What I Learned Wednesday - June 29, 2011

I was looking through an Ahnentafel report I made of my LaRue ancestors that I prepared to send to Greta from Greta's Genealogy Bog when I happened upon Generation 5 for Peter LaRue and beneath his name was an Elizabeth Cresson. I have been seeing the name “Cress” pop up over and over again throughout my Family Finder results and was wondering where that name came into play. This is not a line that I have actively researched. In fact, the information in this report is from the family tree file that my Grandfather compiled. I keep it as a separate file for reference only and when I am ready to start researching this side of the family, I will use it as a guide.

Speaking of Family Finder DNA results…

One of my matches emailed me about a Thomas and Saunders/Sanders connection. I took one look at my database and realized I had a grand total of 1 Sanders and 1 Thomas family member listed. Now why on earth would I have these two surnames listed in my surname list in my Family Finder DNA page if I didn’t have any information on them? Because they are the surnames of my 4^th and 6^th great-grandmothers.

I looked through my sources and notes on my 4^th great-grandmother, Millie/Milly Thomas and found reference to a couple of WorldConnect online Family Tree files that other descendants of Milly Thomas and her husband Hollingsworth House had posted. The last time I accessed them was in 2005. I accessed them again to see if any of the information had changed or been updated and sure enough one descendant had updated her file to include the parents and grand-parents of Milly Thomas! She even provided transcripts of the documents she had reviewed and cited them accordingly in such a way as to convince me that the parents she designated for each generation was correct.

So now I have that Milly Thomas’ parents were William Thomas, b. abt 1792 in Franklin Co., VA, and Nancy Huddleston, b. abt 1795 in VA; and that William Thomas’ parents were Ephriam Thomas, b. abt 1775 in VA and Maria Catharina “Caty” Teal/Diehl, b. 25 Aug 1774, Dover, York Co., PA.

Thanks to a Family Finder DNA match contacting me, I learned who the parents and grand-parents of my 4^th great-grandmother, Milly Thomas House were!

Unfortunately, my match is in the same situation I started off in: He has one person named Thomas in his tree. It is a female named Olive Thomas, md to Enos Ingraham, Hartford, CT, 1797. So we aren't able to "connect" at this time. But at least I was able to go back two more generations in my tree!

What did you learn today?