Daniel and
Martha Reed were my 4th great-grandparents. Their son Lewis was the
father of my 2nd 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 19th
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 1st
cousins on the Henson side of the family, and 1st 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.
