Saturday, April 13, 2013

Saturday Night Fun Elusive Ancestor


Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 


1)  We all have elusive ancestors - those persons that we cannot connect to parents or children, or a wife without a known surname.  Identify one of those elusive ancestors, and how they are related to you..

2)  Tell us what you do know about your elusive ancestor - what events, dates and places do you know for them?  Who did they marry, what are the names of their children?

3)  What research do you plan to perform to solve your elusive ancestor problem


Well our gene society has just formed an Irish research group, so I will do my very old Irish brick wall. His name is Thomas D. Kelly and according to the family bible he was born April 25, 1827 near Louisville, Kentucky, and he died at Trenton, Grundy County Missouri March 1, 1896. He married Margaret Josephine Forsyth October 10, 1854 near Ursa in Adams county Illinois.
They had six kids: Robert Forsyth Kelly (my great grandfather), John Dudly Duncan Kelly, Thomas Junior Kelly, Mary Violet Kelly, Charles Bryan Kelly and Margaret Ann Kelly. 

Margaret Josephine Kelly was the fifth child of Robert Forsyth a War of 1812 veteran and survivor of Dudlys Defeat in the battle for Fort Miegs. Notice one of the sons is John Dudly, named for the commander of the defeat of the Kentucky Riflemen. 
Margaret also inherited her fathers farm and estate even though she was the second daughter and had three older brothers. The battle for the estate is very interesting reading. 
The same bible that gives all the information on the family also documents  the family going on a wagon train to California when the Civil War started and then coming back to Illinois when the war was over, so no Civil War records for Thomas. 
I need to work on records in Illinois to see if they give any clues to the parents of Thomas Kelly.

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