BROKEN
LINKS AND BRICK WALLS
Most of my ancestors
were Southern pioneers who were too busy earning a living to give
much
thought to leaving records for the convenience of their
descendants. No doubt many of them would regard a descendant
obsessed
with tracing the lives
of obscure farmers, mechanics, and small town merchants as an
individual preoccupied with frivolous pursuits.
And it's not just people
from ordinary circumstances who have difficulty in tracing their
genealogy. Even the upper echelons of society
have brick walls and broken links in their genealogical record, and
most
people, even those who are prominent in their communities during their
lifetimes, just do not leave many footprints in history. Gary
Boyd Roberts' excellent book Ancestors of American Presidents
shows
that even for extensively researched individiuals, such as
presidents, there is still
a lot we will never know about our ancestors.
Here are some of the
problems
in my genealogy:
- Who were the parents
of
Joseph
Sanders who died in Randolph County, North Carolina in 1803? DNA
tests reveal that he is not from the same Sanders line as his
neighbor Isaac Saunders, whose children intermarried into Joseph's
family. DNA tests
show
that Joseph was related to William Sanders of Chatham County,
North Carolina. How
were they related? Were William and Joseph brothers? Was their father
the George Sanders who was a neighbor to the Reverend Moses Sanders in
the 1770s?
- Who were the parents
of
James
Sanders who lived in Montgomery County, North Carolina during the late
1700s? DNA test show his descendants are related to the others Sanders
of Randolph
and Montgomery but we have no paper trail. Tentatively, I believe his
reported father, William Sanders, of Anson County, may have been a son
or brother of Lewis Sanders who is the presumed progenitor of our line
in America.
- Who were the parents
of
Robert
Sanders, who was born about 1801 in North Carolina and who died in
1881 in Izard County,
Arkansas. DNA tests show that he is related to the Saunders of Randolph
and Montgomery, and there is even a tradition in his family that he was
from Randolph County, but we have no paper documentation concerning his
parents.
- Who were the parents
of the four brothers (Aaron, Moses, Isaac, and Francis) who lived in
central North Carolina in the 1760s and 1770s? We have a vague
and dubious tradition that the parents were John Saunders and
Catherine Nimrod, but the available records suggest the father may have
been Francis Sanders of Fairfax, Virginia.
- How is Lewis Sanders of
Fairfax, Virginia, related to the four brothers of Randolph and
Montgomery Counties in North Carolina? A Y-DNA connection is proven,
but the documentary evidence hints only at the possibility that he may
have been their grandfather if his son Francis was their father.
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