My most annoying brick wall
I've avoided writing about it but we all knew it was coming eventually
There’s one particular genealogical mystery in my family tree that has consumed more of my time than any other, and the only reason I haven’t written about it yet here is because I feel like I somehow have both way too much and way too little to say about it. I have learned so much over the several years I have spent (not continuously) working on this problem, but as far as figuring out what I want to know, I have found next to nothing other than the same few documents I found right at the very beginning. Everyone who knows me and is kind enough to humor my genealogy rambling has heard about Aaron King, so I might as well write about him here to spare them a bit.
The progenitor of my surname line, Aaron King. He’s my fifth great grandfather on two lines because two of his descendants, my great-great grandparents, married each other. (They were second cousins.)
The earliest known record with this Aaron King on it is in Terrebonne Parish, a land sale for which he was a witness, which occurred on 16 Dec 1825. If you read my last post, this may be familiar. :-)
No. 325 Power of Attorney dated December 16, 1825. James BOWIE of the Parish of Rapides, gave power of attorney to Lemuel TANNER. Witnessed by Edmond HOGAN and Aaron KING.
The next record I’ve found of him is the baptism of his first child with Eloise Bergeron, Louisiane Elise King, on 29 Oct 1827, in Thibodaux, Louisiana.
So then you may think, shouldn’t there be a marriage record for Aaron and Eloise sometime before this child’s baptism? Normally, yes. In our case, almost certainly not.
Eloise was married to Thomas Rhodes in 1812. She had two children with him, a son and a daughter, born in 1815 and 1816. Sometime around 1816, maybe before his daughter was even born, Thomas abandoned Eloise and moved to Alabama, where he bigamously remarried and started a new family. Eloise was left in an awkward position, neither a widow nor a divorcee. She never married again, but she had several relationships. She went on to have four more children with Aaron, the youngest being born in 1839. Eloise continued to be referred to as Widow Rhodes or Madam Rhodes throughout her life.
In 1828, Aaron witnessed a few more land sales:
No. 632 1/99 On June 30, 1828 Marie Magdelaine GUIDRY, wife of Charles BENOIT, declared that they have received everything of the deceased H. S. THIBODAUX [presumably this is Henry Schuyler Thibodaux], before his death, except the sum $119.86, her part of the succession of her deceased father Pierre GUIDRY. Witnessed by Ase. DUGAS and Aaron KING.
No. 720 3/462 On November 15, 1828 Norbert BONVILLAIN declared that he has sold, cede, delivered and in fact, he hereby sells, cedes, and delivers to Dr. D. D. DOWNING, of Port Gibson Mississippi to wit; a piece of land, situated in Terrebonne Parish, about 8 miles from Bayou Lafourche, containing 2 arpens front on each side of Bayou Terrebonne, with depth as the concession or survey calls for, bounded above by land Mrs. Henry S. THIBODAUX sold to Dr. D. D. DOWNING and below by land previously owned by Dr. D. D. DOWNING, this sale for $600.00. Witnessed by Aaron KING and Ambroise DUGAS.
Also in 1828, from Terrebonne Parish Life Lines, vol. 16, no. 1, p. 32, in the minutes of the police jury of Terrebonne Parish, Aaron King is in a list of people who filed suit against the parish in 1828. I think this has something to do with taxes that were either owed or paid, but I’m not really sure what the list signifies.
He does appear on the 1830 census in Terrebonne Parish. The house hold consisted of (my guesses in parentheses):
One male, age 5-10 (Henry Richard King, son)
Two males, age 10-15 (John Jackson Rhodes & Charles Hatch, both Eloise’s sons from previous relationships)
One male, age 40-50 (Aaron King)
Two females, under 5 (???)
One female, age 5-10 (Louisiane Elise, daughter)
One female, age 10-15 (Celestine Rhodes, Eloise’s daughter)
One female, age 30-40 (Eloise Bergeron)
One female, age 90-100 (???)
It’s certainly possible that two female children died as babies before being baptized. They did not live near a church. The more interesting question, in my opinion, is who that ancient woman could have been! She’s not Eloise’s mom; Victoire Benoit was long deceased. The neighbors on either side are widow Narcisse Marcel and William Roddy Jr.
And… that’s it. The last time he’s on any document that I’ve found is when his confusingly named daughter Elise Anne’s baptism was recorded on 13 Apr 1839, also in Thibodaux. Between the two daughters, he and Eloise had three sons: Henry Richard, Henry George, and Jean Thomas. Henry Richard and Jean Thomas are both my ancestors.
None of these documents give us much information on who Aaron King was. His parents aren’t named on his children’s baptismal records (although I definitely need to look at the originals in case there is information there not included in the abstracts in Father Hebert’s books). The 1830 census didn’t ask for information about place of origin, much less parents’ places of origin. It only tells us that Aaron was probably born between 1780-1790. I have no idea where he came from, who his parents were, I don’t even have a general idea of his ethnic background. King is a rather unhelpful surname to have! It’s common across several different groups, and many other languages have an equivalent that may or may not be translated to English in America.
Although the 1830 census is sparse on information, later censuses asked about the places of origin of parents. What did Aaron’s kids (or whoever answered the census for Aaron’s kids) have to say about their father’s birthplace on the 1880 census?
Henry Richard’s father is listed as from New York, and Jean Thomas’s, Louisiana. The other kids died before the 1880 census, and that question wasn’t asked before then. In my opinion, the New York answer is likely to be a clue. Anybody answering the census questions for the household would have been likely to just say everyone’s parents were from Louisiana by default without special knowledge otherwise. However, New York is specific enough to potentially have some basis in reality. Aaron was probably from “up North”. It seems reasonable enough that he could have been an “American” settler. He appears around the time they started pouring into the area, and the people he’s mentioned on records with were often Anglo-Americans. His name sounds English.
All of this is well and good, but what’s gotten on my nerves about this from the very beginning is that, for some reason, everyone seems to be convinced Aaron was from England. My great granduncle compiled a seven generation chart of the descendants of Aaron King before I ever got into researching, and his (unsourced, but very accurate for everything below Aaron) chart has Aaron from England. Many, many trees on Ancestry and other sites have Aaron as having come from England. I have no idea where anyone got this! And also, no idea why anyone would make it up.
I’ve seen various unsourced stories online at different times about some number of siblings (it varies), usually with at least two named William and Aaron, having come from England to America via New York and ended up in Louisiana. Interestingly, there is another branch of Kings in Louisiana that also has this story linked to their trees, also with no actual evidence besides these unsourced stories. That family’s earliest known ancestor was named William King. He married a woman named Anna Flanigan and raised a family in St. Landry Parish. His first born son was named Aaron (born about 1826). I’m going to make a separate post about what I’ve learned about this using DNA, but I want to note while I’m on the topic of this other King branch: I found a descendant to take a Y test, and he didn’t match us. I’m not 100% convinced that he doesn’t just have an NPE somewhere on his paternal line as I haven’t got autosomal results to check for that. It would be swell if I could find a guy who already tested in that line, even just at Ancestry or 23andme, but so far, no luck. It could just be a weird coincidence that our families seem to have such similar lore, but I’m definitely still more than a little suspicious.
I think this is a good stopping point. I have summarized all the records I know of for sure relating to the correct Aaron King, and all the information I know about him and how I know it. It’s not much. In the future I’ll write about my attempts at DNA research on this line and go into some of the other research tangents I’ve been down trying to figure this out.