A Crack in the Wall

Moses Friddles - My Great Great Grandfather

My DNA test that I took from Ancestry has produced some unexpected but certainly welcome family links. There has always been one family that I have never been able to take beyond my great great grandfather - Moses Friddles has been a very difficult genealogy puzzle.  It seems that due to my DNA results, I am feeling as if I am finally making progress.

DNA is not a silver bullet...it will not solve all of your genealogical mysteries, but it can give you some guidance in the right direction.  I've always known that Moses Friddles was born about 1826 in South Carolina and spent some time in North Carolina before moving to Johnson Co., TN.  I've known that he was married four times.  The first time to someone with the surname of Munday, then Amanda McKee, Mary Ann Crosswhite (Clark) and lastly to Martha "Mattie" Brown.  I can trace him very easily from 1859 on fairly easily, but before that has always been a problem.  When you have an ancestor who probably doesn't have much in the way of money, there are few ways to track him because he doesn't leave that much of a paper trail.

Moses likely had four children in his first marriage with only two of them surviving to adulthood.  His daughter, Julia, married Sidney Prestwood and had three children and left her husband and ended up out west living near her brother, Albert.  Albert moved west in the 1880's and lived for the most part up at Grouse Flats near Troy, OR.  Not too long before he died, he moved down to Pomeroy, WA.  Since that first wife has always been a mystery, I obtained the death records for both Julia and Albert.  I can't remember which death record it was, but it  provided me with the name of Munday for the mother.  Every once in a while, I would check Caldwell Co., North Carolina for possibilities and did find some interesting connections.

So, now the DNA has pushed me into a different direction.  I know from the two cousins that I have discovered through the DNA tests some definite possibilities of family links.  This is leading me into the direction of looking at the Friddle family as I would a one - name study.  Meaning that if they live in a specific area, I am checking them out and adding them to my database.  I'm also adding Friddles who I know are connected but have moved elsewhere.  I'm not very far into this process but I have already discovered two very interesting coincidences.

Julia Friddles, Moses' daughter, was married to a Sidney Prestwood.  It is interesting to note that one of Sidney Prestwood's brothers, William Thomas Prestwood, married an Elizabeth Adeline Friddle.  She was the daughter of John W. Friddle and Caroline Harris.  John W. Friddle died during the Civil War but is of an age that he could definitely be a sibling of Moses.  When I first started researching genealogy, I was surprised at how many families intermarried multiple times.  Now it no longer surprises me but does make me look at the family differently.  What are the geographic similarities with the two families and what are the family connections?  Families intermarrying can definitely be a clue to something a whole lot more!

John W. Friddle had another daughter, Mary Ann Friddle whose marriage is also an interesting family connection.  She married a John C. Munday.  Now this John C. Munday was born in 1844 so he could be a brother or nephew of the woman that Moses was married to...but he could also be a cousin.  From what I have discovered about his family, there isn't a daughter who is of the appropriate age to have married Moses, but it looks like there still might be a family connection.  Munday is not that common of a name.

So now it looks like I am going to build a database that includes the Friddles as whole and not just those who are directly connected to me.  I will probably spend more time adding Munday's as well in hopes of finding that elusive first wife of Moses Friddles.  My efforts will most likely be concentrated in York Co., SC, Caldwell Co., NC, and Burke Co., NC.  With a little luck and some concentrated research, perhaps the crack in the wall will disappear and the brick wall will no longer exist.