Cheryl Storton, “Finding Family in Tennessee’s Wild Frontier – Catharine Grissom’s Kin,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly106 (March 2018): 49-60.
One of the purposes of posting reviews of articles featuring female-centered research is to highlight successful methodology when researching women. The present article succeeds in illustrating several common techniques including knowledge of the law of the time and place, use of visual aids (i.e., timelines), a discussion of naming patterns, and expanding the search to include neighbors and other family members, male and female.
The research goal appears to have been identifying whether the individuals who lived near to the subject, Catharine Grissom, were related to her. While this seems fairly straightforward, Catharine lived in Tennessee and the area experienced some record loss. The author specifically states that “Its records, particularly of women, are sparse.” To overcome the difficulty, she not only consulted several different types of records (census, probate, obits/newspapers, vital records, family works, bible records, published abstracts, court minutes which includes road work lists, a tax list, and voter lists were used) but it was also necessary to use a variety of research techniques. For instance, a familiarity with the law in the time and place meant that the 1848 marriage between Catharine Grissom and Branson Davis was evidence that Catharine (and possibly members of her family) was living in Lawrence County. She used this knowledge again on page 59 in her discussion of Elizabeth “Badchell:” Born in 1801–5, she could have married legally in Tennessee in 1820 if born as late as 1808.”
Several other techniques were successful in achieving the research goal and are tools that everyone can use in their own research. The use of a timeline, which appears at the very beginning of the article, lays out all of the known information that kicked off the research. This technique can be exceedingly helpful when trying to construct a research plan during the research phase, in addition to acting as a helpful visual to provide information to the reader. The author also took notice of individuals in the vicinity of her subject with the same, or similar, surname. On page 54 she notes a “Roxaby B. Grisham” and discusses other commonalities that made her a notable link, including naming patterns – another useful technique for tracking and identifying female ancestors. What’s important about this particular use of naming patterns as evidence for kinship is that the author doesn’t just narrow focus on the use of the name within the known family and their descendants, but also notes the use of the name elsewhere, particularly in her discussion of “Roxida,” born about 1857/1858.
Apart from her use of techniques that can be successful tools when researching women, the author also illustrates how to deal with missing records in this article. The author cites a digitized set of marriage bond abstracts that were available online, but her search for the originals revealed that they have been lost. Her steps to track them down were cited within the article to document that the records are lost for the record, but also to let the reader know that she didn’t overlook them in favor of the derivatives. The rule of thumb is always to try and track down the originals and that is what you cite. However, when you are faced with record loss, you must cite the derivatives and any additional information that you may have uncovered to explain the absence of the originals. Here, she cited information from the local archive.
Quite a bit of the information uncovered on Catharine’s family was found through info on the women surrounding her – daughters and sisters. But records surrounding the men in the family were also valuable to identifying Catharine’s parents. It’s a popular tip to turn to the records of the men when searching for information on the women in the family, but this article is a good example of searching for and following ALL leads when attempting to identify the origins of females. Women can be found in records in their own name and shouldn’t be excluded in your search.