Writing up your genealogical argument...and the Jamboree

At this point, all I am doing to prep for the next Richardson post on the blog is setting up all the documentation that I have pulled together.  Some analysis is included, and some of the documents are rather straightforward.  Right now I am just working on, essentially, bullet points.

BUT! It certainly makes you get all your ducks in a row.  Some of my citations I have had in my genealogical software forever, which makes it really easy to drag them into the word processing document I am writing up.  Some documentation has been in my possession since I started my genealogical journey, and I have never written the source citation for them, and the data they contain has never been entered into my database.  With some data I assumed things that I then needed to double-check, and I learned something new.  (For example, a Leyden, New York comes up in Wikipedia search, but does not come up using Rootsweb's Town and County database.)

I have spent today working on these posts and watching live web casts of sessions at the Southern California Genealogical Jamboree.  I am so lucky that I got to view some of these programs, and for those that were not live streamed, I can view some of the syllabi via the Jamboree iPhone app.  I wish more had been streamed, but I will take what I can get.  Though apparently an 8:30 am session is early no matter the timezone: I was super mad at myself for missing Mr. Bittner's Complex Evidence talk this morning!

< smacks hand >

Though I will say that the soundtrack for Snow White and the Huntsman composed by James Newton Howard has been great blog-post writing music.

(c) Sara Gredler, 2012

Richardson - problem ancestors (DAR Application)

Sigh. I don't know what to do with these guys. They aren't rascals, like The Legal Genealogist's George Washington Cottrell. They are a simple, post-American Revolutionary family that lived in western New York and didn't leave a lot of records but left A TON of descendants. And give me a headache.

I have been working on gathering the descendants of man known as Jonathan Richardson. According to a DAR application (and a second one recently accepted under the same documentation), this Jonathan Richardson (b. abt 1743 (possibly Massachusetts), d. bef 1829 (probably Livingston Co, New York)) married a woman named Hannah Warren.  He and his family moved to Livonia, Ontario Co, New York (now Livingston County) around 1804-1806, probably from Leyden, Hampshire Co, Massachusetts (now Franklin County).  It appears that they had at least three sons (Jonathan, Joseph, and Daniel); I posit a 4th (John) based on family histories stating that my 4th great-grandparents were first cousins, but there were almost certainly other children.

This Jonathan Richardson supposedly served in the Revolutionary War.  The DAR application gives his service in the following detail:

• In Quebec, 1776, and at Ticonderoga with New Hampshire Forces (typed)
• Served with the Green Mountain Boys - Maj. Brown's Detachment (handwritten)
• Served with General Arnold - Col. Ethan Allen - Seth Warner @ 4 July 1775 [sic] (handwritten)
• Pay roll on Captain John Parker's Comp [sic] (handwritten)

Sources cited for this military service:

1. Pension Records
2. History of the Revolutionary War, New Hampshire Sate Papers, Vol. I, Vol. IV, pp. 172, 176, 177.
3. Misc. Revolutionary Documents of New Hampshire, Vol. 30
4. NH State Papers by Batchellor, pp. 435 439 [sic]
5. New York in the Revolution by Roberts pages 61 and 62

I won't argue this point currently - but I am unclear as to how the same name/different person scenario is resolved here.  Jonathan Richardson is not the most uncommon of names, and I have been unable to find a pension record for him specifically that may answer some of these questions.

Thanks to a wonderful online cousin, I now have all of the documentation used for the last two generations of the DAR application (i.e. Jonathan Richardson and one of his sons, in this case, Jonathan Jr).  A section of the application is for a list of the "Children of the Revolutionary Ancestor" besides the one through which the applicant descends.

This application gives the names of six children: Jonathan, Lemuel, Daniel, Francis, Joseph, and Elijah, and states that they are proven through the "Co Hist."

Looking through all the sources given on the application for those generations, including the three county histories - I find nothing on the wife or the children of Jonathan Richardson. *SIGH*

I am not trying to fault anyone's research or take anything away from my wonderful cousin that just got her DAR application approved, but I am somewhat irked.  Where did this information come from, and why can't I find it anywhere?  Who are these three other sons Lemuel, Francis, and Elijah?  They don't appear to be in any records in Ontario or Livingston counties with their Richardson relatives.  There are no Richardson families in Leyden, Massachusetts in 1810, approximately five years after I posit that the entire family moved.

A forthcoming post will establish all the evidence that I currently have on the Jonathan Richardson that lived in Livonia, New York in the last years of his life.  As for the DAR application, my next step is to make a request from the DAR for the supporting documentation for Jonathan Richardson.  Hopefully they will have something in their files to help me.

(c) 2012, Sara Gredler