What's a father to do when his wife dies, leaving him alone with young children? In 1825, he had fewer options than today. Many widowed men and women turned to their extended family for help.
Today, for family history researchers, the choices our ancestors made can lead us to wrong conclusions based on the census. Were the children in a family the children of the head of household? Were they siblings, nieces, nephews or cousins? The census records before 1880 don't give a relationship.
If you're baffled by DNA cousin matches, maybe it's time to take another hard look at those early census records. Expand your tree and see if it leads to new conclusions.
For Joseph Allee, we have to ask some hard questions. Joseph was born about 1802, in Virginia, to Nicholas Allee and his second wife, Mary Dennis. Joseph first appears in the census of 1830 as a young head of household in Lawrence County, Alabama. His age is actually marked incorrectly.
There is a legend that Joseph had a daughter, Nancy Jane Allee, born about 1825 to an unknown wife, possibly named Lapruda. However, Nancy Jane did not appear with Joseph in the 1830 or any other census. It appears she was "farmed out" to be raised by other family members. Or was she even Joseph's daughter? Were there other children of this mystery marriage?
Joseph Allee [Alley] was married on August 29, 1834, to a woman named Pricila Mallin or Pruda Mallin. Was this woman named Lapruda and not the mother of Nancy Jane? Was Joseph even married more than once? The marriage record is hard to read.
The 1850 census tells us that Joseph was a farmer and leads us to assume five children was born from this marriage before the death of the wife. The children were: Caroline, Nicholas, Elizabeth, Sarah and Emaline. Those of us who have researched this family believe that Nancy Jane returned from Arkansas to help raise these younger children after the death of their mother.
Nancy Jane's story will be in a future post, as her descendants have the biggest DNA challenge in this family branch.
Joseph joined many other family members when he moved his family to Saline County, Arkansas, by the time of the 1860 census. It was there that Caroline Allee married Newell Fowler on August 2, 1859. Elizabeth Allee married Marion McManaway on January 8, 1862. I don't know what happened to Emaline. Supposedly Sarah married another McManaway, though I have not found a marriage record.
On November 16, 1860, Nicholas J. Allee paid $80.00 for 80 acres in Saline County. He joined the Confederate Army, dying on September 26, 1862, at Graysville, Georgia. In 1872, his land claim was questioned. His sister, Caroline Fowler, appeared at the land office in Little Rock on February 14, 1872. She filed a declaration that Nicholas had lived on the land since November 16, 1860, until his death, and that she had lived there after that time.
Joseph Allee, a 68-year-old widowed farmer, appeared in the 1870 census of Grant County, Arkansas, then was not found again in the census.
The DNA of the descendants of the Allee families of Alabama and Arkansas must be examined carefully to identify all the children of Joseph and to identify his wives. There is even the possibility that Joseph might have married the sister of one of his brothers-in-law or sisters-in-law. Y-DNA is not useful. MtDNA from the direct female lines of Nancy and her sisters might or might not show different mothers. The autosomal DNA test from Ancestry and other companies is most useful for cousin matching.
Next time: Nancy Jane Allee Grant.
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