Never ignore rare names...

... and always investigate namesakes

FindAGrave image (inset) Grave of Joanna Nald Dickson

I made a mistake recently. While working on researching and linking some FindAGrave profiles, I came across a married woman whose birth place and maiden name, once discovered on a sole surviving record, indicate she is likely my previously untraced first cousin (born 1807 and six times removed). The grandmother we share is unknown, born in the early to mid 1700s, probably somewhere in the Thirteen Colonies. Our grandmother died shortly after arrival in the Bay of Quinte in the 1780s and rests in a lost and undoubtedly unmarked grave. 

While happily adding my cousin's husband and children to the family tree, I found a daughter whose first and middle name was transcribed, possibly from a gravestone photo, as "Joanna Nald." Looking at the photo, the stone was encased in lichen and it was very difficult to make out the letters. I googled "Nald," and put it in the surname search field on FamilySearch. The nominal number of returned hits seemed to indicate it wasn't really a name. I changed Joanna's name on the tree to "Joanna Maud" making a note to the effect that "Maud" seemed a more reasonable read of what was visible.

Fortunately, I continued adding her siblings from census and other records and within minutes hit a baptism record for her older brother, with an original scan where his first and middle name was clearly recorded as "John Nald." Going back to Joanna, I corrected my mistaken middle name and got to work hunting down the Nalds.

Given that "Joanna" is a much rarer name than John, I entered "Joanna Nald" into all the usual genealogy sites and after scrolling through some useless results, managed to hone in on the only really relevant hit, a Mrs. Joanna Nald who lived in New York State in the early to mid-1800s. The location was a little off, as my first cousin was part of an Ontario family, but explainable, given NY borders Ontario. Joanna seemed to have a mother-in-law born in New Jersey and there were signs Nald might be a truncated-in-America version of a colonial Dutch name like Van der Nald.

The dates were also interesting, as NY Joanna Nald was one generation older than my first cousin's daughter and therefore, fit as a potential namesake. Joanna's death year was in the NY index and with that year, 1855, I Googled and found a brief death notice listing her as the widow of John Nald. With both a Joanna and a John lined up, I knew I was on to something important. 

I hoped the "Nald" name might reflect relationships from my cousin's side of the tree (particularly her father's, which would be directly relevant to my own ancestry) but knew there was a fifty-fifty chance it reflected a namesake on her husband's side (if it was a relation at all). He had a very common name, John Dickson, and all that was known about him from Canadian records was that he was born in the U.S. at the turn of the 19th century. Without any information about his relations, such people in Ontario are usually extremely difficult to trace

From directories, censuses, and the death notice, it was clear Joanna had at least a little property (which would also explain why a younger generation was named in the Nalds' honour). I looked for a NY Will and discovered Joanna died intestate and the papers were scanned and available online through FamilySearch. And they contained a crucial nugget of information.

It was Joanna's mother, Elizabeth Raynor, who was made executor of the estate, in conjunction with Raynor R. Smith (who had to be Raynor Rock Smith). Furtling about on FindAGrave and FamilySearch I tracked down all the Elizabeth Raynors of the right age living in Hempstead, Long Island, NY in the 1850s.There was only one that really fit and crucially, she was the second wife of Benjamin Raynor and the daughter of Archelaus Doxsee, who I recognized. He migrated from NY to the same township in Ontario as my cousin around 1800.

Now, NY Joanna Nald was born about 1801 and Elizabeth Doxsee did not marry Benjamin Raynor until 1821, and they reportedly had no children. Joanna was not born a Raynor. Elizabeth was forty-one at this marriage and so it is reasonable to assume she had at least one earlier marriage, but the name of this first husband and Joanna's surname was in no way documented. 

Looking at Raynor Rock Smith, the second executor of Joanna's estate, I noticed his wife was Elizabeth "Dixon" born about 1811 in New York. Hmmm. Could Elizabeth Dixon Raynor be the daughter of Elizabeth Doxsee, making her husband the brother-in-law of Joanna Nald and explaining why he was appointed an executor of her estate? Could she also be the sister of the John Dickson born about 1805 in the U.S. who married my cousin and managed to name two of his children John Nald and Joanna Nald Dickson? Could both John Dickson and Elizabeth Dixon Raynor be at least half-siblings of Mrs. Joanna Nald through their shared mother Elizabeth Doxsee? 

They could. This would mean Elizabeth Doxsee married a man named Dickson, at least before 1805 when John Dickson was born, and possibly before 1801 when Joanna was born. However, if she married three times, Joanna would not necessarily be a Dixon and finding the sequence of marriage records, if they survive, would be very difficult. I did extensive searching looking for Elizabeth Doxsee's marriage to a Dickson/Dixon and found no genealogical records. 

I took a break.

A day later I dropped "Elizabeth Doxsee Dickson Hempstead NY" into Google. In the list of hits was a Long Island genealogy page on the Doxsee family and from that very long page, showing in the results was a brief transcript of "The Dickson Family Record" (probably from a bible) giving the following information: 

Elizabeth DOXSEE  

Born 12 July 1780 Merrick, Nassau County, NY

Md. 4 Feb 1800 near Merrick, Long Island, NY

John DICKSON, Sr.   

Born 2 June 1774 in Dalkeith, Scotland   

Died 4 August 1815 

Given the place is exactly right and the dates are perfect, the odds that this is the right couple are quite high. Joanna must be a Dickson given she was born no earlier than 1801 (after this marriage). John Dickson of the U.S. was probably visiting his maternal grandparent(s) and cousins when he met and married my cousin, staying in the township afterwards and naming two children after his brother-in-law and his sister. It will take further searches in specific archives, and possibly some DNA match analysis to prove, but it would be something worth doing for any interested descendants.

I hadn't solved the mystery of my direct ancestor, but I probably solved the mystery of John Dickson (father's origins Dalkeith, Scotland!) who married into our family, and, I'd traced another line descending from Archelaus Doxsee, a well-known pioneer on the Bay of Quinte frontier. A good day's work, once I discovered the mistake of my "correction" and stopped ignoring the valuable clue of a rare and unexplained name.