Paying Dues Pays Off -- Another Brick Wall In Ruins

One of the things that I always tell people in my lectures, is to always try to take advantage of local resources that are available to you. I can't believe I took so long to heed my own advice on this one! I've been looking under every stone I could find for information on the parentage of my 4th great grandfather, David Stevens. I know lots about him, his wives, his divorce in 1817, his kids, and all the descendants. But not knowing who his parents were has plagued me for the past several years. I knew where he was from, but with the common last name of Stevens, it was fairly daunting to sort through the myriad of possible fathers in the area.

I recently joined the Berkshire Family History Association, thinking that perhaps since the last known residence of David prior to his move to the virtual wilds of Ohio in 1818, had been Pittsfield, Massachusetts in Berkshire County. I noticed that one of the "perks" of membership was three free hours of research by a volunteer of the society, but it took me close to a year to get around to submitting everything I knew about David in the hopes of finding just one tiny clue to his ancestry.

The package of photocopies came in the mail the other day, and I saved opening it for last, hoping beyond hope that the answer would be inside, but at the same time preparing myself for disappointment. I opened the envelope, and sat down with the stack of 20 photocopies and started with the report of what resources they had searched. The first several references listed had noted in the "relevant page #" column, "nothing relevant found". My heart was sinking - I feared the worst.

I started slowly going through the photocopies. Some were information that I had already found in my own previous research, others were "long shots" but contained the name I was looking for, David Stevens, but without any real way to be sure he was "my" David Stevens. Then halfway through the stack I hit gold - notes from the will of one Eliphalet Stevens, a Revolutionary war patriot, who left land to his sons Jeremiah, Abner and David. That alone didn't excite me, until I continued to read what Eliphalet had willed to his daughters - specifically to his daughter "Olive the wife of David Ashley residing in Ohio". BINGO! An early history of Ohio had clearly stated that Olive Stevens Ashley had been come to Ohio from Massachusetts, driven in a sled by her brother David Stevens of Pittsfield.

This is what we dream of, isn't it? That golden moment when the answer just pops right out at you! I'm so glad I spent the money and the few minutes it took to join that Family History Association, even though I will never attend a single meeting. The cost of the membership was less than the hourly rate of most genealogists, and the benefit to me was worth ten times the weight of any genealogist in gold!


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