Identifying the Parents of Jackson Long

Identifying the Parents of Jackson Long

Jackson Long, image courtesy of R. Harrell

The clues to the identity of Jackson’s parents are:

1) Early life history

A story told by his son Luther Kendall Long (see page on Tribute Story about Jackson Long's childhood) suggests that he may have lost one or both parents at an early age, and that he was raised in southeastern Ohio.

2) Census records

The 1880 census for Jackson indicates that he was born in Ohio to parents from Pennsylvania.

3)  His 2^nd marriage certificate

He indicated that his parents were Thomas Long and Mary Long:

Luther K. Long's 2nd Marriage Certificate

4) DNA evidence

Y DNA evidence indicates that our Long patrilineal DNA is most closely related to men who are named Wolcutt/Wolcott and/or Harvey. The DNA is most closely associated with England. It does not match the haplogroup for most of the Longs from Greene County Pennsylvania, which is I2a http://www.longwebs.org/longdna/LongProgenitors.htm.

However, autosomal DNA evidence indicates that our family is related at about the 4^th cousin level to descendants of James Long and his wife Mary Bearmore. The logical reconciliation of this evidence is that Jackson’s mother was a member of this family.

The census records indicate that there was one daughter born before 1800, and three between 1800 and 1810. We can only account for three of those four daughters with certainty (Lydia, Rachel, and the wife of William Conley); therefore, I conclude that Mary is the fourth. One complication is that the wife of William Conley was named Mary in all the census records; although a Long family member in the 1950s identified her as “Ella”. Perhaps Mary was a formal name and the two daughters had secondary names.