In that last series of posts about our photo trek across Edgefield and Saluda Counties I mentioned several surnames, and that I was distantly related to them. The names from the Logue-Timmerman feud to whom I’m distantly related are Timmerman, Dorn and Harling. And I mean seriously distantly.
Just to clarify how distantly related, here’s an abbreviated family chart from the LDS Family Search website:
This starts with Elijah Dorn, whose grave I tried to find near Celstia in Saluda County while on our trek. His daugher, Betty Ann Dorn, was my great grandmother, and married John Lafayette Smith. Here’s a photo of Betty Ann with her family:
Elijah Dorn was my great-great grandfather, and he married Elizabeth Ouzts. The chart above follows the matrilineal line. George Ouzts, her father and my great-great-great grandfather, married Francis Timmerman. George’s father, also named George, married Elizabeth Harling. That brings all of the names from the feud into the fold.
Going back to Francis Timmerman, her parents (my great-great-great grandparents) were Jacob Timmerman and Elizabeth Clegg. Elizabeth’s father was one Samuel Campbell Clegg, who was executed at Star Fort in Ninety-Six as a British Loyalist for his part in the Battle of Kettle Creek in Georgia.
So, when I visit a place like Little Stevens Creek Baptist Church and see all of these names in the cemetery, it’s not hard to imagine that they are distantly related in some way.
It’s amazing, though, how much errant information is out on the web. As I was searching the Family Search website I found my mother listed as “Joe Claire” rather than “Joclair”, and listed as male. I’ve mentioned before how Ancestry.com tends to perpetuate these errors. During some of my research I also found WikiTree, which has some of these same problems. I don’t think there will ever be a truly accurate family tree.