Stumbling Blocks

Stumbling blocks happen in life, and when dancing with the ancestors. Case in point - Nathan Swett (maternal). I found a bunch of information out there on the web - digitized books, thanks Google - that mentioned his parents John Swett and Bethia Page, and some of his siblings, but . . . he wasn't mentioned.

Great! Fine! Dandy!

But, using http://www.familysearch.org/ I happened across his birth record that listed his parents as, yeah, you guessed it, John Swett & Bethia Page. Woo-hoo!

Now, once again, I've hit a stumbling block regarding Nathan's wife Mary Dearborn. The majority of the information I've found indicates she is the daughter of Thomas Dearborn and Mary Garland.

Dandy! Fine! Great!

But (dontcha hate when that happens?), one book I've found about the Dearborns only lists Thomas and Mary having four children . . . none of which are my ancestress Mary.

Fine! Dandy! Great!

Oh, but wait, I have a birth record - same hospital where Nathan was born, way back when - that lists her last name as Darbon (this is a common variant of Dearborn, Dearebarne, etc).

But (again), I still don't have the connection to Thomas and Mary that'd I'd like to confirm the relationship, and to start tracking the Dearborn (Dearebarne, Darbon) branch of the family tree.

So, I'll search and search, contact people who have tracked her in their trees, and hope to locate the verification.

So, as you're dancing with the ancestors, don't let stumbling blocks stop your search. Keep digging and digging.

Oh, while I'm thinking about it, often times you can verify relationships through Sons/Daughters of the American Revolution Applications, or, by Civil War Regiments.

I've been corresponding with another ancestor researcher - his ancestor and my great-grandfather were brothers. He was trying to track down more information on his ancestor. He had a few Civil War records, but wasn't positive they related to his ancestor . . . until I came along. Ha!

You see, a few of my ancestors and their siblings fought in the Civil War. They were all from Warren County, Tennessee, and all in the 16th Tennessee Regiment, but in differing companies - A, D, G, etc. So, I suggested to my fellow researcher that he focus his research on the 16th Regiment and . . .

. . . Voila! There was his ancestor.

So, keep digging, keep searching, try different options, step outside of the box. Don't give up. Keep looking!

S