I had a new DNA match show up on GedMatch.com, I’ll call refer to him as Mr. D. Manning. I am thinking, “Cool, another MANNING descendant.”
My hooligan ancestor, Edmund T. MANNING was born in 1841 near Niagara, NY. [i] He was the son of Reverand (and Dr.) Edmund Taylor MANNING and Lucia Reed. I call him “My hooligan ancestor” because the moniker fits. He moved to what is now Toronto, Canada sometime around 1880 telling everyone his first wife and children had died of Cholera in Iowa. He then married a widow, Pheobe ROBERTS ADAMS in 1882 in Toronto. [ii] They had three children and one died at age 4. [iii] Their eldest was Sarah Suzette “Etta” Manning, my mother’s grandmother.
The family story was that he died in 1898 in England. However, I could never find a record of his sailing to England, any record of his death in England, nor any record of a body returning. That led me to request his Civil War Pension packet and his widow, Pheobe’s.
While waiting on the packet, I received an email from someone who was connected on the MANNING line. I asked which of the two daughters born in Canada she descended from and she said, neither. She descended from the 4th child born in Iowa. Imagine my surprise.
Turns out, he abandoned this family while his first wife was pregnant with child number 4. She told me the three eldest children did die from Cholera, but he was saved because he was sent to a cousin’s in another town. That got me wondering about family number 2.
The pension packet explained it all. He did not die in 1898, in 1908 Pheobe filed for a widow’s pension claiming it had been more than 7 years and she wanted him declared dead. She was informed that a) she was never legally married to him and therefore would not be entitled to a pension and b) the War Department had heard from him in 1906 in Yakima, Washington, once again claiming to be single.
So you can see my intrigue with Mr. D. MANNING. However, he did not match any of my family on my mother’s side. That led me to use some of the DNA tools and an email to determine a possible link to how he matches me. Since I only saw him on GedMatch in the one-to-many test, I had to determine what other family members he matched. First, I tested him against my father’s mother’s line (LIVINGSTON, PEACOCK, and MARTIN) but found nothing.
Then I checked him against my father’s line (THOMAS and CARTER) and found it matched. Next, I went back to another generation (THOMAS and WALKER) and found the connection. My grandfather was General Jackson THOMAS, son of Banner THOMAS and Mary WALKER. Her parents were Littleberry WALKER and Nancy NEWBERN.
Per a follow-up email from Mr. D. MANNING, Littleberry’s sister, Keziah is in his ancestry.
Problem solved with a little investigating.
[i] Manning, Edmund T. Civil War pension application AND Manning, Pheobe Widow pension application, NARA.
[ii] York County, Canada, Schedule B. – Marriages, p.315, entry 417, Manning-Adams, 1 July 1882, Archives of Ontario, Toronto, Canada.
[iii] York County, Canada, Schedule C. – Deaths, p.700, entry 3409, Henry Ernest Manning, 23 December 1890, Archives of Ontario, Toronto, Canada.