52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 3 “Out of Place”

 

“Out of Place” is this week’s theme in the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. What a great theme. I’ve given this one lots of thought but keep coming back to the same story which involves the oldest brother of my great grandfather, John Samuel Davis. 

Leroy Sherman Davis & Mary Etta Sult Davis with their family. My great grandfather, Theodore, is on Leroy's lap. John Samuel is the ghostly figure in the upper right corner. 

Just like his image in this photo, John Samuel has been a bit apparitional in the family history. I had never dug too deep into his story. About a year and a half ago, a very distant cousin reached out to me via Ancestry because he had matched to my grandmother whose test I also manage in their database. The match was estimated at 4th to 6th cousins between this gentleman (who I will call Mr. E) and my grandmother.

This led to a story I like to call "Hoosier Daddy?"

We quickly determined that the match was to my grandmother's father's family - the Davis and Sult lines. Mr. E sent off his grandfather's dna and that helped to narrow things down a bit more. That's where the story really begins as the mystery lie with Mr. E's grandfather's family.

Mr. E's great grandmother (his grandfather's mother) never knew who her father was. She was born in New York City in 1920; her parents never married. Family lore always said that her father was killed in a trolley car accident when she was very young. Mr. E felt this was just a myth to cover up the shame of not knowing her father. 

What a conundrum though . . . as we narrowed things down, the dna match seemed to point to one of my grandmother's uncles being the father of Mr. E's great grandmother. But as far as we knew here in the midwest, none of the men ever left Indiana.  How did a man who never left his home state of Indiana father a child with a woman who had never left NYC?

John Samuel Davis was certainly "Out of Place."  He was born in Sullivan County, Indiana in 1895 and grew up with a large family of siblings. He married a local girl, Iva Tennis, is September 1914. The young couple had 2 sons - one in 1915 and one in 1916. Then, in 1917 or 1918, John joined the Army and was sent overseas. When he returned from war service in January 1919, his army transport landed in New York City.  It seems as if John Samuel never returned home to Indiana. Iva filed for divorce in September 1919. 

Mr. E's great grandmother was born in May 1920. According to an online "Pregnancy Conception Calculator" it seems very likely that John Samuel and her mother were together within a week of the finalization of John's divorce. 

With the DNA evidence and the paper trail proving that John Samuel Davis was indeed "out of place" it is reasonable to conclude that he is indeed the father of Mr. E's great grandmother. 

And one more surprise . . . John Samuel Davis died in New York City 22 Aug 1924 as the result of an accident with a trolley! 

There are a few more mysteries about John Samuel Davis to explore . . . even though he was with Mr. E's great great grandmother in September 1919, he married another woman, Elsie Soina, on 9 October 1919!

And DNA evidence shows that Leroy Sherman Davis was NOT John Samuel's father . . .