A Red Herring

Week 49: #52 Ancestors – Oops

By Eilene Lyon

Yes, even experienced researchers sometimes make mistakes! Here is one of my recent bloopers.

The principal protagonists in my gold rush book are my 3^rd great-grandparents, Henry Zane Jenkins and his wife Abigail Gummersall Bedford. I know quite a bit about Henry’s mother, Ann Widdifield Zane, and her family, but next to nothing about his father, David Jenkins.

As for Abigail, I know next to nothing about her mother, Jane Thompson. But thanks to a genealogy book on the Atkinson family, I know quite a bit about her father’s origins. Thomas Bedford’s mother was Abigail Atkinson. His sister, Abigail Bedford, married a man named Joseph Gummersall. Hence the name of my ancestor, Abigail Gummersall (Bedford) Jenkins.

Unfortunately, the Atkinson book is focused on the family in England and gives short shrift to the ones who came to America. Therefore, I have scant information about Thomas Bedford’s life once he immigrated.

The only narrative I have on Thomas comes from one of his granddaughters, Florence Bedford Wright, daughter of William S. Bedford. Writing about her father’s role in the Underground Railroad, she said:

“Among those acting as conductor was a Friend, William S. Bedford, by name, who had probably inherited his abhorrence of the system from his father, Thomas Bedford, who as early as 1786, shortly after his landing from England, threw up a lucrative position in Charleston, S. C., because his conscience would not allow him to direct or use slave labor, thereby so incensing his uncle, by whom he was employed, that he refused to pay him anything for the labor already done, upon which he started to walk to Philadelphia, stopping in Virginia and Maryland to teach school, thus helping himself forward.”¹

That uncle was Joseph Atkinson. The genealogy has this to say about him:

“Of Thorne [England] ; grocer. Later of Charlestown, South Carolina, America, where he became a Member of Congress and married the daughter of the then Governor of Charlestown.”²

Though they belonged to the Society of Friends, I have not found a marriage record for Thomas and Jane. Their marriage date in 1796 came through another grandchild, writing to the Indianapolis Sunday Star in the early 20^th century.³

Thomas and Jane Bedford relocated from Philadelphia to Springboro, Ohio, in 1831, a few years after the Hicksite/Orthodox split.⁴ The Bedfords were Hicksite Quakers. Several of their children had already moved to Springboro (including Abigail and Henry), though one or two of their adult children remained in Philadelphia.

I do not know what sort of work Thomas did in Philadelphia. His sons became carpenters, bricklayers, blacksmiths, so it could be that he was in the trades. I found a city directory listing for a Thomas Bedford who was a painter and glazier and that seemed a likely fit, though this name was not unique.⁵

The city directories have varying occupations for different Thomas Bedfords over the years. They are not at all consistent. It’s possible my Thomas was not listed sometimes for some reason. And if I had taken the time to look, I would have found the painter/glazier still residing in Philadelphia in 1833, after Thomas and Jane had moved to Ohio.⁶ I did consider it possible that they returned to the city.

Family notes indicate that Thomas and Jane both died in Springboro about 1846. However, census records indicate that Jane was a widow in 1840, so I knew that Thomas died prior to that date.⁷ I expected the answer to my query would be found in the Springboro Monthly Meeting minutes. When I looked for these minutes in Family Search under Warren County, I did not find them.

The originals are kept under lock and key at Wilmington College in Ohio. My attempt to have a professional genealogist look at them for me turned into a fiasco. My intention to go there on a research trip this past spring also blew up for obvious reasons.

This past summer, I finally found Henry and Abigail’s wedding announcement in a transcription of Poulson’s American Advertiser, compiled by the Pennsylvania Genealogical Society. I decided to look in these records and see if I could find a death notice for Henry’s father, David Jenkins. No luck, but I did come across this notice for the death of Thomas Bedford, the painter/glazier.

“February 10, 1837. Died, on the 8^th inst, in the 72d yr of his age Thomas Bedford, Painter and Glazier, for many yrs a respectable citizen of Northern Liberties. Funeral from his late residence 114 Dillwyn St.”⁸

According to my records for Thomas, this man was the right age, in a plausible occupation, and in a plausible location, if he had moved back to the city from Springboro. (The family had previously resided in the Northern Liberties part of the city.) I thought it must be correct, and of course I passed it along to a couple of cousins.

WRONG!

A different search path in Family Search finally turned up a digitized (but not indexed) copy of the Springboro minutes I’d been so anxious to see. Reviewing it page by page, I finally turned up Thomas’s actual death record, along with Jane’s and descriptions of their burial locations in the Springboro Friends Cemetery.⁹ As a bonus, the record also reflects Jane’s maiden name, Thompson – the only official record I’ve found confirming this information.

Oops! Quick retraction to the cousins and correction to my Ancestry tree.

Plugging the information about Thomas’s death date and exact age at death into an Age Calculator gave me a birth date for him of February 3, 1765.¹⁰ That exactly matches the records I have for Thomas Bedford, son of Abigail Atkinson and Isaac Bedford of Essex, England.¹¹

Feature image: Thaxted, Essex, England, birthplace of my 4^th great-grandfather, Thomas Bedford. (Wikimedia Commons)

Thomas Bedford on Ancestry.com.