Family Finder Gift Just Keeps Giving

Some gifts just keep giving. My Family Finder match, the one from page 51 of my match list, Family Finder finds Family Bible, has really started something. As he has shown me the way to breaking through my brick wall, I have been simultaneously exhilarated and humbled by the responses of readers on Facebook. I think my colleague from across the Atlantic, Brian Swann, hit the right note to describe my feelings when he commented, "Napoleon said the quality he prized above all in his generals was to be lucky." 

My connection with my genealogical benefactor is extremely fortuitous and also illustrates the fickleness of atDNA matches. Two of my first cousins have more significant matches with my benefactor than do I. However, for a variety of reasons which I will try to analyze later, he contacted me. 

Not only did he send me scans from the family Bible of my 2nd great-grandfather, he told me where my 3rd great-grandparents were buried. FindaGrave provided tombstone images for John, Susannah and Thomas Adams. Based on the almost identical background in each of those images and the similarity of the style of the stones, one easily could be led to assume that Thomas had a close relationship with John and Susannah even though it appears that he was more than four decades older than John. 

John Adams (1789-1849)

Susannah Adams (1792-1834)

Thomas Adams (1743-1828)

I sent a link to my recent blog post yesterday to my newly discovered third cousin -- once removed. Almost immediately I received a return email with more goodies attached. These documents seem to solidify relationships of Thomas as the patriarch of this Adams family in Madison County, John as his son and Isaac as his grandson. Previous to last month Isaac was my earliest known Adams ancestor.

Inventory of estate of John Adams conducted by Isaac Adams.

Will of Thomas Adams (page 1) which lists 4 children including John.

Will of Thomas Adams (continued - page 2)

Thank you Family Finder even if you did bury our match information 51 pages into the results. And thank you cousin for finding it anyway. Also, thanks to you and your mom for collecting and preserving these treasures. Between the information "chiseled in stone" and that is in these estate papers, I can go back even one more generation than was recorded in the family Bible.

Family Finder finds Family Bible

Last month I had a totally serendipitous great find that got me past one of my priority brick walls. Wish I could tell you about the clever search strategy I employed to pull this one off. However, it just fell into my lap. My greatest contribution was placing my lap in a very fortuitous location -- on the Family Finder results page at FTDNA. In retrospect that placement did not appear to be very carefully planned. It was on page 51 of my list of matches there -- not a place some of us eagerly scrutinize every day. 

However, my match had other ideas. His "find" was brought to my attention in an introductory email:

I noticed in my family finder “matches” that we share common the ancestors Isaac & Patsy Adams.  If I have figured this right, that would make us 3rd cousins once removed.  

It got my full attention because Isaac and Patsey (REEVES) ADAMS were indeed my 2nd great-grandparents. I had recently found Patsey's ancestors but had had no success with the same for Isaac. I immediately verified that my match had calculated our relationship exactly correctly. I was spurred on by the brief second paragraph of his email to me: 

I have the Isaac Newton Adams family bible in my possession.  It has birth dates for the children.  If you wish I can make you a scan of those pages.

This Bible was copyrighted in 1834.

According to the above information this Bible was purchased by Isaac Adams in Richmond, KY within a few days of his marriage to Patsy in December, 1834.

So much for the preliminaries. Inside the Bible was some great family information:

Birth dates for Isaac, Patsey and their children. Death dates for Isaac and Patsey. 

Parents names for Isaac & Patsey.

Additional children and grandchildren.

Based on the Bible information I was able to find tombstone images for Isaac's parents John and Susannah (PLOWMAN) ADAMS in the Red Lick Cemetery near Duluth, Kentucky in the southeastern corner of Madison County.

In the marriage records for Madison County for 1808, "Consent: William Williams, Guardian of the Bride" suggests that Susannah's father was probably dead before her marriage to John. Guardianship records are now high on my priority list.

DNA did not directly give me the identity of my 3rd great-grandparents. However, it did lead the person to me who had the Bible that had that information. Our match only totaled 32 cMs and the longest segment was 10.5 cMs. However, I'll gladly take it. Thank you Family Finder and a diligent 3rd cousin - once removed who connected the dots for me!