52 Ancestors Week 5: Challenge

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 5:

The theme for Week 5 is “Challenge.” Which ancestor has been challenging to research? What ancestor faced an enormous challenge?

We meet again, Mount Everest.

    If you're on a genealogical adventure like I am, you're going to find challenges that either make you want to throw something at the wall or think things through rationally. Since we're all humans, I doubt many people have thought things through rationally before throwing something, hopefully soft, at the wall. As for me, I've had my fair share of challenges. Last time, I talked about researching my fourth great-grandfather, Francesco Coppola and his unknown wife. Italian genealogy can be an uphill battle sometimes. But, I have had some challenges on my mother's side of the tree even if her side is well documented.

    Meet Moses Goodwin, my 5th great-grandfather. I don't know what it is about 4th and 5th grandparents. But, they can be tricky to research depending on the area. Anyway, here's what I know about him.

    He was born in the 1790s in Maine before Maine became a state. It didn't gain statehood until 1820. He married a woman named Mary Ann Abbott in 1824 and they had six known children together including my 4th great-grandmother, Sarah.

    Now, you would think that being in America it'd be easy to research this guy and be done in time for a lobster dinner. Yeah, I thought that too before I quickly realized a problem.

    There were like FIVE people with the name "Moses" all living in the area at the same time! Someone must have looked at the 18th century edition of the "Big Book of Baby Names" and decided to name all the boys "Moses".

    I know the name actually comes from the Bible. Just hear me out. "Moses" was a very, VERY popular name that year. It's so popular that "my" Moses has had several hints on Ancestry pointing to several potential parents. I'm not going to go through them all. Several trees on the site mention Aaron Goodwin and Sally Hubbard as his parents, for example. The connection was recently proven to be false because Moses did not name any of his sons Aaron. Italians aren't the only ones with naming conventions! However, he did name one of his sons William.

    Researching Moses has been extremely frustrating and it got to the point where I had to ask for help. Over Christmas last year I put the call out to my friends over on WikiTree since we were doing a "Secret Santa" project where we'd break a brick wall for another WikiTreer. I worked on several Italian brick walls and invited several people to the Italy Project in the process. Because, why not?

    The awesome and talented Melanie McComb, who by the way is a genealogist for American Ancestors, offered to lend me a hand. Who better to help with a case than someone who has access to the keys to the kingdom? She's a great researcher and a great friend, too.

    During the whole Secret Santa event we couldn't really talk or else we'd spoil the surprise. There was even a secret chat on Discord saying "Don't peek Chris!" I laughed at that because it made it seem like I was back in high school.

    Melanie did her best to research Moses and sadly we couldn't break down a VERY stubborn brick wall. This was not her fault and I don't blame her one bit. She's still determined to help me figure things out.

    I had told her from the beginning that things were going to be tough. Moses was a hard guy to research and it didn't help that several people had the same name. She went to the archives after the Secret Santa event was over and I explained how this mess all started. I had built my tree up from second great-grandmother, Gertrude Stevens and followed her paternal line to Maine.  I soon found that her grandmother, Sarah was one of two girls born a year apart on the same day to supposedly the same father: Our friend Moses.

 

    Melanie suggested I look at my mother's Thrulines on Ancestry to see if there were any potential DNA matches that link her (and by extension me) to Moses. I did find one person and I reached out to her after checking out the match's tree.

    Everything looked good until I noticed something interesting. While he did have the Goodwins on his tree, he had some French-Canadian ancestors, too. That's when I started to get a little suspicious.

    In French-Canadian genealogy, you always want to be careful on the DNA side of things. Like a rearview mirror in a car, objects cam be closer than they appear. Quebec has a history of endogamy because once upon a time everyone lived on one street in Montréal or Quebec City. That's just how it was until the Filles Du Roi or the Daughters of the King arrived in the New World.

    At 14 centimorgans, a DNA match can literally be anything from a 3rd cousin to something even more distant. The more I looked at the tree, the more I realized that this guy was probably connected to my mom on a French-Canadian line. That idea was further cemented by the list of shared matches who all had solid French-Canadian trees.  Feel that? That's the same feeling of mild annoyance I had!

    I think Melanie could feel my frustration, too. I did the only sensible thing I could. I asked her if it'd be okay to disconnect Moses and his wife from Sarah until we figured out who was who. She said it would be fine as she did the same over on WikiTree. 

    I ended up disconnecting her on my tree and on Familysearch since that tree was a mess. A giant mess. Let it be known that I do not tolerate messes. If something is wrong, I will change things unless proof is found of a connection. It's only logical.

    If you look at Moses's page over on WikiTree you'll see that Melanie wrote some research notes. One of the things I like about the site is how we're encouraged to write biographies and make notes so that other people can see our rationale for doing the things we do.  Writing a biography can really go a long way into telling someone's story and you can use the space to show where you got your information.

    Mel outlined her research in several bullet points while I messaged several people who had Moses on their tree on Ancestry. I showed them the page on WikiTree and I actually managed to get one guy to chop off the parents he had for him. Umm....Whoops? I know that's a positive outcome considering the circumstances. But, I didn't expect that! Good on him for making changes.

Anyway, Mel put the following notes down:

* In the 1800 census, William Goodwin (age 45 and over) lived in Berwick, York, Maine.

* In the 1810 census, there was a William Goodwin (between the ages of 26 and 44 years old) lived in Berwick, York, Maine, United States.

* On 16 April 1810, Moses was involved in a civil case as a defendant against plaintiffs, John Abbot and Samuel Abbot. His occupation was noted as husbandman. 

* Moses and Mary Ann Abbott were married by Justice of the Peace, Joseph Prime. This same justice of the peace also married the following Goodwin parties: 28 Nov. 1822 - Benjamin Goodwin and Adah Stone; 10 Aug. 1826 - Shease (sp?) Goodwin and Polly Goodwin of Berwick; 29 Mar 1823 - Thomas Legro Jun. of Lebanon and Dorcas Goodwin of Berwick; 27 June 1827 - Ebenezer Blaisdell Jun. of York and Irene Goodwin of So. Berwick.

* On 25 July 1832, Moses Goodwin Junior of South Berwick with James Goodwin, Rebecca Goodwin, and Abram Goodwin quitclaimed land in South Berwick to George W. Goodwin, Cordwainer. The land was the same land that Jeremiah Goodwin, deceased, resided upon. The land was bounded by land formally owned by Micajah Currier, Sarah Adams, Thomas Jewett, and Andrew Austin. The conveyance was for 1/8 of the land, about 30 acres, that would have belonged to their late father William Goodwin deceased if he had lived. The deed was witnessed by Isaac P. Yeaton and Charles J. Goodwin. 

* In the 1850 census, Moses (age 57) lived near Jeremiah Goodwin (age 36), Amos Goodwin (age 47), and Samuel Goodwin (age 34). 

* In the 1860 census, Moses (age 65) lived next door to his son-in-law, Charles Earl, his daughter Hannah, and their family. 

    As you can see, she did a fair bit of research into Moses. She even went so far as to look into the Goodwin genealogy book. I did the same and we both came up empty.

Yet another Moses.

        Don't worry! We're not done, yet. While we haven't found "my" Moses, we have been working to make sure all the Moses Goodwins of Maine have their own pages on the website. Will there be a ton of them? Oh, yeah. There's no doubt about that. I've only mentioned two here and there's still quite a few of them floating around the Internet.

    By researching all the men named Moses we're narrowing down who Sarah's father could be. So far no wills have mentioned Sarah. That could mean anything. He could have had a falling out with her. He could have had nothing she needed as she was married at the time of his death. There are so many possibilities out there.

    That doesn't mean we're going to give up! Nah. At best the only thing we can really do is put Moses on the backburner for a while and let him stew. I'm still amazed that guy heeded my warning about Moses and corrected his mistake immediately.  I must use this power for awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I know. "With great power comes great responsibility". You don't need to tell me twice!

    So, that's Moses Goodwin. He's a brick wall on my mother's side of the tree thanks in part to the 1790s edition of the  "Big Book of Baby Names". Just think. History might repeat itself once all the "Peytons", "Brady" and "Sansas" all come of age. I feel sorry for the future genealogists. We tried to warn 'em! 

    In the end, all Melanie and I can do is watch and wait. We can put all of the information up on WikiTree for the entire Internet to see and separate every Moses we come across. I'm trying very hard to not make a "Parting the Red Sea" joke. That's just low hanging fruit. At least we can make jokes and have fun with this project. If you can't help one person find "their" Moses, then you can make sure no one else can make the same mistake twice.

    That is the power of collaborative genealogy and that is what Melanie and I are trying to accomplish. It's the least we can do because like I said there are just so many Moseses out there and not enough hours in the day. I would like the brick wall busted. But, it's a lot of work. I thank my friend for helping me with the research. It was maddening when I was going at it solo. At least now I'm not alone! Moses Goodwin may be a tough wall to crack. However, it's not impossible. Nothing is impossible as long as you have the drive to do what needs to be done. That's why I think we'll solve this together as a team and we make a pretty good team!

Now if only that power of mine worked on other people on Ancestry.....

See ya next time!