Relatively Speaking Blog

When I was younger and I drove through Pleasant Unity with my mother, she would often point out a house up a long driveway where her grandmother Mary Frances, known as Fannie, grew up. The house was owned by Fannie’s grandfather Joseph Blackson. My mother mentioned Fannie spoke about growing up in Pleasant Unity as a girl although my mother couldn’t recall the details; my impression was that Fannie’s childhood was not the happiest. Fannie was illegitimate and her step-grandmother did not look favorably on her.

When I first became interested in genealogy nothing was known about Fannie’s parents except that her mother was one of Joseph Blackson’s daughters. Her death certificate listed no parents, and if Fannie knew anything about her beginnings, it was something she did not discuss. Other Blackson descendants had no more information than we did.

The circumstances surrounding Fannie’s mother were highly speculative as family lore had several versions. We knew her mother was young and unmarried when she got pregnant in the spring of 1861; Fannie was born in February 1862. On the events that happened afterward, one story mentions Fannie’s mother ran away from home, and a variation was she went off with a traveling salesman—nothing indicated whether this man was Fannie’s father. A different version suggests Joseph disowned his disgraced daughter and threw her out of his house but agreed to raise Fannie. Another account mentions she married a Mr. Sherbondy. One detail appears to be accurate: Fannie was left behind and never heard from her mother again.

With not much to go on, I wanted to find what I could about Fannie’s mother. The first step was to identify which of Joseph’s daughter’s was Fannie’s mother, a task that would be relatively easy. Joseph had five daughters: Louisa, Mary, Catharine, Permillia, and Eliza Jane. I began to review documents for him and in the 1860 census three of his girls were still at home: Catharine age 14; Permillia, 12; and Eliza, 10. Catharine seemed the most likely to be my 2nd great grandmother.

Joseph died in November 1888 and his obituary listed that he had 14 children, with 8 children living who would have been four sons and four daughters. Two years later when Joseph’s estate was being settled, his heirs had to sign a release authorizing the attorney to sell property. When reviewing the children on this record, only seven were listed. Of the daughters, Mary had died in 1861—her heirs were noted; Louisa, Permillia and Eliza were married and signed the agreement with their husbands. Catharine, however, was not mentioned. I was certain now that Catharine was Fannie’s mother, but I wanted to find evidence to document this and also to find out what became of her.

The name Sherbondy was the only traceable clue in the tales, so I pursued this lead. It had been passed down over the years, but family members could not identify where this detail came from. I began searching records for Catharine with both Blackson and Sherbondy surnames. Census, marriage, death and other records produced no results likely to be for my ancestor. Without more concrete information, such as where she lived, what name she went by, or whether she predeceased her father, the paper trail for Catherine held little promise. A different tactic would be needed to find her.

I took a DNA test some years ago. In the beginning there were only a few tools to help analyze DNA matches, plus I was a bit green about how to use DNA for genealogy. I looked at my matches, but unless I could identify how I was related, I spent little time studying them. Occasionally when common surnames were posted in family trees by my matches, I added a few notes as a reference for future researching.

About five years ago I revisited some old matches with notes and stumbled upon one that had “Blackson/Thomas from Kansas.” Ancestry had added a calculation for relationship, and predicted this match as likely 3rd cousins, which meant we might share 2nd great grandparents. I reviewed the tree for this distant cousin and saw a Catharine Blackson who married Joseph Thomas. I wondered if this was the Thomas family on my paternal side that I knew little about? Or could this be Fannie’s mother? I messaged my match and waited.

Several months passed without a response. My DNA cousin had not logged into ancestry for a while, so I did not know whether he had received my message or had forgotten to answer it. In the meantime, I looked at some new matches and found a few who had the same ancestral couple of Catharine Blackson and Joseph Thomas in their trees. As I delved deeper into these DNA matches, I noticed that they were also shared matches with known cousins who were related to Fannie. My excitement grew as this confirmed the DNA was on my mother’s side, and all things indicated this was Fannie’s mother.

I needed to be sure, so I began researching this Thomas couple and their children. I found them in the census and on FindaGrave.com. Although the trees listed Catharine, all the documents I found listed her name as Adeline. I began to wonder whether this was the same person, did Catharine have a middle name I was not aware of, or did she use an alias after leaving home.

Then several more of Catharine’s descendants tested and appeared in my DNA match list. I messaged a couple of them with a very general message. After all, Catharine’s daughter, Fannie, was probably a surprise they did not expect to find with a DNA test. Luckily one of Catharine’s great great-granddaughters responded; coincidentally, about this time the first DNA match I messaged responded as well.

These cousins were able to provide me with some basic information about our shared ancestor, as well as an image of her. A death certificate for Adaline Thomas listed her father’s surname as Blackson. An obituary gave some background information on her. It stated she was born in Westmoreland County PA, on April 15, 1844. (I suspect her actual birth year was 1846, making this the 175th anniversary of her birth.) Although neither document listed her parents, these had enough corroborating evidence along with the DNA results to establish Catharine Adeline was Joseph’s long lost daughter. The obituary also mentioned Adeline married her husband in 1865. This was three years after Fannie was born. What Catharine did between leaving home and her marriage to Joseph remains a mystery.

As for her husband, Joseph Thomas lived in Pleasant Unity when Catharine was young. He was married and had moved to Illinois before 1860 where he lived with a wife and six children. What became of this first family is unknown; online searches for them return no clues. He and Catharine were married five years later, but how they became engaged is unclear. By 1870 they were living in Putnam County, Indiana with three children. Over the next 21 years, Catharine and Joseph had fifteen children total and they settled in Dickinson County, Kansas. Having such a large family may have tempered the suffering she faced in her early life of leaving her first child. It is reassuring to know that she found stability and lived a long life.

After many years of wondering about Fannie’s mother and no luck with standard research, DNA was the key. It connected me with distant cousins who unlocked some long unanswered questions about Catharine and her fate. What happened between Catharine and her father is still speculative and the rift between them probably never mended. My family certainly felt this gap as she was erased from the family tree. I am grateful that I can return Catharine’s name to her rightful place in my pedigree as my 2nd great grandmother and honor her life, especially in April, the birth month of Catharine Adeline Blackson.