Rachel Gosnell

After I identified Susannah Tilghman Parker's mother (see post from 4 April), I wanted to learn more about her father. While researching family members who fought in the War of 1812, I had come across the name of Jacob Tilghman in the same unit as the Parkers. I figured this was a good place to start, so I did a Google search for "Jacob Tilghman" in Maryland.

The first thing I found was a reference to a Jacob Tilghman who was born about 1790 and married Rebecca Israel in 1818. This looked like a promising lead, not for Susannah's father, but for a possible brother. Jacob and Rebecca were married by the same minister who married Zebedee and Susannah Parker, Edward Triplett and Elizabeth Parker, and Susannah's mother and her second husband, John Reed. I made a note to follow up on this line of research, then looked at some of the other hits on Google.

One of the hits was a long post from a genealogy message board. As I scanned down the message looking for the name of Tilghman, something caught my eye. There was reference to a Rachel married to William Parker!

After I located the Tilghman reference in the post, I went back and read the section about Rachel and William Parker. It was a reference to the will of Zebediah Gosnell, who died in 1807, leaving the following children: Greenbury, James, William, Rachel Parker (wife of William), Ann Israel (wife of Ely), Sarah, Henrietta, and Leah. When I saw this, I knew that this had to be my family.

Rachel Gosnell Parker almost certainly named her son, Zebediah Parker, after her father, Zebediah Gosnell. Also, Rebecca Israel (who married Jacob Tilghman) was the daughter of Ann Gosnell and Ely Israel. The "icing on the cake" was the name of Greenbury Gosnell. I already knew from land records and newspaper articles that William Parker's land bordered on that of Greenbury Gosnell. What I didn't know was that the two men were brothers-in-law.

Just from this message post I was able to trace Zebedee Parker's ancestry back another three generations. I was able to locate Zebediah Gosnell's will online, as well as the will of his father William Gosnell (died 1762). I also learned that William Gosnell's father was William Gosnell, Sr., who died about 1709. I haven't looked at William, Sr.'s will yet, but I found an abstract of it which named his children.

So you never know what you're going to find when you start researching your family history. My search for Susannah Tilghman's father led me instead to her husband's mother and her family! Curioser and curioser!