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Tag: Isaac Anderson

The BEAR/BARE Family Naming Traditions and an Update on the Family

A few days ago I wrote a post about my 4th great grandparents, Jesse and Mary (BEAR) BAKER. In the post I discussed where all the children went after they were orphaned. I’ve continued researching since I wrote that post and have discovered more information about that. I’ve discovered that the oldest sister Nancy (BEAR) LITTRELL, who was married when her mom (her last living parent, Margaret Jane) passed away, took in her youngest sister Ellen Adaline BEAR. Siblings Sarah and Hugh moved in with the James and Isabel FRAYSER/FRAZIER family. Sarah was listed as their “hired hand” on the 1860 census. It turns out Isabel FRAYSER was Margaret Jane McCUISTION’s sister- Sarah and Hugh’s maternal aunt. I still haven’t found Hill or Thomas yet. You’ll recall that Eliza Jane was a live-in domestic servant for the Isaac and Jane (HINDS) ANDERSON family. I have not yet found any connection between the HINDS-ANDERSON family and the BEAR family other than location so perhaps they were trusted family friends or neighbors. However, I also don’t know the majority of their father Hugh F. BEAR’s family.

Now that I’ve updated a little bit, I also chose this family to write about for this week’s 52 Ancestors theme: Namesake. This family has been difficult to research in part because they had a tradition of re-using family names. Generations of the family will have many with the same names. Let me give you a couple of examples. I used Eliza Jane BEAR SCHELL as my “homebase” person since I’m most familiar with her family and I know for sure that we connect with her. Jane is a common BEAR family name. Eliza went by Jane and so did her mother even though Jane was a middle name for both of them. Eliza also had an aunt (her mom’s sister) who was named Jane M. In addition to Eliza, her mother and her aunt, Eliza Jane had a niece named Rebecca Jane, two first cousins named Margaret Jane (Eliza’s mother’s exact name!), three first cousins named Mary Jane, and first cousins named Elizabeth Jane, Darlutha Jane, and Patsy Jane. Eliza Jane also had a first cousin name…Eliza Jane Isabel! Thankfully some of the ‘Margaret Jane’, ‘Mary Jane’ and ‘Eliza Jane’ women had different last names. In addition to all of this, some BEAR family researchers believe Eliza Jane’s sister Sarah also had the middle name Jane! The earliest Jane I can find in the family at the moment (keeping in mind I have no information about Eliza Jane’s paternal family) is Eliza Jane’s maternal great grandmother Catherine Jane TENNANT (for whom several females in the family are named) so it’s likely this is where the ‘Jane’ name originated.

This naming tradition holds true for the men in the family as well. Eliza Jane’s maternal great grandfather was James McCUISTION. He was married to Catherine Jane TENNANT. Like Catherine, he had quite a few namesakes in the family. Eliza Jane had a nephew named James T., a nephew named James Hill (Hill was a name repeated frequently in this family), a nephew named James Isaac who went by Ike, uncles named James Conway (Conway being another frequently repeated name in the family) and Thomas James P. (Thomas is another repeated name in the family), and first cousins named James Holland, James O., James Marion, James Rankin (Rankin being a family surname and also often repeated among both the males and females of the family), James L., James Stanley, James Lafayette, James J. who went by Jethro or Jim, and James Berry. It seems like every child and grandchild he had must have named at least one son James!

James McQUISTION’s (Eliza’s maternal great grandfather) birthdate. Found on Ancestry.com; From the book The McQuiston, McCuiston and McQuesten families 1620-1937, complied by Leona Bean McQuiston…Louisville, KY., The Standard press, 1937; submitted to Ancestry by ‘jojoyful1’.

I have so many more examples of namesakes in this family but names without stories is no fun. So I’m going to leave you with this small update and just an inkling of how complicated it can be to research this family because of the namesake situation. I’m continuing to do in-depth research on the family trying to find our BEAR/BARE connection. The phrase “so close, yet so far” certainly sums up the research situation.

Until next time,

Lisa @ Days of Our Lives blog

It’s a Small World: The Magic of DNA + Genealogy (+ A Little Family Legend)

The last year or two I’ve tried to move forward in my genealogy by using my family history research combined with my DNA results. This week I’ve been working on my BEAR-BAKER line. My 4th great-grandparents are Jesse and Mary (BEAR) BAKER. Their son and my 3rd great grandfather, Jehue BAKER, is the last in the line of whom I’m certain. I know for sure he belongs to me. I start getting shaky at Jesse and Mary and can’t get beyond those two at all. After connecting my DNA with my family history research, I believe I can attach us to the right BEAR family. It’s a bit more difficult to find the exact ancestor that belongs to us.

DNA

The first genetic connection I found to the BEAR family was a woman named Joyce. Excluding my family-of-origin connections. Joyce was one of my top 10 matches and estimated to be my 2nd-4th cousin. Unfortunately she had no family tree posted on the DNA site. I went to Ancestry.com and tried finding her there as a member. I did find her but her tree was nearly non-existent. There was one couple listed on the tree- Hill SCHELL and Inez Marie HOOD SCHELL. Fortunately, Hill was from McDonald County, Missouri and Inez was from Jasper County, Missouri, so I knew I was at least in the right location and that Hill SCHELL probably connected to my family somehow- Inez was less of a possibility for that time period. I had never heard or come across the SCHELL name so I was a little stumped. I began a new tree with Hill as the beginning member so I could work back from there. Then I got on the DNA site and looked up my matches that were researching that particular surname. I also sent an email to Joyce. Within a couple of weeks Joyce’s husband replied to my email that his wife had passed away recently. She was adopted and knew nothing of her birth family. She had done her DNA in the hopes of finding her birth family but wasn’t successful. He also didn’t know anything about her biological family and there were no other living relatives to whom he could refer me. Eventually, I did discover that Hill connected to the BEAR family but I was unable to make any connections beyond that. I am, however, certain that Hill is our cousin.

The BEAR/BARE Family

As of this date, I still haven’t found out the exact connection. I know it’s the right family in general though. (There may even be a connection to our LITTRELL family here!) Hill SCHELL was the grandson of Philip and Eliza Jane (BEAR) SCHELL. Hill is a family name passed down through the generations of BEAR men. Hill died in Springdale, Washington County, Arkansas in 1992. I was living so close to him! If only I’d known he was there. His paternal grandmother, Eliza Jane BEAR SCHELL, went by Jane.

Eliza Jane BEAR SCHELL

She was born 10 May 1846/1847 in War Eagle Township, Madison County, Arkansas. Her parents were Hugh and Margaret Jane (McCUISTION/McCHRISTIAN) BARE/BEAR. Eliza (who went by Jane) married Philip SCHELL in 1867 in McDonald County, Missouri. She passed away 4 July 1912 in Mountain Township, McDonald County, Missouri. She passed away from LaGrippe. LaGrippe caused a horrific and hours-long death process by which the sufferer slowly suffocated to death- excruciating for both the sufferer and the family members unable to help their loved one. Philip and Eliza Jane had 11 known children. Eliza’s sister, Nancy, married James LITTRELL. I have not determined yet if he belongs to our LITTRELL family.

Nancy A. BEAR/BARE LITTRELL

Our Hugh F. BARE/BEAR was born about 1817 in Ohio. There are two men named Hugh BARE/BEAR who lived at the same time. They also married about the same time and their children share some of the same names. Their Ancestry trees have been so jumbled together it’s hard to figure out what the truth is about the family. Our Hugh BARE/BEAR was born in Ohio. Our Hugh’s middle name was likely Franklin but there are no records that say what it really was. The guess of ‘Franklin’ was based on the fact he had a grandson named Hugh Franklin.

Family legend says that the BARE/BEAR family was Cherokee. There are no records that exist for Hugh prior to 1839. This fact actually supports that the family could have been Cherokee. As I was told by a Cherokee researcher once, the Cherokee didn’t keep written records until they were forced to by the federal government. The fact that the children were orphaned before most of them were of age means that the children were split up and sent to various family members and/or neighbors to be raised. Despite being separated, many lines of the family have the same family legend- that the family is Cherokee.

Hugh married Margaret Jane McCUISTION/McCHRISTIAN about 1838. She went by “Jane”. Hugh passed away about 1854 in Madison County, Arkansas. Jane passed away a few years later in 1859 also in Madison County, Arkansas. Their oldest child (Nancy) was born in 1839. Nancy married the year after her father died so she was already out of the home when her mother died. Daughter Sarah was born in 1840. In the 1860 census (the year after she was orphaned), Sarah and her little brother Hugh (b. 1849) were living with the James FRAZIER/FRAYSER family at Shells Mills, McDonald County, Missouri and Sarah was listed as their “hired hand”. I’m not sure where Hill (b. 1843) was in 1860 but by 1862 he was enlisting with the Confederacy in Carroll County, Arkansas. I also don’t know where Thomas (b. 1844) went. Researchers of Eliza Jane (b. 1846/1847) believe she stayed in Madison County, Arkansas and was a live-in domestic servant to the Isaac Anderson family. I have also been unable to locate Ellen (b. 1851) in the 1860 census.

More DNA

Genetically, I’ve been able to connect my DNA to descendants of Philip and Eliza Jane (BEAR) SCHELL, descendants of James and Nancy A. (BEAR) LITTRELL, and descendants of James and Sarah (BEAR) CLANTON. My DNA connects to many SCOTT and BEAR/BARE/BAIR families but I haven’t been able to prove any solid connection to Ellen (BEAR) SCOTT or the BEAR/BARE brothers. The problem is, our Mary (BEAR) BAKER would have been a contemporary of Hugh F. BARE/BEAR- the father of all these people. She would likely have been Hugh’s sister or cousin. To date, no researcher has been able to prove who Hugh’s parents or other family members were. At this point, I’ve gathered a good number of the descendants and I’ll begin sorting them into family groups and seeing which line we are most closely connected to by DNA. Until then, I’ll be happy that we made some progress on the line.

One more quick story that I thought was fun. As I was researching the descendants of one of my BEAR family DNA matches, discovered that one of his descendants – a distant cousin of ours – lived in EXACTLY the same house that Bart and I lived in in Springdale, Arkansas when we first got married!

Our old house in Springdale, Arkansas. We had no idea a relative lived there before us!

It sure is a small world! Maybe one day I’ll figure out how we fit into this family.

Until then,

Lisa @ Days of Our Lives blog

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