"GPS"

(Author's note: Somedays in genealogy you just can't tell where the road will take you- or where it came from. Oh, and "GPS" = "Genealogical Proof Standard." What else did you think I meant? Duh.)

As always, hopefully, edited.

I think she knew it was always there.

I mean, she said as much to me one day, though I admit, at the time I really wasn't sure about what she'd meant. It didn't really matter either; there'd been that huge court case that resolved the matter during the nineteenth century—the matter of her Melungeon ancestry. I guess what was most curious to me about it was that she only remembered it like a rumor or even like a ghost in her ancestral past. Personally, I thought it was pretty cool, you know, being Melungeon, or having some wisp of "forbidden" African ancestry floating through her gene pool from two hundred or so years ago. 

At least it wasn't bland as heck like mine.

I'd revisited all of this with her before when I wrote it up last September in The Tribe of Munch. Truth too, is that I wasn't even thinking of it really. I've been waylaid worrying about submitting "my" Identifying Ruth to the NYGBR and what will be my second round of edits. (I'm pretty sure I've made some really stupid mistakes.) Following her lines leading to and from Ruth (Fuller) Francisco has been epic for an old man like me. But you see, I've needed a distraction from all that, and especially the waiting—a genealogical one—you know, to keep me sane and moving forward- and the kind that just appears out of nowhere.

Above: "Old Henry" Francisco - Ruth's husband.

I'd like to tell you that said distraction started with the Rutherford novel that Cousin Dan recommended. It's been a genuine respite, so much so that I've tried a couple of times to vibe-out an AI-generated novel out of Dan's family, The Descendants of Thomas French, volumes I and II to try and return the favor. I mean, the concept works well, but honestly, AI can mess up more than it fixes and generates a whole lot of muck.

I figured I'd best abandon ship before I got in too deep- I gotta say though, what a story to tell, all the way from seventeenth century Thomas French to a couple of babies swapped at birth at a Kansas Hospital in '43 and onto Dan.

Good stuff. Epic, really.   

However, the Rutherford novel and the French Genealogy got me to thinking about my own seventeenth-century relatives- and I recalled "Grandpa" Thomas Carrier, husband of the reputed and maligned "witch" Martha Allen Carrier, and how he had lived to be a reputed 113 years old. Pretty cool. 

Tough old bastard, right? Definitely not a guy you'd want at the "No King's Rally."

Hey, as grandparents go, I could a had worse, right?

Of course this- my ancestor Thomas Carrier made me think of Paige's kinsman Old Henry Francisco, and his alleged age of 134 at the time of his death, which led me straight back to Identifying Ruth and the NYGBR submission, so that sure as heck didn't work like I'd planned...

So much for being genealogically distracted.

However, Old Henry's age got me to thinking about, well, who else could have lived that long within Paige's tree? Then, as if by chance, I took a quick gander through Ye Olde Branches, and like some Kierkegaardian form of Repetition, I got pulled back into the whole Melungeon thing. You see, I stumbled upon Spencer Bolton.

Melungeons: Those dark skinned folks that defy standard racial boundaries. Seem like good folks to me.

I'd always stopped at Spencer Bolton before. I mean, the whole Melungeon court case seemed to have more to do with his son Solomon (why are they always naming their sons Solomon??) and his daughter who married a Jerome Simmerman than old Spencer himself. I recalled that I'd seen Spencer Bolton's name before—he was connected to Paige and to Paige's cousin, Mary Ellen McWhorter. Mary Ellen has done a lot of incredible genealogy. It's her documents that are helping to make it possible for Paige to seek out the D.A.R. 

Then I remembered it—Mary Ellen had listed Spencer Bolton among her patriot ancestors.  Aha!

So... a Melungeon among the D.A.R. patriots??? Had I missed this before? Did Paige have a Black patriot ancestor? In my rush to relay the court case of the nineteenth century, had I failed to look just one more generation back? Ugh. Old brain syndrome with a dash of nearsightedness.

As I started to explore more about Spencer Bolton, and the rumors that he was a Free Black man, I noticed something else too. I noticed an attribute that seems to be endemic to Paige's family in several branches of her mother's family tree, that being—long life.

Check out this newspaper article on Paige's ancestor Spencer Bolton:

Above: The Baptist (Nashville, TN), January 3, 1846, 16.

This guy was rumored to have lived to 110 years old - and served in the RW!

Above: Later D.A.R records want to "chop" Old Spencer's age back to about 90- but do they REALLY KNOW??? lol.

Okay, does anyone else find it serendipitous that Paige has a man (Old Henry Francisco) said to have lived to be 134 and who enlisted and fought in the Revolutionary War at age 91, and also a Black American patriot who lived to be 110 years old?

I thought it pretty incredible.

I mean, I do have Thomas Carrier in my family tree, who was 113 when he died, married to a witch, and rumored to have killed the King; however, I think in this instance, Paige has me trumped.

I guess, though, what all of this has taught me is that sometimes there is no such thing as a distraction. Genealogy moves in eddies and circles, and if you touch on one side of a line thinking you're going to move away from it by learning about another, you just might be sadly mistaken.

The tide carries you back to shore.  

The human experience folds back in on itself and is in a constant state of self-referral, if not reflection.

Now, where did I set that Rutherford novel down at?

☮