Breakthrough!

Today was the family history equivalent of striking gold and hitting the lottery on the same day - I had a massive breakthrough on one of my nagging brick walls, William Allman. I was also able to stop by the National Archives and view the combined Civil War pension file of Joseph Jones and Harvey Bales, husbands of Pearl Cox Bales Newman (discussed in last week's post, Warranty Deeds and a Third Marriage). These are huge finds on their own, and to occur on the same day was pretty spectacular (as one can see, I'm excited).

I'll have a full post (and then some) on William, but this find connects me (and several other distant cousins researching the family) with a member of the First Families of Ohio and a distant Allman/Allmon ancestor born in Maryland in 1746. We owe a huge debt to Jennie Jean Barnes and Patricia Flint for their research on the Allman/Allmon lines, and to FamilySearch for posting this fantastic volume set to be freely available online via the FamilySearch Library. Thank you!

As for the Joseph Jones pension file, there's so much in it that it re-writes the story of my third-great-grandfather's amazing life. This file was two inches thick and probably 300 pages. There were more than a few jaw-droppers, and I'm in the process of uploading photos from today's review. I'm probably going to need to go back and look at it again when I have more time (today was just supposed to be a lunch break). It certainly calls into question what I previously thought was his prisoner of war service, or I've uncovered a buried family secret. Stay tuned...