Relatives at RootsTech 2023 - A new 3C2R and a 3C3R

Since my previous post from just a few days ago, a new 3rd cousin twice removed has appeared! As with my other ones, this one is descended from one of my great-grandmother Jane Belle Bodie's siblings. In this particular case, it's a direct descendant of her sister, Susan Caroline Bodie, who married an Adams. (Jane's 2nd husband, my great-grandfather Edmund Manley Martin, was originally married to another member of the Adams family.)

I already had in my files Susan's son James Sumpter Adams, and his daughter Viola Regina Adams. I have her husband, but apparently I misspelled his last name! I did not have their son, who died in 1981, and that son is the grandfather of my new relative. This led me to the son's obituary, which named his children, so I was quickly able to figure out the path to my new relative!  One interesting detail: Viola's husband and son were Sr. and Jr., but the son dropped the "s" off the end of the surname.

At the 3rd cousin level I currently have only one remaining Relative, a 3C3R. This one comes down from Jane's brother Andrew Jackson Boddie (different siblings used different spellings of the surname). I used genealogical records to take Andrew down to thru his daughter Narcissa to her daughter Mary Elva (her husband had my new Relative's surname), so I was able to fill in all the gaps down to the new Relative.

Next up: 4th cousins.

Relatives at RootsTech 2023 - 3rd cousins twice removed

We now get back to my apparent 3rd cousins twice removed.

The first Relative is someone who I had seen in my list from the previous year, and he carried the Bodie surname that I have researched for more than 30 years. I already had his father in my database, so all I needed to do was add the Relative himself.  This gave me the opportunity to add spouses to the father and grandfather, which I didn't already have names for. And I generally find that I can trust someone for their own parents and grandparents, although as I learned yesterday, they can still get two different people confused in the Family Tree, so I still need to be careful.

The next Relative indicated that they were a descendant of my great-grandmother's sister, Mary Edna Bodie, who had married a Hazel. I had 11 of their children, but was apparently missing 2 of them. One of their children was named Darling Hazel, which reminded me of when George and I discovered that he also had a Darling Hazel in his own family tree (the father-in-law of one of his relatives). It turned out that the two Darling Hazels were grandsons of the same Darling Hazel! I was able to follow her side of the family tree down to her using obituaries.

Another Boddie descendant (again, from a sibling of my great-grandmother) was already in my tree, so I didn't have to do anything extra to verify our relationship.

The last 3C2R was a descendant of my great-grandmother's sister Anne. I already had the Relative's grandmother in my tree, so all I needed to do was add her mother and herself. Adding her mother was no problem, but I don't have enough information to add the Relative herself (I'm unsure of her full name). But I feel confident of the relationship.

Relatives at RootsTech 2023 and a return to the FamilySearch Family Tree (Days 1 and 2)

Two years ago during the month of March I shared a daily series of blog posts (linked to from The Genealogy Squad Facebook group) about my efforts to fix my ancestors' entries in the FamilySearch Family Tree.

This time, I'm going to take advantage of the extension of time that Relatives at RootsTech 2023 is available (now continuing until June 1). Each day I'm going to go through one of my closest relatives and verify the paths from us to our common relative.

I have over 12,000 Relatives listed, 98% of which are supposedly related to me through my maternal grandfather's mother, Jane Belle Bodie. I've done a lot of work on the Bodie family over the past 30 years, taking it back to the immigrant 17th-century Virginia ancestor and forward in time to countless descendants. So it shouldn't be too surprising that I would have a lot of Relatives on those lines.

So I went through my 2 closest Relatives (both 3rd cousins once removed) to see if I could verify their relationship to me. But in both cases, it didn't work out.

In one case, the Relative was listed as descended from a Benjamin Elonzo Smith who was given as the son of Wade Allen Crouch and Mary Edna Bodie. There were several problems. First, the records either indicated that the first name was Bennett or Ben, never Benjamin. But second, and more importantly, the Find a Grave entry transcribed his death record which gave the names of his actual parents (a father named Smith and a different mother). And third, my related couple had a daughter who was born a few months before Mr. Smith, so he could not have been their child either. I detached Benjamin from my relatives, attached him to new parents, and notified the Find a Grave manager that they should fix his first name.

In the other case, the Relative's grandfather appeared to have the right name, but while her actual grandfather was born in 1910 and died in 1993, my relative was born in 1912 and died in 1980. It appears that two men with the same name (and relatively close birth years) were confused. So I contacted the Relative to suggest that they connect their mother to the right man.

While not an encouraging start, I expect that things won't be so bad on the next ones.