By John Pierce (Group C)
Prior to submitting a DNA sample to the National Geographic Genome Project, I knew my gr(x2)grandfather, Theodore S. Pierce, was born in Hampton, Washington County, NY, but no one in my family had ever gotten beyond him. There was a Shubel Pierce in Hampton, the right age to be Theodore's grandfather, but I couldn't find the missing link. Through research on the Internet, I determined that Shubel had three son's (Amos, Mason, & Shubel, Jr.), but none of them were Theodore's father as their lines seemed to be pretty well documented. I found one little paragraph on a Washington County genealogy website mentioning the family of Shubel Pearce arriving in the late 1790s and listing the children, including mention of a Jesse--but was Jesse male or female and did he or she live to adulthood?
Not long after I submitted a DNA sample , I got in touch with Todd who was an exact match except for two markers out of a 67-marker test. He thought if we were any closer we'd be sharing a clothes closet. He was a documented direct descendant of the person I was trying to connect to, Shubel Pearce, via son Amos. Todd provided me with some pages from a family history which his great aunt had written which mentioned Jesse as being Shubel's forth son--but no further details.
My great(2)grandfather's eldest son happened to be named Jesse, so I finally thought I was on to something. One day I, while exploring findagrave.com, I decided to try searching for variations of Pierce, such as "Peirce" and "Pearce", and found that someone had posted a memorial including gravestone photos for Shubel Pearce, buried at the Brick Church Cemetery in Hampton, NY, my gr(x2)grandfather's birthplace. I asked the submitter if he could return to the cemetery and look for adjoining graves, and to be on the lookout for a Jesse Pearce. A day later he reported back that next to Shubel and wife was a stone for Jesse Pearce, d. 1830 at age 32, two years after the birth of my gr(x2)grandfather.
Just recently, I got in touch with another direct descendant of Shubel (thanks to findagrave) who had a list of family members and birthdates, probably copied long ago from a family bible. It included son Jesse and his exact birthdate, August 5, 1798.
I believe Jesse is the piece of the puzzle that connects me back to Capt. Michael Pearce. Everything fell into place.
