Could Samuel's wife, Jane, have had the last name Barron?
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There are several family trees on the internet that show Samuel's wife's name as Jane Barron. Using this info they take the family back several more generations. The problem is that none of them have any documentation proving the last name. What do you think?
Jim
Thanks Jim! That's funny! We've already established through the DNA testing that this relationship (going back to Drum Castle) can't be true, so someone is just grabbing tidbits off the web and throwing this stuff together. Clearly they are not researching any of their findings. I'll try and figure out where this person is getting this information. For example, they list Samuel's middle initial as "F" and I've never seen a middle initial anywhere for Samuel.
Hi Jim,
After some searching last night and this morning, I believe this information comes from Dorothy Morgan's family. There has been a renewed interest in their family history coming from her McManis and Molihan lines lately.
Dorothy was once active in the various forums and online mailing lists, but passed away several years ago. We communicated back in 2005. Her great-grandmother was a Margaret Ervin, who married a Edward Molihan. Dorothy believed that Margaret was Owen's daughter, and while Owen did have a daughter named Mary Margaret, they are not the same. Owen's Mary Margaret married David Sowards in 1876, and they remained married until his death in the 1930's.
Dorothy also would mention Oscar Ervin as a possibility. If memory serves me, Oscar was a son of George Ervin (son of Owen) and Nancy Clark. I'd have to go back and look at these relationships and dates again to see if Margaret could be Oscar's daughter, but I seriously doubt it. I'm pretty sure the dates of her Margaret and "our" Margaret were close, which led to the confusion in the first place.
I wish there was a nice way to tell these people that their straw-grasping doesn't do anyone any good...as newcomers to places like Ancestry.com look at this and think it's factual just because it's listed on there. I know! When I first started out on this 10 years ago, I made that same mistake. Thank God Sharon Peery found me when she did. She taught me so much, and I'll always be grateful to her.
I think it is Margaret's death certificate that causes the problem here. It states that her father's name is Wm Owen and her mother is unknown.
Kathie,
I was going back through some of my loose papers and ran across an Application for Letters of Administration for Edward Erwin. Edward is from the Gallia County group of Erwin's . There are several individuals listed with the last name of Owen, and I wonder if this might be a clue to finding out who this Wm. Owen is that is listed on Margaret's death certificate. I did a quick search for Owen's in SE Ohio, and found an several Owen families in Athens County. There was an Abigail Owen with a son named Oscar, which was one of the names that Dorothy mentioned, albeit it was Oscar Ervin, but still not an overly common name. Anyway, wanted to mention it.
Also, would you mind looking to see if you can get access to a book called Buckeye Prairie and Three Rivers Country Folk by Clyde F. Wright? Thought maybe the Mormons might have a copy in your neck of the woods.
Thanks,
Amy
Interesting info about the Owens. I have looked around a little too but haven't found any really good clues yet.
As for the book, I am not finding it listed in the library catalogs of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, nor the BYU library. I did find it for sale at this site for a reasonable sum:
http://www.higginsonbooks.com/ia0111s.html
Sorry to say that this particular bit of information is outside any line that I am pursuing so I couldn't say anything to confirm or deny this at all.
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HI Jim,
Is it possible to include a link to one of these family trees so that I can take a look at it? I'd be very interested in seeing this! Thanks for the heads up!