For 2020 and probably through 2022, I plan to focus my research pretty heavily on my maternal line ancestors of my great grandmother Loretta WHITFIELD DUNBAR. This research will focus on making additional discoveries about the WHITFORD/WHITFIELD line that I documented last year regarding the BAKER and WHITFORD families of Ontario, Canada along with looking deeper into our two JONES lines on this side of my ancestry.
Loretta’s ancestry is my family line that got me very interested in looking into the early black history of Toledo, Ohio. I remember interviewing her when I was teenager and I asked her where she was born, thinking she’d say some southern state as I thought, at that time, that all black people who lived in the northern USA had older ancestors who participated in The Great Migration – that large wave of movement of African Americans from the south and rural areas to the north, west, and urban areas that started towards the beginning of the 20th century. Instead of naming some southern locale, Grandmother told me that she was born in Toledo. I figured, of course, that her parents must be from the south so I asked her parent’s names and where they were born. She told me that my grandmother (her daughter) was named after her mother. Her mother’s name was Florence ROBINSON (1892-1941) and her father’s name was Harold WHITFIELD (1891-1963). She told me about the story shared yesterday about Harold. Interestingly, neither her mother or father had been born in the south. Both seemingly are descendants of “free persons of color” (FPOC), black people who were not enslaved prior to 1865. Because of issues regarding finding her deeper ancestry, mostly due to the common surnames on her maternal ancestry, I am not certain if she has very deep “free” roots on her mother’s line. Her father Harold’s paternal family had been free since 1804 when they were emancipated in Ontario, Canada. But his mother Martha (Mattie) JONES WHITFIELD, both of her parents were born in the south and it is not known if they were formerly enslaved or not.
In regards to Florence ROBINSON’s ancestry, Loretta told me that she grew up living near her mother’s family so was surrounded by extended family members as a young person. Florence was born on March 2, 1892 to James Edward ROBINSON (called “Bones” born about 1847 died 1910 in Toledo) and Nancy JONES (about 1858 to 1951).
Florence ROBINSON WHITFIELD 1920s
Grandmother didn’t know much about her grandfather as he had died before she was born. I’ve since discovered via finding a very interesting, colorful obituary of him, that he was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He was born about 1847 and died in Toledo in December of 1910. Within his obituary it was stated that he was “one of the most well known negroes in Toledo.” He had been employed as a porter for an organization called the Toledo Cadets, which was a military drill organization that traveled the country doing military drill performances and competitions. On a whim in 2017, I googled that organization and found a book about it published in 1896 that was for sale on a website for $20. Since that wasn’t too pricey, I went ahead and purchased the book and discovered a picture of James Edward ROBINSON was in that publication! I was very excited and it is one of the oldest pictures I have of a relative from Toledo to this day. I have since donated that book to the Toledo Lucas County Public Library since it had photos of a lot of Toledo residents from the 1890s that I thought would be nice to make available to the public.
It is unknown exactly when James ROBINSON moved to Toledo. I plan to hopefully find out more about his ancestry over the course of the next year as well, but will be focusing first on his wife Nancy JONES. Nancy per, documentary sources, along with information shared with my by my grandmother Florence DUNBAR and her sister, lived with my DUNBAR great grandparents in her elder years. My grandmother Florence had told me years ago that her great grandmother’s name was “Nancy BAKER.” So for a long time, I looked for Nancy BAKER instead of Nancy JONES or Nancy ROBINSON. Because of assuming that BAKER was Nancy’s married name, I always thought that Florence ROBINSON WHITFIELD’s maiden name was BAKER. All of these being very common surnames lead to a road block in this line of my family for a long time so I stopped actively researching them until around 2012.
Instead of looking up Nancy, I decided to focus on Florence WHITFIELD and was able to discover that her own maiden name was ROBINSON. Her mother’s maiden name was JONES. Nancy married James ROBINSON in 1874 in Toledo and upon his death, she co-habited with a man by the name of Stephen BAKER. I have yet to find a marriage certificate for Nancy and Stephen BAKER and am always hoping that one will turn up. Oftentimes in the past people who lived in Toledo traveled to other places to get married. Nancy’s daughter Florence ROBINSON, for instance, married Harold WHITFIELD in Monroe, Michigan in 1910 and not Toledo. Though I’ve checked various marriage records in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana, I’ve yet to find a marriage record for Nancy JONES ROBINSON and Stephen BAKER. I’d love to find one since if they legalized their marriage, it would have been after 1910 and had a more modern record where she may have listed her mother’s maiden name or her actual place of birth, which would assist me in my research of this line. She was born about 1858-1859 in Ohio. In most vital records of her children and on her death certificate, it is noted that she was born in either “Greenville” or “Greenfield” in Ohio. Since there are multiple Greenville and Greenfields in Ohio, and because Nancy JONES is a super common name – even amongst the free black population of Ohio prior to 1865, it has been very difficult for me to find out much information on Nancy’s ancestry.
However, I do know that Nancy’s mother’s name was Mary. Mary’s maiden name is unknown for certain but it was listed as both ANDERSON and ARMSTRONG on vital records of her children. Nancy’s father’s name was listed multiple times by her and her siblings as John Wesley JONES Sr. Nancy had one known brother named John Wesley JONES Jr. born about 1854. On his marriage license John Jr stated that he was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania had a registration of births between 1853 and 1855 but I have never been able to find verification of his birth in Pennsylvania. John Jr. died in Toledo on January 7, 1913. He didn’t have any known children with his wife Eva Jane DOSEY (1874-1941).
Nancy has two known sisters and potentially a third. Her oldest sister was named Martha JONES. Martha was born about 1855 , also supposedly in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Martha had noted that she was born in “Greensburg,” Pennsylvania in some vital records, but like her brother John Jr., verification of her birth in Westmoreland County, PA has never been confirmed. Martha married twice in her life but had no children. Her first husband was named George JACKSON. Her second husband was John DENT Jr. (1856-1916) whose family I have written about on the blog before. His father had run away from enslavement in Kentucky and settled in Toledo around 1860. Martha died in Detroit on February 25, 1933 but was buried in Toledo at Forest Cemetery.
Nancy’s younger sister was Frances JONES. Frances was also stated to have been born in “Greenfield” or “Greenville” Ohio but around 1861. Like Nancy, I have not been able to locate for certain where she was born due to there being multiple communities with these names. Frances never married and lived in Toledo from at least 1870 until her death on April 8, 1918. Frances primarily lived with her mother Mary during her entire life until Mary’s death around 1910. Her sister Martha also lived with them for a time.
Around 2016, I contacted a user on Ancestry who had Mary JONES listed as the mother of her husband’s ancestor. That ancestor was named Mabel JONES. I have been in regular contact with this newfound cousin over the past 4-5 years as I was shocked to discover that there was another JONES family member who was related to Nancy who I had never come across before in records. This newfound cousin’s ancestor Mabel was supposedly the daughter of Mary and John JONES Sr. Mabel was born about 1878-1879. However, Mary had been consistently labeled as a “widow” since the 1870 census. Mary would also have been in her mid to late 40s upon the birth of Mabel, which is not impossible but was unlikely. This made me believe, and my cousin also considers it, that Mabel may have been a daughter of Frances since she was an unwed teenager when Mabel was born. Mary may have raised Mabel as her daughter in order to save the reputation of her daughter. Of course, Mabel may very well be the daughter of Mary by another man who was not John JONES Sr. I’m not sure we will ever know for certain. When I took a DNA test in 2017, I was a match to Mabel’s descendants in a range that does indicate we share 3rd-5th great grandparent. My great aunt also took a DNA test for me in 2018. She was a closer match to Mabel’s descendants. Mabel had two children with her husband. Their names were Leonard TOLIVER and Alice TOLIVER . Alice married a man named George SPARKS in Toledo and they had a large amount of children. Many of their descendants have taken DNA tests. When I spoke to my aunt about our matches to this family, she indicated that she had known Mabel’s daughter Alice TOLIVER SPARKS, so knew that Alice and her children were her cousins. We had a funny discussion about how she should have told us this since the SPARKS family is rather numerous in Toledo and I’ve since discovered that I went to school with some of Alice’s descendants as well and never knew they were related to me. I jokingly spoke of how we could have been having “relations” with our cousins.
Even though it is not definitively known if Mabel was the daughter of Frances or Mary, it is known for certain that Mabel’s descendants are related to this line of my family. As noted in my post about Harold WHITFIELD, I got some new DNA matches to my great grandmother Loretta’s family line in of 2019. Going over those new matches, which were very close relatives of my aunt, allowed me to pinpoint the DNA line of Mary JONES. I decided that it would be a good idea to focus again on this JONES line in 2020 in order to see if anything could be determined.
Mabel JONES TOLLIVER about 1900
After reviewing the matches between myself, my aunt and some of our cousins, many of whom are direct descendants of Mabel JONES, (while we are direct descendants of Nancy JONES) I noticed that we all have shared matches to a mixed race family from Cambria County, Pennsylvania with the surname of DORMAN. That family was headed by a man by the name of Orange DORMAN born about 1805 and who died in 1900. His obituary found on the site Find-A-Grave stated that Orange DORMAN had served in the Civil War as a soldier. Two of his sons also served in the military. I made note of this information and built a tree of Orange DORMAN’s descendants that I plan to better fill in over the course of the first six months of this year to find clues to how we are connected to this line. I noticed upon first creating that tree that he had a substantial amount of descendants who later “passed” as white after moving away from Pennsylvania to Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois. Most of the DNA matches we share with this family, they only have trace amounts of African ethnic admixture of between 1 and 10%. He also had a son named George DORMAN , who was listed has having been born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania in 1848. This is the same county that both Martha JONES and John W. JONES Jr. – Mary’s oldest children, both stated was their place of birth.
Going through DNA matches and searching for those with the surname of DORMAN also allowed me to pinpoint some of the descendants of Orange DORMAN in our DNA match lists. My process for doing this involves doing a search for the surname of DORMAN. Because AncestryDNA deployed in 2019 a system where clusters can be identified with a specific colored dot, I dotted the DORMAN matches that match either me or my aunt or another cousin of mine AND one of Mabel’s descendants. After marking all of these matches in a purple dot, I went through and labeled the line of descent for that person. Because I have a pretty well developed research tree, down to the early 20th century for most of Orange Dorman Sr.’s descendants, I was able to label which of these DORMAN matches are descendants of which of his children. For those who are not seemingly descendants of Orange Sr., I have noted them for more research in 2020.
Because these DORMAN matches share as matches my family members who are descendants of either Mabel or Nancy, I feel confident that the connection is via Mary versus John JONES Sr. This due to what I shared above, in that it is unlikely that Mabel is a descendant of Mary JONES’s husband. Even if she was Mary’s daughter, John Sr. was deceased by the time she was born. If Mabel was Frances’ daughter, she would still be connected to Mary’s line as Mary’s granddaughter. This leads me to believe that Mary JONES’s maiden name may have been DORMAN or she is related in some way to the DORMAN family. I wondered if perhaps Orange DORMAN was her father or brother or an uncle of hers. More research is necessary but it was a huge discovery to find this connection in our DNA match lists as it finally allowed for me to find something out about Mary’s roots.
In preparation of 2020 research, I’ve also asked my brother to test since siblings inherit different portions of DNA from their parents, even full siblings. DNA is a puzzle so not everyone gets the same pieces in their genetic makeup. I’ve discovered, sadly in my view, that I have very little DNA inherited from Loretta’s WHITFIELD/WHITFORD surname line. Luckily my aunt has a lot of that DNA due to being more closely related to those generations. One of my 1st cousins/once removed, I saw tested as well this past year and she also is a match to the WHITFIELD/WHITFORD line in a substantial amount even though we are of the same generation removed from that ancestor. So I’m hoping my brother will inherit more of our mother’s admixture from both Mary JONES and from the WHITFIELD/WHITFORD line that will assist with 2020 research. Males inherit an exact copy of their mother’s X chromosome so I’m betting that he has a better spread of our mother’s genetic material versus myself.
Luckily, I have a substantial amount of matches to the DORMAN line. I have been building a cluster of DORMAN matches in order to fully investigate them in 2020 and hopefully be able to confirm Mary’s connection to this family.
Interestingly (or frustratingly), I have another surname JONES line in the lineage of Loretta WHITFIELD DUNBAR. The DORMANs I believe are connected to her via her mother’s line. Loretta’s father Harold WHITFIELD also has a JONES line in his lineage. His mother’s name was Martha (or Mattie) JONES (1865-1949). So two of Loretta’s grandmother’s had maiden names that were JONES.
This other JONES line is connected to the family of Toledo basketball great William “Bill” McNeill JONES who was a star player for Woodward High School in the 1930s and is in the University of Toledo Athletic Hall of Fame. He later played in a precursor to the NBA as one of the country’s first African American professional basketball players. Unfortunately, this JONES line has been harder for me to pin point in DNA matches. I have yet to meet, either online or in person, any relatives who are related to us via this line. I am also planning on attempting to do more research on Martha JONES’s parents. I believe they may have escaped slavery prior to the end of the Civil War. Martha was born in Delaware County, Ohio in 1865. Most of my research on this line in 2020 will be focused on exploring the black community of Delaware County for clues into this side of my family.
Black In Toledo 