Review : A Stranger and a Sojourner: Peter Caulder, Free Black Frontiersman in Antebellum Arkansas by Billy D. Higgins

Oh.  My.  Gosh.  Ya'll.  This book.

There are really two parts to genealogy research to me.  One is the facts. When they were born, when they died, where they lived, who their people were, etc.  The other is their story... how did those facts line up to create a life and what was that life like?  How did the surrounding story of the area blend with their individual story to create a narrative of their lives?  It is often really, really tough to pull a story out of the facts.  John Turner and his wife Patience are one of those that are tougher than others.

John Turner was a person of color,  and further, he was a former slave so there are virtually no records of his existence prior to his sale to his wife.  Post sale, there are land records. He was a slave - and then he was a landowner, in the space of a few years.  Squaring that with what I know of history creates this absolutely fascinating tale of how a family of color lived in the contradictory antebellum south.

A Stranger and a Sojourner: Peter Caulder, Free Black Frontiersman in Antebellum Arkansas by Billy D. Higgins (affiliate link) takes the facts that can be found about the Turners, the Caulders and other families of color in the area, combines them with historical fact and weaves a narrative about their lives, following the sons of Moses Caulder and John Turner into military service together and their lives beyond.

Genealogy Do-Over Year 2 or 3 and Some Lessons Learned

Photo : My 2,987,000th great grandmother / ..Russ.. / CC 2.0

I'm participating in the Genealogy Do Over again this year.  This is my second year doing the actual event and my third year after starting over on my own personal data.  My method of participation is not by the book but I find that the event is helpful because I've got the encouragement and support of hundreds of other participants and I get lots of good ideas from it.

If the goal were to map my ancestry back to the dinosaurs, the do-over would put me "way behind.  It might "take me forever" to re-do "my 15 years of pain staking research".  But the object, for me, of genealogy, is discovery.  I love to learn new stuff about my ancestors.  I get a bounce in my step when I drop another tiny piece into the puzzle of me.  The do-over has just made that all the more enjoyable.

Outside of my own research skills, so much has changed in 15 years.  The first generation that I researched was my grandparents.  When I started this research, most of the information on them was still restricted because it was so soon after their deaths.  Going back to where I started 15 years later has resulted in a whole new wealth of public information about them.

15ish years ago, when I started my own research, it was the year 2000 (Y2k!).  I was hanging on to my Windows 97 install because Windows ME sucked so bad.  The world around me was just starting to get it's internet feet under it.  Banking was still completely paper based, you had to actually drive to the grocery store to get groceries and to do genealogy, you still had to travel to the location you wanted records on and like... actually... physically view them.

John Turner Project - Genetic Genealogy Project for Descendants of John and Patience Turner and Thomas Weathersbee

The research of John and Patience Turner has been a pet project of mine for many years, in large part because their story as a couple, as a slave and as a person of color in the South is so compelling but probably also because I have yet to figure out where they came from before their known stories and so there is an element of a puzzle or mystery there.

Some time ago, I started digging into their genetics via myself and their other descendants.  I found evidence of John Turner's Sub Saharan African ancestry and I'd love to find more.  I'd love to be able to continue their family trees.  Perhaps I could find evidence that John's father was or was not his slave holder, Thomas Weathersbee or maybe evidence of Patience's family.  Pie in the sky, we could maybe even create a pretty comprehensive Lazarus kit for John Turner or Patience Turner!

To further the effort, I created a 'data collective'.  That's a fancy way of saying a spreadsheet of all of the data related to the genetic matches of related descendants (of John Turner and Thomas Weathersbee), accessible by all project participants.    The project is in it's wee bitty stages still but it's already looking promising!  So far, 13 kits and a couple of months in, we have identified two segments from two ancestors that are most likely from John Turner. (update : 21 kits and family lines identified!)

We need more descendants' data to work with though.  If you are descended from John and Patience Turner or Thomas Weathersbee, I would love to include you in the project.  Participation is easy.  You only need a gedmatch kit (free and easily created from your 23andme, ftdna or ancestry.com DNA) and a family tree (even a suspected one is fine) between you and John and Patience Turner.  If you have sources for your research, that is all the better - otherwise, I will research your tree to the extent that I can find evidence in support of your tree.  You send me your information, I send you a link to the spreadsheet and from there, you can do as much or as little as you'd like!

To join the project or to read more about the project, visit the John Turner project website. 

Petition of Free People of Color Asking that an Act to Impose a Poll Tax be Repealed - South Carolina

This petition, and the associated statement of supporters, was filed 20 April 1794 in South Carolina in an effort to overturn the Poll tax. Among it's signers are the Turners, the family of my 5th great grandfather, John Turner, which is how I encountered this document.

This entire journey through my own history, dove tailing my experiences with inequalities that still exist in our modern society, has been an eye opening experience in the most horrific of ways.  This post isn't about politics, it's about a thing that happened that my ancestors were involved in -  but I believe that I would be remiss in my understanding of the experiences of my ancestors, which is the point of my research, without noting two things about this document that highlight the stunning inequality between people of color and white people, at the time.

Millie Turner, Daughter of John and Patience Turner - Genetic Connection Found!

It seems like all I blog about these days is the Turner connection.  I admit, their story is so intriguing, that I've been focused on it for a good while now.  It's the tiny little sliver to the left there - the light pink one, that has just been itching to have a story told about it.  Also, it helps that I have some distant cousins hoping to find their own Turner DNA connection and I probably get the most email from them.

At any rate, today, I finally had the breakthrough I was hoping for.  I have definitively pinned down a segment of DNA that came from John Turner's daughter, Millie.

Seeking Turner or Weathersbee Gedmatch Kits

Some time ago, I posted about John and Patience Turner.  Since then, several people have contacted me to say that they have also traced family trees to John and Patience.  Two of those people have gedmatch kits - but the combinations of matches and lack of matches have left me more perplexed than ever.

If you have a gedmatch kit and have traced your family tree to John and Patience Turner or to Thomas Weathersbee, John's slave owner, I would love to compare kits.  Leave a comment and I'll email you back.

Update : I found one match!  Here are the details.

John and Patience Turner

John Turner's mark

This is the story of my 5th great grandfather and grandmother, John and Patience Turner.  I first discovered them while researching my Hursey family.  There were smatterings here and there on the internet about it.  John was a slave and his freedom was purchased by his wife.  What?!  Surely, I would have heard about this from my grandmother, who was the family genealogist and our connection to the Hursey family.  But I hadn't.  So I assumed I must have made a mistake and I'd have to come back later to it to prove out my connection to this man - or disprove it.  I came back it early this year when a DNA test revealed Yoruban ancestry that would, in part, be explained by this connection.

Patience's father's name and date and place of birth are unknown.  Her mother was named Rachael Smith and was from Halifax Co., NC.  Rachael was of Irish descent and died while Patience was still a child.  [1][4]

By 1769, Patience's last name was Turner. [2]  Given the evidence I have regarding her maiden name, I believe that this is because she and John married before he was freed (see below) and she took his last name.

It's at this point that I should mention that although I did find some statements about Patience's racial identity being 'mulatto' while doing this research, I was not able to confirm that.  In fact, the evidence I've seen seems to indicate that she was not multiracial.  Although I can find one court record that said "Patience Turner passed and was received as a free white woman not having more than 1/4th negro blood" [6][13], and one could surmise that wouldn't need to be said if she was clearly white, 'less than 1/4th negro blood' could technically include no African heritage and the statement may have been made simply because she was married to a man of color so someone thought it needed to be on the record, so this statement is not evidence of African descent.

Slave v/s The Confederate - a Civil War in my Genes

Between 1861 and 1865, our country fought over whether slavery should be allowed or not.  The Union lined up on one side and the Confederacy lined up on the other and they commenced to killing each other over the disagreement.  The Union won the American Civil War and as a result, not only was slavery ended but the idea of 'human rights' or that all humans are created equal gained traction, which, I think, kept momentum behind America's path toward equal rights for all people that we still fight today, albeit, less bloody.