Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:
It's Saturday Night again
-
Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!
Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:
1) Sometimes an ancestor or relative has no name at all - not even a given name (for males, we usually can surmise a surname, but ...) -- we all have millions of them.
2) Tell us about one (or more) of your ancestors that have no given name and no birth surname, who has perhaps married an ancestor with a given name and surname from whom you are descended. (Don't worry, we'll do unknown parents sometime soon).
3) When was the last time you looked for this no-name ancestor?
Here's mine:
When I look at a list of the people in my RootsMagic
database, I have many people, mostly women, who have no surname. It’s something
like a half a dozen Elizabeths, Anns, and Marys each.
If I work from the number one person and only focus on ancestors, then I came up with Elizabeth Haley, wife of Thomas Haley (1789-1851). She is listed as Elizabeth Haley, born in South Carolina, in the 1850 census in Rankin County, Mississippi. Thomas was born in North Carolina.[1] She is also listed as Elizabeth Haley in Thomas Haley’s estate, though their son, Thomas J. Haley, was the administrator.[2]
I haven’t looked at this family in a long time. If I search for her in the FamilySearch Family Tree, I find a surname given for her: Elizabeth Craft, with her parents' names listed as John Craft and Sarah Crawford.[3] There are no sources for this relationship. Elizabeth is attached to two husbands, Thompson Haley[4] and Thomas Haley[5] and as a mother to Thomas Haley.[6]
The first one is not likely the Thomas Haley I’m looking for, who was born in North Carolina and died in Mississippi. Thompson Haley’s death date is wrong, and I doubt these two southerners married in Ohio. Two children are attached to this couple. Thomas Haley (1823-deceased) is the same as Thomas number 3.
The second Thomas Haley has the right date range for birth and death. Seven children are listed for them, five of which are the same I have for the couple. There is no marriage date or place for them.
This is all I have: a clue to a surname. What steps are
next?
1. If Thomas and Elizabeth married in South Carolina, there
will likely be no marriage record.
2. If they met and married in Mississippi, I might locate a
marriage record, depending on how far back it was and whether the courthouse records
survived to filming.
3. If I follow John Crawford, her supposed father, I might
find her mentioned in his probate record, unless she hadn’t married yet. Then I
would not be able to tie her to her husband.
4. I do have a link. Thomas and Elizabeth did name one son Craft Haley (--1838). Thomas Haley was the administrator for his estate in 1838. I need to look more carefully at those records to see if Thomas was named as his father.
Any other ideas?
[1]
1850 U.S. census, Rankin Co, Mississippi, p 237b, 479/479, Thomas Haley household.
[2] Rankin
Co, Mississippi, probate records, petitions, vol B 1847-1855, 186-87, Thos
Haley, dec'd; imaged, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L9QX-S9VC-2);
IGN 005841928, image 251 of 497.
[3]
FamilySearch Family Tree, Elizabeth Craft, LKSV-TP7, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/LKSV-TP7
: accessed 11 Oct 2025).
[4] FamilySearch
Family Tree, Thompson Haley, 1779–1837, G35P-R8S. This one had a marriage date
of 19 Nov 1806 in Ohio.
[5] FamilySearch
Family Tree, Thomas Haley, 1789–Deceased, G33T-GXX. No marriage date.
[6] FamilySearch Family Tree, Thomas Haley, 1823–Deceased, KLXN-XR9.
I would first look at the SC census records to see if there are Haley and Craft families in the same county. If not, I'd look for both surnames in MS to see if they lived in the same county. Then I'd put full-text search to work wherever I found both surnames in the right time period.
ReplyDeleteThose are great ideas, ones I've been thinking about doing.
Delete