Sometimes Life Hits You Like A Ton of Brick Walls

For the past 6 years, two mysterious individuals have been hanging out on my family tree…no parents, no subsequent census records beyond 1920, not even a hint from another tree.  I felt bad for Ruben and William.  It appeared as if they were orphaned at a young age and now they are somehow orphaned within my family tree.  So let me back up and explain the plight of these 2 brothers and how their existence probably caused more confusion than answers.  It actually starts with another enigmatic relative in my tree, my 2^nd great grandmother Roselia Rogers (née Howell).   

Roselia has always been a bit of a family mystery until recently.  Family accounts were often conflicting about her origin, parentage and lineage.  My grandfather once told my father that she was born in Gates County, North Carolina.  In actuality it was her mother Jane that was born in Gates County.  Roselia was actually born in Nansemond County, what is now Suffolk, Virginia.  It was believed that her father was a white farmer who went to Gates County and brought his bride back to Nansemond.  This report is actually partly true.  Both of Roselia’s parents were free people of color (FPOC), however her father, William “Billy” Howell, Sr., was born to a African American woman named Lydia Howell and a Caucasian minister in the Upper Parish of Nansemond County named William A. Jones.  Jane was born to African American woman named Celey/Sally/Celie Howell and unknown father whose surname was Small.  For years I couldn’t find any information on my 2^nd great grandmother Roselia prior to 1880.  I had a marriage certificate and census record, but not much else.  I surmised for a long time that perhaps she was born into slavery.  It wasn’t until I decided to take a closer look at a few other family rumors and accounts to see if I could find the truth and untangle a web of confusing information.

My 2nd great grandmother Roselia's story was confounding. What stood out to me was a story that Jane married a Caucasian male and somehow made her way to Nansemond County.  This led me to believe that if the story were true, Roselia was a FPOC.  History has taught us that before the Emancipation Proclamation, the status of a child was that of the mother.  If the mother was a slave, then the child was a slave.  If the mother was born free, then the child was born free.  If the mother was manumitted prior to giving birth, then the status of her children would be that they were free as well.  A slave couldn’t legally marry and a slave certainly couldn't marry a Caucasian person.  He or she definitely couldn’t just pick up and move to be with a loved.  So I asked my father if he knew anything about the Howell surname.  He gave me two names, James and William.  He wasn’t sure if my grandfather told him if the father of Roselia was named James or William, although he leaned more toward James.  So I added the name James Howell to my tree.  It was completely erroneous and was the reason why I couldn’t overcome the Roselia Howell brick wall.  It wasn’t until I went to the Library of Virginia that I saw her death certificate on microfilm and I was able to correct the error and begin tearing down this brick wall. The find led me to the marriage bond of her parents, which confirmed that both were FPOC's.

I remembered another rumor my father mentioned regarding my 2^nd great grandmother and her parentage.  It was possible that she may have been a Boon/Boone or possibly a Wilkerson.  Both were plausible since there was a young woman by the name of Penny Boon living with Roselia’s parents in 1850.  She was more than likely kin or someone that they had taken in.  Three of Roselia’s sisters actually married into Boon/Boone families of Nansemond County, Virginia and Gates County, North Carolina.  This could have been the reason for the rumor and the reason for the confusion.  I could confidently say she wasn't a Boone/Boon and scratched that theory off the list.  There were just as many Howells in both counties as there were Boones/Boons.  It probably explains why I have a lot of Boone DNA matches, particularly from northeast North Carolina.  

Source Citation

Year: 1850; Census Place: Nansemond, Virginia; Roll: M432_962; Page: 175A; Image: 349

The Wilkerson possibility started to shape up a little, at least it had for the past 6 years, prior to the documents that I have now.  It was thought that Roselia had a brother, who was named George Wilkerson and that George and Roselia married into the Rogers family:  Roselia to Peter Rogers and George to Frances “Fanny” Rogers.  It also explained the 1880 Hertford County, North Carolina census.  Both couples were living in the household and Peter and Roselia were notated in the census as brother-in-law and sister-in-law to George.  My father thought the census taker mis-identified Roselia.  We didn’t take into the account that identification was indeed correct.  Peter was indeed George’s brother-in-law and by effect, that rendered Roselia as his sister-in-law.   George and Roselia weren't siblings.  So I thought perhaps she was taken in by the Wilkerson at a young age.  I'll explain this theory shortly.  Another puzzling detail was that Fanny and George had a newborn son that was about a month old accounted for in the census.  No name was recorded in the census. 

Source Citation

Year: 1880; Census Place: Manneys Neck, Hertford, North Carolina; Roll: 967; Family History Film: 1254967; Page: 372C; Enumeration District: 068; Image: 0731

Little did I know that this nameless child was the key to tearing down a brick wall.  As the years went by and several trips to the Library of Virginia, I started to amass more information on Roselia.  I figured out why her existence seemed to be non-existent before 1880.  Roselia was an orphan too!  Just like William and Ruben.  Roselia’s mother, Jane, died 11 months after giving birth to Roselia.  Just 1 month shy of Roselia’s first birthday.  Roselia did have older sisters, but her sisters weren’t old enough to care for her.  Roselia’s eldest sister, Elizabeth was roughly 13 years of age when Roselia was born.  Elizabeth was probably entrusted to care for her younger siblings, but little Roselia was probably just too young and probably needed a nursemaid.  Her mother’s death coupled with being an infant, would explain the absence from the 1860 census.  Perhaps she was taken in by a relative?  Perhaps a Boone/Boon relative.  Maybe the Howells were related to the Wilkersons?  It didn't seem likely.  I actually lean toward Boone relatives taking care of her as there were known Boon families living near the Howells in Nansemond County and there was a known kinship with the Boones through various marriages.  The logical explanation is that Roselia was taken in by other family members or perhaps close friends of the Howells. Roselia does not surface in the 1870 census which makes the evidence circumstantial.  It was if she didn’t exist for the first 19 years of her life. 

As I explored Roselia’s parentage and her siblings, my attention turned back to Ruben, William and the nameless Wilkerson baby boy in the 1880 census.  Ruben and William were killing me.  Literally killing me!  If I couldn’t find out where they had been after 1920, I wanted to know from where they came.   Who are the parents? They were Wilkersons.  They were Wilkerson living with Peter and Roselia.  They were Wilkerson nephews to Peter and Roselia…but HOW?  I knew that Peter’s sister Fanny Rogers married George Wilkerson and the pair had at least 8 children that I could identify.  Perhaps the Wilkerson nephews were grandnephews.  Fanny would have been beyond child bearing age and George more than likely died before the birth of the boys.   The only logical explanation is that Ruben and William were the grandchildren George and Fanny and the grandnephews of Peter and Roselia.  So I went back to the 1920 census.  I started scouring the page and there it was!  Geneva Wilkerson!  There was a girl named Geneva Wilkerson on the same page living in the household of Sam and Irlene Long.  She was listed as their granddaughter.  I knew I had hit genealogy gold.  She was the right age.  Perhaps she was the boys’ sister!

Source Citation

Year: 1920; Census Place: Newsoms, Southampton, Virginia; Roll: T625_1915; Page: 19A; Enumeration District: 217; Image: 569

It all started to make sense.   I added Sam and Irene to my tree and connected an unknown Wilkerson child as an in-law and an unknown Long relative as a child to Sam & Irene (spouse to the unknown Wilkerson).  After a couple of hours of adding additional people to the tree, I was able to find the marriage record for a Thomas Washington Wilkerson and Jenny Eva Long.  Thomas was born in May 1880!  He was the nameless Wilkerson baby boy on the 1880 census.

Source Information

Ancestry.com. North Carolina, Marriage Records, 1741-2011 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.

I cross referenced the date that the census was taken which was June 10, 1880 with the birth date on Thomas’s marriage and death certificate (coincidentally the Justice of the Peace was Samuel Pretlow Winborne who is connected to my Winborne Family), and he was born one month prior to the June 1880 census…just as the census taker had notated.  Jenny and Thomas had at least 3 children that I could identify William (b. 1908), Ruben (b. 1909) and Geneva (b. 1913).  Their mother Jenny died in 1914. I take solace in knowing that although the siblings weren’t in the same household, that they were living next door to one another.  At least they weren't separated in distance.  I imagine that they could see each other every day. Thomas moved to Gates County about a year after Jenny’s death and remarried while leaving his children behind with relatives.  His 2^nd wife, Lou Mary Wilkerson (née Eley) died 357 days after they were wed.  They had a daughter who died 2 months earlier.  Thomas moved to Portsmouth, Virginia where he worked as a Longshoreman and laborer at a lumber mill, before settling in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and marrying a woman by the name of Minnie.  I wasn't able to find much about Minnie other than she was roughly 20 years his junior.

The biggest lesson that I’ve learned to incorporate in my research is that you really need to look at the census records for neighboring relatives/ancestors and additional clues.  I’ve done this several times before with other branches of my tree, but if I would have been a little more in tune and little more experienced 6 years ago or even if I just thought to go back over my tree 3 years ago, I would have discovered Geneva a lot sooner and I would have known that the name of Roselia's father was William and not James.  I'd like to think that I would have been able to connect the dots a lot sooner. 

So here are my suggestions to further your research and break through those brick walls:

• Turn over ever rock and chase every lead
• Ask your elders a lot of questions and document what is said
• Don’t take everything that your elders say as the gospel truth.  Some of it will be the absolute truth, some will be half-truth and some of it will have very little truth
• Find other angles for circumstantial evidence.  If one angle isn’t exactly going your way, formulate another hypothesis for the evidence
• DNA evidence is your friend.  I was able to confirm Roselia’s father was William Howell via DNA evidence.  I know that she was neither a Boone nor Wilkerson and that she was indeed a Howell