Questioning the legitimacy of a great grand-uncle
RootsTech made a connection with a 3rd cousin and after massive texting; we are now not sure we are related based on 1. uncertainty of records and 2. zero DNA matches among our respective people. The question is: are the parents of John Thomas Shannon, MY 2nd great grandfather James Shannon and Margaret Morgan Shannon OR another couple with the same name? To confuse the matter, James and Margaret moved from/to NY state, Ontario and Michigan. Of their 7 children: 3 were born in Ontario, 3 were born in NY and the last was born in Michigan. Furthermore the ONLY evidence for my James and Margaret as the parents of John Thomas; are his marriage and death records. There are NO birth records. Not to mention: John Thomas does not appear on either of the two US census reports with my 2nd GGP's and it specifies he was born in Toronto not Lambton County. Another possibility: John Thomas might be a child listed in the 1851 Canada census living with a large group of people: could this be an orphanage? How do we establish WHO his parents are? The records within Canada in the first half of the 1800's are scant. Are there deeper records of Toronto available? Alas, this is a most discouraging event however on the upside; my 'potential' third cousin has been ever so pleasant and receptive. I do appreciate any advice. Thank you, Marlene Russell
Answers
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Hi Marlene
I will check for deeper records for you. Espcially "Find A Grave" https://www.findagrave.com/
What is "John Thomas Shannon's" Family Search ID ?? [ ????-??? ]
What is John's - Birth and Date of Death?
My Father's ID is LR2W-WSY
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LR2W-WSY
Then I can do a "Following" Search for you, to locate "John"
Also is "Russell" your maiden name?
My Family Tree is at https://Beleskey.com
Take care
Bernard Edwin Anthony Beleskey
FS Helper # 98254
Bernie@Beleskey.com
Kitchener, ON Canada
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Found something
Wife https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/230002731/john-t-shannon
As well https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/159241868/john-thomas-shannon
Need Birth date or death date to confirm
Bernard FS 98254
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Bernie:
Well after I put out this message; I dug in a bit harder on this John Thomas Shannon. Clearly he is NOT a son of my 2nd great grandfather.
I think (and yes I am guilty here as well), since his marriage record had James and Margaret Shannon as his parents, many of us simply lumped him with our James and Margaret Shannon.
Honestly, our James and Margaret did in fact have three of their 7 children born in Ontario (as they moved to/from NY and Ontario before settling in Michigan where their last child was born. However John Thomas, with the exception of his birth for which there are no records, had all records in Simcoe, Ontario which was not close to where our Shannon's were. Furthermore, upon looking more closely; there was NO evidence of him with this Shannon family nor within their community in Yale, Michigan.
The earliest record I found him for him was: as an inmate in Simcoe at age 19 and above his name was a James Shannon age 65, who I will presume was his father, also James Shannon. I would share this link but I have deleted him from my family line since, I was absolutely sure I had made a presumptuous error by including him in the first place.
In addition to the above search; there was zero evidence that the DNA of my family shared DNA with the descendant of John Thomas who I befriended via RootsTech Find Your Relatives. That said, we had an incredibly pleasant exchange in sorting through it all. As well, I learned a another huge lesson with genealogy research: CHECK THE DETAILS!
I so greatly appreciate your input. I have not had a great deal of success with Canada research primarily because their federal census records are later dates and many of my ancestor puzzles are before 1850!
Again thank you so very very much, Marlene Russell
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