"The Tate Modern"   

(An AI-generated image)

Sometimes in genealogy work, a breakthrough turns out to be a dead end.

(Author's note: I'm a bit of an odd duck. Anyone who knows me will tell you so. While others might watch sports, I'd rather catch the History Channel. I prefer a slow walk with my dog to driving fast down the freeway. I'm fascinated by the intricacies of things—like finding the perfect answer on Jeopardy or high-point Scrabble words, or figuring out the labyrinth of IRS tax laws. I'm way too far into ancestry, and I guess I don't care if my discussion of it puts some people to sleep. LOL. Oh, and sadly, it's true; unlike what the commercials say, I'm a firm believer that lawn care is a hobby. (Whatever.)

I have other quirks, too. I’m no foodie; I just hate being hungry. I hate taking things apart that aren't broken, and you won't catch me watching YouTube fix-it videos for fun. However, set me on a fact-finding mission, and I will do anything to get to the bottom of it - though I have yet to give or take a bribe for the truth. I can't stand the sound of people crunching ice, and I get nearly apoplectic when I'm late. Essentially, I hate it when things aren't right. It leaves me feeling a bit seasick, or like my brain needs a good vacuuming. 

If I make a mistake, I'll chew my arm off trying to make it right.

FYI - I also have an annoying habit of oversharing and thinking I'm funnier than I am. Sometimes, I mistake simple kindness for a desire to be my friend, and I've learned the hard way that's not always the case. I'm loyal as the best dog you've ever had, but I was brought up in the school of the white lie, and I'll always choose kindness over some dumb sorta unvarnished truth. Whatever you do, be a person of your word.

One thing is for certain. I sure as Hell don't live rent-free in my own head.)

                                                    *******

Proving yourself wrong is such a beech. I mean, I thought I had it. I had that common ancestor for Paige and her husband, Kevin. Granted, this is the second time I thought I had it. I'd come close before in aligning the Paige's, Plunketts, and Kevin's connection to the McClungs. But all that had been near misses, much like playing horse shows on a hot day with the sun in your eyes. You just think you've got it. But you don't.

I was certain this time would be so different. I'd found who I thought was the common denominator between Paige and Kevin. His name was Rober Tate, 1725-1806, and though there wasn't a lot known about him, he was, if not well researched, certainly well mentioned in numerous earlier sources. Fairly quickly, I thought I was able to tie this Robert Tate to Paige's very distinct Carter family, and then almost immediately to Kevin's O'Neal family via his ties through the Bryants who married into Robert's descendants.

        

Above: Updike, Ethel Speer. Tate Families of the Southern States. Salt Lake City, Utah: Hobby Press, 1972.

I was so close.

I'd put together all the proofs, carefully screenshotting and citing each of them along the way. I'd even repeated an earlier analysis from Kevin's tree on Mary Polly (Tate) Bryant that I'd done before, with the analysis still standing the test of time. Oh yes, things were going great. I quickly drew up a provisional genealogy that, by my best calculation, made Paige and hubby Kevin a nice tidy seventh cousin twice removed via Rober Tate.

And then it happened.

In the middle of the proofs, I double-dribbled. I double-dribbled on this guy:

Private Henry Clay Carter.

Above: Joseph Lyon Miller, The Descendants of Capt. Thomas Carter of "Barford," Lancaster County, Virginia: with Genealogical Notes of Many of the Allied Families (Thomas, W. Va.: J.L. Miller, 1912), 256 - Here he is simply referred to as "Clay."

You see, Old Henry Clay Carter (and I use the term loosely) had a kind of tough but very full life. Born in Scott County, Virginia, in 1835, he was married there in 1853 to Elizabeth Lawson. The couple had three young children by 1858, which sadly was the year Elizabeth (Lawson) Carter died. Henry, in a race to find a mother for his three children, remarried Lydia Dorton on January 9, 1860, by whom he had at least one more child. Things, of course, were starting to get crazy. Henry Clay Carter would march off to fight the Union, and in 1862, he would not be coming home to Lydia and the kids.

The 1860 census is the culprit. 

        

(I should mention the curious use of the word "spinster" here. Were the dashing Henry Clay and the lovely Lydia living in sin? One certainly hopes so...)

It wasn't even like I'd never seen his two marriages before. Duh.

Oh yes, it's fun to blame something when you mess up and make such a rookie mistake, so I have chosen this. The census record is great. It records Henry Clay Carter and his wife, Lydia Dorton Carter, and their household and all their kids. It certainly records their one son, James Monroe Carter, from whom Paige descends. There he is listed in that 1860 census with his mom and dad, age six years old.

Henry Clay Carter married Lydia Dorton in 1860. 

Yeah, like that.

      

Above: AI-generated image for Lydia (Dorton) Carter

Inadvertently, I had placed Henry Clay Carter's second wife, Lydia Dorton, as the mother of James Monroe Carter, James, who was Henry Clay Carter's son by his first wife, Elizabeth.

There was no way that Paige was a descendant of Robert Tate, like Kevin is. Paige is a descendant of Elizabeth (Lawson) Carter, Henry Clay's first wife. Kevin is a cousin to Lydia (Dorton) Carter, Henry Clay Carter's second wife, as both Kevin and Lydia (Dorton) Carter descend from Robert Tate, 1725-1806. Ugh.

So I've re-done the "Provisional Genealogy," and while I suppose there are worse things in life to muck up, still, I'm glad I chewed off a few fingernails to get this done at least to the best of my abilities. While it doesn't affirm the common blood ancestor between Paige and Kevin, it comes closer than my previous work in my July 16, 2025, post of Genealogical Crossover Events. 

At least now I have proven Paige and Kevin's familial connection, even if not a direct bloodline.

Anyway, it's fixed. And while this correction image pedigree to these intersecting Tate/Carter lines may never hang in "The Tate Modern," I gotta say it's all left me feeling a bit like the guy in the picture below.

Say what?                      

But hey, onto the next pedigree chart. 

PEACE!

☮