Ancestry Magazine

In searching for valid documentation, even experienced family historians risk making conclusions, based on certain irrefutable facts, that appear to be true but are not. Expressed in mathematical terms, these erroneous solutions occur because at least one relevant factor has been omitted from the equation. In order to illustrate this point, three case studies will be examined and discussed here.

Each of these cases begins with authentic facts based on research conducted with meticulous care in thoroughly reliable sources. In each case, the collection of correct facts is followed by a logical conclusion. However, each example concludes with new information that provides undisputable evidence that the original assumption, as logical as it may have seemed, was wrong.

The first two of these cases illustrate the havoc two fathers caused by flouting convention in naming children. The third case illustrates how ignorance of customs by which surnames may be chosen leads to a patently false, but seemingly logical assumption.

Case One: Mayflower Descendancy
When my research proved that I am descended from John, the son of Humphrey and Lydia [Garner] Turner, I was thrilled to discover (mistakenly as it turned out) that William Brewster of the Mayflower was one of my direct ancestors.

The Facts: In November of 1645, John Turner, son of Humphrey and Lydia Turner of Scituate, Massachusetts, married Mary Brewster, granddaughter of Pilgrim William Brewster. Mary Turner was the mother of all thirteen of John Turner’s children. Thus, John Turner’s descendants are also Mayflower descendants through his wife Mary [Brewster] Turner.

Reasonable Assumption: I am eligible to join th e Mayflower Society based on documentary proof that I am a direct descendant of John Turner, the husband of Mary Brewster who was the mother of all of his children, and the granddaughter of prominent Pilgrim, William Brewster.

Not so: There was only one problem with my assumption. Humphrey and Lydia Turner had two sons named John, each of whom lived to adulthood. Family historians who have conducted seventeenth and eighteenth century genealogical research know that often when a child died, a sibling of the same gender born at a later date was given the name of the deceased child. However, both of Humphrey and Lydia Turner’s sons named John lived to an old age. They were known as John the Elder, or Senior, and John the Younger, or Junior, and both were the fathers of numerous sons and daughters. Four years after the elder John married Mary Brewster, the younger John married Ann James.

Once I discovered that there were two brothers named John Turner, my continued research revealed that I am descended from John the Younger, and his wife Ann was not a Mayflower descendant. Thus, I was mistaken in my initial belief that I could join the Mayflower Society on the basis of proof of descent from William Brewster.

In his History of Scituate, Massachusetts, Samuel Deane speculates that Humphrey Turner named a second son John at the request of the child’s godfather, who may have been a man of some means with no children, and thus might remember his godson generously in his will.

Case Two: Thomas Jeffie
In researching the family of New Hampshire’s General John Stark of Revolutionary War fame, I discovered an unusual domestic situation in which the general’s daughter, Elizabeth, played a crucial, but definitely submissive role.

The Facts: John Cameron and Elizabeth Stark were married in Ryegate, Vermont, in 1795. By the time they had been married ten years, John and Elizabeth had four living children born to them in this order: Archibald, John, Elizabeth, and Thomas Jefferson.

Reasonable Assumption: In 1805, the family of Judge John Cameron and his wife Elizabeth consisted of themselves, plus three sons: Archibald, John, and Thomas Jefferson; and one daughter, Elizabeth.

Not so: Being an ardent admirer of Thomas Jefferson, John Cameron was determined that the next baby born to the family be named Thomas Jefferson Cameron. Unfortunately, the next baby was a girl, and true to his word, the stubborn father named her in honor of the third president of the United States.

Thus, in 1805 the Cameron household numbered two sons rather than three: Archibald and John. And two daughters rather than one: Elizabeth and Thomas Jefferson.

Jeffie, as her family called her, later married Colonel Jacob Blanchard and became the mother of four sons and four daughters. Not surprisingly, Thomas Jefferson Blanchard gave her daughters unmistakably feminine names: Mary, Elizabeth, Jean, and Flora.

Family historians who arrive at inaccurate conclusions based on convincing evidence should take comfort in the knowledge that they are in distinguished company. Noel C. Stevenson, FASG, the deservedly eminent authority on the subject of documenting genealogical evidence, included the following paragraph on page 22 of his definitive volume, Genealogical Evidence: A Guide to the Standard of Proof Relating to Pedigrees, Ancestry, Heirship and Family History, (Aegean Park Press, 1979).

“The head of a large family of only girls [emphasis added] in Vermont told his wife that their soon due baby would be named Thomas Jefferson whether the infant was male or female. The newborn proved to be a girl and Thomas Jefferson is what she was named.”

I wrote to Mr. Stevenson pointing out my suspicion that he was referring to the family of Ryegate, Vermont’s Judge John Cameron and his wife, Elizabeth. They had two sons, Archibald and John, who were born before Jeffie arrived in the family. Thus the children certainly were not, as he had reported, all girls before Jeffie’s arrival in the Cameron clan.

In a gracious reply to my letter, Mr. Stevenson explained that during the course of a conversation with a staff member at the Vermont Historical Society in 1959 he had been informed, erroneously as it turned out, of the circumstances surrounding the naming of Thomas Jefferson Cameron. He concluded his letter with, “Thank you for the discovery. I will correct Jeffie’s status in the next edition of the book.”

Case Three: Swedish Brothers
All four of my wife’s grandparents were born in Sweden. Tracing her ancestry provided me with an interesting and very enlightening education about the different procedures by which Swedish men who were born to the same two parents might have acquired various surnames.

Irrefutable Facts: My wife’s Swedish great-grandmother Katrina Enroot had four legitimate sons who emigrated to northern Maine in the waning years of the nineteenth century. All four of Katrina’s sons were enumerated in the 1900 census of Aroostook County, Maine, and each one had a different surname. They were listed in that census as Anders Olafsson, Ulrick Hedstrom, Victor Lindberg, and Lars Lett.

Reasonable Assumption: Katrina had been married four times. Her husbands’ surnames were Olafsson, Hedstrom, Lindberg, and Lett.

Not So: Lutheran church records of Orebro Parish in Sweden reveal that Katrina’s only husband and the father of all of her children was Olaf Olsson. Situations in which adult blood brothers might be known by different last names were not at all uncommon in Sweden of the past. As recently as the very late nineteenth century, adult sons of the same two Swedish parents often changed their surnames.

Katrina’s son Anders followed the old Scandinavian custom of opting for the patronymic Olafsson, which announced to the world that he was the son of a man whose Christian n ame was Olaf. This was the most common method by which a Swedish man acquired a surname but not the only means of doing so. Ulrick Hedstrom selected as his surname the name of the brook that ran through the family farm in Orebro Parish. Similarly, it has been conjectured that Victor Lindberg’s choice of surname was based on the name of the family farm in Sweden.

Another common method by which an adult male acquired his last name was through his compulsory military service. Since it was inevitable that each regiment include many soldiers with duplicate patronymics such as Andersson, Larsson, Olsson, and Nilsson, at the time of induction a recruit was issued a military surname of one or two syllables along with his uniform, musket, mess kit, and blanket. As a soldier, Lars, the fourth son of Olaf and Katrina Olofsson, became Lars Lett. And following his discharge from the service, Lars chose to be known by his more singular military surname rather than by his family name.

Additional Discussion
Most of us who pursue family history have reached assumptions that are proven wrong through further research. However, by faithfully observing standard rules of genealogical research we can decrease the likelihood of forming false conclusions.

In the first case in this article I violated the fundamental rule of beginning the process with your parents and working backward.

Based on my grandmother’s undocumented word that she was descended from Humphrey Turner’s son John, who married a granddaughter of the Pilgrim leader William Brewster, I began the procedure for applying for membership in the Mayflower Society. But as I researched my line in the proper sequence from my grandmother back to Humphrey and Lydia Turner, I learned that their son John the Younger, who married Ann James, was our ancestor. Neither John the Younger nor his wife Ann could claim ancestors who came to this country on the Mayflower.

In the second case, it is certa inly reasonable to assume that a child named Thomas Jefferson Cameron was a boy. However, further research into the family of John and Elizabeth Cameron raised a warning flag about the gender of their fourth child when it was reported in the History of Ryegate, Vermont by Edward Miller that Thomas Jefferson Cameron married Colonel Jacob Blanchard. Fortunately, Miller explains in the same volume how a daughter was burdened with an unmistakably masculine name. This case vividly illustrates that a family should be studied as thoroughly as possible before forming assumptions about its individual members.

In the third case, it would certainly be logical to assume that four adult men with the same mother, but each with a different surname, were the sons of four different fathers. And other than the fact that one bore a patronymic for a surname and another elected to retain the name he received when he entered the military service, the family has been unable to discover a logical reason why the other two brothers chose names related to their home farm in Sweden.

Because their sister was my wife’s maternal grandmother, who also immigrated to the same small town in Maine, we know that all four of these men with different surnames were brothers. Had a similar naming pattern occurred a few generations earlier in the ancestral homeland, we never would have known the relationship of these four men.

The first two cases demonstrate that erroneous assumptions may be avoided if time-tested rules governing genealogical research are followed carefully. The patronymic and military names stated in the third case demonstrate that in researching ancestors who came to the United States from other countries, it is important to understand naming customs in those countries. But the third case also reminds us that, short of reliable first-hand knowledge, no matter how closely we follow the rules, there will almost always be those frustrating gaps in our family histories.

Edward F. Holde n, a retired educator, is a professional genealogist and the staff genealogist at the New Hampshire State Library. This position gives him the opportunity to combine his enthusiasm for teaching with his interest in the many facets of family history research.