against her siblings and mother

Anna Sergeant complained that she had not received her portion of one of the tracts of land owned by her father. Reading the descriptions of the land makes me wonder how the metes and bounds system could have ever worked well. Hardly anyone could agree on the extent of the tracts or how much they were worth. What I found really entertaining was how many ways they could spell the word we know as "moccasin," as in Moccasin Creek. Most prevalent were "moqueson" and "mokasin."

Here are the children listed in the court case and thus the children of William and Rachel Bays:

Defendant #1 was Charles Bays. I found him at 65 years old on the 1850 Floyd County KY census and therefore born about 1785. He was the head of household of a family including wife Susannah and four children. All members of the family were born in Virginia. Floyd County KY was a transition residence for many of my Morgan/Magoffin County ancestors.

Elizabeth Bays, defendant #2 along with her husband Joel, was 66 on the 1850 Scott County census (Western District) and therefore born about 1784. She is listed on the census with her husband Joel Bays, age 68, and their daughter Malinda, age 23. Elizabeth and Joel were born in Virginia, but Malinda was born in Tennessee. Next door is William Bays, age 26, born in Tennnessee, most likely the son of Elizabeth and Joel.

Trees that list John Bays as a child of William and Rachel Bays give his birthdate as 1787 and his death date as 10 September 1867 in Carter County KY. They show his wife as Jane Kilgore, and one tree lists nine children of this marriage. A John Bays appears on the 1820 Scott County census and the 1830 and 1840 censuses in Russell County. I could not find a John Bays on the 1850 or 1860 Carter County KY censuses. However, an extensive entry for John "Jack" Bays on Findagrave claims his birth in Washington County VA in 1787 to William and Rachel Bays, his marriage to Jane "Jennie" Kilgore, residence in Morgan County KY in 1840, the birth of eight children, and his death in 1861 in Carter County. He was defendant #3 in the court case.

Numerous trees on Ancestry.com list Mary "Polly" Bays as a child of William and Rachel. They give a birthdate of 1792 and a death date of 28 September 1853 in Perry County VA. She is listed as defendant #4 in the court case, along with her husband Thomas Cody.

The court case lists Rebecca Bays as defendant #5, along with her spouse Isaac Gray. Trees on Ancestry.com give her birth year as 1794 and a death date of 1850. While many trees on Ancestry and sources on the Internet repeat this information, I can't find a marriage or census record for them.

Sarah "Sally" Bays, defendant #6, married John Barker on 26 March 1815 in Scott County. They are living in the Western District of Scott County on the 1850 census as family #357 with five children, ages 22 to 11. Their children's names follow family naming traditions. Son Joel is 20 and daughter Rachel is 14. Sarah is age 51 on the 1850 census, thus born in 1799. A Lydia Vickers, age 25, is living with the family. Older married/widowed daughter?

William Bays, defendant #7, is pretty well documented as a child of William and Rachel, even without the evidence of the court case. He was born in 1795 in Scott County VA and died on 19 October 1878 in Elliott County KY at age 77. These facts are supported by his death record which also includes the names of his parents: William and Rachel Bays. Descendants show his wife as Ann Elizabeth Kilgore whom he married in Scott County.

Peter C. Bays married Mary "Polly" Addington on 27 May 1830. Peter is 49 (born 1801) on the 1850 census of District 54, Russell County. In 1860 Peter and Polly are living in Knox County KY. Peter was defendant #8 in the court case.

Anna Bays, my ancestor, was born in 1804 in Virginia. She married John Sargent (spelled various ways) on 15 January 1820 in Scott County. Signed by William Bays and John "Sergant," the marriage bond reads:

"The condition of the above obligation is such that whereas there is a marriage shortly intended between John Sergant and Ann Bays Now if there is no lawful cause to obstruct the same; then this obligation to be void otherwise to remain in full force and virtue. Signed and delivered in the presence of John Sergant William Bays"

Rachel Sargent Castle, my 2nd great-grandmother, was born to John Sargent and Anna Bays on 29 September 1825, according to her death certificate. Trees on Ancestry.com show an older sister Sally, born 1822, and a younger brother William, born 1827. John Sargent died in 1827, the same year as his father-in-law, William Bays.

Rachel Sargent Castle death certificate

On 11 March 1841 Anna married James Haney in Scott County. By the 1850 census James and Anna were living in Morgan County KY with children Louisa, age 18; Granville, age 16; Gilean, age 13; Lilburn, age 11; Miriam, age 8; and Elizabeth, age 2. George Washington Haney was born in 1850, apparently after the census. None of the Sargent children appear with their mother on this census. Rachel had married Goldman Davidson Castle in 1844, so she was already in her own home. William married Lizanne Stacy in 1854, so I'm not sure where he was in 1850, but not with his mother and step-father. (Note: I just found William in 1850. I don't know why I didn't see it before.  He was living with his sister Rachel and her husband Goldman in Pulaski County, Kentucky.)

Among researchers there has been some discussion about the mother of the older Haney children. Louisa, Granville, Gilean, and Lilburn were born between 1832 and 1839. Some believe they were the children of Anna Bays Sargent, even though she didn't marry James Haney until 1841. The only clue to the identity of the first Mrs. Haney, if not Anna Bays Sargent, is the death certificate of Granville Haney that shows his mother as Anna Fugate. However, researchers have not found an Anna Fugate in the vicinity that fits the bill.

It's interesting that William and Lizanne Sargent named two of their children Gillian and Lilburn. William, who never knew his father, must have been very close to his half-siblings, if that's what they were. He didn't name a child after his known full sister, Rachel, unless that is Gillian's middle name. She is enumerated on the 1870 census as Gillian R. 

The fact that the court case was brought in the 1830s may be a clue as to the situation in which Ann Sargent found herself. If she was widowed and unattached to James Haney at the time, she may have truly needed the money from the court case in order to support her family. But--it is also interesting that James Haney figures prominently in the court case. If you read it fully, he appears as a witness and, if I am reading correctly, he also delivered notices to appear in court to the defendants. So maybe she really was his common law wife at the time, or at least he was not an uninterested bystander. 

Court case reference to survey of James Haney

One document, signed by Thompson G. Martin, Comr. (Commissioner?), recommended that each defendant (except Charles Bays who had taken no part in the division of the estate, having already received his portion while his father was still alive) remit to Ann Sergeant the amount of $11.42. Wow. Was the family just so scattered or so dysfunctional that they couldn't each have donated an equal amount to help their widowed little sister? Or did they know something that we don't know about her ability to support herself? In any case, the documents do not show if all the defendants ever paid, though a couple of them were given credit for smaller amounts already received by Ann Sergeant.

Members of the DNA Circles of William Bays and Rachel Barker

There are 10 members of the William Bays DNA Circle. Two claim descent from William Bays through his son, John Bays; two name Sarah "Sally" Bays as their ancestor; and two show Peter C. Bays. One each claims descent through Joel, Charles, and William. While it certainly could be true that the Joel Bays descendant can name him as an ancestor, he is not the link to William Bays; his wife Elizabeth is. I am the only member that shows descent through Anna Bays. I am considered a "Weak" match, probably because I only share DNA with one other member in the circle.

There are 15 members of the Rachel Barker DNA Circle. Four of them state that they are from the "Mary Virginia Barker Family Group." Yay! Maybe this is proof that Rachel really was a Barker. Not so fast--all the members of this family group are descendants of Sarah Bays, who was married to John Barker. So DNA Circles still can't tell us if Rachel was a Barker, even though at least 15 circle members show her as such in their trees.

The other members of the Rachel Barker DNA Circle descend from Charles (1); Joel (1) and Elizabeth (1), so that's really Elizabeth (2); John (2); William (1); Peter (2); and two more Sarahs. I make 15, and again I am the only descendant of Anna in the Circle. And again, I match with the same one member of the Circle, which makes me a Weak match in this Circle, as well. 

Conclusions? The really positive thing about Ancestry.com has always been the ability to collaborate with descendants you would probably never find otherwise. I doubt that I would ever have found Ann Sergeant's court case without the help of a Bays descendant who thoughtfully transcribed portions of the case and supplied the link to the original document so I could read it myself. But as always, Ancestry users cannot just copy names to trees or claim ancestors without proof. When family trees and DNA Circles are based on shoddy research and erroneous names, they are useless.

I still have my doubts anyway as to how useful the DNA Circles are without a Chromosome Browser. I share my trees on Ancestry with other researchers, and they share theirs with me. And then we say, "Have you uploaded your Ancestry results to Gedmatch? Have you heard about Genome Mate?" Too bad that Ancestry has to hoard our DNA results and dole them out to us as they see fit.

What's in a Name?

A friend of mine recently got her DNA results from Ancestry.com and was showing me her Ethnicity Estimate. I remembered that Ancestry had come out with a whole new version of ethnicity results last fall, and I had never really looked at mine since the new version appeared on their website. So I did.

On a previous post, "Where in the World Am I From?" I reported the results from my first ethnicity profile on Ancestry. I was 44% Central European, 33% British Isles, 21% Scandinavian, and 2% Uncertain. I knew that Ancestry got a lot of flak from experts in the field of DNA genealogy for the high proportion of Scandinavian ancestry in a large number of people who wouldn't be expected to have it. I wasn't especially skeptical of my Scandinavian numbers, because first of all, it's cool to be a Viking, and second, I figured my Irish and Scots forefathers probably did have some Scandinavian ancestry.

Well, now they don't. My new Ethnicity Estimate is 79% Great Britain, 15% Ireland, and 6% Trace Regions. These include 3% Europe East, 1% Europe West, 1% Italy/Greece, <1% Scandinavian, and <1% Iberian Peninsula. I've gone from 21% Scandinavian to less than 1%. However, I'm not really surprised at my overwhelmingly English/Scots/Irish roots, as I would be hard-pressed to find a surname in my tree that can't be traced to those regions.

I thought it might be fun to do a little survey of the surnames in my tree--where they come from and what they mean. Since none of my ancestors are recent immigrants and I haven't been able to trace very many of them conclusively to their mother country, surnames are the only evidence I have for country of origin. Let's see if my surname origins match up with the origins that Ancestry.com estimated from my DNA.

FYI: Surnames did not come about until the Middle Ages, when populations grew large enough that individuals with the same given names had to be differentiated from each other. There are four major ways in which surnames were given: based on the father's name (for example, Johnson, "son of John"); based on the occupation of the individual (John the Baker, John the Carpenter, etc.); based on a place (John Hill, John Meadows, John London); or based on a characteristic (John Little, John Brown.)

On my dad's dad's side, I have Smith, Williams, Simmons, and Soles. Just for fun, let's throw in Banks and Perkins, the surnames belonging to my brother's y-DNA matches. We know they are related to us--we just don't know how. I'm using Ancestry.com's surname information, which can be found at www.ancestry.com/learn/facts.

SMITH--English: occupational name for a worker in metal
WILLIAMS--English (also very common in Wales): son of William
SIMMONS--English (southern): son of Simon, or Anglo-Norman: son of Simund
SOLES--Old English; from sol, a muddy place, or possibly from Middle English (Latin solus), "single" or "unmarried", or if spelled
SOULE or SOULES--uncertain origin; perhaps derived from "soul" as a term of affection
BANKS--English or Scottish: name for someone who lived on the slope of a hill or by a riverbank
PERKINS--English (also mid and south Wales): son of Perkin

On my dad's mom's side, surnames include Castle, Sargent, Bays, Day, Lewis, Reed, Horton, Kendrick, Lea, Oney, McGrady, Cock, Patrick, and Henson.

CASTLE--English: someone who lived or worked at the castle (However, if the original spelling was Kassell or Cassell, as many Castle genealogists have speculated, my Jacob "the Longhunter" would have had a German, not English, origin.)
SARGENT--English and French: originally, an occupational name for a servant
BAYS--English: son of Bay
DAY--English: a pet form of David or other personal name; or, from a root word meaning "to knead" (related to dough), name for a dairy maid or servant of either sex
LEWIS--English (but most common in Wales): from the Norman personal name Ludovicus, or from the Welsh Llywelyn, or from the Irish/Scots Lughaidh
REED--English: nickname for a person with red hair or a ruddy complexion
HORTON--English: from one of many places in England with this name; from Old English horh "dirt" + tun "enclosure" or "settlement"
KENDRICK--Welsh, Scottish, or English: from the Welsh personal name Cynrig; shortened version of the Scots MacKendrick; or from the English Cyneric, meaning "royal power"
LEA--English: someone who lived near a meadow
ONEY--English: probably originally Olney, from two different places in England. One meant "Olla's island"; one was originally Onley, "single" + "clearing"
MCGRADY--Irish: son of Bradach, "proud"
COCK--English: "male bird or fowl," originally someone who struts like a rooster, then became generalized to "youth" and incorporated in names such as Alcock and Hancock
PATRICK--Scottish and Irish: son of Padraig, originally Latin Patricius, "son of a noble father"; popularized, of course, by St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland
HENSON--English: son of Henne (short for Henry), Hayne, or Hendy

On my mom's dad's side, I have Wheat, Farris, Stephenson, Whitley, Ming, Beasley, Fullen, Bordley, and Logan.

WHEAT--English: grower or seller of wheat, from hwit, meaning "white" because of its use in making white flour
FARRIS--Scottish: son of Fergus; in southeast England, possibly variant of Farrar, "worker in iron," "shoer of  horses" 
STEPHENSON--English and Scottish: son of Stephen; sometimes shortened to Stinson. My Stephensons are supposed to be Scottish.
WHITLEY--English: place name, from hwit "white" + leah "wood"
MING--English: of uncertain origin; perhaps from shortened version of personal name, Dominick
BEASLEY--English: from a place in Lancashire; perhaps beos, meaning "bent grass" + leah, meaning "woodland clearing"
FULLEN--English: same origin as Fuller, an occupational name for a person who helped make cloth by wetting and walking on it
BORDLEY--English: place name, originally bord, "board" + leah, "woodland clearing"
LOGAN--Scottish or northern Irish: from a place name, originally lagan, "hollow"

And finally, from my mom's mom's side of the family: Bell, Roberts, Powell, Fowler, Crudup, Cooper, Battle, Dixon, and Huff. DNA evidence also points to Pharris, Broyles, and Wilhoit.

BELL--Scottish or northern English: bell maker, or someone who lived near the bell
ROBERTS--English: son of Robert. Very frequent in Wales and west central England.
POWELL--English (of Welsh origin): Anglicized form of Welsh ap Hywel, "son of Hywel," a personal name meaning "eminent"
FOWLER--English: occupational name for a bird-catcher (a common medieval occupation)
CRUDUP--Probably an Americanized version of North German Gratop, a nickname for an old man. From German gra (gray) + top (braid)
COOPER--English: occupational name for a maker and repairer of wooden barrels
BATTLE--English and Scottish (of Norman origin): habitational name from the place of a battle
DIXON--Northern English: son of Dick
HUFF--English: habitational name, meaning "spur of a hill." German: from the personal name Hufo. My Huffs were Dutch, so probably the German meaning.
PHARRIS--Irish variant of Farris. I'm still not completely certain that my Farris and Pharris ancestors weren't originally the same family.
BROYLES--American form of German Breuhl (one of my Germanna families)
WILHOIT and various spellings--German: from Willeit, wil "small settlement" + leite "slope" (another Germanna family)

Kindof fascinating, isn't it? Certainly bears out the ethnicity estimate of almost 95% Great Britain and Ireland. It's also fun to see what characteristics distinguished a person or place back then and to compare medieval occupations to those we have today. Can you imagine having a job that required you to walk on wet cloth or catch birds?

Try this little exercise with your own list of surnames. What does it tell you about the origins and occupations of your ancestors?

Genealogy on the Road: West Liberty, Kentucky

Three years ago my brother and I visited West Liberty, Kentucky.  I wrote about that trip in the blog post, “My Old Kentucky Home.”  One of the objectives of that trip was to find the graves of our great-great-grandparents, Goldman D. and Rachel (Sargent) Castle.  Unfortunately, after visiting at least a dozen cemeteries, we failed to find them; we finally gave up and went home.

Within a couple of weeks of returning home, I corresponded with a Castle cousin who told me that the graves we were seeking were in a part of Morgan County near West Liberty that had been called Panama.  When my brother and I started planning a trip for this summer, I used Google Maps to locate Panama.  The location was on Centerville Road before it intersects with Homer Gevedon Road.  I was pretty sure this was an area we had searched before, but we were going to give it another try.

As soon as we turned off Highway 460, I knew this was the same road we had traveled three years ago.  In fact, soon we passed Day Branch Road where we had stopped to take photographs in 2010.  We had been following another Castle cousin’s instructions when we passed a barn close to the road and looked to the right to see a cemetery on a hill.  My brother had charmed a pack of dogs and climbed the steep hill to find that this was not the Castle cemetery. 

This time someone was home at the house next door, and my brother went up to talk to the homeowner.  He told Tim that he knew the cemetery we were looking for; it was further down the road near an old barn.  He had recently remarked to a young neighbor that the cemetery was really overgrown; the neighbor had replied that since it was the Castle cemetery, there was no one left to take care of it.  Who would have thought there would be another cemetery on a point near a barn on the same road? 

So—we drove down the road, found another old barn, and my brother climbed the hill to look for the cemetery.  No luck.  This was getting old.  Driving farther down the road, we found another man working in his garden.  Tim got out and walked down to talk to him; pretty soon my brother started back to the car, followed by the man, who turned out to be Mr. Gevedon.  Mr. Gevedon stopped at his barn to get a 4-wheeler, I hopped on the back, and Tim followed in the car.  We went a short way down the road and then up a very steep gravel track.  Tim followed as far as he could in the car—which wasn’t very far—and walked the rest of the way up.

Graves were under the pine trees to the right

Tim had walked the right hill.  It’s no wonder he couldn’t find the graves.  They had fallen down and couldn’t be seen from the road.  They were covered in leaves, thorny vines, and a small pine forest.  We would never have found them without the help of someone who knew exactly where they were.  But we were in the right place—because there was a headstone there, still standing, that made this cemetery unique.  It said DONIA’S FOOT.

Caladonia was my grandmother’s cousin, the daughter of James H. and Elizabeth (Nickell) Castle.  According to my grandmother, when she was a young girl, she fell off the porch and hurt her leg.  Eventually, her foot had to be amputated, and it was buried in the Castle cemetery.  I’m not sure if that’s the whole story, as Caladonia didn’t live long.  She died when she was 16.

The cemetery also holds the graves of Caladonia’s father, James, and her mother, Elizabeth.  (James was the brother of my great-grandfather, George Turner Castle.  His wife Elizabeth was the sister of George’s first wife, Frances.)  We also found a headstone for Caladonia’s brother, Goldman, named for his grandfather.  We found the headstone of our great-great-grandmother Rachel, and finally, fallen from its base, the headstone of our great-great grandfather, Goldman Davidson Castle.  Tears came to my eyes as I remembered my grandmother talking about brushing her grandfather’s silver hair.

G. D. Castle

Rachel Castle

We wished we had known in what bad shape the cemetery was.  We could have brought tools to clean it up.  Honestly, though, it would have taken a chain saw at the very least.  What do you do in that situation?  We are probably the only descendants that have visited the graves in years, and no telling when we will be back.  It’s sad to leave them in such a condition, but having to work so hard to find them at all gave us a sense of accomplishment that we had shown them what honor we could.