Despite sworn affidavits from three soldiers who came forth and testified that her son, Milas, a Union soldier, had been executed by rebels and had not deserted as the Army concluded, Lydia Ann Deason, my 4th great grandmother, was unsuccessful in obtaining a mother’s Civil War pension. I finally made my way to the National Archives to view the complete file which contained the actual pension documents from 1877 that I had learned about from author Andrew Ward. I had high hopes of learning from these documents when the pension payments had stopped. That would give me a better idea of when Lydia likely died.

Of course, I had no idea when I told the young man at the front desk what I was looking for that in the first 30 seconds of my visit he would crush my hopes likes grapes beneath an angry’s Italian woman’s feet. “We only have the application,” he declared peering into his computer screen. “It was denied.”

Well, thanks for crapping on my day.

Nevertheless, I ventured into the bowels of the Archive, filled out the standard request form and waited an hour and 45 minutes for the file to be fetched. And it was worth it. Lydia’s broken signature appears on the document! I also learned that.her husband, John R. Deason, was 68 years old at the time. That tidbit of information cleared up whether he was born in 1809 or 1810! Bonus.

Click on the image below to open a larger version in another window.

Kenfolk: Tranthams
Relation: 4th great grandmother
Common ancestors: Lydia’s parents, James and Mary (Fitzhugh) Turbeville, are my 5th great grandparents

Thrice. That’s how often the name “Lutiness” shows up in my family tree. The first instance is Lutiness Alonzo Trantham, Sr., who was my great grandfather. Having run out of doctors after whom he could name his children, he then passed the name on to his youngest son and 11th child, Lutiness Alonzo Trantham, Jr. So that accounts for the second instance.

At the risk of stating the obvious, “Lutiness” is not a common name by today’s standards. That same rule holds true of yesteryear’s naming standards. In fact, I ran a search for people named “Lutiness” on Ancestry.com and only the two aforementioned individuals came back in the results across all databases which house millions of records. It begs the question as to where my 2nd great grandparents came up with the name, considering they gave their other children much more common names – Robert Levi, Gladys Lorene, and Bennie Bell (okay, not as common, I’ll admit).

The answer I believe sits on the birth certificate of Lutiness Alonzo, Sr.’s first cousin, Lucine Bonnie Lanier. (Not to confuse the dickens out of you but Lucine Bonnie was a male whose twin sister was named Mary Tommie. My mother thought their middle names were switched at birth and I am inclined to agree.)

Anywho. Lucine’s father, who was married to my great grandfather’s aunt, Effie Trantham, appears as “L. W. Lanier” in every searchable record I could find on Ancestry. But his full name was revealed to be that of “Lutiness Washington Lanier” on Lucine’s birth certificate. There you have it. “Lutiness” was a family name of sorts.  

Lutiness Washington was born in Virginia in 1838. He married Effie Trantham in 1883 in Weakly County, Tennessee, which is also the birthplace of my great grandfather. 

Kenfolk: Tranthams
Relation: 1st great grandfather
Common ancestors: Lutiness Alonzo, Sr.’s parents, Campbell Jackson and Isadora Ellen (Sims) Trantham, are my 2nd great grandparents

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, a.k.a “Woody Guthrie”, was an American singer and songwriter who was born in Oklahoma about 1913. Born in Oklahoma in 1913, Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, a.k.a. “Woody Guthrie”, was also my 4th cousin, 1x removed. I never met either one of them. Utter joy and disbelief ran through my head simultaneously when I discovered Woody’s name in the 1920 census. Could this be real? Yes and no. He was a real person after all. But my elation, which was driven by my fascination with famous relatives, was short-lived as I realized my Woody Guthrie was not the beloved guitar-wielding Woody Guthrie who gave us “This Land Is Your Land”. Although, a few researchers on Ancestry.com decided (my) Woody who was not Woody Guthrie the musician ought to have pictures of the musician and his family attached to his profile in their family trees. Morons.

I can image my Woody Guthrie went through life having to endure jokes or comments and he probably got more than his fair share of bewildered looks whenever he signed his name. Poor guy. He died in 1983 in Oklahoma. He didn’t turn out to be the person I thought he might have been but I am proud to have him as a leaf on my tree.

Kenfolk: Tranthams
Relation: 4th cousin, 1x removed
Common ancestors: Woody’s 3rd great grandparents, John and Margaret (Greenwood) Boren, are my 4th great grandparents

Margaret Boren, my 4th great grandmother, was 90 years old when she appeared in the 1870 census in Itawamba County, Mississippi. A widow, she and husband, John Boren, had raised at least seven sons who were born in Madison County, Alabama. There is evidence, which I have yet to see personally, that John was Margaret’s second husband. Her maiden name appears to have been “Greenwood” while “Richmond” was the surname of her first husband. (Greenwood DNA matches? Yes!)

Research indicates that Margaret, or Peggy, was most likely the daughter of Joseph Greenwood, who fought in the Revolutionary War. Joseph is listed as the head of the household in records from Lincoln County, Kentucky between 1799 and 1803. It is here that Margaret and John were married in 1802. Strangely, two marriage entries appear in Lincoln County, Kentucky Marriages 1780-1851 by Lucy Kate McGee.

1. John “Bowen” and Margaret “Green” were married in March of 1802 but NO WITNESS was listed.
2. John Boren and “Margot” Greenwood were married again in April of 1814 with John Chism as witness.

The spelling inconsistencies aside, the absence of a witness in 1802 and the second entry makes me believe John and Margaret may have had to return to Lincoln County to fix the clerical error made 12 years earlier. It may have been necessary to correct this since John, a veteran of the War of 1812, would likely have had a pension coming with Margaret the beneficiary. A son, Joseph, was born around 1802 according to later census records – this supports the 1802 entry as the original.

From what I’ve read, the John and Margaret Boren family settled in Mississippi on the Natchez Trace near Twenty Mile Creek, which was in dire need of a bridge. Having seven capable sons, Margaret, who is presumably the “Granny” or “Auntie” Boren of local legend, made nice-nice with the local Indians and oversaw the first bridge’s construction. It’s no longer standing, but decades later a few of her descendants placed a monument nearby honoring her memory. (Many thanks to Catherine, 1st cousin, 2x removed, for the photo.)

Kenfolk: Tranthams
Relation: 4th great grandmother
Common ancestors: Margaret’s father was presumably Joseph Greenwood, my 5th great grandfather (methinks)

References:
McGee, L. K., (publication date unknown). Lincoln County, Kentucky Marriages 1780-1851. Publisher unknown: Washington, D.C.
Sheffield, R. B. (1984). Echoes of the Past. Itawamba Settlers, Number 1.
Sutherland, J. F. (1986). Early Kentucky Householders, 1781-1811. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company.

My quest to solve the mysterious DNA connection between the Tranthams and Myricks of Henry County, Tennessee led me to the hallowed halls of the Library of Congress this weekend. Although it is located practically in my “backyard”, I have never visited this massive monument to the printed word. The experience alone deserves its own post. With my newly-created, official Library of Congress Researcher identification card in hand, I made my way through security (several layers!) and found the books I was after.

While I didn’t solve the mystery, I learned a few new things scanning several volumes of cemetery, Bible and probate records from Henry County, Tennessee. Jason and James Myrick, the brothers who bought but didn’t pay for the horse along with Jesse Trantham, were nowhere to be found in these annals. However, I found the abstracted will of Mathew Myrick which was recorded in 1841. His son, William Myrick, was named his executor and only heir. Because of this, I know that Jason and James were (probably) not Mathew’s sons since the court case involving the horse happened just three years earlier.

William Myrick’s name showed up again later in a collection of Bible records. Listed alongside the names and birthdates of William and his children was that of his wife, Sarah Green TURNER. A ha! and A huh?

The Turner DNA coursing through my veins comes from my mother’s side of the family. So this might explain why I have Myrick DNA cousins. More research is needed to determine if these cousins descend from Sarah. The connection to Sarah, however, would not necessarily explain why my father and his sister also have Myrick-descended DNA matches.

I’ve officially stepped in it up to my knees. The quest to solve the Trantham/Myrick mystery continues.

Kenfolk: Tranthams
Relation: Still a mystery
Common ancestors: Positively not positive

 

Class is now in session. In my opinion, there are only three documents that accurately depict the often mixed-up relationships between the members of the early Trantham family. One is Lewis Peach’s 1884 letter in which he reveals most of the names of Martin and Elizabeth (Martinleer Eppinger) Trantham’s children and their spouses. The second is the 1783 will of Martin Trantham, Sr., in which he reveals that he had two sons named Martin by different wives.

The third document comes to us in the form of a 1761 deed which appears in condensed form as follows in Abstracts of Deeds of Cumberland County, North Carolina, Volume One, Books 1-3, 1754-1770.

p. 131  14 Nov 1761 John Martinleer, of Cumberland (also signed by Sarah Lear (sic)) to Martin Trantham, Jr., planter, of Cumberland, for £40 proc., 320 a(cres) on both sides of Upper Little River near Clark’s corner, between the falls and Joshua Shadrack’s land, being upper 1/2 of 640 a(cres) patent to (said) Martinleer 18 May 1754, which is conveyed to (said) Martin Trantham for his lifetime and after his decease to his heirs begotten of Elizabeth Epinger (sic).

Whew. If you had difficulty following that, basically, John Martinleer sold some land to his son-in-law Martin Trantham, Jr., with a catch. Martin’s children by a wife other than Elizabeth Eppinger would not inherit this particular piece of land.

There are four main reasons why this document matters to Trantham historians like moi:

1. It establishes – although it does not say it outright – that John Martinleer was Elizabeth’s father. Why else would he have cared about who inherited land he was selling?
2. It confirms that Elizabeth’s first husband was named “Eppinger” and Martin was not her 1st husband. Duh. But it’s important.
3. It tells us that Martin and Elizabeth were likely married in 1761.
4. My favorite bit – John Martinleer’s name was in all likelihood John Martin Leer or Lear given that his wife signed the deed Sarah “Lear”. Yeah, that makes sense. Sarah, incidentally, was John’s 2nd wife and Elizabeth’s stepmother.