Jim Panttaja’s Genealogy Research

I have written on another blog about problem solving techniques. There are a variety of approaches - and they are all useful in genealogy as well. The problem today is related to Benjamin F. Jennings - and the problem solving technique is to make sure that you don’t look for what is missing where the light is better…

[The cartoons were done for us several years ago by Marc Schmid. His website is www.cartooncity.net ]

Benjamin F. Jennings was the first husband of Matilda Jane Heller. Matilda Jane later married Joseph Sparks, and then John Hawthorne Cameron. John Hawthorne Cameron is my connection. John Hawthorne was the nephew of John Miller Camron. John Miller Camron is my Great-great-great grandfather.

The following book: Bergevin, Charlotte, Daisy Sundberg, Evelyn Berg, Camerons, Westward They Came, (1983), contains information about Benjamin F. Jennings and Matilda Jane Heller. Benjamin was Matilda Jane Heller’s first husband. They were married 22 April 1852 in Fulton County, Illinois. She married her second husband in 1865, so I looked for them in the 1860 census - in Illinois.

There is a Benjamin F. Jennings in Pope County, Illinois. His wife is Matilda J. This is sounding really good. But she was born in Illinois, and the Matilda Jane I am looking for was born in Illinois. This is not enough to make me give up yet (the light is pretty good here). And the book Camerons, Westward They Came lists children for Benjamin and Matilda named Philip, John, Mattie and Fannie. So close - but not a match with the children listed in the census record: George, Elvira, Mahala and Angeline.

So I still haven’t found this Jennings family in the 1860 census. I have found Matilda J. Cameron (after her marriage to John Hawthorne Cameron) as head of household in the 1900 and 1910 census (John Hawthorne Cameron died in 1900).

But a reminder that you have to not just look where the light is good. It was compelling to think that there might only be one Benjamin F. Jennings/Matilda Jennings couple - in Illinois - of about the right age - in 1860. But in this case that that would be wrong.