M. 17 Jan 1838 in Parke County, Indiana
Husband: Jackson Sutherlin
D. 31 Mar 1907 in Grady County, Oklahoma
The story of Mary Fleming illustrates how family history is lost through the passing of time, but how we can now rediscover that history through DNA.
From printed sources we know that Mary was born on August 16, 1819 in Ohio. On the 1880 census, her father was identified as having been born in Virginia and her mother in New Jersey. My own DNA shows that her mother’s maiden name was Hand, and her parents’ first names were possibly James and Nancy (see below). Mary seems to have been their youngest child with at least three older brothers, James, Eli and Henry. Sometime between 1820 and 1830, Mary’s father died and the family moved to Parke County, Indiana; in 1830, Mary and probably her mother were living in the household of her brother Eli.
The earliest certain documentation of Mary’s life was on January 17, 1838, when she married a man named Jackson Sutherlin in Parke County. Around this time, she was said to have joined the Methodist Church, which was likely her husband’s religion. Mary gave birth to a daughter in 1840; between about 1844 and 1859, she had nine more children, but many of them died young and not all of their names are known. Mary and Jackson appear to have moved a lot during this time. In 1840, they lived in Monroe, Indiana. By 1844, they were in Holt County, Missouri. Then they seem to have gone back to Indiana by 1854. The 1860 census had them listed in two places: Walker, Kansas, and Lexington, Missouri.
Two 1860 census listings for Mary's family. Top is in Walker, Kansas and bottom is in Lexington, Missouri.
Mary’s husband Jackson was a farmer, but by 1860, he was deaf, and he may have lost his hearing much earlier. Certainly this was a challenge for him in his everyday life, and probably for Mary as well. Another challenge for the family was that the Civil War caused much violence all around where they lived. The border between Kansas and Missouri was overrun by gangs of men who were for and against the Confederacy, and violence often broke out between them. Mary’s two oldest daughters each married men who served in the Union Army, but luckily none of her sons were old enough to fight in the war.
After the Civil War, the Sutherlins continued to move back and forth between Kansas and Missouri. In 1865, they were in Johnson, Kansas, and in 1870, they were in Jackson County, Missouri. Mary's daughter Elizabeth died in 1869, leaving Mary to raise her young son, Tom Carey. Then tragedy struck in 1878 when Jackson was killed by a train; it was said that he walked too close to the tracks, and because he was deaf, he didn’t hear the train coming. The following year, Mary moved in with her son James and his family in Everett, Kansas.
By 1892, Mary had moved to Parsons, Kansas along with grandson Tom, now age 28. They lived in Parsons until 1895 when they both moved to the town of Coffeyville, in the next county over. The Kansas State Census that year had listings for the two of them in both towns; in Parsons, she was the head of the household, but in Coffeyville, Tom was listed as the head. He got married later that year.
Sometime after 1900, Mary moved to Grady County, Oklahoma to be near her son James and his family. She died there on March 31, 1907 and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Minco under a marker that says "Grandma."
Mary's grave in Evergreen Cemetery. (source: Find-a-Grave)
There is no paper trail leading from Mary Fleming to her parents, but some circumstantial and DNA evidence has unveiled the truth about who some of her family was. My research began when I found that I share DNA with 22 descendants of a couple who lived in Kentucky, Ohio and Illinois, Eli Hand (1779-1857) and Jane Fleming (~1783-1854). Census data told me that Jane Fleming was originally from Virginia, and this fit with Mary’s paternal heritage. But what was more interesting was that I found other DNA matches who were of descendants of Eli Hand’s brother George (1789-1845), and the Hand family was originally from New Jersey. I also had numerous matches with descendants of two other men named Hand, Aaron (1760s-1839) and Jeremiah (1772-1851). By plotting the DNA that all of these matches shared with me, I determined that they were very likely brothers of Eli and George.
Using tools of genetic genealogy, I was able to conclude that Mary’s mother was a sister of Eli Hand, and Mary’s father was very likely a brother of Jane Fleming. Unfortunately the records of these people are spotty, and Mary’s parents’ first names may never be proven, but Jane Fleming was known to have a brother named James, and a research note written by one of Eli and Jane’s descendants said that Eli had a sister named Nancy. Besides the shared DNA I have with descendants of this couple, the 1840 census showed one of Eli and Jane’s sons living in Parke County on a farm next to two adult children of Mary’s brother James. This is unlikely to be a coincidence.
My DNA shows something else worth noting. One long segment has been identified by 23andMe as being from Finland, and most of my matches who were Hand descendants share DNA on this segment. Why is this significant? Because Eli Hand’s mother, a native of New Jersey, was said to be “a Swede.” Colonial New Jersey had a small population who descended from the 17th century colony of New Sweden, many of whom were actually Finns. This is the only logical source of my Finland DNA.
Eli Hand’s father was a man named John or Jesse Hand, who was said to have brought his family to Kentucky sometime in the 1780s. His heritage traced back several generations in Essex County, New Jersey. The Hand family had migrated there from East Hampton, Long Island, and before that, they were part of the Great Migration of Puritans to New England. John/Jesse Hand was said to be closely related to Phebe Hand (1767-1854), the mother of Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877). Incredibly, if this was true, Mary Fleming was the second cousin of the richest man in America.
As for Mary’s father, assuming that Jane Fleming was from the same Fleming family (and my DNA suggests this), this may be Mary’s most interesting heritage of all. According to family stories among Jane’s descendants, the family was of Virginia’s elite class (Jane’s father was said to have broken away to live on the frontier). And one line had two very important ancestors: John Rolfe and Pocahontas. The lineage could be true because there is a line all the way down to a Fleming family among Virginia’s 18th century elites, but it’s likely impossible to connect Jane to them because there’s no known documentation.
Children:
1. Sarah Ann Sutherlin — B. 16 Feb 1840, (probably) Putnam County, Indiana; D. 26 Jan 1901, Payne County, Oklahoma; M. Thomas Jefferson Nail (1833-1902), 3 Oct 1859, Westport, Missouri
2. Elizabeth C. Sutherlin — B. about 1844, Missouri; D. about 1869, Kansas; M. (1) Simon C. Carey (~1844-1865), 24 Dec 1863, Ray County, Missouri; (2) James Hiram Hampton (~1834-1893), 13 Aug 1868, Allen County, Kansas
3. Susan Sutherlin — B. about 1846, Missouri; D. (probably) young
4. Catherine Sutherlin — B. about 1848, Missouri; D. (probably) young
5. Andrew Jackson Sutherlin — B. about 1852, Missouri
6. James Madison Sutherlin — B. 22 Apr 1854, Indiana; D. 18 Jan 1948, Grady County, Oklahoma; M. Sarah Margaret Smith (1861-1933), about 1877
7. William M. Sutherlin — B. Sep 1859, Missouri
Sources:
Indiana Marriages, 1811-2007
1840, 1850, 1860 and 1880 U.S. Census records
1865 and 1895 Kansas State Census
Find-A-Grave
Rootsweb message boards: Carey, Sutherlin
"Grandma Sutherlin Dead,"The Minco Minstrel, 5 Aug 1907
