Back on the West Coast

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Los Angeles. 25 Sep 2018.

A bit of fortuitous timing has me back in Los Angeles, allowing an escape from the "snowcrete" and historic cold snap impacting Northern Virginia. In addition to the warmth, I have tickets to two Indiana basketball games happening in LA, a trip to Pauley Pavilion later today for the matchup against UCLA and Tuesday's late one against USC.

Time to fly

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Shoreditch, London. 5 Dec 2025.

Comparing across generations

A new kit result has arrived at FamilyTreeDNA, and I can now see some really interesting patterns of DNA inheritance comparing from my Mom's kit with mine and my daughter's FamilyFinder results. In addition, I can see some match names in common to kits on Ancestry who match with Allison, her Mom, her brother, and their Memaw. There are some fascinating xDNA matches, and because Sophia's results include my cousin Catherine as a match, this will let us triangulate the xDNA segments. There's a lot here to explore further and more to do over the weekend.

I am still in the process of reviewing which matches connect into my Mom's side of the tree, and which ones point to Allison's side.

Back to reality

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Puerto Rico. 26 Jan 2026.

It pains me to look out my window now and see layers of immovable ice and not the views above and below. We escaped "Winter storm Fern" and the historic low temperatures for a resort near Fajardo, Puerto Rico. Now we pay the price for our timing, as the ice isn't going away and it won't be warm enough for many days to make it leave. Our stay was amazing and part of me wishes we had extended our time instead of coming back.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Puerto Rico. 24 Jan 2026.

I'm catching up on a lot that I missed while we were in a location with limited wifi. And that's just the work side of things. As for family history research, no progress was made while we were at the beach, so things will be a little slow as I ramp back up. A big focus over the next few days is going to be trying to dig out of this ice.

My journey down the Carter line of descendants is about to shift, as I move to my other research questions before my update next week.

Thanks Puerto Rico

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. San Juan, 4 Mar 2024.

It's been another lovely stay in Puerto Rico. Hopefully heading back today, with many memories and more photos to follow. Puerto Rico is one of our favorite places, going back to 1999.

From an earlier time

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Luquillo, PR. 19 Feb 2022.

Parker v Baxter

 

FamilySearch. Davidson County, TN. 1875.

The chancery case files involving the estate of Thomas Crutcher is the case that keeps giving. In October 1874, more heirs descending from Elizabeth Curtis Crutcher, sister-in-law of Thomas through his brother Anthony, filed a petition in the chancery court in Nashville. These documents fill in the gaps on the extended family. The first group of pages are a set of depositions with Virginia Earhart Taylor, daughter of Elizabeth Crutcher Earhart. She provides testimony on the whereabouts of her cousins. She says Elizabeth Virginia Maxey left one son, Albert R. Munn, who died in Coles County, Illinois. She had no living children in 1874. Munn was to receive $978.00.

The 1874 petition was filed on behalf of Frances Parker and cousins against the clerk of court Baxter, 30 years after the death of Thomas Crutcher. Once again, FamilySearch Full Text Search was the key to locating this file. Frances Parker stated that the share owed to Mary Crutcher Maxey was still in the hands of the clerk of court, Mary was deceased, and so her share should pass to the other heirs.

According to the petition, Frances was owed one fourth of the share. Mary Maxey's heirs were owed a fourth, The heirs of Martha Osborne were due to split one fourth, the heirs of Elizabeth Earhart were due one fourth, and Sarah Rogers was due one fourth.

Washington and Sarah

 

FamilySearch. Barren County, KY. 23 Dec 1824.

Sarah Crutcher and Washington Rogers were married in Barren County, Kentucky in 1824. They moved to Boone County, Missouri about 1831, and can be found in several land deeds in Pike County and Boone County. The family is listed in the 1850 US Census in Boone.

Ancestry. 1850 US Census. Boone County, MO.

They appear again in the 1860 US Census in Boone County.

Washington Rogers died in 1867. Sarah is listed in the 1870 and 1880 US Census in the household of her daughter Mary Elizabeth Williams in neighboring Audrain County. Sarah died there in 1886.

In the matter of guardianship

 

FamilySearch. Clinton County, IL. 15 Sept 1851.

Thanks once again to FamilySearch Full Text Search, I've been able to continue along the path of records for the estate of Thomas Crutcher to Clinton County, Illinois. The snapshot above names David Earhart, John Albert Earhart, Elijah Earhart, and Virginia Thomas Earhart as orphan minors due proceeds from the estate of Thomas Crutcher. The same page shows Elizabeth and Thomas Perry Maxey named as orphan minors also due proceeds from the Crutcher estate. Elizabeth and Thomas were children of Mary Ann Crutcher Maxey, a daughter of Elizabeth Curtis.

FamilySearch. Clinton County, IL.

The next two records from 1854 show guardian bonds for the minor children of Elizabeth Earhart, naming them grandchildren of Anthony Crutcher of Montgomery County, Tennessee, brother of Thomas Crutcher late of Davidson County, Tennessee. The record says the children were entitled to a portion of Thomas' estate according to the Chancery Court in Nashville.

FamilySearch. Clinton County, IL. 1854.

The adjoining page shows a guardian bond filed on behalf of Elizabeth V. Maxey and her brother Thomas P. Maxey, orphan minor children of A. G. Maxey and Mary Ann Crutcher Maxey. Yet another guardian bond identifies another female descendant from Elizabeth Crutcher Earhart. Her daughter Eliza Ann Earhart married Elijah Bail. She died in January 1850, and had children Mary Ann and William Riley Bail. They're also listed as entitled to a portion of Thomas Crutcher's estate.

FamilySearch. Clinton County, IL. 5 July 1853.

These names point us back to the chancery files in Davidson County, as some of the descendants of Elizabeth Earhart were still seeking funds from the estate in 1874. According to the file, Virginia Earhart married James F. Taylor, and moved from Illinois to Montana, and later to Ogden, Utah.

The trail of maternal line descendants from Frances Carter Curtis shifts to Sarah Crutcher Rogers, who moved with her family to Missouri. I'll pick this up in the next post.

Champions

 

Indiana University. 19 Jan 2026.

The Indiana University football team completed a historic run last night, beating the Miami Hurricanes 27-21 for the school's first college football national championship. The team finished the season unbeaten, 16-0. This was a miracle finish long suffering Hoosier fans could never have imagined a few years ago.

Thomas' legacy to education

 

Tri-Weekly Nashville Union. 12 Mar 1844.

Yesterday I covered the lengthy chancery case involving the Crutcher family. Before I continue down the trail of descendants of Frances Carter Curtis, I have a post on Thomas Crutcher and his lasting impact on education in Nashville, Tennessee. When Thomas died in 1844, he was the President of the Nashville Female Academy. Thomas did not have children of his own, it appears that he gave decades of service and funding to the academy. Shortly after his death, the academy board published a set of resolutions honoring Thomas for his service.

Nashville Female Academy (TSLA and Belmont Mansion).

A daughter of one of the founders of the academy built Belmont Mansion in Nashville, and this later became Belmont University. The resolutions honoring Thomas are below.

Nashville Rep. Banner, 13 Mar 1844.

Crutcher v Crutcher

FamilySearch. Davidson County, TN. 1861.

Chancery cases can be a great resource for unraveling a complicated family tree. An example is Crutcher v Crutcher, which found its way to the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1850. The citation is 11 Humphrey 377 (or 30 Tenn 377), although I haven't yet found a full copy of the decision. This case provides a helpful description of the extended Crutcher family, and I found this using FamilySearch Full Text search.

FamilySearch. Davidson County, TN court records.

The purpose of this journey down the records from Frances Carter Curtis has been to identify possible maternal line descendants who could potentially take a mtDNA test and help resolve the mystery of the wives of John Carter. I've thankfully been joined in this hunt by distant cousin and fellow blogger Jacqi Stevens of A Family Tapestry.

The case is part of a complex set involving the Crutcher siblings, particularly the estate of Thomas Crutcher. He was a one-time mayor of Nashville in 1819, and importantly the executor of the will of Frances Carter Curtis. For our purposes the Crutcher case helpfully names the heirs of Thomas' brother Anthony and sister-in-law Elizabeth Curtis Crutcher, including the states of residence for those who left Tennessee. This is an essential piece of the puzzle, connecting several of the daughter lines descending from Frances Carter Curtis into the era of census records.

Daily Nashville Patriot. 19 Oct 1858.

James Crutcher of Hardin County, Kentucky brought a suit in Davidson County Court stating that John Crutcher owed him $1262. John did not own property in Kentucky, but he did in Tennessee, and also had an interest in the estate of his brother Thomas who had died without heirs and an unsigned will in Davidson County in 1844. Thomas had a sizeable estate of his own, worth about $60,000 in 1844, which is about $2.5 million or more today. James challenged the validity of the will, noting that John Crutcher and Thomas' siblings would be due to inherit some of the funds, and those would be payable to James. In his complaint, James described the descendants of his brothers and sisters, which is incredibly useful for our efforts today.

FamilySearch. Davidson County, TN.

According to the complaint, Elizabeth Crutcher Earhart and her husband John, and her sister Mary Crutcher Maxey and husband Albert, had moved to Illinois. I was able to trace them to Clinton County, Illinois, where John Earhart became Justice of the Peace. Another daughter of Elizabeth Curtis Crutcher, Sarah, had moved with her husband Washington Rogers, to Missouri. It looks like she lived into the 1880s and had at least five daughters, so her path is a promising one for maternal line descendants from Frances Carter Curtis.

James Crutcher died while the case was progressing through the courts, and his suit was revived by Thomas S. Crutcher, executor of his estate. After a lengthy series of proceedings up and down the Tennessee court system, it looks like James prevailed in the case, and funds were paid out to the heirs between 1858-1861. The image below is important for our pursuit going forward.

FamilySearch. Davidson County, TN.

A Deed of Gift

In February 1807, Mary Curtis provided a deed of gift to her niece, Mary C. Crutcher. In the same record, she also named the other children of her brother-in-law Anthony Crutcher and his wife Elizabeth Curtis Crutcher. When viewing the typed version of this record on Ancestry, as part of the Tennessee Wills collection, the document is listed as a probate file, and gives an inferred death date for Mary as 1807. But this is not a probate document, it is a deed of gift, similar to the slave transaction made in an earlier record from her grandfather John Carter's estate in 1784.

Viewing the original handwritten record on FamilySearch as part of the Montgomery County, Tennessee Will Books 1795-1825 gives a different perspective.

FamilySearch. Montgomery County, TN. 23 Feb 1807.

Mary Curtis' deed of gift was a slave girl named Nancy (a child of Poll or Polly), and all her household furniture, clothing, and all her other goods and chattels, except for three slaves who were to be sold and proceeds divided equally among the other children of her sister and brother-in-law: William, Carter, Thomas, George, Fanny, Patsy, Elizabeth and Sally Crutcher. Patsy and Elizabeth Crutcher were later named as beneficiaries in the will of their grandmother Frances Carter Curtis in 1827.

A later document in the Montgomery County Court minutes in July 1807 shows this was a deed of gift, and not a will.

FamilySearch. Montgomery County, TN. 15 Jul 1807.

On 7 August 1811, William Curtis signed a marriage record for his sister Mary Curtis to Daniel Dunnivant in Davidson County, Tennessee. Mary is listed as Molly Dunnivant in the will of Frances Curtis in 1827.

FamilySearch. Davidson County, TN. 7 Aug 1811.

 

The names fall into place

Reviewing the 1827 will of Frances Curtis, the names of beneficiaries seem to fall into place. Frances first provides for her granddaughters Fanny and Patsy, of son William Curtis. She bequeaths two slaves, Henry (15) and Monterville (10). Next she gives to Thomas Crutcher, brother of her son-in-law Anthony Crutcher. Anthony had married Frances' daughter Elizabeth Curtis. Frances asked Thomas to be her executor, and to hold in trust a slave girl named Hagar for the benefit of Frances' daughter Molly Dunnivant. Molly (also called Mary) wed Daniel Dunnivant in Davidson County, Tennessee on 7 August 1811.

Next Frances gave another slave girl named Pealus to Thomas to hold in trust for Frances' granddaughter Patsy (Martha) Crutcher Osborn, wife of Alfred Osborn. Frances then gave a bed and furniture to her son William, a bed and furniture to Patsy Osborn, and a bed and furniture to granddaughter Betsy Crutcher Earhart. Patsy and Betsy were daughters of Elizabeth Curtis (d. 1810) and Anthony Crutcher (d. 1815).

Frances also gave to Frankey, a free woman of color who had been her slave, $100.

Frances asked that the rest of her property be equally divided among Molly Dunnivant, William Curtis, Patsy Osborn, and Betsy Earhart.

The will was produced in Davidson County Court in October 1827.

Henry and Monterville were ordered to be sold in 1832. It is possible they were brothers.

FamilySearch. Davidson County, TN. 1832.

Monterville was sold on 9 April 1841 for $650 to the firm of Anderson & Hamilton.

The will of Frances Carter Curtis

 

FamilySearch. Davidson County, TN. 16 Feb 1827.

When I previously looked into Frances Carter Curtis, daughter of John Carter, I found a will for her husband Rice Curtis 3rd in Davidson County, Tennessee in 1798. It looks like Frances survived her husband Rice by almost 29 years, living in what became Nashville, Tennessee. The record that makes me think this will is hers, is an indenture with Frances' son George B. Curtis in Davidson County in 1804. The second half of Frances' will from 1827 is below.

There's more to do to unpack the details in this will. Very clearly from the first division of property Frances was an enslaver, which is not a surprise given the earlier documents involving the records from the estate of Frances' father John Carter.

John Carter in 1743

 

Made in Ideogram. John Carter. Spotsylvania, Virginia, 1743.

As far as I know, there are no surviving portraits of John Carter (1715-1783). In 1743, John was a recently married man (for the second time), with four young children, about 28 years old. During the year of 1743 he completed two land purchases in Spotsylvania County, Virginia for 290 acres. The imagined scene above shows John surveying the new land in the vast forests of the area.

There is a great resource called Colonial Virginia Portraits, which has a shortcut to portraits for extended members of Carter families. While we're still looking for maternal descendants from John Carter and his various wives, I'm using Ideogram to help visualize the time in which John and his family lived.

Riding in the future now

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Santa Monica, 7 Jan 2026.

In Los Angeles the white Waymo autonomous taxis are now a common sight on the roads, at least in the part of West LA where I tend to be when I'm in the city. I rode in one for the first time last September, and again a few times last week while visiting the LA office. On this trip I remembered to snap a shot from the back seat, showing the driverless car taking me from Santa Monica. It's a bit surreal riding in a Waymo, listening to my own Spotify account through the speakers as it takes a not-direct but safe and serviceable route to my destinations. It does feel like riding in the future.

Returning to the tangled mess

 

Library of Virginia. Marshall v Sutton, 1818.

Back in February 2024, I wrote about a complicated mess of chancery cases from the Library of Virginia records involving the descendants of John Carter (1715-1783). With distant cousin Jacqi Stevens of A Family Tapestry diving back into the Carter research, it is time to revisit the chancery files and see if we can make more progress on the questions surrounding the wives of John Carter.

I'm also hoping the Carter Society of Virginia may have some new information. The society is celebrating its 25th anniversary in September 2026.

Generation of Connection

One year ago I shared a set of research questions, including a question for the WATO course on YourDNAGuide to determine the generation of connection with a set of mystery matches from the Leyva family. After a lot of digging into shared matches of matches, building floating trees, talking through the case with Jarrett Ross (the Geneavlogger on YouTube), and comparing the matches using WATO on DNAPainter, I think we now have a hypothesis for the generation of connection with this family.

When talking it through, it seemed like the amounts in common were stronger with the Portillo branch of cousin MC, who is descended from Alejandro Portillo.

I caution this is just a hypothesis based on the tool and it has not been verified through other records, which may not exist. Using shared matches of matches in common between CH and my Mom on Ancestry, I plugged those centimorgan amounts into a tree and generated hypotheses. Thanks again to Jarrett for cleaning up my first attempt to generate results from WATO. Far and away the highest ranking among the hypotheses was #5, that CH is the grandchild of Alejandro through an unknown half-sibling.  This was six times as likely as the next hypothesis. As we know CH was the daughter of Trinidad Leyva, according to this result the most likely generation of connection is that we share a common ancestor in Manuel Portillo (1830-1880).

This result collides with what the paper trail says about Trinidad's mother, Flora. So far, there's nothing I've seen to place Alejandro in Sinaloa or Flora in Guaymas or Hermosillo in March/April 1891, but it was feasible and there's a big gap in Alejandro's timeline. In later years, Alejandro, Flora and Trinidad were working in the cotton fields of Glendale, Arizona around the same time, and also lived in Nogales at the same time, but this does not directly connect them.

Again, there's more to do before declaring this the most likely answer. I still need to try to separate matches descending from either Escolastico Leyva's side or Flora's. There's also another set of shared matches pointing to an earlier Portillo who may have been a sister of Manuel Portillo Sr.

Why I have spent so much time trying to place these mystery matches into the tree? I currently do not have a strong understanding of my Portillo line beyond Manuel Sr. The Leyva matches, and at least two other families have a connection to the Portillos through different paths, and I am hoping this research will help unlock further layers to the Portillo story in Mexico (and perhaps earlier to Spain or Portugal).

On to the championship

 

Indiana University. 9 Jan 2026.

As a long time Hoosier fan, three years ago I never could have imagined the historic run the team has displayed since Coach Cignetti's arrival in Bloomington. Last night, IU advanced to the College Football Playoff National Championship game, by dominating the Oregon Ducks in Atlanta 56-22. The number one Hoosiers are now 15-0, and head to Miami to play the University of Miami Hurricanes (13-2) on 19 January.

There are so many fun storylines with the Hoosiers, from the unheralded players who followed Cignetti from James Madison University to IU, quarterback Fernando Mendoza's Heisman season and journey with younger brother & IU backup QB Alberto Mendoza. The Mendoza brothers grew up a mile from the Miami campus and now play in a homecoming game for the national championship. The Hoosiers play an exciting, balanced style game with a solid defense.

We'll be watching from home, cheering on the team to close out the season. 

RootsTech 2026 schedule

 

Source: RootsTech. 

The schedule for RootsTech 2026 is now available on the conference website. Unlike last year, I'll be following RootsTech online and on a delay this year as my own meeting will be happening at the same time in Mumbai, India. Maybe the timing will work for 2027's edition of RootsTech to be back in person.

While the timing of some sessions may change, for me being online only, I've gone ahead and selected 36 sessions that I definitely want to try to watch (or view later after I'm back from India). I'm not surprised to see many sessions on artificial intelligence and genealogy, and DNA, but there does seem to be a trend of interesting sessions focused on German research, Mexico/Latin America research, and case studies. I am also hoping some of the sessions that are currently listed as in-person only might be available on a delay for online viewing through the RootsTech platform.

One Year Ago

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Venice, CA. 9 Jan 2025.

Two photos, one of orange skies taken at Venice Beach, and another following take off from LAX showing the smoldering Santa Monica Mountains north of the city. It's been a year since the horrible fires in LA.

Photo by Patrick Jones. LA from above. 10 Jan 2025.

A gap in the timeline

 

Ancestry. Ures, Sonora. 30 Aug 1880.

Manuel Portillo Sr died in the town of Ures, Sonora, Mexico in August 1880. According to the civil registration record above, his wife Maria Bernal was from (or living in) Hermosillo. My 2nd-great-grandfather Manuel Portillo Jr would have been about 21 at that time, and would have been expected to take on support for the surviving family. His younger brother Alejandro would have been almost 14 years old.

The next record I have for Alejandro is the baptism of daughter Maria Luisa Portillo in Hermosillo listing her birth date as 14 April 1907. By then, Alejandro was 41. That's a huge gap in time between Alejandro's own birth record from 1866, and his next appearance in the records (or at least the ones currently available to me).

The Sonora Railway line to Nogales opened in 1882, creating a connection from the US border to the Mexican port of Guaymas, Sonora. Another rail connection linked Guaymas to Culiacan, Sinaloa along Mexico's western coast. Trade was significant between Guaymas and Mazatlan, Sinaloa by sea, and it is possible workers would have moved between the two ports, or between Hermosillo, Culiacan and Mazatlan at this time. In 1888, there was a steam railway linking Culiacan to the port of Altata, Sinaloa, and this would have been a stop on the route north to Guaymas.

Google Maps.

I have another post to follow describing the hypotheses based on the WATO results with Jarrett using the tools at DNAPainter, before I shift to another research question for a few weeks. There's also another Portillo branch or two to cover that links into the Leyva DNA matches.

More pieces of the puzzle

 

Arizona Republic, 10 Feb 1921.

Cotton is historically important in Arizona and has long been a key product for the state. Pima cotton is a particular varietal, and the name of Pima County (where Tucson is located). The clipping from the article above describes complications in 1921 between Arizona cotton growers, who relied on Mexican labor to pick cotton, and labor groups supporting the workers to ensure proper pay and transportation for their efforts. The article notes the involvement of the Latin protective league, the Liga Protectora Latina, in the discussions between the cotton growers association, Mexican labor groups in Nogales, and the Mexican government. 

Yesterday I wrote about Alejandro Portillo and his work as a laborer for Salt Valley cotton growers in 1918. He was among the many Mexican laborers working for cotton growers at this time. From the records it also looks like Flora Escobar and daughter Trinidad Leyva were working in Glendale, Arizona in 1920 through the Arizona Cotton Growers Association. Flora appears on a manifest from 4 October 1922 (source FamilySearch) to enter the US with her daughter Trinidad, and grandchildren Inez and Ignacio (who are curiously listed in the manifest as Inez and Ignacio Silva). The record confirms they were in Phoenix between 26 July 1920 and 22 January 1921, and their passage was paid by the Arizona Cotton Growers Association.

FamilySearch. 4 Oct 1922.

Trinidad delivered a daughter, Rosalva, in Culiacan, Sinaloa, in September 1921. The family, including mother Flora, returned to Phoenix again in September 1923. There are some mispellings (and mis-entries) on the names in these records. I'm not clear why Flora is listed as Flora Escobar vda Silva (widow of Silva) in the 1922 record, but I have figured out where the Silva name comes from. This was also a mystery in Trinidad's 1941 border crossing record, where she listed her cousin Amalia Silva as a contact.

Flora's sister, Fidencia Escobar, married Jose Silva. Fidencia's son Jose listed Aunt Flora Escobar as a contact in his border crossing record from 1930.

In the 1930 US Census, Jose and his mother Fidencia are living next door to sister Amalia, her husband Jesus Bayardo, and their children in Indio, Riverside County, California. This gives us a better picture of Flora's family connections living in California and more names to check against the border crossing manifests. While Coachella, California is well known today for music festivals, in the 1930s this valley was known for its date farming, grapes, other fruits, vegetables and cotton. The Escobars were working as farm laborers in Coachella.

At some point they moved to Mexico and the fluid border area around Mexicali. Fidencia crossed into the US in 1940 and named her daughter Amalia Escobar de Ballardo (Bayardo) as her contact in Mexicali, Mexico. This is near area where Trinidad and her children were living in Calexico, California, just over the border.

Ancestry. 1940 US Census. Calexico, CA.

A laborer's ID card

 

FamilySearch. 1918.

Here's another migration record from FamilySearch, showing the alien agricultural laborer's identification card for Alejandro Portillo. This was used to cross the border at Nogales, Arizona in 1918. The reverse shows this card was stamped by the Salt River Valley Egyptian Cotton Growers Association. This is part of the Arizona Cotton Growers Association, which still exists today.

Another card from the set (see above) shows Alejandro as 52 years old in 1918, which would match the birth year 1866 from the Sonoran records. It isn't clear if Alejandro worked on cotton fields associated with Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, but this article includes some photos and history on cotton production in the same area where Alejandro could have worked.