The matches

As I continue the proof of the case for Robert Gibson as the father of Mary Alice Cain, I am taking some time to highlight the matches that helped break open this mystery. This would not have been possible if those individuals had not taken a DNA test and made parts of their trees available so these connections could be surfaced. My Mom's DNA results currently have about 60,000 matches. One aunt has 55,000, while the other has about 43,000. How do you even filter this many matches down to the right ones to point the path to a common ancestor?

Just like I had done on my Dad's side of the tree, I used the dot method to create groups of people who had connections with each other and my Mom's results. I started this in June, before the launch of Ancestry's Pro Tools. I created a group of Read/Cain matches, but this left me with 2886 in that group, which is still really large. I also created a group for Flatt/Gaw matches, and tried to isolate those who were descended from Nancy Jane's side of three. This group had 1530, again, still pretty large. I also tried to create a Cain Targets group. While some of the Gibson and related matches appeared there, more of them I had overlooked as they were in both the Read/Cain and Flatt/Gaw groups.

Using the Leeds Method was the real gamechanger. Searching within the highest matches on the paternal side for my Mom and her sisters between the range of 400-90 centimorgans, revealed the group of people who had the key to the Gibson side of the tree.

Matches to Robert G. T. Gibson:

- RG: 162, 180, 193 cM (grandson of Robert)

- PT: 110, 165, 130 cM

- RG Jr: 44, 130, 160 cM

- LG: 92, 23, 60 cM

- MB: 48 cM

- AC: 47, 14 cM

- LG: 39, 12, 20 cM

- JK: 30, 13 cM

- ML: 28, 14 cM

- LR: 21, 9, 11 cM

- AS: 23, 9, 20 cM

- AB: 19 cM

- IU: 18, 13 cM

- HO: 15, 15 cM

- RA: 15, 12, 16 cM

- RG: 13 cM

- GG: 13, 48 cM

- LG: 13 cM

- BB: 12, 12 cM

- JB: 12, 10 cM

- EC: 12 cM

- AT: 11, 10, 11 cM

- CC: 11, 9 cM

- TC: 10 cM

- SM: 10 cM

Two other high matches are doubly connected, through a son of Robert's brother Julius Gibson and daughter of Robert:

- RJ: 144, 119, 150

- MS: 153, 166, 159

One of my aunts had six other strong connections in common with descendants of Julius:

- SM: 90 cM

- SQ: 75 cM

- BB: 57 cM

- CE: 57 cM

- JO: 50 cM

- LW: 31 cM

My Mom has 111 matches descending from Robert's father, James Robert Gibson. 34 of those matches are connected to one of Robert's older sisters, and include two of the matches who are also connected to the Dowell-Hubbard group.

Proving a connection

 

George Fuller. Turkey pasture in Kentucky, 1878.

In the absence of a paper trail, proving a connection between Nancy Jane Flatt and the mysterious father of her daughter Mary Alice has been a tall challenge. Had it not been for DNA evidence and recent tools provided by Ancestry and MyHeritage, this information might have been lost to time. Thankfully we do have these tools, and the right combination of matches to make a case for the identity of this missing parent. While I've shared previous theories on this blog, I think now I can write with confidence that I've found the right person.

Without the stories or records to link Nancy Jane with this person in south central Kentucky in the late 1870s, I can only guess that Nancy Jane met this man in the Leatherwood District of Adair County, Kentucky while she was visiting her half-brother William B. Flatt. William, and his wife Margaret Coomer Flatt, were raising three young children, William, Mollie and infant Braxton in the 1880 US Census. This is the same district where the Gibson family were living in the 1880 Census. The Coomer family also has a link to the Gibsons.

Nancy Jane lost her father Pleasant Flatt in December 1873, who left his third wife Nancy Hubbard Flatt with debts, lawsuits and her own young children to raise. Nancy Jane and her sisters had to fend for themselves. The ones who survived married young. Martha Flatt married Benjamin Jeffries in neighboring Clay County, Tennessee in October 1876, at the age of 16. Cansada Flatt was working as a domestic servant in the 1880 US Census (age 16), then married Buford Tackett in Metcalfe County in 1888. Mary Flatt married at the age of 15 to Henry Tobe Piper in 1883. When Nancy Jane became pregnant with her daughter Mary Alice in 1877, she was approximately 21 or 22, poor and had few options.

There's no record of a marriage for Nancy Jane from 1876 until her marriage to Pleasant Morgan in Barren County in October 1884. We do not know if Mary Alice and her brother Harl had the same father. We know she gave them both the surname Cain and they were recognized by that name when they were growing up in Barren County.

The links to that name, however tenuous or created back then, faded over time. Perhaps the father did not know Nancy Jane was pregnant. Maybe she kept his identity hidden. These details are lost. Mary Alice might not have known the real identity of her father. The signatures of his DNA remains and has given us a path to restore this side of the tree.

Introducing Robert

Robert Gran Taylor Gibson was born in Adair County, Kentucky on 8 October 1847, the son of James Robert Gibson and Lucy Street. Whatever connection Robert and Nancy Jane may have had in early 1877 was short lived, as there's no record of a marriage. On 10 March 1880, Robert, then a 32 year old farmer, married 15 year old Dora Ann Dehart in Adair County, and on the bond he certified his marriage to Dora was his first. 

Robert and Dora had at least eleven children between 1883 and 1908. From these children, my Mom and her sisters have over 30 DNA matches (and growing). My Mom's results show 111 matches to James Robert Gibson, and 104 matches to Lucy Street.

A grandson of Robert took a DNA test before his death in 2022. He's a DNA match with 162 cM in common with my Mom, 180 cM in common with my Aunt Linda and 193 cM in common with my Aunt Patty. Two of his children tested, and were also high matches (110, 165, 130 cM; 44, 130, 160 cM).

The matches who appeared in the connections for the Hubbard and Dowell families also show up in the Gibson results indicating the multiple family relations in this part of Kentucky and tracing back to Virginia. The Gibson matches all have higher cM counts.

Robert and Dora appear in the 1880 US Census in Leatherwood, Adair County, living next door to Robert's older brother Julius and family.

By 1900, the family had grown, with 7 children still in the household.

1900 US Census. Adair County, Kentucky.

In the 1910 US Census, the family was living in Elroy, Adair County.

1910 US Census. Adair County, Kentucky.

Robert died on 9 June 1914, a victim of heat exhaustion after working in the corn field on a 96 degree day.

Paducah Sun. 12 June 1914.

Dora remarried on 12 March 1928 to local minister Mitchell Albertson, and passed away on 17 June 1928 in Adair County.

I will have more on the DNA connections to Robert and the Gibson family in the next post.

Reflections

Mary Alice Cain Read had a large family of ten children with husband Charlie Read. There are a huge amount of Read-Cain cousins out there, and I am hoping some of them stumble onto the blog.

A lot of things had to fall into place just right to find the information I've been able to locate on this missing side of the tree. It wasn't enough that I had taken an autosomal DNA test in 2012, I needed my Mom's and aunts' results, then I needed the right combination of distant cousins who had tested, and shared enough information in their trees in order to make sufficient connections. I also needed to learn new tools and methods, and apply those through trial and error to sift through the thousands of matches to point to this cluster of family.

I know it also works the other way, that there's a huge set of Gibson cousins who have no idea Robert had another child out there before building his family in 1880, who created this whole other branch of family. Maybe some of them will find this information too.

Applying the Leeds Method

 

Extract from Leeds chart. Nov 2024.

Above is a snapshot from part of the Leeds Method chart I created using the DNA matches in the range of 400-90 cM for my Mom and her two sisters. There's more information on the left side of the chart, with the location of the testing company in column A (Ancestry), the category of match in column B, username (or known name) for the match in column C, cM shared with my Mom in column D, cM shared with my aunt Linda in column E, cM shared with my aunt Patty in column F, most recent common ancestor (if known) in column G, maternal or paternal in column I, and notes in column J.

I ended up with 93 matches. I compiled the cM for each match to my Mom, and repeated those steps with matches for my two aunts. Once I had the numbers, I started with the highest match not in the first cousin category and made that person the group leader for Group 1 and gave that person an X. Then I looked at the shared matches for the group leader, and assigned them a yellow color. I repeated those steps for the next match that did not have a color, and so on.

This created 12 groups, but these neatly made four main groups for each of my Mom's grandparent groups. Looking further into the clusters on my Mom's Read-Cain side of the tree, I kept seeing matches with the surname Gibson. These matches traced back to the same Gibson cluster in Adair County, Kentucky.

I can also use the Leeds chart to look closer at the clusters for my Mom's Campuzano-Vasquez and Diaz-Portillo groups, and will be doing that in the near future. I am hoping this chart will also help explore research questions 5 & 6 for my Mom's side of the tree.

The Search

It's important to look back and appreciate the huge amount of effort it has taken to date trying to resolve family history gaps. From the very first year of this blog in 2012, and for about as long as I've been doing family history research, a mystery on my Mom's side of the family has been the parents of her great-grandmother, Mary Alice Cain. I have spent countless hours pouring over census records, checking and rechecking marriage records, scanning for news articles and other clues to her family. The first lead came in 2014, when a Read cousin reached out to me with information identifying a brother of Mary Alice, Harl Cain. 

With that information, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Veterans Administration for a copy of Harl's service record in the Spanish-American War. I then found an obituary for Harl in May 2014.

In August 2014, a Read cousin posted a photo of Mary Alice with her brother Harl on Ancestry. This was an amazing find, making these people more real in the search for their parents. A year later, in July 2014, Ancestry published the US Social Security Applications and Claim Index. That index revealed the name of Harl's mother, Jane Flatt (later proven to be Nancy Jane Flatt). Further digging identified the Flatt family in Metcalfe County, Kentucky and their previous home in Overton County, Tennessee. I next ordered a copy of the Civil War pension file for Pleasant Morgan, Nancy Jane's later husband, and signatory to the marriage bond for Mary Alice Cain and Charlie Read.

Pleasant Morgan's pension file arrived in August 2015. That huge file included a name for Nancy Jane's first husband, Robert Kain. It took me almost 10 years later to go through that file again and question some of the information provided by Pleasant in his request for a pension. This second look uncovered the loop in the tree and identified Pleasant as Nancy Jane's first cousin.

October 2015 surfaced the story of Nancy Jane's father, Pleasant Flatt, and a painful earlier story on the family's beginnings in Jackson County, Tennessee. I followed Nancy Jane's half-brothers, William B. Flatt and Reamus Robert Foster Flatt, and then documented Pleasant's next family and the sisters of Nancy Jane in Metcalfe County, Kentucky.

In November 2015, I had several posts on the Flatt family, Pleasant's court cases, and ultimate death as a pauper in the Metcalfe County Poor House in 1873. This also revealed Nancy Jane's time in the poor house and her delivery of Mary Alice in February 1878.

Fast-forward to 2024. Inspired by virtual DNA Day sessions from Rootstech, I dove back into the research on the Flatt family in April of this year. I speculated about possible connections to a Robert Cain who lived in Louisville and provided bar and catering services for the first running of the Kentucky Derby. Ultimately there wasn't enough of a link to this Robert, even though there were some trace amounts matching to my Mom.

In May, after watching a number of free videos from Rootstech by Diahan Southard of YourDNAGuide, I started working with the dot method on my Mom's shared matches, beginning to develop clusters of people descending from various lines. At the end of June, Ancestry launched its Pro Tools, with Enhanced Shared Matches. This was a gamechanger on my research.

By August, I developed two research questions to help target my approach to using the new Pro Tools. I also uploaded my Mom's raw AncestryDNA data to MyHeritage to expand the pool of potential DNA matches. When the calendar flipped to September, it became time to seek some expert coaching to help overcome these challenging brick wall research questions. I signed up for a Zoom session with a DNA expert, who gave some great suggestions for trying to target my approach, creating groups using the dot method. I also signed up for their DNA Study Group, going all in on trying to use the data of our shared matches of matches.

I explored the possibility that John Hubbard, son of Pleasant Flatt's third wife Nancy D. Hubbard, was the father of Mary Alice. While there's definitely some DNA in common with the Dowell and Hubbard families, it looks like we're connected to them in another way, further back along the tree or from a common community. Although it is possible Nancy Jane had a relationship with John Hubbard while the two were in the household of the Rose family in the 1870 Census, it doesn't seem that he was the father of Mary Alice. After another session with the DNA expert, she gave me some suggestions to try again while looking at the Cain Targets and Read-Cain matches to see if there might be another group of matches that may have a stronger connection.

Since then I've been pouring over the matches of matches, while also balancing primary obligations with home and work. As noted in my last post, patterns have emerged, centered in a group of families from neighboring Adair County, Kentucky.

All of the above, the 12+ years of on-again, off-again digging and searching, has arrived at a breakthrough. This would not have been possible without DNA, and without the additional time to learn how to analyze the DNA matches using the approaches in the DNA Study Group. I'm still verifying some of my findings, but am excited to write about this in an upcoming post.

Recurring Names and Locations

After running a Leeds Method chart using the DNA matches connected to my Mom and her sisters, I think a new hypothesis is emerging on my Mary Alice Cain research question. I have been noticing a recurring set of matches with the surnames Gibson, Street, Coomer, Jesse, and England, all concentrated in Adair County, Kentucky. This is the neighboring county to Metcalfe.

In the 1880 US Census, Nancy Jane Flatt's half-brother William Burr Flatt was living in Adair County. He married Margaret Coomer in 1872. I am still not able to see Nancy Jane and children in the 1880 Census, and it does seem they were not enumerated in the records that year. The Leatherwood District where William and Margaret were living, is only a few miles away from Edmonton in Metcalfe County where Nancy Jane was a pauper in 1878.

On the MyHeritage matches, one strong match with 106 cM is a direct descendant of this same group of Gibson and Coomer people located in Adair County. The Leeds chart revealed a group of matches, first a Gibson father matching my Mom with 162 cM, my aunt Linda with 180 and my aunt Patty with 193. This father had a son and daughter who also show up as strong matches (110, 165, 130 for one; 44, 130, 160 for the other). Two other related high matches in this group have 153 and 144 cM in common with my Mom.

When I refreshed the relationships for Nancy Jane to see what ThruLines might show based on this DNA hypothesis, I now see 89 potential matches to the mother of the strongest candidate match. I'll take a closer look at this family in the next post.