I have a very extensive family tree which I maintain in Ancestry.com. I’ve also had my DNA examined and put there to help find relatives. I’ve tracked down most of my close relatives, so I know that there are no incidents of hidden relatives. But I had stopped looking at the distant matches because they are so extensive. My paternal grandmother’s father was an Ashkenazi Jew and because of the frequent inter-marriage between members of that group of individuals I have over 2500 people who share a small portion of my DNA.
However, I recently got a text message
from one of my 3rd cousins, Pat, who also is active in using
Ancestry.com. The first few lines of her text were “This is an Ancestry
question for you. I had a new match today for Alexander _ @ 39 cM. He is
showing 3rd great grandparents as Benoni Slocum + Phebe Russell in
Dutchess, NY.”
I
checked, and as Pat indicated, found that Alexander was also in my list of
distant matches. I have a 37 cM DNA match with him. Since Pat and I share 119 cM
of DNA and the amount of match goes down by about 50% with each generation,
that means that Alexander is about 2 generations farther up the tree, making
him a 5th cousin to both Pat and me.
The
Russell family line
Our Russell line in the US began
with Robert Russell (1730-1811) who was a poor, illiterate Scottish farmer who
came to the US around 1750 and settled in the Hudson River valley of NY. His son,
John, was born in 1756 and served in the local militia during the Revolutionary
War. John’s son, Caleb (1775-1830) was the oldest of what would eventually turn
into 15 children of John. Caleb and his wife Parmea had 10 children, one of
whom was Silas (1803-1888). Silas’s youngest child was Walter (1852-1895), who
is the common ancestor of Pat and me. He is our great-great-grandfather. So, if
Alexander is connected two generations farther up this tree, he would have been
descended from Caleb.
I had investigated all the children
of Caleb and Parmea, but information is somewhat scarce as they lived in the
far eastern corner of Dutchess County, NY, and they were illiterate farmers.
The primary records available were the US census records of 1800, 1810, 1820,
1830. But these census records only listed the name of the head-of-household
with tic marks for each individual in the family by gender and age ranges. In
many cases, especially the men, I was later able to find them married and
living nearby, but since there were no recorded marriage records for this family,
it was more difficult. There was one female who was in the 0-10 range in the 1810
census and in the 15-40 range in the 1820 census, but absent thereafter. I had
recorded her as Unk Russell, born about 1805-1810 in order to fit her into
those ranges, but had no other information about her.
The
Slocum Family
Alexander’s
surname was of Italian origin, so he would not be connected to me via DNA
through that side of the family. However, his mother’s maiden name was Slocum
and that part of his family line also came from Dutchess County. He had recorded
the name of his great*3 grandparents as Benoni Slocum and Phebe/Phibi Russell
(note that names were often recorded phonetically). There was no information
about Phebe’s parents. And there were many other references to Phebe/Phoebe/Phibi
in other places, but there was no reference to her parents in any of those
trees.
Later
records such as census records and a death record all showed her as being born
around 1807, 4 years before her husband, Benoni. So these were all consistent
with the possibility of her being the same individual as the Unk Russell in my family
tree who was born somewhere in the 1805-1810 timeframe. But could I either
confirm my belief, or at least gather enough information to give an indication
beyond a reasonable doubt?
Confirming
my Suspicions
Other than being of the proper age
and being in the same county, what else could I find? I went back to the census
records of 1810 and 1820 for Caleb Russell that I had used to get an age estimate
for his Unk daughter. But rather than look at just the single line for the
Russell family, I looked at the rest of that page. And there was my first bit
of “proof”. Living only 9 houses away from Caleb was the line for David Slocum,
the father of Benoni. That was true in both those census records – taken 10 years
apart. So the children of Caleb and the children of David would have grown up
knowing each other, going to the same small schoolhouse, etc. While Caleb’s
daughter was four years older than Benoni (as confirmed by later census
records), they would still have been friends for many years.
I also discovered one other “coincidence”.
Caleb had a younger sister, Phebe. This sister had gotten married around 1805
and thus changed her name from Phebe Russell to Phebe Wixson. So when Caleb had
a daughter just a few years later, he could have easily named her in honor of
his sister.
Phebe and Benoni Slocum married
around 1830 (the reason she was not found in the 1830 census). They had their
first child in 1833. Thus, it’s quite possible that they were on their
honeymoon in 1830 which is why neither of them appear in the census records for
that year.
Conclusion
While
I have no definitive “proof” that Benoni Slocum’s wife was Phebe Russell, I
have more than enough evidence to make this conclusion. Not only was she born
in the appropriate timeframe (4 years before Benoni), but she lived not just in
the same county, but right down the street from her future husband. And her
father would have just been honoring his younger sister who had the same name.
I would not have had the impetus to
do this investigation into the life of my great*4 aunt except for the DNA match
from Ancestry. I would have not had a
reason to do the investigation of this DNA match as it was buried deep within
the 2000 DNA matches from my Ashkenazi Jewish ancestors except that my cousin,
Pat was no hindered by this and saw the new DNA match being posted.
So, welcome to my new 5th
cousin, Alexander – the latest identified member of the extended Russell
family!
