Now, on the 195th anniversary of her birth, testing of mitochondria, a cellular organette specific to women, has revealed a different reality. The tests show, with an extraordinarily high level of probability, that the young girl born in Muskingum County, Ohio and given the name Matilda Jane was the daughter of Sarah Wilson (1801 - 1850) who, eleven months later, married Ison Chenoweth (1805 - 1881), the only son of Edward Chenoweth and Mary Wilson. The tests also match Matilda Jane and her mother with Lurannah Chenoweth Wilson (1772 - 1827), a sister of Edward Chenoweth, but the exact nature of that connection is uncertain. (1)
Extraction of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) for analysis is achieved by way of routine cheek swabs, and once processed, the results show maternal heritage unchanged by the passage of time. This inviolate characteristic of mtDNA means that Matilda Jane connects to all of her maternal ancestors and descendants who are in a direct biological line. One of those descendants is a second great-granddaughter whose mtDNAtest results show that she belongs, as did Matilda Jane, to a category of mitochondria known as haplogroup U5b3g.
Haplogroup U5b3g is rare. As of mid-October 2020, the Family Tree database in Houston, Texas holds 202,758 mtDNA tests results, of which only 42 belonged to haplogroup U5b3g. Of those 42 tests, 25% were submitted from Ireland, Scotland, the UK, and Tunisina. So when a direct female descendant of Sarah Wilson in the United States, followed by a direct female descendant of Lurannah Chenoweth Wilson also in the United States both also tested as U5b3g, major pieces of the puzzle fell into place. The bottom line is this: three females belonging to rare haplogroup U5b3gwere not only enetically matched, but were together in 1825 in a remote corner of Ohio, establishing with a high level of probability that the newly born Matilda Jane was the daughter of the 24-year-old Sarah Wilson and both were matched to the 57-year-old Lurannah Chenoweth Wilson.(2)
The discovery of Matilda Jane's haplogroup, and that of her maternal ancestors, was made during a three-year investigation by a small group of her descendants who commissioned 12 DNA tests and partnered with certified genealogist Susan Glenn on the review of over 300 documents. Some elements of the research remain irreconcilable due in part to illegible handwriting on official documents, errors made by indexers, and, in a few instances, courthouse fires which destroyed entire archives.
Very little is known about Sarah Wilson's early life, other than her birth in Pennsylvania in approximately 1801. Confusion over her surname arose following the discovery of a death certificate in which her maiden name can be read with equal certainty as either Wilson or Nelson.(3) But elsewhere, and especially on her marriage document, Sarah’s surname clearly shows as Wilson.(4)
The mtDNA test by Sarah's direct descendants shows that while her connection to Lurannah Chenoweth Wilson could be as close as one generation, it could also have occurred earlier. Testing also established that Matilda Jane, Sarah Wilson and Lurannah Chenoweth Wilson were not related to Edward Chenoweth's wife Mary Wilson, whose mtDNA haplogroup was T2c1d1.(5}
http://www.chenowethsite.com/ChenResearchMatildaJane.txt
