19 January 2024

Do Not Trust Ancestry Thru Lines

 

I can't say this enough, especially for those of you who are new to DNA genealogy research. Stop relying on and thinking that Ancestry Thru Lines is the end all be all. Do your own research. Use other trees only as a clue, but do NOT connect trees to your tree. 

In the image above you can see that Ancestry's AI connects this John Jenkins to my 5th great grandfather Jospeh Jenkins. There is no such connection. When you evaluate a very clear clue is that top line that says how many people who are connected by DNA have this connection in their tree, none! 

The clues and connections I'm receiving in Thru Lines these days are garbage, and I don't have time to contact all of these tree owners or research to find out who made bad connections in their trees. Honestly, what I'm seeing (no matter how much Ancestry says it's the tree owners) is that it's been more an issue with Ancestry's AI than with tree owners. 

So just be careful with what you rely on and certainly what you connect to your tree. Do your research!

29 December 2023

Time and Place

My journey to find a document my Jenkins line continues. Now that I have established the line back to Joseph Jenkins through both DNA and genealogy, it's time to set my goal on finding our immigrating Jenkins ancestor.

We are now in the time period of the late 1700's and very early 1800's in Lincoln County, NC. It was important to learn the layout of the land in this time period in order to establish what count(ies) I need to look at for research. Looking at a map of 1790 for North Carolina one can see that Lincoln County included a very large area in comparison to an 1850 map of North Carolina. By 1850 it's clear that Lincoln County was then split into about three counties that now include Catwaba, Lincoln, and Gaston counties.

At this point in history, I can no longer use census records to establish family groupings. The best record in this time period for establishing who is related to whom are wills and probates. Knowing that my Jenkins were in Lincoln County, NC I'm going to expand my will research to the above three counties and look at all wills for all Jenkins in those three counties. It will be a huge undertaking and time consuming. With each will I hope to establish family groups and then hopefully start linking those family groups together. At some point I hope they will build onto my tree.

In addition to researching Lincoln County Jenkins, I also have a new lead. I mentioned previously that I have a very strong Y-DNA connection that showed up our cousins my Big Y Block Tree as part of our line. There is also a private variant that needs to be unlocked that should help as well. The match turned out to be Robert Jenkins (dec'd). I've been working with his wife, and we have a well-documented line back from him to Caldwell, KY in the late 1700's to early 1800's. I will need to complete the same exercise for their line in KY as I will be doing for my line. I plan to keep moving back on both lines until I find our connection. I suspect that it may be another couple generations back before I find our connection. This lead is very promising and is the first that may help me break through and past my Joseph Jenkins.


26 November 2023

The Father of Michael Oliver Jenkins

Our ancestors once believed they would take their secrets to the grave. I guess the jokes on them because little did they know that they were leaving pieces of the answers behind in DNA that would be passed to each of us to be unlocked generations later.

It's been a long journey trying to solve the mystery of the parentage of Michael Oliver Jenkins. To follow the research, please read my previous posts from the last several months.

Many years ago, M.O. Jenkins was interviewed by a granddaughter where he recounts that his grandfather was Joseph Jenkins and that he had an Aunt Margarett "Peggy" Froneberger who helped raise him. With a great deal of research, I found these family members and started putting the paper trail together, but what we didn't know at the time is whether the Jenkins were his paternal or maternal family. Though many of us suspected and assumed that since he was raised by the Jenkins, it was more likely that his mother was a Jenkins. About ten years ago I wrote a book based on this paper trail and ending with my research that Hugh Jenkins was the father of Joseph Jenkins and my belief that the Jenkins were the same Jenkins family from Lancaster County, PA and possibly descended from a Jenkins believed to be from Wales. I'll get back to that research soon. 

Backing up to the mystery. Knowing who the grandparents of M.O. were allowed me to take the line back to Pennsylvania, but I still didn't have an answer as to who the parents of M.O. were, and it would take DNA to solve that mystery. 

Fast forward to 2022. I was contacted by a distant cousin who had just done her DNA and discovered that she was related to my father on his Jenkins line. We started comparing notes and I suddenly wanted to do the happy dance because her father was still alive and was a direct male descendant of M.O. Jenkins. After years of searching and being unsuccessful, I finally had a living male descendant of M.O. Jenkins and even better, he was willing to do a Y-DNA test for us. I anxiously waited for his results to come back, and when I was finally able to talk to her about the result, I was more confused than anything.

After a while this newfound cousin shared the login information with me so that I could see her dad's test firsthand. Well, that helped some, but I still wasn't certain. Though there were some matches with the surname of Jenkins, we were also seeing matches with other surnames like Wiggington and Williams. Though I'm sure with a great deal of work and sorting through these matches, I would have solved this on my own, I was impatient; so I upgraded his test to the Big Y DNA test. Viola! We had an answer. It was very clear then when I could see where he fell in the block tree and that he is a part of a new immerging variant Haplogroup, that he was most certainly a Jenkins! But wait! That meant his father was a Jenkins! I swear M.O. must be truly trying to keep us in suspense. How on earth am I going to solve who his mother is? Oh, someday I will! 

First things first. I need to now focus on his paternal line and strengthen my paper trail with the DNA. One of the ways I did that was by looking at Joseph's wife, Elizabeth Hambright, the daughter of Fredrick Hambright. If Elizabeth is an ancestor of M.O. then her siblings' descendants should show up as DNA matches to my father, and boy did they ever. We have many very strong DNA matches to Fredrick Hambright and his descendants. This further solidified Joseph Jenkins and Elizabeth Hambright as the grandparents of M.O. Jenkins. 

Now that we know from Y-DNA that M.O. is a Jenkins through his paternal line and we know that Joseph Jenkins and Elizabeth Hambright of Lincoln, NC are his confirmed grandparents by DNA, we need to determine which one of Joseph and Elizabeth's sons are the father of M.O. Jenkins. This should be easy as they only had two sons, David and Hugh, right? Think again. M.O. I'm convinced you were a joker in life because this joke never ends!

I started with David's line and traced down each descending line and matched up all DNA matches to my father. As the saga continues every one that has done a DNA test came in around the same cm's shared with my father as any who descended from the other children of Joesph and Elizabeth. Oh, wait there were two descendants of Susan Jenkins whose cm's were about double that of any of the other cousins. That threw me off for a while, until I did some triangulation to their other matches, to discover that these two matches also shared matches with my dad's Hoyle and Swofford line, which married into my dad's Jenkins line after M.O. Endogamy sure can make this DNA fun, but at least it gave me an answer to that anomaly that made sense. 

Now that David seems to be ruled out, that leaves only Hugh Jenkins as the possible father of M.O. This is where the joke is on me, Hugh had no known children by which we can compare the DNA of his descendants. But then that brings me to his father's will. I just can't stop thinking about the words in his father's will..... "to my son Hugh......if he has children born in lawful wedlock." He never said anything like this of any of the other children. Was this Joseph's way of saying that M.O. was Hugh's son and he was aware of him, but that this child due to no fault of his own, would not be entitled to inherit from his estate because he was a bastard child. We may never know 100% for certain if Hugh was the father of M.O. but all the pieces seem to be pointing to the father of Michael Oliver Jenkins being Hugh Jenkins the son of Joseph Jenkins and Elizabeth Hambright. 

Ok, so the jokes still on us to some degree, but I'm sure that with technology and time, we will unlock the final pieces of the puzzle. Now, will it ever be possible to discover who M.O.'s mother was? Only time will tell, but I'll keep working at this.

12 November 2023

Which son of Joseph Jenkins was the Father of M.O. Jenkins

 

After looking at the grandmother of M.O. Jenkins, Elizabeth Hambright, and seeing the strong DNA connections between other descendants of Elizabeth’s Father, Fredrick Hambright. I am convinced that Joseph and Elizabeth Jenkins are the paternal grandparents of M.O. Jenkins. Now I must look at their sons as the possible father of M.O. Jenkins. This shouldn’t be too hard. They only had two sons, Hugh and David.

David was born in 1786 in North Carolina. There are two marriage records involving a David Jenkins in Lincoln County, NC.

A marriage record can be found for David Jenkins and Nancy Carpenter in Oct 1811.

From the wills of Hugh, David’s brother, and Hugh their grandfather, we can conclude that David and Nancy had at least three children; Margaret, Mary, and William. This also rules out the other marriage record as not connected to our David.

In Hugh’s will he leaves several pieces of property to his wife Susannah, and to his brother’s two youngest children William and Mary. No mention that he ever had children. His will was written in 1835. If he was the father of M.O. he doesn’t even mention him.

I went back to the will of Joseph Jenkins in 1821. It’s clear by that will that Hugh had no children at the time of his dad’s will in 1821. He leaves to his two sons David and Hugh the following:


I can’t help but notice something I had never realized before. To Hugh he leaves this property “during the term of his natural life and if he has children born in lawful wedlock then to him his heirs………and if he has no heirs………” But to David he leaves property and simply states to him and his heirs. It would appear that by 1821 David must have had children, which would make sense if he were married to Nancy in 1811, and that Hugh as of this point, did not have any children “born in lawful wedlock.” Is this a clue that Hugh had a son? Was Joseph purposely leaving him out of the will, if he were Hugh’s child because he was not born in lawful wedlock? Was this a way of saying that though he knew that Hugh may have had an illegitimate child, that child was not entitled to an inheritance because he was illegitimate?

I can’t help but notice that M.O. Jenkins was born in 1820 and raised in and among this family but is never mentioned in any of these wills. DNA also now confirms he was a Jenkins. How he must have felt to be so rejected in such a blatant way by his family because he was conceived, obviously by no fault of his own, out of wedlock.

I’ve researched both Hugh and David Jenkins lines. All hope of finding a male descendant to provide a useful Y-DNA test is lost. The only line that may have male descendants may also have endogamy, as Richard L Jenkins, the grandson of David Jenkins married another Jenkins. I have not yet proven their relationship, but it’s very likely since all the Jenkins in Gaston County (where David and is following four generations settled) and Lincoln County so far have all appeared to be related and can trace their ancestry back to Hugh Jenkins (Joseph’s father) or one of his brother.

In looking for male descendants of David, here is where the lines lead:

David and Nancy had one son, William Jenkins born 1817 in North Carolina. William married Lavinia Eaker. They had two sons, Christy (Christohper) and Phillip. Phillips line ends with one daughter. Chrisopher married Eliza O’Brien and they had one son, Richard L Jenkins. Richard married Cora Jenkins, the daughter of Jonas Grier Jenkins and Sarah Jane Bell. Though they had two boys, the likely endogamy on this line is not ideal. They did have three sons, James, Phillip, and Ruben. Ruben died young leaving only one daughter. Phillip died tragically when he was shot in the heart by his father at the age of 20, leaving no children. That’s a story I’d like to dig into deeper someday, but for now I’m on a mission. James had two sons, James and Robert. The potential endogamy may affect autosomal DNA research in the amount of shared centimorgans, however, I'm not sure how it will affect the Y-DNA which only follows from father to father. I will continue on and see if I can find a direct male descendant of David Jenkins.

I would also be remiss if I did not address the possible endogamy regarding Richard Jenkins and Cora Jenkins. I did trace Cora's line back to a Harrison Jenkins born in Lincoln County, NC. This is very concerning. It's very possible that Richard and Cora were as much as 3rd or 4th cousins. At this time I cannot quiet connect Harrison her great grandfather to my Jenkins line, but considering they are all from the same place in North Caroline, it's not far fetched that they possibly be related. This will skew the DNA a bit, but I will continue on with that possibility in mind.




09 October 2023

Jenkins Research: What Does the Wife Say

 I know I've been away for just a bit, but I've still been stealing moments of time between the gardening and especially all the canning to do some Jenkins research. I've also been having fun helping my middle son's girl friend who wants to know about her ancestors as well. 

I realize that the family who raised Michael Oliver Jenkins fits into this Jenkins puzzle somehow and may still be the key to determining M.O. Jenkins parentage. Now that we know that M.O’s father was a Jenkins, I need to refocus the research on this family. M.O. when interviewed by Jewel Dial he spoke of Joseph Jenkins who he referred to as his grandfather and Margaret Froneberger (Joseph’s daughter) who he referred to as his Aunt Margaret. This family raised M.O. so was their connection literally as grandfather and Aunt biologically or was it an honorary reference to his adopted family. Considering he biologically carried the same last name, it’s highly likely they were biologically connected to him. I need to focus my research on how their descendants match M.O.’s descendants by DNA connections and where each are likely to fall in the tree in relation to each other.

Main research question: What DNA connections do we have to descendants of Joseph Jenkins and Elizabeth Hambright?

1st research question: Connections to Joseph Jenkins and Elizabeth Hambright. To be more specific focusing on the connection to Elizabeth would be more revealing than Joseph. We know M.O. is a Jenkins, so he absolutely should have a connection to Joseph, but if he has no connections to Elizabeth then we can rule the couple out as ancestors of M.O. I know from my research that Elizabeth Hambright was the daughter of Col. Fredrick Hambright. Sure enough M.O. descendant, Alvin Woolsey has DNA connections to descendants of multiple siblings of Elizabeth, all tracing back to Fredrick Hambright.


This is way too many matches to the Hambrights for this to be a coincidental match from another relationship. Joseph Jenkins and Elizabeth Hambright have to be ancestrally related to M.O. I personally don’t see any other way for this connection to exist.

2nd research question: Are Joseph and Elizabeth M.O.’s paternal or maternal grandparents? There is still the rumor that Aaron Jenkins and Mary Jenkins were M.O.’s parents. They were cousins, so if that is the case then descendants of Aaron’s parents should also show up as being a DNA connection to Alvin with roughly the same CMs as Joseph and Elizabeth’s descendants, and if possible look one more generation back, especially to the mother of Aaron. So to determine if Joseph and Elizebeth are maternal or paternal grandparents we need to first determine who the parents of Aaron are and if Aaron possibly is the father.

Looking first at descendants for Joseph and Elizabeth. Most are matching Alvin in the 10-20 CM range.



Now moving up one generation to Hugh Jenkins and Mary Cowan. Note: I need to be very careful here. As I have mentioned before many researchers have mixed up the multiple Hugh Jenkins in the Carolina’s so if this line starts to pan out as my possible connection I will have to do some very careful research here.

Notice the descendant of Aaron Jenkins who is the brother of Joseph and Samuel C Jenkins. She is showing as a 2nd cousin 1x removed. This needs to be confirmed, but notice that she has 38 CMs matching verses all the other connections that have shown less than 20. Note: Samuel C Jenkins also had a son named Aaron. We don’t know yet which Aaron is the correct one, so we need to look very carefully.

Then looking at Samuel’s descendant’s I’m not convinced that his son Aaron Jenkins is the father of M.O. 


First, we need to ignore the research on the far left. Someone has incorrectly put the Aaron Jenkins born 1762 as the son of Samuel Jenkins born 1759. But if you look back up to the Aaron Jenkins who was the son of Hugh Jenkins, the higher CM number leads me to believe the he is the father. If Mary the daughter of Joseph Jenkins was the mother, is this telling us that her Uncle Aaron Jenkins was the father. Okay, that’s a scenerio I had not yet considered. Maybe that’s why the family tried so hard to hide the parantage of M.O. Jenkins.

At this point I am convinced that Joseph Jenkins and Elizabeth Hambright are the grandparents, it’s just unknown if they are the paternal or maternal grandparents. If they were the Aunt and Uncle of one of M.O.’s parent, then I would not expect there to be so many shared DNA connections with Elizabeteh Hambright. I went back one more generation to Elizabeth father, Lt Col Fredrick Hambright. If she is not the grandmother of M.O. then Fredrick Hambright should have no descendants that connect to M.O.’s descendants. However, after mapping several lines of Fredrick Hambrights descendants to the tree and through genetic connections, the evidence is compelling that M.O. is also a descendant of the Hambrights. Still it is unknow if that is through his paternal and/or maternal line.

Let’s shift the focus just a bit. If Samuel Jenkins is the paternal grandfather than the assumption would be that his wife would be the paternal granmother. Does Alvin have connections to her, and who is she? This is where I need to focus next and may help to untangle this mess.



03 June 2023

Focusing the Jenkins Research.

 

After weeks of waiting I finally have more results to look at. The Big-Y test has done a better job of placing Michael Oliver Jenkins in the Jenkins Group Time Tree and has now given me a more focused place to look.

-


M.O, Jenkins more defined line is G-FT15840. That line descends from group G-Z40861. The only descendant listed on that line is John Jenkins b about 1757 from Nansemond County, VA. He is not an ancestor of my M.O. Jenkins, however, he descends from the same ancestor that my M.O. Jenkins descends from. I will continue to look at all Jenkins in North Carolina that could connect to my M.O., but for further confirmation I will find that John Jenkins and our mystery Jenkins share the same ancestor further back in time.

M.O. Jenkins is in Group J. When I go to the groups list I have even more names associated with Group J that are not shown on the tree because they have not done a Big-Y test, but this helps to give me a more focused list of men to study.


When I look at the group as a whole, I’m even more encouraged that I’m on the right path. Most are from VA and the Carolinas. One even traces back to PA where I know many of the Carolina Jenkins originally came from. Now I need to build trees for each of these men in this group and hopefully the testers will be willing to work with me to help.

Geographically I need to focus on this area of North Carolina. Lincoln County along the Catawba is where M.O. grew up, but many Jenkins were also in Rowan County, NC during this time. That means there may even be connections to Mecklenburg County and Iredell County as there is likely connections there as well.

13 May 2023

Understand Lincoln County & Rowan County, NC. Home of the Jenkins

 Like I stated last week, I needed to stop and wrap my head around some of the timeline of records for Lincoln and Rowan County, NC. Land, marriage, and census records seem to be the only records that go back far enough to aid in my search for Lincolnc County. However, Rowan County will have a great deal more information.

What was the timeline for historical records in Lincoln County, NC?

 

Lincoln County, North Carolina Record Dates[edit | edit source]

Information for this chart was taken from various sources, often containing conflicting dates. This information should be taken as a guide and should be verified by contacting the county and/or the state government agency.

Known Beginning Dates for Major County Records[4]

Birth*

Marriage

Death*

Court

Land

Probate

Census

1913

1779

1913

1920

1763

1869

1784

*Statewide registration for births and deaths started in 1913. General compliance by 1920.

Record Loss[edit | edit source]

·        1797 Fire in home, small record loss

For suggestions about research in places that suffered historic record losses, see:

·        Burned Counties. By Michael John Neill at 24-7 Family History Circle.

·        When the Records are Gone. By Arlene Eakle at Arlene Eakle's Tennessee Blog.

·        Burned Counties Research in the FamilySearch Research Wiki.

·        List of counties in the United States with Record Loss

Boundary Changes[edit | edit source]

·        1778 Lincoln County was created 14 April 1778 from Tryon County. Tryon County was abolished in 1779.

·        County seat: Lincolnton[5]

For animated maps illustrating North Carolina county boundary changes, "Rotating Formation North Carolina County Boundary Maps" (1664-1965) may be viewed for free at the MapofUS.org website.

Source: Lincoln County, North Carolina Genealogy • FamilySearch

Though Lincoln became a county in 1778, the lack of records until the mid 1800, makes it difficult to find county records. May need to search Rowan as well. I may need to find other sources such as churches for records.

 

On Family Search Tryon only has one book of wills from 1769-1779. I’ll search that for any Jenkins. There were no Jenkins in the handful of wills that existed.

 

What was the timeline for historical records in Rowan County, NC?

 

Rowan County, North Carolina Record Dates[edit | edit source]

Information for this chart was taken from various sources, often containing conflicting dates. This information should be taken as a guide and should be verified by contacting the county and/or the state government agency.

Known Beginning Dates for Major County Records[4]

Birth*

Marriage

Death*

Court

Land

Probate

Census

1913

1753

1913

1753

1753

1743

1784

*Statewide registration for births and deaths started in 1913. General compliance by 1920.

Record Loss[edit | edit source]

1865 Some of the records were destroyed during the Civil War.

For suggestions about research in places that suffered historic record losses, see:

·        Burned Counties. By Michael John Neill at 24-7 Family History Circle.

·        When the Records are Gone. By Arlene Eakle at Arlene Eakle's Tennessee Blog.

·        Burned Counties Research in the FamilySearch Research Wiki.

·        List of counties in the United States with Record Loss

Boundary Changes[edit | edit source]

·        1753 Rowan County was created from Anson County.

·        County seat: Salisbury[5]

From the 1750s, up to the time of the American Revolution, Rowan County included most of the frontier area of Western North Carolina. All or portions of the present-day counties of Alexander, Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Burke, Caldwell, Catawba, Davidson, Davie, Guilford, Iredell, Lincoln, McDowell, Madison, Mitchell, Randolph, Rockingham, Stokes, Surry, Watauga, Wilkes, Yadkin, Yancey fell within its bounds at that time.

For animated maps illustrating North Carolina county boundary changes, "Rotating Formation North Carolina County Boundary Maps" (1664-1965) may be viewed for free at the MapofUS.org website.

Also note that Lincoln County was once part of Rowan county, so my research does need to go to Rowan County to find the starts of the Jenkins family in the area.



  • North Carolina Probate Records, 1735-1970 
  • Rowan 
  • Bonds, 1753-1830 

Searching page by page. 

What this tells me is that the early research of the Jenkins may also have to be conducted in Anson and Tryon Counties because of the early boundary changes, so I will need to include those two counties in my research as well. 

 

Followers

Twitter Followers

BlogCatalog