52 Ancestors Week 33: Troublemaker

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 33's theme is "Troublemaker." There's one in every family. If you don't want to write about a literal troublemaker, how about an ancestor who has been troublesome to research?



On my mother's side of the tree, I've had a few ancestors of mine who have been a bit troublesome to research. It wasn't that they were brick walls or anything. However, some ancestors such as Sarah Currey and Mary Abbott DEFINITELY fit the bill! Amy's right. Researching women in the family tree is no easy task. I would talk about them. However, I have something else planned! Did you know that someone can be both a troublemaker AND troublesome to research?

Jeremiah Felker and Elizabeth Fellows

It's true! I've talked about this guy quite a few times in the blogs. In fact, he probably will show up later and will keep showing up until the end of time. His name is Elias Felker and he was my 4x great-grandfather. Here are the cliff-notes about his life to help you get started:

* He and Martha Smart conceived a child out of wedlock as both cheated on their spouses. That child was Jeremiah Felker, my 3x great-grandfather.

* Elias had a paternity suit filed against him by Martha's father, Jeremiah Smart.

He definitely fits the definition of troublemaker. But, you know there's two sides to every story. We don't know what really happened in the 1800s and what the real circumstances were unless I were to get the actual court records or somehow discover time travel. That would be so cool. Brick walls would become obsolete.

Okay. So, you understand why this guy may have been a bit of a troublemaker, right? He cheated on his wife, Polly Brock and seemed to be a wee bit of a scoundrel....and not the Han Solo kind. What makes him so hard to research?

Elias's marriage to Polly.

Well, there's no real birth record for him for one. At least none that I can find on my own. Check his WikiTree page. I have him born around 1800 because I'm honestly not sure. The earliest record I have for him is his 1820 marriage record to Polly. Though, he MAY have served in the War of 1812. I am iffy about that. VERY iffy. Skeptical Chris is very skeptical.

For a while, Elias was a bit of a brick wall because I couldn't find anything about him. I had thought he was some random guy who had a fling with Martha and disappeared into the night. That was certainly how one of my DNA matches described his life. He came into town, cheated on his wife and supposedly died in 1844.

We found his death certificate and even a page on Find a Grave. In total, I have about twenty-two sources linked to him and none of them directly say who his parents were. Various censuses like the 1840 had him living alone in Epping, New Hampshire. It was weird that I could only find assorted odds and ends about this guy's life. I thought I'd never find his parents and that was it.

I then asked my friends on WikiTree for help and my friend, Laura made it a mission to help me in any way possible. Seriously, she was amazing. She looked up various people with the name "Elias Felker" and reported back what she found in censuses.

Around that time, I happened to find Jeremiah's death certificate in Haverhill. That's when I found something kind of shocking!

The man listed as his father wasn't his father!!

Jeremiah died in 1918 and on his death certificate a man named Joseph Felker was listed instead of Elias. I said to Laura that this was odd. Elias should have been listed along with his mother, Martha. I asked her if there was a mistake and if Joseph was actually Jeremiah's grandfather.

We did some digging and found a Joseph Felker living in Barrington, New Hampshire in the 1800 census. And check this out. Elias was ALSO living in Barrington, NH in 1800. That, my friends, is a smoking gun. Actually, it was more like a fire alarm. But, why argue over metaphors?

We had to make sure that there were no other Felkers in the town at the time and there wasn't any as far as we could see. To further cement this, Ancestry.com rolled out Thrulines which show how you may be connected to a DNA match.


Thrulines are only as good as other peoples' trees and are good research guides. They'd be better served by combining DNA information and traditional genealogy. In my case, they've been decent up to about the 5th great-grandparent level. That's where things tend to get a little dicey for me.

That said, I checked out my mother's Thrulines for Joseph Felker and she has a 5th cousin once removed who shares 14 centimorgans with her. He apparently comes from one of Elias's brothers. More research is needed. However, DNA does not lie.

The Thrulines wasn't what sealed the deal for me, anyway. What really drove the point home were the traditional genealogical finds. The census reports, the few Felker families in Barrington, NH and other small bits of information served as concrete proof that Joseph was Elias's father. I honestly hated jumping through hoops trying to find his father, who by the way ended up being a soldier of the American Revolution! The DAR record doesn't show Elias.

I forget what gave me the conclusion that Joseph WAS Elias's father. But, I do have to thank and give a HUGE shout-out to WikiTree's Laura Bozzay for helping me build this tree and figure this guy out. I couldn't have done it without her. It just goes to show that two heads are better than one and when you have a genealogical puzzle sometimes an extra pair of eyes is something we all need.

I just wish I had to go through so many hoops to get information on him. That's life, I guess. See ya next time!