I'll have a small amount of time to work on my own families while leading our second annual research trip to Salt Lake City's Family History Library this coming May, so I've decided to work on one of my wife's families. She's been wanting to join the DAR, so I decided upon two lines that will be the easiest to prove descent from. Each have problems.
The first line begins with a Benjamin Jones in the Carolinas. The problem is attaching him to an Aquilla Jones who ended up travelling through Tennessee and Missouri. The case I have seen so far is somewhat circumstantial and I have to make certain I have the right Benjamin Jones. The line of descent from Aquilla to my wife is fairly solid.
The second line begins with Conrad Wickiser who served from Pennsylvania. I think his service is pretty solid and the connection to his son Abram is as well. Abram left no will or probate records, but a series of land records in Ohio seems to indicate one of his daughters was Lucinda Wickiser Kile, who later lived in Mercer County, Illinois.
The problem comes a couple of generations later. Lucinda's daughter Nancy had several out of wedlock children. They are fairly well documented, but there are no birth records for the children, but several records indicate Nancy was their mother. The problem will be convincing others of the connection.
So in my spare time I'm organizing my information on these two lines and looking at the card catalog for the Family History Library for these two families and will work on them hit and miss as I can. The organization is something I'm encouraging our trip participants to do. The hit and miss aspect of it I'm not.
There is still room on our May 2007 trip to Salt Lake City's Family History Library for those who've never made the trek to the world's largest genealogical library.
