On theories and chance

 

A. H. Thayer. Young Woman. 1897.

While revisiting old finds and looking at DNA connections to my 3rd-great-grandmother Nancy Jane Flatt, I am running into challenges to find a connection between her and the potential father of her daughter Mary Alice Cain. A previous post looked into the possibility that this could be a liquor and saloon owner named Robert Cain who was living in Louisville, Kentucky in the 1870s. 

Pleasant Morgan, Nancy's husband and first cousin, named Robert as her first husband in his Civil War pension file. While I've written about his selective memory, I'd like to think the name of Nancy's first partner is something Pleasant would have known. As he was close family living in neighboring Barren County at the time, his mother Elizabeth was Nancy Jane's aunt, leads me to think and hope this was the case.

As to whether young Nancy Jane ran away from Metcalfe County to Louisville in the early 1870s and met Robert there, or Robert was visiting Barren County to acquire meat and liquor for his saloons in Louisville, we just don't know. Robert later took over the saloon and betting exchange located at 236 Main Street. In the late 1860s, proprietor John Kohlrepp was advertising venison from Barren County and quail from Lebanon, Kentucky (not too far from Metcalfe County) served at his restaurant. It's a stretch, but maybe that's how these two might be connected.

Louisville Daily Courier. 28 Nov 1867.

On a chance while researching Robert Cain's family, I looked up his next two generations, for his parents and grandparents. Descendants of Robert Cain's grandmother, Tabitha Edwards, show up as DNA matches on my Mom's results.

AncestryDNA ThruLines.