Sarah Elizabeth Wetzel married Isaac Briggs(1801-1832) in 1829?, had two children, Mary (1830-?) and David Hamilton Briggs (1832-1901), and was widowed on December 15, 1832. Little is known of Mary Briggs, but David married Alvelda Talbert (1844 -1902) in 1860, and they had nine children. Following her first husband’s death in 1832, Sarah married James E. Conner (1809-1887) in 1833 and had eleven children, only five of whom reached adulthood (see names in bold below).
The eleven Conner/Wetzel children are as follows: John (1834-1837), Susan (1836-1837), William L. (1838-1871), Harmenia (1840-1849), Eliv(z)a C. (1842-1921), Joseph H. (1843-1925), James Edward (1845-1932), Sarah Ellen (1847-1868), Elizabeth (1849-1853), Lewis W.(1852-1853), Ida Isadoria (1852-1858).
The Kendle/Conner branch of our family is direct descendants of Joseph H. Conner, the third son of James and Sarah.
James E. Conner, a patriarch of our Conner/Kendle branch, has limited information available. Studying the Federal Census reports from 1840 through 1880 in West Virginia and Ohio and the 1885 Kansas State Census, we can conclude that James was born in West Virginia, his father in Virginia, and his mother in New Jersey. But we do not know the names of his parents, nor if he has any siblings. His occupations have been multiple. In the 1850 Census, he was a papermaker in Belmont County, Ohio. In the 1860 Census, his listed occupation was an engineer in Fulton, WV. In the Census of 1870 and 1880, he was farming in Wayne County, Indiana.
Numerous Conner families are in the Ohio and Marshall County, WV, areas. However, I have never found a documented connection with James and other possible extended family members. In the past, Grandma Blanche Kendle (nee Conner) mentioned the brothers of her grandpa James who were cheated out of their Pennsylvania lands by coal companies. Despite repeated contact with another Conner family genealogist (Larry Conner), he identified his closest and strongest possibility and direct ancestor, Samuel T. Conner (b. 1801in WV), as a possible brother of James. We have still not found a document link, but I recently found two distant cousins through ancestry.com's autosomal Family Finder. The only family tree member of theirs which matches my Tree is a Conner, and that specific Conner relative is the same Samuel T. Conner of WV as first indicated by Larry Conner.
Our second trip to Clay Center, KS, was to locate where Grandma Smith’s great grandparents Joseph, Mary, and Grandma Blanche Conner lived from 1884-1888. The Conner family traveled from Ohio to help Mary’s younger brother Thomas Nuss on his 80-acre homestead. The Conner kids attended a one-room schoolhouse near the homestead site. A few miles south would become her gg-grandfather James Conner’s final resting place.
Thomas Nuss 80-acre Kansas Homestead
Rural Methodist Church SSW of Clay Center
We found James buried in a remote area sw of Clay Center at the Wesleyan Cemetery, a 17-mile drive from town. Surrounded by empty fields, the cemetery is a forlorn reminder of homesteader hopes and dreams unrealized. James Conner is one of at least five among the 150 buried without a headstone. His burial location remains unknown since the rural Methodist Church that maintained the records seemed deserted.
Not long after James' death, Thomas Nuss took his wife and 1-year-old daughter to Stillwater, OK, where he secured a 160-acre homestead. After Thomas’s departure and the birth of the final Conner, William LeRoy, on Christmas Day, in 1887, Joseph and Mary Conner packed up the family and returned to Ohio in 1888.
Finally, a story about the 1887 photo of the Kansas Conner family, taken after the death of James E. and before the birth of William LeRoy. During our second trip, we went to the Clay
County Courthouse to search for land titles. While showing some of the information we had and the names we hoped to find, the college intern working in County Records saw the Conner family photo and said: “I know where that was taken! Right across the street on the second floor of the movie theater. I’ve been in that old photo studio, and the old backdrop looks today just as it was back then.”
Back row: Mary, Elizabeth (Lizzie), Harry, and Alberta May
Front row: Joseph, Beulah Blanche, and Nanna Jane
Sarah Elizabeth Wetzel: Which Wetzel Family?
On the other hand, Sarah Elizabeth Wetzel’s parentage and family history has caused controversy among Wetzel family historians for decades. In many family trees, Sarah Elizabeth Wetzel is listed as the sixth of eight children of Jacob Wetzel and Ruhama Shepherd. Their children have listed: Sabra (1798-1822); Cyrus (1800-1871); Maria (1803-1843); Eliza (1806- ); Susan (1809- ); Sarah Elizabeth (1810-1880); Hiram (1813-155); and, Emily (1816-1899).
There are three sources of note which question Sarah’s parentage: 1) Cyrus Wetzel, the oldest son, responding to a question by Lyman Draper @early 1850s, 2) Aug. 6, 1810, Federal Census in Boone County, Kentucky, and 3) conflicting family/genealogical trees.
In our first source, we have Lyman Copeland Draper of the Draper Collection, known for his 491 volumes of interviews, historical records, press reports, genealogies, and books of early American history between 1755-1815. These included research that examined the Wetzel family exploits in West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. Specifically, Cyrus, the oldest son of Jacob Wetzel, who remained where the family settled in 1819 near present-day Waverly, Indiana, above the White River, was interviewed by Draper.
Besides collecting the many stories of the Ohio River Valley Indian fighters, Jacob and his brothers Martin and Lewis, Draper, in the 1863 interview, asked Cyrus which of his siblings were still living. His response was straightforward: “…only myself and my sister Emily remain (of the Jacob Wetzel-Ruhama Shepherd family). No mention is made of Sarah Elizabeth Wetzel, who lived in West Virginia and Belmont County, Ohio, during the 1850s and 1860s with her second husband, James Conner (They left for Wayne County, IN @1868, roughly 90 miles ENE of Cyrus at Waverly).
While not definitive as evidence, one has to be suspicious as to Sarah Wetzel’s parentage after her omission by Cyrus.
Our second source, which needs consideration, is the 1810 Federal Census of Boone County, KY (above). Jacob took his family, left West Virginia in 1808, and moved to Boone County, KY, where he rented land. In 1811, Jacob had once again moved the family to Laurel, IN, on the Whitewater River, a tributary of the Great Miami River, which flows into the Ohio River across from Boone County. We find that the 1810 Census agrees with the status of Jacob’s family. The Census indicates one male age 45 and older - Jacob was 45;
1 female between 25 and 45 - Ruhama was 32; 6 children, five females, and one boy - exact. There is one incongruity. 2 female children were listed as ten or older - there was only 1, and that was Sabra, the firstborn in 1797. Cyrus was the next child born in 1801 and is correctly listed as one male under 10. If the Census data were correct with Sarah as a newborn, there would be one female ten and older and four females under 10. Instead, Census data is not considered the most reliable predictor of establishing accurate ages, but listing two females above age ten and only three under ten is clearly off the mark. Suspicion grows.
Our third source is the numerous conflicting family histories, genealogies, and seemingly irreconcilable facts. There is an agreement with almost all of the conflicting family histories that Susan Wetzel was born on September 28, 1809. Those histories, which include Sara Elizabeth Wetzel, show her birthdate as May 20, 1810. If accurate, there are slightly less than eight months between Susan and Sarah, biologically possible, but another statistic argues against it. Of Ruhama’s eight children, on average, all her births are separated by three years. The proof against Sarah is not conclusive but raises serious doubts.
And now, three sources support Sarah’s Jacob/Ruhama parentage.
Our first source comes from C.B. Allman, a g-grandson of Sarah and grandson of David Hamilton Briggs, who authored The Life and Times of Lewis Wetzel, first published in 1932. David Hamilton Briggs was the older half-brother to Joseph H. Conner, who was a great-grandfather of ours.
Allman’s family history of Sarah Wetzel is somewhat unique. Compensating for the lack of documentation during the 1700s and early 1800s, Allman cobbled together a contemporaneous history drawn from numerous authors and historians. In addition to Zane Grey, Cecil Hartley, DeHass, Newton, Whissen, and Robert Meyers, Allman had a backup crew, the direct descendants of the Wetzel family in the Moundsville and Wheeling area he could count on to provide him information which was passed down from that time.
Allman wrote: “In preparing this story, in addition to family tradition, the following were consulted: Scott Powell, aged 85 years and author of ….’History of Marshall County’; Eli Huggins, an 86-year-old descendant of the Wetzels; John Wetzel, 3rd, a direct relative of the Wetzels; T. S. Terrell, aged 97 past; J. H. Hill, aged 96 who died in 1926, and J. T. McCreary, aged 85 years, whose father was the undertaker who buried Martin Wetzel, Jacob’s oldest brother.”
Despite the powerful oral history he had available, plus records and books about the Wetzel family, Allman got a lot wrong in his first edition. His great-grandmother was not Sarah Ann Wetzel, born in Wheeling, WV, in 1799; rather, Sarah Elizabeth Wetzel, born 1810, in Boone County, KY (if she was Jacob and Ruhama’s daughter). She did not die in 1870 (corrected in the 1961 edition) and then be buried in Carrollton, Ohio; instead, she died in 1880 and was buried in the West Woodville Cemetery, Warren County, Ohio, in 1880. I know because I found her tombstone 75 years later. And Allman’s grandfather (David Hamilton Briggs) was not the oldest child born to Sarah and Isaac Briggs; Isaac did not die in 1837, it was 1832 or 1833, and Sarah did not remarry James E. Conner of Fulton, WV, after 1838, it was 1833 or 1834.
Mistakes are not uncommon. Nor do they negate the larger body of Allman’s history. We correct them and move on.
Our Second Source includes serious historians of the modern era, such as Dale Van Every, Jared Lobdell, Charles McKnight, E. G. Cattermole, Allan Eckert, and William Hintzen, author of The Border Wars of the Upper Ohio Valley (1769-1794, and publisher of the bi-monthly
newsletter “The True Wetzelian: Tales of the Heroic Age,” which distilled much of the current history and understanding of the Wetzel’s in this tumultuous era.
Bill Hintzen with 1770’s period musket at 2009 Wetzel Rendezvous at Wetzel Family Cemetery
Bill Hintzen hosted an annual Wetzel Rendezvous in the Wheeling-Moundsville area and explored various aspects of Wetzel family history and lore each year. Bobbie and I attended two ‘Rendezvous’ events and were treated to a visit to the original Wetzel farm. We saw its 1770s barn, which had collapsed two winters before after a large snowstorm, but the mortise and tenon markings and construction were still visible. Bill was known for his dogged research, demonstrated in his last project, his forthcoming book about Lewis Wetzel, the most famous of the brothers, which he had been writing and researching for many years.
In The True Wetzelian newsletter of November-December 2008, Hintzen responded to my questions about the Draper interview and Allman’s book. He explained Cyrus’s dismissal of Sarah as his sister in the following description: “1) Draper had misheard what Cyrus said, or 2) that there had been an estrangement between brother and sister, or 3) that Cyrus lad lost touch with his sister after he had removed to Indiana. Of the three, I think the first [option] is the more likely.
So his reluctance to dismiss Sarah’s parentage based on the Draper interview with Cyrus is helpful but inconclusive. In early 2009 I wrote Bill to inform him that Bobbie and I had found Sarah’s burial site.
His response in a letter he wrote to me on March 8, 2009, Bill wrote the following to my earlier note about the history of James E. Conner and Sarah Wetzel Briggs's marriage date, her date of death [Allman in his book’s 1932 edition wrote she died in 1870] and Sarah’s burial location:
“So Allman was wrong, after all! He never visited the grave of his great grandmother, and he should have! He lived in Marshall County, and even in the 1930s, when he was writing his book, it wasn’t that far to Carrollton. And he didn’t know that Great-Grampaw Briggs had died [soon] after David was born, nor that Sarah Elizabeth had married again.
“I’ve been puzzling about this conflict for years! In 1863 Cyrus told Draper that he and Emily were the last of Jacob’s children, but Allman said that (Cyrus’s sister) Sarah had died in 1880! (He had that right, even if he didn’t know where she was buried).” Bill finished his 3/9/2009 letter with this response to our finding Sarah’s tombstone: “I can hardly wait to get up there and see her grave! CONGRATULATIONS! Bill”
Bill still gave Allman’s work its due. He didn’t dismiss one basic tenet - Sarah was Jacob’s daughter. He certainly had more questions, but you don’t ignore Allman's strong support from ‘old timers’ who provided the bulk of Sarah’s family history.
On our final Rendezvous, Bill was quite excited about his forthcoming book on Lewis Wetzel, described by those in the know as a major biography that would eclipse the many previous books about one of the great frontiersmen in West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky. We waited for word of its publication which never came.
Bill Hintzen died in his sleep on February 27, 2016, at 77, when the family home caught fire in Freetown, Indiana. Bill did not believe in using the best technology of the modern era; he did not have a computer; he used a typewriter; his research was not backed up on computer hard drives; they were on paper. When he died, all of his work and research went with him. We will not see his major work on Lewis Wetzel, which he was so excited to have published. However, we do have his qualified belief that Sarah Elizabeth Wetzel was Jacob and Ruhama’s daughter.
Our final source is from Linda Gerber, whose father-in-law was Charles Buford Conner, Jr, a g-grandson of Joseph H. Conner. I received an email from Linda on January 1, 2010, with questions and information about the Conner family.
Linda wrote: “My father-in-law was Charles Buford Conner, Jr. He married my mother-in-law after both of them had gone through divorces in Steubenville, Ohio, and moved to Export, PA. My husband - Gary Gerber, is his stepson. My father-in-law raised him and his brother William since 1965. His natural son, Charles William Conner, came to live with them when he was 15 or 16. They were across the street neighbors in Export, PA. My younger sister Judy McIlrath married Charles William Conner on May 6, 1978, in Murrysville, PA. They had three children, two girls, Sarah and Jacqueline, and a boy, Samuel. They moved to Tampa, FL. when Chuck’s job transferred him in 1993, they have since divorced but are still living in Brandon, FL.
“My father-in-law, Chuck Jr., was a wonderful man. My husband has always looked to him as a real father and has repeatedly stated it. He was a good influence on the three boys. He passed away in May 2005.
“I have been bugging people for ancestor information for many years. Dad Conner was also a font of information. He said the Conner side of the family was Indian chasers with Wesley (she meant Wetzels). He also told me stories of visiting Nan and Charles Heakin (brother to Chuck Sr.’s wife, Elizabeth). He said he remembers going to a chicken farm of theirs for a vacation that he thinks was located at Fort Ancient……”
Linda’s email does not answer the question about Sarah’s parentage, but it does add to the background information that the Conners had a relationship with the Wetzels. In follow-up ‘conversations’ where I shared more information about the Conner history in West Virginia, she acknowledged it sounded familiar to what she had heard from her father-in-law.
Conclusion: Based on the evidence presented, it is reasonable to conclude that the parentage of Sarah Elizabeth Wetzel remains inconclusive.
Perhaps there is another explanation. In early 2008, Bobbie and I traveled to Moundsville, WV, to meet with David Hamilton Briggs direct descendant Naomi Lowe Hupp and her husband, Henry Hupp. We had been encouraged to contact them by Shelda Briggs of Brush, Colorado, whose husband was also a descendant of Sarah Wetzel’s first son.
Our first contact was by phone from my parent's home in Cincinnati and went something like this: “Naomi, Shelda Briggs gave me your number and suggested I talk to you about our mutual great grandmother, Sarah Wetzel.” (Naomi) “Yes, I am a descendant of hers, but she married a Conner after Isaac Briggs died.” (Me) “Oh, I know, I’m a Conner.” (Naomi). “Oh my goodness, I’ve never met one. How soon can you get down here to Moundsville?” (Me) “We were getting ready to leave Cincinnati tomorrow but could make a detour. See you then.”
Some background on Naomi. She was born in 1919, taught history in high school by her cousin C. B. Allman, married V. Dale Lowe in 1943, who was a graduate of the University of Pittsburg, former teacher and vice-principal of Norwood High School, and principal of Williams Avenue Elementary School in Norwood for 23 years until his retirement in 1973. Dale Lowe died in 1991, and Naomi married Henry Hupp in 1999. Naomi taught music and piano in Norwood, Ohio, and remembers teaching some Kendle children. Naomi was one of the founders of the Wheeling Genealogical and Historical Society and was the second recipient to be presented with the Marshall County History Hero Award in 1999. Henry died in 2018 at the age of 98. Naomi celebrated her 103 birthday last October and is still living as of this date.
Our first meeting with Naomi and Henry focused on what we knew about Sarah Wetzel and James E. Conner. Understandably, Naomi had a wealth of information about Sarah, her two children with Isaac Briggs, and the extended Wetzel family, whom Daniel Boone reportedly stated: “…without the Wetzel family, we would have lost the frontier.” Naomi encouraged us to visit the Wheeling Genealogy Room she helped found, which we did at another time. Over dinner at a Park ’N Eat in Triadelphia, WV, we talked Conner Family exclusively.
Other than the name, Naomi and Briggs's descendants knew very little. They knew James Conner came from Fulton, WV when he married Sarah but knew nothing of the eleven children they had during their marriage. The Briggs were familiar with James since the Briggs’s Bible belonging to David H. Briggs included James as his stepfather. Still, the five Conner children who reached adulthood, William, Eliva, Joseph, James, and Sarah Ellen, were not in the Bible.
We discussed how both William and Joseph volunteered during the Civil War, Joseph’s imprisonment at Libby prison; in the late 1860s, the Conner family left for Wayne County, IN; and only James (Jr) would return to WV in the early 1870s, marry, and raise a family in Cameron, WV, and is buried there. Henry shared some of his family histories which included the Shenandoah Valley, and who would have thought but Joseph Conner was captured near his family’s farm - small world!
Our final discussion related to Sarah’s burial plot. Naomi talked about the weekends over a period of years; she would travel to Carrollton, OH, and walk through the cemeteries there, inspecting every tombstone without finding her great-great-grandmother’s grave site. I told her of my unsuccessful search after I had contacted the various Carrollton cemeteries and developed a new theory.
The Conners lived in Wayne County, IN, in 1880 during the Federal Census enumerated in May of that year. Sarah died almost six months later, in November, and it was reasonable to conclude she had died and was buried in Indiana. Bobbie and I walked the cemeteries looking for her gravesite and that of William Conner, who died there in 1871. On one of our trips to the Fountain City Cemetery, we were walking through the cemetery’s older portion when I saw a broken tombstone lying face down. I picked it up so the inscription would be readable for those visiting. I was surprised to find I was looking at the burial site of Sarah Ellen Conner, who died in 1868, whom I had assumed died in WV before the family left for Indiana. Finding Sarah’s gravestone, I was certain we would find William and Sarah buried here too. After two more trips and a visit to the local undertaker who kept the burial book, we never found evidence of either one buried there.
It happened the next year when I found Sarah (nee Wetzel) Conner. While searching through the Civil War Pension file of Joseph Conner, I found an inquiry to the War Department mailed from Woodville, Warren County, OH. In the 1880 Census, Joseph and Mary Conner were actually living in Perry Township, Brown County, Ohio, which is immediately east of Woodville.
The Warren County Genealogical Society (WCGS) has an excellent virtual cemetery component on its website. Volunteers over the years have taken thousands of photographs of tombstones in Warren County. Working on a hunch, I just started visiting each of the cemeteries and entered a search of surnames beginning with “C.” After visiting the bulk of the cemeteries listed on the website, I found the photo above. I wrote Bill Hintzen, shared my find with him, and suggested I was 97.7% positive this was Sarah Wetzel. Bill wrote back and raised my percentage to 99.9%.
This raises several questions which will remain unanswerable. First, did Sarah take ill while visiting Joseph’s family? Second, if she knew she was seriously ill, why didn’t she remain in Wayne County, where her oldest daughter, Eliva Nuss, lived only a short distance away in Arba, IN? Thirdly, did they sell the farm or leave it with Garrett Wetzel (a direct descendant of Martin Wetzel and Jacob’s oldest brother), who lived and worked the farm with them? Lastly, with only three Conner children living, why would Joseph and his family be in the best position to care for Sarah?
Even though we cannot answer these questions, the mystery of Sarah’s final resting place has been answered.
Naomi expressed relief that Sarah’s gravesite had been found. She didn’t like the idea that she had spent so much time walking the cemeteries of Carrollton when she had lived nearly 30 years in Norwood, Ohio, only 34 miles away from Woodville. One big issue remained, and I was interested in her thoughts about Sarah Wetzel’s parentage.
We Were On the Same Page: I thought it might be a delicate issue, but Naomi proved to be very pragmatic about Sarah’s parentage. Years earlier, Naomi submitted multiple ancestors to demonstrate her candidacy for the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) membership. She explained her concern that some of the Wetzel family questioned Sarah’s parents, and she did not want to be disqualified from DAR membership.
However, most naysayers did not question her relationship with the Wetzel clan; they only disputed who her actual parents might be. Naomi offered the possibility that Jacob was her father but a daughter born out of wedlock. No direct evidence has been found to answer this question.
Several years later, at a visit that would be our last seeing Henry and Naomi, we agreed that finding an answer to Sarah’s parentage could not be finalized. We did share information and some observations with them that might get us closer to Sarah’s parentage.
First, we thought it would be important to examine Garrett Wetzel (1850-1929) more closely; who lived with and worked for Sarah and James in New Garden Township, Wayne County, Indiana, on their farm as reported in the 1880 Federal Census. Garrett was the great-grandson of Martin Wetzel (1757-1829), Jacob Wetzel’s oldest brother, who had been a captive of the Wyandotte Indians for nearly three years, a renowned Indian fighter and expert with a tomahawk. There are questions about Garrett that need to be answered. What led him to the Conners farm in Wayne County, IN? Could this suggest a family relationship? Or was it just a coincidence? Future research by reaching out to his descendants could find the answers.
Second, I have found 3 Wetzel cousins through ancestry.com, who are autosomal DNA matches with me, would be 4th-6th cousins, and are direct descendants of Martin Wetzel. Each match lists Martin as a grandfather. My autosomal matches have not found any other Wetzel family DNA matches that can be traced to any other member of Martin’s Wetzel siblings.
In conclusion, even though we cannot confirm Sarah’s parentage, specific areas call for further research that might give us some answers. Secondly, strong circumstantial evidence through DNA results links Sarah with the Captain John Wetzel family from the panhandle of West Virginia.
Last Minute Information on James E. Conner (1809-1887)
I have been in contact with Conner genealogist Larry Conner for over a decade. We have shared multiple records on Conners in West Virginia and had hoped to find the ‘missing link’ between James E. Conner and his ancestor, Samuel T. Conner, born eight years (1801) before James. Larry was certain the two Conners were brothers, but we were frustrated and never succeeded in our quest.
Before ending this segment on our family tree with Sarah Wetzel and James Conner I thought I would double-check Larry’s work these past few years to see if he made any headway. I am glad I did because, for various reasons, there is now strong circumstantial evidence to argue who James’ siblings and parents are. The following are some of the ‘new facts’ Larry and others have uncovered.
The following is a written description of how Monica (with whom I also shared Conner family documentation over the years) documented the parents and siblings of James, Samuel T., and others.
Written in 2020: I came across the marriage of Joseph Conner and Hasumpy Clawson a few years back and realized that these were the parents of Samuel T. Conner. It was all purely speculation at the time, but it worked... Joseph and Hasumpy were married in Berkeley, WV, and had a daughter Anna. Anna married Nathaniel Page, and the Conners, their children, and Anna and the Page family moved to Ohio Co, WV, where they lived nearby.
I noticed on Joseph and Hasumpy's marriage contract that Bergan Covert was the guarantor and that the name Hasumpy was really spelled Harmentje. On later records, I've seen Harmentje's name spelled several ways, and some of her children have used various spellings for her granddaughters. I also noticed that she may have used the surname Dunn
for one of her son's middle names, and the name was continued throughout the family. I thought that would be her mother's maiden name, but it is her stepmother's maiden name, and 2 of her sisters also married Dunns.
The Clawsons came from New Jersey to the Frederick/Berkeley, VA, area. They had close ties to the Coverts and the Dunns, also from New Jersey. The Coverts are an old Dutch family, and the ending 'tje' on a name is a term of endearment or to indicate ‘little.' So Harmentje is a little Harmenia in the old Dutch manner. If you look at the 1840 census, she is listed as Harmma Conver, but a closer look shows her name is written as Harmina Conner. On the 1860 mortality schedule, her name is Normony Conner, which, if you look closer, is Harmony Conner. Two of Harmony's daughters, Ruth Earlewine and Rachel Clegg, lived in Monroe Co, OH, when and where Harmony died.
Bergan Covert's mother was named Harmtje Woertman Clawson, and Harmentje's aunt Mary Clawson Covert also named her daughter Harmetje, a much-loved name in the families. These are all in the family tree.
I was hesitant to put this out there because it is a lot of speculation, misspelled names, and no conclusive documents. Still, I recently put my family tree here on Ancestry and had previously done my DNA. As a result, I know that Harmentje is John and Massey Harris Clawson's daughter through my DNA link with their son Dr. Jacob Harris Clawson, on the family tree.
I also know that Ephraim D. Conner, b. 1819, Silas Conner, James E. Conner, and Anna Conner Page are siblings to Samuel T. Conner through my DNA links and are on the family tree along with Ruth Conner Earlewine, Rachel Conner Clegg. There are a few others who are speculative at this time.
Monica’s research deserves serious consideration. Here are several of my DNA connections between James E. Conner and the descendants of Joseph Josiah Conner (1775-1840, his father?), which seriously makes us consider the family relationship:
Siblings DNA Matches
• Anna Conner (1789-1884) and one contemporaneous cousin;
• Samuel T. Conner (1801-1870) and eight contemporaneous cousins;
• Rachel G. Conner (1806-1893) and ten contemporaneous cousins;
Here are several DNA connections between James E. Conner and the descendants of Harmentje Clawson (1780-1860, his mother?):
Sibling DNA Matches
• Ruth Conner (1800-1882) and twenty-four contemporaneous cousins;
• Samuel T. Conner (1801-1870) and nine contemporaneous cousins;
• Rachel G. Conner (1806-1893) and ten contemporaneous cousins.
More coincidences argue for our James E. Conner to be the son of Joseph Josiah Conner and Harmentje Clawson.
First, the repeated use of given names throughout the Clawson/Conner families, such as Joseph, James, William, John, and especially Harmenia, could also bolster this family connection.
Second, in the 1880 Federal Census, when the question, birthplace of your parents was first asked, James E. Conner, at 70, reported his father was born in Virginia, and his mother was born in New Jersey. At the time, I felt this would be a dead end with little documentation available in the 1700s. Monica’s research now represents possible confirmation of James’ 1880 answer for the Census.
Finally, the Conner/Clawson family left Frederick County, Virginia, before 1820 and moved to the Wheeling area where James E. and many of his siblings were married and lived.
Further work and research are needed, but Joseph Josiah Conner and Harmentje Clawson are a solid place to start.
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