Divisions and Precisions

Family Matters

Among my grandma's things was a large collection of family photographs. My mom and I spent quite a bit of time going through them during the last week of her life. The oldest of those pictures are now mine, and they've rekindled my long-standing interest in genealogy and family history. One of the pictures, a reproduction of a photo probably taken in the 1920s, is of my great-grandmother, Jane Bentley Baker, and her brothers and sisters, and possibly her father or grandfather or uncle. I still haven't quite tracked down all of the relationships. The picture itself wasn't labeled, so before my grandmother's funeral, I sat down with my great aunt Lula (Grandma's sister) and asked her who everyone was. She knew most of the names.

"Now that's Uncle John Vent Bentley," she'd say, "and that's Uncle Otho. That's William. That right there is Aunt Nancy Ann and Cora and Josephine and Laura... and that's my mother..." She went on until she named just about everyone. There is an original picture of my great-grandfather (Jane's husband Ed Baker) taken when he was a young man, which would have placed it right around the early 1900s, as my grandmother was born in 1908. There are a couple of pictures of Martin and Malinda Bentley, parents to all of the above children -- my great-great-grandparents. To give you an idea of how old the picture might be, Malinda died in 1933.

Scarily, my maiden name was Bentley. Scarier still, my grandfather on my father's side was named William Bentley. From the same area of Kentucky as the Bentleys listed above. If that's the same William, that means my parents were first cousins once removed -- my grandmother was my father's first cousin. Now, William is a very common name, and there are a ton of Bentleys in Pike and Letcher Counties, so it's probably not the same man. Right now I'm trying to find out more information on my father's parents, because it's highly likely my parents were related and didn't know it. I'd just like to find what the relationship was. (Any jokes about my non-forking family tree may be directed to the email address at the bottom of the page. ;))

So last night I idly went over to Rootsweb and did a search on Otho Bentley, figuring he had the most unique name of the bunch. Jackpot! Not only was he listed, but Martin and Malinda were as well, and someone had already traced their ancestry back to the 1700s. I was captivated. I spent over an hour surfing through my family tree. Otho, it seems, was a profoundly fertile man who had twenty-one children by two wives. As near as I can tell, he had about eight brothers and sisters, including my great-grandmother Jane.

Among the other fascinating tidbits, one of my ancestors (probably more than one, but one's been verified) William Cromwell, born in Wiltshire, England in 1637, was transported to Maryland in 1667. In other words, he was probably a criminal who got shipped to the colonies. We moved further south eventually, to Rowan County, North Carolina, and eventually to Letcher County, Kentucky, which is where my grandmother and mother were both born.

The real kicker, as far as I'm concerned, lies way back in the 1600s. There are a lot of Cromwells listed in the family tree back around that time, minor knights in Huntingdon. One of them was named Oliver. He may have been THE Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of England who terrorized the Irish and executed Charles I, etc. The birth year and death year are the same, the wife's name is the same. The parents' names in my list, however, are not. But still... if it is that particular Oliver Cromwell, that means he's my great grand uncle, about eleven generations back. Oy, if he is, the Irish ancestors on my father's side are going to come kick my ass...

I am absolutely amazed by all this. It's like putting a huge jigsaw puzzle together, only better. For all of the information I have about my great-grandmother's brothers and sisters, she has shown up on none of the family lists so far. I don't know if it's because she was alive when the original research was done (as most genealogists protect the privacy of living relatives) or if she's just been forgotten. I have a hunch we may be a missing branch of the Bentley-Baker family, as far as the genealogy world is concerned.

Imagine, me -- a missing link! Posted by Lisa at August 24, 2001 09:20 AM