Bramall Plantation of Calvert County Maryland

Note: See DNA project links at the end of this article.

A couple hundred years ago, my family's name evolved to "Bramel" from it's original spelling of "Bramhall." My branch of this family settled in Maryland before migrating to Kentucky around 1814. A few years ago, I spent a couple days at the Hall of Records in Annapolis researching my ancestral story from the early days of Maryland in an attempt to link us back to Europe.

The Bramhall story in North America appears to have begun with William Bramall / Bramhall, who arrived in Maryland from England in 1651.  While other Bramhalls arrived in Maine three decades later, it is unknown to what extent, if any, they relate to the Bramhall of Maryland who is the subject of this article.

William Bramall made the long voyage across the Atlantic with his wife Mary and his son Luke. It seems that they initially settled in St. Mary’s County and later relocated across the Patuxent River to Calvert Couny. A second son, Richard, was born either during transit or shortly after the family’s arrival in Maryland. A third son, Charles, was born within their first few years in Maryland. These are the only children of William and Mary mentioned in archived records.

Early Maryland records include a number of spelling variations in the surname, often using different variations within the same legal document. These variations include Bromwell, Bramwall, Bromall, Bramall, and Brumile, among others; but evidence exists to remove any doubt that these records refer to the same person and the same family.

Settlement of Maryland

Maryland was originally established as one of just two proprietary colonies in North America, the other being Pennsylvania, meaning it was owned and governed by an individual. The first proprietor was George Calvert, born in Yorkshire, England, about 1580, of a family of some wealth and social position. His parents were probably Catholic, since there were numerous recorded instances of summonses and fines against the family for non-conformity to the Anglican religion. The Calverts appear to have abandoned Catholicism around 1590, which enabled George Calvert to attend Trinity College, Oxford, and to rise to a position of prominence in the court of James I. He was knighted in 1617, and in 1619 he became principal Secretary of State.

In 1624 Calvert announced that he had become a Catholic, which disallowed him from continuing in public office. However, for his past services King James rewarded him with the title of Baron of Baltimore. Calvert, who had purchased land and financed the dispatch of a group of settlers to Newfoundland in 1620, then turned his full efforts and resources toward the colonization of America.

After receiving encouraging reports from the settlers, Lord Baltimore took his wife and forty more settlers to Newfoundland in 1628. There he saw the hopeless condition of the settlement

and the difficulties of farming in such a cold climate, and after spending a brutal winter there he abandoned the project and returned to England in 1629. On the return trip he stopped in Virginia, which had sustained an English settlement since 1607, and where he had hoped to resettle his colony. Their refusal to submit to Protestant conformity made his group unwelcome there, but Calvert was able to explore the Chesapeake Bay, where he found an abundance of promising unsettled land. Back in England he petitioned King Charles I for a land grant north of the Virginia settlements.

Permission for the Chesapeake Bay settlement came two months after George Calvert's death in 1632, and leadership of the colonization effort passed to his son Cecilius Calvert, the Second Lord Baltimore. The charter granted to Lord Baltimore gave him almost regal powers in the new colony, including the appointment of all officials, control of the courts, militia, feudal manors, trade, taxes and custom duties, and ownership of all the land, which was in turn used to attract colonists and investors.

The first Maryland settlers left England in 1633 on two ships, the Ark and the Dove, led by Governor Leonard Calvert, who was subsequently appointed Royal Governor of the new colony by his brother Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore. Passengers

Leonard Calvert

included both Catholic and Protestant settlers along with two Jesuit priests and two Brothers. With stops in Barbados and other Caribbean islands and at Point Comfort, Virginia, they sailed up the Chesapeake and landed at St. Clements Island, about 25 miles up the Potomac River. After negotiating with the local Indians, who were friendly, and exploring the area, they decided on the location of their first permanent settlement, St. Mary's City, on the St. George River. They celebrated mass to mark the formal possession of the colony on March 24, 1634. The area originally acquired from the Indians correlated roughly with present day St. Mary's County, Maryland.

Replica of The Dove, St. Mary's City, Maryland

By 1642, the taxable-age (12 and over) male population of St. Mary's County had reached 225, of which 173 were free and 53 indentured servants. Males outnumbered females by four to one. Most lived on manors or individual farms spread along the various navigable creeks and rivers emptying eventually into the Potomac River. The majority lived in one-room houses, maintained vegetable gardens and livestock for food, and raised a cash crop providing yearly incomes of two to three hogsheads of tobacco, valued at 8 to 15 pounds sterling. In the early years, farm animals were acquired from Virginia, but the Maryland settlers soon became self-sufficient in that regard. With few fences, livestock roamed free, and were identified by clipped ear marks. Livestock theft was a serious offense, possibly punishable by death.

As the settlements spread, they were divided into regions called "hundreds," originally intended to incorporate about one hundred families. In the early years the colonists were concentrated mainly in St. George's, St. Michael's, St. Clement's and Mattapanient Hundreds. St. Mary's City, the site of the provincial government, consisted of about 10 residences, a mill, a forge, and a Catholic chapel. Government and court functions were carried out in the Governor's or Secretary's residences until the 1660's, when the first state house was built.

Cary Carson's Drawing of St. Mary's City 1634

Bramall Plantation

William Bramall was apparently a man of some means. During the decade of the 1650’s, he sponsored a number of immigrants who could not afford the trip from England to America. Those who were initially sponsored by William include Francis Douglas, Thomas Bouges, Joseph Delvines, and John Cassell. Additionally, no fewer than four men were sponsored between 1652 and 1656, and at least a few more before 1660. These men agreed to work for William as payment for transportation to the new colony, a practice known as indentured servitude. 

To promote the settlement of the Colony, English citizens who agreed to relocate to the Province of Maryland were granted free land there, and those who paid the way for others qualified for even more land. Lots of 100 acres were assigned to individual colonists paying their own way, and for those financing groups of colonists, manor lots of 1000 acres were given for each five men transported and equipped. Annual rents were paid to the Lord Baltimore, proprietor for the Colony. The land grant system continued until 1684, after which land was purchased directly.

Original Land Grant from Maryland State Archives

William Bramwall appeared before the Provincial Court in Saint Mary’s on November 20, 1656 to enter his rights to land. A parcel of approximately 500 acres was surveyed by Robert Clark along the Patuxent River on the north side of Hunting Creek. This would become the plantation known simply as Bramall (or Bromall in some records). Annual rent of ten shillings sterling in silver or gold or commodity would be paid in St. Mary’s to the Proprietor, either in full or in two equal installments during the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and at the Feast of St. Michael the Arch Angel. This area, a peninsula between the Chesapeake Bay and east of the Patuxent River, did not become known as Calvert County until 1658. From 1654 to 1658, it was called Patuxent County, and it was originally settled in 1650 as Charles County, not to be confused with the present-day Charles County on the western banks the Patuxent River.

Site of the Bramall Plantation, Calvert County, Maryland

Life for early settlers was difficult and laborious.  Those who came as indentured servants were bound in service for a specified number of years, typically five. Six days per week of 10 to 14 hours work were required.  Corporal punishment was allowed, although mistreated servants were entitled to a hearing in court. Upon completion of the indenture, many of the servants worked on for wages or by sharecropping to acquire additional capital in the form of tools and supplies needed to farm the 50 acres to which they were entitled.

For those who made the voyage to America, the trip was long and miserable, with crowded conditions and frequent outbreaks of various diseases. One of Bramall’s sponsored men, referred to in Provincial Court records as simply Bramhall’s servant, became a key figure in a trial resulting from a bizarre set of circumstances during his voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Gravely ill and possibly delirious, he suggested that during the rocky voyage over to Maryland another servant committed a variety of heinous acts, including infant murder. He accused Judith Catchpole of murdering her newborn child, secretly wounding people so that they might suffer from an incurable blood loss and committing untraceable surgical procedures that similarly resulted in the death of others while on board ship. Whatever motivations drove the servant to suggest that Catchpole had engaged in such dubious activity, by the time the verdict was delivered that too little evidence existed to indict her, the unnamed servant was dead and virtually forgotten. (Source: Archives of Maryland Online, Judicial and Testamentary Business of the Provincial Court, 1649/50-1657, volume 10, page 456)

Violent crime was rare in colonial Maryland, and yet a case was heard in 1663 over the shooting of Richard Morton by Patrick Due, overseer of William Bromall’s plantation, on the Bromall land. Morton, a resident of Wapping, England in Middlesex County, east of London, was a crew member on a ship captained by Ralph Storye. On March 14, 1662, Storye and his crew sailed up the Patuxent River and into the mouth of Hunting Creek. They landed at a cove on the Bromall property, having been instructed to pick up a hogshead of tobacco for a Mr. Cooke.  One of the crew, Tobias Dunkin, went ashore to the plantation and approached a woman there. She verified that it was the Bromall plantation and that Patrick Due was overseeing the operation.

Dunkin then approached Mr. Due, who confirmed that there was a hogshead of tobacco for Mr. Cooke. Due asked where they had landed, and he became agitated to learn that the crew was near the canoe, as he had worked all morning collecting oysters, which were now housed within the canoe. He feared that the crew would help themselves to the oysters. Dunkin assured him the crew would not disturb the oysters and went to the tobacco house to roll the hogshead to the shore. Due sent a boy who was working for him, sixteen year-old Robert Hobbs, to the shore to warn the crew not to take the oysters.

Then Mr. Due went to secure a shotgun, gunpowder, and buckshot and made his way to the shore, along with his two dogs. Meanwhile, some of the crew members, including Elias Chandler and John Addams, had indeed noticed the oysters in the canoe and decided to help themselves to a snack. The boy, Hobbs, came down the hill from the plantation and asked them what they were doing. Chandler told him not to be angry, that the oysters had not cost anything. The boy replied that it had cost him his labor all morning in collecting them. The crew offered to pay for the oysters they had eaten, Addams tossing a coin to the shore.

Then Mr. Due appeared with the dogs and his shotgun, cursing at the men in the canoe, calling them “sea dogs,” and threatening to kill them. He said he did not want their money and fired at the men, wounding Morton in the arm and chest, and striking Chandler in the cheek. Due then sent his dogs onto the men, chasing them hip deep into the water.

Morton was treated by Stephen Clifton, a surgeon from Calvert County, on the day of the shooting. Clifton testified that Morton had been mortally wounded with buckshot having pierced his lung through the rib cage. Three days later, on March 17^th, Morton was pronounced dead.

A petite jury of the Provincial Court found Patrick Due guilty not of murder, but rather of manslaughter. The key witnesses in the case were interviewed by John Bateman and William Turner. Turner was a neighbor and good friend to William Bramall and his family, and he and his son would become a key figures in the Bramall story.

Bramall Court Records

Early records document several appearances by William Bramhall before the Provincial Court (Source: Judicial and Testamentary Business of the Provincial Court, 1649/50-1657):

Page 424, Court and Testamentary Business, 1655: William Bramhall having been formerly Convicted of Subscribing to a Rebellious Petition, and now againe hath Subscribed another to that effect, It is ordered that the Sd Bramhall Shall be at the Charge of building a pair of Stocks and See it finished within one Month, And that the Sheriffe Shall Cause this order to be performed.

Page 432, Court and Testamentary Business, 1655: John Boone acknowledgeth in Court to Serve William Bramale two yeares.

Page 476, Court and Testamentary Business, 1656/7:The differrence depending between William Bramaell plant and mr John Potts defendt is referred to the next Provll Court.

Page 478, Court and Testamentary Business, 1656/7:Timothy Gunton Sworne and Examined in open Court Saith that mr John Potts was to give William Brammaell 7 barrells of Corne a Share for 4 Shares, and the Said mr Potts did give the aforesaid Brammaell Earnest to bind the game when he bought the Corne and farther Saith not timothy Gunton.

John Merthe Sworne and Examined in open Court Saith that mr Iohn Potts was to give William Bramaell 7 barrells of Corne a Share for 4 Shares and that the Said mr Potts was to Come downe the Munday following to See the Corne; and the Said Brammaell Said he had no accomodation for him, whereupon mr Potts Said he would Send down his man, and gave the Said Brammaell Charge of his hogs which were in the Corn field to the Number of fifteen or Sixteen, and the Said Brammaell replyed he would be more Carefull then formerly he had been, And further Saith not Signum John 0 Merthe.

The Death of Bramall

The three sons of William and Mary became orphaned at a young age. William died in 1660, Mary having preceded him in death. In his last will and testament, dated December 1660, William names all three children as heirs, leaving them his entire estate. Further, he entrusted his “beloved friends William Turner and William Parrott” to settle his estate.

Will of William Brumale from Maryland State Archive

William Brumale his will

In the name of God amen. I William Brumale being sick and weak in body do first bequeath my soul unto God that gave it and my body to the earth from whence it came knowing assuredly that I shall arise to meet him and his glory and to my comfort. And having a desire to dispose of my earthly goods I first of all give unto my three sons, Luke Brumale, Richard Brumale and Charles Brumale unto these my three children I do give my whole Estate and land cattle and Premises hereunto and all manner of Household goods and other goods as tobacco now and made or housed or shall be made. Also all manner of debts whatsoever I have a desire that my children may have my Estate divided into three parts unto every child his portion equally and that these my three children may have education it is my desire also. I make and ordain my well beloved neighbors William Parrott and William Turner my true and trusty friends the executors of this my last will and testament and that they may do all and everything according as God shall guide them and that my beloved friends William Turner and William Parrott do pay all debts and of my Estate that can justly be made apart. I William Brumale do freely give unto Joseph Dawkins at the expiration of his servitude one two year old heifer. My will and desire is that my last will and testament may stand in full aforesaid and Vortuo and all other and do be void and of no effect. To the true purpose named where of I set my hand and seal the mark of W. William Brumale.

In the years following the death of William Bramhall of Calvert County, the guardianship of his sons was addressed several times by the Provincial Court.  William Turner apparently died before 1665, and his children, along with Bramhall’s sons, were placed under the guardianship of Dr. John Stanesby.  It seems that one of the sons, Charles, died sometime between 1660 and 1662, as he is not mentioned in any of the recorded proceedings of the Court.  Whoever had guardianship of the boys also held control over the plantation.  At the request of the boys, guardianship was later transferred to Demetrius Cartwright.

Provincial Court Proceedings, 1665-66, Page 159: Att a Court held 10th June 1665 Luke Bromall Choseth for his Guardian Mr Demetrius Cartwright

Att a Court held 24th Aug 1665 att William Turners by the Appointmt of Mr John Stanesby Guardian of Wm Turners Children, and Thomas Bowdell as Administrator of Docter Cliftens Estate and Demetrius Cartwright Guardian of Bromhals Children

Ordered that the Orphants of Wm Bromall and theire estate be deliuered unto John Stanesby (Guardian of Wm Turners Children) for the use of Wm Turner, prouided that hee put's in security the next County Court to performe a uoluntary Order wch Docter Cliften  engaged to performe in the Court for Bromalls Vse att a Court held the 26th August 1664 

Provincial Court Proceedings, 1665, Page 135: (Dec) 18th Demetrius Cartwright desires summons for John Stanesby to appeare next Prouinall Court to answere the sd Cartwrights Complaint Concerning Luke & Richard the orphants of William Bromall

Page 162: To The Right Honnble the Gouernor And Councell

The humble petn of Dem: Cartwright Sheweth

That whereas Luke Bromall was by Order of the County Court the 20th day of June last past, Ordered to Remaine dwell & abide wth yor petr as his Guardian together wth his Brother Richard Bromall, Now soe it is that the said Court an uertue of an Order bearing date the 24th Aug° last past, hath Ordered the Orphants that they shall be under the Guardianship of John Stanesby Chirurgeon and the orphants being thereunto unwilling and hauing a desire that both there Estates and prsons may be under the Guardianship Charge managemt & tuition of yor petr especially the eldest by name Luke being of Capable age of Eleccon in that Case hauing unto yor petr addressed himselfe and made request that he would Vouchsafe the Guardianship and Charge aforesaid, hee therefore doth humble pray that this honnble Court will please to take the premisses into theire serious Consideracons and giue such further Judgmt and determinacon uppon the sd orphants desire and request as may be sutable to law in that Case, And yor petr shall euer pray &c [p. 163] Demetrius Cartwright plt The foregoeing petn wth the Coppyes of John Stanesby defendant the Orders of the County Court entred in fo: 159 being read It is Ordered That the Orphant Luke Broniall doth remaine undr the Guardianship of Demetrius Cartwright and the Estate remaine where it is according to those two foresaid Orders of the said County Court of Caluert John Stanesby preferrs his Bill of Charge being for 300lb tobacco, which was Ordered to be paid out the said Orphants Estate

Bramall / Bramhall / Bramel Lineage 

Richard Bramall lived to adulthood, but not much past that, and his older brother Luke preceded him in death. Richard’s last will and testament is dated April 16, 1676, and the date of his death was recorded as May 3, 1676. In it, he bequeaths 500 acres of land to his wife, Joyce Bramall. In 1679, Joyce remarried to William Turner, probably a son of the William Turner mentioned in William Bramhall’s will. Thus, ownership of the Bramall Plantation went to the Turners.

The fate of this line of Bramhall genealogy is unclear. There is no mention of any offspring in the wills of Luke and Richard, so it is possible that this line ended with their deaths. Still, some researchers have theorized that prior to his death, Richard may have fathered a son with his wife Joyce, possibly named James, and that this is the missing link in our Bramel lineage.

The "Bramel" variation of the surname appears in some early 1700's records in nearby Prince Georges County. Then in 1755, another William Bramhall, my sixth great grandfather, purchased land next to the town of Benedict in Charles County, on the banks of the Patuxent River just across from the site of the Bramall Plantation in Calvert County. No records have been discovered that would definitively link my Benedict line with the William Bramhall who was granted land in Calvert County by the Lord Baltimore in 1656. Could it simply be a coincidence?

Links:

Some of William Bramhall's descendants relocated from Charles County, Maryland to Mason County, Kentucky in 1812: The Church That Bramel Built

UPDATE January 2021: A DNA project has connected the Bramhall line of Charles County to the Bromwell line of Dorchester County. We now have a Y-DNA group for testing male descendants with one of these (or similar) surnames. You can help by joining the project here: Bramhall Y-DNA Project

For general information about our DNA findings to date, check out this article: Bramel DNA - Our Link to Medieval Times

Vernon Bramel's Big Inheritance

One story that my father and some of his siblings passed along surrounded a mysterious inheritance that my grandfather received in the 1970’s. Unfortunately, nobody could recall the name of the relative who passed along the inheritance and no records could be located. But with some persistent sleuthing, help from my cousin Jennie, and a lucky hunch, the mystery was at long last solved.

Grandpa (Vernon Bramel) at home, 1969

As the story goes, my grandparents, Vernon and Marietta Bramel, had planned a trip to their tiny fishing cottage on the Sandusky River north of Fremont, Ohio. They stopped at the post office on their way out of their home town of Bettsville to pick up the mail. Grandpa opened an envelope from an attorney’s office and discovered a check along with a letter explaining that the payment was for settlement of the estate of a deceased family member. My grandfather, at first glance, thought the check was in the amount of $4,500. But then Grandma, upon closer examination, realized that Grandpa had overlooked one of the zeroes. The check was actually for $45,000!

My dad (Vernon, Jr.) with sons Randy and Mike, at the cottage, 1959

Grandma Bramel (Marietta Semer) with my cousin Tim Bramel at the cottage, 1959

Our investigation identified the benefactor as Vernon's aunt, Nancy Mae Bramel, a native of Maysville, Kentucky and the daughter of Wood and Amelia Bramel. The Bramel families in Maysville and Mason County descended from Jonathan Bramhall, who migrated to Kentucky from Southern Maryland in the early 1800's. 

Nancy Mae resided in Detroit after a stint in Akron, Ohio where she had worked as a dance instructor. She met Benjamin F. Jones, a successful businessman from Ravenna, Ohio, and a widower with two grown sons. After divorcing Warren Willkinson, Nancy Mae married Mr. Jones in 1931 at Mackinac Island, Michigan. They resided in Ravenna for the remainder of their lives.

The life and times of Benjamin Jones

I was contacted by Holly Beazley, a granddaughter of Mr. Jones, who stumbled upon some of my research on Ancestry.com. She shared some photographs and her recollections of Benjamin and Nancy Mae:

"They were very private people and I hardly knew them but they took me ice skating once. They were avid figure skaters. They lived in a mansion on Main Street in Ravenna that had a ballroom where Nancy would roller skate. My grandfather had a 6th grade education and worked in the coal mines in Ohio before he took a correspondence course in engineering. He and his brothers then founded Jones Brothers Structural Steel Company in Ravenna which became a very successful business. They were all well respected in town."

The former Jones home in Ravenna became Sugar Maple Inn, a Bed and Breakfast

Benjamin and Nancy Mae Jones, Lavern Jones, and Harlene, 1930's

Mr. Jones died in 1967, followed by Nancy in 1976. As far as I know, my grandfather had never met his aunt. He and his two younger brothers were placed in an orphanage near Toledo after their mother died near Cincinnati in 1925. The boys were subsequently separated and maintained almost no communication during their lifetimes. My grandfather never shared any information with us about his childhood other than that his family was from Kentucky and that he ran away from home at age twelve. My research has since lifted the veil on this complicated chapter in our family history, and a link at the end of this article takes the reader to that story.

The Akron Beacon Journal - 26 Feb 1976

With his inheritance money, my grandfather was able to retire from Basic, Inc. in 1976 after 49 years of dedicated employment. He and my grandmother purchased a large RV camper and traveled around the country, often visiting with their children and grandchildren in Florida, Virginia, and Oklahoma.

Grandpa in his workshop, ready to try out a new fishing pole

Marietta and Vernon with their mobile home, 1987

LINKS:

More about Vernon's siblings and ancestors: The Search for Malcolm Bramel's Heirs

Bramel DNA Project: Our Link to Medieval Times

Jeanette DNA Project

The good news is that we have a match. A perfect match!

We compared a sample of 37 DNA markers from two men in our family tree who have never met each other. Tom lives in Colorado, Gary in Ohio. Both men are believed to have descended from Richard Hezekiah Jeannette, sometimes spelled Jeanette, who lived most of his life near Thompson's Station in Williamson County, Tennessee. All 37 markers were exactly the same, so science has now confirmed that Tom and Gary are indeed second cousins, great grandsons of Richard Hezekiah Jeannette. Actually, they are "half" second cousins, since Gary descended from Richard's first marriage and Tom from the third. This verifies that the Ohio branch of the Jeanette family is definitively linked to the Jeanettes from the Nashville area. So, hello cousins! It seems we can move forward with that family reunion we've been discussing for a few years.

Family Tree DNA, the company we selected for this project, offers several types of DNA testing for genealogy purposes. We chose the Y-DNA test because it's the test being used in an established project tracking a Jennett family from Cape Hattaras and other areas of Eastern North Carolina. The paper trail indicates that our Richard Hezekiah Jeannette's father, believed to be Joseph W. Jennett, was born in North Carolina. Some researchers, myself included, have suspected that our Tennessee-Ohio branch is connected to that North Carolina Jennett family, even though a common ancestor has never been identified through paper records.

The Y chromosome is found only in males; it's what makes us males. This makes Y-DNA analysis a powerful tool in researching one's paternal line. The Y is passed down from father to son, so its make-up remains the same through the generations, with the exception of slight mutations that can rarely happen from one generation to the next. The frequency of these mutations when comparing Y-DNA allows us to see not only who we might be related to, but how deeply into history we might need to research in order to identify the common ancestor.

In a perfect scenario, that Jeanette Y-chromosome would follow the paternal line of the family tree for hunderds of years to the days when surnames first came into use. That leads us into the bad news.

DNA markers from two Jennette men on Hatteras Island, cousins to each other, did not match the markers for Gary and Tom. For that matter, the Hatteras men did not match any of the other seven participants in the Jennett DNA project; nor did Gary and Tom. Initially, this would suggest that there was something called a Non-Paternity Event, perhaps an undocumented adoption or an illegitimate birth, sometime in the 1800's or earlier that makes our family tree not match our DNA tree. These events, while not always openly discussed, are not uncommon. Family Tree DNA estimates that somewhere between 3.5% and 10% of us were not fathered by the man we called Dad. Compound this over 6 or 8 generations and you can see why many researchers run into problems when attempting to verify genealogy research with DNA testing.

When Tom tested, it was at the 37-marker level. So we took it a step further when we tested Gary. We compared 67 markers just to see what would happen. Because of this, we discovered a new match, someone named William F. Cole, Jr. Gary and Mr. Cole had a small variation in five of the 67 markers, but that's close enough to predict a common ancestor somewhere in time. There is 60% chance that this common ancestor can be found about 12 generations back, or approximately 300 years ago. It increases to 90% at 18 generations, about 450 years ago to just after the time when surnames in Europe first came into widespread use.

Cole's family tree traces back to his earliest known paternal ancestor, Robert Cole, who lived in Duplin County, North Carolina in the late 1700's. Ironically, that's not far from an area where a pocket of Jennetts lived. This is not to say a Cole was adopted into a Jennett family, or vice versa, or that some form of hanky-panky went on. It's just something that warrants further research and investigation if we're to solve some of these mysteries.

At the 25-marker and 12-marker levels, there are lots of matches, either exact or with a difference in one or two markers. This adds several new surnames to our research list, including multiple appearances of Austin, Boswell, Calloway, Frisbee/Frisby, Irby/Erbe/Yerby, Laidlaw/Ludlow, May, Mustard, Patterson, and Wyatt/Wiatt. There are lots of explanations how someone with a different surname could show up on our match list. I'm not going to get into all of that, but here is a nice article that lays it all out.

Y-DNA Testing - Why Do I Match Different Surnames?

As more men in the Jennett/Jeanette line participate in the DNA study, things will become more clear. The next step is to identify and test someone who descended from a brother of Richard Hezekiah Jeannette, or perhaps from an uncle. Keep digging!

A special "thanks" to everyone who contributed toward the cost of the testing! Follow this link for a recent post about the Jeanette family from Williamson County, Tennessee.

Update: We've had two more matches to our DNA tree, and we can now confirm our most distant common ancestor, Hezekiah Jennett born about 1772 in North Carolina! Here's our family tree... and more volunteers are needed to move the project further...

A Study In "Jennettics"

I'm from an Ohio branch of this family, and we spell it "Jeanette," like the girls name. My maternal grandfather was Joseph Benjamin Jeanette, Jr. Joe was the first of seven children born to Joseph Benjamin Jeanette, Sr. and Sally Ida Booker Jeanette. Joe was born in Tennessee, but the other siblings were all born in Ohio.

Brothers Joe, Richard, Donald, and Robert Jeanette with their
mother Sally (Booker) Jeanette ca. 1927 near Woodville, Ohio

For some reason, they dropped an "n" from the name in the 1930's or so. Joe graduated from Bettsville High School in Seneca County, Ohio in 1933. Here's his senior yearbook picture with the "Jeannette" spelling.

Bettsville yearbook photo from 1933

Joe's parents, who were known as Ben and Sally Jeanette, came from a small town south of Nashville, Tennessee called Thompson's Station in Williamson County. Ben worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad there. A friend taught him Morse code and a bit about how a telegraph works, and these skills launched Ben's career with the railroad. They moved to Ohio, and over the next couple decades, they alternated between several small towns along the railroad between Columbus and Toledo.

From Joe Jeanett's memoirs. Click photo
to read about his dad, Ben Jeanette.

Ben's father, Richard Hezekiah Jeannette, lived his entire life in middle Tennessee. He was known as Dick Jeannette, and he was from a family of blacksmiths there. Dick Jeannette was married three times; the first wife was Ophelia Hargrove. Ben was born of this union in 1890, and he had six sisters. After Ophelia died in 1895, Dick married her sister, Sallie Belle Hargrove, but she also died. Dick married Nettie Angeline Johnson in 1897, and they had six children together.

About the time our Ohio Jeannettes were becoming Jeanettes, the same phenomenon was happening with the Tennessee branches of the family, seemingly by sheer coincidence. Again, none of those descendants can say for sure why it changed, but it did. The name change seems to affect all the Jeanette lines who descended from Richard Hezekiah Jeannette, whose name also changed from Jeannette to Jeanette.

Dick and Nettie Jeanette with grandson George Atkinson

Not far north of Williamson County, in the counties surrounding Bowling Green, Kentucky, we discover another branch of this family. But that branch and the generations to follow spell the name "Jennett."

The Tennessee cousins of present day, a few of them anyway, have gotten their hands on the original birth records of their parents and grandparents to find the original spelling, "Jennett." That's right! The name was actually Jennett, and we kept changing it to get it how we wanted it over all those decades.

Richard Hezekiah Jeanette's given name was actually Joseph Hezekiah Jennett. He was the son of Joseph W. Jennett and Elizabeth Nickens Jennett. Over the course of his life, sometime before 1900, Joseph Hezekiah Jennett became Richard Hezekiah Jeanette, but not consistently. What a nightmare for genealogy researchers!

We know that Joseph W. Jennett was born in North Carolina about 1818, and we know this from studying the Census for Williamson County, Tennessee in the years when everyone's place of birth is recorded. In my line of the Jeanette/Jennett surname, Joseph W. Jennett is our earliest known forefather. Prior to this person, everything is speculative and not supported by records with any degree of certainty. My hope is to connect this family to a large "Jennette" family located on Hatteras Island in North Carolina's Outer Banks. I wrote about this family in a previous blog, Jennette Family of Lightkeeper Lore.

I believe that Joseph W. Jennett's father was Hezekiah Jennett, born in North Carolina about 1772. It seems that Hezekiah relocated to Kentucky around or just before 1820. Prior to 1850, the Federal Census did not include everyone's name, just the head of each household. But close inspection of the 1820 and 1830 Census for Simpson County, Kentucky shows Hezekiah near the town of Franklin, just 75 miles north of the town of Thompson's Station where my Grandpa Joe Jeanette was born.

Update: New DNA results have now confirmed the link to Hezekiah Jennett.

I believe that Hezekiah brought several family members along, including no fewer than three sons. One son, John Jennett, was born in 1805. He married Mary Barr across the state line in neighboring Sumner County, Tennessee in 1825, and they were the progenitors of that Kentucky branch of the family that never changed the spelling from the original Jennett variation. John and Mary Jennett appear on the 1830 Census for Simpson County, Kentucky near the town of Franklin with two young daughters, and they had at least four sons during the 1830's.

The 1825 marriage of John and Mary Jennett, witnessed by Hezekiah Jennett

I believe Hezekiah Jennett also had two younger sons, Robinson (born about 1813) and Joseph W. (born about 1818). These two brothers moved to Nashville during the 1830's. They worked as blacksmiths there and married sisters Hester and Elizabeth Nickens. The Nickens sisters were of mixed race, having descended from an African slave known as Richard Nickens. Richard, his wife Chriss, and their three children were freed in the 1690 will of John Carter of Lancaster County, Virginia. The small bit of African DNA in my results, less than one percent, can be attributed to this branch. The Joseph and Elizabeth Jennett family moved 40 miles south to Thompson's Station. The Robinson and Hester Jennett family remained in Nashville. Here is a link to our freed slave ancestor, The Richard Nickens Story.

My grandfather always thought the Jeanette's immigrated to the United States from France and French Canada. He wrote that they went from Canada to New York to Kentucky and finally settled in Tennessee. He said that they worked in logging camps. However, my research tracks his forefathers to North Carolina, a family of blacksmiths, not loggers. Grandpa Joe's Tennessee cousins apparently shared this same tale of French ancestry with their descendants as well. I always wondered if there could possibly be some degree of truth behind these hand-me-down stories about French Canadian loggers.

Grandpa Joe Jeanette's inaccurate account of our heritage

Did I mention that I've been trying to connect our Tennessee Jennett/Jeanette line to that Jennette family on Hatteras Island? Well it turns out I'm not alone. In fact, the Jennett name has been associated with numerous research projects connected to Sir Walter Raleigh's so called "Lost Colony," dating back to the 1500's. If you don't know anything about that story, look into it. It's quite intriguing, and to think our bloodline could be a part of that story has excited me since I first stumbled upon the possibility. Here's a link to a quick review of the Lost Colony story: The Story of Roanoke, Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony

Researchers of the Lost Colony's families of interest have now turned to science for assistance in connecting the dots and to see if the forefathers became intertwined with the native tribes. In one such investigation, DNA samples have been collected from the male line of the Jennett surname. In other words, if you are a male Jennett/Jennette/Jeanette, then you could participate and potentially connect your lineage to the first Jennetts to settle in eastern North Carolina a dozen generations ago. The paper trail indicates that the Jennett line in the U.S. originated on the mainland along the waterways feeding the Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, well before the appearance of the Hatteras branch or the others who migrated further west. There are recorded wills and land grants in Tyrell and Hyde Counties from the early 1700's to support this notion.

John Jennett Land Grant 1773 as surveyed

Location of John Jennett's land in Hyde (now Dare) County, NC

At last check, only three Jennett males have participated in that study. Two have recorded their lineage to the Hatteras Jennettes, and one other is from our line of the Tennessee Jeanettes. The two Hatteras males turned out to be a DNA match to one another, confirming a common direct ancestor. Unfortunately, the sample of the Tennessee descendant did not match the Hatteras samples. It did however match up with two other Hatteras samples from other family surnames, Carawan and Calloway. There could be many explanations for this, perhaps an undocumented adoption or an illegitimate birth in the generations prior. As more participants join the study, our story should become more clear.

Update: We have joined the DNA project! Follow this link for the latest Jeanette DNA results.

All Jennett descendants are invited to join our Facebook group. Just follow this link: Jeanette Family Ancestry

The Disappearance of John H. Semer

He's considered the patriarch of the Semer family in Ohio, the father of ten children. He was fourth generation American from a proud Pennsylvania-German family. He was a pioneer, one of the first settlers in the Western Ohio county of Van Wert, and a leader in the settlement of Jackson Township. He was my great great great grandfather. But sometime before 1860, he disappears from the face of the Earth, appearing on no records from that point forward. So what happened to John H. Semer?

Once I started researching this mystery deeper, it occurred to me that the story should really be about his wife, Keziah Catharine Semer.

The story of John H. Semer begins in rural Berks County, Pennsylvania, in the town of Alleghenyville, south of the city of Reading. The family surname is Ziemer, and the family is very prominent in the German-American community, its roots dating back to 1738. John H. Ziemer is born in 1820. At the age of five, his father dies, and his mother Lydia (Hertz) remarries to a man from Reading by the name of John Shearer. The Shearers move to Reading in 1832, but John H. remains in Alleghenyville, perhaps living with an uncle there and working as an apprentice in the operation of the family business, Ziemer's Tavern. His one living sibling, Salome Sarah Ziemer, moves to Reading along with her mother and step-father.

Salome Sarah (Ziemer) Myers (1823-1899), seated, with her daughters. She was John H. Semer's sister and lived in Reading, Pennsylvania from age 9.

John H. Ziemer marries Keziah Matz, also of German-American descent, and three sons are born, William in 1843, Henry in 1845, and John in 1847. The three boys are baptized in the Alleghenyville Union Church in 1847. Daughters Catherine and Emma are born in 1848 and 1851. The family is enumerated on the 1850 Federal Census, with John's occupation being "Innkeeper." The family leaves Pennsylvania in 1851 to begin a new life in Ohio, and from this point forward, the spelling of the name is Semer, but also Seamer, Semore, Seymore, or even Seymour on a few records.

Ziemer's Tavern in Alleghenyville, Pennsylvania is now a private residence.

The Semer family settles temporarily in Fairfield County southeast of Columbus. Semer purchases 80 acres of land in the northeast corner of Van Wert County, and the family moves there in 1852. Semer's good friend from back in Pennsylvania, Israel Adam, also moves there about the same time. He is married to Keziah's sister, Catharine Matz. The Semers and Adams are among the earliest pioneer families in this part of Ohio.

Catharine Matz Adams, sister of Keziah Semer

Stories passed through generations of the Adam family (later changed to Adams), paint a picture of John H. Semer as a bit of a heavy drinker, not so surprising given his childhood in the inn and tavern business. In one such story, Semer and Adam are walking eight miles to Delphos to purchase an iron kettle. While in town, they have a lunch break, and Semer has a bit too much to drink. On the way home, he loses his balance on a log crossing over a stream, falling in and getting pinned beneath the water by the weight of the kettle. Israel Adam is able to rescue him, a sobering experience, indeed. The two men arrive safely home before nightfall after a long day.

A large swath of Northwestern Ohio was the last part of the state to be settled, since much of it was marshy swampland, the Black Swamp, left behind by thousands of years of receding glaciers. The land must be cleared and drained before anything can be cultivated, a very difficult task for these early settlers.

In 1855, Jackson Township is formed from pieces of neighboring townships. John H. Semer is elected Treasurer. John and Keziah have five more children, Edward in 1852, Lydia and Polly (twins) in 1853, Charles Allen in 1857, and Cassie in 1859. The 1860 Federal Census enumerates Keziah and her ten children, but John H. Semer is not listed. So what happened to him?

There are clues. In a 1906 publication, History of Van Wert County, Ohio and Representative Citizens, one of the sons, John Semer, is featured and provides the author with family history. "One of the few white settlers of that wild region, John H. Semer at once became a leader among his fellows, and used his influence for the advancement of the new settlement.... He was treasurer of the township for a time, but his career of usefulness was cut short by death in 1862."

In those days, much the same as we see in more modern times, people often embellished or misrepresented things for the purpose of maintaining the good graces of the family name. This appears to be the case with the information provided to the book's author by the younger John Semer regarding his father.

We don't know whether or not John H. Semer truly did or didn't die in 1862 at the age of about 42 years. But the recent discovery of court documents in Van Wert County shed a bit more light on this part of the Semer history.

Fast forward to the 3rd day of January, 1866...

Keziah Semer, now known as Catharine, along with her attorneys, appears before the Court of Common Pleas in Van Wert to petition for divorce against John H. Semer. The grounds? Abandonment. John H. Semer has been absent from the marriage for more than three years, probably the minimum for abandonment charge at the time. The charge goes on to state that "... for the last nine years she has supplied said children with her own labor and industry."

The petition asks the Court to decree to Catharine, as alimony, ownership of the 80-acre farm owned by John H. Semer, "...that at the time of abandonment of her said husband said land was unimproved but that by the labor of herself and her children she has made lasting and valuable improvements therein."

Since the location of Mr. Semer was not known, a notice is placed in the local newspaper, the Van Wert Weekly Bulletin, for the next six weeks. He fails to respond to the notice, and on March 26, 1866, the marriage is dissolved, with Catharine awarded ownership of the real estate and full custody of the children.

John Semer seems to have vanished sometime about 1858. The youngest of his offspring, Cassie, was born in June of 1859, and he's not on the 1860 Census. I wondered... could he have been the victim of something sinister?

But more documents provide more clues. It is now the 14th day of May in the year 1859, and John H. Semer, now the "late Treasurer of Jackson Township," is named as a defendant, along with Israel P.Adams and William F. Westerfield, in a suit involving embezzlement of the Township's funds.

The suit lays out the merits of the Township's case. John H. Semer is elected Treasurer on April 5, 1858. This position requires him to handle receipts coming into the Township and to make payment of the expenses of the Township and schools. His term expires on April 4, 1859. During his term, receipts total $852.56.2 and payments total $465.02.4. The remaining balance of $387.59.8 cannot be accounted for and has not been reimbursed to the Township at the expiration of Semer's term. That's at least $10,000 in today's dollars. The suit further proclaims that, "John H. Semer has left the state of his residency so that no demand can be made for said sum of money..." In the absence of Semer, the Township sues the oldest son, William Semer. William Semer, my great great grandfather, is subsequently named the primary debtor in the case, with Westerfield and Adams being named his sureties.

So there it is. John H. Semer, entrusted for one year with the funds set aside to pay the Township's bills and establish its schools, appears to have taken the leftover monies and fled Ohio, leaving his wife and ten kids behind. Did he go back to Pennsylvania? Did he join the migration westward? Did he change his name (again)?

After sharing this story, I received from a fellow researcher a handwritten document. It is titled Ancestrial History and was penned by or on behalf of Suzanna Semer Winner, a granddaughter of John H. Semer, and the daughter of William and Emeline Semer. Sometime prior to her death in 1950, Suzanna recorded the following:

"Grandfather Semer went back to Penn. on horseback to collect debts from property there, and is known to have started back to Ohio, but was never seen nor heard from again."

Catharine Semer and her children established a successful farm and homestead. William Semer, after presumably satisfying his father's debt, would later own an 80-acre farm one mile to the north of the original homestead, and his brother John had 40 acres to the south of the homestead, both raising families there. The Semer daughters all married and also raised families. Charles Allen Semer raised his family in Defiance, Ohio, where he operated a sawmill, and then Alvordton near the Michigan-Ohio line. The other two sons, Henry and Edward, did not marry; they remained at home and operated their mother's farm. Catharine Semer died in 1900; she is buried in the West Side Cemetery in Delphos, Ohio alongside much of her family.

William Semer, oldest of the Semer children and my great great grandfather

Several generations later, descendants of the Semer children remain prominent in Northwestern Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and across the United States.

Check out my previous blog for more information about the Ziemer Family of Alleghenyville, Pennsylvania.


Sources: History of Van Wert County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, Thaddeus S. Gilliland, 1906, Van Wert, Ohio

"The Old Iron Kettle," Lawrence W. Adam, History of Van Wert County, Ohio, Van Wert County Historical Society, 1981

"Thanks" to Eric Crawford, a descendant of Emma Semer Hetrick, for providing the county court documents.

William Lampson Semer - Fort Zachary Taylor

William Lampson Semer, my great grandfather, grew up near the northwest corner of Van Wert County in Western Ohio. In 1902, he enlisted in the Army and was assigned to Coast Artillery Corps. He was based at four different coastal fortifications in Florida and New York during his 15 year military career.

William Lampson Semer (1882-1920)

In the decades following the British invasion of Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812, the United States took measures to address coastal defense deficiencies that were exploited by the British. A total of 42 forts were built to protect susceptible shorelines and harbors.

One of these forts was Fort Zachary Taylor in Key West, Florida. William Semer was stationed at Fort Taylor from 1902 until 1908, two consecutive three-year assignments. I recently toured the fort and walked around the grounds where my great grandfather walked more than a century ago, now a part of the Florida State Park system.

On the day I visited the fort, I arrived just in time to take the guided tours offered at noon daily, time very well spent.

Construction of Fort Taylor began in 1845. The fort was constructed 1,200 feet offshore of Key West, but subsequent landfill project have since connected it with the mainland. The fort and its sister fort, Fort Jefferson 70 miles west in Dry Tortugas, were strategically important for defense of the waters around Key West, the Straits of Florida, and the Gulf of Mexico. It took 21 year to complete construction because of a lack of construction materials.  Hurricanes and diseases also delayed finishing the fort, but by 1860, it was ready for troops and cannons.

Fort Taylor was originally three stories high

Fort Taylor was occupied by Federal troops during the Civil War. The artillery unit was quartered at the Key West barracks. The fort served as a base of operations for the Union Navy's East Coast Blockade Squadron.  The squadron prevented supply ships from reaching Confederate ports.

Fort Taylor served as a coastal artillery fort during the Spanish-American War, World I, and World War II.  It was also used during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. In the years preceding William Semer's arrival, the fort had undergone modernization, including the installation of larger guns and the removal the top two of the three stories to make it less vulnerable to artillery fire.

Drills were held here in the parade grounds

Each room, or "casemate," housed one cannon

It took a crew of 6 to 8 men to fire one cannon

Some of the artillery that was used in the cannons

While stationed at Fort Zachary Taylor, William L. Semer met a local girl, Nettie Blanche Russell, a worker in one of the big cigar factories there. They were married on December 24, 1903. The couple stayed in Key West until 1908, and three children were born to them there; Florence in 1904, Hazel in 1905, and Charles in 1906.

Baptism record for Hazel Semer in the Key West Library

The Semers relocated to New York City in 1908. For the next six years, William Semer was stationed at Fort Schuyler and Fort Totten, sister forts on the banks of the East River. I'm not sure how they felt about moving from Key West to New York, but I can't imagine they were happy about it. More on this later...

For more about the Semer family of Ohio, check out my article, "Whatever happened to John H. Semer?"

While in Key West, I hopped on the three-hour ferry to check out Fort Jefferson. Click here to follow along on my trip to Dry Tortugas National Park in my backpacking blog.