Have I mentioned that when I first became interested in genealogy I was shocked to hear folks who were much more experienced than I say things like “I’ve been doing family history for 30 years.” I remember thinking to myself – quite arrogantly in retrospect – “What is taking you so long?”

I get it now.

The farther back you go, the harder it gets. I am not ready to throw in the towel but good grief almighty.

For the last several months I have been racking my brain trying to unravel a mysterious DNA match whose name is Ann Sheldon. I have no idea if that’s her real name but she hasn’t bothered to respond to my repeated requests for info. So if she reaches out to me here to complain about my posting her name, I’ll happily remove it. Fat chance!

Anywho, Ann shares DNA with my dad and has more DNA matches in common than some members of his close family. Ann is in the 4th to 6th cousin range which is why that’s an usual number of shared matches.

After months of painstaking research I am able to group the shared DNA matches into one of three categories:

1. Descendants of Nathanial Sweat and Sarah Jarrell
2. Descendants of Grief Whittington and Rebecca Gilliam and other Whittingtons
3. Others – meaning I haven’t yet found a common ancestral couple or they have no trees on Ancestry

I believe I have solved group #1. If I travel up Nathanial Sweat’s tree two more generations, I find Lucy Turbeville, who is my 1st cousin, 9x removed. Lydia Turbeville was my 4th great grandmother and they both descend from Richard Turbeville so there’s one possible connection. But I am not convinced that is the only connection.

Like Ann, the shared DNA matches are in the 4th to 6th cousin range based on the amount of shared DNA. But having Richard Turbeville as the common ancestor puts them in the 8th to 10th cousin range. Thus my skepticism that Richard is the only connection.

Enter the Whittington matches. The folks who share DNA with my dad and Ann and descend from Whittingtons also share DNA with other descendants of my 5th great grandparents, Martin Trantham and his wife Massey, my favorite brick wall. The intriguing part of this is that the Whittingtons migrated from South Carolina to Amite County, Mississippi. The relevance is a bit convoluted but I’ll try to explain.

I have hypothesized that Martin Trantham, as a young man and veteran of the Revolutionary War, ventured into Mississippi while it was still under Spanish control — we know at least one Martin was there with three children – probably his father — but that he, Martin Jr, returned to South Carolina sometime after 1790 just in time to learn that he’d missed the deadline to file a land claim for military service rendered (fact). I have further hypothesized that he met Massey while in Mississippi and either married her there or back in South Carolina.

While Martin did not go back to Mississippi that I know of, his brother Robert did and settled in Amite County — which is where we also find the aforementioned Whittingtons.

Now, DNA does not lie but it’s not always forthcoming with the truth either. If Massey, or Martin for that matter, was related to the Whittingtons, which is what the DNA strongly suggests, and the Whittingtons are somehow related to the descendants of Lucy Turbeville, it means the following:

My 3rd great grandparents, Robert Floyd Trantham, and Rebecca Deason, whose mother was a Turbeville, were likely related. How closely related? I don’t know. Not a shocker, though, because families tended to move together and intermarry with one another. I may never know for sure but it sure is fun to speculate.

Kenfolk: Trantham
Relationship: Unravelling
Common ancestors: Yes