Disaster

One of my longstanding brick walls has been my Irish immigrant ancestor Michael Lynch, who came to the United States by way of London about 1840.  I found him in the 1850 census enumeration for Brooklyn, New York (like a needle in a haystack!) and in the January 1851 baptism record for his daughter Elizabeth (my 2nd great grandmother).

I spent years trying to find any further record for Michael.  According to the 1855 New York state census, his wife Elizabeth and their three children were living with her brother Peter Gallagher in Brooklyn.  Why?  And, where was Michael?

All was revealed when I stumbled across this article from the 13 January 1854 edition of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

The article got one detail wrong.  Michael's brother James was unmarried.  It was Michael who left a wife and three children after drowning in the East River.  He was about 44 years of age.

#52Ancestors

Prosperity

Seasoned genealogists know certain federal census enumerations include columns that measure your ancestors' wealth.  For example, this extract from the 1860 census of Campbell County, Virginia, shows my 4th great grandfather Richard Morgan owned real estate worth $12,610 and personal property valued at $53,355.  So, his total reportable assets were $65,965.

Note, these figures were somewhat subjective and did not include other important assets like cash, receivables, stocks, bonds, etc.

But, they do serve as a handy way to determine relative wealth (pun intended).  Scrolling thru a few pages, you can quickly see how your ancestors stacked up when compared to amounts reported by their neighbors.

You can also calculate the relative value of these assets in modern dollars.  Several widgets are freely available online, just run a Google search. For this example, I used the CPI Inflation Calculator at this link.  It reported Richard's reported assets in 1860 were worth a little more than $2 million in today's money.  Not too shabby!

By 1870, though, Richard's reported asset value had dropped to $20,461, approximately $400,000 in modern currency.

Why the precipitous drop?

Simple answer: The Civil War.  

More complicated answer: In 1860, "personal property" values included slaves.  Fortunately, they were emancipated in 1863.  

#52Ancestors

Favorite Discovery

I've been working on my genealogy since junior high school, so there have been many big discoveries along the way.  But, far and away, my favorite came in November 2018 when I discovered a half sister.

I had my DNA analyzed by ancestry.com a few years earlier.  If you've done the same, you know they list your matches in order by number of shared centimorgans (a measurement of distance on your chromosomes).  Usually, it's pretty easy to figure out who the first few matches are.  Initially, my "top 5" were my mother, my uncle, my aunt, my dad's cousin Karen, and my mom's cousin Sharon.  After that, it took a little genealogical sleuthing to figure out who the other matches were.  And, it gets progressively harder to ID people as you work down the list--especially if they don't link a family tree.

Anyway, after the initial burst of activity, I got in the habit of checking for new matches every week or two.  I almost automatically scrolled down to skip past my "top 5," because they never changed.

Until November 2018.

Shortly before Thanksgiving that year, another name had pushed my parents' cousins down the list.  And, we shared a whopping 1,632 centimorgans of DNA.  Ancestry.com estimated this person was a first cousin.

Unfortunately, this mystery newcomer had attached a pseudonym to their results.  So, their name was not readily apparent.  All I could immediately discern was this person was a female and that she managed an unlinked family tree, but none of the names made any sense.

Ancestry's "shared matches" filter allowed me to rule out my mother's side of the family.  This new person only matched my father's relatives, both on his father's Morgan line and his mother's Macy line.  So, perhaps the prediction was correct, this was one of my paternal first cousins.  I only have two of those, though.  And, I was quickly able to determine it was not one of them.

Then it occurred to me, this may be a previously-unknown child of one of my uncles.  (My father had three brothers.)

I reached out to the mystery person with a private message, and she responded fairly quickly that she was an adoptee.  So, the names on her unlinked tree were for her adoptive parents.  I was almost convinced she was a long lost first cousin at this point, until she told me her age.  She was two years older than me.

My father's brothers were all younger than him.  They would have been young teenagers at the time she was conceived.  My cousin theory was still possible, but then it dawned on me she might be my half sister.  My father would have been a junior in college during the critical time frame . . . 

At that point, I consulted Blaine Bettinger's shared centimorgan project's latest Relationship Chart.  According to his data, 1,632 cm is too high for a first cousin.  Instead, that number indicated this mystery match was either my paternal aunt (typical range 1,349 to 2,175 cm) or my half sister (typical range 1,317 to 2,312 cm).

I dismissed the aunt theory immediately.  My grandmother would have been 41 at the time of birth, not impossible.  But, if she had delivered a healthy baby girl (a) it would have been noticed and (b) she would never give her up for adoption.  She had yearned for a daughter after having four boys.

So, she must be my half sister.  

Long story longer, my match's biological mother is still living and appeared on her match list.  After comparing notes, the relationship was confirmed.

We met in person in February 2019, and there was no doubt she was family.  She looks just like the "Macy girls."  I was able to introduce her to our 90 year old grandmother, two great-aunts, and an uncle during a mini family reunion.  My dad would have been bursting with joy.  

I also gave her a sixteen-generation family tree, so she could keep track of all her newly discovered relatives.  She loved it, and took it to work with her for "show and tell" after the reunion (picture above).

Hands down, my favorite genealogical discovery!

#52Ancestors

Same Name

If you've ever seen my signature, you may have noticed the Roman number five ("V") that I always add like a punctuation mark at the end.  That's right, I am the fifth guy in a direct line of descent to carry the same exact name.

Originality is not our family's strong suit, at least when it comes to choosing names.

Pictured above is the original William Swinney Morgan, from whom I inherited both the great name and the even greater moustache.  

We have an abundance of stories about the original WSM.  He drove cattle along the Chisholm Trail.  He married the girl next door.  He built citrus packing mills.  Etc., etc., etc.

But, where did HE get the name that he passed on to four successors?  What was the source of that odd name "Swinney?"

Well, it turns out he was named after a cousin named William Daniel Swinney, II, who died (at age five) the year he was born.

That cousin had been named for his grandfather, a wealthy tobacco merchant named William Daniel Swinney.  Mr. Swinney not only employed WSM's father James Morgan as a broker, he was also his mother Martha (Brown) Morgan's uncle by marriage--twice over!

Mr. Swinney was married firstly 29 November 1819 to Catherine Brown, daughter of Rev. Henry & Elizabeth (Gaines) Brown of Campbell County, Virginia; and a sister of Martha (Brown) Morgan's father Rev. Richard Gaines Brown.  Sadly, Catherine died soon after the marriage.  She and Mr. Swinney had no children.

Swinney married secondly 6 February 1826 to Lucy Ann Jones, daughter of James and Catherine (Stith) Jones of Campbell County; and a younger sister of Martha (Brown) Morgan's mother Agnes Walker Jones.  They settled in Glasgow, Missouri, and had two children: Kate and Oswald.  The latter was father of WDS II.

The original WDS was born 4 September 1798 in Campbell County, a son of William Swinney (1773-1841) or Rustburg, Virginia.

WS of Rustburg was named for his father Benjamin's brother William Swinney (1756-1812) of Prince Edward County, Virginia.  This William furnished supplies to the Patriot cause during the American Revolution, and is a qualifying ancestor for those seeking membership in the DAR.  (Ancestor #A111761).

As yet, I have been unable to determine the namesake of William Swinney of Prince Edward.  So, I can only say my unusual middle name traces back thru ten generations.  And, it not only comes with a lot of stories, it is also a source of pride.

#52Ancestors