Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- What Are Your Major Genealogy Research Challenges?

 Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

It's Saturday Night again - 

Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision. 

1)  What are your major genealogy challenges - the family mysteries that you haven't been able to crack to date? 

2)  Tell us about five of your real genealogy challenges with a short paragraph, and link to blog posts if you have written about them.

3)  Share your five challenges in your own blog post or in a Facebook, SubStack, BlueSky or other social media post.  Leave a link to your post on this blog post to help us find your post.

Here's mine (I did 7):

My seven "real genealogy challenges" are:

a)  Who are Devier James Lamphier Smith's ((my 2nd great-grandfather, 1839-1894) biological parents?  He was adopted in about 1840 in Henderson, Jeffereson County, New York.  One of his birth parents was probably a Lamphier/Lanphere/Lanfear/etc. person.  See 52 Ancestors - Week 19: #26 Devier James Lamphier Smith (1839-1894).

b)  Who are Sarah (Fletcher) Kemp's ((my 3rd great-grandmother, 1802-c1849) parents?  She married Abraham Kemp in Upper Canada in 1818.  See 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 54: #61, Sarah (Fletcher) Kemp (1802- before 1850). The only resource found to date is a Family Bible page transcript.  

c)  Who are Hannah (Smith) Sawtell's (my 4th great-grandmother,  1768-1827) parents?  She married Josiah Sawtell in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1789.  See 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 68: #75 Hannah (Smith) Sawtell (1768-1827).  There are way too many Hannah Smiths in eastern Massachusetts in the late 1760s, and not enough definitive records!

d)  Who are William Knapp's (my 3rd great-grandfather, 1775-1856) parents? He was born in New York, married in 1804 and died in New Jersey.  See 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 51: #58, William Knapp (1775-1856).  There are many Knapp families in southeastern New York and western Connecticut but I cannot connect him.

e)  Who are Mary Palmer's (4th great-grandmother, 1788-1845) parents?  She married James Vaux in Martock, Somerset in 1808, and they emigrated to the United States in the 1830s and settled in Aurora, New York.  See 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 89: #109 Mary (Palmer) Vaux (1790-ca 1845).  No reasonable birth or death records have been found. 

f)  Who are Philip Row's (my 4th great-grandfather, 1753-1817) parents?  See 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 94: #114 Philip Row (1753-1817). Some family trees say his parents were  Johannes Rau (1722-1771) and Catherine Loscher of Dutchess County, New York, but I disagree.

g)  Who are Hannah Brown's (my 5th great-grandmother, 1725-1774) parents?  See 52 Ancestors - Week 130: #159 Hannah (Brown) Phillips (about 1725 - before 1774). This is another needle in a Brown family haystack.

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