![\"\"](\"http:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/100616_1648_NarrowingDo1.jpg\")
Nearly fifteen years ago I began searching for information on my great-great grandfather, Thomas Sherman (1841-1912). I began with only the family story. He served in the Civil War, and then he married a German girl who died at Indianapolis shortly after their daughter Anna Petronellia was born in 1865. Later in life he worked as a blacksmith in Coles County, Illinois. During the 1880’s he married Alice Farris, a woman the same age as his daughter, and had several more children.\n<\/p>\n
I began my research into his life by reviewing his obituary. It identified some of his siblings but did not provided a birthplace. I then turned to the U. S. census records. I found that most of the Sherman siblings had been born in Kentucky. But Thomas himself and one sister, both middle children, consistently had Ohio listed as their birthplace.\n<\/p>\n
Where in Ohio? I could find no record that even listed a county, much less an actual town or post office. Ohio has 88 counties, and that proved to be too many to search without some additional information.\n<\/p>\n
This week a new clue turned up. I came across the Kentucky marriage record for Thomas’ sister, E. E., to John Glover. I had located their Madison County marriage bond and consent many years ago, but I could not find a marriage record. This week on Family Search, I looked at a Kentucky-wide database and at long last found their marriage record in nearby Estill County, not Madison. And there was the clue I needed. This sister, also born in Ohio, provided her birthplace county, Scioto, for the record.\n<\/p>\n
Scioto county lies on Ohio’s southern border just across the Ohio River from Kentucky. Perhaps Thomas was born there, too. The Sherman-Glover marriage information may really narrow down my search for Thomas’ birthplace.\n<\/p>\n
Of course I immediately looked for the father’s name, Daniel Sherman, on the 1840 U.S. census for Scioto County. There he was on the index! But when I looked at the image of the actual record, the name does not look like Sherman<\/em> to me. Still, the indexer thinks otherwise. To settle this in my mind, I need some corroborating evidence.\n<\/p>\n If the name truly is Sherman<\/em>, the larger question of whether the Daniel Sherman in Scioto County in 1840 is the same man as my Daniel, father of Thomas, also remains. I intend to create a research plan for this question. At least now I have an idea of a location where I can begin to find an answer. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nearly fifteen years ago I began searching for information on my great-great grandfather, Thomas Sherman (1841-1912). I began with only the family story. He served in the Civil War, and then he married a German girl who died at Indianapolis shortly after their daughter Anna Petronellia was born in 1865. Later in life he worked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genealogy","category-sherman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1174"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1175,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1174\/revisions\/1175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}