DNA Circles: Daniel Reed and Martha "Patsy" Lewis

Daniel and Martha Reed were my 4th great-grandparents. Their son Lewis was the father of my 2^nd great-grandmother, Nancy Emily Reed (See “Grandpa and Grandma Day”) and the grandfather of my great-grandmother, Sarah Florida Day Castle (See “Big Mom”). Lewis Reed married Sarah Patrick whose parents were the object of my last post on DNA Circles. The Reeds were certainly an easier family to research than the Patricks—hardly any mysteries.

In fact, one little mystery was cleared up. Lewis had a twin brother. I have always called him “Lipe.” Lewis and Lipe—I thought those were cute names for twins, and since Lewis was obviously given his mother’s maiden name as a given name, I assumed Lipe was also a family name, maybe even a clue to the maiden name of some female ancestor.

As I began to research the Daniel Reed family, I realized that none of the public trees on Ancestry.com showed a son named Lipe. Instead, Lewis’s twin brother was named Jesse. A closer look at the 1850 census, along with some help from a Google search for handwriting styles in the 1800’s, led to the discovery that “Lipe” is really Jesse. Apparently, when writing a double “s” in the 19^th century, a swooping letter--resembling a cursive "f"--was used for the first “s.” Together, the two s's look like a p. Only after learning this fact did I notice that the loop on the “J” at the beginning of Jesse’s name was on the left, while the loop on the “L” of Lewis was on the right. How many mistakes in family trees, I wonder, have been made because of penmanship?

It is also interesting to note that these twin boys began a tradition that followed the family through four generations. While Nancy Emily Reed Day had a passel of girls and one little boy, her daughter, Florida Day Castle, had twin boys—Wardy and Warner, and her daughter, Fannie Castle Smith, had twin boys—my dad Jack and his twin brother Mack. I wonder if any of the other members of the DNA Circle of Lewis and Martha Reed had twin boys.

Warner and Wardy Castle

Jack and Mack Smith

 The 1850 census of Morgan County, Kentucky, was particularly helpful in establishing all the children of Daniel and Martha Reed. I really have never seen one census where the oldest child is still living at home and the youngest child has already been born. Usually, you have to look at two or three censuses in order to establish the names of all the children in a family, but for the Reeds, the 1850 census lays it all out. From oldest to youngest, they are: Jesse and Lewis, twins, age 20; James, 17; Anna, 16; Nancy, 13; Eliza, 12; Rachel, 10; John, 8; Wiley, 6; Solomon, 5; Sarah, 4; Phebe, 3; and William, 0.

1850 census, Morgan County, Kentucky

 On the 1860 census the family is enumerated in Magoffin County (I think the residence remained the same but the county boundaries changed.) The children still living at home are: Wiley, 18; Solomon, 16; Sarah, 15; Phebe, 14; and William, 10. Pheby, 22, and William, 20, are still living with Daniel and Martha on the 1870 census. The addition to the family is John M. Reed, age 1. Now who does he belong to? Martha is 62, so he can’t possibly be hers. Is he a child of Phebe’s or William’s, or a son of one of the other children, visiting his grandparents? I found no documentation of Phebe’s marriage, but trees on Ancestry show her marrying Samuel Jackson in November of 1871. James has a son, also born in 1869, but he is enumerated with his family in 1870 as John F. Reed. Okay, so maybe the Reed family has one small mystery—but this one I can live with.

The spouses of the children of Lewis and Martha are illuminating. Some of the names, such as Lykins and Stacy, are common names in Morgan County. It’s obvious that the Reed children married within a small community, as evidenced by the surnames of their spouses. Lewis and William married Patricks; Jesse and Nancy married spouses named Walters; and James and John married Praters.

Looking farther back in the tree, I find I have another situation like the one with my Wheat ancestors. Again, I hear the voice of Jeff Foxworthy in my head, saying, “You know you’re a redneck when your family tree doesn’t branch.”

Martha Lewis was the daughter of John Lewis and Rachel Henson. John was the son of James T. Lewis and Winnie Henson. James T. was the son of Nathaniel Lewis, and Winnie was the daughter of Paul Henson. Rachel was the daughter of John Henson and Mary “Polly” Lewis. John Henson was the son of Paul Henson, and Mary “Polly” Lewis was the daughter of James T. Lewis and Winnie Henson. That means that the parents of Martha “Patsy” Lewis, John Lewis and Rachel Henson, were 1^st cousins on the Henson side of the family, and 1^st cousins, once removed, on the Lewis side of the family. 

			Nathaniel Lewis
		James T. Lewis
			Elvira Helton
	John Lewis
			Paul Henson
		Winnie Henson
			Elizabeth
Martha "Patsy" Lewis
			Paul Henson
		John Henson
			Elizabeth
	Rachel Henson
			James T. Lewis
		Mary "Polly" Lewis
			Winnie Henson

It stands to reason that there will be some strong DNA matches among the descendants of Martha “Patsy” Lewis. Again, it’s too bad that Ancestry doesn’t offer a way to determine if a DNA match comes from Martha’s side of the family or from Daniel Reed’s. What I do have are 22 people in Daniel’s DNA Circle and 22 people in Martha’s. Ancestry put all of us in the same circles because we all have Daniel and Martha in our trees and all of us have a DNA match with at least one other person in the circle. The 22 people in each of my circles are the same, although with 5 of them I do have DNA matches as well. 

Among the Ancestry members in Daniel’s and Martha’s circles, six of them descend from Lewis’s twin brother Jesse; 3 from James; 3 from Nancy; 3 from William; and 2 each from Rachel, Sarah, and Solomon. I am the only descendant of Lewis in the DNA Circles. I have DNA matches with two descendants of James Reed, and one each from Jesse, Sarah, and William.

At the very least, the DNA Circles have caused me to revisit some of these ancestors that I haven’t looked at in a long time. My brother will be very interested to see the Revolutionary War record of our ancestor, Paul Henson, as described in his (and his widow Elizabeth’s) applications for bounty land and pension due for his service. I was also very interested to read the conclusions of Lewis researchers who believe they have traced Nathaniel Lewis and his wife Elvira Helton to their origins in Wales and Ireland.