The Sheesley Connection - Part 3

About a year ago, I took my first AncestryDNA test. This is by far one of my favorite Christmas presents ever and I could not wait to get my results. I was really looking for several things with my results: confirmation of the work I had already done and (hopefully) a match to some of my missing relatives, including Mary Elizabeth's father.

By this point in time, I had pretty much exhausted my Sheesley research. I had no real reason to believe that Mary Elizabeth had really ever lived outside of Perry County, PA. I had every reason in the world to believe that Sarah Jane did not always give the most accurate information (i.e. depending on what census you look at, her parents are either from PA, OH, or IL). This, coupled with the fact that there were very few Sheesley's living in Perry County led me to believe that Sheesley was perhaps an adopted last name.

Recently, while search through my DNA matches, I started to notice that some of my matches listed Schiessley as a family name and they all seemed to trace back to the ancestor. This intrigued me. What if the Sheesley/Schiessley name really was a family name afterall? What I sometimes do when I am not sure about a connection is to put it in my tree anyway to see if anything pops.

A little over a week ago, I received a friendly email via Ancestry.com from someone who said they believed they may have some information about Mary Elizabeth. My initial reaction was that this was simply be a friendly and short email exchange with no real information gained. What I got was wholly different.

The email I received was a long explanation on a man named Peter Sheesley of Dauphin County, PA. Peter is ~35 years older than Sarah Jane. Peter spent almost his entire life in Dauphin County. Peter had a wife and children. In mid 1850, Peter lost his wife and his children were married adults. In 1860, Peter shows up in a Mifflin County census records living with the McCormick family. Five houses down the street, in a household containing more McCormick family members is a 24 year old servant girl named Jane Ferguson.

At long, long last a fellow genealogist helped me to solve this long standing family history mystery. I can unequivocally say that without the help of this person, I do not know that I would have ever stumbled upon this information myself. That being said, there is still a lot more research to do now that I have an entire new line to review. But at least I have a new line to research thanks to a distant cousin who took the time to reach out.