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?

1^st 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.

2^nd 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 2^nd 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.