Ending 2011 On A Genealogical Note

Of course, those that know me, know that I can't go until January 1, 2012 to write in my blog. This story will not be included in this year's book, but I will catch it next year -- if I remember to backdate that book. I can't think of a better way to end the year but by discovering a new thing about my genealogy. The couple you see are Samual Matlack and his wife Mildred Ann Gregory. Neither one are my ancestors but I was, none the less, happy to meet them face to face. Mildred Ann Gregory is the half sister of my ancestress, Eliza Arterburn. They are both daughters of Jane Poulter each by a different husband. Eliza is from James H Arterburn and Mildred Ann is from Harvey Gregory..

The story is of how I found these pictures. As I was finishing my latest Kentucky story about the Arterburns I decided to search a bit further for Eliza's half sister and I used my new hero "GOOGLE" to do that. This led me to Nathaniel L Taylor who is descended from Mildred Gregory. He has posted wonderful information about this family at http://www.nltaylor.net/pdfs/Matlack.pdf. He has a great deal of information about Mildred and her family.

Next, Nat found a message about another Gregory daughter, Mary Jane. Mary Jane would be the youngest child of Jane Poulter and before now was unknown to me. Mary Jane married quite young to Hiram Josleyn and her guardian and brother-in-law, Samuel Matlack gave consent for her to marry in 1848. Mary Jane died, leaving two young daughters, and Hiram remarried in Spencer County, Indiana. Spencer County, Indiana is where we have heard Harvey Gregory left property to Mildred and Samuel Matlack. This is something yet to be found, but it seems to make sense, so further investigation is in order here. You know how a genealogist just needs a little clue to go forward.

This new information meant I had to review some earlier assumptions and this led to having to rewrite some of my Kentucky story. But it is not hard to do and I am glad to have fine tuned this family history a bit and made it more accurate. I feel it is another example of the force that leads us in genealogy, to stumble onto the best and newest information possible.

So, I will probably really sign off for 2011 this time. But who knows -- there are still two weeks to go, and you know how much can happen in two weeks. So maybe I had better just say, stay tuned. Patj