SHUFFLE OFF TO BALTIMORE

                                            

Cecilius Calvert - 2nd Lord Baltimore

Warning: This blog post is straight-up genealogy. If you have no interest don't waste your time. No harm no foul.

As always, unapologetically unedited

     Family history has one enemy - time. I suppose you could say that it is a two-edged sword, that is the need "for time" to research, gather, and problem-solve things that occurred in our ancestral past. However, it is also that very "time" that unless we are diligent and very careful causes all of those things - the things we researched, understood, and yes even inherited - to slip away from us and back into the "unknown again." As they say these days, It can be a bit of a bitch.

So is speculation.

Reuben and Mary (Peek) Schooley

the parents of Hester (Schooley) Record

This happened to me just this past week when I needed to look at the Last Will and Testament of my great-great-great-grandfather, Micajah or (Micager) "Cager" Peek (1785-1854). I knew I had seen a copy of it someplace in my travels; I'm quite certain that I kept a photocopy of it that I inherited from Cousin Barbara back in the 1990s. However, when I went to look for it it was gone. I recalled that in our last move and in our necessity to 'condense" my genealogical work/research I had looked at Grandpa Cager's LW&T and thought, What do I need this for? When will I ever need to look at it? And like a thief in the genealogical night, "time" came and stole my copy of Grandpa Cager's LW&T. I am now back to square one in needing a document for verification -  one that I once had. It means that I will need to start over in tracking one down again - another copy that will (no doubt) just get lost again in the next down-sizing or Great Purge that follows after all of our inevitable demise.

   

My need for a copy of Grandpa Cager's LW&T wasn't so much about Cager but about his wife Millie. Cager's Peek family lines, while not excessively well documented show enough "leads" or anecdotal evidence to get you where you want to go in understanding that branch of the family. The Peeks of Virginia is where you eventually end up and Cager's father Jonathan Peake is a documented Revolutionary War patriot. They are a pretty great old southern family. I admit though, I have never had a lot of interest in studying the South. Because of my lack of interest here, I have let some of these families slide back into that deep well of time again. However, like all things karmic and genealogical, sooner or later "time" will make you eat your vanity and give you the need to take another look.

Now I should mention that Grandpa Micajah "Cager" Peek was a pretty cool dude - he served terms in the Indiana State Legislature:

     

This happened to me the other day when the algorithm on Ancestry.com "proposed" a possible father for Cager's wife and my four-time great-grandmother Mildred "Mille" Peek. Now before I get too far, I need to tell you that Grandma Millie's maiden name has always been "set down" as "Marrell." There are reasons why this is so but let me just say that her maiden name of "Marrell" has been in print since at least the early 1980s. It's a surname that has rolled copious family trees straight into a huge genealogical brick wall where it has sat (and been duplicated again and again ) for the last forty years or so - and all without a shred of proof.

              

Above image: The source of Mildred Peek's maiden name was based only on possibility and conjecture.

I ignorantly accepted Mildred Peek's maiden name as "Marrell" based on the records I inherited from my cousin in the 1990s. I knew that my cousin regarded "Grandma Millie" as a bit of a genealogical dead end or a "Marrell" problem that she could never resolve, extend, or identify, and, in truth, I accepted it. I watched too as over the last forty years the surname of "Marrell" got copied and pasted into numerous Peek/Schooley and auxiliary family trees to the point where if "Marrell" wasn't Millie's actual maiden name it had become so de facto. (I also watched various family trees call Mildred "Cynthia" - a name that appears to be that of her daughter-in-law) My cousin had accepted Mildred Peeks' maiden name as "Marrell" - likely from the published information/correspondence available at the time - and not actually any vital or other records. Remember: DOing genealogy in the 1980s was frickn HARD. YOu actually had to work for your answers and not just double-down on your Google searches. 

Yet like everything that was about to change.

  

Above image: My cousin Barbara's early 1990s family pedigree chart shows "Mildred (Marrell) Peek"

  

Above image: Mildred's daughter Mary (Peek) Schooley

You see, the other day the algorithm indicated that I had 48 (!!!) DNA matched to someone named "WILLIAM HORRALL." 

Who the heck is William Horrall?

These matches indicated that William Horrall was the likely father of Mildred "Millie" Peek.

    

Had it just been a typographical error that had caused Millie's name to be bastardized into a genealogical brick wall for the past forty years? It kind of looks that way. 

But really, could it be just that simple? 

Being a bit unnerved by my inherited mistake regarding poor Grandma Mildred I figured I'd better get to work and see what was out there. It didn't take me long before I came across an old county biography that seemed to paint well with what the DNA algorithm was telling me:

               

Above image: History of Daviess County Indiana..., 1915, page 589

Now this county biography was published in 1915. It was available to my cousin Barbara or the authors Jack and Evelyn Peek in 1985 - but it wasn't a readily available source. They would have had to stumble upon it at a library in Daviess County, Indiana. No Google search was going to reveal anything to anyone. Even now, with the proliferation of the maiden surname for Mildred Peek as"Marrell/Murrell" and reprinted in hundreds of family trees if I had seen this section of the Daviess County biographies (correctly) stating the name as "Horrall" - I would likely have moved past it and concluded that the name "Horrall" was the typographical error - and not looked back.

Finally, though, I can correct Mildred's maiden name to "Horrall" and possibly extend her family line for the first time in forty years to her alleged father William Horrall, and his wife Priscilla Calvert Houghton. After all, the 48 DNA matches along with the county biography confirm it, right?

Maybe not so fast.

As I mentioned above things aren't that simple. While it would be easy enough for me to say Eureka! I have found it and corrected the family line I have to consider some other big factors before doing so. 

The first one is that William Horrall and his wife Pricilla Calvert (Houghton) Horrall had no daughter named "Mildred."

                  

                     

Now quite conveniently, there is a space in between their children Thomas and Sarah that "accommodates" Mildred (born 1789) quite well - but this becomes conjecture. That the migration of William and Priscilla Calvert (Houghton) Horrall from Virginia to South Carolina and to Daviess County, Indiana is almost the exact same migration pattern as Cager Peek's parents lends some strong credibility that these families were at least on the same wagon train together.

And then there is that pesky problem of 48 DNA matches between myself and Grandma Millie's descendants and William Horrall's descendants.

The descendants match in the range of fifth to sixth cousins making it almost impossible for Grandma Millie and the rest of us not to be their kin.

Obviously, there's no easy solution here and only one heck of a lot of sifting to get done. It is possible that our Grandma Mildred (Horrall) Peek was the daughter of a brother (or uncle) of the William Horrall the DNA algorithm is trying to put into play. 

It's especially difficult when (this far) family trees show that Grandma Millie's mother would then be Priscilla Calvert Houghton Horrall - an alleged relative of Lord Baltimore. 

Believe me, this is a whole lot to unpack here and one heck of a lot of unproven speculation. BUT consider this - ONLY last week nobody really knew what Grandma Millie's true maiden name was.

It's got to make you wonder. Man, do I have some work to get done or what?

                        

Now how all this fits together (if at all) may take me another twenty years to figure out...

As I say though - I know more than I did just last week.

Believe me, thus far there's no proof of the "Lord Baltimore" connection - only a rumor in an old newspaper. Still, it beats a rumor of being related to one of the many actors who played "Bozo the Clown."

Lord Baltimore or Bozo the Clown

Seems easy, right?

Sadly, it's probably all bull hooey.

BUT - we did get Grandma Millie's maiden name out of it all.

Above image: "Grandpa" Leonard Calvert - Lord Baltimore's younger brother and, per the newspaper article above, our alleged ancestor.

(I'm sure you see my resemblance to Grandpa Lenny...)

Remember: Genealogy without proof is only fiction.

                             

Yikes. But a relative of LORD BALTIMORE??? 

Sounds good to me.

PEACE.