Merging Branches

Every so often I will go to add a new-found parent for someone in my tree and will think, "that name sounds familiar."  So, I search and find that person is already in my tree on a wholly different and unexpected branch.  I guess that scenario is to be expected to some degree but it catches me by surprise each time.

It happened last night.  I was researching the family of Olympia Muse Melton, born about 1805. She married my third great grandfather, John McBride, after the death of his wife (my third great grandmother), Louisa Street in 1857.  My goal is to find the burial place of John and Louisa and possibly Olympia.  I assume they are buried at their Holmes County farm as that is the last place they are indicated to be living but I'd like to be sure.  After exhausting records on John and Louisa, I'm now focusing on Olympia.

I haven't found a record of Olympia's marriage to John but we know about her because she is mentioned in John's will probated in 1868 and she is found living with him in the 1860 census in Holmes County, Mississippi along with a Sidney McRaney age 11.  From this census we also learn she was born in Georgia around 1805.

I believe I found Olympia in the 1850 census in Jackson Parish, Louisiana.  She is listed as head of household, born in Georgia about 1805.  Her last name is listed as Walton but the clincher is we also find little Sidney McRanie age 2 living with her.  There is also an Elizabeth Walton in the house- age 17.  This census offers a couple plausible assumptions about Olympia.  She is the widow of a man named Walton.  Elizabeth is their daughter.  At seventeen in 1850, Elizabeth Walton's birth puts Olympia's marriage with Elizabeth's father sometime before 1833 and after 1819 when Olympia came of marrying age.

In an effort to find out more about Olympia, I searched for her first husband.  I found a marriage record for "Olympia Muse Melton" and George Walton in Dallas County, Alabama dated 30 November, 1818.  John McBride's will calls her Olympha M McBride.  Maybe the "M" is for Muse or Melton?  She would have been a little young at this 1818 wedding in Alabama, but I think it is her because this George Walton, I discovered, had a sister named Mary, who married a man named Malcom McCranie in 1837.  Mary and Malcom had two sons named Sidney and George William McCranie.  Sound familiar?  Sidney is our little buddy found in the 1850 and 1860 census living with Olympia.  His parents were both dead by 1850.  Sidney spent his youngest years on the McBride farm in Holmes County, Mississippi being raised by his Aunt Olympia.  His brother, GW became a leading newspaper man in Monroe, Louisiana.  Here is a write up regarding Sidney's death...

The Weekly Shreveport Times, 6 Feb 1890

Another reason I believe George Walton is likely Olympia's first husband falls again in the circumstantial but compelling category.  John McBride, in his will where I first found Olympia, nominates his friend "HS Boatright" as his executor.  Through land records of Holmes County, I found that this is Hickerson Stinson "Deck" Boatright, a next-door neighbor of the John McBride family on Black Creek.  In 1845, the year of George Walton's death, Deck named a son "George Walton Boatright."  This intimates a connection between John McBride's next door neighbor and a George Walton.  

Coincidentally, Deck's mother was a Stinson (hence his middle name). This is the same Stinson family that marries into the McGinty line at the 1858 marriage of Mary Catherine Stinson and Elisha King McGinty, the parents of Medora McGinty who married John Sherwood McBride, a grandson of John and Louisa McBride who started out this blog post!  Sometimes all the connections hurt my brain.

Getting back to the merging branches alluded to in the beginning of this post...  It turns out George Walton, who technically should be no relation to me at all (in that he is the first husband of my third great grandfather's second wife) is, in fact, related to me.  He and his sister Mary (Sidney's mom) had a mother named Elizabeth Cleveland born in 1744.  The Cleveland name being familiar-- I searched my tree for Elizabeth Cleveland born in 1744.  There she was; a daughter of Larkin Cleveland, the brother of my Reverend John Cleveland, the patriot I used to join the Sons of the American Revolution. She is a 1st cousin 6 times removed.  She was already in my tree, as was her husband, William Walker Walton and his son, George Walton!  All I had to do was join by marriage George Walton to Olympia Muse Melton who was also already in my tree.

You just shake your head and keep going.

George Walton is my 2nd cousin 5 times removed on my mother's side of the family.  After his death, his widow married my third great grandfather on my father's side.  Pretty near useless information, but interesting to me nonetheless.