Adding updates to LeMaster & Allied Families tree

Because of my recent AncestryDNA test, I've been adding to my family tree at Ancestry, LeMaster & Allied Families, in hopes of seeing exactly where more of my matches connect.  I have always kept this tree as a "bare-bones" tree, leaving my full tree online at myrootsmagic.com/tjlgenes .

However, knowing that many of the matches would be connecting through my 5-great grandparents and earlier, I've been working on updating those lines by working forward from my 5-great grandparents, including everything I have on the descendants in each generation.  I am utilizing the Vertical Pedigree charts that I have stored at on Dropbox as a guide.

Another side benefit of doing this work is that I can let the Ancestry algorithms do their thing and suggest hints for additional records at the site, which will in turn expand my tree.  Keeping my original work on my Rootsmagic database, I should be able to add many more cousins over the next few weeks and keep myself more than busy with blog post fodder.

In one sense, I'm doing extra work by re-typing the family tree into the Ancestry, but I've also caught a few errors and questionable dates this way.

Photo : Virgil Lee Wright (b. July 6, 1894)

This is a photo of my maternal great-grandfather, Virgil Lee Wright, from a collection of photos that mom has.  Someone has written on the backside his name and date of birth - July 6, 1894.  He was born in Orestes, Madison County, Indiana.

In those days, infants of both sexes were photographed in what were dresses to aid in toilet training.  Wikipedia has a good article on breeching.  I'm glad that this photograph was identified, or I'd never figure out who it was.

Virgil was the son of John William and Ellen (King) Wright, the oldest of two sons born to them.

Parentage of Johnathan Collins (b. 1706 Bucks Co. PA)

Received an email from a fellow descendant of Jonathan Collins (b. 1706 Bucks Co. PA) through his son Mahlon, curious as to why I had noted on an earlier blog post that Jonathan's parents were not John Collins and Mary Meachum.

Back in 2008, I had been contacted by another researcher who advised me that Jonathan's parents were not John and Mary (Meachum) Collins.  Lacking any evidence to support my claim, I detached them as his parents.  Right now I cannot locate the email or other correspondence regarding this line.

Jonathan Collins was born October 8, 1706 in Bucks County, Pennyslvania and Ann ____ in 1731 in Hardwick, Warren County, New Jersey.  Their daughter, Deborah, who married Samuel Willson, was my ancestress.

A cursory glance online shows that John Collins and Mary Meachum were from Connecticut.  It is likely that someone has confused two families online and that was where I picked up the data originally.

I am hopeful that this new correspondence can shed some light on the parentage of Jonathan and also break down some other early NJ brickwalls on this part of the family.