Genealogical bread crumbs

I'm trying to see if DNA can chip away my brick walls. I was a little disappointed that I wasn't able to come up with anything new after the inspirational conference I had attended. So today I decided to concentrate on my Cotten family mysteries.

To recap, my great grandfather is Napoleon Cotten. His mother is Winnie Deer. It took me years to find them on the 1870 census mainly because I was looking for Cottens. Then on one of my searches I used only the first names and the state, Mississippi. Heritage Quest rewarded me with success. I found the whole family in 1870 in Amite County. The reason I couldn't find them before was because I wasn't looking for Andersons, the surname they were using in 1870.

I then tried to find them on various Amite county farms owned by Andersons. Moses Gordon Anderson became a person of interest in my mystery. He lived near Winnie in 1870. In 1860, he owned 40 slaves including a 100 year old woman named Sophia. On the slave schedule, following the tip I learned at the conference, I noticed a family group that corresponded to the ages of Winnie's family. There were discrepancies. There was a one year old male. On Winnie's tombstone and on the 1900 census, she is recorded with only three sons and a daughter. If this is Winnie, she is recorded on this slave schedule with four sons. Also the ages of the sons were a little off except for Napoleon's.

I then looked at the 1850 slave schedule. M. G. Anderson owns 23 slaves.  They are separated into two groups. On the smaller group, there is a 15 year old female, the right age for Winnie,  and possibly her oldest son Hiram at one year old.

I went back to 1840 and found Anderson with a new wife and seven slaves. I checked out his bride. Her name was Cynthia Carolyn Causey, daughter of Capt. William Causey and Susanna Jackson. The Captain had died in 1828 and left a will. He had sired many children. He also possessed many slaves. He willed only one, "negro girl named Mary" to his daughter Cynthia. Now I know Mary is a very common name and it means very little but it still gave me a glimmer of hope that this was Winnie's mother, Mary. And when I checked the 1840 census, Anderson owned only two female slaves-a child under 10 and a woman between 24 and 35 years old. Could this be Mary and Winnie?

I continued searching family trees for the Causeys on ancestry.com. I came across a familiar name. The woman who owned one of the Causey family trees was also a match to me through DNA!!!

I still have much to do to determine who was the shared ancestor. Her family tree had a surname that was also on my family tree-- Cain. We may be connected that way. Cynthia  Causey's brother had married Lucretia Cain, a daughter of Isaiah Cain and sister to Mary Cain Cotten. These same surnames keep coming up. That is why I am holding out hope that this bread crumb trail will finally lead me to the ancestors of Winnie and Napoleon and knock down that brick wall.

Same Old, same old

I know I have complained before. It  is not an attractive trait to whine. However. I get so frustrated while researching when I come across information that I know can't be true or has not been verified.

It reminds me of this quote from a new cable docu-comedy, "Family Tree." It's about a man (played by one of my favorite actors, Chris O'Dowd)  who has become obsessed with tracing his family roots. His father doesn't share his interest. He blames the new passion of his son on a romantic break-up. Besides, he says, aside to the camera, "genealogy is like any other 'ology. Best left to the scientists."

In episode 2, the Chris O'Dowd character mistakenly believes his heritage must be Chinese because he is given a photo of his great grandfather that looks to him that he is Chinese. He finds out first that the picture does depicts  a Japanese person, not a  Chinese person. Next he learns that the photo is of his great-grandfather acting in the theater production of The Mikado as Nanki-poo. Even though that information was on the back of the photo, even though his grandfather is clearly Caucasian, O'Dowd still leaped to that erroneous conclusion.

That's the kind of assumptions I keep finding all the time online. And to be honest, I may have made a few of them myself in the beginning. And I may make a few more in the future. I remember speaking to a cousin who tried to tell me that her great grandfather was a Dunnegan and not our shared ancestor, a Warren. I looked at the same census she used as her source and I realized that the census was in error. Her great grandmother, who had divorced our great grandfather, had left her children with her parents. On the census those children were listed as sons and daughters, not grandchildren of Dunnegan. It was an obvious deduction but when looking at the ages and other evidence, it was apparent to me that the census was wrong.

I'm working hard to get my family history updated in time for the family reunion this September and I keep getting sidetracked by contradicting information. Familysearch.org's new Family tree addition to the site is the newest culprit in spreading wrong info. Just like ancestry.com, anyone can add information without sources to back up their data. And many times if they have a source it is from another source that was not verified.

Argghhh!!!

That was my primal scream. I had to vent. Now back to the drawing board.

Back to the Beginning

When I first started my research, I built it on oral legends and previous research. My aunt was told that Solomon was sold to Isaac Koonce when he was 19 years old. Some places say he was born in 1822 and others say he was born in 1826. According to the 1870 census, his birth year was around 1828. The following census, however, claim 1826. This is important because I'm trying to find him and Amy on the slave census.

I know that he was sold to Isaac Koonce in 1839. On the 1840 slave census for Haywood County, Tennessee, Isaac owns 6 slaves - one male between 10 and 24, one male between 25 and 35, two females under 10, one female between 10 and 25 and one between 25 and 35.

On the 1850 census slave schedule for Haywood County, Isaac Koonce owned eight slaves. One was a male, 23 years old. Is that Solomon? There was also a 38 year old male, a 40 year old female, a 28 year old female, and an 18 year old female. I'm not sure if Amy is the older or younger of the females. There were also a twelve, a nine and two year old female slaves.

On the 1860 slave schedule Isaac owned 12 slaves. There were five adults and seven children. One was designated as a mulatto while the others were listed as black. The ages don’t match the 1850 schedule. There is now a 48 year old female, a 35 year old male, who I believe is Solomon, a 32 year old female who I believe is Amy, a 22 year old female mulatto, and an 18 year old female. The children range in age from one to 12. Three of the children correspond with the ages of Solomon’s oldest children.

I have to remind myself that back in those days, people weren't so concerned with accuracy. It's just another hindrance in finding ancestors.

Maternal difficulties

As already stated, I have a wealth of information about my grandfathers, greats and otherwise. My grandmothers are a lot harder to flesh out but I'm not giving up.

Last week I discovered that my great-grandmother Katie Featherston, the woman on the left in the photo, had even more children than I was previously aware. I happened upon it after looking for information for a cousin by marriage. The cousin is a Wilkins and had heard of Katie. She tried to put two and two together but it didn't add up to four.

Katie married Tom Wilkins in 1881. By 1898 she was married to a Henry Hardy. On the 1900 Dyer County Tennessee census, she listed all her children as Hardy's. Not only that, she stated that she had been married to Henry for 16 years. Not true. She also stated that she gave birth to 11 children but only 6 were living. That math didn't add up either. On the very same census eight children are listed. Obviously the younger 6 were hers from her first marriage. The census taker didn't catch that or didn't care.

Two years later she is married to my great grandfather Ike Warren. By the 1910 census only my grandfather and her youngest child by Wilkins, Joseph, are living with her. She states here that she had three children but only one is living. The census taker didn't correct her again.

These are just some of the discrepancies genealogy geeks have to weed through in our search.

Faith Leaping or Conclusion Jumping

It is a cardinal sin for any genealogist to jump to conclusion. Everything must be collaborated and documented. It makes it real, real hard for those of us researching our African-American ancestors. There is very little documentation readily available and much of that is inaccurate. It is so tempting to jump to conclusion.

For example, my cousin Juanita found her grandmother Rosa Nance listed on the Tennessee census as the daughter of Harvey Dunnagin. She immediately claimed that we were not related based on that information. However, it turned out that Dunnagin was Rosa's grandfather. The census was taken during a time when Rosa and her siblings were living with their grandparents. Rosa's mother Malessie was living in Memphis while Rosa's father, my great-grandfather Ike Warren, was living elsewhere. The information was there in black and white but it was wrong.

Right now I'm on the trail for Amy, mother of Solomon's children. I already mentioned my theory in a previous post. After searching the 1900 census, I found an "Emmie Nunn" living with Joe Dodson and his family. She is listed as a widow and "G-mother." I checked other Tennessee censuses and could not find an Emmie Nunn. I want so much to believe that Emmie is mispelled for Amy. Joe's children would be her grandchildren since his wife was Mosella Koonce, Solomon and Amy's oldest living daughter. Mosella had passed away ten years earlier. I want to believe but I have to keep digging for actual proof.

There is also evidence this is not my Amy. First of all the name is wrong. The birthdate is listed as March of 1819. And she had 10 children but none of them are living in 1900. So there is a good chance she isn't who I hope her to be. I plan on taking a trip to Tennessee soon to find out more. No matter what I wish, it has to be verifiable proof.

The Whole Truth and Nothing But

It was a rude awakening for me to discover that the information on the census is not necessarily true. The birth date often changes. I don't know if this is due to memory or vanity. Some of my female ancestors do seem to get younger on each census.

The same happens to the location of their birth. It can be different on each census but I am inclined to believe earlier census may be more accurate than later ones.

Some of the mistakes are made by the census takers. For example, on the 1880 census Solomon's birthplace is listed as South Carolina and his wife Cherry as Tennessee. However his children's father's (Solomon) birthplace is listed as South Carolina for the older children and Tennessee for the younger children. The census taker didn't catch the discrepancy.

To make matters more confusing, his birthplace was listed as Tennessee on the 1870 census. This is different from the oral history. Did he misunderstand the census taker's question?

It has made me realize that being factual was not as high a priority in other centuries as is it is now. It makes the genealogist job that much harder.

Genealogy's Brick Wall

I forget sometimes that not everyone knows about the brick walls Black Americans run into while researching their family tree. I've been doing this for so long that I assume that it is common knowledge that the 1870 census is the first census that list Black Americans by name. Before then, if Black citizens were not free, they were just a number, an age and a gender on the census.

Another brick wall we face is the surname. After emancipation, Black Americans could pick the surname they wanted. Statistically, only 15% kept the name of the slave owner. The other 85% selected names for various reasons. Sometimes names were tried on to see if they fit and then were discarded willy nilly.

Right now I am trying to figure out why my great-great grandfather Napoleon chose the surname Cotten. On the 1870 Mississippi census his family's surname was Anderson. I can't even find him on the 1880 census. On the 1900 census he is now a Cotten. His oldest son is living next door to a White Cotten. They both list their occupation as merchants which I thought had to be more that a coincidence. However, I haven't been able to discern what the importance of them being neighbors is. To make things more curious, Napoleon's brother is using the surname Cain on the 1900 census. Just another mystery to unravel.

I wrote to Sandra Craighead, a Mississippi plantation expert, after a disappointing trip to the Mississippi State Archives. At that time I still thought my ancestors were slaves from a Cotten plantation. Craighead dispelled that notion. With very little oral history to go on, I don't know which documents to look for to tell me what I need to know.

Hitting your head against these brick walls produce lots of frustration and headaches.