May Elizabeth Rollett and ancestors

I have been on the search for my Rollett ancestors for years. I've written about that wonderful brick wall a few times. It's funny how sometimes we consider a family line a brick wall when, in fact, it's just a matter of not seeing the little details. That was the case with this family. I missed one little detail that blew the floodgates wide open when I finally saw it.

As of a few weeks ago, I knew that my great-grandmother May Elizabeth Rollett was the daughter of David I. Rollett and Rosa D Clark of MO.  I wrote about finding her parents and siblings back in a post in 2011, My Happy Dance. Since then, I found myself once again stumped until last night! That's when I realized my brick wall was self-inflicted. I simply was not paying attention to every little detail.

So, how did I break through.......

1. I opened up David I Rollett and Brierly R Rollett's death certificates. I still suspected they were brothers, but I needed to connect them. As I stated in my previous post, Brierly was the informant on David's death certificate, which clued me into the possibility that they were brothers or, at the very least, cousins, being close in age with the same surname.
2. While looking at Brierley's death certificate, I realized (and I still can't believe that I've missed it for so long) that it listed his birthplace as Nauvoo, IL. So, I looked up what county Nauvoo was in. I find that searching by the city, it's too narrow as people in my family often move around in an area, usually within a county, but often don't stay put in the same city, especially in a family where one child was said to be born in MO and the other in IL. Knowing from Brierley's death certificate that his parents are Phillip Rollett and Sarah Revel, I began to look for the family. It didn't take long, really, and I found a family in the 1880 census in Nauvoo, Hancock, IL, that partially matched the family I was looking for.

   Name	Age
   Thomas Revel	67
   Elizabeth Revel	62
   Sarah Rollet	42
   Elizabeth Rollet	18
   Isaiah Rollet	14
   Briley Rollet	9

The problem was that only two of the four names I was looking for matched, and since the only one I had a birth year for was Brierly, I was still unsure that I had even found the right family. I was darn near ready to give up and mark it as another of many possibilities in this family when the light bulb went on. Notice the child listed above, Briley, Isaiah? I can't believe I missed it. David's middle initial was "I" so I went back and calculated the age. Isaiah, being 14 in 1880, would put his birth in 1866. My David was born in 1866!!!! They are brothers. David was just known by his middle name then!

Now, I can add another generation to my tree. I have been busy over the last two days finding more records and attaching them to my tree records. My tree is once again going. Not only did this census confirm that Sarah and Phillip (based on the death certificate) were David's parents and that Brierley was his brother, but I also now know that Thomas and Elizabeth Revel were their grandparents! I'm off to do more research on another generation!