Hey Crawford Researchers - Let's Get This Right!

Anyone who has been doing genealogical research will eventually run into 'same name' issues, where two people of the same name are found in the same vicinity or same records. With my Crawford research, my same name struggle has been with my ancestor, James Crawford (1772-1854).

James is a common given name in Crawford research and my James seems to be surrounded by other James Crawfords during his adult life. Even though most of the time, I've been able to separate out the various families, I haven't been able to find siblings or parents for my James Crawford.

However, I have encountered a lot of what I'm going to call 'latchkey' trees. With pre-1800 Crawford research in Virginia and surrounding areas, it is fairly easy to find published family histories for various Crawford lines. This would include David Crawford, Col. William Crawford and brothers, Alexander and Patrick Crawford. Since given names like James, John and Mary are found in many Crawford families, it is tempting to take a proven ancestor named James, John or Mary Crawford and 'latch' onto one of these families to identify parents of our ancestor.

With my Crawford research centered in Kentucky and Virginia, I encounter a lot of trees for these early Kentucky Crawford families connecting to Alexander Crawford and his wife Mary McPheeters or to Alexander's brother Patrick. Some of these trees match the information in the well documented book, Descendants of Alexander and Mary McPheeters Crawford by Amanda Forbes. Unfortunately, many trees lead back to Alexander and Mary McPheeters Crawford when the documents for the child in the tree contradicts known documentation for the family of Alexander Crawford.

Crawford Clan DNA Challenge

Have you had your DNA tested? If so, did DNA help you answer a question? Based on Facebook posts I've seen, it appears that DNA is helping adoptees to connect with their birth family.

In my case, I wasn't hoping to identify a close relative. Instead, I was hoping (and still am hoping) to identify my 5th great grandparents -- particularly on my dad's CRAWFORD line. It's been 3 years since I first spit in a test tube (autosomal DNA) and since my brother swabbed his cheek (yDNA). That's 3 years of working with various DNA results and few clues about this mysterious CRAWFORD grandfather.

As I'm trying to learn more about our yDNA results, so I can make sense of how we might fit in the Crawford Clan, I've come to a couple of conclusions:

• There's too little data - I need more 5th, 6th and 7th cousins to do a yDNA test
• Determining relationships is VERY dependent on the accuracy of BOTH of our family trees

Which James Is the Son of Alexander?

Do you ever look at someone else's tree? Do you trust other trees? Do the number of sources attached to the tree matter? Do you trust Ancestry public member trees more than the global tree on FamilySearch?

For the most part, I look at trees and I use them for hints. I prefer trees with sources other than other trees but will look at any tree that seems to match what I know about a family. I also use the tree on FamilySearch for hints.

Recently, I've been frustrated when looking at trees for any of the James Crawford families with roots in early Kentucky. For some reason, many of them seem to lead back to Alexander Crawford and Mary McPheeters as parents.

To see if my impression was wrong, I decided to do a search of Ancestry's public member trees for a James Crawford with parents of Alexander Crawford and Mary McPheeters. My search turned up 50 trees.

Assuming I counted correctly, I found the following:

• 12 trees showing a James Crawford who died in 1803 in Fayette County, KY
• 3 trees showing a James Crawford born in 1752 and dying in 1753
• 3 trees showing a James Crawford who married Jean and died in 1791
• 1 tree showing a James Crawford who married a Llewellyn and died in 1847
• 9 trees showing a James Crawford who married Rebecca Anderson and died in 1836
• 1 tree showing a James Crawford who married a Vansandt and died in 1836
• 6 trees showing a James Crawford who married a Frazier and died in 1811
• 2 trees showing a James Crawford born in 1748
• 3 trees showing a James Crawford born in 1735 and dying in 1825

Am I Making Incorrect Conclusions?

Have you ever looked at the FamilySearch tree or at personal trees on Ancestry and wondered how and why they made those family connections? I know I have. I hope that others if others have such a question about the research reflected in my Ancestry tree, that they would contact me with their concerns and questions!

This is important to me. I want my tree to accurately reflect family relationships. Since I research siblings and their descendants, some might ask why it is important that I get those relationships right. As Ancestry is providing us with more DNA tools, I'm finding that my ability to interpret my DNA matches is affected by whether I have those family connections correct. This became more apparent to me when I was studying my ThruLines and discovered that I didn't have any DNA matches thru siblings of my ancestor. (See Crawford ThruLines Question)

As I'm researching the James Crawford(1758-1836) who married Rebecca Anderson, I'm finding that what I have in my tree disagrees with what a lot of others have.

Following Women to Find Hints

Do you research the spouses of your ancestor's siblings? If you are like me, you don't spend much time identifying let alone researching the parents of an ancestor's sister-in-law.

However, with my Crawford research, I'm finding valuable clues from published genealogies. Many of those published genealogies are for the families of women who married into the Crawford family.

There are a couple of McPheeters genealogies that include the family of Alexander and Mary (McPheeters) Crawford. These works have helped me separate my Crawford line from the descendants of Alexander Crawford.