RLP 102: Mary French Case Study

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 102: Mary French Case Study. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the creators of the Amazon bestselling book, Research Like a Pro a Genealogists Guide. I’m Nicole co-host of the podcast join Diana and me as we discuss how to stay organized, make progress in our research and solve difficult cases.

Nicole (42s):
Let’s go. Hi everyone. And welcome to the show. I’m Nicole Dyer co-host of Research Like a Pro, and I’m here with accredited genealogist, Diana Elder. Hi Diana, how are you?

Diana (56s):
I’m doing pretty good. I’ve been having fun, starting a brand new client project, which is always exciting because you never know what you’re going to find. And I had ordered a death certificate for a gentleman I found in the last iteration of this project and it came and I’ve been analyzing it. And I’m so amazed at all the information you can get from a death certificate. It’s been really fun. I’m excited to try to contact the funeral home and see if there’s more records there and the cemetery and see if there’s more information there. So many details just from the death certificate.

Nicole (1m 32s):
Yes it is great that it leads to more records. That’s one thing we always are looking for with our analysis is, are there other records I can find that are alluded to in this certificate?

Diana (1m 43s):
Right. And when I thought the cemetery, I went to Find a Grave and found the headstone and I was able to determine this was the right person, you know, cause sometimes we have people with the same name and we’re not sure which is the one we’re looking for, but now I have the headstone. The client just wanted to know more about this ancestor. And he’s not that far back, he died in 1959, but this was a DNA case from a year ago where he was an unknown grandparent. The grandmother had not revealed to the family who the father was of her child. And now that everyone had passed, the grandson just really wanted to know his heritage.

Diana (2m 23s):
So I was able to find his grandfather who of course had already passed away. They just wanted to know a little bit more about his life. And sometimes that’s kind of tricky trying to find more recent records. So finding the death certificate and had the address of the home, and they could go visit the cemetery and see where he lived. You know, pull a bit more personal touch to the story.

Nicole (2m 44s):
That’s neat. Well, I’ve been working on a case in our own family. I’ve been organizing everything into my Airtable research log and getting it all set up so that I can start to make some connections. It’s on your side, going back to your grandmother’s great-grandfather, my fourth great-grandfather, your third great-grandfather, trying to figure out his parents. So the DNA matches are pretty small, but I was excited today to discover that one of your DNA matches on My Heritage is one generation closer to our ancestor. And hopefully we can contact the match and see if he will transfer to GEDMatch or let us see his results so that we can use that information in the project.

Diana (3m 33s):
That is so exciting. I love it when we find a cousin, who’s a generation closer because their DNA is just going to be better. And that’s the side of the family that DNA will be really helpful on because well, all of our Southern lines hit brick walls, but that one has some pretty significant brick walls. So I’m excited to have you explore that with the DNA and see what we can find. It’s been a long time since we researched that side of the family. So that’s always fun to make new discoveries on them.

Nicole (4m 2s):
Yes. The last time I did was finding the Cinderella Keaton’s father and I was able to find direct evidence that her father was William Keaton and his estate file, but I haven’t had the same luck with her husband. So I’m hoping that I can use a lot of the indirect evidence that I’ve gathered along with the DNA evidence to build a case for his parents.

Diana (4m 22s):
And I’m looking at my pedigree chart and I noticed that his father would be an X match, you know, on my pedigree chart, I’ve marked all the Xs. And so that could even be used in DNA as you go back further.

Nicole (4m 34s):
Yead. I’m excited that that line goes from you to your father, mother, father, mother, father. So that X was passed down intact several times. Every time an X is passed down from a father to his daughter, it’s the entire X. So it’s great.

Diana (4m 53s):
Yeah. So that might be very helpful in this project.

Nicole (4m 57s):
Yes. I’m excited. Well, last week we talked about proof arguments. So this week we thought it would be fun to talk about your proof argument for Mary Anne French and just go through it and talk about it. So before we jump into that, let’s talk about what constitutes genealogical proof. And you can find this in Genealogy Standards. The first chapter is all about the genealogical proof standard and the five components that make it up. First one is thoroughly exhaustive research and the second is complete and accurate source citations. The third component is tests of analysis and correlation of all sources, information and evidence. And the fourth component is resolution of conflicts.

Nicole (5m 37s):
And the fifth component is soundly reasoned, written conclusions. So if we’ve done all of those five components, then maybe we have established any logical proof. Sometimes we might establish geological proof and meet the proof standard, and then more information will come along and possibly overturn the conclusion. But what Tom Jones teaches is that you have met the GPS, most likely what will happen is any new evidence that you find will add to your conclusion and provide further evidence that it’s correct. So tell us, what was the research question that you were trying to prove in your mind to study?

Diana (6m 12s):
Well, I think I’ve mentioned before on the podcast that when I became accredited, I had spent two years working on my four generations. And when I finished, my husband said, why don’t you work on one of my family problems and see if I have proved it. And so he got out his files on Mary Anne French, and that was the basis for this project. And it was so fun and refreshing to do a different case. It was really fun for me to dive into a new location and a new family and take a look at all of his findings and, and find new information and then write it all up. I will just kind of give a little background on Mary Anne. She comes from a family that migrated from St Mary’s county, Maryland to Kentucky in the 1700s.

Diana (6m 57s):
And they were Catholic and they came out to Kentucky and there had been quite a bit of research done on several members of the family and different people had connected Mary Anne to James French on family trees everywhere. And my husband had agreed with that, but there was nothing written ever about this. So my research question was who was Mary’s father? Let me just read my first paragraph here, which probably sums it up much better than what I’ve just said. Determining the maiden name and parents of a woman born in the late 1700s is one of the most difficult genealogical undertakings because women were not mentioned in many of the records of the era.

Diana (7m 41s):
Few sources exist to prove their parentage. Combine that with record loss and the task becomes even more difficult. Descendants of Ignatius Bryan, born about 1775 in Maryland and died 1803 in Hardin County, Kentucky have long wondered about the origins of his wife Mary. Who was Mary’s father? No marriage record has yet been located for the couple and without a maiden name, it might seem impossible to prove a relationship between a woman and her parents. Fortunately, enough records have survived that when carefully analyzed; prove that Mary Ann, wife of Ignatius Bryan, is the daughter of James French of Hardin County, Kentucky. So that was how I opened my proof argument.

Diana (8m 21s):
What do you think?

Nicole (8m 21s):
I think it’s great when you set out the problem and why it’s difficult and then you set out your hypothesis. So it sounds to me like you’re organizing this with a single hypothesis strategy or you state the hypothesis that you’re proving it, and then you go and give all the evidence that supports it.

Diana (8m 40s):
Exactly. One of the challenges with this was trying to figure out how to organize the information. We have all these pieces and you know how it all fits together, but trying to make that clear, I wrote up each segment individually, and then I would rearrange them quite a bit, trying to figure out the best way to establish this proof argument. So I decided to start with what was known at the beginning. You know, that’s always a good place to start. And there was a deed created in August of 1826, that names Mary Bryan, widow of Ignatius Bryan, deceased. And that was a great deed.

Diana (9m 21s):
Land records sometimes give us so many answers and so many clues, and this land record named Mary with her second husband, George Atwood, but it clearly stated her being the widow of Ignatius Bryan. And it gives the great clue that Ignatius departed this life intestate. So that means he didn’t have a will. And often that means that someone died unexpectedly. You know, he was a younger man and didn’t get a will written. So the three children and their spouses were all named in that land record. And that was really great as well, tracing the women, his daughters, and connecting them to their husbands.

Diana (10m 4s):
And then another thing that was listed in the deed was the land description, which is important. And the deed of 1826, described the tract of land situated on the waters of the Rolling Fork near the mouth of Clear Creek, containing 85 acres. And then it described this land as being conveyed to Ignatius Bryan in 1800 and even gives the page in the deed book for that. And so of course, what do you do when you see something like that in a record?

Nicole (10m 36s):
You go get the original deed.

Diana (10m 40s):
Exactly. The original deed provides evidence of Ignatius coming from Nelson county, Kentucky, which was the neighboring county, was the parent county. So that gives you the clue where he was coming from and the clue that other records might be in Nelson county, or just the connection of what’s going on here with the area. So that was where we started just establishing that Mary was the widow of Ignatius Bryan, that he died intestate, that he had these children, that he got this land, he was of Nelson county. So that is how I started the proof argument.

Nicole (11m 19s):
So the starting point information doesn’t really tell you any clues about who her father was, but it does provide information about her spouse and her children and where she lived.

Diana (11m 28s):
Right.

Nicole (11m 29s):
I think that’s a good building block to start with. You’re establishing the profile of the person who you’re trying to find parents for. I think every case study needs to do that.

Diana (11m 37s):
And then next, I talked a little bit about searching for a marriage record because obviously if you find the marriage record and it has the maiden name, or might even state the parents, then boom, your questions solved and you don’t really need a whole proof argument. So I thought it was important to discuss a little bit about a search for marriage records, showing that I had done that reasonably exhaustive research. So I just have a short paragraph talking about how the marriage could reveal her maiden name and list a father and discuss that there was this residence in Nelson county. And then I have a footnote with several sources showing negative searches that there was no marriage record in Nelson county or in Hardin county, Kentucky.

Diana (12m 21s):
For those years, I didn’t put all of those searches into the body of the proof argument. They just all go into the footnote and complete citation. So anyone else could go and follow my research. And then I also leave the opportunity open that possibly the marriage took place before the migration to Kentucky. You know, we can’t discount that the marriage took place in Maryland or along the way, but from what we know, there’s no marriage in Kentucky.

Nicole (12m 50s):
Did you search in Maryland for their marriage or what’s the purpose of saying that they could have gotten married in Maryland?

Diana (12m 56s):
Well, actually now that I’m looking at the statement, I actually said no marriage record has been located for Mary and Ignatius in that location, the marriage possibly taking place before their migration to the newly formed state of Kentucky. So I don’t mention Maryland. And that, that is just probably something that I discussed with my husband, cause he had done a lot of research in Maryland and you know, I probably could have put something in there. The records of St Mary’s county were really sparse, huge record loss. And so that could be something that could be added there, but I didn’t want to get into the records of Maryland in this particular case studies. There’s always that limit, you know, what’s the cutting off point, right?

Nicole (13m 39s):
Well, if the records of St Mary’s county were lost, then there weren’t marriage records. That would be a great thing to add to this, to just say, if they were married in that county, then that would be why there is no record.

Diana (13m 52s):
Right. But without connecting her to a father, how do we know that they are even from St Mary’s?

Nicole (13m 59s):
Good point.

Diana (13m 60s):
There’s nothing in the known information in Kentucky at this point, that points to that.

Nicole (14m 5s):
Okay. I think it’s really good to examine your negative results and put that into the footnote because it really does show that reasonably exhaustive research, which is such an important part of a proof argument. Good job.

Diana (14m 20s):
Yeah. Source citations and footnotes are really helpful in showing that you’ve done that exhaustive research. Next I decided to talk all about the probate, because that was hinted at, in the land record that he died intestate. And if you know, someone died intestate and they have property, and we know we had the land, there are going to be probate proceedings. I had done a lot of research looking for all the different things that go along with an intestate file. And so then I wrote about how Mary Bryan had applied got the right of administration. If there is no will and an executor named, then in an intestate case you name an administrator.

Diana (15m 4s):
The record says Mary Bryan and Barton Ruby applied for and were granted the right of administration of the estate of Ignatius Bryan, deceased. And the two men that also were on the bond were James French and Isaac Erwin, who both gave a bond of 200 pounds for security, for the faithful performance of administration. So we know that those who put up bond are going to be either related or their close friends, figuring out the relationship of all those people who put up the bond was key. And the Barton Ruby is all the way through the records. Researching him, a little bit of the FAN club principal, he was just an administrator for all the rest of the actions for the estate of Ignatius Bryan and the estate also of James French.

Diana (15m 56s):
James French was mentioned putting up the bond. And so this Barton Ruby just seems to have been the family attorney, possibly, you know, an attorney in the area and just took care of a lot of the probate. And then who was this Isaac Irwin? We researched him and found that he was born in 1774. And he would have only been about 30 when he gave security for the estate bond. So he would not have been Mary’s father, he would have been too young, and he was also named in another court order with Ignatius. So they seem to be acquaintances, good friends, neighbors, perhaps. So of the three men listed with Mary, only James French came up as a possible candidate for her father.

Nicole (16m 40s):
That’s great. I like that. You decided to use this next in your building blocks and show the connection to James French in this way, because it’s so connected to her husband Ignatius. It really builds up the case to the logical people who would be in their close circle of associates and figuring out if they could have been related to her.

Diana (17m 5s):
Right. And we continue to look for other probate because sometimes you’ll see an inventory and a father will be named. The other records, there might be something named, but James French only shows up on that initial posting of the bond, nothing else after that. So then we have to turn to more records because that’s not enough just to say, okay, James French must be the father because he just has to be, right? so then we have to try to identify James French. And I turned to county histories and church records to try to learn more about this family. And I love using county histories because often they will talk a lot about the original settlers of an area.

Diana (17m 50s):
And in 1887, there was a publication called The Centenary of Catholicity in Kentucky, by Benedict Joseph Webb. And he talked all about the early Catholic settlers in Harden County, Kentucky. And it’s so fun that he mentioned James French. So he has this little quote, “the first church station at this point was the house of one James French where mass was said by father Bodden, as early as the years 1804-5. Webb goes on to name several of the old Catholic settlers of the locality. So he also named besides James French, Raphael French, and William, known as B Bryan.

Diana (18m 34s):
That was really interesting realizing that these Catholic settlers were right there in the area. And if James French’s house was a place where mass was being said in 1804 to 1805, he would have been established there. That kind of is extra proof. He could have been the father of Mary Anne French. He wasn’t just a young guy coming in. It sounds like he’s older, more established and one of the original settlers. So that helps give us a little bit more insight into him. There’s another great book that talks about the Catholics, and this says when M Bodden first came to Kentucky, he estimated the number of Catholic families in the state at 300, these were much scattered and the number was constantly on the increase.

Diana (19m 24s):
So this Reverend Bodden was first sent to the backwoods of Kentucky in 1793. So that’s just so interesting to read some specific things that probably related to this family. And I concluded that Ignatius and Mary Bryan were among the Catholic settlers in the Rolling Fork congregation in Harden County, Kentucky, because the Bryans and the Frenchs were all mentioned as settling in that area.

Nicole (19m 49s):
Makes sense. That’s nice to have that description of the old Catholic settlers of the locality. And that’s a good hypothesis that Ignatius was maybe the son of this William B Bryan, or related to him. And that his wife was possibly a daughter of this James French.

Diana (20m 8s):
And established them as Catholics is important for another piece of evidence that will come along further in the proof arguments. So it’s kind of setting the stage.

Nicole (20m 18s):
Yes, another good building block.

Diana (20m 19s):
Yes. Then I wanted to show what happened to Mary Anne. You know, we’ve talked about the probate and the background of the area. So what happened to her? Her husband Ignatius died in 1803 and she appears on the tax lists from 1804 to 1812. And I can identify her as being the right woman because she’s taxed for those same 85 acres on the Rolling Fork. And that’s always really great when the description of the land matches that sometimes it’s the only way that you can differentiate between people the same name. So I saw that Mary was taxed for that land.

Diana (20m 59s):
And then she marries again, and the deed had talked of her husband, George Atwood, but there was actually a marriage record found in Hardin County in 1813. So she lived as a widow for 10 years before she remarried. Then when she marries George Atwood, she disappears and all the records are in his name. That often happens to our women. And she’s in his household in 1820 in Hardin County. And then by 1830, they’ve moved to Meade County, Kentucky. She’s there with all of her grown children. And you can just see that this little cluster of families that all move together, George Atwood’s household, the male and female are age 60 to 69, which is totally appropriate ages for Mary at that time period.

Diana (21m 46s):
So the next step, where are they in 1840, is where we can’t find George. Of course that’s when you think, well, he probably died, but where is Mary? Because Mary is not listed on the 1840 census either. So often I think that maybe these widowed women who are elderly could have gone to live with a child. So we checked all the children households, and only one of them had a possible, one of her sons had a female age 70 to 80, that could be Mary, but of course that could also be his wife’s mother, not his mother. So we never can tell for sure what that.

Nicole (22m 24s):
So when George disappeared from the censuses, you wondered if he had died. And I also wondered if you ever considered that maybe Mary had died as well.

Diana (22m 33s):
Well, of course you always think that, but one record came up that my husband had found that was really exciting. It was a Catholic record and it was in a totally different location. It was in Perry County, Missouri, about 200 miles west of Meade county, Kentucky. And it lists a Mary Anne French. And it has a really important connection to James French of Harden county, Kentucky. At first glance, you may be, would think, oh my goodness, she’s elderly, she would not have moved 200 miles west. But I think that that is an incorrect assumption that we have that our ancestors didn’t move because this census is so great.

Diana (23m 18s):
It is the census of the Barron’s Parish of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin located in Perry county. And it’s an 1835 listing of all the households. And there’s a household with John Layton and his wife, Monica French daughter of James, and she’s 50 years old, it lists all their children. And at the very end, it has Mary Ann French sister of Monica, 52 years old. So the question is, why are these women listed as French when they are married?

Nicole (23m 55s):
Yes, that’s unusual.

Diana (23m 55s):
It is unusual, but I looked at all the women on the page, and all the women are listed by their maiden name and their fathers identified. I wish all of our records would do that. So very cool. So just because Mary Anne French is going by that name instead of Atwood from her previous husband or Bryan from her first husband, doesn’t discount her because they’re following that same pattern of listening the women by their maiden names. Now, what do we do? We’ve got Monica, daughter of James. We’ve got Mary Anne, sister of Monica. So using our logic, we can say that Marianne would be also the daughter of James. And of course there could be step relationships or what have you, but we go with the most plausible, the most reasonable connection.

Diana (24m 43s):
These would be sisters, both the daughter of James. So I explain the proof argument all about that connection that now we have got Mary Anne by 1835, she’s over in the household of her sister. And she found that makes sense. There’s a really strong bond between sisters and possibly Mary Anne’s children didn’t have room for her. She didn’t feel like she wanted to stay in that area. And our sister said, come live with me. You know, I can see that happening. That’s possible. So the next step is explaining Monica. Can we connect this Monica French daughter of James to Kentucky?

Diana (25m 24s):
Because she’s out there in Missouri.

Nicole (25m 25s):
Yeah. That’ll be important to do. So. How did you do that?

Diana (25m 30s):
Well, we found the marriage of Monica French and James Layton. The really cool thing is that the marriage record shows the parents. So we’ve got John Layton and his parents. And then we have Monarca, which was an interesting spelling or listing of her name, with parents, James French and Susanna. This record took place in Washington county, Kentucky, which is a neighbor of Harden County, Kentucky, and James French, Monica French, John Layton, this is obviously the same couple who are out in Missouri in 1835. So their marriage took place in 1799 in Washington county.

Diana (26m 10s):
And a little bit of conflicting evidence was that name Monarca instead of Monica. So I addressed that and said, the name Monarca might be the original spelling of the name of Monica, the shortened form. Monarca in the marriage record could also be an error in transcription by the clerk and compiling the order book. We don’t know, but there was enough other evidence that showed this was the same woman despite the different name. And we often find that in our records names are not always spelled the same names, can often be just a little different. And it’s important to address that if it’s significant enough. So I just did a short little sentence addressing that.

Nicole (26m 50s):
Yeah. That’s interesting. I wonder if Monarca was like the Latin spelling of it or, something.

Diana (26m 55s):
Yeah, I have never seen that before, but that’s a good point.

Nicole (26m 59s):
So when you found that marriage record, you must’ve been very excited because it gives direct evidence that Monica’s father was James French, and that links back to Kentucky. I think that’s probably the main thing because you already had the direct evidence that Monica was the daughter of James French. Just didn’t know if it was the same James French that was closely associated with your subject.

Diana (27m 21s):
Exactly. That was key. Connecting them back to Kentucky. These are the same people. There’s another record that pops up in Hardin county, Kentucky, and that’s the will of James French. And of course the will is great evidence of family relationships and in the will of James French in 1815, he leaves to his beloved daughter, Mary French, one feather bed and furniture, and one foot wheel, and then he names his daughter Susanna and his son Ignatius French. Obviously he’s got a daughter named Mary, but the question is why Mary French? She was married at the time. She was married to George Atwood. And generally in wills, we see that they are naming their daughters by their married name.

Diana (28m 7s):
So I think having that 1835 census where the maiden name was used for Mary Ann and Monica is also maybe some evidence that perhaps in this Catholic community, they just use the maiden names, maybe with her second marriage to George Atwood. James wanted it clear that she was born Mary French. I don’t know any thoughts on that. Or have you seen that where maiden names are used instead of a married name?

Nicole (28m 32s):
No. Usually the wills that I’ve seen lists the married name of the women. Although I have seen some wills where the parents just name all the children’s first names and not their last names, but I wonder if those ones are where the children are not married yet. So this is kind of an unusual one. It’s interesting that you have two instances of this married woman being called by her maiden name after two marriages. And I do think it probably is indicative that their culture was used to identify in women by their maiden name for whatever reason.

Diana (29m 7s):
If he’d said to my daughter, Mary Atwood, there would have been no reason for this proof argument, cause it would have been right there, but because she was just named as Mary French and she was already married, it lent a lot of conflict and wondering about if this was really the same woman. Now, the other thing to know about that will, as it doesn’t name Monica. Monica was obviously alive. So why is she not named? Well, this is what I wrote. So why the omission of Monica French Layton, daughter of James and Susanna, in her father’s will? In many cases, not all of the children are named in the will if they had received their inheritance previously. The will eludes to other children with the phrase, after the death of my wife, all the estate, then belonging to her to be equally divided among all my children.

Diana (29m 57s):
So there we have it, he only names one daughter, but he has multiple children to divide his estate with when his wife Susanna dies. So I resolved the conflicting evidence there of not having Monica mentioned in the will as well as the maiden name.

Nicole (30m 14s):
That’s great. I think it’s interesting that he decided to leave to his one daughter, Mary, his beloved daughter, maybe she was the favorite daughter and maybe it was just because she still lived nearby, but she got to have her feather bed and furniture and a foot wheel before James’s wife died and then all the property was sold and divided. So that just shows to me that maybe she was a special daughter to him or maybe that because she had been widowed already that he thought of her as having a special needs maybe because she had maybe just married George Atwood, maybe you wrote the well before she was married. When did she get married to George Atwood?

Diana (30m 53s):
Two years before, 1813.

Nicole (30m 54s):
Yeah. I guess you could look at the will and see when it was written, but the fact that they lived in the same county and maybe other children had moved away, could indicate that she was just the closest daughter nearby that he saw all the time. And she was the favorite.

Diana (31m 7s):
She lived close by. It’d be really easy for her to come pick up the feather bed and the furniture, there’s always that to consider. Well, we certainly do not know all the details of our ancestors’ lives, but it’s really fun when we can take everything we do have and then put it together and use our imagination. You don’t have to presenting all of that in a text form. I did a simple table to just review that because sometimes when that’s not our own family and you’re reading it, you’ve read all these different pieces and you want to put it together. So in my table, first I’ve mentioned the marriage of Monarca French and John Layton in 1799 in Washington county, Kentucky, where her parents are named as James and Susanna.

Diana (31m 53s):
And then I mentioned that in 1803, we have the probative Ignatius for James French provides the bond security with Mary Bryan. And then we have the will of 1815 where he names Mary French as his daughter. And then we have the 1835 census where Mary Ann French, sister of Monica, is in the household and James is named as the father of Monica. So I lay it out chronologically and show the details and the places just to recap.

Nicole (32m 22s):
Well, that’s nice because you went through the evidence in building block form. And so it wasn’t chronological. So it’s kind of nice now that you’ve built the case to present all the records in chronological order just to review them and to see how it all fits together. Right?

Diana (32m 37s):
And if you think about it, if I had started this proof argument and done it, and it just wouldn’t have made as much sense, it would have been harder to tie it together. So that’s why I had to do a lot of rearranging to finally get it into the order that I thought made the most sense. It’s really nice we have computer programs that let us cut and paste. That’s all I have to say about that.

Nicole (32m 59s):
Yes. I think it’s so important when are arranging our proof arguments to think about the logical way to present it. And you started with what you knew about her and then how you were able to link additional evidence to her. Eventually getting to that conclusion that she was the sister of Monica and that wonderful syllogism that if Mary is the sister of Monica and Monica is the daughter of James, then Mary is the daughter of James.

Diana (33m 28s):
Yes. That was such a key record. It’s kind of funny cause when you look back, you think, well that was a key record, no, that’s the key record. It’s, it’s putting them all together that really makes the difference. So my final part of the proof argument was just a simple conclusion, taking the reader back through each of the building blocks to help them remember. I love it when somebody has written a really good conclusion to help me put it all together in my mind. So that’s one of the things that I always try to do. So I just reiterated that we had the land and tax records for Ignatius and Mary Bryan showing that 85 acres of the Rolling Fork, talked about the probate records with James putting up the bond, discussed the lack of marriage records for Ignatius and Mary and her second marriage, and then discuss the will of James, the marriage record of her sister, Monica, and then that parish census.

Diana (34m 24s):
And then I just ended with the statement, “correlation and analysis of the records prove that Mary, wife of Ignatius Bryan, of Harden county, Kentucky was the daughter of James French also of Hardin county.

Nicole (34m 36s):
Beautiful, great job. I think you’re right. That when you try to pick out which record was the most important you can’t because you have to really correlate each one and putting them together really builds the case that James French was the father of Mary. If you only used that Baron Parish census people could say, well, just because he’s the father of Monica, doesn’t mean he’s the father of Mary. Just that one record alone can’t prove your case. But then when you look at all the evidence together, especially the will of James French, where he mentioned his daughter, Mary French, that really does prove your case and linking everything back to Kentucky counties that were near each other really helps the case as well.

Nicole (35m 16s):
So that’s really why we need proof arguments, because if it were simple, we would just have a proof summary, just a bulleted list of the direct evidence that all leads to the same conclusion. But like we talked about last week when there are significant conflicts or just a lot of indirect evidence, then it does require that we write it up. And that’s part of the genealogical proof standard is that soundly written logical conclusion. I hope everybody out there listening will think about what cases in your own research might need to have a proof argument written. Often we will have cousins who don’t agree with something that we’ve researched and that’s probably a good indication that there is enough conflicting information or indirect evidence that needs to be compiled into a written conclusion.

Diana (36m 0s):
Exactly. And I do want to note that if you want to read this in its entirety, it is in our book as a proof argument, Research Like a Pro A Genealogist’s Guide. So if you have the book, you could go turn to the back and read it and go through it again and see all the different examples of how you put that together or your idea.

Nicole (36m 18s):
And you can always get the Kindle version of our book. It’s always super discounted, I think right now it’s 4.99 on Kindle. So if you’d like to read that proof argument and you don’t have the book, then maybe you could just get the Kindle copy. Yeah.

Diana (36m 33s):
Yes. So this has been fun talking about this proof argument. It’s always fun to return to a case that you did a long time ago and see that it’s still holding up after. Gosh, it’s been now three years since I wrote this up, it still holds water. So that’s good.

Nicole (36m 52s):
Oh, that’s funny. Sometimes I look at my old research and think, oh my goodness.

Diana (36m 57s):
Yeah. Well, I think it’s always good for us to realize there’s more that could be done with anything. But I think that this is enough to prove it. And there are probably other things I could continue to research, maybe move back into Maryland or those other records. But for this specific research question about who is the father of Mary, this is what constituted proof.

Nicole (37m 17s):
I know. Right. I wish that you could have found a marriage record like Monica’s. Monica’s marriage record was so great. And it makes me wonder if they were all living in Washington county at that time. And maybe Monica’s and Mary’s marriages were both recorded there, but I’m sure you searched for that.

Diana (37m 34s):
Yeah. Yeah, I did. And in that time period, sometimes they just got lost perhaps in that marriage book, it was a little bit earlier or later, maybe that page got destroyed. There’s so many things that could have happened to a marriage record back then.

Nicole (37m 47s):
Yeah. And I really liked your idea of perhaps they got married before the migration. Well maybe they got married during the migration and you know, they were traveling along and then they got married somewhere random or this wasn’t recorded.

Diana (37m 59s):
And it was never recorded. Absolutely. Especially if they were Catholics and they were coming across and they happened upon a priest in some location and he married them and it could be in his record. So, you know, we can never discount that it won’t pop up somewhere. That could be another avenue for research to searching manuscript collections of all the Catholic priests. So that’s how we can never say never because that record could show up somewhere.

Nicole (38m 22s):
It would be interesting also to study the migration and just see if we can figure out what year they migrated, because if it was before they left in St Mary’s county, then all those records were destroyed prior to the fire in St. Mary’s county. Then you can just say, well, they probably got married here and the records were all lost.

Diana (38m 40s):
Yeah. That would be a really good research project. Looking at the tax records, trying to pinpoint the specific time that they came in. So if I returned to this family that probably would be something that I would do next.

Nicole (38m 52s):
You should have Dad work on that.

Diana (38m 56s):
He would just be, you do it, you’re the professional.

Nicole (38m 59s):
And that’s why you’re working on other cases.

Diana (39m 1s):
Yeah. They’re all fun. I love all the different scenarios, different timeframes, different locations. They’re all great.

Nicole (39m 8s):
All right, everybody. Thanks for listening today. And we will talk to you again next week.

Diana (39m 15s):
All right. Bye. Bye everyone.

Nicole (39m 13s):
Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our book Research Like a Pro a Genealogist Guide on Amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our Research Like a Pro online course or join our next Study Group. Learn more at FamilyLocket.com. To share your progress and ask questions join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our eCourse or Study Group. If you like what you heard and would like to support this podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.