Mary Polly was born 16 August 1825 in Kentucky. Where exactly in Kentucky is not known, but I hope to find out. The family emigrated to Missouri, though exactly when is not known. Kentucky was a mature state and plenty of land was available still in Missouri. I hope to find out more about her background and a timeline of the family's movement to Missouri. Since families and kinship groups often traveled together, it is possible that she already knew the Scott's who had also emigrated from Kentucky.
On 25 January 1853, she married Milton Scott at Saverton Township (near Hannibal), Missouri. This was MP's second marriage; her first husband whose last name was Wilson had died and she remarried. I don't have any information on this first husband of Mary Polly's. More interesting in terms of family and kinship is that there is a strong possibility that Mary Polly was the sister of Milton's first wife, Elizabeth. But more on that later.
Back to what I was writing about the contact yesterday from my cousin and fellow genealogist, Jan. I subscribe to ancestry.com and one of the benefits of the subscription is that you can get in contact with other researchers. People upload their family tree information onto the website and the ancestry.com software searches for connections. Any hints or possible connections are emailed to the user. In addition, all the names are indexed so other researchers can find missing links and I benefit from the same service. I've found several direct ancestors that way. Jan emailed me regarding a great, great grandmother who I had listed as A. Margaret Thompson. She wrote,
"I believe this is my ancestor too, but her real name is Margaret Scott and she was born in Kentucky est 1813. Her 1st husband was named W. Collins. She was the mother of my GG Grandmother MaryJane Collins. Margaret married John T. James [my note, this should state Thomas W. James]after her husband Mr. Collins passed away and they moved to Illinois and are in the 1850 census in Jo Daviess County. If you are interested in more information I have a copy of Margarets obituary from a 1903 newspaper that is handwritten by an ancestor. Margaret lived with her oldest daughter (Pliny) & Maryjane Taylor late in life in Savanna, Illinois and died while visiting her son John T. James in Hannibal, Missouri. I'm trying to find information on where she is buried and I've also tried to locate her death certificate. I've been having to trace the Scotts and James to try and find out more on Margaret (who was referred to as Gramma James in her old age) Please contact me if you're interested in exchanging information."With her giving me the correct name and date of death of a great-great-grandmother I was able to match that information to some other information I had (see images). It turns out that Margaret Thompson was actually Margret (or Margaret) Scott as written in the pages of an old family bible that had belonged to the Scotts! So I was able to fill in some gaps in the family tree. GG-Grandma Margret Scott had first been married to a William Collins. According to a family tree I found on ancestry.com they had two children: MaryJane born in 16 July 1837(as mentioned) and a George (no date of birth). However, listed in the old Scott family bible are the following names and birthdates:
- Mary Jane Collins: 16 July 1838
- Julie Ann Collins: 9 Nove 1839
- Geo. W. Collins: 24 May 1841
So these three children were born to the first marriage of Margret Scott to William Collins. I don't have any information at this time about the death of Mr. Collins. Margret married a second time to Thomas W. James (born in Ohio 15 April 1816 and died 13 August 1989). They had the following children:
- John Thomson James: 15 February 1844
- Joseph A. James: 17 November 1845
- William Alfred James: 19 February 1847
- Infant: 18 January 18??
- Elijah "Kelly" James: 11 January 1854
- Infant: 31 January 1856
- Manda Emma James: 2 May 1860
The oldest son (my great-great-grandfather) serves with the 134th Illinois Infantry (a post for another day). He was a blacksmith according to family lore and census records, and worked for the railroad. So now we can finally get to the SO WHAT about this post. It turns out that one of Mary Polly and Milton Scott's daughters married John T. James. After this second marriage for both of them, Milton and MP had seven children: five girls and two boys. The third child, Evaline (born 17 Dec 1858) and John T. James apparently met up and kind of liked each other. What is so interesting is that Margret Scott Collins James was the sister of Milton Scott, so John T. and Evaline were first cousins!!
Apparently John T. James and Evaline Scott were a happy match. They had seven children:
- Emma Ida James: 15 August 1881
- Mary Uva James: 30 October 1883
- Kelly Alfred James: 2 March 1885
- Thomas Milton James: 25 December 1890
- Paul Ulysses James: 30 May 1893
- Orville Douglas James: 26 March 1894 (my maternal grandfather)
- Erie Scott James: 1 December 1898
(Note: I have previously written about Orville and Paul on this blog)
Here is a photograph of John and Evaline. One of the two women in the back is identified as Emma. The other is not named but I would suppose it is Mary (who was always called Uva).
Now before you all queue up the "Deliverance" music and start gagging, keep in mind that in the mid- to late-1800s, marriage between cousins was not uncommon. People did not move around as much as we do in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I think it is very fascinating because it continues to show just how interrelated we all are to each other. So now in my genealogy collection I have a pair of kissing cousins on my mom's side to go with the kissing cousins on my dad's side. Wouldn't you say my collection's complete!! As cousin Tim Austiff's son Alex once said, "We will never speak of this again." Sorry, but we will!!!Look for more posts about family in the months to come. Below are the images from the Scott family bible.
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