Week 2: DNA & The Lawson's - James Franklin Lawson & Lucinda Honey (3rd Great Grandparents) - 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Lucinda Honey, my 3rd great grandmother, was born on 16 Jul 1877 in Russell County, Kentucky, a daughter of James and Nancy (Brown) Honey. 

She gave birth to my 2nd great grandfather on 11 May, 1895, when she was 17 years old. 

Lucinda and her son are found on the 1900 census, living with her father and a few of her siblings. She is listed under her maiden name - Honey - as was her son. She was also listed as single. 

This child, William Lee, lived his life with the last name of Brumley. Lucinda was married to William Sherman Brumley in 1901. The family had assumed that William Sherman Brumley was the father of William Lee Brumley.

When I first started doing genealogy, I accepted everyone else's assumptions. But as my genealogical skills grew more, and I started following the Genealogical Proof Standard, something just didn't add up, and I had my suspicions about if William Sherman Brumley was really William Lee Brumley's father. 

As stated before, Lucinda was living with her father and her son in the 1900 census. They were living in Mullentown, Wayne County, Kentucky. Note she was listed as single. Now, at this point Lucinda had already had three children - my 2nd great grandfather, a daughter Nora in 1896, and a son, John, in January 1900. All three are listed as Honey's in this 1900 census.

So where was William Sherman Brumley living in 1900? He was living in Rowena, Russell County, Kentucky, with his mother. He is also listed as single. 

As I was following the Genealogical Proof Standard, a few questions arose. 

• Why weren't William and Lucinda living together, and why were they both listed as single?
• Why did they get married in 1901?
• Why did the children have their mother's last name and not Brumley?

So, this is where DNA testing comes in, and it proved my theory. 

I had my grandfather - John Edward Brumley - take an AncestryDNA test. I was hoping for some clues to prove if William Sherman Brumley was his real great grandfather. Only one problem, though. AncestryDNA does autosomal testing, which tests ALL lines in one's ancestry. And, this wouldn't have been a problem, if his tree didn't twist. The problem is that William Sherman Brumley is related to my grandfather on another branch of his tree, which means the Brumley's would still show up in my grandfather's DNA results, even if a Brumley wasn't his great grandfather (William Sherman Brumley was one of my grandfather's great-great-grandmother's brothers.)

I had him take the test anyway, and here were the results.

As I went through his cousin matches, I noticed something that wasn't quite right. He had 6 2nd  cousins who came up (second cousins means they share a common great-grandparent), and I could not identify how any of these 6 2nd cousins were related to my grandfather. They all had good trees with good information in it. But, I noticed something. They were all descendants of this Lawson family that lived in the same county as Lucinda's family did. Further digging into my grandfather's DNA results proved that he had almost 100 matches to this same Lawson family - that's a LOT!

My grandfather's closest match was a great-granddaughter of a man named James Franklin Lawson. Keep him in mind.

I went back to Lucinda's 1900 census. And I found something that stopped me dead in my tracks. James Lawson is living just a few doors down from Lucinda! The evidence is just flying in my face at this point!

1900 Census - Highlighted is Lucinda and William (Brumley) Honey - and Jim (James) Lawson, who lives three households down.

Now I'm getting suspicions. I of course  draw up a hypothesis that William Lee Brumley's father is a Lawson. But that wasn't enough evidence for me, and I had to take it a step further to prove it.

So, as a genealogist who needs clear-cut evidence, I took it a step further and got my grandfather a Y-DNA test. Since my grandfather is a direct-male descendant of the person in question, having him take a Y-DNA test - which only traces your father's father's father's (etc.) line. Meaning, if his results come back with a lot of people with the same surname, it means he is a descendant of that family. So what were the results?



And there we have it. Almost all of my grandfather's Y-DNA matches were Lawsons! And, they were descendants of this same Lawson family that moved into Kentucky from Tennessee. I knew my hunch about William Lee's parents were right!

So, what does this prove? Well, it proves my grandfather's great-grandfather was a Lawson that lived in the Wayne-Russell County, Kentucky area. However, it does not prove that James Franklin Lawson his his real great grandfather. I believe he is because of the closest AncestryDNA match being his great granddaughter.

So who was James Franklin Lawson? He was born on 28 Jul 1864 in Clinton County, Kentucky, a son of Andrew Jackson Lawson and Sarah Jane Brown. He was single when he encountered Lucinda. He was not married until 1896. He went on to have 8 children with his wife, and Lucinda went on to have seven more children with William Sherman Brumley.

I wonder if James knew he fathered William? The two were unwed and maybe their families disapproved of their relationship. Or, was their a darker side the story? We may never know, but what we do know - almost positively - is that William Lee Brumley's father ISN'T William Sherman Brumley, and IS a LAWSON who lived in the Wayne-Russell-Clinton County areas of Kentucky.

Week 1: Philip Randolph McCool & Sarah Frances Tanner (3rd Great Grandparents) - 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Let's start off our continuation of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge with my 3rd great grandparents, Philip Randolph McCool and Sarah Frances Tanner.

Philip McCool was born in March of 1858 in Belfast, Marshall County, Tennessee to John A McCool and Mary Ann Luna. He married Sarah Frances Tanner, the daughter of Moses Tanner and Mary Wiley, on 13 August, 1884 in Marshall County, Tennessee.

Sarah was born on 30 May, 1867 in Maury County, Tennessee. She was the 13th of 20 children (yes, 20!) born to her father, and the 5th of 12 children born to her mother.

Philip and Sarah's Marriage Record - 1884 - Marshall County, Tennessee

Philip and Sarah's marriage was not long lived. They divorced sometime around 1892 (it's unknown whether this was formal or informal), and after their marriage, Sarah reverted back to using her maiden name in records - Tanner.

Sarah and Philip had three children:

1. Maud Belle McCool (1885-1958)
2. Nora Lillian McCool (1889-1964) - She is my 2nd great grandmother.
3. Cora Jane McCool (1890-1942)

Sarah did not re-marry after their divorce, and she died on 30 October, 1918 in Lane, Dyer County, Tennessee, aged 51.

Philip, however, was married at least three more times. His next marriage was in 1892 to M. J. Caughran. That marriage lasted 2 years, and he was then married to Bettie Russell in 1894. Philip and Bettie had a daughter, Eulala McCool (1899-1944). In the 1900 census, Philip is listed as a widower and was not living with his daughter, which probably meant that Philip and Bettie's marriage was terminated sometime before 1900. He was not married again until 1906, when he married Annie Harrison.

On 31 August, 1909, in Belfast, Marshall County, Tennessee, Philip died, at age 51. Either Philip or Sarah's tombstone has been located, and it is believed they were buried without one.

Philip McCool's 1909 Death Certificate

Stay tuned for next week, where I will be talking about the family of James Lawson and Lucinda Honey - which is a little more tangled up than this family!

Thank you for reading!

My 2016 Genealogy Goals

We're a week into 2016, and a lot of people have set their New Year's resolutions. As a genealogist, my New Year's resolutions consisted mostly of things genealogically related, and I'd like to share them here.

• I would like to resume my 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks blog posts. Instead of focusing on one ancestor per week, I want to focus on one family per week.
• Do more volunteering - specifically more record indexing with the WAP (World Archives Project) and with FamilySearch.
• Engage in more genealogy education (other than watching videos). Specifically reading more genealogy books.
• Be more involved with my DNA matches - specifically contacting those without trees, and being more available to help those who are adopted.

And, my main goal for 2016:

• Attend my first genealogy conference - Federation of Genealogical Societies Annual Conference - which will be held in Springfield, Illinois (2 hours from my home) August 31 - September 3rd.

Here's to all the new ancestors I will be learning about in 2016!