Tag: Adam Rankin

Adam Rankin who died 1747 in Lancaster Co., PA – AGAIN!

MALE RANKIN DESCENDANTS WANTED, AND WHY

A number of issues have conspired to make me doggedly pursue Adam’s line like Deputy U. S. Marshall Samuel Gerard on the trail of Dr. Richard Kimble. I have searched every residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, and doghouse in Pennsylvania for evidence of Adam’s family.

Here is the context. I am writing a book about Rankins. More accurately, I am assembling Rankin material for a book — primarily articles from this website. It turns out that I have written more blog articles on the line of Adam Rankin than on my own Rankin ancestors. Why have I been on Adam’s trail? There are several reasons.

First, I have tracked Adam because more people erroneously claim descent from him than any other colonial Rankin I’ve run across. Even my Rankin first cousin’s closest Y-DNA match believes he descends from Adam, despite conclusive documentary evidence to the contrary. I have been contacted by Rankin researchers or DNA Project members whose claimed descent from Adam has been disproved by paper records and/or Y-DNA. One must have one’s ducks in a row for those kinds of discussions,  because people don’t like hearing that their ancestry is incorrect.

It isn’t clear why Adam is such a popular ancestor. Perhaps it is because his line claims descent from the Rankins of the Mt. Horeb legend. According to oral family history, this Rankin family had two martyred Presbyterian brothers in the Scottish “Killing Times” in the 1680s. Surviving family members escaped to Ulster just in time for the Siege of Londonderry in 1689.[1] It’s a great story, and who wouldn’t like to have that exciting heritage?[2] On the other hand, the line of John Rankin who died in Lancaster in 1749 also claims descent from the Mt. Horeb legend Rankins – but I haven’t run into any Rankin DNA Project members who erroneously claim descent from John.

It is also possible that Adam’s line is prone to error because it produced a plethora of William Rankins born in the mid to late 1700s.[3] Of course, every other line of Pennsylvania Rankins also produced countless Williams. Perhaps researchers hitting a colonial Pennsylvania brick wall ancestor named William Rankin found a host of seemingly reasonable possibilities to place him in Adam’s family, which boasts a Revolutionary War soldier.[4] My experience is that Rev War soldiers produce many descendants, genuine or not. John’s line, on the other hand, also has Revolutionary War veterans, but is so well-researched and documented that there aren’t many opportunities to insert someone incorrectly.

In any event, Adam is frequently a fictitious ancestor.

Second, I tracked Adam’s line because I have a dog in that hunt. Due to my Rankin cousin’s close Y-DNA match to a claimed descendant of Adam, I had to figure out whether my own Rankin family is connected to Adam’s line. Both the paper trail and Y-DNA say we are not.

Finally, I pursued Adam’s family in an effort to determine whether some conventional Rankin wisdom about his line is correct. The Mt. Horeb legend asserts that Adam (who died in 1747 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania) and John (who died in 1749, also in Lancaster) were brothers. Y-DNA has conclusively disproved that part of the legend. There are other parts of the legend worth pursuing, though, and I’ve been down several trails for that purpose.

It has not been easy to find descendants of Adam to test. Another Rankin researcher and I recruited four different Rankin men from Adam’s line to YNDA test. These were not people we found willy-nilly on Ancestry trees. These were Adam’s descendants identified by my research in county and other records.

The first recruit had no Y-DNA matches to anyone in the FTDNA database. The second and third had no Rankin matches. None of those three were genetic Rankins, much less Adam’s descendants. NPEs abounded in Adam’s line, evidently.

Fortunately, two Rankin project members are Adam’s descendants. However, the Rankin DNA Project really needs to test other Adam descendants to have confidence in a Y-DNA profile for that important line. In addition, the Project has two members whose paper research convincingly traces back to Adam. Neither one has the surname Rankin, and neither one has been able to find a distant Rankin cousin who will test. Thus, I remain on the trail of Adam’s line on their behalf.

I have also written often about Adam’s line simply because it has produced some memorable characters. E.g., Confederate Brigadier General Adam Rankin “Stovepipe” Johnson was a legend in the Civil War who had a son and grandson who became professional baseball players.[5] Stovepipe was Adam’s great-great grandson. There was also a Rankin Presbyterian minister whose life was consumed by an obscure theological issue.[6] Have you ever heard of the “Psalmody” controversy? Neither had I.  That Rev. Rankin was Adam’s grandson. Adam also had a grandson whose migration west through three states, and eight of his nine children, were proved by three deeds.[7] When I run across fun something like that, I am compelled to pause researching to write an article for this blog.

There are also a number of tangled branches on Adam’s family tree. As noted, the family had a plethora of Williams who led people astray, causing me to write two articles to correct mis-identified Rankins.[8]  One William in Adam’s line, a great-grandson, has been conflated with other William Rankins several times to my knowledge.[9] That is a fine example of the “same name confusion” error, which is easy to do. There were also a passel of Jeremiah Rankins in Franklin County, Pennsylvania who made Adam’s line difficult to track.[10] Further, conventional Rankin wisdom conflates a David Rankin descended from Adam with an unrelated David Rankin of Greene County, Tennessee. Some of the James Rankins are also confusing.[11] Sorting out those men required research producing conclusions that I wanted to share in this forum.

Not surprisingly, the most frequently read Rankin articles on this blog are about Adam’s line. If the genealogical gods have even a shred of kindness, one of Adam’s descendants will read this article online, decide to Y-DNA test, and join the Rankin DNA Project. I can only hope.

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[1] See an article about Scots-Irish history here.

[2] The version of the legend inscribed on a tablet at Mt. Horeb Presbyterian Church cemetery in Jefferson Co., TN can be seen here. Unfortunately, there seems to be little evidence for the Scottish part of the story other than “family tradition.” I don’t know when or where the legend originated, although it may have been in the early twentieth century.

[3] Adam’s will named a son William. Lancaster Co., PA Will Book J-1, will of Adam Rankin dated 4 May 1747 and proved 21 Sep 1747, naming children James, William, Jeremiah, and Esther Rankin Dunwoody. Adam’s sons William, James, and Jeremiah each had a son named William. E.g., will of William Rankin dated 20 Oct 1792, proved 28 Nov 1792, Cumberland Co., PA will book A: 256, naming inter alia sons Adam, Archibald, James, William, David, John, and Jeremiah.  Also, e.g., the will of James Rankin (Sr.) dated 25 Mar 1788, proved 20 Oct 1795, Cumberland Co., PA Will Book A: 345, naming inter alia sons William, Jeremiah, James, and David.

[4] There are at least three members of the Rankin DNA Project who wrongly claim descent from Adam’s great-grandson son Dr. William Rankin, probably due to the same-name confusion error. Traditional evidence proves where Dr. William went, who he married, and the identity of his children, and the claims are clearly erroneous. Y-DNA evidence also disproves the descent.

[5] You can find the article about Stovepipe Johnson here.

[6] Rev. Adam Rankin was a fascinating man. Read about him at this link.

[7] See the article here.

[8] There are two articles about William, son of Adam, on this blog. Here is one.

[9] The great-grandson of Adam who has been conflated with other men named William Rankin fits in Adam’s line thusly: Gen 1, Adam d. 1747 in Lancaster (wife Mary Steele); Gen 2, William d. 1792 in Franklin (wife Mary Huston); Gen 3, William who moved to Centre County and died there (wife #1 Abigail McGinley, #2 Susanna Huston). The third William left a will dated 11 Jun 1845 and  proved 2 Feb 1848, Centre Co., PA WB B: 254, will naming inter alia sons William, James, Archibald, Alexander, John and Adam. Son William Rankin, great-grandson of Adam, was a doctor, lived in Shippensburg, and married Caroline Nevin. See 1850 census, Shippensburg, household of Dr. William Rankin, 52, Caroline Rankin, 37, Rev. William Rankin, 20, Mary A. Rankin, 18, David Rankin, 16, Abigail Rankin, 13, Alfred Rankin, 11, James Rankin, 9, Elizabeth Rankin, 7, Joseph Rankin, 5, and Caroline Rankin, 4.

[10] You can find the article about the Jeremiah Rankins here.

[11] James, father of the controversial Dr. John M. Rankin, is discussed in this article.

Find-a-Grave struck again, although I was minding my own business

One of my favorite Rankin researchers sent a Christmas Eve email that began, “I was minding my own business, when …”

I was grinning by then because I knew in my bones that what followed would be some variation of “genealogy intervened.” Indeed, it was. Since you are reading this family history blog, you probably also saw it coming.

Another friend zapped me when I was otherwise occupied by sending a link to a Find-a-Grave site for a cemetery in Elizabeth Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. One of the graves purports to be that of a man who almost certainly never set foot — much less an entire corpse — in Allegheny County.

I will proceed gingerly. The last time I did anything concerning Find-a-Grave, I received an email from an angry man in a western state awash with militia. His last email said he would keep me apprised of his “confirmed kills” in the “impending civil war.”[1]

The recently received Find-a-Grave entry is allegedly the grave of the William Rankin who died in Franklin County, Pennsylvania in 1792, son of Adam and Mary Steele Alexander Rankin. William’s wife was Mary Huston Rankin, named as a beneficiary in William’s 1792 will. According to the Find-a-Grave poster, Mary died in 1790, two years earlier.

These claims raise questions. Why would a man who died in Franklin County be buried in a town 150 miles away?[2] And why would he have made his wife a beneficiary of his 1792 will if she had already died in 1790?

Someone out there must have answers to these questions, because the Find-a-Grave site for Round Hill Cemetery in Allegheny County says this unusual couple is buried there.  William’s tombstone is difficult to read.[3]  Other than the boilerplate “DIED” and “in the ____ year of his age,” the clearest information is the name “William Rankin.” There is no middle name. His date of death looks like 18___. It appears to be 1812 or 1813 in a sharpened and printed image. If that is correct, this is surely not the tombstone of a man who died near Greencastle in 1792, unless the trip to Elizabeth, Allegheny County, took waaaaay longer than one would expect.

There is an intestate estate for a William Rankin in Elizabeth Township, Allegheny County about that time. The Allegheny Probate Proceedings Index gives the date of his Inventory and Appraisement as 1813.[4] Because the I&A is customarily done soon after an estate is submitted to probate, a William Rankin of Allegheny County most likely died in 1812 or 1813.

More evidence lies in the cemetery (no pun intended). The DAR did a survey of tombstones at Round Hill Presbyterian Church near Elizabeth in the summer of 1940. The DAR listed a tombstone for “Rankin, William, d. Feb. 11, 1813, aged 69 years.” We can reasonably conclude that was the same William Rankin whose inventory was taken in 1813. The DAR also lists “Rankin, Mary wife of William d. July 22, 1808 in 62nd year.” Mary definitely died before her husband. The couple in the Round Hill cemetery cannot have been William and Mary Huston Rankin of Franklin County.

William’s tombstone provides additional evidence. The marker is an unadorned rectangular solid with an inscription in this format:

NAME

DIED

Month, day, year

in the ___ year of his age

There are two more Rankin tombstones in Round Hill cemetery with the identical unadorned shape, format, and “typeface.” One is for Andrew Rankin and another is for Mary Rankin. It appears from the hard-to-read inscriptions that both died in the 1790s. The 1940 DAR survey says that Andrew died in 1794 at age two, and that Mary died in 1795 at age 14. Find-a-Grave claims that both were children of “William and Mary Rankin.” Given the remarkably similar tombstones for William, Andrew, and young Mary, the three were clearly family.

That brings us to the family Bible of William and Mary Huston Rankin of Franklin County.[5] It identifies their children and their dates of birth as follows. Information other than names and dates is from my research, not the Bible.

    • Adam Rankin, b. 10 Nov 1762. He was a physician. He went to Henderson Co., KY, married three times, and had many children.
    • Archibald Rankin, b. 10 Apr 1764. Archibald stayed in Franklin County until he died. His wife was Agnes Long.[6]
    • James Rankin, b. 20 Apr 1766. He went to Centre County, PA with his brothers William, John, and Jeremiah. All four of them inherited land there.
    • William Rankin, b. 5 Nov? 1770. He also went to Centre County with three of his brothers. He married #1 Abigail McGinley, #2 Susannah (probably Huston).
    • Betsy Rankin, b. 13 Oct 1774. No further record.
    • David Rankin, b. 5 Feb 1777. His wife was Frances Campbell, daughter of Dougal Campbell. David and his family migrated to Des Moines, Iowa.
    • John Rankin, b. 1 May 1779. He went to Centre County with James, William, and Jeremiah.
    • Jeremiah Rankin, b. 26 Nov 1783. He also went to Centre County.

William’s family Bible doesn’t name either a son Andrew or a daughter Mary. William named each of the above children, and his wife Mary, in his 1792 will.[7] The Andrew who died in 1794 and young Mary who died in 1795, both buried in Round Hill Cemetery in Allegheny County, were not the children of the William who wrote his will in 1792. According to the family Bible, William died on October 25, 1792.

Unfortunately, all of the information about William at the Find-a-Grave link is unsourced. That is typical. Most of it is clearly erroneous. You’ve got to laugh, then wonder how the Find-a-Grave poster strayed so far from the facts.

Here is what Find-a-Grave says about William, shown in italics. My comments are in normal typeface. If anyone has evidence supporting the Find-a-Grave claims, please share it.

“Birth 1713.” There is no evidence for an exact birth year for William Rankin, son of Adam, husband of Mary Huston. William’s first appearance in the records seems to have been a 1749 warrant for a tract in Antrim Township, Franklin Co.[8] That doesn’t provide much of a clue.

“County Antrim, Northern Ireland.”  There is no evidence for William’s exact place of birth. If Mary Steele Alexander Rankin was his mother, he was definitely born in the colonies, because Adam and Mary married there.[9]  

“Death 30 Nov 1792 (age 78 -79).” That is the date William’s will was proved in Franklin County court. The odds that someone’s will was presented in court the exact day he or she died are virtually nil. The family Bible says that the William whose wife was Mary Huston died on Oct. 25, 1792. Submitting a will to probate about four weeks after the testator died falls within a normal range.

“Franklin County, PA.” That is surely correct. William, son of Adam and husband of Mary Huston, lived and owned land in Franklin, and his will was necessarily probated there.

“Burial Round Hill Cemetery, Elizabeth, Allegheny Co.” Well. Some William Rankin who died in 1812-13 is buried in Round Hill Cemetery. I will bet real money that he is not William Rankin, son of Adam and husband of Mary Huston Rankin.

Continuing with Find-a-Grave information:

“William Steele Rankin was born in 1713 in County Antrium (sic) in the Northeast part of Northern Ireland. He was the son of Adam Rankin, born 16 Jul 1688 in Stenhousemuir, Stirlingshire, Scotland and died 4 May 1747 in Lancaster Co., PA and his wife Mary Steele, born about 1692 in Lancaster, Lancaster Co., PA and died 21 Sep 1747 in Somerset Co., PA.”

Let’s take this one alleged fact at a time.

… there is no evidence in a county or Bible record, or county history books, that William Rankin, son of Adam, ever used a middle initial — much less a middle name. It would have been highly unusual for a man born in the early 18th century to have a middle name. They didn’t come into common usage until the 19th century. Even George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had no middle name, for pete’s sake.

… William Rankin, a son of Adam and Mary Steele Alexander Rankin, was definitely born in what is now Pennsylvania or Maryland. Adam and Mary married in the colonies sometime between August 1718 and Sept 1724.[10]

… there is no evidence in colonial records for Adam Rankin’s birth date or place. There is no recorded birth of an Adam Rankin (including variant spellings) in the Church of Scotland records in the county of Stirlingshire between 1680 and 1690.[11]

… Adam’s will was dated 4 May 1747 and proved 21 Sep 1747 in Lancaster County. The odds that he wrote his will the day he died are virtually zero. The probate records prove only that Adam died sometime between 4 May 1747, when he wrote his will, and 21 Sep 1747, when it was submitted to the court.

… Adam’s wife was definitely Mary Steele Alexander, widow of James Alexander. If anyone has any evidence for her dates or places of birth and death, please share.

Here’s hoping you agree that the Find-a-Grave poster erred when he or she identified the William Rankin buried in Round Hill Presbyterian Cemetery as William (wife Mary Huston Rankin), a son of Adam and Mary Steele Alexander.

But that raises the obvious question: who the heck are the William and Mary Rankin buried in Round Hill Cemetery? They are probably William and Mary Stewart Rankin, who were married in Franklin Co., PA on 28 Feb 1774.[12] A follow-up article on that family will follow. Eventually.

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[1] See the article titled “Family History Stories: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” at this link.

[2] The Franklin County Rankins lived on Conococheague Creek near Greencastle, Franklin Co., PA. The distance from Greencastle to Elizabeth, Allegheny Co. by the fastest current route is about 150 miles.

[3] See an image of his tombstone  here. The middle name is pure fiction.

[4] Allegheny County, PA Probate Records, 1683-1994, Proceedings Index 1778-1971, Vol. 30, page 305, Block 5. It notes an Inventory and Appraisement, estate of William Rankin, dec’d, in 1813. FamilySearch.org Film No. 877053, Image No. 775, Block 5.

[5] Disc 4, Cloyd tapes. Unfortunately, I have lost my reference to the Cloyd disk page numbers, for which I apologize. Wading through those disks is a challenge. The information in the Bible appears in the form of chart accompanying a letter dated May 6, 1954, from Rev. J. O. Reed, pastor of a Presbyterian Church in Opelousas, LA, to Flossie Cloyd. Rev. Reed, a descendant of William and Mary Huston Rankin, was the owner of the Bible and drew the chart.

[6] Records of the Upper West Conocochegue Presbyterian Church show Archibald Rankin’s marriage to Agnes Long on 9 March 1790 and his death on 24 Jun 1845 at age 81.

[7] Franklin Co., PA Will Book A: 256, will of William Rankin of Antrim Township, Franklin Co., PA, dated 20 Oct 1792 and proved 28 Nov 1792.

[8] See p. 183, Land Warrants for Lancaster County, PA here.

[9] The country of Northern Ireland wasn’t established until May 1921. See an article titled “Who Are the Scots-Irish, Anyway?” here. The Find-a-Grave poster probably meant what was then called the Province of Ulster in the northernmost part of Ireland.

[10] See the citations in Notes 4 through 7 and the accompanying main text in this article.

[11] You can open a free account and search Scottish birth and baptism records on a website called  “ScotlandsPeople.” .The only Adam Rankin whose birth/baptism is recorded in Church of Scotland records in 1688 was born in Dunfermline Parish, County of Fife, a son of Robert Rankin and Agnes Smith.

[12] Records of the Upper West Conococheague Presbyterian Church, Franklin Co., PA.

Will the “correct” David Rankin of Franklin Co., PA please stand up?

I told my husband at breakfast one day that I was working on an article to correct bad information about some Rankins in the Pennsylvania Archives 5th Series.

He put down his fork, arching his eyebrows. “Are you kidding me? You’re taking on the Archives? That’s practically sacred scripture among Pennsylvania family history researchers.”

“Well,” I said (yeah, I realize this sounds prissy), “the Archives has confused two men named David Rankin who were contemporaries in the late 1700s – early 1800s.”

“So,” said Gary, “who would care, anyway?”

“Hmmmm,” I temporized, “perhaps descendants of either of the two men? Or someone who is trying to track early Rankin families around, as I am doing? Perhaps people with D.A.R. or S.A.R. aspirations? One of these two men was a soldier in 1780, but the other was too young.”

“You realize you will receive a dozen comments from people saying there are ‘many online trees’ showing you are wrong?”

I dug in. I’m not a Scots-Irish Rankin for nothing. “You’re undoubtedly right,” I responded, “but I’m writing the article anyway.”

Here ‘tis. It includes (1) a very brief chart, (2) the misinformation in the Archives, (3) the bottom line, (4) the argument supporting the bottom line, and (5) some additional information about this family just for fun – including the only photo I could find of a descendant. What’s not to like about a handsome man in an old-timey baseball uniform?

(1) A brief Rankin family chart

Let’s start with a short outline descendant chart to put the two Davids in their family context.

1 Adam Rankin was the immigrant ancestor in this Rankin line. The two David Rankins who are the subject of this article were his grandsons. Adam’s wife was Mary Steele Alexander, widow of James Alexander.[1] Adam’s 1747 Lancaster County, Pennsylvania will named his sons James, William, and Jeremiah, and a daughter, Esther Rankin Dunwoody.[2] This article deals with only James and William – fathers of the two Davids.

2 James Rankin, son of Adam, died in 1795 in Montgomery Township, Franklin County, Pennsylvania. James’ wife was Jean, whose maiden name is unproved so far as I know. His will named their sons William, Jeremiah, James, and David #1, and two daughters, Esther Rankin Smith and Ruth Rankin Tool.[3]

2 William Rankin, son of Adam, died in 1792 in Antrim Township, Franklin County.[4] His wife was Mary Huston, daughter of Archibald and Agnes Houston.[5] William named seven sons and one daughter in his will: Adam, Archibald, James, William, Betsy, David #2, John, and Jeremiah.

I will refer to these two David Rankins by number because it helps me keep them straight. David #1was a son of James d. 1795, Montgomery Township; David #2 was a son of William d. 1792, Antrim Township.

(2) What the Pennsylvania Archives got wrong

Here’s the bad information the Archives provides about one of the two David Rankins. Only the boldface text is wrong; the rest is correct.

 “David Rankin is shown in 1780, as a private under Captain William Smith. The will of David Rankin of Montgomery Twp., was dated 1829 and prob. 1833. He names wife Molly and two children, James and Betsy. To Mary Elizabeth Sellers, only child of daughter Molly, who had married Alexander Sellars, Oct, 7th 1824.  Miss Molly L. McFarland of Mercersburg stated the above David was the son of William Rankin of Antrim Township who died 1792.”[6]

(3) The bottom line

No, the David Rankin whose will was proved in 1833 was not David #2, son of William Rankin of Antrim Township. With all due respect to Miss Molly L. McFarland, the man the Archives describes was David #1, son of James and Jean Rankin of Montgomery Township.

Here are the key factors for telling the two Davids apart: age, wife’s identity, and – the pièce de résistance– location.

(4) The argument

Age. Although the law or custom varied from time to time, men were typically required to serve in the militia beginning at age sixteen. Sometimes boys served as early as 13.[7] Thus, the David Rankin who was a private in 1780 was probably born by 1764 and definitely no later than 1767. According to county tax lists, David #1, son of James and Jean Rankin, was born no later than 1767-68.[8]

On the other hand, the family Bible in Flossie Cloyd’s material establishes that David #2 was born in 1777. He was definitely not the man who was a militia private in 1780. Strike 1, Archives.

FYI, here is information from the family Bible listing the birth dates of all eight children of William and Mary Huston Rankin. In case you wish to track any of them, I’ve added enough information to tell you where to look.

  1. Adam Rankin, born March? 10, 1762. Adam first appeared on the Franklin Co. tax list in 1782, identified as a doctor. He inherited land in Westmoreland County that his brother Archibald sold for him.[9] Adam moved to Henderson County, KY, married three times, and had a large family. He was the grandfather of Confederate Brigadier General Adam “Stovepipe” Johnson[10] and the ancestor of a Rankin who is (or was, at one time) the chairman of the board of Churchill Downs.[11]
  2. Archibald Rankin, born April 10, 1764, married Agnes (“Nancy”) Long. He remained in Franklin County his entire life. Records from the Upper West Conococheague Presbyterian Church record his death on June 24, 1845 at age 81.
  1. James Rankin was born April 20, 1766. He moved to Centre County along with his brothers William, John, and Jeremiah. He may have died between 1820 and 1830. I’ve found no evidence establishing his children or his wife’s identity.
  1. William Rankin (Jr.) was born Nov. 5, 1770. He moved to Centre County, married Abigail McGinley and then Susannah, possibly Huston. He died in Centre County.[12]
  1. Betsy Rankin was born Oct. 13, 1774.
  1. David #2 Rankin, one of the subjects of this article, was born Feb. 5, 1777.
  1. John Rankin was born May 1, 1778 and died Apr. 22, 1848.[13] He moved to Centre County with his three brothers, married Isabella Dundas in 1804, and died in Centre County.[14]
  2. Jeremiah Rankin, born Nov. 26, 1783, married Sarah Whitehill. The date is confirmed on his tombstone in Centre County, PA.[15]

Wife’s identity. Based on his will, the wife of the David Rankin who died in 1833 was named Molly, maiden name unproved. I have found no deeds or other records identifying the wife of David #1. We have better luck with David #2. Deeds conclusively establish that he was married to Frances (“Fanny”) Campbell, daughter of Dougal (Dongal/Dugald/Dugal) Campbell.[16] In case there is any lingering doubt, the Rankin family Bible says that Frances Campbell and David #2 were married on June 13, 1799.  In short, Molly’s husband was David #1. Strike 2, Archives.

Location is a great tool for establishing family connections. An 1818 Franklin deed from James Rankin (brother of David #1) to Jacob Kline conveyed a tract in Montgomery Township. Part of the tract was devised in 1788 by James Rankin Sr. to his son James Rankin (Jr.), the grantor in the 1818 deed – so we are certain that the deed deals with the line of James Rankin Sr.[17] The conveyed tract was adjacent to David #1. The deed thus proves that David #1 owned a tract adjacent to Jacob Kline in Montgomery Township at some point. And …

    • In the 1830 federal census for Montgomery Township (three years before David #1 died), David Rankin was listed adjacent Jacob Kline, grantee in the above deed.[18] He was the only David Rankin listed in Montgomery in the 1830 census. His census profile “fit” the family of the David Rankin who died in 1833.
    • David Rankin’s 1829 will, proved in 1833, referenced his Montgomery Township tract adjacent Jacob Kline.

Bottom line: the David Rankin who died in 1833 was David #1, son of James Sr. and Jean Rankin, and not David #2, son of William and Mary Huston Rankin.

(5) A few more facts

Some genealogists believe that David #2 went to Greene County, Tennessee.[19] Not so. Instead, he and his family went from Franklin to Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, then to Allen County, Indiana, and finally to Des Moines County, Iowa. David died there. His wife Frances apparently died before they reached Iowa.[20]

While he lived in Franklin, David #2 attended the Presbyterian Church of the Upper West Conococheague,”[21] as did his brother Archibald.[22] On the other hand, David #1 and his brothers were pew holders in the Welsh Run Presbyterian Church, also known as the “Lower Conococheague” Church.[23]

The Upper West church kept baptism records, although they are evidently incomplete.[24] The four youngest children of David #2 are listed: Frances Rankin (baptized 9 May 1814), David Huston Rankin (28 Apr 1817), Archibald Rankin (10 Oct 1819), and Adam John Rankin (13 Feb 1822). In light of David #2’s entry in the 1820 census (seven children in the household), you would expect other children. [25]  Indeed, the family Bible, Westmoreland County deeds, and other records prove nine children:

    • Elizabeth (Betsy) Rankin, b. 3 Feb 1803, never married.
    • Martha C. Rankin, b. 22 Nov 1805, married Mr. Sweeney.
    • William Rankin, b. 6 Jan 1807, married Martha Jane Gray.
    • Mary C. or H. or E. Rankin, b. 6 Feb 1809, married James Bruce.
    • Dougal C. Rankin, b. 10 Apr 1811, married Mary Johnson.
    • Francis Rankin, b. 1 Jan 1814, married James Waddle.
    • David Huston Rankin, b. 14 Mar 1817, married Mary A. Oliver.
    • Archibald Rankin b. 1 Aug 1819, married Lydia Blair.
    • Adam John Rankin, b. 29 Dec 1821, apparently never married.

David #2 and his family left Franklin between 1827 and 1830.[26] They are listed in Westmoreland County in the 1830 census and in Iowa Territory in 1840.[27] The 1850 census in Des Moines County shows David as age 73, born in Pennsylvania.[28] He is buried in the Round Prairie Cemetery in Des Moines County.[29] Adam John Rankin and Dougal/Dugal Campbell Rankin are also buried in the Round Prairie Cemetery. Archibald Rankin is buried in the Kossuth Cemetery, also located in Des Moines County.

The family Bible also names the children of Archibald Rankin and Lydia Blair: (1) Elizabeth Jane Rankin m. William B. Reed, (2) Margaret F. Rankin, and (3) Martha C. Rankin.

Finally, here is the image of the baseball player: Dougal Wylie Rankin. He was a son of John William Rankin and Jennie S. Wylie. John William was a son of Dougal Campbell Rankin – a son of David and Frances Campbell Rankin.[30] That is a fabulous shirt …

And that’s it from me on the two David Rankins, grandsons of Adam and Mary Steele Rankin.

See you on down the road.

Robin

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[1] For evidence establishing that Adam Rankin’s wife was Mary Steele Alexander, see this  article.

[2] Lancaster Co., PA Will Book J, Vol. 1: 208, will of Adam Rankin dated 4 May 1747, proved 21 Sep 1747.

[3] Franklin Co., PA Will Book A: 345, will of James Rankin of Montgomery Township dated 25 Mar 1788, proved 20 Oct 1795.

[4] Franklin Co., PA Will Book A: 256, will of William Rankin of Antrim Township dated 20 Oct 1792, proved 28 Nov 1792.

[5] Franklin Co., PA Will Book A: 110, will of Agnes Huston, widow of Archibald Huston, dated 15 Nov 1776, proved 14 Mar 1787. Her will names William Rankin, husband of daughter Mary, as an executor.

[6] Thomas Lynch Montgomery, ed., Pennsylvania Archives, 5th Series, Volume VI (Harrisburg, PA: Harrisburg Publishing Co., 1906) 275.

[7] See  https://allthingsliberty.com/2014/06/explaining-pennsylvanias-militia/ and/or  https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/fighting-man-continental-army and/or https://www.constitution.org/jw/acm_3-m.htm

[8] David #1 was listed on the Montgomery Township tax list for 1789 along with his father James (Sr.) and brothers William, Jeremiah, and James Rankin. David was a “freeman,” meaning that he was age 21 or older and not married.

[9] Westmoreland Co., PA Deed Book 7: 392, deed from Archibald Rankin of Antrim Twp., Franklin Co. to David Carson of Greencastle Twp., tract on waters of Pine Run, Westmoreland,  originally granted to William Rankin of Antrim Twp., 27 Jul 1773, surveyed 4 or 11 1776. Tract left to Dr. Adam Rankin by his father’s LW&T dated 20 Oct 1792. Doctor Adam Rankin granted his brother Archibald Rankin power of attorney dated 29 June 1792.

[10] See article about Stovepipe Johnson at this link.

[11] There is some more information about Dr. Adam Rankin in this article.

[12] Commemorative Biographical Record of Central Pennsylvania: Including the Counties of Centre, Clearfield, Jefferson and Clarion (Chicago: J. H. Beers, 1898) at 100-101.

[13] John Blair Linn, History of Centre and Clinton Counties, Pennsylvania (Louis H. Everts, 1883, reprinted Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1975), 222-223.

[14] Id.

[15] Mary Belle Lontz, Tombstone Inscriptions of Centre County, Pennsylvania (1984). Image of tombstones at  this finagrave post..

[16] Franklin Co., PA Deed Book 9: 288, deed dated 8 May 1807 from David Rankin of Franklin and wife Fanny conveying land devised to David by the will of William Rankin dated 20 Oct 1792. Frances/Fanny’s father is also conclusively proved by a deed, see Franklin Deed Book 14: 245. See also Franklin Co., PA Deed Book 14: 266, deed dated 28 Aug 1827 from David Rankin and wife Frances of Montgomery Township, 54 acres in Peters Township, deed witnessed by Archibald Bald.

[17] Franklin Co., PA Deed Book 12: 28.

[18] 1830 federal census, Montgomery Township, Franklin Co., household of David Rankin, 0000101-000010001 adjacent Jacob Kline. There are two people age 20 < 30 in David’s household, as we would expect: his daughter Molly was already married when David #1 wrote his will in 1829. The age category for the eldest male is clearly erroneous. He should be in the same age category as the eldest female, age 60 < 70 (born in the 1760s), if he was a militia private in 1780.

[19] See, e.g., https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/29dbc658-cdcc-4f12-8c30-8dc877e7fdb4. Please be advised that this application for historic site designation contains several Rankin history errors and unproved assertions.

[20] See the article about proof for this family in this article.

[21] The creek and church name were spelled Conococheague or Conogogheaue, among other variants.

[22] The Upper West church records show Archibald’s marriage to Agnes Long, as well as his death date. Recall that David and Archibald each inherited a part of their father William’s “Mansion Place,” so they originally lived next to each other. See Franklin Co., PA Will Book A: 256, will of William Rankin of Antrim Township devising 200 acres “off my Mansion Place” to son Archibald, and “the old Mansion place,” 300 acres, to his son David #2. You would expect both brothers to attend the nearest Presbyterian church.

[23] Virginia Shannon Fendrick, American Revolutionary Soldiers of Franklin County, Pennsylvania (Chambersburg, PA: Historical Works Committee of the Franklin County Chapter of the D.A.R., 1969) (copyright 1944) 180.

[24] Some records of the Upper West Conococheague church are available online at Ancestry.com.

[25] David #2 was then living in Peters Township and is listed as age 26 < 45 (born 1775 – 1794). There were seven children in his household, including 1 male and 2 females age 10 < 16 (born 1804 – 1810), plus 3 males and one female under age 10 (born 1810 – 1820).

[26] David #2 and his wife Frances executed a deed in Franklin Co. in Oct 1827, see note 17. He did not appear in the 1830 census for Franklin.

[27] 1840 federal census for Iowa Territory, Des Moines Co., David Rankin, age 60 < 70 (born 1770 – 1780).

[28] The 1850 federal census listing in DesMoines Co. for David Rankin’s household includes Dugald Camel, 30, b. PA, and Frances Camel, 14, b. Indiana. Given the spelling perversions one finds in the census, they were probably Dugal (or Dougal) Campbell and Frances Campbell.

[29] Here is a link to his  findagrave posting.

[30] Dougal Wylie Rankin, b. 7 Jan 1889, d. 12 Oct 1850, Eugene, Lane Co., OR. Buried in West Lawn Memorial Park . See 1910 census, Lane Co., Oregon, J. William Rankin, wife Jennie W., sons Dougal, Byron L. and Boyd, and daughter Frances E. Rankin; 1870 census, Des Moines Co., IA, D.n C. Rankin, 58, with David, Hezekiah, Sarah and John W. Rankin

Find-a-grave information — fact or fiction? (e.g., Dr. John M. Rankin, 1833-1909)

NOTE: a document titled “The American History of the Kentucky Branch of the Rankin Family” provides compelling secondary evidence that the father of James Huston Rankin was JAMES RANKIN, son of William and Mary Huston Rankin of Franklin County, Pennsylvania and his wife SARAH McGINLEY.

This article is wrong. I concluded incorrectly that James Huston Rankin’s father was probably JAMES, son of JAMES and JEAN CAMPBELL RANKIN. One of these days, I will overhaul this article for the revised conclusion. Meanwhile, here is the original article … I stand by everything except the error just described.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Quickly, tell me the birth years of your parents …

Did you immediately know the answer? Did you have to consult a record to confirm your memory? Granted, if you are reading this article, you are surely a family history researcher. If so, those dates will roll off your tongue. Could your children handle the same question as easily, though? I’m not sure our sons could accurately recall our birth years right off the bat. Our grandchildren wouldn’t have the faintest idea.

That little quiz, strangely enough, has to do with the reliability of information on Find-a-grave. I’ve run into several errors on its website lately, and have considered writing on the topic. I asked my husband for thoughts, trying not to telegraph my own opinion.

Me: what do you think of Find-a-grave?

Gary: I like the tombstone pictures. Surely the date of death is accurate! But I’ve sometimes found problems with a birth year when I compare the tombstone to information provided by the deceased — a draft registration form, maybe. The deceased is not around to dispute his birthdate with his survivors! And some people have been known to shave a few years off their age …

(Well, that takes care of the “birthdate of your parents” issue, thought I).

Me: what else?

Gary: I think anything other than information from the tombstone image falls in the same category as online family trees. It doesn’t qualify as evidence, much less proof. It’s just a clue. My understanding is that anyone can put anything they want on Find-a-grave if they have an account. I never take information that is not on the tombstone as proved unless I can confirm it in actual records.

Me: silence …

Gary: well, except that Findagrave sometimes includes the text of an obituary. Those are often priceless. Also, other burials in the same cemetery can provide great clues.

Thanks to Gary’s talent for getting straight to the heart of the matter (with minor edits), that pretty much exhausts everything I could say about Findagrave.

Happily, that allows me to move on to a Find-a-grave error. It concerns Dr. John M. Rankin, a Union Army Assistant Surgeon from Pennsylvania who wound up in Kalamazoo County, Michigan. Ah, those multiplying, migrating, and confounding Pennsylvania Rankins! The Find-a-grave mistake is the identity of Dr. John’s parents. And the fun just begins there. Another intriguing question is the identity of his earlier Rankin ancestors.

First things first: the Find-a-grave entry for Dr. John M. Rankin[1] starts out OK. It identifies him as having been born in 1833 and died in March 1909, and notes his service in the 11th Pennsylvania Infantry. That is all confirmed by other sources. Information added by a Find-a-grave poster, however, identifies his parents as James (no middle initial, or “NMI”) and Margaret Hull Rankin of Armstrong and Clarion Counties, PA. Nope.

Dr. John M. Rankin’s actual parents were James Huston Rankin and Margaret McCurdy Rankin of Franklin, Armstrong and Clarion Counties, PA.[2]

The mistake is understandable. There were two James Rankins in Clarion County, and each had a wife named Margaret. There were also two John M. Rankins in Clarion county – and both were doctors. Fortunately, the two James and the two Johns can be distinguished.

    • First, Dr. John M. Rankin of the Pennsylvania Infantry left Clarion Co. as a young man. He was enumerated in Arcola, Douglas Co., IL in the 1860 and 1870 census, and in Kalamazoo Co., MI in 1880 and 1900. The other John M. Rankin stayed in Clarion County and was listed there in the 1850 and 1860 census.
    • The other John M. Rankin’s will in Piney Township, Clarion County was dated 1863 and proved in 1869.[3] Further, the 1850 census for Piney Township, Clarion, lists him as age 58, born about 1792. However, Dr. John M. Rankin of Kalamazoo was born in 1833 and died in 1909.

In short, Dr. John M. Rankin of Kalamazoo, MI was definitely not the same man as Dr. John M. Rankin of Clarion County, PA. That still doesn’t prove, though, that Dr. John of Kalamazoo wasn’t a son of James (NMI) and Margaret Hull Rankin of Clarion.

Fortunately, there are Clarion County wills for BOTH James (NMI) and James Huston Rankin.

    • The will of James NMI Rankin of Toby Township, Clarion Co., was dated 1862 and proved in 1863.[4] It named his wife Margaret and children James Johnston Rankin, Joseph Rankin, and Mary Jane Summerville. The will does not name a son John M. Rankin. The 1850 and 1860 census for James NMI and Margaret both list James, Joseph, and Mary in the household … but no John.
    • The will of James Huston Rankin of Clarion Township, Clarion Co., was dated 1859 and proved 1872, suggesting he was either very good at planning ahead or had a dim view of his prospects for a long life.[5]He named his wife Margaret. The will recites that he had four sons and four daughters, as does the biography of Dr. John in a history of Kalamazoo County.[6] James H. named his children as follows:
      1. Eldest son James McCurdy Rankin.
      2. Second son Calvin A. Rankin.
      3. Third son John M. Rankin.
      4. Four daughters Sara Ann, Margaretta, Elizabeth, and Narcessa Jane Rankin.
      5. Fourth son Albert Brown Rankin.[7]

The history of Kalamazoo County[8] fleshes out Dr. John M. Rankin’s life a bit and provides information confirming that he was a son of James Huston and Margaret McCurdy Rankin. Here is what it says. My comments are in italics.

    • He was born 12 Feb 1833 in Franklin County, Pennsylvania.[9]
    • History says that Dr. John’s parents James H. and Margaret McCurdy Rankin had 4 sons and 4 daughters.James Huston Rankin’s will says the same thing.
    • John married three times. First, to Harriet Sharp in 1858.[10] She died in 1871.[11] John and Harriet had three sons: Edmund (or Edmond),[12] Charles,[13] and James Rankin.[14] Second, he married Miss Susan Rankin in 1873 (Rankin family connection unknown). He and Susan had one son, John M. Rankin.[15] She died in 1879.  In 1881, he married his third wife, Martha A. McClelland.[16]
    • He graduated from Rush Medical College in Chicago in 1863.
    • Rankin enlisted in the 11th Pennsylvania Infantry in February 1865. He was at the battles of Hatcher’s Run and Five Forks and the surrender at Appomattox. He was discharged in July 1865.
    • He was a Presbyterian. We would have been surprised if he were anything else.

Let’s turn now to the identity of Kalamazoo Dr. John’s grandparents, i.e., the parents of James Huston Rankin.

To begin with, History tells us that Dr. John Rankin, son of James Huston Rankin, was born in Franklin Co., PA. Further, the obituaries and/or death certificates for two of Dr. John’s brothers (Calvin Alexander Rankin and Albert Brown Rankin) state that they were also sons of James Huston and Margaret McCurdy Rankin and were born in Franklin Co.

On those facts, the safest bet in genealogy is that James Huston Rankin was from the line of Adam Rankin who died in 1747 in Lancaster County and his wife Mary Steele Alexander.[17] Adam and Mary had two sons – James and William – who lived in a part of Cumberland County that became Franklin County in 1784.[18] Most of the late 18th and early 19th century Rankins in Franklin County descend from James or William.

Here’s the evidentiary trail. There is an obvious weak link.

First, Adam and Mary’s son James Sr. named a son James Jr. in his 1788 Franklin Co. will.[19] James Jr. inherited the land where he was already living, so James Jr. was a grown man by 1788. James Huston Rankin was born about 1794, so he was the right age to have been a son of James Jr. The tract James Jr. inherited was adjacent to a James Huston. On the theory that James Jr. may have been the father of James Huston Rankin, I set about tracking James Jr.

There is little information about James Jr., who didn’t appear in the Franklin Co. records often. In 1803, he was named executor of his brother Jeremiah’s will.[20] In 1818, James Jr. and his wife Mary conveyed the tract inherited from his father James Sr.[21]

James Jr. appeared consistently in the census for Montgomery Township, Franklin County every decade from 1790 through 1820.[22] Taken together, the census entries suggest six possible children. Both the 1800 and 1810 censuses have a male the right age to be James Huston Rankin, born in 1794.

I cannot find James Jr. in the 1820 census, although an 1821 conveyance recites that he was still living in Montgomery Township.[23] After that deed, James Jr. disappeared from the Franklin records. He left no trace in Franklin probate records. That strongly suggests he moved away.

A man who may be James Jr. surfaced in 1830 in Clarion Township, Armstrong County. NOTE: I now believe that the James who appeared in Clarion Township was a son of William and Mary Huston Rankin. THAT James had previously lived in Centre County, Pennsylvania. James and the elder female in his household were both enumerated in the 60 < 70 age bracket, born during 1760-1770 – the right generation to be James Jr., who was an adult living on his own tract in 1788 if he had been born in the early part of that period. In that same census, James H. Rankin was still living in Franklin County, enumerated in Metal Township immediately adjacent the entry for Mary McCurdy, his probable mother-in-law.

So … what is the evidence of a connection between James of Clarion Township, Armstrong Co., and James Huston Rankin of Franklin Co.? Land records to the rescue: a deed provides a link between the two men.[24] It concerns a tract in Clarion Township, Armstrong County which James Rankin owned. In February 1839, James promised to convey the tract to James Huston Rankin, whose middle name is spelled out several times in the deed. The consideration was that James Huston Rankin would “keep and maintain the said James Rankin and his wife” for the remainder of their lives. James failed to make a deed for the tract during his lifetime, so James Huston petitioned the court to obtain a deed from the administrator of James’s estate. James died intestate, so all of his heirs were required to answer the petition. The heirs agreed that the promise to convey the tract was genuine and that James Huston had performed. The administrator made the requisite deed.

All of that is recited in the deed from the administrator to James Huston Rankin. You would think (hope!) it would also recite the relationship between James and James Huston Rankin. No such luck. Nonetheless, the deed is clear and convincing evidence that James Huston Rankin was a son of James Rankin.

Now for the obvious leap of faith. Namely, one must conclude that James Rankin, father of James Huston Rankin, was the same man as James Jr., son of James Sr. who died in 1795 in Franklin. In light of the leap of faith, James Huston Rankin’s ancestry is not conclusively proved, although … it’s good enough for me.

Here is my view of Dr. John M. Rankin’s line in outline descendant chart format:

1 Adam Rankin d. 1747, Lancaster Co., PA, and wife Mary Steele Alexander.

2 James Rankin Sr., b. circa 1725, Cecil Co., MD or Lancaster Co., PA. Died 1795, Franklin Co., PA. Wife Jean MNU.

3 James Rankin Jr., b. abt 1760, Cumberland Co., PA, d. before 1850, Clarion Township, Armstrong Co., PA. Wife Mary MNU. It is unproved that James Rankin of Clarion Township is the same man as James Jr., son of James Sr. of Cumberland/Franklin.

4 James Huston Rankin, b. 1794, Montgomery Township, Franklin Co., PA, d. 1872, Clarion Township, Clarion Co., PA. Wife Margaret McCurdy.[25]

5 Dr. John M. Rankin, b. 1833, Franklin Co., PA, d. 1909, Kalamazoo. MI.

And that’s it from me on Dr. John M. Rankin and James Huston Rankin. See you on down the road.

Robin

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

[1] See his tombstone image on Find-a-grave.

[2] Dr. John M. Huston’s death certificate (image available at Ancestry) identifies his mother as Margaret McCurdy.  A History of Kalamazoo County says Dr. John’s father was James H. Rankin and his mother was Margaret McCurdy. David Fisher and Frank Little, Compendium of History and Biography of Kalamazoo County, Michigan (Chicago: A. W. Bowen & Co., 1906) 323 (hereafter, “History”). James Huston Rankin’s will identifies his third son as John McGinley Rankin. Clarion Co., PA Will Book B: 216. The will also recites that he had four sons and four daughters, which is precisely what History says about Dr. John’s family of origin. John M. was listed with James H. and Margaret Rankin in the 1850 Clarion Co. census, age 17 (born 1833), along with a presumed sister Sarah Rankin (who was enumerated in 1860 and 1870 as “Sarah A. Rankin”). In the 1880 census, Sarah A. Rankin was living with Dr. John and identified as his sister.

[3] Clarion Will Book B: 126. The Clarion County probate index identifies him as Dr. John M. Rankin, although the will itself does not. The 1850 census for Piney Township showed his profession as “Dr. of [unreadable].

[4] Clarion Co., PA Will Book A: 381.

[5] Clarion Co., PA Will Book B: 216.

[6] Fisher and Little, History and Biography of Kalamazoo County.

[7] Compare the names in the will with the 1850 census for Clarion, which omits Calvin Alexander Rankin. The household enumerates James H. Rankin with Margaret Rankin and seven children: James, Sarah, J. M. (male, John M.), A. B. (male, Albert Brown), Margretta, Mary (Arcessa in the 1860 census), and two females named M. E. The 1850 census taker or transcriber may have been getting careless about the younger children, but he nailed the names of first five.

[8] Fisher and Little, History and Biography of Kalamazoo County 323, online here.

[9] 1900 census, Richland, Kalamazoo Co., MI, John M. Rankin, physician, b. Feb 1833, age 67. Evidence that he was born in Franklin Co. is the biography in History and the death certificate and/or obituaries for his brothers Calvin Alexander and Albert Brown. They establish that Calvin (older than Dr. John) and Albert (younger than Dr. John) were also born in Franklin and were sons of James Huston and Margaret McCurdy Rankin.

[10] John M. Rankin married Hattie S. Sharp on 29 Jun 1858, in Coles Co., IL. “History” incorrectly says they were married in PA.

[11] Harriet S. Rankin’s tombstone in the Hillside Cemetery in Plainwell, Allegan Co., MI is inscribed “died 11 Jul 1871.”

[12]  This biography says Edmond was born about 1856 in Pennsylvania. That conflicts with the 1870 and 1880 censuses, both of which state he was born in Illinois. The bio identifies him as a son of Dr. John Rankin. It also says that he was a dry goods merchant, engaged in the insurance business, and was mayor of Kalamazoo in 1902. He died in 1924 and is buried in the Mountain Home Cemetery in the city of Kalamazoo.

[13] Death certificate for Dr. Charles E. (Everett) Rankin, Grand Rapids, Kent Co., MI. The certificate says he was b. 2 Jul 1863, Arcola, IL, d. 24 Feb 1937, and that he was a son of Dr. John M. Rankin and Harriet Sharp. Buried in the Oakhill Cemetery, Grand Rapids, MI.

[14] 1880 census, Richland, Kalamazoo Co., MI, John M. Rankin, 47, physician, b. PA, Susan C. Rankin, 47, PA (had cancer), with son Charles E. Rankin, 16, b. IL, son James S. Rankin, 9, b. MI, son John Rankin, 6, b. MI (Susan’s only child), and Sarah A. Rankin, sister, age 52, b PA. James S. (possibly Sharp) may be the James S. Rankin, M.D., buried in the Fairview Cemetery, DeKalb, Dekalb Co., IL, whose tombstone gives birth and death dates as 1870 – 1950.

[15] Michigan death certificate for John M. Rankin, d. 22 May 1898, age 24. Born in Michigan; son of John M. Rankin (b. PA) and Susan C. Rankin (b. PA). Certificate signed by his father Dr. John M. Rankin (Sr.) Buried in the Hillside Cemetery, Plainwell, Allegan Co., MI.

[16] Her tombstone identifies her as “Martha Ann McClellan, wife of John M. Rankin.” I haven’t found marriage date information other than the date provided by History and the 1900 census, which says they had been married 18 years (census taken June 1900).

[17] There are several more articles about the line of Adam and Mary Steele Alexander Rankin on this blog.

[18] Adam and Mary Steele Alexander Rankin also had a son Jeremiah, see Lancaster Co., PA Will Book J1: 208, will of Adam Rankin dated and proved in 1742. Jeremiah died in Cumberland in 1760, and all of his probable children moved to Kentucky. Thus, only Adam and Mary’s sons James and William are likely candidates to be James Huston Rankin’s ancestor. William’s line is fairly easy to trace, despite numerous opportunities for the same name confusion error.

[19] Franklin Co., PA Will Book A: 345, will of James Rankin Sr. dated 1788, proved 1795.

[20] Franklin Col., PA Will Book B: 167, will of Jeremiah Rankin of Montgomery Twp., Franklin Co., PA dated 13 Jun 1803, proved 1 Aug 1803.

 [21] Franklin Co., PA Deed Book 12:28, deed dated 27 Mar 1818 from James Rankin (Jr.) and wife Mary to Jacob Klein. 107 acres of the conveyance was part of a tract surveyed in 1742 to Adam Rankin which was devised to James Jr. by James Sr. by his will dated 25 Mar 1788, see Note 19. James J. Huston was a witness.

[22] 1790 census, Montgomery Township, Franklin Co., James Rankin Jr., 12300; 1800 census, Montgomery Township, James Rankin, 11110-11110; 1810 census, James Rankin, Franklin Co., 00211-01201.

[23] Franklin Co., PA Deed Book 12: 710, deed dated 8 May 1821 from James Rankin Sr. to David Donwoody or Dunwoody, both of Montgomery Township, Franklin Co. James Jr. became known as James Sr. after his father died in 1795.

[24] Clarion Co., PA Deed Book 6: 371-72.

[25] Virginia Shannon Fendrick, American Revolutionary Soldiers of Franklin County Pennsylvania (Chambersburg, PA: Historical Works Committee of the Franklin County Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, 1969). Available online. It states that Margaret McCurdy (b. 19 Sep 1803) married James H. Rankin in 1823.

Rankin DNA Project: “flange it up!”

Please note: I updated this post in August 2021, so this is outdated. Please see the new post at this link.

If you ever worked in the natural gas pipeline business, you might be familiar with the notion that something needed to be “flanged up.” That originally meant the need to get pieces bolted together to complete a job. Over time, it acquired a more general meaning for those who did not deal with actual steel: the need to improve something in some fashion.

The Rankin DNA project needs to be “flanged up” a bit. The project began in 2006 with just two YDNA test participants. It has come a long way, and has 176 members as of July 2019. About seventy members are YDNA test participants who are either men named Rankin or whose YDNA establishes them as genetic Rankins.[1] YDNA testing has been helpful to many project members when traditional “paper trails” were inadequate or disputed.

Progress notwithstanding, there are still ancestry, website, and relationship issues to be addressed. There are also a number of test participants who don’t yet have a Rankin match in the project. Obviously, a key need is to get more Rankin YDNA test participants. Please note, this is not a criticism of Rankin project administrators … I AM one. We just need to have more YDNA participants. Easier said than done.

In the meantime, here is a summary of Rankin YDNA results to date. The project has three lineages having four or more YDNA participants in each one. They are (no surprise here) designated Lineages 1, 2, and 3. All three lineages also have sub-lineages – distinct Rankin families that are genetically related, even though a Rankin common ancestor has not been identified. The families in these lineages include some that I have written about on this website. If you have read some Rankin articles, many of these names will be familiar.

On that note, let’s jump in …

Rankin Lineage 1

Lineage 1 (“L1”) has two sub-lineages: Robert and Rebecca Rankin of Guilford Co., North Carolina (L1A) and Joseph Rankin of New Castle County, Delaware (L1B). Robert is definitely the original immigrant in his line; Joseph probably is. No common ancestor for the two lines has been found. YDNA results establish a low probability that there is one on this side of the Atlantic. He probably exists around 1400, plus or minus a century, and almost certainly in Scotland.

Robert and Rebecca Rankin came to the colonies in 1750 from County Donegal, Ireland, according to an autobiography of one of their grandsons.[2] See some articles about their family here, here, and here.  There is no known evidence of the origin of Joseph of Delaware.[3] Both Robert and Joseph first appeared in county records in the area around the Philadelphia ports, where most Scots-Irish immigrants landed during the “Great Migration” from Ulster.

Joseph of Delaware arrived in the colonies first, roughly two decades earlier than Robert and Rebecca. He may be the Joseph Rankin who appeared as a “freeman” (unmarried and not a landowner) on a 1729 tax list in London Britain Township in Chester County, Pennsylvania. By 1731, he had acquired a tract on White Clay Creek in New Castle County, Delaware. Joseph had four sons proved by deeds (Joseph Jr., Thomas, William and John), two sons proved by circumstantial evidence (Robert and James), and a daughter Ann proved by a brother’s will. Joseph is buried at Head of Christiana Presbyterian Church in Newark, New Castle County. His 1764 tombstone still exists.

Based on known birth dates, Joseph’s children were born in Delaware. Two of his proved sons – John and William – moved to Guilford County, North Carolina. A descendant of each has YDNA tested and they are a good match.[4] Joseph’s wife was named Rebecca, although there is no known evidence of her maiden name. Nor is there any evidence of Joseph’s family of origin.

Robert and Rebecca’s family first appeared in the records in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Robert and George Rankin (either father/son or brothers) were on the 1753 tax list for West Nottingham Township in Chester. Robert and George received so-called “Nottingham Company” land grants in Guilford (then Rowan) County, North Carolina, near Greensboro. According to a grandson’s autobiography, they migrated to North Carolina in July 1755.

Robert and Rebecca’s children were almost certainly all adults when they arrived in Pennsylvania in 1750. Two sons, Robert and George, are proved. There is good circumstantial evidence in the Rowan and Guilford records for other children, including a son John and daughters Ann Rankin Denny (wife of William Sr.), Margaret Rankin Braly or Brawley (Thomas), and Rebecca Rankin Boyd (John).

David Rankin of Iredell County, North Carolina (died there in 1789) may also be a son of Robert and Rebecca. YDNA results establish that David and Robert were close genetic relatives, although there is apparently no conclusive paper proof of the family connection. David was probably either a son or nephew of Robert and Rebecca. Here is an article about David and Margaret’s son Robert.

Rankin Lineage 2

L2 is the largest group in the project. As of July 2019, there were 22 project participants whose YDNA places them in L2. The family lines represented in the lineage are diverse, although the YDNA results are not. The group members are fairly close matches, suggesting a common ancestor no earlier than 400-500 years ago, probably in Scotland. The immigrant ancestor of many of the L2 members first appeared in Pennsylvania or Virginia during the “Great Migration” of Scots-Irish from Ulster. From there, the L2 Rankins spread west into the Ohio Valley or south and southwest into Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee.

There are three Rankin lines in L2 which have at least four participants each. There are also a number of L2 participants who are “one of a kind,” meaning that each man’s last known Rankin ancestor is not (so far as is known) shared with another L2 member. Some members of L2 are “one of a kind” simply because they have provided no information about their Rankin family trees to project administrators, although they may well belong in one of the three known L2 families.

The L2 family lines are (1) John Rankin who died in 1749 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (Lineage 2A), (2) Samuel and Eleanor (“Ellen”) Alexander Rankin of Lincoln County, North Carolina (Lineage 2B), and (3)  two families – both David and Jenette McCormick Rankin of Frederick County, Virginia and William Rankin of Fayette County, Pennsylvania (Lineage 2C). Here is a little bit about each one …

Lineage 2A, John Rankin of Lancaster Co., PA (see articles here and  here).

This is the Rankin family memorialized on the famous tablet in the Mt. Horeb Cemetery in Jefferson County, Tennessee – descendants of John Rankin who died in 1749 in Lancaster Co., PA. His wife is traditionally identified as Mary McElwee, although John’s widow was named Margaret. John’s will named Margaret, two sons (Thomas and Richard), six daughters, and two sons-in-law.[5] All of the L2A members are descended from John’s son Thomas. He briefly appeared in the records of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, moved to Augusta County, Virginia for a time, then migrated to east Tennessee. No member of the Rankin project self-identifies as a descendant of John’s son Richard, who moved from Pennsylvania to Augusta County and died there.

According to family tradition, the John who died in Lancaster in 1749 was a son of William Rankin and grandson of Alexander Rankin of the Scotland “Killing Times” and the 1689 Siege of Londonderry. Apparently, no one has found (or has publicly shared) any proof that John was a son of William, or that William was a son of Alexander. Records in Ireland are limited, however.

There are two project participants who are probable descendants of Adam Rankin of Lancaster County, whose wife was Mary Steele. Family oral traditions for both Adam and John (the common ancestor of the L2A participants) say that Adam and John were brothers. However, Adam’s probable descendants are not a YDNA match with John’s descendants, indicating that John and Adam were not genetically related through the male Rankin line. There are four or five articles about Adam’s line on this website, see, e.g., two articles here and here.

Lineage 2B: Samuel Rankin of Lincoln Co., NC

L2B is the line of Samuel and Eleanor (“Ellen”) Alexander Rankin of Rowan, Tryon, Mecklenburg, and Lincoln Counties, North Carolina. Several misconceptions  about Samuel and Eleanor persist online. One myth is that Samuel was a son of Robert and Rebecca Rankin of Guilford County (Lineage 1A). Another is that Samuel was a son of Joseph Rankin of Delaware (Lineage 1B). Both possibilities are disproved by YDNA. Some researchers also claim that Samuel and his wife were married in Pennsylvania, although Eleanor’s parents James and Ann Alexander  were in Anson/Rowan County by 1753 at the latest. Samuel and Eleanor were married about 1759, almost certainly in Rowan. There is no evidence of Samuel’s birthplace.

Samuel’s tombstone in the Goshen Presbyterian Cemetery in Belmont, NC no longer exists. A WPA cemetery survey taken in the 1930s transcribed his tombstone inscription to say that he was born in 1734 and died in 1816. His will was dated 1814, but wasn’t probated until 1826. His last appearance  in the Lincoln Co., NC records while he was still alive was in July 1816. He left most of his nine surviving children (his son Richard predeceased him) a token bequest, and devised the bulk of his estate to his son James.[6] Samuel and Eleanor’s children either remained in the Lincoln/Mecklenburg/Iredell area or moved to Arkansas, Tennessee, or Illinois. Here are articles about Samuel and Eleanor’s son Richard and their daughter Jean Rankin Hartgrove.

Lineage 2C

Based on descendant charts provided by participants, L2C has two family lines: (1) David Sr. and Jennett McCormick Rankin of Frederick County, Virginia and (2) William Rankin of Fayette County, Pennsylvania. There is no known common Rankin ancestor for the two lines.

David Sr.’s line is represented by three project participants. He left a Frederick County will dated 1757 naming his wife Jennett and children Hugh, William, David Jr. and Barbara.[7] Many online trees identify David Sr.’s wife as “Jennett Mildred,” although all of the Frederick County records identify Jennett without a middle name. Researchers asserting that Jennett had a middle name may have conflated David Sr.’s wife Jennett with an entirely different woman, a Mildred Rankin who was married to one of David Sr.’s grandsons — also named David.

David Jr. married Hannah Province or Provence, probably in Frederick County. They moved from Frederick to Washington County, Pennsylvania and then to Harrison County, Kentucky, where David Jr. died. His brother William and his wife Abigail also moved to Washington County. William died there in 1799. Both David Jr. and William left large families. Some of Hugh’s line probably moved to Kentucky and then to Ohio. Project administrators are looking for descendants of William and/or Hugh who might be willing to YDNA test.

The second family in L2C is the line of William Rankin of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, who died in 1797. His son, William Jr., died in Fayette in 1807. Many from this line stayed in Fayette County for several generations. Some moved “west,” including to Ohio. There is no evidence of William Sr.’s  origin prior to the time that he began appearing in Westmoreland and Fayette.

Rankin Lineage 3

The common ancestor of the four L3 participants is David Rankin Sr. who died in Greene County, Tennessee in 1802. His will identified seven children but not his wife, who evidently predeceased him. David Sr. was reportedly among the “Overmountain Men” who left what was then Washington County, Tennessee to fight in the Battle of King’s Mountain in South Carolina. That battle was a major defeat for the British in the Southern Campaign.

There is some disagreement among researchers about the identity of David Sr.’s wife or wives. His wife is usually identified as Margart Kerr, Anne Campbell, both, or neither, without a citation to any evidence. Another question is where David Sr. lived before coming to Greene County in 1783. It is possible that David Sr. of Greene is the same man as the David Rankin who received a 1771 land patent in Bedford County, Virginia, although that man was a Quaker. Other researchers believe that David Sr. was a son of the William Rankin who died in 1792 in Franklin County, Pennsylvania (wife Mary Huston). That possibility has been disproved by YDNA results.

Rankin researchers can take comfort in the fact that Flossie Cloyd, the premier Rankin researcher of the 20thcentury, was baffled by David Sr.’s ancestry. He may well be the immigrant ancestor in his line.

Whew! That’s more than enough for right now …

See you on down the road.

Robin

[1] For example, the Rankin project includes men whose surname at birth was Rankin but were adopted by a stepfather after the Rankin parents divorced.

[2] Jonathan Jeffrey at  the Department of Library Special Collections at the University of Western Kentucky sent to me a 22-page transcription  of the autobiography of Rev. John Rankin, a grandson of Robert and Rebecca. For the most part, it is a recount of his faith history. It has very little helpful genealogy.

[3] One history says that Joseph came from “Clyde Scotland,” presumably somewhere near the River Clyde. It also claims that Joseph’s children were born in Scotland, which is demonstrably incorrect. See Bill and Martha Reamy, Genealogical Abstracts from Biographical and Genealogical History of the State of Delaware(Westminster, MD: Willow Bend Books, 2001). The Findagrave website claims that he was born in “Ulster Ireland,” which is undoubtedly a good guess but is unsubstantiated.

[4] Only one of Joseph’s proved descendants is a member of the Rankin DNA Project. He has provided information to project administrators about his YDNA match to another proved descendant of Joseph.

[5] Lancaster Co., PA Will Book J: 211.

[6] Lincoln Co., NC Will Book 1: 37. Given the nature of Samuel’s will, there would have been no rush to submit it to probate.

[7] Frederick Co., VA Will Book 3: 443.

Do we exhume ancestors? A Y-DNA primer of sorts

My friend Tony Givens asked me how the heck I obtained the Y-DNA of my great-great-great-great grandfather Samuel Rankin, who I had identified as my ancestor via Y-DNA testing. Did we exhume his corpse, or what?

I was at a loss how to respond. The short and almost correct answer is that I obtained Samuel’s Y-DNA by persuading my cousin Butch Rankin to take a Y-DNA test. However, I knew that wouldn’t suffice. Instead, I fell back on standard cross-examination technique, asking leading questions to which I already knew the answer … hoping to answer Tony’s question without delivering an impenetrable lecture.

“So … Tony, you know who your Givens grandfather is, don’t you?”

“Sure,” he said, “his name was David Givens.”

“OK,” said I, “you know the name of David’s father, right?”

“Yep! Harland Givens was my great-grandfather.”

“Well, Tony, if you swab your cheek today for a Y-DNA test, what would you have?”

Tony looked nonplussed. “A sample of my Y-DNA?”

“Yes, indeed. You would also have the Y-DNA of Harland Givens, give or take a few markers.”

“Can’t be,” said Tony, “he’s been dead for a century.”

At that point, there was no alternative but to deliver a pseudo-scientific lecture about Y-DNA theory. A condensed form of the lecture follows. I am qualifying it as “pseudo”-scientific because I’m not a scientist and it is easy to oversimplify these matters …

I am female and therefore don’t have a Y chromosome. Instead, I have two X chromosomes. Tony, a male, has one X chromosome and one Y chromosome. The X and Y are called the “sex chromosomes” because they determine gender.[1] Tony can only have inherited his Y chromosome from his biological father, since his mother didn’t have one to pass on. Likewise, Tony’s father can only have inherited his Y chromosome from his father David, who can only have inherited his Y chromosome from his father Harland Givens, and so on, theoretically ad infinitum up the male Givens line. This ignores the possibility of a so-called “non-paternal event,” more on that shortly.

Those inherited Givens Y chromosomes are all identical, in theory. Putting it another way, a male’s Y chromosome is passed down from father to son for generation after generation — except for occasional random mutations. If there were no mutations, Tony’s Y chromosome would be an exact copy of the Y chromosome of all of his male Givens ancestors.

Thus, the almost correct answer to Tony’s original question was that I obtained my ancestor Samuel Rankin’s Y-DNA by getting my cousin Butch Rankin to Y-DNA test. That isn’t quite accurate because mutations have occurred in the intervening generations between Samuel and Butch. If there had been no mutations, then Butch’s Y chromosome would have exactly matched his five-great-grandfather Samuel’s Y chromosome.

There is an occasional “oops” in this process, when a man’s Y chromosome doesn’t match his apparent father’s. Genealogists call this a “non-paternal event,” and please don’t get me started on the weirdness of that label. For example, if a male child is adopted, the adopted son inherited his Y chromosome from his biological father. The adopted son would not be a Y-DNA match with his adopted father. Likewise, if Mrs. Givens were raped and bore a son as a result, the child’s Y chromosome would be a copy of the rapist’s, not a copy of Mr. Givens’. The same would be true if Mrs. Givens had a son as a result of an extramarital affair.

Except for so-called non-paternal events, the Y chromosome repeats in the line of the male surname without changes other than occasional random mutations. This has given rise to surname DNA projects, in which participants compare their Y-DNA to other men having the same surname. Women cannot Y-DNA test, since we have two X chromosomes but no Y chromosome. Instead, we cajole our fathers, brothers, sons, uncles and male cousins into swabbing their cheeks for a Y-DNA test.

There is a potload more science about this, but I’m already in over my head. If you want to learn about STRs (“short tandem repeats”) or SNPs (“single nucleotide polymorphisms”), check out FAQs at the FTDNA website.  Better yet, go search Roberta Estes’s website, “DNAeXplained – Genetic Genealogy.” She does an excellent job making the science comprehensible.

Let’s leave the science and turn to how Y-DNA testing can be helpful in family history research.

As one example, it can help an adopted son identify his birth father when all other avenues have failed. I have one friend with a remarkable story who has done exactly that.

For another example, let’s assume that six men having the surname Willis have done 67-marker Y-DNA tests and joined the Willis DNA project. It turns out they are all a very good genetic match, having only one mismatching marker out of 67 between any two of them.[2] FYI, the number of mismatched markers is referred to as “Genetic Distance,” so any two of these men would be considered a “67-marker match, GD =1.”

Five of these men can trace their Willis ancestry with a high degree of confidence back to a John Willis who came to Maryland from the U.K. circa 1700. The sixth man cannot identify a Willis ancestor earlier than 1800. Fortunately, his extremely close genetic match to the other five men makes it a virtual certainty that they share a common ancestor fairly recently, three centuries being “fairly recent” in genetic time. He would be justified in concluding that he is probably also descended from John Willis of Maryland.

Y-DNA testing can also disprove relationships. That leads us to the famous Rankin legend inscribed on a bronze tablet in the Mt. Horeb Presbyterian Cemetery in Jefferson County, Tennessee. You can read the entire inscription concerning this piece of family lore in this article. The tablet says this in part, elided to focus on information relevant to this article:

“William Rankin had … sons, Adam [and] John … Adam married Mary Steele … [and] John … had two sons, Thomas and Richard, and eight daughters.”

If you are a Rankin researcher, you probably know that an Adam Rankin who died in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1747 definitely married Mary Steele Alexander, widow of James Alexander. You also know that a John Rankin who died in Lancaster in 1749 left a will naming two sons, Thomas and Richard, and eight daughters.

In short, the Mt. Horeb tablet legend includes the belief that Adam Rankin (wife Mary Steele Alexander) and John Rankin (who had sons Richard and Thomas) of Lancaster were brothers. However, DNA is a fly in that ointment.

Six descendants of the John Rankin who died in Lancaster in 1749 have Y-DNA tested and belong to the Rankin Family DNA Project. They are a close genetic match. Their ancestry “paper trails” are solid. All six are descended from John’s son Thomas.[3]

The Rankin Project also has two participants who descend from Adam Rankin and Mary Steele. They are a 67-marker match with a GD = 5, which is not a very close match. The odds are only slightly better than even that they share a common ancestor within the last eight generations, about 200 years. One man’s “paper trail” back to Adam and Mary Steele Rankin is good as gold. The other man’s chart has one weak link in primary evidence, although it is established by convincing secondary and circumstantial evidence. It could be that these two men do not both descend from Adam and Mary, and, instead, their common ancestor is on the other side of the Atlantic. Having researched Adam’s line ad nauseam, I believe that is unlikely. Rather, those two men are almost certainly both descended from Adam and Mary Steele Rankin. Their five mismatched markers are evidently the result of random mutations in the male line after Adam.

In any event, the two men who (IMO) descend from Adam and Mary Steele Rankin are not a Y-DNA match with the six men who descend from John. A reasonable (perhaps inescapable) conclusion, based solely on DNA evidence, is that John and Adam Rankin of Lancaster were not brothers. Perhaps, you may say, they had different mothers? That theory won’t fly, because it doesn’t matter from whom John and Adam inherited their X chromosomes. We are dealing with Y chromosomes, and the Y-DNA of their descendants who have tested says that John d. 1749 and Adam d. 1747 did not have the same father.

This has implications further up the ancestral line. Both sets of descendants believe that their ancestor Adam or John was a son of a William Rankin, and that William was a son of an Alexander Rankin. Both claim the legend memorialized on the Mt. Horeb tablet.

Based on the limited genetic evidence available, they cannot both be correct. A puckish question: which line gets to claim the Mt. Horeb legend?

Evidence in actual records about Adam or John’s parents would be wonderful, but I don’t know anyone who has found any. Lacking “paper” evidence, we need to find another descendant of Adam and Mary Steele Rankin to Y-DNA test and confirm these tentative conclusions. We also need a descendant of John’s son Richard to test to help establish a Y-DNA profile for that important Rankin line.

Is there anyone reading this who has a male Rankin relative who hasn’t tested? For heaven’s sake, woman, throw him down on the floor and swab his cheek! Even if he isn’t descended from Adam and Mary Steele Rankin, or from John’s son Richard, the results of his test will almost certainly help him (and possibly others as well) learn more about his or her Rankin family history.

Seriously. Whatever your surname may be, if you are interested in your family history, consider  purchasing a Y-DNA test (if you are a male) from FTDNA. For the record, I’m not on the FTDNA payroll, and it is the only testing firm that offers Y chromosome tests. Start with a 37-marker test. You can always upgrade to additional markers later without having to test again. If you have reservations, please contact me and let’s talk!

Meanwhile, I’ll be out there looking for another descendant of Adam and Mary … and a descendant of John’s son Richard …

See you on down the road.

Robin

[1] There is a spectrum of gender identity from male to female that involves questions beyond both the scope of this article and my expertise. I’m using “male” and “female” as though those are the only options, which is an oversimplification.

[2] A “marker” is a Short Tandem Repeat. I think. They get counted in a Y-DNA test.

[3] The Rankin DNA Project needs a descendant of John’s son Richard to Y-DNA test.

Coming attractions …

I told my husband today I must live at least another 20 years in order to complete my to-do list. A significant part of the list has to do with fun family history. Some of it, considerably less appealing, has to do with ridding our closets of a half-century of accumulated stuff. Since we are about to go on vacation – a time when to-do lists and closets are happily forgotten – I thought I might leave some promises in our wake. Perhaps someone will hold me to them.

So here is a list of coming attractions, i.e., posts I have already largely written in my head.

Burkes: it is high time for me to publish an article about Esom Logan Burke of Wilson County, Tennessee and his son William Logan Burke I, the McLennan County, Texas sheriff of the 1880s. William Logan Burke II, the Sheriff’s son, was a polo player, hunter, and well-known teller of tall tales like his great-grandfather John Burke, who died in 1842 in Jackson County, Tennessee. I also have articles about John Burke’s children which are already drafted but which are so boring I haven’t been able to convince myself to post them.

Rankins: in the “famous Rankins” category, an article about James Lee Rankin (1907 – 1996). He argued the amicus curiae brief as Assistant Attorney General in the so-called “segregation cases,” six cases consolidated before the Supreme Court in 1953. The Court rendered its decision in the familiar 1954 case styled Brown v. Board of Education. Atty. Gen. Rankin “argued forcefully for desegregation of the nation’s public schools.” He also represented the American Civil Liberties Union in advancing the landmark case Gideon v. Wainwright, which established the right of an indigent person accused of a crime to have legal counsel at public expense. He was a moderate Republican who managed the Eisenhower for President campaign in Nebraska. Wow. He descends from David and Jeanette (not Mildred) McCormick Rankin of Frederick Co., VA. There is one hinky spot in his lineage that I haven’t quite worked out, but there is no doubt of his immigrant ancestors. That family is Lineage 3 on the Rankin Family DNA Project. I really wish we were related.

… more famous Rankins: Jeanette Rankin and her sister Edna Rankin McKinnon. The Rankin sisters had a habit of being “first” at this and that, as well as being reformers in feminist causes such as suffrage and birth control. Jeanette was the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Montana, in 1916 – before she was even eligible to vote for herself: women didn’t get the vote until 1920, when the 19th Amendment was ratified. Her sister Edna, an attorney, was the first native-born woman to be admitted to the Montana Bar, and was a birth control pioneer. Their Rankin grandfather was born in Scotland, and (so far as I know), no member of that Rankin family has Y-DNA tested and joined the Rankin DNA Project.

… Rev. John Rankin, the famous abolitionist of Ohio, who provided a major stop on the Underground Railroad. He belongs to what is called Rankin “Lineage 2A” in the Rankin family DNA project – namely, the Rankins of Jefferson County, Tennessee and the famous Mt. Horeb Presbyterian Church Cemetery bronze tablet. I am happy to claim Rev. John as a genetic relative. I disclaim the unproved parts of his lineage, which is anyone prior to John Rankin who died in 1749 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. <grin>

Charts: I am working on charts of several families. First, Adam Rankin who died in 1747 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, wife Mary Steele Alexander. I have posted articles about that line here, and  here, and  here, and also here.

Second, a chart for the line of David and Jeanette McCormick Rankin of Frederick County, Virginia. I have posted two articles about them, but both are subject to correction so I will eschew links.

Third, a chart for John and Elizabeth Graves Burke of Jackson County, Tennessee. All of the three Burke articles I have posted have been about that family. First, here, then here, and then here.

And that’s enough from me for now. I must go find my Astros t-shirt, because one stop on vacation is Yankee Stadium on Saturday, June 22, when the dreaded Yankees will take on the Houston Astros.

See you on down the road.

Robin

How many Jeremiah Rankins WERE there near Greencastle, PA in the late 1700s?

In the late 1700s, Greencastle sported several Rankin men named Jeremiah. The precise number depends on whom you ask. American Revolutionary Soldiers of Franklin County, Pennsylvania has one opinion.[1] The Biographical Annals of Franklin County, Pennsylvania[2] and the History of Franklin County, Pennsylvania[3] share a second opinion. The latter two sources place an extra Jeremiah in the family tree of the Rankins of Lancaster, Cumberland, and Franklin Counties, Pennsylvania.

Let’s start with an inventory of the early proved Jeremiahs in that line, then assemble them into a family chart for the big picture.

    • Jeremiah #1: the eldest. He was a son of Adam Rankin who died in Lancaster in 1747 (“Adam d. 1747”) and his wife Mary Steele Alexander.[4] Jeremiah #1 died in 1760 in a mill accident near Greencastle.[5] Jeremiah #1’s only appearance in county records is apparently his father Adam’s will. One would expect a probate of his estate because he inherited land, as well as guardian records for his minor children. I have found neither.
    • Jeremiah #2: a son of Jeremiah #1 and his wife Rhoda Craig, and thus a grandson of Adam d. 1747. He was born during 1756-1761.[6] He moved to Fayette County, Kentucky, where he died about 1804.[7] 
    • Jeremiah #3: a proved son of James Sr. who died in 1795 and Jean Campbell Rankin. James Sr. was a son of Adam d. 1747, so Jeremiah #3 was also a grandson of Adam d. 1747.[8] Jeremiah #3 was probably born in the early 1750s, but definitely no later than 1755.[9] The identity of his children is the main issue in this article.
    • Jeremiah #4: a proved son of William who died in 1792 and Mary Huston Rankin. Since William was a son of Adam d. 1747, Jeremiah #4 was yet another grandson of Adam and Mary. Jeremiah #4 was born in 1783. He moved to Centre Co., PA, where he died in 1874 at age 90.[10]
    • Wildcard Jeremiah: Annals and History add another Jeremiah to this list and place him as a son of Jeremiah #3. That would make him a great-grandson of Adam d. 1747. Annals and History also name three brothers of Wildcard Jeremiah, although they disagree on one name.

Here is an abbreviated outline family chart for these Rankins, including the above list of Jeremiahs.[11]

1 Adam Rankin, d. 1747, Lancaster Co., PA, wife Mary Steele Alexander.[12] Their four children (birth order unknown):[13]

2 Esther Rankin m. Mr. Dunwoody.

2 Jeremiah #1 Rankin, d. near Greencastle, Cumberland Co., PA about 1760.[14]

3 Jeremiah #2 Rankin, b. 1756-1761, Cumberland Co., PA, d. about 1804, Fayette Co., KY. His three brothers were Rev. Adam, Thomas, and William Rankin, all of whom also went to Fayette or Woodford Co., KY.

2 James Rankin Sr., d. 1795, Franklin Co., PA, wife Jean/Jane Campbell. Identified as a son in the will of Adam d. 1747.

3 Jeremiah #3 Rankin. He and his five siblings are proved by their father’s will.[15]

4 Wildcard Jeremiah, added here by Annals and History. Annals identifies his brothers as James, David and William; History identifies them as James, David and Archie. Both are incorrect, IMO.

2 William Rankin d. 1792, Franklin Co., PA, wife Mary Huston. Identified as a son in the will of Adam d. 1747.

3 Jeremiah #4 Rankin, b. 1783, Franklin Co., PA, d. 1874, Centre Co., PA. He and his seven siblings are proved by William’s 1792 will.[16]

Let’s see what Revolutionary Soldiers has to say about Jeremiah #3, son of James and Jean Rankin:

 “Jeremiah Rankin, Ranger on the Frontier, served in 1778, under Capt. John McConnell and as Ensign, 1780-81, with Captain Wm Huston; a son of pioneer James Rankin of Montgomery Township. He mar. Mary, dau. of James Clark. His will was dated June 1803 and prob. August 1803, only son James Clark Rankin and three daus: Nancy; Mariah; Esther. The widow Mary later married Charles Kilgore. James, Jeremiah, David and William Rankin were pewholders in the “Lower Conococheague” or Welsh Run Church.[17]  Nancy Rankin mar. John Imbrie, Beaver Co., Penna., 10 children. Maria Rankin mar. Samuel Johnston, son of Thos. and Anne Houston Johnston. Esther Rankin mar. Alex. M. Johnston, son of Thos. and Anne Houston Johnston.”

The will of some Jeremiah Rankin was, in fact, dated and proved in 1803. It did name his wife Mary and the four children listed above.[18] Both the Annals and History believe the 1803 will was Wildcard Jeremiah’s. Revolutionary Soldiers assigns that will to Jeremiah #3. Putting it another way, Revolutionary Soldiers concludes that the Jeremiah who died in 1803 was a son of James d. 1795 and Jean Rankin. Annals and History claim that the Jeremiah who died in 1803 was Wildcard Jeremiah, a grandson of James and Jean.

Besides adding a new Jeremiah to the line, Annals throws in three other new Rankins, brothers of Wildcard Jeremiah: David, James, and William. History does the same thing, but identifies the brothers of Wildcard Jeremiah as David, James and Archie.[19] History also adds this information: Jeremiah #3, son of James and Jean, “patented 800 acres … he divided his acreage into four farms, inherited by his four sons Jeremiah, David, James and Archie” (emphasis added). I found no evidence of this in the Franklin deed or probate records.

The evidence relevant to this puzzle is not compelling on either side. I’m just going to throw it all out there and hope that someone will offer an opinion in a comment. Or, better yet, tell us about other evidence.

    • I cannot find an 800-acre patent by a Jeremiah Rankin in the Pennsylvania patent records. Perhaps it was in a part of Pennsylvania that is now in another state? I am clearly missing something. Surely, History did not imagine that patent. The will of Jeremiah who died in 1803 mentioned land in Ohio, but where? Perhaps somebody can point us to a source …
  • History says the four sons of Jeremiah #3 inherited that 800-acre tract. I have found only one will and estate record for a Jeremiah Rankin in Franklin: the Jeremiah who died in 1803 and had only one son, James Clark Rankin. I can’t find any relevant estate records for a second Jeremiah, who would (according to Annals and History) be Jeremiah #3. If anyone knows anything about the estate of a second Jeremiah who died in Franklin, I’d love to hear about it.
  • I cannot find the four alleged sons of Jeremiah #3 in the Franklin records. I found only one Archibald (“Archie”) Rankin. He was easy to track. He was Archibald (1762 – 1845), a son of William and Mary Huston Rankin. If three brothers of Wildcard Jeremiah actually existed, they clearly got the heck out of Dodge early without bothering to leave significant tracks in the records. All of the David, William, James, and Archibald Rankins who appear in the Franklin Co. records can reasonably be accounted for without any “extras” left over.
  • The family of James Sr. and Jean Rankin lived in the area that became Montgomery Township, Franklin County. James Sr.’s sons William, James Jr. and Jeremiah started appearing on tax lists there in 1778. A wrinkle appeared in 1782, when a second Jeremiah showed up on the same tax list as James Sr. and family. The second Jeremiah is identified as a “freeman,” meaning he was 21 or over, not married, and owned no land. That freeman is obviously not Jeremiah #1 (who died about 1760), Jeremiah #3 (on the 1782 tax list as a landowner), or Jeremiah #4 (who wasn’t born until 1783). Perhaps Annals and History identified Jeremiah the freeman on the 1782 tax list as Wildcard Jeremiah, a son of Jeremiah #3?

That theory doesn’t work. Jeremiah the freeman was too old to have been a son of Jeremiah #3, who was likely born in the early 1750s. Jeremiah, the freeman who first appeared on the 1782 tax list, was born by 1761, perhaps 1760.

It is possible that Jeremiah the freeman was Jeremiah #2, son of Jeremiah #1 and Rhoda Craig Rankin. The last appearance I can find in the Franklin records for Jeremiah the freeman is on the 1787 tax list. The first appearance I found for Jeremiah #2 in Fayette County, Kentucky was on the 1789 tax list. Further, freeman Jeremiah and Jeremiah #2 were about the same age. The records thus suggest that freeman Jeremiah may be the same man as Jeremiah #2. My intuition says that was the case, but my gut hunches aren’t credible evidence.

  • The 1790 federal census for Franklin lists a Jeremy Rankin having three males who were 16 and over in his household, Jeremy being one of them. The 1800 census makes it clear that the head of household in the 1790 census must have been Jeremiah #3. He was listed in the “over 45” age bracket in 1800, and must be Jeremiah #3 who was born during the early 1750s. The 1800 household also includes a male in the age 26 to 45 category, who might be a (highly speculative) Wildcard Jeremiah, born 1755 – 1774. The oldest female in the household was also 26 to 45, and there were two females less than 10. Those three females fit the profile for Nancy Rankin (widow of Jeremiah d. 1803) and her two eldest daughters, Nancy C. and Mariah, twins born in 1796. The household also includes a male less than ten who could be James Clark Rankin, whose hazy birth year was 1800 or 1801.

It just isn’t clear whether Wildcard Jeremiah actually existed. I find myself agreeing with Revolutionary Soldiers for two reasons. First, it’s a pretty tight squeeze to add an extra generation of four sons between Jeremiah #3, who was born in the early 1750s and a ranger on the frontier in the early 1780s, and the death of another Jeremiah with four children in 1803. It’s possible, but has a strong whiff of improbability.

Second, Revolutionary Soldiers, written by a woman in conjunction with the Chambersburg D.A.R., has more credibility chops than either Annals or History, books churned out for profit for many counties in Pennsylvania, generally by the same publishers.

When all else fails, go with the trustworthy source. I would delete Wildcard Jeremiah and his three alleged brothers from this Rankin family tree. That would make Jeremiah #3 the man who died in 1803, leaving a widow Nancy, daughters Nancy, Mariah and Esther, and a son, James Clark Rankin.

I hope someone who reads this will uncover some evidence about those 800 acres Jeremiah #3 allegedly devised to his four sons. It would also be nice to see evidence about Wildcard Jeremiah’s three alleged brothers.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

[1] Virginia Shannon Fendrick, American Revolutionary Soldiers of Franklin County, Pennsylvania (Chambersburg, PA: Historical Works Committee of the Franklin County Chapter of the D.A.R., 1969) (copyright 1944) 180.

[2] Biographical Annals of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, Volume I (Chicago: The Genealogical Publishing Co., 1905) 126-28.

[3] S. P. Bates, History of Franklin County, Pennsylvania (Chicago: Warner, Beers & Company, 1887) 68.

[4] Lancaster Co., PA Will Book J: 208, will of Adam Rankin of Lancaster dated and proved in 1747. The will names children James, William, Jeremiah, and Esther Rankin Dunwoody. For proof that Adam Rankin’s wife was Mary Steele Alexander, see the article here.

[5] Rev. Robert Davidson, History of the Presbyterian Church in the State of Kentucky (New York: R. Carter, 1847) has information about Rev. Adam Rankin, son of Jeremiah #1 and Rhoda Craig Rankin. It says Jeremiah #1 died in 1760, when Rev. Adam was five. The book is available online here.

[6] Jeremiah #2 of Fayette Co., KY had an older brother, Rev. Adam Rankin, whose birth year of 1755 is proved. The father of Jeremiah #2 and Rev. Adam — Jeremiah #1 — died in 1760. Jeremiah #2 must therefore have been born during 1756 through 1761, inclusive. See the article about Jeremiah #1 and Rhoda Rankin’s son Adam titled, “Rev. Adam Rankin of Lexington, KY: Psalmody and Other Controversies,” here.

[7] Jeremiah #2’s last appearance on the Fayette Co., KY tax lists was in 1803. He definitely died by 1808, when his son Samuel was identified as a ward in a guardian’s bond.

[8] Franklin Co., PA Will Book A: 345, will of James Rankin dated 1788 and proved 1795. The will names his wife Jean, sons William, Jeremiah, James (Jr.), and David, and daughters Ruth Rankin Tool and Esther Rankin Smith.

[9] Jeremiah #3 was listed in the 1800 federal census for Cumberland Co., PA in the “45 and over” age category, so he was born no later than 1755. Jeremiah #3’s elder brother William was probably born 1746-1750. On balance, 1750-1755 seems a good estimate for Jeremiah #3’s birth.

[10] Mary Belle Lontz, Tombstone Inscriptions of Centre County, Pennsylvania (1984).

[11] This Rankin family all lived near Conococheague (or Conogocheague) Cr. in what is now Franklin Co. in southern Pennsylvania near Greencastle. As nearly as I can tell from the land and tax records, many members of this Rankin family stayed in that area for several generations.

[12] Some researchers believe that Mary Steele Alexander was Adam’s second wife. I have no idea whether that is correct because I have seen no evidence. All I know for certain is that Adam married Mary Steele, widow of James Alexander, sometime between 1718 and 1724.

[13] Adam’s 1747 will named three sons James, William, and Jeremiah Rankin, and a daughter, Esther Rankin Dunwoody. That is probably the correct birth order for the sons.  I don’t know where Esther belongs in the list. Lancaster Co., PA Will Book J: 208.

[14] So far as I know, the best evidence regarding Jeremiah’s #1’s family is oral tradition contained in an 1854 letter and a book about Kentucky Presbyterians, see Note 5. The letter identifies the children of Jeremiah #1 and Rhoda Craig Rankin as: (1) Rev. Adam Rankin of Lexington, Fayette Co., KY, 1755 – 1827 (the Psalmody fanatic), wife Martha McPheeters; (2) William Rankin, b. 1757, d. 1797 or 1798, Woodford Co., KY; (3) Thomas Rankin, d. Woodford, Co., 1808, wife Mary “Polly” Young; and (4) Jeremiah #2 Rankin, d. abt. 1804, Fayette Co., KY.

[15] See note 8.

[16] Franklin Co., PA Will Book A: 256, will of William Rankin, dated and proved in 1792. Wife Mary Huston Rankin. Here are their children. (1) Dr. Adam Rankin, b. 1762, Cumberland, PA, d. 1820-30. Went to Henderson Co., KY and married three times. (2) Archibald Rankin, b. 1764, d. 1845, Franklin Co., wife Agnes Long. (3) James Rankin, b. 1766, d. after 1820. Went to Centre Co., PA. (4) William Rankin, 1770 – 1847. Went to Centre Co., PA. Married #1 Abigail McGinley and #2 Susannah Huston. (5) Betsy Rankin, b. 1774. (6) David Rankin, b. 1777, d. 1853, Des Moines Co., IA. Wife Frances Campbell. (7) John Rankin, b. 1779, d. 1848. Went to Centre Co., PA, married Isabell Dundass. (8) Jeremiah Rankin, 1783 – 1874, to Centre Co. Wife Sarah Whitehill.

[17] The Welsh Run (Lower Conococheague) Church is about 4.2 miles southwest of Mercersburg in Montgomery Township, where the family of James and Jean Rankin lived and owned land. Conococheague Cr. crosses PA Highway 995 about a mile NE of Welsh Run. The pewholders named in Revolutionary Soldiers should all be from the line of James d. 1795 and his wife Jean, and are almost certainly their four proved sons. The Presbyterian Church of the Upper West Conococheague, attended by some of the family of William and Mary Huston Rankin, is located in Mercersburg. Seehttps://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009040742.

[18] Franklin Co., PA Will Book B: 167, will of Jeremiah Rankin of Montgomery Twp. dated 13 Jun 1803 proved 1 Aug 1803. Wife Mary, four minor children, all less than 18: James Clark Rankin, only son; daughters Nancy Rankin, Mariah Rankin and Esther Rankin. Mentions land in Ohio. Executors wife, brother James Rankin, brother-in-law James Clark, brother-in-law David Humphreys. Witnesses John McFarland, David Rankin, John Rankin. Nancy and Mariah were twins, born in 1796. James Clark Rankin was b. 1800-01. Esther was b. 1802.

[19] S. P. Bates, History of Franklin County, Pennsylvania (Chicago: Warner, Beers & Company, 1887) 68.

Rev. Adam Rankin of Lexington, KY (1755-1827), revised: Psalmody & other controversies

Rev. Adam Rankin of Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky is the source of some fun Rankin family history issues. He also caused considerable controversy in his denomination during his lifetime. Genealogical questions aside, Rev. Adam’s life is a story unto itself.

Here are the major issues about Rev. Adam:

    • What was Rev. Adam’s life all about? He is famous for stoking the flames of an uproar about an arcane theological issue. He was rabidly fanatic on the matter, and that may be an understatement.
    • Who were Rev. Adam’s parents? I have found no evidence of Rev. Adam’s family of origin in traditional primary sources such as county records – deeds, wills, tax lists, marriage records, and the like. Instead, there is only secondary evidence, usually deemed less reliable than primary evidence. In Rev. Adam’s case, however, the secondary sources are unusually credible.
    • What is the Y-DNA evidence about Rev. Adam’s line? Y-DNA testing establishes that Rev. Adam was a genetic relative of Adam and Mary Steele Alexander Rankin, as family tradition claims.

Rev. Adam’s theological mess

There is a wealth of evidence regarding Rev. Adam’s personality in history books. George W. Rankin’s 1872 History of Lexington describes Rev. Adam as a “talented, intolerant, eccentric, and pious man, [who] was greatly beloved by his congregation, which clung to him with devoted attachment through all his fortunes.”[1]

Even more colorfully, Rev. Robert Davidson’s 1847 history of Kentucky Presbyterianism says that Rev. Adam “appears to have been of a contentious, self-willed turn from his youth … and his wranglings at last ended in a schism. Obstinate and opinionated, his nature was a stranger to concession, and peace was to be bought only by coming over to his positions … his pugnacious propensities brought on at last a judicial investigation.”[2]

An early twentieth-century Kentucky history describes Rev. Adam as “a strange, eccentric man, a dreamer of dreams, a Kentucky Luther, and, perhaps, a bit crazed with the bitter opposition his views received.”[3]

What on earth do you suppose all the fuss was about?

Ahem. The theological issue about which Rev. Adam was fanatical is the so-called “Psalmody controversy.” Psalmody, said Rev. Davidson, was “his monomania.”

The what controversy? I have a friend who is a retired Presbyterian minister, and he has never heard of it.

An article titled “How Adam Rankin tried to stop Presbyterians from singing ‘Joy to the World’” describes the issue and its origins:

“In 1770 [sic, 1670], when Isaac Watts was 18 years of age, he criticized the hymns of the church in his English hometown of Southampton. In response to his son’s complaints, Watts’ father is reputed to have said, ‘If you don’t like the hymns we sing, then write a better one!’ To that Isaac replied, ‘I have.’ One of his hymns was shared with the church they attended and they asked the young man to write more.

For 222 Sundays, Isaac Watts prepared a new hymn for each Sunday, and single-handedly revolutionized the congregational singing habits of the English Churches of the time. In 1705, Watts published his first volume of original hymns and sacred poems. More followed. In 1719, he published his monumental work, ‘The Psalms of David, Imitated.’ Among those many familiar hymns is the Christmas favorite ‘Joy to the World,’ based on Psalm 98.

For many years, only Psalms were sung throughout the Presbyterian Churches and the old ‘Rouse’ versions were the standard. The first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States convened at the Second Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia in 1789. One of the Prebyterian ministers of the time, a man by the name of Rev. Adam Rankin, rode horseback from his Kentucky parish to Philadelphia to plead with his fellow Presbyterians to reject the use of Watts’ hymms.”[4]

Rev. Adam had to be a virtual lunatic on the issue to ride more than 600 miles from Lexington to Philadelphia, right? Assuming the Reverend’s horse was capable of 12-hour days at an average speed of four miles per hour, that’s a good 12-day trip each way.[5] And we must surely assume that Rev. Adam rested on the Sabbath.

The trip is even more extraordinary because Rev. Adam had no “commission” to attend the Assembly, meaning he was not an official attendee.[6] He simply requested to be heard by the Assembly on the subject of Psalmody. Specifically, he sought a repeal of a 1787 resolution allowing Watts’ hymns to be used in churches. Rev. Adam presented this query to the General Assembly:

“Whether the churches under the care of the General Assembly, have not, by the countenance and allowance of the late Synod of New York and Philadelphia, fallen into a great and pernicious error in the public worship of God, by disusing Rouse’s versification of David’s Psalms, and adopting in the room of it, Watts’ imitation?”[7]

The Assembly listened to him patiently. Then it urged (gently, it seems to me) Rev. Adam to behave in a similar fashion by exercising “that exercise of Christian charity, towards those who differ from him in their views of this matter, which is exercised toward himself: and that he be carefully guarded against disturbing the peace of the church on this head.”[8]

You can probably guess how well Rev. Adam followed that advice:

“No sooner had he returned home than he began to denounce the Presbyterian clergy as Deists, blasphemers, and rejecters of revelation, and debarred from the Lord’s Table all admirers of Watts’ Psalms, which he castigated as rivals of the Word of God.”[9]

Emphasis added. “Debarred from the Lord’s Table” means that Rev. Adam refused to administer communion to parishioners who disagreed with him about Watts’ hymns. It is hard to imagine a more radical punishment in a Presbyterian church short of, I don’t know, burning dissenters at the stake.[10]

Rev. Adam didn’t mince words. He verbally abused his Psalmody opponents in ways that would make even some partisan politicians cringe. He called them weak, ignorant, envious, and profane, compared them to swine, said they bore the mark of the beast and that they were sacrilegious robbers, hypocrites, and blasphemers. It makes Newt Gingritch’s instruction to his House colleagues circa 1986 to call members of the opposing party “traitors” and the “enemy” seem almost collegial by comparison.

In 1789, several formal charges were brought against Rev. Rankin before the Presbytery to which his church belonged. One charge was that he had refused communion to persons who approved Watts’ psalmody. Apparently attempting to dodge a trial, he made a two-year trip to London. When he returned, his views unchanged, his case was tried in April 1792. Rev. Adam just withdrew from the Presbytery, taking with him a majority of his congregation.[11]

He then affiliated with the Associate Reformed Church, although the honeymoon was brief. Rev. Davidson wrote that Rev. Adam “was on no better terms with the Associate Reformed than he had been with the Presbyterians; and his pugnacious propensities brought on at last a judicial investigation.” In 1818, he was suspended from the ministry. He and his congregation simply declared themselves independent.

Rev. Adam wasn’t merely stubborn and pugnacious. He may also have been somewhat deluded. He claimed early on that he was guided by dreams and visions, convinced that “God had raised him up as a special instrument to reinstate ‘the Lord’s song.’” Eventually, he was led by a dream to believe that “Jerusalem was about to be rebuilt and that he must hurry there in order to assist in the rebuilding. He bade his Lexington flock farewell, and started to the Holy City, but, on November 25, 1827, death overtook him at Philadelphia.”[12]

I find myself wishing he had made it to Jerusalem just to see what happened. Of course, there is no telling what additional trouble we might now have in the Middle East if he had done so.

Rev. Adam’s widow moved to Maury County, Tennessee along with her sons Samuel and Adam Rankin Jr.  She died there. Her tombstone in the Greenwood Cemetery in Columbia reads simply “Martha Rankin, consort of A. Rankin of Lexington, KY.”[13] It was probably no picnic, being a planet in Rev. Adam’s solar system.

Moving on to the next issue …

Who were Rev. Adam’s parents?

As noted, there appears to be no primary evidence available on Rev. Adam’s family of origin. The family oral tradition is that he was a son of Jeremiah and Rhoda Craig Rankin of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Jeremiah, in turn, was one of the three proved sons of the Adam Rankin who died in 1747 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and his wife Mary Steele Alexander Rankin.

Family tradition also says that Jeremiah died young in a mill accident. There are no probate records concerning his estate in Cumberland County, so far as I have found. There should be, because he owned land inherited from his father. Likewise, I haven’t found any guardian’s records in Cumberland, although Jeremiah’s children were underage when he died. In fact, the only reference I have found to Adam’s son Jeremiah in county records is Adam’s 1747 Lancaster County will.[14] I may have missed something. It wouldn’t be the first time. Or perhaps the records no longer exist.

Fortunately, there are at least two pieces of credible secondary evidence about this family: (1) Rev. Robert Davidson’s History of the Presbyterian Church in the State of Kentucky and (2) oral tradition preserved in an 1854 letter written by one of Rev. Adam’s sons. Both provide evidence concerning Rev. Adam’s family of origin.

Here is what Rev. Davidson wrote about Rev. Adam (boldface and italics added).

“The Rev. Adam Rankin was born March 24, 1755, near Greencastle, Western Pennsylvania [sic, Greencastle is in south-central Pennsylvania]. He was descended from pious Presbyterian ancestors, who had emigrated from Scotland, making a short sojourn in Ireland by the way. His mother, who was a godly woman, was a Craig, and one of her ancestors suffered martyrdom, in Scotland, for the truth. That ancestor, of the name of Alexander, and a number of others, were thrown into prison, where they were slaughtered, without trial, by a mob of ferocious assassins, till the blood ran ancle [sic] deep. This account Mr. Rankin received from his mother’s lips. His father was an uncommon instance of early piety, and because the minister scrupled to admit one so young, being only in the tenth year of his age, he was examined before a presbytery. From the moment of his son Adam’s birth, he dedicated him to the ministry. He was killed in his own mill, when Adam, his eldest son, was in his fifth year. [Rev. Adam] graduated at Liberty Hall [now Washington & Lee University], about 1780. Two years after, Oct. 25, 1782, at the age of twenty-seven, he was licensed by Hanover Presbytery, and, about the same time, married Martha, daughter of Alexander McPheeters, of Augusta county.”[15]

Perhaps the most important thing Rev. Davidson said about Rev. Adam was in a footnote: “This sketch of Mr. Rankin’s early history so far is derived from his autobiography, prepared, shortly before his decease, for his friend, Gen. Robert B. McAfee, then Lieut. Governor of the State.” That qualifies as information straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.[16] Several facts stand out in Rev. Davidson’s sketch:

    • The death of Rev. Adam’s father in a mill accident confirms the family oral tradition. The date is established at about 1760-61, when Rev. Adam was in his fifth year.[17]
    • Adam’s mother was, as the family history says, a Craig.[18]
    • There was a Presbyterian martyr among Rev. Adam’s ancestors, although the murdered man was his mother’s ancestor, not his father’s. The oral family history in this branch of the Rankin family identifies the pious Scots ancestor as Alexander Rankin, two of whose sons were reportedly martyred before the survivors escaped to Ulster. The failure of Rev. Adam’s autobiography to reference that legend suggests he probably never heard it.
    • Adam was born in Greencastle, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. That county was created in 1750 from Lancaster, where Adam and Mary Steele Alexander Rankin lived. Adam and Mary’s sons William and James began appearing in Cumberland in the 1750s. Rev. Adam’s birth in Greencastle is consequently good circumstantial evidence that he was from the family of Adam and Mary Steele Rankin.

The other significant piece of evidence regarding Rev. Adam’s family is an 1854 letter written by John Mason Rankin, Rev. Adam’s youngest son.[19] John Mason obviously wrote from personal knowledge as to his father’s generation and their children, all of whom lived in Fayette and Woodford Counties, Kentucky. He allegedly also had information from the family’s oral tradition regarding the family’s earlier ancestry. Because I have been unable to make contact with anyone who has ever seen that letter, I have had serious reservations about its authenticity. Susan Faust, a Rankin researcher, located and communicated with one of the two Rankins who had personal knowledge of the letter. The original is supposedly in the custody of a museum in San Augustine, Texas. There is no museum there, however.

There are a couple of interesting things about the letter, in addition to the wealth of genealogical detail. First, it is frankly hard to believe that anyone was able to remember all that, suggesting the detail may have been a function of research rather than John Mason Rankin’s memory. Second, there are some minor and unsurprising errors.

First, John Mason identified the original immigrants in his Rankin family as the brothers Adam (his ancestor), John, and Hugh. This precisely echoes information contained on the famous bronze table in the Mt. Horeb Presbyterian Cemetery in Jefferson County, Tennessee. The tablet has a colorful story about the Rankin family in Scotland and Ireland that is worth reading.[20]

The Mt. Horeb tablet also identifies the family’s original Rankin immigrants as the brothers Adam, John and Hugh, and names Adam’s wife Mary Steele. That makes it certain that John Mason Rankin and the Mt. Horeb tablet were dealing with the same immigrant family. John Mason says he descends from Adam and Mary Steele Rankin. The Mt. Horeb Rankins descend from the John Rankin who died in 1749 in Lancaster. John was reportedly Adam’s brother according to both family traditions. Y-DNA testing has disproved that theory: Adam and John were NOT genetic brothers.

The John Mason and Mt. Horeb tablet legends diverge prior to the Rankin immigrant brothers, however. John Mason’s letter does not include the colorful stories of Alexander Rankin and his sons in Scotland and Ireland. That part of the Mt. Horeb legend was apparently also omitted from Rev. Adam’s autobiography, or Rev. Davidson would surely have mentioned it. This creates an inference that the Mt. Horeb legend about the Killing Times in Scotland and the Siege of Londonderry in Ireland may not have been a part of Rev. Adam’s family’s oral history. Interesting.

In the interest of full disclosure, here are some minor errors or discrepancies in John Mason’s 1854 letter:

    • Adam Rankin (wife Mary Steele Alexander) died in 1747, not 1750.
    • John Mason identified the father of the three immigrant Rankins (John, Adam, and Hugh, allegedly brothers) as Adam. The Mt. Horeb tablet identifies the three men’s father as William. So far as I know, there is no evidence regarding the identity of either Adam’s or John’s father.
    • What John Mason called “Cannegogy Creek” usually appears in the colonial records as “Conogogheague” Creek. In later records, it is spelled “Conococheague.” In any event, John Mason was clearly talking about the creek where Jeremiah’s mill was located. Two Presbyterian churches on or near that creek are the churches attended by Adam and Mary Steele Rankin’s sons William and James. That puts the three proved sons of Adam – James, William, and Jeremiah – in close geographic proximity, a nice piece of circumstantial evidence supporting their family relationship.
    • Jeremiah Rankin, Rev. Adam’s brother, had four sons, not three: Adam, Joseph, Andrew, and Samuel.

And that brings us to the last issue …

Y-DNA evidence concerning Rev. Adam’s line

A male descendant of Rev. Adam Rankin – a son of Adam and Mary Steele Rankin’s son Jeremiah – has Y-DNA tested is a participant in the Rankin project. He is a 67-marker match with a genetic distance of 5 to a man who is descended from Adam and Mary Steele Rankin’s son William. That isn’t a particularly close Y-DNA match. Their paper trails nonetheless indicate with a high degree of confidence that Adam of Lancaster County is their common Rankin ancestor. Their Big Y results confirm it.

Six proved descendants of the John Rankin who died in 1749 in Lancaster have also Y-DNA tested and participate in the Rankin DNA project. They are a close genetic match to each other, and their paper trails are solid.

Here’s the rub. The six descendants of John are not a genetic match with the two descendants of Adam. Unless some other explanation can be found, the mismatch means that John and Adam did not have the same father. Let’s hope that more research and/or Y-DNA testing will shed further light on the issue.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

[1] George W. Rankin, History of Lexington, Kentucky (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1872) 108-110.

[2] Rev. Robert Davidson, History of the Presbyterian Church in the State of Kentucky (New York: R. Carter, 1847) 95. For “The Rankin Schism,” see p. 88 et seq. The book is available online  here.

[3] John Wilson Townsend and Dorothy Edwards Townsend, Kentucky in American Letters (Cedar Rapids, IA: The Torch Press, 1913) 17.

[4] Staff of the Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, March 20, 2015, “How Adam Rankin Tried to Stop Presbyterians From Singing ‘Joy to the World,’ published by The Aquila Report  at this url.

[5] Average horse speed stats are available at this website.  Estimated distance is from Google maps. I would bet the one-way trip took more than 12 days.

[6] Davidson, History of the Presbytrian Church 82.

[7] Ernest Trice Thompson, Presbyterians in the South, Volume One: 1607-1861 (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1963) 115-116.

[8] Id. at 218-219.

[9] Id.

[10] I was baptized and confirmed in, and currently belong to, a Presbyterian church. I am, after all, a Scots-Irish Rankin. My church’s motto is “ALL ARE WELCOME.” That phrase has several layers of meaning in this era of immigrant hatred, but its most fundamental meaning is that everyone is invited to participate in communion.

[11] Rankin, History of Lexington, Kentucky 108-110.

[12] Townsend, Kentucky in American Letters 17.

[13] Fred Lee Hawkins Jr., Maury County, Tennessee Cemeteries with Genealogical and Historical Notes, Vols. 1 and 2 (1989).

[14] Lancaster Co., PA Will Book J: 208, will of Adam Rankin dated 4 May 1747, proved 21 Sep 1747. Adam devised land to his sons James, Adam, and Jeremiah.

[15] Davidson, History of the Presbyterian Church in the State of Kentucky 95. Chapter III of the book is titled “The Rankin Schism,” 88 et seq. The book is available online  as a pdf, accessed 30 Aug 2018.

[16] I’m looking for that autobiography. No luck so far.

[17] I said Rev. Adam’s father died “about” 1760-61 simply because of the difficulty a 70-year-old man would naturally have pinpointing the exact time something happened when he was a child. Also, Rev. Davidson said that Rev. Adam “was in his fifth year.” I’m not sure whether tthat means he was four going on five, or five going on six.

[18] Rev. Davidson may have been more impressed by the Craig connection than the Rankin name on account of Rev. John Craig, a famous Presbyterian minister from Ireland who lived in Augusta Co., VA. See, e.g., Katharine L. Brown, “John Craig (1709–1774),” Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia, published 2006 available online here.

[19] You can find a transcription of the 1854 letter at this link.

[20] See a transcription of the Mt. Horeb tablet in Chapter 4 here.

 

Line of Adam Rankin d. 1747, Lancaster, PA: Serendipity + Civil War History + Baseball

Many of us have ancestors who served in the Civil War and have some interest in its history. Likewise, many of us have experienced serendipity while conducting family history research – finding something good even though we weren’t looking for it. Having a little major league baseball thrown in is a new one for me, but this article has them all. What next? Hot dogs? Apple pie?

Background

The family in this article belongs to the line of the Adam Rankin who died in 1747 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, whose wife was Mary Steele Alexander. An earlier article about the same line dealt with the family of William Rankin,[1] one of Adam and Mary’s three sons. William and his wife Mary Huston Rankin had eight children, all named in William’s 1792 will:[2]

    1. Dr. Adam Rankin, b. 1762 – d. 1820 – 1830, Henderson Co., KY
    2. Archibald Rankin, b. 1764, d. 24 Jun 1849, Mercersburg, Franklin Co., PA.
    3. James Rankin, b. 1776, probably d. 1820-1830, Centre Co., PA
    4. William Rankin (Jr.), b. 5 Nov 1770, d. 29 Nov 1847, Centre Co., PA
    5. Betsy Rankin, b. 1774.
    6. David Rankin, b. 1777, d. 1853, Des Moines Co., IA
    7. John Rankin, b. 1779, d. 22 Apr 1848, Centre Co., PA
    8. Jeremiah Rankin, b. 26 Nov 1783, d. 18 Feb 1874, Centre Co., PA

My article on William and Mary’s family initially gave short shrift to their eldest son, Dr. Adam Rankin. That is because I had not been able to track him after 1798. Here is what an early version of that article originally said about Dr. Adam:

Adam Rankin (b. ca 1760 – ?) was a doctor, probably born in the early 1760s. In 1792, he granted his brother Archibald a power of attorney for “as long as I am absent” to “transact all my business.” I don’t know where Dr. Adam went when he was “absent.” In 1796, Archibald sold per the power of attorney the land Dr. Adam had inherited from their father.[3] In 1798, Dr. Adam Rankin was listed on a Franklin County tax list. I can find no record for him after that.

Truth in lending compels me to admit I didn’t look very hard for Dr. Adam, because at that time I was hot on the heels four of his brothers in Centre County. Dr. Adam is (hang in there) a part of this narrative.

The Civil War and baseball parts

Not long after publishing the original article, I was exchanging emails with a Rankin family history researcher and distant Rankin cousin. We were talking about “historical” Rankins. He mentioned a Confederate Brigadier General named Adam Rankin “Stovepipe” Johnson and enclosed an article about him.

Here is Stovepipe’s photograph, probably in his Kentucky calvary uniform.

“Stovepipe” acquired his nickname in July of (probably) 1862 in this fashion:

“With a mere thirty-five men at his command, he crossed the Ohio [River] – he believed it to be the first Rebel “invasion” of the North – and attacked the town of Newburgh, Indiana, on July 18. There were two hundred or more Federals in the town, though mostly convalescent soldiers in hospitals. To bluff them into surrendering, Johnson mounted two stovepipes on an old wagon and paraded it around to look like artillery. The ruse worked, the town gave up, and he became ever after Stovepipe Johnson.”

Stovepipe was born in Henderson County, Kentucky in 1834, but moved to Burnet, Texas when he was twenty. That’s pronounced BURN’-it, with emphasis on the first syllable, for you non-Texans. He went back to Kentucky when the war broke out, made a name for himself as a scout for Nathan Bedford Forrest and as a recruiter, and eventually organized and equipped the 10th Kentucky Calvary. He was accidentally shot in the face by one of his own men in August 1864, lost his eyesight, and was captured and imprisoned at Fort Warren until the end of the war. He returned to Texas, where he founded the town of Marble Falls (nicknamed “the blind man’s town”), worked to harness the water power of the Colorado River, served as a contractor for the Overland Mail, and founded the Texas Mining Improvement Company. Oh, yeah, he also wrote an autobiography that is considered a “must read” regarding certain aspects of the Civil War.

He died in Burnet in 1922, and was reportedly a happy, cheerful man, blind or not. It sure didn’t slow him down much, did it? I’m just sorry he wasn’t fighting against slavery. He is buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. There is a ton of information about him on the internet. Googling “Adam Rankin Stovepipe Johnson” produces a wealth of hits.[4]

An article posted by the Texas State History Association says that Stovepipe had six children.[5] Keep Googling, and you will find that one of them was named Adam Rankin “Tex” Johnson (1888 – 1972). He was a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals during 1914-1918. His ERA in the majors was a very respectable 2.96. Here is a picture of Tex. Look at that tiny glove!

There’s more. Tex had a son named Rankin Johnson Jr. who was a major league pitcher for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1941. He’s a nice-looking fellow, and his tombstone is inscribed “TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME,” a sentiment I share.[6] Here’s his picture, which makes me smile:

The next time the announcers for the Houston Astros have a trivia question about father-son major league players, I’ll be ready with “Tex” Johnson and Rankin Johnson. I imagine they will be stumped.

The serendipity part

The serendipity was having my Rankin friend drop Brigadier General Adam Rankin “Stovepipe” Johnson’s name in my lap. It doesn’t take too much imagination to deduce that his mother was née Rankin. Yes, indeed, says the Texas State Historical Association summary about Stovepipe. Her name was Julia Rankin, and she was the daughter of … Doctor Adam Rankin of Henderson Co., KY, who was originally from Pennsylvania. There cannot have been too many Pennsylvania Dr. Adam Rankins at that time.

Dr. Adam (son of William and Mary Huston Rankin and brother of Archibald) was evidently “absent” from Pennsylvania in 1792 because he was busy that year marrying Elizabeth Speed of Danville, Kentucky. She was the first of his three wives, by whom Dr. Adam fathered thirteen children — including a daughter Mary Huston Rankin(his eldest child, named for his mother) and an Archibald Rankin (named for his brother and maternal grandfather, Archibald Huston).

There is a biographical article about Dr. Adam’s family from an 1887 history of Henderson County, Kentucky. It has a nice, long exposition of his descendants, and you can see it here..

A proved descendant of Dr. Adam Rankin has Y-DNA tested and joined the Rankin DNA Project. He matches another descendant of Adam and Mary Steele Alexander Rankin. It is not a close match, so the Rankin DNA Project needs another descendant to firm up the line’s Y-DNA profile.

See you on down the road. There are more Pennsylvania Rankins on the horizon than you can shake a stick at.

Robin

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[1] See the “Follow the Land” article about Adam and Mary’s son William here.

[2] Will of William Rankin of Antrim Township, Franklin Co., PA, dated 20 Oct 1792, proved 28 Nov 1792. “Advanced in age.” Franklin Co., PA Will book B: 256.

[3] Westmoreland Deed Book 7: 392. The deed recites that Archibald Rankin was of Antrim Township, Franklin Co., the 274-acre tract in Westmoreland was originally granted to William Rankin of Antrim on 27 July 1773, and William devised it to his son Dr. Adam Rankin by will dated 20 October 1792. The deed further recites that Dr. Adam Rankin granted his brother Archibald a power of attorney dated 29 Jun 1792. The POA is also recorded at DB 7: 392.

[4] There is a short article posted by the Texas State Historical Association which includes a citation to Stovepipe’s autobiography here..

[5] Id.

[6] Here is a link to Rankin Johnson’s tombstone.