As a family historian, one of my jobs is to determine if the documents in front of me actually refer to the family I am researching. The failure to properly analyze historical records is at least partially responsible for folks deciding that they are related to this person whose history is interesting, exciting, or matches what they wish their family story to be.
Recently I was contacted by a lady who wanted to determine the Confederate unit in which her great-grandfather fought during the Civil War. All she knew was his name (John Stanford Luna), the name of his wife (Katie Little), a pension number (7193), and that John lived in Bedford County, Tennessee. Tennessee residents were predominantly Confederate supporters, but there was a strong pro-Union faction in East Tennessee. Bedford County is in central Tennessee, suggesting that it was likely that John did, in fact serve with the Confederate Army. If that was true, then his pension would have been a Tennessee pension since Confederate soldiers did not receive federal pensions. (the reasons for that are a different story)
I began my search with the National Park Service Soldiers and Sailors Database. The search revealed that John S. Luna served in Co. B of the 53rd Tennessee Infantry. It also noted that his records were filed under "J.S. Luna" and "John S. Lunah."
Fortunately, the Tennessee service records are included in the subscription-based Fold3.com database and I was able to locate the 19 pages of John Luna's military service. They detailed John's service which included John's capture on two separate occasions as well as a flesh wound he suffered from a gunshot to his left arm. One of the documents included a physical description of John Luna, which is a nice bonus since so often we do not know what our ancestors looked like.
Another page noted that John enlisted in Nashville, Tennessee which is about 50 miles north of Bedford County. This fact sounded a little warning bell in my head. There were units raised in Bedford County during the Civil War so it made little sense for John to travel such a great distance (two or three days on foot) simply to enlist in Nashville. A quick search of the Wiki related to the 53rd Tennessee Infantry on FamilySearch.org told me that the men of Company B came predominantly from Marshall County, Tennessee As a student of the Civil War I also know that most men served in units raised in their hometowns, serving under men they knew and respected, and serving with their cousins, friends, and neighbors. I began to wonder if this man was really the John Luna I sought.
The State of Tennessee has an online database "Tennessee Confederate Pension Applications: Soldiers & Widows." A search of the alphabetic list of applicants offered no John or J.S. Luna, but there was a "John S. Luria" from Marshall County who served in the 53rd Tennessee Infantry with pension #7193. The spelling of the surname could simply be an example of the indexer mis-reading difficult handwriting. There was no record of a Bedford County pensioner named John Luna.
FamilySearch.org, a free database, includes over 375,000 records in the category of "Tennessee, Confederate Pension Applications, Soldiers and Widows, 1891-1965." Here I was able to find the pension file for John S. Luna, Pension #7193. The file included John's pension application in which he stated that he was born in October of 1843 in Marshall County, not Bedford County, Tennessee.
John also reported that he was married, but did not include the name of his wife. However, in 1950 Miss June Luna of Huntsville, Alabama requested pension information for John Solomon Luna and the widow's pension, if applicable, for his wife, Margaret Ann Cheek. According to the information provided by my client, John's middle name was Stanford, not Solomon, and his wife was Katie, not Margaret. The possibility that the John Luna who served in the 53rd Tennessee Infantry was not the ancestor of my client was growing stronger.
Genealogy sometimes means returning to the drawing board, so to speak, and starting over. That is what I advised for this particular client. The important questions to be answered are:
How does she know that John Stanford Luna is her ancestor? Are the names of John and Katie in a family Bible? On a document? Or are they simply names discovered by another relative and assigned to the family tree?
What is the name of John's child who would be her grandfather or grandmother? It is possible to determine the names of that person's parents via a death certificate, possibly a birth or baptismal record, or by tracing wills and probates or land transactions.
It would be so easy to simply go along with what the client wishes and believes. I could have presented the Civil War service record and pension application as bona fide records pertaining to John Stanford Luna since the names appear to match the name of the ancestor; however, the differing locations and names of the wives are sufficient evidence to raise doubts.
Family history is not always easy to pursue. There are false leads, red herrings, and wrong turns. Clients provide incorrect information and can try to steer the research along preferred lines. But good historical research and honest genealogy means that an absence of contradictory evidence is not the same as positive proof of a relationship.
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