This week's 52 ancestors in 52 weeks prompt was "DNA"
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Now here's a story all about how my life got flipped turned upside down so I'd like to take a minute just sit right there and I'll tell you the story of how I found out my 2x great grandfather was the product of an affair (probably).
When I started doing my family history research I didn't know that you really shouldn't fully trust what other people have in their trees without the proper documentation. So when I saw that lots of people had my 2x great grandfather John Franklin Pryor listed as the son of Mary Polly Williams and Matthew Pryor I just assumed that was correct and went on with my research, going as far back as the 14th century to lords and ladies of England. Several months later when I got my DNA test results back and noticed I had no matches to any of Matthew and Mary's children. I told my mom and we checked her results, she had a few related to the next generation of Pryors but they were distant cousins. We convinced my then 90 year old grandfather that he needed to test. I was already having issues with his mother's father so I was hoping DNA would help put some the puzzle pieces together. I also went back to the beginning with where John Pryor had come from. I realized quickly that while Matthew and Mary had a son named John, he died in Civil War so he couldn't possibly be my John Pryor.
I watched a LOT of YouTube videos about using DNA to try and determine a common ancestor. When Grandpa's matches came in I again, found a handful of Pryors but I knew that both Matthew Pryor and his father (also named Matthew Pryor) had both had a LOT of kids and we had very few matches when in other lines of the family we had over 100 matches. Sometime wasn't adding up.
Ancestry came out with a great feature around this time that you could color code your matches. I started sorting out all the matches that I could not automatically connect to other lines. Then I looked to see if those matches were matches to each other. Next I started building trees for that group. That's when I found that Grandpa was closely related to the descendants of a man named Miles Dennis over Overton, Tennessee.
Insert a light bulb going off in my head. John had fought in the civil war. His regiment was comprised of men from Overton, Tennessee. Had I found my 3x great grandfather? I looked and sure enough we had at least 50 matches. I went up a generation to his father Andrew Dennis, Grandpa had over 150 matches. I was pretty confident that I had my man. That's when I found what I would call the Golden Egg. A divorce record from Miles to his wife. She claimed that he was committing adultery, and named one of the women as a woman named Betsy Prior.
Now here's the next problem. Who is Betsy Prior? I still haven't answered that question though I am actively searching. I haven't found John on any census other then the 1880 when he is married with children. I believe he died in 1891 around the time my great grandfather Conrad was born though I only have a headstone for him to base that information off of.
Here's the thing, I may never know if Miles Dennis is without a doubt my 3rd great grandfather. Maybe I will get lucky and one day make my way to Tennessee to a court house and buried in a box somewhere will be an old yellow piece of paper stating he was born out of wedlock to Miles and Betsy. But to me that would be like winning the lottery. I will say with confidence that we are related to the Dennis line and now that I have laid out my theory I will be researching and blogging about that line of the family. I will also continue to try and piece out the branches on who John Pryor's mother could be. Is it the mysterious Betsy Prior? If Prior her maiden name or married name? I am left with so many questions, so little answers.
John Franklin is my 2x great grandfather
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