Finding Connections

I have been looking at great length for my ancestors, and I have a rather large file, which I feel confident is highly accurate, because I have gleaned most of my information from piles of documents.  I have stacks of cousins and family members that I can't get recorded in the more recent dates over the last 100 years.  But the older ancestors, I have most things entered.  I branched out trying to find the ancestral grandmothers, whose information is more difficult to search out.  Their names were not included in the oldest info like Census records, but the one document, which most often includes them, is the marriage record. I researched at great length the life of an ancestral grandfather, who was shot at Chickamauga, Ga. during the Civil War, and who died in Marietta, Ga. and, we believe, is buried in the Confederate Cemetery there. But his wife, whom I highly admire for what she must have endured during those very difficult years, is someone I had not been able to find a connection that led to her parents, until today.
I know where she lived and is buried.  I have pictures, and have been there.  When I go there it feels like home, for I have a great love for the mountains where it is located. There are other families with her maiden name all around, but no records that I could find in the oldest records, which indicated her parents, lived nearby. Today, while gleaning in the 1820 Census very carefully for the names of known family members, I found an entry, near my other ancestors in that county, which was a misspelling, or old spelling for McIntosh.  A female entry with 3 small girls, appears to be a widow, whose name is Rachael. (Had her husband not been dead, I would not have known her name.) However, her name is spelled McEntush. On that same document, I found an entry for a known ancestor, which was also a misspelling or old spelling. It was by coming to understand that his name was formerly spelled differently in several documents that I learned to search for various spellings in the first place.  I looked very carefully once more for any other McIntosh/McEntush entries, and there was none.  So this almost has to be my ancestral Grandmother's Mother. And thereby, she is also an ancestral Grandmother. I will want further documentation, but I am feeling good that I have found her.
Sadly, I entered it in the slot for her parents as Unknown McEntush and Rachael Unknown. But even though I don't know their full names, I know they existed, and have a record that they lived just where I expected to find them.
Now finding their parents will be tricky, because they probably came from Virginia, W. Virginia, or Kentucky. Or maybe Eastern Carolina... they won't be so easy to find. Till I do, I am just glad to welcome Rachael to the family.I may be able to find her husband's name,10 years earlier, when the 1810 census was taken, as newly married with one daughter. Also, I will search court records, if there are any, for land purchased or granted. And possibly the marriage records, from an earlier county name. And the cemeteries which I have learned to love visiting. You never know when you will find someone whose blood was the same as yours.

Sarah (Sally) McIntosh

That's an odd feeling, by the way, when you suddenly discover you are standing by a previously unknown grave, of someone you are certain was a great grandparent of many generations back, and you realize their blood was what eventually made your blood. Their body is where the DNA for yours came from. It is an instant connection, and a feeling of thankfullness for the life they lived, especially if it was filled with hardship. I often cry when I find them, and I always thank God for them.


Today I want to thank God for helping me find this lady, who is one more in the list of living human beings of the past who would never know about me, but they are totally responsible for me. Because they lived and died, I am. And I also want to thank God that because Jesus lived and died, there was a day he welcomed me into his family, and entered my name is his book of the history of Children born into his family.  And I am thankful that there is such a thing as records where someone was careful to protect the documents that allow me to find these people from my past. Now I have to find the cemetery where the McEntushes were buried and go visit them sometime.
Thank you, Lord, Amen.