When I first started talking with Dixie in 2017, she had a very very good grasp of her family tree but, what she most wanted help with was, what she thought was her biological maternal Grandfather and his line. She'd went down a rabbit hole of them being from Australia (due to information on a marriage license) but come to find out, they really hailed from New York.
We met in person in either late 2017 or early 2018 I think it was (I feel bad for not remembering the exact date. I think it was early 2018 though) and we actually figured out our families are connected. East end Henderson is a small place and come to find out - her younger half-brother was one of my Dad's best friends growing up. My Dad was very well acquainted with Dixie's Dad, and even more acquainted with her Uncle, who taught my Dad how to play guitar. Talk about a coincidence!
Anyway - we started spending a lot of time together. I told her all about my DNA results in 2018 and how it had been so fun breaking down brick walls with my DNA, and soon after my Mom had tested and that had helped a lot, too.
Soon, Dixie filled me in on the wonderings of... 'could my Grandma's seven kids each have different fathers?' Her mother, specifically, was supposed to be the daughter of the circus sword-swallower named John "Lucky" Ball. The marriage date of Lucky and Dixie's Mom, Sarah Pauline, match up to Sarah's birthday almost perfectly.
In November of 2018, we decided to do both Dixie's DNA and her half-Aunt Charlotte's DNA. We knew they were absolutely half-Aunt/half-Niece because we believed Dixie's Grandpa was Lucky Ball whereas Charlotte's Dad was said to be a man named Jack Spearman.
When they got their results -- I worked on Charlotte's first. In 2018, she was 81 years old and I knew time was precious. On Ancestry, I could tell she was matching with a bunch of Barnett's and Leonard's. This Barnett/Leonard couple had 3 sons... any of the three could have been the biological father, so I was at a stalemate for a moment. Until I uploaded Charlotte's DNA to My Heritage.
On My Heritage, we hit a 'half-sibling,' match and that removed all doubt over which Barnett boy was Charlotte's father. William Barnett had three sons... One had already passed away, one wasn't in good health I heard, and the other was excited at the prospect of meeting his half-sister!
Charlotte was absolutely elated to be welcomed with open arms into the Barnett family and she soaked up all the love they had to give, and she gave plenty in return. Sadly, that half-brother that was so excited to finally have a sister, passed away some months back. My heart was broken for Charlotte, but she told Granny to tell me, "I don't regret her finding him. I'll take this year and a half of knowing him over having never known him at all." It meant a lot to me to hear that.
Anyway - Granny's DNA results were a bit harder to decipher than Charlotte's. First and foremost, I could absolutely tell Granny wasn't matching with any Ball's from New York. She wasn't matching New York whatsoever. After messing with her DNA, I confirmed her paternal lines, and her maternal Grandmother's lines... so all these "unknown" matches were absolutely on her maternal Grandfather's side, whoever he may be.
The first clue to solving this mystery was the fact that she was matching Stone's. Stone is a very, very popular last name here in Henderson County and as luck would have it, I managed two other Stone DNA kits -- my best friend Jessica, and my best friend Dadie. Dixie matched both of them. Albeit they're kind of distant matches but still - without a doubt matching through that elusive Stone line.
So I started marking these 'unknown matches,' and I started writing down how these matches were related to one another, taking Dixie completely out of the equation. Usually if you find the common ancestors between a good 3 to 4 of your matches, it's a pretty good clue that you, too, share that ancestral couple.
I found several that descended through Samuel Woodard and Lucinda Liggett. Several through John Jenkins and Margaret Sigler. Then I found my ace in the pocket... several were matching through John & Margaret's son, Willis "Bud" Jenkins who married... Malinda Stone. Jackpot.
One of their sons, George, married an Eliza Woodard -- Jackpot... Or is it? Double cousins! George's brother, Andrew, married Nancy Woodard. Ugh. So which one of these couples does Dixie descend through? Well. No choice but to look at each child of both Jenkins/Woodard marriages under a microscope.
I started with Andrew and Nancy's children... and their children.. no one was adding up. I wrote down my best "possible" "potential" candidates and moved on to the children of George and Eliza. Going through each one... none were seeming a possibility. Until I came across the last one.
George Lloyd Jenkins was born May 31st, 1902, in Henderson County, Kentucky. He was the youngest child of George and Eliza. He was about 5 years older than Granny's Grandmother, Aggie Barron. George grew up in none other than Henderson's "East End," which is where Aggie Barron grew up as well.
Unfortunately, I was afraid George was out of the running when I found that he married Nellie May Kitchens on May 18th, 1925, in Evansville. They had two children: a son, Donald Waller Jenkins, and a daughter who was stillborn in 1934.
I decided to look into Donald Jenkins, even though I knew he couldn't be the father, being born in 1925. Just wanted to research him to see if maybe he had any children that might be willing to DNA test or something. I researched Donald and quickly realized he had no wife and no children - he died in Florida in 1977.
The piece of evidence I found next took away any and all doubt in my mind that I'd found the right biological family. I found Donald's WW2 draft card and the portion that says, "the person who will always know your address," there it is: John D. Byrnes (friend) 54 Holloway St, Henderson. That's Dixie's DAD.
Now this N.P.E situation was NOT on Dixie's Dad's side of the tree - it was on her Mom's side.... but in the east end, everyone knows everyone, so the Byrne's knew the Barron's long before the marriage of John D. Byrne and Sarah Pauline Ball.. and it just so happened that Donald Jenkins was John Byrne's best friend.
Donald Jenkins was Sarah's half-brother. Now if they ever knew that... that remains a mystery. Sarah never mentioned a word of a suspicion to Dixie nor to Charlotte... and Dixie, who was especially close to her Dad, says he never mentioned anything to her either that he 'suspected' Donald's Dad to be Sarah Pauline's Dad. So this was a total shock when I revealed my hypothesis.
Donald Jenkins was Sarah's half-brother. Now if they ever knew that... that remains a mystery. Sarah never mentioned a word of a suspicion to Dixie nor to Charlotte... and Dixie, who was especially close to her Dad, says he never mentioned anything to her either that he 'suspected' Donald's Dad to be Sarah Pauline's Dad. So this was a total shock when I revealed my hypothesis.
There is an old photograph of George Jenkins on Ancestry, and when I showed it to Granny, she and Charlotte both said he resembled Sarah Pauline. Granny showed me an old photograph she had of Donald Jenkins, and she said, "You know, now that I think on it.. I do see the family resemblance."
This is a perfect story of 'your next door neighbor just might be your relative,' honestly. This is also a prime example of solving a case like this using not 'extremely' close DNA matches. Donald Jenkins never had kids - and George Jenkins, as far as we know, never fathered anyone else. So Dixie will never have a 'half Uncle' or 'half Aunt' DNA match through George, and she'll never have a 'half first cousin' match through Donald having kids. I had to solve this mystery using mostly 2nd cousin 1x removed matches at the time.
George Jenkins passed away in 1966 in California. I firmly believe he had no idea he was Sarah Pauline Ball's father. If he had been - I doubt he'd have liked his son, Donald, knowing the family, thinking the 'secret' could have gotten out. No, I fully believe George believed Aggie's child was her husband, Lucky Ball's. The dates did line up, after all.
George, the father, pictured above. The photo comes from a relative on Ancestry.
A photograph from Granny's collection - her mother, Sarah, on her wedding day in 1943. She was only 14 years old when she got married. She looks 24, doesn't she! She obviously was a mature, attractive young lady.
Again, from Granny's collection. Her Grandmother, Agnes "Aggie" Barron. Aggie ended up dying from cervical cancer, that I suspect could have came from HPV, when she was just 46 years old in 1953. The woman lived a lot of life in 46 years, having seven children with at least nine different men. (Two men she was married to, and they believed they had children with her, but surprise -- they didn't!)
After finishing with Charlotte's and Granny's DNA - we've done the DNA of three more of Granny's half-first cousins since 2019 to 2021. We figured out that the child immediately after Sarah Pauline, Rosemary, who also had the Ball last name - she was not a Ball, either (shocker, lol) but instead an Ervin. I made this connection through the half-first cousin matching a half-Uncle. Took away all the hard work. The biological father ended up being, again, an East End Henderson native. The families had known each other for years.
Next we decided to work on Aggie's firstborn child. There had been really no whispers on who the father of Thomas Elbridge Barron (he got his Mom's maiden name) could be. Granny's theory was that possibly someone from the Catholic Church that Aggie attended might have been the father, that's the best lead we had to go on.
I could tell this half first-cousin (the daughter of Thomas Elbridge Barron) was matching a lot of Hunter's, Hester's, Gibson's, Church's... these are well known Henderson/Union/Webster county families -- and after piecing it together, I realized the father was Wickie Hunter. Wickie was a name known in the east end of Henderson, too, and he never had anymore children (that we know of) so again, this is a case of having to use 2nd cousins and further to decipher.
The last one we've worked on was Granny's half-Aunt, Helen Ruth; her son was kind enough to test for us to solve the mystery. Helen was interchangeably used the last names Ball and Spearman, but, we knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was neither. I started finding a lot of Bumpus, Cherry, and Shepherd DNA matches and these families are NOT native to Henderson County. After piecing everything together -- I figured out the biological father was a man named George Franklin Bumpus.
George was born in Stewart Co, TN and died in Hopkinsville, KY. How he and Aggie met one another, we're unclear on. My guess was probably at a club dancing and they decided to have a one night dalliance. George Bumpus married at least once by 1953 when living in Tennessee again, but they never had children. So again, this DNA mystery was solved using 2nd cousins and further; there will never be 'closer' DNA matches.
Now we've got two more children of Aggie to go.. and we're certain they aren't Ball's or Spearman's either. We're hoping one of the children of the youngest son will test... and on Aggie's youngest daughter -- we're going to have to test a great-grandson of hers. So I'll be looking for a biological Great-Great-Grandfather... that's a genealogical needle in a haystack so to speak. That one will be a challenge, but a fun challenge.
Thank you for reading about the steps I followed to solve these DNA mysteries and hopefully I can update y'all on what I find on Aggie's two remaining children and their biological fathers. The suspense is killing me on who the biological fathers are!!
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