Tracking Thomas Rinehart

 

Discovering the full listing of the names of Simon Rinehart's children, thanks to the court proceedings in which they were at odds with each other, has been helpful. Finding any further information on each of those descendants has certainly not been helpful. While it was easy to find an older daughter, Sarah, by virtue of her position as my mother-in-law's second great-grandmother, finding the rest of her full siblings has been a challenge.

Tracking Thomas Rinehart, one of Sarah's full brothers listed in the court records, has been one of those more challenging searches. The main difficulty is that the Rinehart family originated in Greene County, Pennsylvania, where the Rinehart name figured among the county's earliest pioneers. It was, apparently, a family whose preference for namesakes was kept alive for generations, yielding multiple opportunities for even the most avid genealogist to be steered wrong.

The court case which erupted in 1854 concerning the validity of Simon Rinehart's will noted the whereabouts of some of his adult descendants, but was unclear on the precise residence of some of the others. Among the less clear was Thomas' location. If we take the blanket statement of the siblings living in Perry County, Ohio, we could count Thomas in with that bunch. But where was Thomas?

Using a fairly wide parameter for approximate age, I did a search for Thomas in Perry County, and found one possibility in the 1850 census. This Thomas "Rineheart" was born about 1794 in Pennsylvania, a good first sign. Among his several children were names resonant with the Rinehart line: Hannah, Jesse, and Simon. Those same names, however, echoed through the generations of this old family from TenMile Country, making it hard to confirm one namesake's specific identity.

Looking further, I found what was likely his burial location in Perry County, thanks to a memorial on Find A Grave. But was this the right Thomas Rinehart? Checking for name twins back in Greene County, where the family once lived, I could find men by that same name there. Furthermore, seeing a birth year of 1794 troubles me, as that would be barely twenty years after his father's own year of birth. Not finding a marriage record for Simon and his first wife hampers deciding on a reasonable date range for the birth of their five children listed in that court record.

There is much more to explore before I'm convinced of the certainty of this Thomas Rinehart's familial identity. Since migrations in the early 1800s usually occurred in the company of family and neighbors, Simon could have moved to Ohio among many cousins or nephews, as well as closer kin. Those listed on the same page as Thomas in that 1850 census mostly seemed to share the surname Randolph, which is not a surname I've found tied to Simon's own line—so far.

Perhaps one approach will be to create a network of Rineharts in Perry County, Ohio, and Green County, Pennsylvania, to see what connections can be found among this greater party of migrating Rineharts. This I can now easily create through Ancestry.com's ProTools options. Perhaps that will also provide the bigger picture concerning the extended Rinehart family, both in Perry County, and back in Greene County, Pennsylvania. 

When Surnames Ricochet Through their Surroundings

 

While stumped in my search for Thomas Rinehart, that son of Simon Rinehart who decided to file suit in Perry County, Ohio, against his half-siblings after his dad's death, I cast my search parameters far and wide, and came up with one tantalizing insertion in an 1847 newspaper:

Filed in Monroe County, Ohio, on May 18, 1847, by attorneys Archbold & Wire for the plaintiff, Daniel Clark, the suit named Thomas Rinehart, Simon Rinehart, Arthur Ingraham, William McCarty, and M. Marling. Thomas and Simon Rinehart are names we've already seen, and the Ingraham name—or sometimes spelled Ingrham—has been a surname linked with the extended Rinehart family back in Greene County, Pennsylvania. But why were these names being mentioned in a court in Monroe County, Ohio?

According to the newspaper insertion, a bill then pending in court, 

states in substance that said Arthur Ingraham has two judgments in said Court against said McCarty and Marling, for a large sum, to wit: upwards of eight hundred dollars. That said Arthur Ingraham is in fact the assignee of Simon Rinehart, and that said Simon Rinehart is the assignee of Thomas Rinehart, who is in truth and in fact the real owner of said judgments, and is largely indebted to the complainant; and that the assignment to Simon Rinehart, and through him to Arthur Ingraham, is a shift and device to defraud the creditors of Thomas Rinehart. Said bill prays that the judgment debt due from McCarty and Marling may be applied to the payment of his debt due from said Thomas Rinehart. The defendants Thomas, Simon, and Arthur, living out of this State, are notified to plead, answer or demur in sixty days after the close of next term of said Court, or the bill will be taken as true and confessed.       —Said term will commence on the fourth Monday in June next.

Was that our Thomas Rinehart? After all, I'm not quite sure whether he lived in Ohio or back in Pennsylvania. And Monroe County, Ohio, is a mere seventy miles from Greene County, Pennsylvania, making it close enough for the Rinehart family to have acquired land or done business in that area. (Business, indeed! The eight hundred dollars noted in that 1847 document would be worth at least thirty one thousand in today's dollars.)

Whether this is our Thomas or not, it will likely pay for me to search through court records for his name in connection with that of Simon Rinehart, as well.

Insert above from the Woodsfield, Ohio, newspaper, The Spirit of Democracy, published on page three of the May 22, 1847, edition; image courtesy of Newspapers.com. 

Situation: Stuck

 

Stuck on one clue for that brick wall ancestor? When I run into such situations, I try my best to find the answer—and when I fail, I move on. Research problems can always be revisited at a later date, especially when more resources would be required to resolve research questions.

Finding that memorial marker erected at the final resting place of Robert Smith, just as his daughter's last wishes had dictated, seemed to rip right through all the research progress I had made on tracing just that one daughter of Simon Rinehart. Simon's daughter Mary, at least according to court records after his death, had married someone named Robert Smith. But when I finally caught up with the memorial marker for the specified Robert Smith in Hocking County, Ohio, it contained the name of his two wives. And it appeared that Mary had a different last name than what I was expecting.

The name, although blurred in the photograph at Find A Grave, seemed to be Mary Ankrum or Amkrum. No matter which way it was spelled, it didn't spell R-i-n-e-h-a-r-t. Now what?

I tried looking for marriage records for Robert Smith and Mary Ankrum, including all the spelling permutations I could imagine—with a wildcard symbol thrown in for good luck. Thinking that our Mary might have been married before she married Robert, I tried looking for other marriage records for Mary Rinehart, both in her home, neighboring Perry County, and Robert's residence in Hocking County. Still nothing.

Since Maria Smith, the one whose will stipulated the erection of the memorial for her father, was the firstborn daughter of Mary and Robert, one would presume that she would know her mother's maiden name. I'd say I've stumbled upon the wrong Robert Smith and family—except I've been wrong about being wrong before. So I'm putting that search on hold for now and moving on to the rest of Simon Rinehart's children.

That strategy, however, is not working much better than my quest to find the right Robert Smith, husband of Mary Rinehart. There were two other siblings mentioned in that 1854 court record concerning the validity of Simon's will: Samuel Rinehart and Thomas Rinehart, the one who had initiated the court case disputing the will.

It turns out both of them appear to be as difficult to find as if they were surnamed Smith. But I did find one curious legal notice inserted in a newspaper about seven years before the paperwork for the 1854 lawsuit was filed. While it may turn out to be merely a coincidence that the names appeared to be related, tomorrow we need to at least take a look at who was named in that other court case. 

Looking for the REAL Robert Smith

 

When it comes to researching the family history of people possessing really common surnames, I'll admit it: I have a bias. I really don't like chasing after documents for folks named Smith or Jones. Even finding documents for the "right" Smith with the right given name in the right place can mean absolutely nothing. There may be another person by that same name, just around the corner.

That's the way it's been, looking for Robert Smith in 1850s Hocking County, Ohio. I got a promising start by discovering a statement in a court record asserting the fact that Mary Rinehart, daughter of Simon, was wife of Robert Smith of Hocking County. How explicit can this get? But finding the real Robert Smith? Now, that's another story.

Just when I had discarded one Robert Smith in that county, by virtue of his birth and family life in England, I discovered another Robert Smith in the same county. Added bonus: this Robert's wife was named Mary. I thought I had found what I was searching for, and began adding information on their children from census records, right into the Rinehart branch in my mother-in-law's family tree. 

I added Robert's wife Mary, and their seven children from the 1850 census, and was ready to follow the family lines down through the generations, when I spotted one detail that stopped me in my tracks: Robert Smith was named in an ancestral line in an application to the Sons of the American Revolution. When I followed the line of descent to the next generation, Robert's son, I saw something that didn't add up: Robert's wife's name was given as Maria Pitcher, not Mary Rinehart.

Out went all the details I had just entered in my mother-in-law's family tree. I pulled up that old delete button and slashed away, removing each of the children I had just added to Robert's family.

But after all the genealogical carnage, I had second thoughts. I went back to the 1850 census record. Sure enough, there was a gap in ages between the oldest child listed in the household—George, aged twenty five—and the next child, fourteen year old daughter Maria. Since the court records back in Perry County—the ones regarding two sets of children from different wives in Simon Rinehart's will—stated that Robert's wife was Simon Rinehart's daughter Mary, was it possible that Robert Smith was married twice, too?

I looked. Sure enough, there was an 1822 marriage record for Robert Smith and Maria Pitcher in Hocking County. And for the date of Maria's death, an old headstone in the Old Logan Cemetery reported that Maria Smith, consort of Robert D. Smith, died in 1832.

Back into the family tree went those children of Robert and Mary. As I worked my way through the children of Robert's second marriage, I ran across a will left by his daughter Mariah, an unmarried woman who died in 1873. Mariah appointed her brother Culver to be executor of her will, which contained a stipulation that, for the property he was to receive, he was to take two hundred dollars for "the erection of suitable tombstones at the graves of my father, Robert D. Smith, and his first wife."

Right next to the memorial for Robert's first wife, Maria, stood that "suitable tombstone," as Culver Smith was instructed to provide. Seeing that picture, however, made me want to start that family tree all over again, yanking the names I had just plugged back in, and looking once again for the real Robert Smith in Hocking County.

Why? Because on that same memorial stone to her father was listed not only the name of Robert's first wife, but his second wife, as well. And her name was listed as Mary Ankrum, not Rinehart.

When Searching for Smith

 

Any time I face having to research a family member named Smith, I proceed cautiously. Well, that's not entirely true; first I fervently hope I never have to run into a predicament like that in the first place...but marriages do happen, and sometimes they involve suitors named Smith.

In the case of Simon Rinehart's will, contested by the children of his first wife, I had the helpful listing of all Simon's living children, as of the 1854 date in which they had filed the lawsuit in Perry County, Ohio. Even though I was overjoyed to receive a full listing of all Simon's children—I had missed the majority of them in previous work on this family line—I noted (with dismay) that one of Simon's daughters had married a man by the name of Smith.

Groan.

To make matters worse, this daughter's given name was Mary. I guess I am fortunate that her husband's name was not John Smith.

Setting aside those complaints, I did realize that the court records specified just where Mary and her husband—named Robert Smith—had settled by the time the complaint was filed in court. Though Mary likely was born back in Greene County, Pennsylvania, where Simon Rinehart had originated, the court record identified the couple as residents of Hocking County, Ohio.

Hocking County has a history much like that of Perry County, and in fact was a neighboring county, lying to the southwest of Perry County. Just as Perry County was formed in 1818 from neighboring counties, Hocking County was likewise organized. Both gained land from Fairfield County, as well as from other nearby counties, upon their establishment.

Finding Robert Smith in Hocking County was a search that, for the first attempt, did not turn out well. I began by searching through the census record for the decade after the 1854 court case. For that search, estimating Mary's age based on the year of birth for her sister Martha, I presumed that Mary would have married a man born during the early 1800s. I made the search parameter as wide as possible on Ancestry.com, setting the target year as 1810 and expanding the range ten years in each direction.

Bingo! I found Robert Smith! But he was a man without a wife, though several older children in the household hinted at a deceased wife by 1860. Second drawback: this Robert Smith was born in England, not Pennsylvania. Though admittedly that could have been possible—after all, some immigrants from England did historically pass through Pennsylvania—I noticed that his children were also listed as having been born in England. This gave us a profile which didn't fit what I was looking for.

With a second attempt, I pulled the possible date range for our Robert Smith's year of birth to an earlier setting—but not too much earlier. I wanted a range that overlapped the first attempt, just in case I had missed something.

Sure enough, there was a second Robert Smith, also resident in Hocking County. Added bonus: in the 1850 census, he claimed to have a wife whose name was Mary. And both Robert and Mary were reported to have been born in Pennsylvania.

The children's names did not seem to echo any family names from previous generations in the Rinehart clan. From oldest household member George Smith at age twenty five down to the youngest, five year old Wesley Smith, all were born in Ohio, not Pennsylvania, giving us a date marker to estimate their arrival from Pennsylvania. This date estimate puts the Smiths' arrival in Ohio much earlier than Simon Rinehart's arrival, as Simon was still showing in Greene County, Pennsylvania, in the 1830 census.

Does this mean I've found Simon's daughter Mary and her husband Robert Smith? Not necessarily so. After all, this Robert wasn't the only Robert Smith in Hocking County. There could be more.

As I'm doing for Mary's sister Martha Rinehart Fordyce, I'll start building a proposed family tree of descendants, not just in my search for more documentation, but to scope out any possible DNA matches linking my husband's family with this Smith family.

Stepping Sideways: Sarah's Sister

 

In some ways, I can be a chicken when it comes to genealogical research. I like to move from what I know in incremental steps. And those sideways steps in this search for Simon Rinehart's children will stop first with Sarah's sister, Martha. 

Looking at those "sideways" steps—or in more accurate vernacular, collateral lines—can sometimes reveal information that couldn't be found by focusing only on a specific, direct-line ancestor. In Simon Rinehart's case, I've discovered a number of details that need to be, ahem, clarified. In hopes of stumbling upon such details, I'm planning to poke around in the lines of all his children, not just his daughter Sarah, who was my mother-in-law's second great-grandmother. 

Now that I've reviewed all that I know about Sarah Rinehart Gordon, the next step is to examine each of Simon's children by his first wife. My initial attempt, over the weekend, didn't prove successful, so I adapted a new policy: when offered additional information about a child's spouse, take that route first. Finding two people in the same household can be a far more successful venture than looking for whatever became of one single individual. Thus, the search for Sarah's married sisters.

According to the court records from Perry County, Ohio, where Simon Rinehart had died, we have a listing of each of his descendants, separated into two groups: those from his first wife, then those from his second wife. In addition, the list provided the name of the surviving husband in the case of three of Simon's children: two daughters from his first wife, one from his second.

Since we'll begin with the children of Simon's first wife, that leaves me two options—and one of those options involves searching for someone named Mary who married a man named Smith. Since I'm such a research chicken, guess which research route I didn't opt for first?

That leaves us with Simon's daughter Martha, who remained in Greene County, Pennsylvania, after her father left for Ohio. According to the court records, Martha married Jacob Fordyce, whom I easily found in Greene County records, including the 1850 census, which listed eight children in their household—though a news clipping posted on Martha's memorial on Find A Grave indicated that she had "given birth to ten children, nine of whom she reared to adult years."

It was easy to see family resonance in the names selected for two of Martha's sons—the two sons Jacob later appointed as his executors. The elder, Jesse, was likely named for an ancestor in the Rinehart family, which ancestral name had also been chosen by Simon himself in naming another son from his second marriage. The second son named as Jacob's executor was listed in his will as "S. R." Fordyce, the initials standing for "Simon Rinehart," the name of Martha's own father.

Beyond that family resonance in Rinehart namesakes among Martha's sons, though, I learned very little about Simon through this daughter—and gained no clue whatsoever to guide me in ascertaining who Martha's mother had been. However, it was encouraging to see two DNA matches from among Martha's descendants—with hopefully more to come, now that I'm building out Martha's Fordyce line of descent in my mother-in-law's own tree.

Occupation: Old Maid

 

Yes, government documents can record the most unexpected things. Take this 1870 census record I found while searching for Simon Rinehart's first family, back in Greene County, Pennsylvania. One of the easier search tasks I found was to look for Simon's daughter Martha, whom court records had conveniently identified as the wife of Jacob Fordyce. Locating the aging Martha in her husband's household, I took a look at the rest of those listed at Jacob's place in 1870. Among those at the address was one Mary Fordyce, aged sixty six—older than Jacob, himself—whose occupation was listed as "old maid."

As I work through the court documents on the lawsuit brought by Simon's older children after his death, I've apparently gleaned quite a few names from these collateral lines. It's been just one week now that I've been on that task, having wrapped up work on Lydia Miller in the previous week. Between the two efforts, my biweekly count has zoomed ahead by 523 names, all documented individuals belonging to my mother-in-law's ancestry. My in-laws' tree now contains a total of 39,810 researched people.

On my side of the family? Nada. It's been a focused two weeks. I've been pedaling through microfilmed pages as fast as I can. Even I've been surprised at how much can be gained just from the leads in a few court documents. That work has all been dedicated to researching my mother-in-law's lines, as I stick to plans from my Twelve Most Wanted list for this year. Next month will be time to move on to my father-in-law's family lines for the next quarter, so I won't be revisiting my own tree until October—unless something unexpected happens to lure me back, say, to record a birth announcement, or details from a wedding or funeral.

Still, there is one additional source of progress to consider, and that is finding new DNA matches. It seems I usually gain about twice as many DNA matches as my husband in each biweekly period, and you know I can't pass up the chance to plug those newly-discovered cousins into my tree.

As I work my way through this month's research project, focusing on my mother-in-law's Rinehart line, I have noticed one thing, though. Like Mary Fordyce, our occupational Old Maid, it seems there are several branches of Simon's many children's lines which included a greater percentage of siblings who chose not to marry.

From our vantage point, looking backwards in time through those many branches, I've wondered why only a few children of a Most Recent Common Ancestor ended up becoming a DNA match. Now that I've filled in the blanks, I can see the answer more clearly: in some families, there were more than the expected number of children who ended up unmarried. I'm finding that to be so in the lines descending from Simon Rinehart.