This week’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun topic from Randy Seaver is frustrating for me because of a lack of records in the place and time period:

1)  What are your major genealogy challenges – the family mysteries that you haven’t been able to crack to date? 

2)  Tell us about five of your real genealogy challenges with a short paragraph, and link to blog posts if you have written about them.

I won’t even go into the Carpatho-Rusyn side of the tree, forever stopped at 2X great grandparents because, aside from church registers, there are no other records in which to search. For them, the beginning of time was 1828.

However, sticking with the maternal side of my family tree and the Stufflebean trees, there are lots of other challenges from which to choose. Working from most recent back in time, here are my five:

1. What was the maiden name of Catherine (c1760-after 25 November 1840), wife of Loyalist Robert Carlisle (c1755-1834) and who were her parents/siblings? It’s particularly frustrating because ThruLines has suggested that her father is “British General John Starks/Starkey,” a person who never existed. General John Stark was an American general from New Hampshire and his family is well documented. A researcher in Nova Scotia suggested that Catherine might not even have been part of a Loyalist family, but instead a daughter of an early settler. I’ve written about Catherine and my maiden name conundrum more than once.
2. Who are the parents of Loyalist Robert Carlisle? Directly tied to Catherine (MNU) Carlisle is the ancestry of her husband, Robert Carlisle. He first appears as a British soldier defending Fort Cumberland, then Nova Scotia, today New Brunswick, Canada in 1776 against an American siege. I’ve never found so much as a tiny clue about siblings or any definitive information about his parents. When I’ve come across similar situations in a couple of other family lines, I rightly suspected that the ancestor’s father might have died soon and the ancestor either had no siblings or only had sisters and the mother remarried. Last year, I wrote about a possible connection, which remains unproven, but no facts have come to light to discard my theory either so it is still a possibility.
3. Who were the parents of Mary Jane Adams (c1850-1932) who married Abraham Dulworth, 1883, Clay County, Tennessee? This is an annoying challenge for two reasons. First, for someone born in the early 1850s in the U.S., it’s a bit unusual to not be able to determine parentage. However, the Dulworth line is a bit tricky because Abraham’s and Mary Jane’s daughter, Matilda Jane Dulworth, was born fourteen years before her parents married and they had at least five other children before they married. I’ve written about Mary Jane Adams and believe that James Adams could possibly be her father. The second annoying aspect to this family line is that Mary Jane Adams is my husband’s mtDNA line. I was hoping for some clues to come from matches there, but, so far, nothing.
4. Who was the mother of Joseph Michael Nation (17 March 1836-28 June 1907)? Mike, as he was called, was the son of Henry Nation, who married three times. Henry married three times and the names of his first two wives are unknown. Mike was the third child of Henry and his first wife, who would have married c1830, probably in Tennessee. There were three boys and one girl in the home in 1840, but by 1850, Mike was the only child still there. That would lead me to believe that the two other boys might have died young. It’s possible that the girl married in her teens, but I’ve found no other evidence of their survival. I even pondered whether there might have been four wives, plus some maiden names.
5. Who was Sarah (MNU), wife of Loyalist Walter Stewart from Dutchess County, NY to New Brunswick, Canada in 1783? Walter and Sarah probably married about 1784 in New Brunswick, Canada. This is the same time and place as Catherine (MNU) Carlisle and the Stewarts probably married in Saint John, not long after arriving in Canada. Their first apparent child is my ancestor, John Stewart, but it’s also possible that his parents married in New York, not long before leaving in the Fall Fleet of 1783. I’ve written a lot about the Stewarts, including when I first learned Walter’s first wife, Elizabeth Briggs, had no surviving children.

That’s it for my top five challenges. Thanks, Randy, for this week’s topic.