My WDYTYA Progress

The black marks represent the shows I've seen. I've managed to see a number so far.

A goal of mine is trying to watch as many of the WDYTYA UK episodes as I can. It's a challenge in the US since I can't watch them at the BBC site. I check Youtube frequently for any I still haven't seen. The quality of the UK shows is generally excellent.
Happy to hear that it looks like TLC picked up the US version of WDYTYA !
I think I've now caught up on The Generations Project episodes.
When nothing else is going on I've been watching Yale University Courses at Youtube.

Sadistic Sunday

I have spent many an hour pondering naming patterns in families (I think some of these families might get sadistic pleasure watching us beat our heads against the wall looking for naming patterns LOL). Figuring out who belongs with who can be challenging when you have many individuals carrying the same first and last names. For instance I counted about 3 men named Andrew Forgey living not far from one another in Tennessee at the same time. All descended from a common Scots-Irish family, and tended to name their children from a selection of a few common first names. After separating the individuals based on ages and land purchases, spouses etc. I was then able to differentiate between them. Like I said in my previous posts I came to rely on naming patterns to help confirm I was tracing the family back correctly. I had not dealt that much with families in the latter part of the 19th century because my family was well documented in that time period, and I never encountered a brickwall until the time period before 1850. Working on someone elses brickwall at that point in time caused me to shift my usual techniques as far as looking at naming patterns.
It interesting to see my early Forgey male ancestors were named after their grandfathers so they alternated the names every generation between Hugh and Andrew. So for 4 generations my ancestors were Hugh, Andrew, Hugh, Andrew (see above).
When I collaborate with another researcher on these early lines figuring out which James or Andrew Forgey they are referring to can be challenging. If someone approaches me with very little information other than a name it can take us a while to figure who this individual is. Many men carried these names and they were located in many different states.

Unusual first names have been so helpful in researching my family. The use of  Lockey, Villourous and Vandover in the Wray family have caused that family to stick out in the crowd. I was wondering if the name Vashti was a peculiar family name because I just ran across that name recently (when I see a peculiar name I wonder if they made it up LOL). I was watching an episode of last years Generations Project and that name was brought up. Apparently it is a biblical name. So it's not a name invented by a particular family. I believe another name, Pulcherry, was a named invented by one of my ancestral families but I am not sure?

According to My Heritage  John , James and Mary are the most common names on my family tree. Mary and it's variations were often used in my family because many lines were Catholic. I had many Marie, Marias in Quebec and Austria. We still have a lot of males named James in the family. To the right is a list of names used in my family and there popularity in my family according to My Heritige . The larger the print the more frequently it was used.

I've always enjoyed studying and sometimes laughing at the first names I've run across doing my research. Names like Missy Moffat make research entertaining.

Here are a few of the James Forgeys from Carla Rotmans' site

Nobody is helping with names!

First names are quite helpful in tracing families in early America. I have noticed that the immigrant generations to America generally used traditional family names when it came to naming their children. After about 3 generations they no longer followed the traditional patterns of naming. It did vary according to ethnicity and the inclinations of individual families. I was a little skeptical that James Forgety might be the son of Bartholomew and Virginia because none of his children carried these names. When I looked at his likely siblings none of them used their parents names either. I then remembered that around the turn of the twentieth century none of my families used names previously used by the family either. They began using names popular at the time. Below are 4 generations in my family. The images can be enlarged by clicking on them. In the early 19th Century it was popular to name children after famous figures in military and political life. It was also popular to name children after the parents themselves, and their grandparents. By the end of the 19th Century none of the early names were carried on in my family.
My Forgey grandparents used popular names such a Edna, and they decided to name all the boys names beginning with a C. So we have Cecil Clair, Charles Lynn (my grandfather), and Claude Applewhite. Later my Aunt Diane Kapple decided to name all her children names beginning with J. We have James, Judy. Jerry, and John. So these naming practices no longer aid in placing individuals in families. If I don't find similar names to previous generations I am no longer skeptical.

Here we see some traditional Scots-Irish first names used by an immigrant family.

Here we see Hugh and Catherine using the names of their parents i.e. Archibald and Andrew.

Here we see Andrew and Anna passing along several family names. Hugh the oldest is named after his grandfather. Jacob Roller Forgey is named after his grandfather whose surname was Roller and First name Jacob. George, Eleanor, Elias were siblings of Anna Roller/Forgey. 

This is my great-grandfather an his family in 1910 Jackson County, Indian. None of these names come from previous generations.

Inference to the best explanation

In philosophical reasoning inference to the best explanation means that your conclusion may or may not be correct. At this point placing James Forgety with the Pulaski, VA family seems like the most logical placement. This may turn out to be true of false? I laid out other possible parents earlier. A DNA test would rule out the Forgey family if one of the Forgetys would take the time to test. A $39 12 marker Y DNA test would be enough.
This is what we definitely know about James Forgety.

1. He married in Hawkins County, TN on 18 March 1879. That is the earliest date we can find him there.
2. In 1880 he is in Bristol, Washington County, VA. His likely brother Samuel was also in Washington County, VA in 1880. His likely brother John was in Bristol, Washington County, VA in 1900.
3. In 1900 he is back in Hawkins County, TN living not far from Ellen Forgarty likely sister.
4. We know he was not James Reynolds Forgey as he was previously identified as being. The above grave markers attest to the fact that James Forgety died in 1921 in Jefferson County, TN and James Reynolds Forgey died in neighboring Hamblen County, TN in 1936.

We still have the discrepancy regarding the fact that James Forgety always states his father was born in Tennessee. Another discrepancy is the fact that Ellen Fogarty of Hawkins County, TN is enumerated with a Sallie Fogarty in 1880 which I can't place.  It's possible this is actually Virginia? It's also possible Batholomew Forgaty remarried, and married someone named Sallie between 1870-1880? Below are the 1880 Census snippets for Sallie and Ellen 1880, Ellen 1900, Ellen 1910. Sallie disappears after 1880.

Evidentia Sifts Through Data

I've been trying to place Jame Forgety with his correct family. For years he was placed in the James Forgey and Rachel Miller family which turned out to be wrong. The Forgety family seemed to appear out of nowhere in 1880. Since they had to come from somewhere every piece of info on them had be analyzed for clues.
I was just recently introduced to the Evidentia program through some of DearMyrtle's webinars on the subject. The program allows you to enter claims made by documents. Every document collected for an ancestor can contain numerous claims about that person from birth to parentage and many others.
A wonderful feature of the programs allows you to float the claims box over each document so you can easily capture every claim on that document (see above). This process can bring out facts that you had not noticed. I hadn't noticed that James Forgety signed his marriage document with an X. It sounds like he could not spell his name so that is likely why so many different spellings were used. I decided to catalog all the spellings I found of the surname. When I did this I noticed that the name was unlikely ever spelled Forgey. The spelling was most often Forgaty or Forgety. This is also the spelling used for the Pulaski County, VA family. The Pulaski County family  surname was sometimes spelled Forgarty, Fogarty, and one time Forgatine. So phonetically it was generally For with optional endings. I generated the report below from Evidentia.

Now I am taking  a closer look at the Pulaski County, VA family of Bartholomew and Virginia Forgaty. They did have a son James. His spouse's name and whereabouts after 1870 are unknown?
The man we know to be our James Forgety states his occupation as farm laborer in 1880. The James Fogarty we find in the 1870 Pulaski County, VA Census with his parents Bartholomew and Virginia was also listed as a farm laborer. So we have a match there.
I found Samuel Forgety possible brother of James living in Washington County, VA in 1880 and Russell County, VA in 1900. I found possible brother John living in Washington County, VA 1900. Samuel's parents were generally stated as being born in Virginia. John stated that his mother was born in Virginia and father in Ireland. Their likely sister Ellen always stated both parents were born in Virginia. James' parents were generally stated as being from  Tennessee. He does allude to Virginia origins a couple of times, and actually did live in Virginia in 1880. So why don't nearly all of Bartholomew Forgaty's descendants admit he was born in Ireland? Maybe he wasn't and the two Censuses he appears on are wrong? It's also likely there may have been some discrimination against Irish Catholics in this Southern area? I don't know anything about how the Irish were treated in Virginia and Tennessee at the turn of the twentieth century?
Doing this kind of microscopic analysis of each docment has helped me to come to a preliminary conclusion which is that the most likely parents of James Forgety are Bartholomew Forgety and Virginia Bateman of Pulaski County, VA.

Would the real parents of James Forgety please step forward

A misidentification occurred when someone mixed up a James Forgety with the correct son of James R. Forgey Sr. and Rachel Miller, i.e. James R. Forgey Jr.. Both of these married women named Louise. James Forgety married Lulu Walker and James R. Forgey married Lulu Taylor. These, however, are two different men confirmed by the both marriage info and then names of their children.
There is a family tradition in the Forgety family that there was a family feud which resulted in the name being changed from Forgey to Forgety. One of James Forgey's daughters maiden name was misspelled Forgety on her marriage record. I am not finding a perfect fit for this James Forgety in the Forgey family. If they are indeed related to the Forgey family it could be the result of illegitamacy or maybe a feud resulted in the lack of recognition by the family of a son? DNA may prove or disprove the link to the Forgey family.
I've seen James Forgety's named spelled as Forgarty, Fogarty, and the spelling that became the standard spelling Forgety. I've never seem it spelled Forgey.

Jame Forgety and Wife Sally Manuel 1880 Washington County, VA ( Zack Clark may be a clue to more)

1900 Census Hawkins County, Tennessee James Forgarty family NOT SON OF JAMES FORGEY AND RACHEL MILLER 

The First Marriage of James Forgety was to Sarah Manuel in 1879  NOT CORRECT SON OF JAMES FORGEY AND RACHEL MILLER

1900 James R. Forgey CORRECT SON OF JAMES FORGEY AND RACHEL MILLER

Our first candidate

1) Now that we've reviewed everything we know about James Forgety we need to find the best match for his parents. I believe John Forgey and Jane Weeks would be the best match if the family tradition about the name change is true. James stated both parents were born in Tennessee so this would be a good match.

John Forgey McMinn, Tennessee (James Forgety lived in Hawkins County, TN which was the original area of settlement for this Forgey family of McMinn, TN)

Our second candidate

2) Bart. and Virginia Fogerty of Pulaski, Virginia. I found an Ellen Forgarty on the 1900 Census for Hawkins County, TN. She states she was born in Virginia in 1862. She also states she is single. It's possible that she married and divorced and changed her name back to her maiden name because I found a marriage for her also. It looks like I found her family (Bart. and Virginia) in Virginia and she did have a brother James. He was 14 in 1870. I have seen James year of birth as anywhere from 1847 to 1863? The problem with this is the fact that James Forgety most often said he was born in Tennessee other than the on the 1880 Census when Virginia was listed. He always stated his parents were born in Tennessee, never Ireland as Virginia and Bart said they were. said they were from. Also we don't have a similar naming pattern.

Ellen Forgarty 1900 Census Hawkins County, TN

We see Ellen had a brother James who would have been about the correct age for our James Forgety (1870 Census Pulaski, Virginia)

Our third Candidates

3) Another possible match would be James Fogarty and Susan. In 1880 James Forgety was living in Washington County, VA. This family also had connections to this area.Most of their children were born in Tennessee as James said he was. I have not found a Census for them in the time period when James would have been in their household. In 1880 James is listed as being born in Virginia. The problem here is they may have already had a son named James David which would have been a different person. At least his marriage record states his name was Jas. David which I am assuming is James? He is generally referred to as David in Census records.Another problem is James Forgey Sr. was born in Ireland which was never listed as James Forgety's father's birthplace.

James Fogarty family 1900 Census Sullivan County, TN (near Hawkins County, TN)

Our Fourth Candidates

4) Another possibility would be that the family is related through slavery. Meaning this family might have a Mulatto ancestor descended from James Forgey's line. The elder James Forgey did own slaves. It appears that his former slaves did adopt the name Forgey. It's interesting that a Mulatto named Lizzie Forgey also married into the Manuel family i.e. Lizzie Forgey to William Manuel. This marriage occurred around the same time as that of Sally Manuel to James Forgety. 

Mulatto Forgey Family 1880 Hawkins County, TN William Forgey and Lizzie Manuel

Our fifth Candidates

5) I found this family all the way in the western most part of Tennessee which would have been quite far away from Jame Forgety in far eastern Tennessee. I did think it was interesting that William Fogarty was born in Tennessee in 1798. There is a James Fogarty listed with him born about 1852 Tennessee. William and Frank were also names sons of our James Forgety.

William Fogarty was said to have been born in Tennessee in 1798 according to the 1870 Census

Missing records in Tennessee and Virginia is making the proper identification difficult. I think DNA is the onl way to go?

Backtracking and Correcting/Married at First or at Last

Digging deeper and verifying the info I've found I've encountered those pesky errors which if perpetuated throw everyone off, and result in lost time an money.

1. The first error can be filed under don't believe everything you read. Mistakes can appear even in the best books. The above snippet states Rebecca was married to Joseph when she was actually married to James Forgey son of Samuel Forgey. Need to strike this Joseph from my records for Augusta, Virginia.
2. The next error seems to come under the heading repetition. Sometimes when someone is transcribing a record they may repeat a name in the wrong place. I believe Forgey was repeated twice at some point by someone transcribing a document. We know James Forgey was married to Rebecca Clements. Her sister Margaret was said to have been married to Samuel Forgey. Now I am finding she was likely married to Samuel Davidson . So it looks like there was a repetition error and his name was misrecorded as Forgey. So Elizabeth Forgey born 1781 may have been the daughter of Samuel Forgey Jr. and Martha Campbell, instead of Samuel Forgey and Margaret Clements. 

So now I believe I am on the right track. I am leaning towards believing that it is more likely than not that the William, Joseph, and James I have tracing are descendants of Samuel and Sara Forgy. It's seems Samuel Forgy and Sara Wilson were married in 1762 in Paxtang, PA. You may say how can this be when their son James Forgy was born in 1752? The will states Sara was James Forgey's mother not stepmother? Well some people in those days could be said to have married at first and other married at last. Meaning some were not officially legally married when some of their children were born. They may have lived in backwoods areas where it was not easy to get a marriage performed. Some may have worried about the legality of a backwoods marriages and may have gone through the ceremony again later also? They may not have had a church wedding the first time and had a second church marriage? In this case they may have married in Ireland had some question about the legality of their marriage for some unknown reason? It's also possible that Sara was James Stepmother and this fact wasn't stated?

So we have the couple Samuel and Sara and no William listed as a child? As it turns out Sara was pregnant in 1770 when the will was written and we don't know the name of the child? Could have been our William?

Another unknown is the names of all of Samuel Forgey II children. We also don't have the names of Samuel the 3rd's children. With all these unknowns it's difficult to place William, Joseph, and James. I believe the origins of these men will be found when we find out more about all of the Samuels in Samuel and Sara's line and get the name of their unborn child

Mississippi Burning/Could Grandpa's name be wrong?

I've been a lot of places on the Net since my last post about the Mississippi Forgeys. My job as one of the unofficial Forgey genealogists means I need to place all of the early familie with their correct lines. This sort of one name research in early American records can be very interesting and lead all sorts of places; and who knows may lead to breakthroughs in my own line.
So here we are a couple days later.
This is the path I took since my last post.

History of the state of California
 and biographical
 record of the Sierras,

1. I looked at BLM GLO record for Mississippi and found this which has James Forgey and William both purchasing land in Lincoln County, Mississippi. Under the alternate spelling Forgay we find all 3 men, ie Joseph, James, and William buying land on the same day at the same land office.  William and Joseph buy land in closest proximity. Joseph buys land a little north of there. At this point I am ready to declare William as father of both Joseph and James as per these records and the 1800, 1820 Census.
2. My case for this seemed to fall apart (crash and burn) at this point.I then checked for Forgay family biographies at google books. I found one for James Forgay's son Nathaniel B. Forgay. According to this 1906 biography Nathaniel Forgey's grandfather was Samuel Forgey who immigrated to the south from Scotland and fought in the Revolutionary War. It confirms what both the 1850 and 1860 Census say about James Forgey being born in Kentucky. It also states that James wife was Elizabeth Brown. There are several contradictions in facts in the bio. Elizabeth's birth place is given as Georgia in 1850 and 1860, and is given as Kentucky here. There are other factual contradictions presented here too. So we wonder if Samuel was actually the father of James or his grandfather? Or was the name Samuel wrong all together?
3. That was yesterday; today I have searched feverishly for a Samuel in early 19th Century Kentucky. It was stated in the Gardner Family history that there was a Samuel Forgey in 1810 Kentucky? I have not found one. There is only a Samuel Faris.
4. I then made a broader search for Samuel checking early Mississippi Territorial records at Ancestry.com and nothing surfaces there either.
5. My search for Samuel's has brought me to Samuel Forgey born 1735 who married a Margaret Clements. This family had settled in Augusta, Virginia in the 1700's. This family looks very promising because they seem to have used the Forgay spelling sometimes. They also had associations with Buncombe, North Carolina and Kentucky. They may have had a son Joseph who married Rebecca Clements or he may have been a brother of Samuel?

Joseph Forgay Augusta County, VA after 1759 (Children of Jacob Clements listed)
Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish settlement in Virginia, extracted from the original court records of Augusta County, 1745-1800

So it looks like Samuel Forgey/ Forgay of Augusta, VA had a daughter Elizabeth born 1781? and a son named Joseph born quite a bit earlier? Or Jospeh was a brother of Samuel?

Still a lot to do on this. I am just going where it leads me. It reminds me of  when I learned to ride a bike. My father said "keep pedaling don't stop." If you stop you lose momentum and may fall off.

William and James land in Lincoln County, MS

William and Joseph's land is grouped together in the Corner of the township and James land is North  pink box.

Mired in Mississippi

Still searching Mississippi for Forgeys and trying to figure out where William of Pike County fits? I have mapped out all Forgey families in Mississippi so I can identify any who do no belong to any particular line. In searching records and trying to place individuals I've located two more men who no one has been able to link to an existing line. These men were James and Joseph who appeared on the 1830 Census for Choctaw County Mississippi. 

James is said to have been married to Elizabeth Brown who was said to have been born in Georgia according to the 1850 Census.  James was said to have been born in Kentucky in 1850. His son gave his birthplace as Mississippi. They line later spelled the name Forgay. 

It appears Joseph was likely a son of William of Pike County becasue he was married in nearby Lawrence County in 1818. He married a Winney Massey who probably was born in Georgia? It appears that William, of Pike, had two sons so both James and Joseph may have been his sons. The 1850 Census for James may have been in error? Someone posted that he may have been born in Georgia and his son said Mississippi?

According to the 1800 Census William had one son. 

In 1820 it appears there was another son who was between 0-16 yrs. old.

Nathaniel Forgay was a Miner in Plumas California 1860

The James Forgey family above later standardized the name with the spelling Forgay. So he may be from a completely different line, and from a different region of Ireland? Different regional dialects resulted in different spellings. James Forgay's descendants settled in Scott County, Arkansas and Plumas, California. According to the 1880 Census Nathaniel's father James was born in Mississippi (sounds like he may have made out alright with his mining he now has servants).

I've made some progress and hope that these Forgey/ Forgays are eventually placed in their proper line!

Finding Cousins at Facebook

If you've lost contact with members of your extended family a good way to reestablish contact is to find them at Facebook. It's a good way to get reacquainted and share family info.
Finding family with common names can be tricky. Not everyone posts a picture of themselves as a profile picture either, making the process of finding them more tricky even. The best way to narrow down the correct person would be to know their associates and check their list of friends for known other family members and associates. To find names of family and other associates check US Search . This site lists family members living and deceased who have lived with the person at some point in time. It also lists roommates in the related with section.
If you can not find the person you are looking for you may find someone they are related with according to US Search. You may be able to reestablish contact through that channel.
Since the younger generation uses Facebook most it might be easiest to look for someone in the Teen to Twenty something generation. I did this just yesterday, and found it useful several times before. I have about 30 something cousins, and I can remember all their names (most of the time LOL). I have trouble, however, with remembering their childrens names (my head is filled with so many names, and the hundreds of ancestors I've found LOL). The US Search related with feature has helped me find their names on several occasions. I seldom fail to find that generation at Facebook. When you find them sometimes their parents are also their friends, and you may even find their grandparents are their friends.

A tangle of relationships "William Forgey"

Abbeville, South Carolina 1800

William Forgey came up as a distant DNA match to a cousin (Nan Harvey). This man is a mystery I hadn't run across before. He was born, according to one tree, in 1753 in South Carolina and married Mary Gouge in 1778 in North Carolina. They have him dying in 1796. Much of this seems to be wrong. If he was the same man who lived in Pike County, Mississippi in 1820 he didn't die in 1796. Someone has a letter stating that William Forgey relocated to Pike County, Mississippi from Abbeville, South Carolina in the early 1800's.

Looking around the area I see several possible lines he may relate to. If he was in fact married in North Carolina he could be another son of Samuel Forgey.

Another possibility is he was an immigrant to South Carolina and not born there at all as suggested in one of the Census records? There was a William Forgey in Gloucester, New Jersey in 1795?

Elbert, Abeville and Laurens (where Samuels descedants lived)

He may also be related to John Forgey who was a Justice of the Peace in Elbert County, Georgia in the 1790's?  I believe this John also went by the name Fergus and Forgus and had a brother named James, and may also have had a brother William? These men fought in the Revolutionary War in South Carolina. It's interesting that John's name was spelled Forgey several times? I do now wonder if they are related to my family since they lived in Cumberland and Chester County, PA? Elbert, Georgia is not far from Abbeville, South Carolina. 

Here is what I've collected about James and John Fergus sometimes Forgey. According to this James has a brother who resided in South Carolina. He went to join his unnamed brother during the Revolutionary War.

He gives his parents as John and Martha of Chester County, PA ( James Forgey also lived in Chester County, PA).

Residences of John Fergus (Forgey). He later lived in Monroe County, Tennessee.

John Fergus was born in 1752 Chester County, PA.