One word proves it all

Please note:  this blog is a sequential narrative.  To start at the beginning, click on "Blog Archive" on the right and select the entry at the very bottom "Jennie Louise Van Buren...or was she?" or click here.

Since embarking on this adventure, I had gone from knowing almost nothing about my 2nd great-grandmother, Jennie, to being fairly certain that her mother's name was Mary Avery, and that Jennie had a slew of aunts and uncles who were all from New York State.

The family tree I sketched out now looked like this:

Jennie Louise (Lucia J) Sly Van Buren Ham's family tree

There was still a lot of work to do!  Right now, I only had names and dates.  I didn't know anything about my ancestors who now filled my tree.  I still had no idea how Sarah and James Van Buren fit in the picture, nor who Lewis and Jane Newman were.  I was anxious to answer all of those questions. I knew I wouldn't be getting much sleep in the days to come. How could I sleep when I had new family members to get to know?

But before all that, the one question that was causing the most obsession and sleep deprivation was this:  who was my 3rd great-grandfather? All I had so far was:

__________ Sly, male, possibly blind.

This was where djnflskjdnglksdjfngrj

Family research interrupted by Samson, the kitten

Sorry. What I was saying was that this was where I wanted to focus next.  Who was Jennie's father?

I had done searches for Jennie Sly in New York many times without results.  Now I could try her "new" first name.  That was where I would start looking for her.  I opened the search window in Ancestry and started typing.  I referred to my sketch to make sure I would spell her first name correctly, and...

Ah, this is not going to be very productive. Kittens like genealogy, too.

Kitten shenanigans aside, I searched for Lucia J Sly, born in 1857, living in New York:

Search results for Lucia Sly on www.ancestry.com

The top result was the one I already had, for Lucia living with Mary and Polly, her mother and grandmother. The bottom result was new to me.  Here was a "Lucy" Sly, born in 1857, living in...

Mentz.

Mentz is where Polly Avery and several of her children were living in 1850.  Wow! Jennie, or Lucia, or Lucy, would have been 3 in 1860.  Whom was she living with?

Year: 1860; Census Place: Mentz, Cayuga, New York; Roll: M653_729; Page: 787; Image: 310; Family History Library Film: 803729 
www.ancestry.com

And just like that, it was possible that I had just found my 3rd great-grandfather, Benjamin(e) Sly, born about 1820.

Benjamin.  My son's name.  Benjamin.  Surely he didn't spell it with an "e" at the end?  Time to take a closer look at the 1860 Federal US Census:

Year: 1860; Census Place: Mentz, Cayuga, New York; Roll: M653_729; Page: 787; Image: 310; Family History Library Film: 803729
www.ancestry.com

Clearly, this Benjamin spelled his name just like any other Benjamin I have ever known.  No "e" on the end.  The "10" is the value of Benjamin Sly's personal estate.  He did not own any real estate. Mary now had a middle initial "L" I could add to my data base.

Why did every record I found only add to the mystery?  Who was Samuel B Lent, age 6??

Be that as it may, there were now 3 possible names for the woman my family knew as Jennie:

Jennie (Jenny) Louise Sly Van Buren

Lucia J Sly

Lucy J Sly

The initials still stayed the same, so that was good.

I could add these 3 names to the 3 possible birth places of New York, Ohio and Illinois. Wonderful! 

But this: This!

All the way to the right on the record was one word that proved to me that Mary was indeed my 3rd great-grandmother and that Benjamin was her husband. The proof was here, right here on my computer screen:

Blind.

Other than the last name of Sly/Sleigh/Sligh in my notes, the only clue I had about Jennie's dad up to that point was that he was BLIND.

It was genealogical gold.

I knew I wouldn't sleep for a very long time.