My Quest to Find John Jones - Part VI - The Fan Club

Birth, marriage, and death records are sources we often use in family history research. However, they weren't kept consistently in early America, especially on the new edges of civilization. Births might have been noted in a family Bible or in church christening records - but the Bible may have become lost and there might not have been an organized church in a frontier area to keep christening records. Marriage records are found a little more easily but again may not be available. Deaths of men were usually recorded with a will or probate records but not all of the early probate records have survived. Deaths of women, because they weren't property holders, are harder to find since generally the only ones who had wills were widows who had inherited land from deceased husbands.

Census records in the United States began in 1790, but it was not until 1850 that the names of all members of the household were listed. The census records before 1850 list only the name of the head of household and include a tally of other household members by various age categories. We have access to tax records for many early localities.

Consequently, for the time period of the lives of John Jones and his family, we have to find as many clues as possible and fit them together. A major difficulty in this research is the fact that there were so many men named John Jones and David Jones. How do you sort them out?

One strategy is to look for their FAN club. FAN stands for Family, Acquaintances, and Neighbors. This is the strategy I was using as explained in the Part IV blog post when I noticed that the name Israel Lortan showed up on John Jones' will in Indiana and also earlier in Montgomery County, Virginia.

When I search the records of any locality where I think John or David Jones may have lived, I also search for the names of their children or siblings and the children's or siblings' spouses. I note the names of witnesses to wills or land transactions who probably had some connection to the family or were neighbors who could easily be summoned as witnesses. 

George Sumpter, John's father-in-law is much easier to find in the early records. Whenever I find him mentioned I look for John and David - after all, John must have been in the same vicinity as George some time in order to become well enough acquainted with George's daughter Sarah to marry her.

As noted in the Part V blog post, we have names of John's siblings and their spouses from the writings of Clara Lewis Hall. This is what I have found so far in records about them. Clara's info is in italics. Remember that her birth dates are probably estimates.

Levin Jones, born in Virginia in 1775; officer in War of 1812. I have yet to positively identify him. I have found references to a couple of different men named Levin Jones. One problem is that I do not know if he stayed in Virginia or migrated to Ohio as most of the John Jones siblings did.

Solomon Jones, born in Virginia in 1777. I have searched for a Solomon Jones in every place I find a John Jones reference, hoping that would identify our John Jones. But he is elusive. Is this the Solomon Jones who posted the bond for the marriage of John and Sarah? Either this Solomon died young or moved away from the family early on because I cannot locate him.

Mary Jones, born in Virginia in 1779; married James Burton in about 1815. A Mary Jones was married to a James Burton/Burten on 13 August 1812 in Clermont County, Ohio by a John Denham. Clermont County, Ohio is just across the Ohio River from Kentucky. A Mary Burdon/Burdin shows up in Clinton County, Ohio census records of 1820 and 1830 living near her sister Mercy. John and Sarah Jones also lived in Clinton County. It seems probable that this is John Jones' sister. 

As other travelers of the time, the Jones families likely used Daniel Boone's Wilderness Trail through the Cumberland Gap when they migrated from Virginia to Ohio. The Warrior's Path took off from the main Wilderness Trail in Kentucky and led to Ohio towards the area where we later find the Jones families. We do not know the exact year of their migration nor if they all traveled at the same time. We do know that Anna Jones' older siblings' birthplaces are listed as Virginia while Anna and her probable twin Allie were born in Kentucky in 1809 or 1810, presumably as the family was in the process of this move (I have seen both dates given for Anna's birth.) We don't know if the Jones families moved as quickly as possible from Virginia to Ohio or if they made lengthy stays in some places. 

Mercy Jones, born in Virginia in 1781; she married Francis Smith in about 1811. I have not been able to find this marriage. He shows up in the 1820 and 1830 census records of Clinton County, Ohio and in James Stapleton Lewis' records. 

A descendant of this couple, Marc Snelling, and I have had an email correspondence for the past 9 or so years. His information on the Jones siblings matches well with what we have from the JSL and Anna Jones descendants' records. He wrote that Mercy went by the nickname Massa/Massy which I have seen in other records as a nickname for Mercy. The family tradition for his Jones branch is that Mercy's and John's father was David Jones and their mother was Sarah. His family also has the tradition that the Jones line may have Native American ties. 

Teresa/Tressa/Tessa Jones, born in Virginia in 1783; married Joseph Trout about 1813. Marc Snelling has her husband as Benjamin Trout. In Franklin County, Virginia, I found the record of a marriage bond for Trout, (Trent), Joseph and Sarah Jones, dau. David and Sarah, Oct. 3, 1798. Sur. Jacob Miller. (The reason for the (Trent) is because the handwriting in the record looks like it could be either surname. I have found records where one indexer listed it as Trout and another as Trent.)

This record raises some questions. It says Sarah Jones. Is that an error where the mother's name was written instead of the bride? Is this the wrong couple? Was her name Sarah Teressa? Are our family records incorrect as to the names? I don't know. It does give the parents' names as David and Sarah. The place is the same county where John Jones' marriage bond is found. 

There is a Find A Grave record for a Sarah "Sally" Jones Trout who was born in Virginia 23 July 1783. She died in Boone County, Indiana in 1848. (Boone County is 3 counties west of Randolph County where John Jones died in 1847.) The Find A Grave record says her husband was James Benjamin Trout born in Virginia in 1782. One of their children was John Jones Trout. A daughter Caroline married in 1835 in Clinton County, Ohio which was the location of other related Jones families. So, it seems possible that this could be the correct family because of all the circumstantial evidence, but the issue of the name Sarah versus Teresa remains a problem.

Anna Jones, born in Virginia in 1785; married Joseph Tyler about 1815. This is another marriage I have not be able to verify, but Marc Snelling had the same names in his records.

Karisah/Keziah/ Jones, born in Virginia in 1787; married Charles Burton about 1817. I found a marriage of a Keziah Jones to a Charles Burton in Fleming County, Kentucky on 25 May 1811. Fleming County area would also have been on immigrant trails leading from Virginia to Ohio. It is thought that Charles Burton and James Burton (who married Mary Jones) were related, perhaps brothers.  Keziah may have had other marriages, but the ones I find don't seem to fit either by exact name or by dates of children's births. For example, there is a marriage record for a Keziah Jones and a Henry Bray in 1788. However, it lists her father as Richard Jones and the date seems to to be more what we have listed as her birthdate. 

This gives an idea of some of the names in the John Jones FAN group. Next post we will look at George Sumpter.

My Quest to Find John Jones - Part V - What Do We Know about John's Family?

Unfortunately, the earliest record that can be definitely linked to our John Jones is his marriage record to Sarah Sumpter in 1790. We do not have any information of where John was born, his birth date, or where he was living before his marriage (or even at the time of his marriage as discussed in the previous post.) 

There is a saying among family historians that "Genealogy without documentation is Mythology." I proudly admit to being a stickler for proof on my pedigree lines. When I put a name or a place or a date on a pedigree chart or a family group record, I want to be reasonably certain the information is accurate and has proof to back it up. 

From time to time someone will find a record of a birth of a John Jones somewhere in Virginia and conclude that they have found the correct John Jones and will post the information on online family trees. Others interested in family history will see it, assume it must be correct because someone has listed it, and so they copy the unproved information to their own pedigrees. Perhaps one of these births is the correct John Jones, but I have never seen anyone who linked the birth record to documentation that ties to our John Jones. Thus, so far we have no conclusive information on his birth. 

The fact that he is listed in probate records as about age 77 at the time of his death in 1847 and in the 1840 census of Jackson Township, Randolph County, Indiana as between 60 and 70 years of age are the only pieces of information I have to give a clue about his birth date. That information puts his approximate date of birth as 1770.

If John had lived until 1850 when he would have had a birthplace listed in the census record (the 1850 US census is the first census to record birthplaces), we would have that information with more certainty. The region of Virginia where he was married was an area of new settlement. I think most of John's descendants assume he was born somewhere further east in Virginia. He might have been. (His father-in-law George Sumpter can be traced through land transactions as moving further and further west in Virginia.) 

It is thought that John's father was named David Jones. I have an early family group record from my grandmother Celecta Ottley Haroldsen that says John's parents are David Jones and Mrs. David Jones.  Another record from my grandmother lists David Jones with a question mark after it. I have long wondered exactly what was her source of information for that name, but I assume it was originally from James Stapleton Lewis.

As stated in an earlier post, much of the information we have about the Jones family comes from John Jones' son-in-law James Stapleton Lewis (JSL) and much of that comes via JSL's granddaughter Clara Lewis Hall. Before James' marriage to Anna Jones in 1833, both were living in Randolph County, Indiana - James with his brother Joel Lewis, Jr. and Anna with her father John and step-mother. James knew John Jones, Anna Jones, and possibly some of Anna's siblings as well. (We know he knew John and at least one daughter Elizabeth who married Henry S Jackson because they are mentioned in JSL's journal but do not know how well he knew them.) Presumably Anna spoke to James about her family at various times in their married life as well. Therefore the information we have on the Jones family is second hard and may not be completely correct, but it is the best we have to work from.

Clara Hall wrote the following which she seems to indicate came from a journal of JSL. She has it in quotation marks. (This quotation is found in writings of Clara Lewis Hall transcribed around 2010 by Carol Moses, a great granddaughter of Wilford Woodruff Lewis.)

"John Jones was born in the state of Virginia about the year 1770 and died in 1847 in Randolph County, Indiana. He was connected with the wealthiest families of Virginia and was a man of sterling qualities. Confiding to a fault, but when faith was broken, it was a severe tax on his natural temperament to renew confidence again. He was a preacher of the Baptist Faith. In early life his beliefs and active views traveled faster than his congregation. They would not keep up with him and though [should this be thought? LM] he had gone wild and the shortest way out of the trouble would be to let him go and take one who would stay with them whether they traveled or remained in the same spot. He married Sarah Sumpter, daughter of a prominent Virginia Family. By her, he had eleven children. She died in Clinton, Ohio. John Jones had three sisters and one brother. [I don't think this is correct. LM] His brother Leven, was connected with the War of the Revolution."

This information, assuming it to be accurate, reinforces the 1770 birth date for John. It also indicates that his birthplace was Virginia. In the absence of conflicting info for the birthplace, I have looked for documentation of a birth in Virginia in about 1770. However, I have to remain open to the possibility that JSL may have been mistaken on the place of birth.

In 1959 Clara Lewis Hall wrote a manuscript titled "From Monarchs to Mormons: Ancestors of James Stapleton Lewis and Anna Jones Lewis." Unfortunately she didn't give documentation for what she wrote nor did she indicate what came from JSL's journals, what was family tradition, or what were her own conclusions. In some places she added dialog which probably was her way of making the writing more interesting but which might have added a bit of fiction to her narrative. She probably would have heard family stories from her father Wilford Woodruff Lewis though he died when she was about 28. She mentions having traveled to Albion, Idaho to read her grandfather James Stapleton Lewis' journals. I think the family owes much thanks to her efforts to collect family information, but I also believe we need to keep in mind that she was compiling that data from memory and secondary sources and without access to information or people to verify it.

Clara wrote the following about John Jones in "From Monarchs to Mormons."

"John Jones, son of David Joens [sic], was born in the state of Virginia in 1770. John died in Randolph County, Indiana in 1847. He married Sarah Sumpter, daughter of George Sumpter of Virginia, in about 1795 [this is an error since we have documentation that the marriage was in 1790]. She was born in about 1775 in Virginia and died in Clinton, Ohio in about 1828. They are the parents of eleven children." 

I will discuss their children in later posts. Then Clara had a section about The Family of David Jones.

"David Jones was born in Virginia in about 1747. He was married in about 1771, but his wife is unknown. Their eight children are [note this differs from Clara's earlier statement that John had four siblings] :

1. Reverend John Jones born about 1773 in Virginia and died in Randolph, Indiana in 1847. He married Sarah Sumpter in about 1795 in Virginia.

2. Leven Jones, born in Virginia in 1775. He was an officer in the War of 1812 [War of 1812 makes more sense than the Revolutionary War reference above if he was born around 1775] 

3. Solomon Jones, born in Virginia in 1777.

4. Mary Jones, born in Virginia in 1779. She married James Burton in about 1815.

5. Mercy Jones, born in Virginia in 1781. She married Francis Smith in about 1811.

6. Teresa Jones, born in Virginia in 1783. She married Joseph Trout in about 1813.

7. Anna Jones, born in Virginia in 1785. She married Joseph Tyler in about 1815.

8. Karisah Jones, born in Virginia in 1787. She married Charles Burton in about 1817."

I presume the list of children's names were originally from JSL information since I can't imagine any other source for it. It is a common genealogical research practice to look for children in a family to be born about every two years. Obviously, that is what Clara did with this list. I don't know what her source was for the birth order. I also do not know what her source was for the names of spouses, but I assume it had to have been records of JSL.

I have mentioned that looking for surnames of family members or known acquaintances is a common research practice. I applied that strategy to find out more information on the David Jones family.

Using this list as a basis, I looked in Franklin County, Virginia and its surrounding counties for these surnames and for marriage records. I also kept an eye open for references to men named David Jones. Since I don't know where John Jones was before his marriage, I also don't know if his father was still living in 1790 nor if he was living in the same locale as John. 

A descendant of Mercy Jones (who went by the nickname Massa or Massy) listed as child 5 above and Francis (Frank) Smith told me that the tradition in their branch of the family is that David's wife's name was Sarah. So I have also kept that in mind while looking for possible David Joneses. Again there is the difficulty of researching for such a common name. 

In the next post I will explain the information James Stapleton Lewis had in his family records about the John Jones and David Jones families as well as what I have found on John's siblings and about an interesting possible David Jones in the area.

My Quest to Find John Jones - part IV - Marriage and More Questions

When the evidence isn't found for an ancestor where we hoped to locate it, a common strategy is to search records in increasingly large concentric circles from the starting point. Therefore, when I couldn't locate information on my Grandfather John Jones in Franklin County, Virginia where he was married, I expanded my search to neighboring counties. 

I spent years looking for John in Franklin County. After all, he was married there - or at least that was the county of the marriage bond - so it seemed logical he lived there. While there are records of a John Jones and other Jones families in Franklin County, the information on those people doesn't correspond to other known facts about John Jones and his immediate family. The will and probate records of those Jones families don't list names of people we believe to have been John's siblings, for example. In addition those Jones families were quite prominent and have had printed family histories written about them which don't reference our Jones family.

To make the research more complicated, that region of Virginia was growing in the time period around 1790 when John and Sarah Sumpter were married. Political boundaries were changing as new counties were formed so the records of neighboring counties have to be checked because a specific place may have been in different counties at different times.

I use maps frequently when researching. It helps me find adjacent locales to consider and keeps me from jumping to incorrect genealogical conclusions that aren't likely because of geographic distance or natural barriers. 

The Family Search Library in Salt Lake City has an extensive map collection. When I research in that library, I use my digital camera to take photos of information from books or maps that may shed light on my research questions, but I usually evaluate the information after I return home. That way I can access as many records as possible during my limited time at the library. 

Montgomery County was adjacent to Franklin County in 1790. In 1831 Floyd County was formed as a wedge between the two counties. Therefore, in my searching of records in counties adjacent to Franklin County, I was looking at Montgomery County which then was on the western border of Franklin County. I took pictures of parts of a map that showed early landowners in the county because one was a John Jones. I didn't (and still don't) know if it referenced my John Jones but thought it worth the photo. It was after I returned home that I noticed something that might be important.

We know that in American pioneer times, migrations of families to new territories were often done with extended families or even neighbors traveling together or joining each other in new lands as circumstances allowed. So another research strategy is to watch for surnames that tie to the ancestor for whom we are searching. 

I need to backtrack a bit here. One of the documents I had received from my grandmother is a copy of the will of John Jones. John died in 1847 in Randolph County, Indiana. 

The blue arrow points to John's signature by "his mark." The yellow points to the names of the witnesses James Simmons, Israel Lorton, and Henry Warrick. (It was by noting the proximity of the names of the witnesses that I was able to ascertain which of three John Joneses listed in the Randolph County, Indiana 1840 census was "mine.")

Now look at this excerpt from the map of early settlers of Montgomery County, Virginia. The names of John Jones and Israel Lorton are highlighted in yellow.

I had photographed only a section of the large map that showed John Jones' name. I hadn't noticed the Israel Lorton listed further west until I was looking at the photos at home. I didn't know the scale of the map nor how close this was to Franklin County either. Had the witness to John's will in 1847 in Indiana been his neighbor decades earlier in Virginia? I couldn't wait to make a return trip to the Family Search Library to pursue this lead. (I have since purchased my own copy of the map.) 

I discovered that Israel Lorton was a Revolutionary War veteran of some renown in the region. He owned other properties in Montgomery county also that don't appear in this excerpt photo. However he had some sort of financial reversals and ended up in jail for unpaid debts. He became ill from his time in the cold unheated jail through a winter and died long before John Jones left Virginia. However, he had a son who was also named Israel Lorton who ended up in Randolph County, Indiana. I believe this son was the witness to John's will. I do not know the exact connection between my John Jones and the Israel Lorton who was in Virginia. I don't know if the families were close acquaintances in Virginia, but John and Israel were at least of good enough acquaintance for John to choose him to be a witness to his will. All this does give some credence to the possibility that my John Jones was in Montgomery County, but it doesn't give definite proof.

The book Marriages in the New River Valley, Virginia: Montgomery, Floyd, Pulaski, and Giles Counties by Therese A Fisher gives additional clues on the John Jones and Sarah Sumpter marriage. It explains that the bond was issued in the county of the bride's residence. Therefore John Jones may not have been living in Franklin County. Sarah's father, however, was a landowner there as well as in Montgomery County where he died in 1806. (Quite a bit is known about George Sumpter which will be discussed in a future blog.) 

Also from the book: "The scarcity of ministers in the New River Valley accounts for the relatively large lapses of time that occasionally occurred between the issuance of the bond and the actual marriage." Ministers went to Montgomery County as itinerants to perform marriages since there were no established churches in the early days of the county because the population was too small and scattered to support churches. In searching marriage bonds over the years, I have noticed that usually the bond is noted within a day or two of the actual marriage. I had wondered about the month gap between the bond date and the marriage date of John's and Sarah's marriage. After performing the marriage, the minister was required by law to report the marriage information to the county clerk of the county where the marriage bond had been issued. Some ministers were more conscientious than others in doing so. I discovered that Randolph Hall, the minister who married John and Sarah, also performed marriages in Montgomery County even though he was associated with the Pigg River church in Franklin County. 

It is a possibility that John and Sarah were not married in Franklin County even though that is the county from which the marriage bond was issued. It is also possible that John was living in the adjacent county of Montgomery. The region was not heavily populated at that time. John and Sarah had to have had some commonality that allowed them to meet and wish to marry - possibly proximity of location at least at some point in time or a common acquaintance who introduced them. This is all circumstantial evidence but it does open the possibility that the search for John Jones might well need to be extended to Montgomery County.

Franklin and Montgomery Counties are in the Blue Ridge Mountain region and the mountains form part of the eastern boundary of present-day Montgomery County. As my research was expanding to include the two counties, I wondered exactly what the topography was. Did the difficulty of mountain travel in pioneer times make the likelihood of a connection between Sarah in Franklin County and John who was possibly in Montgomery county too improbable? Was there anything else to indicate my John Jones may have been in Montgomery County? That is the subject of the next blog post.

 

My Quest to Find John Jones - part III - Marriage

Jigsaw puzzle aficionados and genealogists have much in common. Both are trying to find pieces to fit together to give a complete picture. Finding the pieces to form a complete picture of the life of John Jones has been a decades-long process that is still incomplete. It is at times frustrating, but it is thrilling to find new pieces or to see a piece in a different way which is why I still work at it. I think of him as Grandfather John and, after all these years, feel much closeness to him even though I have never met him nor even known anyone who has. This post is to examine what is known about his marriage to Sarah Sumpter and what can be learned from these documents.

This record is from Franklin County, Virginia Marriage Bonds which I found on microfilm #31523 in the Family Search Library in Salt Lake City.                                                                                               

This is an important piece of information and is chronologically the earliest documentation I have been able to find that definitely relates to our John Jones. This handwritten abstract of marriage bonds is from Franklin County, Virginia. 

A marriage bond was a written guarantee or promise of payment assuring that the marriage could be legally performed, for example that the groom wasn't already married. The bond could be posted by the groom or by a relative of the bride or groom or sometimes an interested party. This states that John Jones and Sarah Sumpter were married by a minister named Randolph Hall on August 12, 1790. The marriage bond was given on July 5, 1790 by Solomon Jones. Some family records erroneously list the marriage bond date as the marriage date.

Another source of the marriage records of Franklin County, Virginia from prominent Franklin County researcher Marshall Wingfield states that Sarah Sumpter was the daughter of Geo. Sumpter. (I will discuss the George Sumpter family in a different post.)

This map shows the location of Franklin County, Virginia in 1790. Because this region of southwestern  Virginia was still in its early times of settlement, the county boundaries changed several times in this era. Franklin County is the dark blue colored area in the bottom center of the map. This region of Virginia is on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and its settlement was impacted by the terrain and by not always easy relationships with the Native Americans in the area.

Who was the Solomon Jones who provided the surety or bond for John and Sarah's marriage? Most descendants believe that he was a brother of John Jones, but that is an assumption without evidence. 

We do not have any certain birth record for John Jones nor for his siblings. In fact, the only information  we have of the names of any of John's birth family comes from one of two sources. John's son-in-law James Stapleton Lewis (JSL) performed some temple ordinance work for a few members of John's family (that will be the subject of another blog), and Clara Lewis Hall recorded names of John's father and some siblings. Clara gave no source for her information, but it is assumed to be from conversations with either her grandfather JSL or her father Wilford W Lewis. There is a family tradition that JSL had a notebook with family information recorded in it; no one currently seems to know if that record still exists. While Clara's information may be correct, it also may not be totally correct or complete because it is probably based on Clara's memory as well as that of JSL. Clara gave us names of John's siblings with birth dates that appear to be estimates with John being listed as the eldest child. 

When John's will was probated in 1847, the witnesses stated he was a man of about 77 years of age. That would put his birthdate as about 1770 and his age at the time of this marriage as about 20 or 21. If the Solomon Jones who posted surety for the marriage bond was indeed John's younger brother, he would not have been of the legal age of 21 to be posting the bond. So, that gives me questions on who exactly Solomon was. Was he an older brother, was he an uncle, was he a neighbor who was of no relation at all (there were other Jones families in the region that do not appear to be related?) John named one of his sons Solomon which makes it seem possible that there was a Solomon in John's family for whom the son was named. JSL stated that John's father was David Jones. But maybe it was really Solomon Jones. Some times in the marriage bond records the relationship is listed, but it isn't in this case unfortunately. This is one of the Jones family mysteries at this point.

I had long assumed that, because this marriage bond was made in Franklin County, John Jones was living there in 1790. I spent hours and hours looking for records to confirm that fact. At one point I decided to pursue information on the minister Randolph Hall. I discovered that he was a Baptist minister who came to Franklin county and became associated with the Pigg River Church there for a time before he headed further south. The history of Baptists in Virginia shows some struggles to gain official recognition in the colony because the Church of England had official status. The Pigg River Primitive Baptist Church was established in 1773.

Imagine my excitement when I came across this map of early Franklin County, Virginia land owners prepared for the Franklin County Historical Society! 

The turquoise tab points to the location of the Pigg River Church where Randolph Hall had been a preacher and also the yellow tabs point to land plots owned by a David Jones and a John Jones as well as other Jones families located near to the church. I was ecstatic. But my excitement dissipated as I began to research the Jones families shown on the map. They appear to all be related, but none of the names of the siblings in our records show up in the wills, published genealogies, or other records of the Jones families shown above. So if the names of John Jones' siblings are correct as given to us by Clara Lewis Hall, the Jones families who lived near the Pigg River Church were of a different Jones line. 

Rev. Randolph Hall's name gave me additional clues several years later which I will detail in the next blog.

My Quest to Find John Jones - part II

Finding documentation of ancestors who lived in the United States or the British colonies before the mid 1800s can be a daunting task. Census records, a common source of information, didn't list anyone except the head of household before the 1850 census. There were no legal requirements to record births, marriages, or deaths until around 1900 in many localities. Many people were living in sparsely populated locales and moving often as new territories were settled. This means churches were not always established and therefore we do not have the benefit of church records that can be a great source of information. The one thing that was usually recorded was anything regarding wealth and land. It was deemed important to keep careful record of who owned a plot of land which gives us records of buyers and sellers (or grantors and grantees) and descriptions of the plots. Court records, which could include a variety of matters including wills and probate of estates, were also found even in that early time period. 

Television programs that show ancestry discoveries from early eras make finding needed documentation look fairly easy, but it isn't. It is usually a matter of putting puzzle pieces together - when you don't have an idea of the final picture and where some of the pieces have been lost. Therefore, it is rare to find complete and definitive documentary evidence of families in that time period. Usually a researcher will put together documents and explain the conclusions drawn from them with the hope that other researchers will agree with the conclusions. Unfortunately some researchers, especially beginners, may draw unfounded conclusions which come to be erroneously accepted by descendants who do not know on what information the conclusions were drawn.

Another issue is that of names. In early America, many names were so-called Biblical names which were limited in number. In addition, families often named children for family members and may or may not have continued naming traditions from their fatherlands. Consequently we find many people with the same name; it is difficult to sort them out and be certain you have found the correct person. Even in this day, a daughter of mine came across a woman with the exact same name who lived on the other side of the country and my son knew a young man in a neighboring high school who shared his name. Neither are related to our family.

So looking for John Jones is indeed looking for a needle in a haystack. Jones is a very common surname. In the Indiana county where John died in 1847, there were two other John Joneses living in the same rural county in the 1840 census. So it isn't hard to find a John Jones; it is hard to decide if the John Jones who has been found is the correct one. To complicate things, we do not know where our John Jones lived in his early years. While various researchers have concluded differing birth places and birthdates for him, none of them that I have seen are even near to being conclusively proven.

This lengthy introduction is given to acquaint all of John's descendants with the difficulties of this line. As I have come across Joneses with unusual given names, I sometimes am envious that we don't have a few of those unique names on our line to make things easier.

How do we know the basics of John Jones' information? There are three main sources that give us a beginning. First is that John's son-in-law James Stapleton Lewis (for convenience referred to as JSL) knew him and recorded some information about him. We have what has come to be called JSL's journal; however, what we have is more like a memoir. The notebooks in which he recorded things were divided between his descendants when he died. In the 1960s, family members collected the notebooks that could still be located and had them typed into a manuscript. Until I write more about the references to John Jones in JSL's writings, you can read some of it in earlier blogs on this site including JSL's history in blogs from 2016 and in two 2011 blogs: August "The Clinton County, Ohio Connection" and September "Greene and Clinton County, Ohio Results."

A granddaughter of JSL and Anna Jones, Clara Lewis Hall (daughter of Wilford Woodruff Lewis) was interested in family history. She collected information and did some research. Some of her information seems to be from oral history and family stories and doesn't include documentation unfortunately. I have found sources to confirm much of what she shared though some dates or names were not quite correct. Nevertheless, her work at a time when information was much more difficult to access is a treasure for JSL and Jones descendants. It is primarily from her that we have some information on John's siblings.

A descendant of James Stapleton Lewis' brother Joel also had a great interest in family History. Arthur Kennedy Love spent many years collecting information and researching the Lewis line. In the mid 1930s he published several editions of a Lewis Newsletter. He had corresponded with JSL as well as some of his children and grandchildren. In publishing this Lewis information, he also gave us some information on Anna Jones.

My intent in these blog posts on John Jones is to highlight specific periods of his life or of his relationships and share what is known and from what sources as well as areas that need further research. The next post will focus on his marriage to Sarah Sumpter in Virginia in 1790. If you have specific questions, please reach out to me either through comments on this blog or on the James Stapleton Lewis Families Project facebook page.

 My Quest to Find John Jones - Part I

My grandparents lived a quarter of a mile from the home in which I was raised, so I often walked to visit them as I was growing up. Grandpa Oliver Haroldsen was a farmer, and Grandma Celecta Ottley Haroldsen was a housekeeper in every sense. Her house was kept immaculately clean. My father told of the hearty meals she prepared for farm work crews when that was the way things were done, especially at harvest time. She made bread and canned food, much of it from her large vegetable garden. She cared for beautiful flower beds around her house and did all the yard work since Grandpa was working in the fields. She crocheted lovely afghans and did embroidery (she claimed it was her way of keeping arthritic fingers more nimble.) I have two quilts she made during World War II for which she was always apologetic because she felt the fabric was not of the best quality and that her hand stitching wasn't as dainty as other women sewed. So I often found her in the middle of one of these activities when I visited.

However, my favorite activity to "interrupt" was when she was working on her genealogy. She would explain what she was trying to accomplish, show a letter she had recently received in reply to one of her genealogical queries, or answer questions and tell me stories of these marvelous ancestors. Without realizing it, I was being given a priceless gift. She made the ancestors real to me, and she passed on the joy of doing the research and putting together the puzzle pieces of ancestry.

But John Jones eluded her. John Jones is Grandma's second great grandfather. He is the father of Anna Jones who married James Stapleton Lewis. Grandma remembered Grandfather James, as she called her great grandfather, who died when she was six years old. So John Jones didn't seem very far removed from Grandma nor even in my mind from me. Grandma had obtained a copy of John's will from 1847 in Indiana, a record of his marriage to Sarah Sumpter in 1790 in Virginia, and some information about John's children and probable siblings. But she had hit what we call a "brick wall" which describes a point in research when you can't seem to break through to find other information.

Genealogical research in Grandma's day consisted mainly of correspondence or copying information that someone else had obtained. The Genealogical Society of Utah (forerunner of today's Family Search) would act as an assistant in research. The Society was accumulating copies of records which someone would search for you, and it would also act as go-between in hiring someone in a specific locality to go to libraries, cemeteries, churches, or courthouses to do research for you there. You paid a fee for this service. I have letters sent to Grandma by the Genealogical Society dated in the 1930s and 1940s detailing the results of her research requests. 

But Grandma couldn't find out more on her John Jones. Where and when was he born? Who were his parents? When did he leave Virginia for Ohio and then Indiana? What happened to his wife Sarah? Grandma searched for forty years. Near the end of Grandma's life, she and I decided that when she was on the other side, she would find John Jones and get some answers. The plan was that then somehow she would lead me to know where or how to look to find the necessary records to break through this brick wall. 

Well, I haven't completely found him either. I have also been looking for forty years. About 15 years ago I started doing descendancy research on John's line in hopes of finding someone from another branch of his family that has information I lack. In that process I have made other discoveries about his children and their families. I have met, in person or online, "cousins" who descend from John's children or from his siblings. I have felt him close by me a few times. He is one of the people I can't wait to meet in person when my time in this life is finished. 

I haven't added to this blog for a number of years. I have decided to share with you my search for John Jones and Sarah Sumpter - what I've found, what I haven't found, and what I think might be correct or the next place to look.

This is the pedigree.

Lyn Haroldsen Misner > Fred Haroldsen > Celecta Ottley Haroldsen > Abigail Celecta Lewis Ottley > John Alma Lewis > James Stapleton Lewis and Anna Jones Lewis > John Jones and Sarah Sumpter Jones > possibly David Jones

Family Group Record of John Jones and Sarah Sumpter family in handwriting of Celecta Ottley Haroldsen probably written 1940s to early 1960s

 

Letter to Celecta O Haroldsen from Genealogical Society regarding John Jones