Because the answers aren’t always where you expect them to be. Because random stuff happens. Because an unrelated record may point to what you need. Here are four illustrations.

Proving a small but interesting detail: Reading estate papers for my g-g-grandfather’s older brother, Oliver Barron Magruder, who died in 1852, I found a receipt from the court for 25 cents for an unpaid fee at the courthouse, dating back to 1849. It confirmed that Oliver had been guardian to my ancestor, Fielder Montgomery Magruder, after their father died. In 1849, Oliver had distributed to Fielder what he had coming on his 21st birthday, but forgot to pay the 25-cent fee. It was paid by his estate in 1852.

Proving parentage: Fielder M. & Oliver B. Magruder’s grandfather was Haswell Magruder (1736-1811). One of Haswell’s sons, Samuel, was not mentioned in his will so most genealogists have missed him entirely. This causes additional confusion when researchers see his marriage, family, census, land records, tax records, etc., in Prince Georges County, and don’t know who this Samuel Magruder was. Some then conflate him with a different Samuel Magruder, from Montgomery County. I found confirmation of my Samuel’s existence and parentage in some of Haswell’s land records.

From 1789 to 1800 Haswell transferred slaves by name, and tracts of land by name to his children. For tracts of land surveyed in colonial Maryland the property’s name was part of its legal description and for generations continued to be recorded when properties changed hands. In 1789, Haswell gave part of “Berry’s Folly” to his son Samuel. (Two years later, he gave another piece of “Berry’s Folly” to another son, William, who is in the will.) Samuel died in 1826 and the estate was not quickly settled, so the 1833 tax records for Prince George’s (published by the P.G. County Historical Society in 1985) show “pt. of Berry’s Folly” as one of the tracts owned by “Samuel Magruder heirs,” close to land owned by William and another of their brothers. Samuel’s various records (including references to “part of Berry’s Folly”) then provided pathways to the estate of his widow, Anne, who wrote a detailed will in 1855. I am working on tracing enslaved families to emancipation through this line of inheritance. (I also, eventually, found records to confirm that the other Samuel Magruder stayed in Frederick and Montgomery counties and never moved to P.G.)

Proving divorce: From years of researching Roderick McGregor and the rest of the Prince George’s County family whose name was changed from Magruder to McGregor in the 1820s, I was convinced that Roderick and his wife, Anne E. E. Berry (widow Eaten or Ayten) had divorced. As I accumulated various records about them circumstances pointed to the year 1843. Unfortunately for me that was just after the legislature (whose records are online) delegated divorce cases to the county courts. County clerks did not index the Prince George’s court records at the time and case folders had been haphazardly boxed when the county transferred them to the Maryland State Archives, so a search was going to be daunting, if not impossible. Eventually (by which I mean in about twenty years) I narrowed the time frame to just a few months in 1843. With the help of an MSA archivist I found the court dockets for those months and–Eureka!–there was the McGregor divorce case!

Discovery! Vindication!

The archivist said that, armed with a date and case number, he could find and pull the case. You can imagine my excitement waiting for his next message! Sadly, he emailed with bad news: many folders were missing and McGregor v. McGregor was one of them.

So, what to do?

On my next in-person visit to the archives I combed many years of court dockets, noting every case showing either of their names. Most were irrelevant, but then…(drum roll, please!)…twelve years after they divorced, Roderick sued Ann and her brother. I pulled that case. Roderick wanted the court to stop Ann and her brother from digging a ditch that could have flooded part of his land. As part of the case his attorney submitted the entire transcript of their divorce case (presumably as evidence of ill-will) and it was duly entered into the record, with certification that it was accurate and complete. Hallelujah! I finally got to read the McGregors’ dirty laundry.

Finding an enslaved ancestor: A correspondent sought my help to identify the mother of an ancestor who was born in slavery and still a child at the time of emancipation. Her death certificate was unhelpful and those of siblings proved no more useful. We knew the last slaveholder’s name but probate records turned up nothing. Dead-ended there, I searched the name of a different slaveholder in the same family and found a newspaper advertisement listing people to be sold as part of an estate settlement. The little girl who started our search–the known ancestor–was named there as part of a family group with a woman and a boy. Since we knew the girl’s surname, I searched for the boy’s name with the same surname and found him in city directories after emancipation doing the same work he was noted for in the slaveholder’s records. It wasn’t proof that the woman in the ad was their mother but it was strong circumstantial evidence. The family was not sold, BTW, despite that advertisement–I found them in later records with the same slaveholder.