Henry Stiles’ rule #3: Genealogy scams

Clippings from the Townley estate scams

In A Hand-Book of Practical Suggestions for the Use of Students in Genealogy (1899), Henry R. Stiles reminds us that good research may displace firmly held family beliefs. His top three mythbusters: the emigration of the three brothers; the connection to royal bloodlines; and “that somewhere in Great Britain, and in the British Lion’s keeping, there was an immense fortune awaiting its American heirs” (page 15). 

Undoubtedly, get-rich-quick schemes have been around for centuries. In the 19^th century in particular, some gullible Americans believed that by proving their lineage, they would receive an English estate worth gazillions. Ignoring the statute of limitations and the burden of back taxes, clearly there was much legal wrangling to do before they could claim their prize, and that’s where the flimflam man came in.

In the case of the Townley estate, it all started with a letter to the editor to multiple newspapers in the Northeast. Rumors of an inheritance had flourished for 20 years but in the summer of 1845, 200 people who claimed to be members of the family congregated at the court house in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. They read old family records and collected money to send a person to England to investigate the claim. While in England, the investigator kept asking for more information and more money. At some point, the N.J. committee ran out of funds.

However, new claimants continued to fill the pockets of these estate agents. At least two of them were caught. In 1894, James Frazier Jacques and Howell Thomas were convicted in England for obtaining $80,000 under false pretenses and forging documents in another case of Americans in pursuit of the mythical Townley millions.

If your family was caught up in a genealogy scam, be on the lookout for newspaper reports and possible court cases. You may find ledger books, committee meeting notes, correspondence, genealogies, and other materials backing up their claim in archives or in personal collections. Check out local libraries, historical and genealogical societies, WorldCat, and eBay. Also, collect the names of all the other cousins making the same claim. It may turn out that they are related too.

“To the Editor of the Newark Daily Advertiser [from Annapolis, Md.],” Newark Daily Advertiser, 29 Aug. 1845, GenealogyBank.com.

“We shall claim to come in for a share in the Baronial estate of the Townley family,” Newark Daily Advertiser, 10 Oct. 1845, page 2, GenealogyBank.com.

 “Both Convicted. Col. Jacques and Howell Thomas Sentenced for Townley Estate Frauds,” Wheeling Register [Wheeling, WV], 1 Dec. 1894, page 4, GenealogyBank.com.


Thanks to the Genealogy Roadshow on PBS (season 2, episode 3, 2015) for inspiration for this post.

Collateral genealogy: A case study

Tucked away in an 1867 Blackfriars edition of Shakespeare’s complete works, I discovered an old photograph of a man holding a young child. The book’s provenance, the photo’s time period, and the man’s cheekbones suggest that he could be grand-uncle John. Since John died in 1941, my aunt didn’t remember anything about him except that he drowned. Her cousin Florence’s neatly drawn family chart, however, indicated that John had married Mae and had a son William who died as an infant.

Over the years I have pieced together some of John’s life, except his marriage. Mae was only a name, no details, not even dates. I decided to spend a few hours online, using Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org, to see how much I could learn about grand-uncle John’s mysterious wife and marriage.

The first step was to find a marriage certificate at FamilySearch.org. In 1912, a few days shy of his 24th birthday, John married 17-year-old “Mary” in a Catholic church in his hometown. With her parents’ full names and her approximate birth year, I tried to find Mary’s birth certificate, but had no luck. The details were not specific enough, since I didn’t know where she was born. But I did find her parents’ marriage record in Boston, showing John S. was from western Massachusetts while Bridget was an immigrant from Ireland. Could it be the same family?

Then I found an Ancestry.com Member Tree with a “Mary Agnes” born in 1895 to a John and Bridget. Mary Agnes and her siblings have no data beyond the 1900 and 1910 census—except for the youngest sister who marries into the main branch of the poster’s family tree. The mother, Bridget, didn’t have a maiden name in the tree, but the attached 1910 census, two years before John and Mae marry, is in the correct town. I think I have a match.

With the first flush of success, I excitedly send an email to the tree poster, asking if she has more details on Mary Agnes. I mention that I think she married my grand-uncle. But the poster only says, “No, sorry I don’t. Good luck.”

Making Sense of the Census

I follow my hunch that Mae and Mary Agnes are one and the same, figuring I would track down the clues from Mary Agnes’ family in the censuses until either the data proved or disproved that she married my John. 

The 1900 census shows Mary Agnes’ father John was born in Massachusetts, her mother Bridget in Ireland, agreeing with the Boston marriage certificate. Her three older brothers were born in Rhode Island, while Mary Agnes and her younger sister were born in Connecticut. Since the 1900 census asked for month and year of birth, I know Mary Agnes was born in December of 1895. Although the earliest vital records for Connecticut start in the 1630s, statewide registration started in 1897 (two years after Mary Agnes’ birth) and was not fully implemented until 1915. It’s possible that Mary Agnes and her younger sister were born in the same Connecticut town where they are listed in the 1900 census.

By 1910, Mary Agnes is 15 and living in the same New Jersey neighborhood where she’ll marry her future husband two years later. By 1920, I don’t find John and Mae in the census. (My family, I already know, evaded the census taker that year. I have searched page by page and tried all sorts of name configurations—but only John’s married sister shows up.) In the 1930 census, John is living with his parents, married but with no wife listed in the household. At this point, I’m suspecting cousin Florence’s inkling of a divorce in the family may be correct.

Tracking the Collateral Lines

Since I couldn’t find Mary Agnes in the 1920 and 1930 censuses, I started to track down her siblings, one by one. From the 1900 census, I knew the three older brothers’ birth months and years, and all three were born in Rhode Island. It wasn’t difficult finding their draft registration cards—all were born in Pawtucket, but now I had street addresses and occupations.

At Ancestry.com, I do a general search on oldest brother John, and find a Michigan death and burial index that not only matches his birth date but agrees with the parents’ names on Mary’s 1912 marriage certificate. I trace him through the censuses, unsuccessfully search for a marriage or obituary, and find no sign of a sister Mary.

So I continue with the next brother. I find Thomas and his wife, in Pennsylvania, living with his widowed mother Bridget and sister “May,” age 24, single (and using maiden name) in the 1920 census. By 1930, Bridget is living with her third son Thomas in the same town where John and Mae married, but Mae is missing.

Widening the Search

Using her birth year, birth place, and parents’ names in the Ancestry.com search engine, I come across a Mary Agnes who died in 1982 in California. Could it be my John’s wife remarried? I couldn’t find an obituary and I only had the city and a new last name as found on the California Death Indexes and Social Security Death Indexes. But it was worth investigating.

On the 1940 California census, I found a Mary Agnes with her husband Frank, two sons, and Irish-born mother Bridget—all the details fit, including her 1895 birth in Connecticut. But here was the clincher: Mary and her family lived in Long Beach in 1935, but her mother Bridget lived in New Jersey in 1935, in the same town where daughter Mae married my John 23 years before.

Narrowing a Time Frame

Not surprisingly, I didn’t find a divorce record for John and Mae online. Nor did I find a marriage record for Mae and her second husband Frank. Checking the city directories, published every two years, I followed both John and Mae’s families from 1911 to 1931. In 1917, “Mrs. John” is listed separately from John, who lived a few blocks away. In the 1919 directory, his mother-in-law “Bridget, wid[ow of] John” removed to another city 80 miles away, probably taking Mae with her. Based on the 1940 census, Frank and Mary Agnes’ son was born in 1932 in the same state where Mae lived with her brother in 1920. So she probably didn’t return to the old neighborhood. Mae packed up her bags and headed west.

And as for baby William in cousin Florence’s family tree? Well, there’s only so much research you can do online before needing to visit record repositories and relatives.

For privacy reasons, no surnames were used in this case study. All of the data mentioned has been cited in my database. Ancestry.com is a subscription-based web site while FamilySearch.org offers free access to genealogy records.