I'm searching for more information on William Lear. Really, I am. I will be on Genealogy Bank as soon as I finish this post. But for the time being, let me talk about what research as absorbed my life for the past few weeks.
This story comes from my husband's family tree. My husband descends from a family of Dyers from Virginia. A lot of incorrect information surrounds that family all the way back. In this case, we are going to discuss the Isaac B. Dyer(s) of the family tree.
The problem came about when I was researching my husband's Isaac B. Dyer, Jr. He was alive and of fighting age during the Civil War. He as in a relatively pro-Union family. Up pops an Ancestry hint one day for an Isaac B. Dyer who was a Union cavalryman who died in 1865 and is buried in Nashville National Cemetery. My husband's Isaac B. Dyer is from TN. Same exact name, same approximate age. Seems like a good lead. Everywhere I look, online family trees say this is my Isaac B. Dyer. However, he appears as late as the 1880 census with his children, including my husband's direct ancestor. It states he is a widowed male. Not a female (so no, it is not the mother listed as Mrs. Isaac B. Dyer). Not to mention, my husband's ancestor, Robert Newton Dyer, was born in 1869. Kind of hard to father children four years after you have died.
Moving on, my husband's Isaac had a father, also named Isaac B. Dyer. Some family trees online put him as the one who died in the Civil War. Aside from the fact that he would have been exceedingly old to have joined up as a cavalryman during the Civil War...he could not any way...because he was dead. Some put his death year as 1856, others as 1852, and a War of 1812 lineage society says 1850. Either way, his wife is alone and living with a child on the 1860 census, so we can say he is not the Isaac B. Dyer who died in 1865 either. An let's not forget that he is the incorrect age according to the service records.
However, this is not enough for everyone. It is too big of a coincidence, some say. Isaac B. Dyer, same age, enlisting right around the corner from our Isaac. Well finally, we can say who this third Isaac is. Yes, I am counting on information from family websites on the internet, however, they are citing original documents. This Isaac B. Dyer was the son of Abraham Dyer, Jr, who married Docia Courtney. Family members have cited a letter from Abraham's son, Samuel, to his wife, Nancy, stating that his brother Isaac was killed by rebels in 1865.
I think it is safe to say the Isaac B. Dyer buried in Nashville is the son of Abraham Dyer. And I can certainly say that he is not the two Isaac B. Dyer's of my husband's family. Whose information I will gladly add as soon as the ancestry app starts working again and I can more easily access it.
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Let's Talk Smiths
Smiths. The most dreaded name in genealogy. Well, that along with Jones and a handful of others. I am fairly certain I have mentioned my great grandfather, Maxie Jerrel Smith, before. He died in 1957 in Puerto Rico at the ripe old age of 31. Family story was that he was a civilian seaman who got to Puerto Rico, drank up his money (he was an alcoholic) and missed his ship. He spent a few months on the streets before contracting pneumonia and dying in a charity hospital because he had cirrhosis of the liver too badly to treat him- the meds to treat the pneumonia would be too harsh on his liver for him to survive. So they pushed him into a corner where he laid there and died. Granny got a letter from a transient he was with informing her of what happened. Maxie's body came over later on a ship with an accompanying description of the body that did not match Maxie's description and an order not to open the casket because the body had been on a hot ship for too long and would be, well, gross. We have never had a death certificate, or at least no one has seen one, although we assume granny had one at some point.
This week served as a major breakthrough, thanks to a couple of fellow ancestry.com members (seriously, I would have spent another ten years searching). A few days ago, someone found Maxie's death certificate for me. It was right there, on ancestry.com, indexed under the name Marie Smith. Therefore, it never came up in the searches, even when I searched under alternate misspellings of Maxie. And there it was, after ten years of searching, right in front of me. Not just an index entry, but an actual image of the death certificate.
From the death certificate, we have already learned a lot about Maxie's final days. He did indeed die on the date listed on his tombstone (I always wondered how accurate that was). He died of bilateral broncho pneumonia- mark another one correct for family oral history. No mention of the cirrhosis of the liver. His date of birth, spouse's names, parents names, etc are all listed as unknown. He is listed as born in Louisiana, USA. Where an address is supposed to be, it says "ambulante" which roughly translates to traveler/transient. It says he was in Puerto Rico for 3 months. He was last employed in May 1957 as a merchant marine. His employer appears to be a ship name. The first word is definitely Alcoa, as in the Alcoa Steamship Company. The second word really looks like "Pauger" or something along those lines, but there was no Alcoa Pauger, or any other Pauger for that matter. The first letter really looks like a P, and there is a definitely a g, j, or y at the back. The only Alcoa ships fitting this are the Pilgrim and the Pegasus, and this word does not look like either of those. However, there is also an Alcoa Ranger. Everytihing after the P really looks like it could say "anger". Thus, I feel like it is just a poorly written R and the ship is the Alcoa Ranger.
My first foray into researching the Alcoa Ranger turned up an Alcoa Ranger that was sank in 1942 by a German U-boat, with no notes of it ever being salvaged. End of story, every time I searched, that was all I could find. However, I had also recently searched the Alcoa Pilgrim before I discovered there was such a ship as the Ranger, and I found it was sunk in 1942 by a torpedo as well. Yet there were many lawsuits and newspaper articles referring to it being involved in a collision in the harbor in New Jersey with the African Star, another ship that was sunk in WWII. There were even photos. All from 1956. We all know that ships are sometimes named after previous ships, so I supposed that the later Pilgrim was just named after the first Pilgrim. It was obvious that there was an Alcoa Pilgrim in 1956. So I wondered if there was a second Alcoa Ranger. I had a lot of trouble finding information on this, since the most popular results involved the sunken WWII ship.
I finally found an article (thanks Wikipedia!) on the USS Prentiss, a ship not even built until 1944, commissioned in 1945 in the Navy, decommissioned in 1946, and sold in 1947- to the Alcoa Steamship Company. There it was renamed the Alcoa Ranger, obviously a nod to its sunken predecessor (it even looks a great deal like the original Ranger, but I suppose all of that class of cargo ships built in that time period look somewhat similar). This Ranger served Alcoa for nearly two decades before it was sold to another shipping company and renamed the Cortez. It was rather quickly sold and renamed again in 1969 when it promptly ran aground and had to be towed back to Mobile, Alabama. Repairs were determined to be more costly than the ship's value and it was later scrapped in 1970. Thus, this Alcoa Ranger was owned and operated by Alcoa during the time period when Maxie would have been aboard it. Further, I found information in old advertisements about the Alcoa Ranger sailing from the port of New Orleans to the Caribbean in 1957 specifically. I also found a photo of the Alcoa Ranger sailing at an unknown date in 1957. Maybe even Maxie was on it then.
In the end, I am not 100% certain that is the ship he was on, but I do think it is the best candidate. It would be very helpful if I could find port records for San Juan to see what ships came into port in May 1957. In lieu of that, a newspaper shipping column in a San Juan newspaper of the time might prove fruitful. A fellow military wife found that the National Archives in Atlanta has logbooks for ships, including the Alcoa Ranger, and I have emailed them to find out the procedure to receive copies or at the very least information on Maxie. Heck, just tell me if the ship was in San Juan at the time!
That was not all that the death certificate had to tell us. It also states where he died. That being the municipal jail of San Juan, where he had been for five days. Not a surprise. This also explains why the informant on the death certificate, a Michael V. Begne, has a detective number after his name. However, he is listed as a "friend" as well. Why was Maxie in jail? Well, Maxie had been in jail before back home in Louisiana. He was not a hardened criminal, he just found a way to get in trouble sometimes. My guesses are either 1) Public intoxication, or 2), he stole something, possibly food or money to buy more drink. A fellow ancestry member translated some of the death certificate and stated that he was transferred to the San Juan charity hospital, although it appears this may have been after his death? I am still confused on that one. There, an autopsy was performed. I would like to get a copy of that if possible. My grandmother, his daughter and next of kin, is still alive to request it. It would tell us if his drinking factored into his death and a description of the body may help clarify once and for all if it was actually him.
The other surprise? They guessed his age at 45, most likely from his appearance. He was 31. But that is what hard living and a permanent belly full of liquor does for you, I guess.
Now we can re-file our request for a copy of his military records. We had done so last year and were told that the government had no record of his death and as far as they were concerned, he was alive. Our plan of action at that time was to contact the VA for his proof of death, since they had placed his headstone, but now we can bring the death certificate itself and hopefully get records.
This week served as a major breakthrough, thanks to a couple of fellow ancestry.com members (seriously, I would have spent another ten years searching). A few days ago, someone found Maxie's death certificate for me. It was right there, on ancestry.com, indexed under the name Marie Smith. Therefore, it never came up in the searches, even when I searched under alternate misspellings of Maxie. And there it was, after ten years of searching, right in front of me. Not just an index entry, but an actual image of the death certificate.
From the death certificate, we have already learned a lot about Maxie's final days. He did indeed die on the date listed on his tombstone (I always wondered how accurate that was). He died of bilateral broncho pneumonia- mark another one correct for family oral history. No mention of the cirrhosis of the liver. His date of birth, spouse's names, parents names, etc are all listed as unknown. He is listed as born in Louisiana, USA. Where an address is supposed to be, it says "ambulante" which roughly translates to traveler/transient. It says he was in Puerto Rico for 3 months. He was last employed in May 1957 as a merchant marine. His employer appears to be a ship name. The first word is definitely Alcoa, as in the Alcoa Steamship Company. The second word really looks like "Pauger" or something along those lines, but there was no Alcoa Pauger, or any other Pauger for that matter. The first letter really looks like a P, and there is a definitely a g, j, or y at the back. The only Alcoa ships fitting this are the Pilgrim and the Pegasus, and this word does not look like either of those. However, there is also an Alcoa Ranger. Everytihing after the P really looks like it could say "anger". Thus, I feel like it is just a poorly written R and the ship is the Alcoa Ranger.
My first foray into researching the Alcoa Ranger turned up an Alcoa Ranger that was sank in 1942 by a German U-boat, with no notes of it ever being salvaged. End of story, every time I searched, that was all I could find. However, I had also recently searched the Alcoa Pilgrim before I discovered there was such a ship as the Ranger, and I found it was sunk in 1942 by a torpedo as well. Yet there were many lawsuits and newspaper articles referring to it being involved in a collision in the harbor in New Jersey with the African Star, another ship that was sunk in WWII. There were even photos. All from 1956. We all know that ships are sometimes named after previous ships, so I supposed that the later Pilgrim was just named after the first Pilgrim. It was obvious that there was an Alcoa Pilgrim in 1956. So I wondered if there was a second Alcoa Ranger. I had a lot of trouble finding information on this, since the most popular results involved the sunken WWII ship.
I finally found an article (thanks Wikipedia!) on the USS Prentiss, a ship not even built until 1944, commissioned in 1945 in the Navy, decommissioned in 1946, and sold in 1947- to the Alcoa Steamship Company. There it was renamed the Alcoa Ranger, obviously a nod to its sunken predecessor (it even looks a great deal like the original Ranger, but I suppose all of that class of cargo ships built in that time period look somewhat similar). This Ranger served Alcoa for nearly two decades before it was sold to another shipping company and renamed the Cortez. It was rather quickly sold and renamed again in 1969 when it promptly ran aground and had to be towed back to Mobile, Alabama. Repairs were determined to be more costly than the ship's value and it was later scrapped in 1970. Thus, this Alcoa Ranger was owned and operated by Alcoa during the time period when Maxie would have been aboard it. Further, I found information in old advertisements about the Alcoa Ranger sailing from the port of New Orleans to the Caribbean in 1957 specifically. I also found a photo of the Alcoa Ranger sailing at an unknown date in 1957. Maybe even Maxie was on it then.
In the end, I am not 100% certain that is the ship he was on, but I do think it is the best candidate. It would be very helpful if I could find port records for San Juan to see what ships came into port in May 1957. In lieu of that, a newspaper shipping column in a San Juan newspaper of the time might prove fruitful. A fellow military wife found that the National Archives in Atlanta has logbooks for ships, including the Alcoa Ranger, and I have emailed them to find out the procedure to receive copies or at the very least information on Maxie. Heck, just tell me if the ship was in San Juan at the time!
That was not all that the death certificate had to tell us. It also states where he died. That being the municipal jail of San Juan, where he had been for five days. Not a surprise. This also explains why the informant on the death certificate, a Michael V. Begne, has a detective number after his name. However, he is listed as a "friend" as well. Why was Maxie in jail? Well, Maxie had been in jail before back home in Louisiana. He was not a hardened criminal, he just found a way to get in trouble sometimes. My guesses are either 1) Public intoxication, or 2), he stole something, possibly food or money to buy more drink. A fellow ancestry member translated some of the death certificate and stated that he was transferred to the San Juan charity hospital, although it appears this may have been after his death? I am still confused on that one. There, an autopsy was performed. I would like to get a copy of that if possible. My grandmother, his daughter and next of kin, is still alive to request it. It would tell us if his drinking factored into his death and a description of the body may help clarify once and for all if it was actually him.
The other surprise? They guessed his age at 45, most likely from his appearance. He was 31. But that is what hard living and a permanent belly full of liquor does for you, I guess.
Now we can re-file our request for a copy of his military records. We had done so last year and were told that the government had no record of his death and as far as they were concerned, he was alive. Our plan of action at that time was to contact the VA for his proof of death, since they had placed his headstone, but now we can bring the death certificate itself and hopefully get records.
Winter 2014 Research Updates
I haven't posted in a while. Because I forgot my password. I'm terrible about passwords. But when you need to use five capital letters, 2 lower case letters, three non-sequential numbers, two special characters (but not %, ^, or *) and a drop of blood from your first born male child, it can get hard to remember those things.
I have been doing a lot of genealogy-ing (it's a verb in my house). I've spent a lot of time on William Lear as well as some other brick walls (and I knocked a few down!). In regards to William Lear, I faced the age-old question of who his father really is. Is it the Henry Lear he is seen on the census with in 1850? Or is he and two other children being out of order in age paired with the other parents listed on his death certificate significant? I have long thought that Joseph R. Lear, who served with William in the 8th KY Cavalry, was in fact Joseph's brother. However, it is equally as likely he is a cousin or an uncle or some other relation, although he is of age to be William's brother (or cousin). They seemed to stay close throughout life, despite living in different states (not that cousins wouldn't have stayed close).
I decided to finally tackle sitting down and tracking the other children on the census with William (Joseph is not one of them, and he should be, at only 12-years-old, if he is Henry's son, and he is also not found elsewhere on the 1850 census yet) as well as Joseph. This serves the two-fold purpose of tracking them to possibly find other information on William as well as possibly finding any male descendants to participate in a Y DNA test in the future, if I can find a Lear on my side willing to spit in a tube for me.
First, I started with the children listed after William on the census, as if they are from the same nuclear family as William, also not children of Henry, just living in his household. They are Hebron, born in about 1844, and Lucy, born in 1847. It is worth noting that Henry's family are listed as Lears, William is listed as a Lear, and Hebron and Lucy are listed as Lairs. I have known for quite some time now that Hebron died in the war for the Union Army. This is possibly one of the sources of contention among William in his family, since family stories state that William's family was mostly Unionist and told him after the war that if he liked the South so much, he should move there. So he did, and that is why we are in Louisiana. At any rate, we know Hebron was dead and apparently had no descendants.
Lucy is a more interesting case. Lucy appears on the 1860 census in the household of Caroline Lear, daughter of Henry Lear. She went on to marry a man with the same last name as Caroline's husband (Woodward/Woodard). She appears as Ellen on the census. We know this to be her because her marriage record lists her as Lucy Lear, but she then again appears on the census as Ellen with her husband in 1870. She had two children and died shortly after the 1870 census, because her husband remarried in 1871. No obituary has been found. So what did we learn from Lucy? Well, it seems more likely that Lucy would be Caroline's sister than her cousin if she was living in her household in 1860. However, it is again not out of the question that they were cousins. They most likely would have been close cousins if they were cousins, since they lived together as far back as 1850, when Lucy was 3. However, this information about her living in Caroline's household does give me pause and suggest that she was Henry's child. If she was Henry's child, it is likely that William is, too. Although given the different spelling of their last name's, they could be three different connected families in one household. Or maybe we just got a sloppy census taker. Also, I have to give credit to my cousin, Lisa Fanska, for the find that Lucy was living in Caroline's household.
Before diving into the other children in Henry's household, let's look at Joseph Lear, because information about him becomes important when looking at the families of the other siblings. Joseph does not appear in the 1850 census, or at least he has not been found yet. First, let's look at Joseph's name. His name is Joseph R Lear, possibly Joseph Rice Lear. It is worth noting that Massie Pond Lear (the wife of Henry Lear) is the daughter of Joseph R. Pond. Our Joseph appears to be named after this Joseph. Thus, it is probable that he is the son of Henry and Massie, although why he does not appear on the census with them in 1850 is a mystery. Again, worth noting is the fact that Massie seems to have been mistakenly placed in the household before Henry's on the census. It is obvious was had a sloppy census taker at the very least. Joseph had four children: an unknown child who probably did not survive infancy, a girl named Lucy who was born in 1871 and was dead before 1900 and likely did not marry or have children (also, let's take note that her name was Lucy, probably after the other Lucy Lear, who it seems is likely Joseph's sister), and two more daughters, Sophronia and Willie, both spinsters. Sophronia and Willie neither one married. Willie is a a family name in my William B. Lear's family as well. Willie and Sophronia appear in the society pages of the newspapers quite frequently due to having visitors, visiting family on their mother's side, and being teachers and members of the Old Maids Association. Sophronia was named after her mother. The mother Sophronia had a nice obituary when she died, detailing some of her genealogy. Joseph, however, had only a little blurb in the paper saying he died. Just my luck. In the end, Joseph has no descendants. What we learn from him is that he was likely the son of Henry and Massey Lear, despite not appearing on the census with them, and he and William B. Lear were very close throughout life.
Moving onward with Henry's known children, we start with Mariah Lear. Mariah is definitively the child of Henry Lear as indicated by several records. She married a John Westley Stinnett, who she mysteriously never appears on a census with, and had 7 children. One was named Alexander, which was also the name of one of William B. Lear's children, and one was named Sophronia, seemingly after Joseph's wife, which seems to indicate a close relationship with Joseph, furthering the hypothesis that Joseph is a child of Henry. Mariah died in 1912 and there is no known obituary for her that might possibly list siblings (boo).
Next is Nancy, who married a Thomas Hunter and had 9 kids. She named children Joseph, William, Caroline, Lucy, and Sofronia. Again, suggesting she is the sibling of Joseph, Caroline, and Lucy at the very least, but maybe William, too? There is no obituary for her either that we know of. Next is the previously discussed Caroline, who married a Woodward, and had 9 children also, one named Joseph and one named Henry. There is a small note about her death in the paper in 1908 that lists one of her daughters. There is nothing else of note about her.
Next up on our list is David Lear- the only possibility for a direct male descendant of Henry to DNA test, supposing William Lear is not a son of Henry. I have a lot of curiosity about one of the son's of David Lear. He appears on a Kentucky birth index in 1857 (before the Civil War) as a son of David Lear and Lettie Turner under the name, W.B. Lair. It very clearly says W.B. However, later in life (after the war), he is listed as William R. Lear, including on his tombstone. The question is, was his birth index entry wrong? Or is it possible that David named his son after his brother, William Bronson Lear, only to see his brother join the Confederate Army, become a disgrace to the Unionist sentiment family, and change his son's middle name. After the war (1869), David had another son named Joseph Lear, whose middle name was Melvin. Although it seems Joseph made peace with the family possibly and stayed in Kentucky after the war. The W.B. Lear on the birth index is very interesting to me and suggest a close connection to William Bronson Lear.
Lastly is Henry's son, John, who had 5 children, two being boys, and none appearing to have produced direct male descendants to the modern day. Nothing of note has been learned from John.
The conclusion to all of this? Well, absolutely nothing definitive, as is the norm. However, I found myself leaning more towards the possibility that William is the son of Henry after all, and I have had the answer to who his parents are sitting right in front of my face for all of these years. It would be nice if he were Henry's son, because Massie Pond's family is relatively well researched, including some nice antique photos. Although on the direct Lear line we would once again hit a brick wall- this time with Henry Lear.
On another note, I found a Lear in my mother's line, in 1600s Virginia. Who are her parents? I have no idea. -_-
I have been doing a lot of genealogy-ing (it's a verb in my house). I've spent a lot of time on William Lear as well as some other brick walls (and I knocked a few down!). In regards to William Lear, I faced the age-old question of who his father really is. Is it the Henry Lear he is seen on the census with in 1850? Or is he and two other children being out of order in age paired with the other parents listed on his death certificate significant? I have long thought that Joseph R. Lear, who served with William in the 8th KY Cavalry, was in fact Joseph's brother. However, it is equally as likely he is a cousin or an uncle or some other relation, although he is of age to be William's brother (or cousin). They seemed to stay close throughout life, despite living in different states (not that cousins wouldn't have stayed close).
I decided to finally tackle sitting down and tracking the other children on the census with William (Joseph is not one of them, and he should be, at only 12-years-old, if he is Henry's son, and he is also not found elsewhere on the 1850 census yet) as well as Joseph. This serves the two-fold purpose of tracking them to possibly find other information on William as well as possibly finding any male descendants to participate in a Y DNA test in the future, if I can find a Lear on my side willing to spit in a tube for me.
First, I started with the children listed after William on the census, as if they are from the same nuclear family as William, also not children of Henry, just living in his household. They are Hebron, born in about 1844, and Lucy, born in 1847. It is worth noting that Henry's family are listed as Lears, William is listed as a Lear, and Hebron and Lucy are listed as Lairs. I have known for quite some time now that Hebron died in the war for the Union Army. This is possibly one of the sources of contention among William in his family, since family stories state that William's family was mostly Unionist and told him after the war that if he liked the South so much, he should move there. So he did, and that is why we are in Louisiana. At any rate, we know Hebron was dead and apparently had no descendants.
Lucy is a more interesting case. Lucy appears on the 1860 census in the household of Caroline Lear, daughter of Henry Lear. She went on to marry a man with the same last name as Caroline's husband (Woodward/Woodard). She appears as Ellen on the census. We know this to be her because her marriage record lists her as Lucy Lear, but she then again appears on the census as Ellen with her husband in 1870. She had two children and died shortly after the 1870 census, because her husband remarried in 1871. No obituary has been found. So what did we learn from Lucy? Well, it seems more likely that Lucy would be Caroline's sister than her cousin if she was living in her household in 1860. However, it is again not out of the question that they were cousins. They most likely would have been close cousins if they were cousins, since they lived together as far back as 1850, when Lucy was 3. However, this information about her living in Caroline's household does give me pause and suggest that she was Henry's child. If she was Henry's child, it is likely that William is, too. Although given the different spelling of their last name's, they could be three different connected families in one household. Or maybe we just got a sloppy census taker. Also, I have to give credit to my cousin, Lisa Fanska, for the find that Lucy was living in Caroline's household.
Before diving into the other children in Henry's household, let's look at Joseph Lear, because information about him becomes important when looking at the families of the other siblings. Joseph does not appear in the 1850 census, or at least he has not been found yet. First, let's look at Joseph's name. His name is Joseph R Lear, possibly Joseph Rice Lear. It is worth noting that Massie Pond Lear (the wife of Henry Lear) is the daughter of Joseph R. Pond. Our Joseph appears to be named after this Joseph. Thus, it is probable that he is the son of Henry and Massie, although why he does not appear on the census with them in 1850 is a mystery. Again, worth noting is the fact that Massie seems to have been mistakenly placed in the household before Henry's on the census. It is obvious was had a sloppy census taker at the very least. Joseph had four children: an unknown child who probably did not survive infancy, a girl named Lucy who was born in 1871 and was dead before 1900 and likely did not marry or have children (also, let's take note that her name was Lucy, probably after the other Lucy Lear, who it seems is likely Joseph's sister), and two more daughters, Sophronia and Willie, both spinsters. Sophronia and Willie neither one married. Willie is a a family name in my William B. Lear's family as well. Willie and Sophronia appear in the society pages of the newspapers quite frequently due to having visitors, visiting family on their mother's side, and being teachers and members of the Old Maids Association. Sophronia was named after her mother. The mother Sophronia had a nice obituary when she died, detailing some of her genealogy. Joseph, however, had only a little blurb in the paper saying he died. Just my luck. In the end, Joseph has no descendants. What we learn from him is that he was likely the son of Henry and Massey Lear, despite not appearing on the census with them, and he and William B. Lear were very close throughout life.
Moving onward with Henry's known children, we start with Mariah Lear. Mariah is definitively the child of Henry Lear as indicated by several records. She married a John Westley Stinnett, who she mysteriously never appears on a census with, and had 7 children. One was named Alexander, which was also the name of one of William B. Lear's children, and one was named Sophronia, seemingly after Joseph's wife, which seems to indicate a close relationship with Joseph, furthering the hypothesis that Joseph is a child of Henry. Mariah died in 1912 and there is no known obituary for her that might possibly list siblings (boo).
Next is Nancy, who married a Thomas Hunter and had 9 kids. She named children Joseph, William, Caroline, Lucy, and Sofronia. Again, suggesting she is the sibling of Joseph, Caroline, and Lucy at the very least, but maybe William, too? There is no obituary for her either that we know of. Next is the previously discussed Caroline, who married a Woodward, and had 9 children also, one named Joseph and one named Henry. There is a small note about her death in the paper in 1908 that lists one of her daughters. There is nothing else of note about her.
Next up on our list is David Lear- the only possibility for a direct male descendant of Henry to DNA test, supposing William Lear is not a son of Henry. I have a lot of curiosity about one of the son's of David Lear. He appears on a Kentucky birth index in 1857 (before the Civil War) as a son of David Lear and Lettie Turner under the name, W.B. Lair. It very clearly says W.B. However, later in life (after the war), he is listed as William R. Lear, including on his tombstone. The question is, was his birth index entry wrong? Or is it possible that David named his son after his brother, William Bronson Lear, only to see his brother join the Confederate Army, become a disgrace to the Unionist sentiment family, and change his son's middle name. After the war (1869), David had another son named Joseph Lear, whose middle name was Melvin. Although it seems Joseph made peace with the family possibly and stayed in Kentucky after the war. The W.B. Lear on the birth index is very interesting to me and suggest a close connection to William Bronson Lear.
Lastly is Henry's son, John, who had 5 children, two being boys, and none appearing to have produced direct male descendants to the modern day. Nothing of note has been learned from John.
The conclusion to all of this? Well, absolutely nothing definitive, as is the norm. However, I found myself leaning more towards the possibility that William is the son of Henry after all, and I have had the answer to who his parents are sitting right in front of my face for all of these years. It would be nice if he were Henry's son, because Massie Pond's family is relatively well researched, including some nice antique photos. Although on the direct Lear line we would once again hit a brick wall- this time with Henry Lear.
On another note, I found a Lear in my mother's line, in 1600s Virginia. Who are her parents? I have no idea. -_-
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Lair, Lehr, Layer.
After looking at a lot of records tonight, I am betting their name really was Lair or the like, because I keep seeing it spelled not only as Lair, but as Layer. Which makes me wonder what their ethnicity was. German? French? English? I always assumed English, maybe Irish, wish a name like Lear. But if it is Lair or Lehr, then that makes me learn towards German. And there were German Lear families in Jessamine County area. Hmmmmmm. Now the question is, do any of the German Lear families come from Virginia before Kentucky?
Henry Lear and Massey Pond.
One day I am going to find out that William Lear is the son of Henry Lear and Massey Pond and I am going to feel like I wasted years. But hey, you have to know for sure. I am just not convinced now. I am open to it, but not convinced.
Saturday, July 19, 2014
It's A Flop
Well, I e-mailed the Jessamine County Historical Society. They sent me what the had on William Lears, mostly in Garrard County, and even checked Jessamine County wills for me to no avail. So far, nadda. Next I have to check with Garrard County Historical Society, if there is one, and see what they have in the way of wills. Oh, and I sent Jessamine County Historical Society my application and membership fee. A lovely person there was very helpful for me.
In the meantime, I have worked on my ancestor Jeremiah Bentley. I have seen a lot of naysayers who said that my ancestor, Mary Ann Bentley, was not Jeremiah's daughter. I have also seen his service at Valley Forge questioned. However, I recently found the transcript of a letter from another of Jeremiah's daughters mentioning Mary's son, Robert Bailey, so I feel that we can pretty certainly rule her as his daughter. Also, I found Jeremiah's actual service record (not just his pension testimony), and he is indeed on the muster rolls at Valley Forge, and there are notes that he was in the Yellow Springs hospital for a lot of the time. Pretty neat stuff. I have a lot of DNA matches on autosomal tests with descendants of other children of Jeremiah. Glad that he is my ancestor. He was a cool dude.
In the meantime, I have worked on my ancestor Jeremiah Bentley. I have seen a lot of naysayers who said that my ancestor, Mary Ann Bentley, was not Jeremiah's daughter. I have also seen his service at Valley Forge questioned. However, I recently found the transcript of a letter from another of Jeremiah's daughters mentioning Mary's son, Robert Bailey, so I feel that we can pretty certainly rule her as his daughter. Also, I found Jeremiah's actual service record (not just his pension testimony), and he is indeed on the muster rolls at Valley Forge, and there are notes that he was in the Yellow Springs hospital for a lot of the time. Pretty neat stuff. I have a lot of DNA matches on autosomal tests with descendants of other children of Jeremiah. Glad that he is my ancestor. He was a cool dude.
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Jessamine County Historical Society
I got a reply back from my query to the Jessamine County Historical Society about my William Lear. They had a William B. Lear and wife Tabitha on the 1860 and 1870 census in Garrard County, KY. The fact that they were alive in 1860 and 1870 would suggest they are not my William Lear's father, although that is not for certain. They did, however, have 3 unmarried daughters, two definitely old enough to be considered spinsters. However, two of those daughters died in the 1870s, which might be a bit early to be the spinster sisters William claimed to have seen when he went back to KY later in life. I would think later in life would not mean within 10 years of having left KY. We shall see how this pans out.
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