Goals for 2016

I am happy with how I reached my goals set at the beginning of the year.  I joined the 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks challenge and ended up completing through #46.  Yes, thanksgiving, trip to Mexico and Christmas took precedence at the end of the year. My other goal was to keep up to date on the tips on Ancestry.com and I have done so all year, so I am pleased with that, also.

I need to do some more thinking about my genealogical goals for 2016.  I would like to make a list of ancestors and/or struggles that I especially want to focus on this year.  So I may be updating this post over the next few weeks.

1) The first problem that comes to mind is that I would love to find who was really the father of William Adamson 1789-1865 (dates not definitive)  I wrote about this a few weeks ago:

http://suesresearch.blogspot.com/2015/11/speculation-on-aaron-adamson-child-of.html

2) Another goal I would love to reach is to find pictures of William H. Murphy (1838-1891).  He was quite active in Peoria politics etc., so I keep thinking that there should be a picture of him somewhere, perhaps in an old newspaper.  Sadly, the Peoria papers are not indexed at all, so it's a mystery right now.

3) It isn't clear if there is going to be another 52 Ancestor Challenge this year, so I may do some searching and see if I can find another challenge that I am interested in.  I really loved the 2015 challenge...it was a lot of work writing a researched article each week, but I was amazed at how much I learned and found!

I would love to hear what others are planning or hoping to do with their genealogy search in 2016.  Give me some ideas!

Luke Tippitt 1768-1826 (52 Ancestor's #46)

This week’s theme is “Changes”.  I have been doing some research on the Luke Tippitt family and thought that he would make a good subject for this topic.  He had three wives and lived/moved to three states.  That seems like a lot of changes to me!

Luke Tippitt was born about 1768 in North Carolina.  It is believed that his parents were John and Susannah Tippitt, but I have not seen proof of that.  When he was about twenty-four years old, Luke married Mary Vincent in 1792 in Granville County, North Carolina.  The 1800 census from Granville County indicates that they had five children at that time: three daughters and two sons. Mary died around 1807.

Sometime between 1800 and 1808, Luke moved to Tennessee.  I would assume that whatever living children he had would have gone with him as none of them would be over fifteen years old.  In 1808, Luke married Jenny Cooksey in Wilson County, Tennessee.  Sadly she died the following year.

Luke married Nancy Adamson around 1810 in Tennessee.  By then Luke was about forty-three years old, and Nancy was about twenty-one years old. Luke Tippitt was listed in the 1812 Warren County, Tennessee Tax List.  There is also a William Tippitt on this Tax List who is listed next to “Aron Adamson”.  Luke and Nancy’s daughter Malinda was born in 1812 in Wilson County, Tennessee.  Their son William Tippitt was born in 1815 in Tennessee and their son Matthew Lovell Tippitt was also born in Tennessee in 1817.

By 1820, Luke Tippitt was living in Edwards County, Illinois.  He is listed there with his wife (Nancy) and four children under the age of ten.  Another child was born before the 1825 Edwards County, Illinois census where Luke is found listed. 

From the “History of Richland County” it is stated that Luke’s son, Matthew Lovell Tippitt, was four or five years old when his father died.  Since Luke Tippitt was listed in the 1825 census, I am guessing that he must have died about 1826.  Luke would have been around fifty-eight years old at the time of his death.  He left his wife Nancy and five children when he died.

It’s unknown what became of Luke’s wife, Nancy.  One source states that she moved to Richland County, Illinois after Luke died.  I have been unable to locate any records on her.  I suspect that she remarried (she was about thirty-six years old when Luke died).  Luke and Nancy’s daughter Malinda (Milly) married in 1829 in Edwards County, Illinois.  Malinda and her husband are listed in Lawrence County, Illinois in 1830. Son Matthew Lovell Tippitt and his family were listed in Lawrence County, Illinois in 1840.  Son William Tippitt settled in Morgan County, Illinois where, interestingly, is where Luke Tippitt’s son Elijah (by Mary Vincent) also settled.

Speculation on Aaron Adamson-child of Simon and Mary Adamson?

I am behind a week, but hoping to catch up this week.  Last week's challenge was "Free", meaning we were free to write about whatever we wanted.  I decided to put out my speculation about my wondering if perhaps Enos and Mary Love Adamson were not the parents of all the children who are credited to them.  I found a couple of records that make me wonder if perhaps there was an Aaron Adamson who was also the son of Simon and Mary Adamson, and father to my great-great-great grandfather, William Adamson.


My great-great-great grandfather was William Adamson born in about 1790.  William married Mary “Polly” Wilson in Wilson County, Tennessee in about 1806.  Their oldest child was Aaron Adamson, born about 1808 in Tennessee. This was my first clue that William’s father may have been named Aaron.

Over the years, researching the family, no evidence was ever found to link William to any of the other Adamson families.  A few years ago, my father did a DNA test and the results showed that he was indeed related to the John and Ann Skuce Adamson family.  Of course, that brought up more questions…so who was William’s father?  It was generally agreed among myself and other researchers that William must have been the son of Enos and Mary Love Adamson, although no evidence or proof of that has been found.

I have found an “Aron Adamson” listed in the 1782 Surry County, North Carolina Tax List.  Then in 1812, there is an Aaron Adamson listed in the Warren County, Tennessee Tax List.

Could this Aaron be another son of Simon Adamson, Sr.?

Could this Aaron be the father of William A. Adamson, Nancy Adamson Tippitt, and Simon Adamson?  Simon was born about 1785, William and Nancy around 1790. (Nancy Adamson married Luke Tippitt, who was also listed in the 1812 Warren County, Tennessee Tax List.  Aaron Adamson is listed next to William Tippitt) William Adamson married Mary Polly Wilson in 1806 in Wilson County, Tennessee.

Simon Adamson married Susanna Hopkins in 1808 in Wilson County, Tennessee.

Nancy Adamson married Luke Tippitt around 1810 in Tennessee. In 1808, Luke had married Jenny Cooksey in Wilson County, Tennessee. He and Nancy's first child, Malinda, was born in 1812 in Wilson County, Tennessee.

All of the other known children of Enos' were married in Randolph County, North Carolina around the same times as the above listed married in Tennessee.

Luke and Nancy Adamson Tippitt were listed in Edwards County, Illinois in both the 1820 and 1825 censuses.  William Adamson and his family were listed there in the1835 census.

 As stated earlier, William Adamson's first son was named Aaron W. Adamson (b.1808).  He was listed in the household of Susannah Hopkins Adamson in the 1850 Harrison County, Indiana Census.  This adds credence that William and Simon Adamson may have been brothers.

More proof of Aaron Adamson’s existence needs to still be discovered.  Just the two records cited above are not enough proof for me, but they certainly are tantalizing!  As usual, my research is a waiting game…hoping for new records to emerge!

 

Rev. Deodat Lawson 1640-1715 (52 Ancestors # 44)

This week’s challenge is “Frightening”, in honor of Halloween.  I am writing about Rev. Deodat Lawson this week.  I chose him because he was intimately involved in the Salem Witch Hunts.  Deodat’s second wife was my eighth great-grandaunt.

Deodat Lawson was born about 1640 in England to Rev. Thomas Lawson.  It is not known what his mother’s name was and she died shortly after Deodat was born.  She named him Deodat which means “given to God”.  Deodat had an older brother, Jabez.  It’s not known if there were other siblings.

After Deodat had graduated from college, he immigrated to Massachusetts around 1676. At that time, Deodat was not an ordained minister, but he took a position as a minister in Edgartown, Massachusetts.  He married his first wife, Jane, in 1680, and had a son Deodat in 1682. The following year he and his family moved to Salem, Massachusetts.  He and Jane soon had another child, a daughter.  In 1687, Deodat left for a position in Maine after there was some opposition to him becoming an ordained minister in Salem.  However, in 1688, he and his family returned to Salem where, according to sources, his wife and young daughter both unexpectedly died. He then left for Boston where he remained in seclusion.  In 1690, Deodat married Deborah Allen in Boston.  Deborah was the daughter of Hope Allen and was about thirty years younger than Deodat.

After unusual and mysterious occurrences began in Salem, Deodat was asked to return to Salem in   There he witnessed the trials for the accused witches and, after a month, he returned to Boston and wrote about what he had seen.  The book was A Brief and True Narrative of Some Remarkable Passages Relating to Sundry Persons Afflicted by Witchcraft, at Salem Village which Happened from the Nineteenth of March, to the fifth of April, 1692.

March of 1692.

  In the book, Deodat provided an eyewitness account of the events, and trials that were occurring in Salem.  Interestingly, in an appendix that Deodat wrote for the book several years later, he also described the trial of Reverend George Burroughs who was accused of witchcraft and was hung.  Rev. Burroughs had been accused of, among other things, being the cause of the death of Deodat’s wife and young daughter. 

From accounts that I have read, it is unclear if Deodat was a leader of the prosecution of those accused of witchcraft, if he was just an observer there, or if he helped to create the hysteria.

After Deodat’s return to Boston, he was a minister at a church there, and was finally ordained in 1694.  Deodat’s father died in England in 1695 so Deodat returned to England to settle the estate.  However, he never returned to the United States and is believed to have died in England in 1715.  It’s not known if his family went with him or if they remained in the United States.