Saturday, August 6, 2022

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Who Is a Mysterious Person In Your Family Tree?

  It's Saturday Night - 

time for more Genealogy Fun! 


Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible music here) is to:

1) Who is a mysterious person in the family tree you'd like to learn more about? [Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting topics!]

2)  Write your own blog post, or add your response as a comment to this blog post, in a Facebook Status post or note.

Here's mine:

There are so many!  I have a blank space in my pedigree chart for both of my 3rd great-grandparents who were the biological parents of my 2nd great-grandfather, Devier J. Lamphear Smith (1839-1894).  Devier was born on 7 May 1839 and was adopted by Ranslow and Mary (Bell) Smith of Henderson, New York in the 1839-1842 time period, and was born in Jefferson County, New York.  The Ranslow Smith family migrated to Dodge County, Wisconsin the 1842-1848 time period.

In his will dated 1865, Ranslow Smith (1805-1873) referred Devier as "Devere J. Lamphear, Commonly called Devere J. Smith, my adopted son."  The will was proved in 1875.  Devier petitioned the Wisconsin State Senate for a name change in 1866.  The section says:

" The name of Devier Lamphier is here-by changed to Devier J. Smith and the said Devier Lamphier is hereby declared to be the adopted child and legal heir of Ranslow Smith of Dodge County."

I have several autosomal DNA matches who are descended from Isaac and Rosina (Laun) Lanfear of Lorraine, Jefferson County, New York.  Isaac and Rosina had at least ten children between 1807 and 1828.  One of them was very likely to be one of the parents of Devier J. Lamphier.  Perhaps one of the unmarried Lanfear daughters (there were four between the ages of 16 and 27 in May 1839) had Devier out of wedlock in 1839.  The other parent, very likely a male, is totally unknown, but there may be clues in the DNA matches that I have not seen or analyzed yet that could lead me to which Lanfear child had the baby Devier.

Those are my two most mysterious persons in my family tree.

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Copyright (c) 2022, Randall J. Seaver

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5 comments:

Lisa S. Gorrell said...

Here's a post about 6 3x-great-grandparents that are mysterious.

https://mytrailsintothepast.blogspot.com/2022/08/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-who-is.html

ByAPearl said...

Yet another brickwall direct ancestor!
https://geneajournalsbyapearl.wordpress.com/2022/08/06/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-ned-walker-my-mysterious-3rd-great-grandfather/

Diane Gould Hall said...

I wrote a series of 6 posts about my brick walls. I called them Mystery Monday - Who’s Your Daddy? It’s been several years since I published the posts and in that time, only 1 has been solved.
Here’s the link to my posts. If anyone reading here has any ideas on these pesky ancestors, please get in touch http://www.michiganfamilytrails.com/p/test.html

Linda Stufflebean said...

Here are my two choices: https://emptybranchesonthefamilytree.com/2022/08/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-205/

Janice M. Sellers said...

I have the same mysterious ancestor I have had for quite a while!

http://www.ancestraldiscoveries.com/2022/08/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-who-is.html