Wednesday, December 12, 2012

12 Genealogy Mysteries I'd Like to Solve

In her post 12/12/12 Twelve Genealogy Questions on the Leaves & Branches blog, Colleen Pasquale posed twelve questions about her ancestry and family history that she would like answered.

I thought that this was a great blog prompt, so I'm going to list my Twelve Questions on this day of Twelves.  And i'm going to post it at 12:12 p.m. PST.

Here are twelve genealogy mysteries I'd like to solve:

1)  Who are the parents of Thomas J. Newton (ca 1795 Maine - after 1834 ????)?  He married (I think) Sophia (Buck) Brigham, and had two children by her in the 1832 to 1835 time frame.  

2)  What happened to Thomas J. Newton?  Did he die after 1835?  Did he marry again?  Where -  Maine?  Massachusetts?  Vermont? Somewhere else?  

3)  Who are the parents of William Knapp (1775-1856), born in Dutchess County, New York (according to his death record in Newton, New Jersey)?  

4)  Who are the parents of Hannah Smith (1767-1827), ostensibly born in Brookline, New Hampshire, and the wife of Josiah Sawtell?

5)  Who are the biological parents of Devier James Lamphier Smith (1839-1894), the adopted son of Ranslow and Mary (Bell) Smith?

6)  Who are the parents of John Richman (ca 1788-1867) of Hilperton, Wiltshire, England?

7)  Who are the parents of Ann Marshman (1784-1856), born supposedly in Devizes, Wiltshire, England, who married John Richman in Hilperton in 1811?

8)  Who are the parents of Hannah Brown (ca 1725-ca 1774), who married John Phillips in 1749 in Southborough, Massachusetts?

9)  Who are the parents of Mary Hoax/Houx/Hokes/etc. (1768-1850), who married Martin Carringer in 1785 in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania?

10)  What was the name of the wife of Cornelius Feather (1777-1852), married before 1804 in Ohio or Pennsylvania, and had at least four children?

11)  Who were the parents of Jerusha (ca 1750-1817), who married Burgess Metcalf before 1770 somewhere in southern New Hampshire?  They lived in Piermont, Grafton County, New Hampshire.

12)  What is the true story about my father's migration from Massachusetts to San Diego in December 1940?  His story was that he was tired of shoveling snow; his sisters say he got a young Catholic lady pregnant and was forbidden to marry her.

Note that some of the links above go to other blog posts with more information, and there may be more blog posts about these persons.

Those are my 12 on 12/12/12.  If you have research suggestions for any of these, please comment here or email me at rjseaver@cox.net.

What are your 12 questions?  Why not write a blog post about it!  Maybe someone will read it and know the answer, or provide the clue needed to solve the problem and answer your question.

Thank you to Colleen for a great geneablogging challenge.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/12/12-genealogy-mysteries-id-like-to-solve.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

3 comments:

Yvonne Demoskoff said...

Hi, Randy. I took your advice: http://yvonnesgenealogyblog.blogspot.ca/2012/12/12-genealogy-mysteries-id-like-to-solve.html

Sonja Hunter said...

Great minds think alike. I posted what I want from Santa (genealogically speaking) last week at: http://kalamazoogenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/12/my-genealogy-wish-list.html

I think Death Certificates would make great stocking stuffers.

Colleen G. Brown Pasquale said...

Randy, let's hope that some who reads our questions can lead us in the right direction to find answers. Colleen