In the search for our elusive ancestor Wiley Anderson Murrell and his early life and parents, we have employed a combination of the paper trail as well as the latest DNA techniques. Unfortunately the paper trail seems to only begin in 1834 in Botetourt County, Virginia, when Wiley was 28- where was he before that??

Our DNA trail is very confusing. When going back 5-6 generations or more (Wiley is #5 to me), the shared amount of DNA gets less and is less accurate. We have connections all over but cannot tie them together with a paper trail, and that is required to help us learn more about Wiley, who may have been called William A. Murrell as well.

A comparison of DNA matches using GEDmatch indicates that one recently-found cousin and I have our most recent common ancestor at 4.9 generations ago. Since Wiley is #5 to me, it would suggest that she too is descended from Wiley, but her family tree does not include him. Ancestry.com and other DNA services usually give an error margin of 1-2 generations, so she might be descended from Wiley’s parents instead, or maybe his brother. That’s our mystery for today (and probably many days to come)- to find the relationship and then document the ancestors involved.

Looking at her family tree, 5 generations would take us to Major James Murrell (1781-1859). He was born in Lunenberg County, Virginia in 1781- that would make him 24 years old in 1805, when our Wiley was born, so that date does not rule out the Major as Wiley’s father. In 1818, the Major married Nancy Cobbs (1795-1855) in Campbell Co., Virginia. That date suggests that James and Nancy were not Wiley’s parents, since he would have been 13 at the time of their marriage. (Yes, he could have been born out of wedlock, and we know of a case of that within the family of Wiley’s wife, Mary M. Honts, but generally it was not common.) Also, if Nancy’s birth date is correct, she would have been just 10 years old when Wiley was born, so that really does not fit.

One possible explanation for this mystery could be that Wiley was the Major’s son by a first wife, and after her death, the Major’s second wife, Nancy (Cobbs) Murrell raised Wiley. (This is just a hypothesis.)

Let’s verify a number of things, such as the marriage- see below for the sources used to confirm that the marriage of James Murrell and Nancy Cobb took place on 30 May 1818. While these are only transcriptions/abstracts, Ancestry.com does furnish us with the source they used, FHL microfilm #31050. We could check to see if that film is online yet or if it is available anywhere, to use a primary source, or more accurately, an image of a primary source, to confirm the marriage date.

Next, let’s look at this family in the census.

Of course, we cannot yet be positive this is the same couple and children, as it does not list Nancy’s maiden name, nor that she is his wife. The ages given are ~ correct for the birth years we have for James and Nancy, and they lived in Campbell County, so that does suggest we probably have the correct couple. This census entry lists people who likely are their children, although ‘relationship’ was not a column on the census that year so we would need to verify the connection through other means. (They have the same surname, but they could also be a niece or nephew.)

One of the first things to notice about the children is that Wiley A. Murrell is not listed in this family. In 1850 he was 44 years old, married, and living with his wife and five children in Botetourt County, Virginia (about 60 miles away), so that does not rule out the possibility that he was one of the children of the Major. His wife, Mary Magdalene Honts, was born in Botetourt, where they were married. Her mother had been deserted by her father (that story to come later), so maybe Wiley decided to settle near to his mother-in-law to help care for her. (We have not found land records for Wiley, but do need to search more for the Honts family’s land.) But we digress from this census record.

Take a look at the ages of what we assume are the children of this family. Louisa, the oldest, is 43, so Nancy would have been 13 at Louisa’s birth. Again, it is possible that Nancy was her mother, but fairly unlikely. Since Louisa was born in 1816, she could have been a full sibling of Wiley, as 15 or more years of child-bearing was not uncommon in those days. The next oldest child, Obedience, was born when Nancy was 22, which is plausible, but then there was a four year gap (Sarah E. Murrell was 30 at this census), with four more children then born at the usual 2-3 year spacing. A child who died young may have been within this gap, so we do need to look at more censuses for this family. The tough part is that federal censuses before 1850 only list the head of household, and then number of persons of various ages and sex, so it would be impossible to verify the names and exact ages of those persons.

So what are your conclusions from the given evidence? Have we solved the mystery of Wiley’s parents, or, possibly his father and step-mother? Or are there more questions to ask, more proof to find? Sadly, I feel the latter.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. James Murrell-Nancy Cobb marriage record on Ancestry.com, no image of original and data originally from Dodd, Jordan R., et al.. Early American Marriages: Virginia to 1850. Bountiful, UT, USA: Precision Indexing Publishers, and  Virginia, Marriages, 1785-1940. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013.
2. Various records on Ancestry.com.

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