THUD!

THUD! 

That’s the sound of me hitting a brick wall.  My research on Neal’s grandfather, Patrick Perry can’t seem to get beyond my educated guess about his family. There’s lots of missing information.

Neal’s Mom didn’t know much about her Dad’s family.  She knew that his father died and his mother remarried to a man whose last name was Lee and that there was a step-brother from that second marriage – she thought his name was Alex.  She knew that Patrick had a brother, James D. Perry.

Census records gave me clues to Patrick’s birth date and what state he was born in.  But Patrick was born in 1871 so he doesn’t show up on the 1870 census.

Eventually I found a Patrick C Perry of the right age in the 1880 census living with an aunt and uncle named Scarbrogh in Tennessee.  In that same census I found a James D Perry living with another Scarbrough family in Tennessee.

I sent messages to other researchers looking at the Scarbrough line asking if they knew of any connection.  No response.  It was disappointing after I thought I’d found a connection.  I was still on my own looking for clues.

At last I found a William Perry married to Susannah Scarbrough.  Pieces seemed to be falling into place.  The feeling is probably similar to what the early miners felt when they found a vein of ore.

Other family trees on Ancestry.com show Zachinen Lee as the second husband of Susannah Scarbrough; and there seems to be a son, Alex, resulting from that union.  Clues!

But there’s no truly definitive evidence yet for Patrick C Perry’s parentage.  I’ve been trying to trace his father, William Perry.  There were 5 men by that name born within a few years in Tennessee.  Perry is a very common name in Tennessee and Kentucky.   And other family trees have conflicting information.

THUD!

But I’ll keep on looking.