Person:Matilda Wilson (13)

SECOND PAPER on DNA Project regarding Matilda Chenoweth, by Bob Crane:

For many decades, there has been an enduring mystery over whether an Ohio-born woman named Matilda Jane belonged to a branch of the Chenoweth family tree. The issue was complicated by the fact that her most informed descendants never knew the names of her parents, could not explain her conflicting maiden names, or resolve why she was said to have been born near a village that did not exist.

Time and again, her descendants diligently searched for clues; finding none, some embraced an unproven theory that she was a daughter of a Pennsylvania couple, Edward Chenoweth and Mary Wilson. This theory stemmed from the fact that although five daughters in this family had been identified, three others were suspected but unknown.
Now, 195 years after her birth, the details of Matilda Jane's life have come into sharper focusthanks to DNA testing of mitochondria, a cellular organette specific to women. Tests taken by biological descendants of three early nineteenth century women showthat as of August 1825, the newly born Matilda Jane, and an unmarried 24-year-old Sarah Wilson (1801-1850), and a 53-year-old mother of nine named Lurannah (Chenoweth) Wilson (1772-1857),were genetically matched ina category of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) known as haplogroup U5b3g.
MtDNAtesting conclusively identifies a woman's biological lineage extending far back through time. When two or more women are matched, the discovery proves that at some point in the past, they had a common female ancestor. MtDNA does not, however, reveal the exact nature of each match.
Beside the mtDNA matches, the strongest evidence regarding the Matilda Jane - Sarah Wilson - Lurannah (Chenoweth) Wilson relationships, the one that takes us as close to certainty as we can get,is buried within a statistical anomaly. Haplogroup U5b3gis extremelyrare. In late 2020, the Family Tree DNA database in Houston, Texas held 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 Tunisia, and of the rest, three were the results commissioned for this research project. When the three commission tests produced U5b3g matches, and when documents confirmed that the ancestors of the three testers were living near one anotherin a sparsely populated farming area of southeastern Ohio, the results indicated with a high level of probability that Matilda Jane was the daughter of Sarah Wilson and a granddaughter of Lurannah (Chenoweth) Wilson.
These discoveries were made during a three-year investigation by a group of Matilda Jane's descendants who commissioned 20 DNA tests while partnering with accredited genealogist Susan Glenn of West Jordan, Utah, who studied over 400 documents.
In addition to the discovery of her genetic connection to Sarah Wilson and Lurannah (Chenoweth) Wilson, the investigation significantly clarified other elements of Matilda Jane's life, and that of her ancestors.
* The mtDNA matches definitively place Matilda Jane on the Chenoweth Family Tree. Her lineage to Lurannah (Chenoweth) Wilson extends to Lurannah's parents, Isaac Chenoweth (1752-1792) and Sarah Lane (1747-1830) of Berkeley County, Virginia.

* The absence of an 1825 marriage record for Sarah Wilson indicates that she was unmarried when she gave birth to Matilda Jane. Matilda Jane's birth father, whose surname was almost surely Emberson, has never been identified.

* Adam Linn III, who married Matilda Jane in 1840, permitted the Emberson surname to be entered as her maiden name on the official marriage document. This seems to have been an acknowledgement of community recognition. Even so, our research found absolutely no indication that Matilda Jane's father had any relationship with his daughter at any point in her life. To the contrary, Matilda Jane seemed to have identified with her Chenoweth lineage throughout her adult life.

* The documentation on the Embersons of Muskingum County eliminates any reason possibility of an on-going affairs between an Embersons and Sarah Wilson, and points instead to the probability that the insemination of Sarah Wilson was the result of an unplanned, short time, and impossible to confirm encounter with an unidentifiable Emberson.

* Eleven months after giving birth to Matilda Jane, Sarah Wilson married her first cousin, Ison Chenoweth (1805-1881), on July 22, 1826 in Guernsey County, Ohio. Ison thus became Matilda Jane's stepfather. Family trees dating this marriage to 1834 are incorrect.

* Ison's father, Edward Chenoweth (1777-1840), was the brother of Lurannah (Chenoweth) Wilson. Edward's wife, Mary (Chenoweth) Wilson (1780-1850), was the sister of Lurannah (Chenoweth) Wilson's husband Zachariah Wilson (1765-1827),

* Lurannah and Zachariah Wilson had three daughters in rapid succession after their marriage. The biographical information on their family provides no details regarding these daughters, one of whom was named Sallie, a name sometimes used synonymously with Sarah. Sallie's presumed birth date, frequently described as "after 1797," is vague enough to include 1801, when Sarah Wilson was born. Our researchfound no explanation more probable than that Sallie was in fact Sarah Wilson, daughter of Lurannah (Chenoweth) Wilson, named after Lurannah’s mother Sarah Lane.

* Contrary to many Ancestry.com family trees, tax records reveal that Lurannah (Chenoweth) Wilson’s husband, Zachariah, was the son of Jeremiah Wilson (1746 - 1844) and a brother of Daniel Wilson (1765 – 1832). Daniel Wilson was the husband of Anne Chenoweth (1752 – 1808), a sister of Lurannah Chenoweth's father Isaac Chenoweth. Additionally,our research conclusively determined that Lurannah’s husband was not the Zachariah Wilson married to a Catherine Pickett of Caroline County, Virginia, as shown on many Ancestry family trees.

* The first widely accepted details regarding the date and place of Matilda Jane's birth were published in an obituary following her death on Dec. 26, 1891. It stated she was born Aug. 30, 1825 "near Adamsville, Muskingum Co. O" ... "at which place” she married in 1840.

* However, Muskingum County documents prove that Adamsville did not exist at the time of her birth. Her most likely birthplace was the home of her aunt, Elizabeth (Chenoweth) Gordon (1787 – 1860) in Highland Township in Muskingum County, approximately five miles from the site of the future village of Adamsville.

* A series of mtDNA tests debunk a theory that Matilda Jane was a daughter of Edward and Mary (Wilson) Chenoweth. Testing by direct female descendants of Mary’s daughters Isabella (1802 – 1871) and Sarah Chenoweth (1809 – 1861) revealed their mtDNA haplogroup to be T2c1d1, confirming their place in the Chenoweth family and eliminating any possibility that Matilda Jane, whose mtDNA haplogroup was U5b3g, was their sister.

* Another mtDNA test proved that a Deliah Chenoweth was not one of the unidentified daughters of Edward and Mary (Wilson) Chenoweth, as widely speculated. The test by a third great-granddaughter of Deliah Chenoweth revealed her haplogroup to be W5a2, proving that Deliah Chenoweth was unrelated to Mary (Wilson) Chenoweth, her daughters, or to Matilda Jane.

* The list of known daughters of Edward and Mary (Wilson) Chenoweth has now been expanded from five to seven with the discovery of documents adding daughters Nancy (1814 – 1870) and Mary (1815 – 1849) Chenoweth.

* Starting in 1916, one of Matilda Jane’s sons and three of her grandchildren described her in various public documents as a Chenoweth, reinforcing the contention that Matilda Jane had embraced her Chenoweth ancestry, despite the nature of her birth.


* These and additional findings are discussed in detail in a report entitled Someone’s Daughter, A Wilson/Emberson/Chenoweth Investigation. To see the report with extensive research endnotes on Ancestry.com, go to the profile gallery of Matilda Jane on a family tree entitled The Story of Matilda Jane Wilson/Emberson/Chenoweth. The full report, with detailed appendices, will be available by summer 2021 at the Herbert Wescoat Memorial Library, in McArthur, Ohio; the Ohio History Connection Archives and Library in Columbus, Ohio; the Guernsey County Genealogical Society in Cambridge, Ohio; the Muskingum County Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical SocietyinZanesville, Ohio; and the Berkeley County Historical Society in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Findings are also being added to the data base at FamilySearch.com.

http://www.chenowethsite.com/ChenResearchMatildaJane.txt

The Search for Matilda Jane (source: Bob Crane)

For many decades, there has been an enduring mystery over whether or not an Ohio-born woman belonged to a branch of the Chenoweth family tree. The issue was complicated by the fact that even her most informed descendants could not confirm the names of her parents, or explain her conflicting maiden names, or resolve why she was said to have been born near a village that did not exist.

Time and again, descendants searched for clues; finding none, some embraced an unproven theory that she was a daughter of a Pennsylvania couple, Edward Chenoweth (1777 - 1840) and Mary Wilson (1780 - 1850). This theory stemmed from the fact that although five daughters had been identified, three others were suspected but unknown.

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}

Whether Lurannah Chenoweth Wilson was a grandmother or aunt to Matilda Jane, their genetic match confirms Matilda Jane's connection to a migratory branch of the Chenoweths. Lurannah Chenoweth was a daughter of Isaac Chenoweth (1752-1792) and Sarah Lane (1747-1830). She and three of her siblings, all born in a section of Virginia that is now included in West Virginia, formed lifelong bonds that were almost clannish in nature, living near or in one another's homes, marrying closely, and relocating from one common area to another. By the early 1820, two of the four - Lurannah and her husband Zachariah Wilson, along with her sister Elizabeth Chenoweth (1787 - 1860) and her husband Robert Gordon Jr.(1783 - 1847), had moved from Virginia to Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and then to adjacent counties in Ohio, Before long they were joined in Ohio by their brother Isaac Chenoweth (1772 - 1850) and his wife Sarah Bailey (1795 - 1854), and in the mid-1830s by their other brother, Edward Chenoweth and Mary Wilson.

Lurannah Chenoweth's husband, Zachariah Wilson, was a 60-day draftee in the Revolutionary War, (6) a weaver by trade, and the brother of Edward Chenoweth's wife Mary Wilson. They were Guernsey County pioneers, having moved to Ohio from Pennsylvania about 1813 when the county was a wilderness. (7) In 1825, when Matilda Jane was born, the Wilsons were in Guernsey County while the Gordons were in adjacent Muskingum County. By then, the relationship between the sisters had become especially close; Elizabeth attended to Lurannah as she gave birth to her third daughter, and was with Lurannah when Zachariah died in 1828. (8) There is a suggestion, admittedly speculative but nonetheless probable, that Matilda Jane’s birthplace was the home of Elizabeth Chenoweth Gordon.

When she died on Dec. 26, 1891, Matilda Jane's obituary in a Vinton County newspaper became the published source for both the date and - vaguely - the place of her birth. (9) The obituary stated she was born Aug. 30, 1825 "near Adamsville, Muskingum Co. O" ... "at which place" she married in 1840. (10) The phrase, "near Adamsville," is frustrating because in 1825, Adamsville did not exist. It wasn’t founded for another eight years. Elizabeth Chenoweth Gordon's family, however, was the only Chenowethrelated family living anywhere near the area where Adamsville was eventually founded. Whether or not Matilda Jane was born there, she and the family of Elizabeth Chenoweth Gordon remained connected for years. On March 21, 1877, for instance, Matilda Jane's daughter, Matilda Jane Linn, married Elizabeth's grandson, George W. Gordon, (11) pointing to an enduring relationship.

None of this would be at all mysterious except for the fact that when Matilda Jane was born, birth registration was an alien concept across most of the United States. In Ohio, authorities in some townships began recording births in 1867, (12) but the practice wasn't mandatory statewide until 1908. (13) As a result, her parents were never identified, and her infancy and adolescence are so devoid of detail that no one seems to know where she was for nearly 15 years.

The mystery of conflicting maiden name arose the first time Matilda Jane's name appeared in any public record. On Oct. 5, 1840, two days before she was to be married, the groom, 22-year-old Adam Linn III, (14) applied for their marriage permit. A Muskingum County clerk approved the permit, entering Emberson as Matilda Jane's maiden name and both men signed the application.(15) Two days later, the Emberson name appeared again, this time on the marriage report supplied by the officiant.(16)

The first documented indication that Emberson was not her maiden came with the publication in 1916 of A Standard History of the Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio. This two-volume study included a profile of Joseph Asbury Linn (1848 - 1926), the second son of Matilda Jane and Adam Linn. Joseph Asbury Linn provided most of the information for the profile which includes this assertion: "(T)he maiden name of (Adam Linn's) wife was Matilda J. Chenoweth, a native of Muskingum County." (17)

Matilda Jane was described as a Chenoweth again in the 1930s by grandchildren following the deaths of her children Matilda Jane Linn (1852-1933), James Harvey Linn (1858-1933), and Myrtle Lidora Linn (1865-1938). (18) When survivors were asked to provide information for death certificates, they variously named "Matilda Chenowith" or "Matilda Chenoweth" as the mother of the deceased. (19) The information provided by these descendants matched that on a framed wall hanging showing the names of three generations of Matilda Jane's children. Photographs of the wall hanging, seen by Carl Edward Weersing, a third great-grandson, gave her maiden name as Chenoweth. Weersing believes the memorial was created while Matilda Jane was still alive, and that if the information was incorrect, she could have had it changed had she been inclined to do so.

At any time, in any era, conflicting maiden names raise serious issues, but in this instance, weather plays a possible role is narrowing the issue. Temperatures during Ohio winters ranges from cold to bitterly cold and it almost always snows, usually a lot. The pregnancy of Sarah Wilson dates to December 1824 or early January 1825 and given weather and road conditions at the time, the identity of Matilda Jane's father, Emberson or Chenoweth, required a significant degree of proximity.

Land deeds, tax records, wills and the three U.S. Censuses enumerated between 1820 and 1840 confirm a small number of Embersons in Muskingum County. None, however, lived anywhere near the area where Adamsville was eventually founded. Those closest - the families of Thomas Emberson, Levi Emberson, and Abel Emberson – were in Jefferson Township, at least 17 miles from the home of Elizabeth Chenoweth Gordon. No records have been found connecting the families, and since the business and social center in Muskingum County was the town of Zanesville, it is difficult to imagine a circumstance during which an Emberson male would have travelled elsewhere during the winter of 1824-25.

In adjacent Guernsey County, the family of Ezekiel Emerson lived relatively close to Zachariah and Lurannah Chenoweth Wilson. In many documents of that era, the Emerson and Emberson surnames were used interchangeably with Emberson, leading us to commission DNA tests by a direct female descendant of Emerson's wife, Patience Burlingame. The test results produced no maternal matches between the Chenoweth and Emerson families.

The absence of any connection - speculative or proven - between an Emberson male and Sarah Wilson shifts the question of Matilda Jane’s father in the direction of a Chenoweth, where Ison Chenoweth was an obvious possibility. Born in approximately 1805, (20) the only son of Edward Chenoweth and Mary Wilson, Ison grew up on the family farm in German, Pennsylvania. He may have known Sarah Wilson at an early age; the family of Zachariah and Lurannah Chenoweth Wilson lived nearby until relocating to Guernsey County in about 1813. Ison followed, sometime shortly after being counted in Pennsylvania during the taking of the 1820 census.

There are reasons, however, to look elsewhere for Matilda Jane's birth father. The most telling involve an analysis of autosomal DNA test results at Ancestry.com, coupled with Family Tree results from tests commissioned for this project. There are, on the one hand, autosomal DNA matches between descendants of three of Ison Chenoweth’s confirmed children and at least six of Matilda Jane and Adam Linn's descendants. The problem with these matches is that Lurannah Chenoweth Wilson, her nephew Ison Chenoweth, and Ison's wife Sarah Wilson, who is also genetically connected to Lurannah Chenowth Wilson, all shared some of the same familial DNA. This sharing makes it is nearly impossible to currently determine if the source of the DNA inherited by Matilda Jane was from Ison, or Sarah, or both. Resolving that issue will require the use of a chromosome browser which, unfortunately, Ancestry does not provide. There is a very useful chromosome browser at FamilyTree DNA, but to date, there are not enough test results to compare against the baseline we have established.

When it all gets sorted out, the current evidence casts Ison Chenoweth as Matilda Jane's stepfather, while leaving open the question of the identity of her birth father. Even so, the roots Ison put down in Ohio kept him close to Matilda Jane throughout most of his adult life.

After Ison and Sarah married in Guernsey County in 1826, (21) (22) they set up housekeeping in Muskingum County shortly before Matilda Jane's first birthday. It is impossible to tell if Matilda Jane was with them, because for whatever reason, they were not listed in the 1830 Census. In 1840, a census enumerator counted a teenage girl Matilda Jane's age in their household. (23)

Following Matilda Jane's marriage in 1840, there were close ties between her young growing family and Ison Chenoweth. In 1842, for instance, Matilda Jane’s husband, Adam Linn III, travelled to Hocking County with Ison Chenoweth to serve as witness to Chenoweth's purchase of land a responsibility normally filled by a close friend or relative. By 1853, although Sarah Wilson had died a few years earlier, the Linn and Chenoweth families were living close to each other in Swan Township, Vinton County. In 1854, Ison’s daughter Hannah (24) and Adam and Matilda Jane used the same buyer when they sold property. (25)The sale by Adam and Matilda Jane was witnessed by a John Chenoweth who was either Ison's 15-year-olld son or the 35-year-son of Ison’s uncle Isaac Chenoweth.

Matilda Jane's life, from age 15 onward, was as wife, keeper of the house, faithful church-goer (Methodist-Episcopal), and mother who raised all 11 children to maturity, a remarkable accomplishment for the time. After marrying in Muskingum County, Adam and Matilda Jane purchased 40 acres in Swan Township in adjacent Hocking County from Adam’s parents at a dollar an acre. (26) According to the history of the Hanging Rock region, they "were well fitted for pioneer life," starting out "in a log cabin with the very simplest and rudest of furnishing, including a puncheon floor and a door made of heavy slabs." (27)

Nine years later, Swan Township was merged with portions of four other countiesto form Vinton County. Adam and Matilda Jane by then had acquired an 80-acre farm in Swan Township and built the hewn-log house where most of their children were born.(28) They farmed wheat, corn, and oats and raised livestock, but the presence of a family cemetery on the property, created by a previous owner, somewhat reduced the size of their arable acreage. (29) Ultimately, Matilda Jane outlived Adam by 19 years, dying on Dec. 26, 1891 of "La Grippe," more commonly known as influenza. (30) Her years as a widow were difficult; she had to endure a court challenge to the ownership of her home while also facing economic hardships, as evidenced by a delinquent tax bill for $17.54 that arrived at her home shortly after her death. (31) The burial place for both is Bethel Cemetery in Creola, Ohio, near their church and last home.

http://www.chenowethsite.com/ChenResearchMatildaJane.txt