Tags

, , , , , , ,

This week I had a DNA match appear through John Squires and Mary Gott. I was a bit excited since I don’t have many DNA matches for this set of great-grandparents. The connecting relative was a Martha Mount. Oddly enough, there were two Martha Mounts who were about the same age and lived in neighboring counties. They married different men and, as it turned out, my Martha Mount was not the same Martha Mount belonging to my match. They very well could have been cousins to each other, but the other Martha was not my cousin since Alfred Mount married into my line. So I dug a bit further and looked at our common matches. It would seem this match shares DNA with cousins along my Fielden and Mattox lines. I’ll need to examine her relationship to me closer when I get to those lines.

This week’s research focus was on Benjamin C Ballard, second child and oldest son of James and Susanna Cox Ballard. He married in Shelby County, Kentucky in 1829 and started his family there. In the mid 1830s, they migrated to Greene County, Indiana and settled near Worthington. He had five children with his first wife who died in 1839 at the age of 30. He remarried and added two more children to his family before his death in 1844. He was fairly active in the community. There were numerous references to him in probate records of others, serving as administrator and even guardian in an instance or two. The family continued to maintain a prominent standing in the community after his death. Details regarding the family could be found in biographies of Catherine Stalcup Ballard and John J Ballard in Biographical Memoirs of Greene County, Indiana published in 1908. The book can be found on Google Books for free.

The next Ballard child is Perlina Ballard. Perlina married her first cousin Benjamin Simpson. It should be a quick review of my previous research. Hopefully I can also put some time in on child #4 Thomas next week as well.

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5288 errors in the tree–376 possible duplicates, 4308 with no documents, 604 other errors.

  • Wife of a distant cousin was missing sources. I updated both her and her husband.
  • A 6th cousin with no sources which was updated.
  • Pryor Smallwood, a 6th great-granduncle with no sources attached. An extensive genealogy of the Smallwood Family in Maryland Genealogies provided the needed information on this uncle. This reference will be useful when I get to researching the Smallwood family.

This week in the past…
I’d like to take an opportunity to celebrate the anniversaries of births, marriages, and deaths of my bloodlines which will occur during the week ahead.
259 years ago – marriage of Mary Saunders (6th ggm) and John McCullough (6th ggf)
192 years ago – death of Stewart Cunningham (5th ggf)
100 years ago – birth of Dorothy Cardinal Keller – Happy Birthday Grandma!
76 years ago – death of Ethel Thompson Cardinal (ggm)
67 years ago – marriage of Edeine Fielden DeMoss (gm) and John Heath her 2nd husband
58 years ago – marriage of Phyllis Keller and Samuel DeMoss Jr (my parents!)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,990 people
End of Week: 28,039 people
Change = +49 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Focus on Susannah Cox + James Ballard
  • Review the information in The Other Polks to see if there is anything I don’t already have
  • Continue data mining on Ben Cox and Sarah Piety
  • Confirm the data from Polk Family and Kinsmen has been added for this family and page numbers are noted for easier citation adding
  • Review Coxes of Cox Creek
  • Review History of Mariah Creek Christian Church
  • Review bio of James Ballard, husband of Susannah Cox