Establishing Relationships

When building a family tree, gathering facts about individuals is obviously important, but confirming the relationships between people is equally important. So, where can we find confirmation of those relationships – a paper trail of documents? I’d like to show here the confirmation of just one line of my ancestral tree – the connections of my paternal line going back to the original Russell immigrant. Here is the line I’ll be discussing.

·        Alan Harold Russell (1948-)

·        Vernon Harold Russell (1920-2006)

·        Erskine Harold Russell (1894-1970)

·        Louis Morgan Russell (1871-1946)

·        Walter James Russell (1852-1895)

·        Silas Russell (1803-1886)

·        Caleb Ebenezer Russell (1775-1830)

·        John Russell (1756-1833)

·        Robert Russell (1730?-1811)

This is obviously just a small part of my family tree – and one that is unencumbered by things like women changing their name when they get married, etc. But even in this small snippet we’ll see some of the difficulties involved.

For the most part I’ll be referring to federal census records. While these records, at least in the last 100 or so years are great at showing families with relationships and ages, as one goes back in time this feature changes. In particular, the column showing the relationship of each individual to the head-of-household only was added in the 1880 census. And before 1850, only the name of the head-of-household was listed with just a series of counts/tic-marks for the family members. Also, sometimes the census missed people. Finally, the entire 1890 census was destroyed in a fire. So, let’s get started…

 

Alan <- Vernon

The federal census is held for 72 years before being released. So, the 1950 census was just released a month ago. But I am old enough that I am listed in it. Here is the 1950 census showing my father at age 29 and myself at age 1 (I turned 2 a few months after the census was taken in April). So, this is good documentation as I am shown as the “son” of my father.

[1950 census] 

 

Vernon <- Erskine

Here we encounter our first problem. My father’s father separated and later divorced from my father’s mother. And my father was not yet born when the 1920 census was taken (he was born later that year). So, we have to look across multiple census reports to fully document this generational change. First, let’s look at the 1940 census.

[1940 census] 

Here we see that my father has left living with his mother and step-father and has moved in with his grandfather and step-grandmother. So, he is listed as “grandson”. But this does not give any information about the relationship between Vernon and Erskine. So, let’s go back ten years to 1930.

[1930 census 1] 

[1930 census 2] 

Here we have two separate entries. The first shows Vernon with his mother, Vera, and sister, Dorothy. So, we know what family unit he is part of. The second shows Erskine, separated from his wife and living with his father, Louis, and his step-mother (although it does not say “step-mother”, only that Helen is the wife of Louis). But we still need to see Erskine living with Vera, thus let’s look back another 10 years to 1920.

[1920 census] 

Here we finally see Erskine and his wife, Vera, together with their young daughter, Dorothy. Vernon is not there as he will be born later in 1920. But since we know the makeup of the rest of the family, we have enough proof that Erskine, Vera, Dorothy, and Vernon make up the complete family unit.

 

Erskine <- Louis

We did see an adult Erskine declared as a son of Louis in the 1930 census. But to put the whole family in proper context, we should look back a bit further to the 1900 census.

[1900 census] 

Here we see Louis with his first wife (Erskine’s mother) who is named Annie. We also see Erskine in context with his siblings, and now have certainty about his heritage.

 

Louis <- Walter

The 1890 census was destroyed in a fire. But, fortunately, Louis is old enough that we can manage to avoid needing that to establish his parentage. Thus, to find the father of Louis, we can go back another 20 years to 1880.

[1880 census] 

Here we find Louis as the oldest son of Walter and Lois as well as several of Louis’ siblings. We now have managed to go back four generations.

 

Walter <- Silas

Here we run into yet another problem. Walter was born in 1852. So, he will not be found in the 1850 census. The family was missed in the 1860 census, and by 1870 he was 18 and no longer at home. Fortunately, we have also gone back far enough that the family is now living in New York instead of Connecticut and New York takes its own census in years ending in “5”. Thus, we can look at the 1865 New York census instead of relying on the federal census. The below is in two pieces as the family spans a page-break in the report.

[1865 census part 1] 

[1865 census part 2] 

We have avoided yet another difficulty!

 

Silas <- Caleb

Thus far we’ve able to rely on enumerated census records which record each member of the family and their relationships. And by using the New York census of 1865 we have also managed to avoid the issue with the federal census records of the time which list the individuals without noting how they are related. But in the 1865 census Silas was about 60 years old, thus to find him with his father we would have to go back 45 years to 1820 when he would have been young enough to be living with his parents. However, census records from back then only listed the head-of-household with counts of individuals by gender and age-range. Fortunately, Silas was from Dover, Dutchess County, NY and there was only one Russell family in that town at the time. This family was headed by Caleb Russell. So, let’s look at the census records from the period to see if there is an individual in Caleb’s family of the right age to be Silas. (Note that I will use an interpreted view of these records as trying to show a row of tic-marks is too confusing.)

[1810 census] 

As we can see, the family of Caleb consists of seven members. These include Caleb (age range 26-44), his wife (age range 26-44), and five children (two boys under 10, two girls under 10, and one girl 10-15). Silas would be one of the boys and this is the right age range. So, while we do not have Silas’ name listed, we have found the only family in Dover with the right last name and a consistency as to gender and age-range. I’ll have more to say on this later.

 

Caleb <- John

We’re now about reaching the limits of what can be done with census records. But there is one more generation where we can still use these records. In the above 1810 census we saw that Caleb and his wife were in the age range of 26-44 and they had only one child, a girl, who was over the age of 10. So, let’s go back 10 years to see if we can find this family.

[1800 census] 

Here we have Caleb and family, not out in the far reaches of Dutchess County (Dover is right over against the NY-CT border in the NE corner of the county), but in the town of Fishkill (in the opposite corner of the county over 30 miles away – a long way back in the 1800s over dirt roads). We can be pretty sure that this is the same family as Caleb and his wife are in the age-range of 16-25 and their only daughter is under 10. So, sometime in the 1800-1810 decade, Caleb and family have moved all the way to the far end of the county.

But how do we establish a connection between Caleb and John. The answer lies in the overall census records which we see here:

[1800 census summary] 

In the above six consecutive lines of the 1800 census in Fishkill, we see families with three different surnames. They are John Russell, Jr (he is in the age range of 16-25), two Horton families, the Eager family, then John Russell, Sr (he and his wife are over 45 and he has one son in the age range 10-15), and the aforementioned Caleb. Thus, Caleb is living right next door to his father and only a few houses away from his brother John (Jr.). But let’s look at John’s will to see what else we can learn.

 

Will of John Russell

John was born about 1756 and died in 1833 at age 77. Like his father and offspring, John was illiterate. However, he dictated his will before he died. He had a total of 15 children from two wives as his first wife died in 1798. His wives and children are listed as follows (and numbered for reference below):

From Abigail: (1) Caleb Ebenezer, (2) William, (3) John, (4) Elizabeth, (5) Isaac, (6) Phebe, (7) Robert W, (8) Abigail

From Anna: (9) Lee, (10) Abijah, (11) David, (12) Margaret, (13) Sophia, (14) Naomi, (15) Levi

In his will, he names all his heirs starting from those in the same town and moving further away as follows (with added numbering and modified punctuation/spacing to make this long paragraph easier to read). Also note that his daughter Elizabeth married Isaac Smalley but she passed away 14 years earlier in 1819 – so I have numbered her children as (4a)-(4g).

Anna Russell, his widow; (7) Robert W Russell; (10) Abijah Russell; (11) David Russell; (9) Lee Russell; (15) Levi Russell; (13) Sophia Robinson wife of Adonijah Robinson – children living in the said town of Kent in Putnam County;

(4a) Isaac Smalley, (4c) Zachariah Smalley, (4e) Freeman Smalley & (4f) Polly Townsend wife of Stephen Townsend – grandchildren & heirs of the said deceased also living in the said town of Kent;

(2) William Russell – a son living in Fishkill in Dutchess County;

(14) Naomi Ganong wife of Jesse Ganong; & (8) Abigail Russell, daughter of the deceased – living in the town of Carmel;

(3) John Russell & (5) Isaac Russell, sons of the deceased living in Tomkins County;

(12) Margaret Barrett wife of Holmes Barrett, a daughter of the deceased – living as is believed in Tioga County;

(6) Phebe Wixon wife of John Wixon – living as is believed in Genesee Count in the town of Castile;

(1) Ebenezer Russell whose residence is unknown;

(4b) Abbey Cole wife of Levi Cole a granddaughter and heir at law & (4d) John Smalley a grandson & heir at law living in Michigan Territory; and

(4g) James Smalley a grandson residing in Philadelphia.

Of note for purposes of this research that John does not know where Caleb Ebenezer is. He had moved from living next door to the far end of the county over 20 years earlier (sometime between 1800 and 1810) and in fact had died three years before in 1830. His widow is now living with one of her children and she will continue to do so until her eventual death in CT at the age of 90 in 1872.

 

John <- Robert

For this last step we again have to refer to the will left by Robert when he passed away in 1811. Robert and his wife had six children (far less than the 15 which John had), so this will is a little easier to decipher. These children are named in his will as follows (I have left out the actual bequests):

… son Abijah Russell … daughters Jane Utter and Margaret Russell … son John Russell … son James Russell … children of my daughter Elizabeth Barrett …

Like the situation with John whose daughter, Elizabeth [Smalley] had predeceased him, here Robert’s daughter Elizabeth [Barrett] had predeceased Robert. In addition, Robert’s wife had predeceased him so she is not listed here.

 

DNA Confirmation

There can be a couple of questions in the above analysis. Can we use DNA to confirm what I have presented here? The Ancestry ThruLines feature is interesting in that it can show who in your family tree you have DNA matches through. Looking at the children of John Russell (1756-1833), I have DNA matches through several of his children – Robert W (2 matches), Phebe (4 matches), John Jr (2 matches), Elizabeth (2 matches), William (1 match), and Caleb Ebenezer (5 matches). Having a total of 16 DNA matches through all these children of John seems pretty conclusive that the analysis I have presented here from myself back through John is accurate. While this DNA technology is unable to be used back any farther (for example to find matches through John’s siblings and thus confirming that Robert is John’s father), the will of Robert is detailed enough to give me confidence in that connection as well.

 

Conclusion

Finding “proof” of genealogy connections going back to the 1700s is not a trivial exercise. But it’s analysis such as the one presented here that, while time consuming, is helpful to establish one’s “roots”. And it keeps my mind active as well!