Genealogy Jottings

Sherman. The 422^nd most-common last name on a list of 5000 American surnames. A lot of people share the Sherman name, including my great-grandmother Anna Petronellia Sherman. Because she always went by her middle name, Petronellia, I usually have had an easy time locating her in the records.

Her father Thomas Sherman presents a more difficult case. Still, I thought I had him culled from the list of other Thomas Shermans who populated late 19^th-century Illinois. Then I looked for his family tree on Family Search. There I found him with his daughter Anna Petronellia—and two sets of parents. Uh-oh. Something needs sorting out.

To which family does he belong? Thomas, born in 1841 to Rebecca and Daniel, with siblings Polly, Anderson, Evalyn, Emily, Eliza, Gilla Ann, John, and Jasper? Or Thomas, born in Indiana in 1844 to Maria and Lewis, with siblings Mary, Chapel, James, Benjamin, Delilah, Greenlee, and Tilchman?

For the last ten years I have thought my Thomas belonged to Rebecca and Daniel. I have the following evidence:

1. According to The Reeds of Ashmore [Illinois] published in 1988 by Dr. Michael Hayden (another descendant of Petronellia), our Thomas Sherman was an Illinois blacksmith. Hayden relates that after Petronellia’s mother died, Thomas married Alice Farris and had several more children.
2. U.S. census records for Illinois in 1880, 1900, and 1910, confirm that Thomas the husband of Alice did work as a blacksmith. Daniel Sherman was also a blacksmith as were Daniel’s sons Anderson, Thomas, John, and Jasper.
3. The 1912 obituary for Thomas Sherman, husband of Alice, states he was born in 1841 in Ohio. It lists surviving siblings as John, Anderson, Evaline, and Gil.

This evidence points to Daniel and Rebecca Sherman as the true parents of Thomas, the father of Petronellia. What could link him to the other family? The Family Search tree placing him in the Lewis Sherman family has no attached sources.

Someone submitted that family tree to Family Search in 2014. Fortunately, she provided e-mail contact information. I will follow up with this researcher to see what additional evidence she can offer. We may be researching a common name, but we need to get it right.