So, I have been reading an interesting book entitled “Psychic Roots” by Henry Z. Jones, Jr. Please don’t think I looking to find out if I am psychic, it discusses intuition when researching family history. Many people have relayed stories to the author about how their being in the wrong place at the right time or just having a “feeling of being lead” to check out a source that doesn’t relate to what they have been researching.
I can honestly say that I understand and have experienced this type of “feeling” during my research as well. My grandmother, Reba Thomas Love, was a descendant of the Thomas family that has been in Wayne County, Indiana since 1816. Grandma would often tell stories about her family and her ancestors and what she remembered hearing growing up. One particular story that was told to her by her grandfather (Joseph Howard Thomas) was about a female Thomas ancestor who went to visit family in Troy, Ohio. She road from Cox’s Mill area (now Middleboro) on horseback, taking with her their youngest child. While visiting with relatives, she died. No known records or accounts exist to where she is buried or what happened to the child that rode with her.
Wanting to understand more about my history, I began researching to see if I could verify this story. The biggest problem was that each of the Thomas forefathers were buried next to their wives in Goshen Cemetery. The Thomas family had been involved in the United Methodist Church at Middleboro for well over 100 years. Not knowing the Quaker connection was there, I had never researched any records. The Thomas family and relatives are quite extensive in the oldest section of the cemetery, which used to be a preparative meeting for Whitewater and Chester Monthly Meetings. So… I took a chance to see if there were Quaker connections. The “cold chills” moment came when I opened the book directly to the entry listing the information I needed. Not only did I find when they transferred to Whitewater MM, I was also able to trace them back to verify them coming from Centreville, Delaware. The biggest surprise was to learn that John Thomas had a 1st wife whom most of the descendants for the last 100 years knew nothing about. She seemed to be the ancestor who died while visiting relatives. In reading further I discover that he married his 2nd wife Elida C. (Miller) Harned in March of 1825. Since the 1820 Indiana census lists a woman of Elizabeth’s age living in the household, information narrowed a window between 1820 and 1824 where his 1st wife, Elizabeth, would have passed away.
The next step was trying to figure out what the names of Elizabeth’s parents. John Thomas and his 1st wife Elizabeth were the parents of our Thomas family in Wayne County. Their only son to live to adulthood was James Peirce Thomas, who followed his parents to Wayne County in 1817. It seemed a common practice that many of the sons were named after the wife’s fathers or other male relatives, I took the hunch that it was possible that Elizabeth’s maiden name was Peirce and that her father’s name may have been James. Once again I stumbled across a “goose bump” citation that dealt with cousins by the name of Hannah Whitaker and Sarah Addleman that were named Peirce prior to their marriages. Others had verified their connection to the father of these women, his name being James Peirce, but there was never any mention of a sister named Elizabeth. These families all lived in very close proximity to each other and something kept nagging me to pursue the information.
Finding a copy of James Peirce’s will dated 1802, in Chester County, Pennsylvania, was pretty easy. It listed his wife Hannah (Way) Peirce and his daughters Elizabeth, Sarah and Hannah, but no mention of their married names. After locating his wife Hannah’s will in Deleware, dated 1812, everything fell into place with John and Elizabeth (Peirce) Thomas being listed in her will. My “intuition” in this situation was correct… and yes… again with the goosebumps! Now the family lines are traced back to George Pearce in the 1630’s in England. Longwood Gardens in Chester County once belonged to the Peirce family. After locating more information more Quaker records verified more locations and places the families lived and attended church.
Then the final piece of the puzzle fell into place when I discovered Peirce relatives that had moved to Miami County, Ohio and were members of West Milton and Union Monthly Meetings. There was a death in the family in October 1821 and his widow remarrying in December of 1822. Oh, by-the-way, her Peirce relatives lived less than fifteen miles from Troy, Ohio!
All I can say is that I do believe that divine providence guides my research and my educated hunches. Now… if I can just find such a “hunch” and locate the John Thomas ancestral line past his father!
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