I began researching my family history in October 2020. I knew very little about my extended family. Holidays were always spent with just the five of us, and questions about relatives were answered generically. I was quite stunned to find out that my pack of great-aunts ran around with the depression-era gangsters of the Ozarks, participating in robberies and selling moonshine. And this family sure had a knack for breaking out of jails. They were so good at it, that they appear to have pulled off the first successful escape from a Federal Prison, on a rock in the middle of San Francisco Bay, known as Alcatraz in 1937, 25 years before the famous Aglin Brothers outbreak. 

As one would expect for a family such as this, they were not the type to want to be found and to be found, so records are difficult to find. have conflicting information, or in most cases, altered.  As a novice researcher, it's made this process quite challenging and I hope to connect with anyone interested in researching these family lines, can fill in details, or offer corrections where needed. 

Jesse's four daughters' birth certificates document him being from Arkansas, so that is where I had initially focused my research efforts. When I reviewed his Leavenworth file,  I was surprised to see so many connections to Northeastern parts of the United States and realized I needed to expand my search. I also found the letters he received while serving time at Leavenworth to be interesting and notable, especially for a convicted robber. This prompted me to look a bit more into them:

1)   Southern Alabama Plantation Co - Silver Hill, Alabama

I found an article related to this plantation located in, you guessed it… Alabama. It appears to be associated with a  man named William Leroy Parks. In my research tree, I located William Parks, born in 1869. His spouse is Emma Lynch, the daughter of Jesse Woodson Lynch. Perhaps his brother-in-law?

2)   Society for the Friendless – Kansas City, Missouri

This is an orphanage. Have not found anything that connects him to this organization. He may have spent time there as an orphan, or maybe not, but he likely had connections or family in Missouri. 

3)   Boat and Engine Companies

- Fay & Bowen Engine Co. (Geneva, NY)

- L. Adler Bros (Rochester, NY)

- Brooks Manufacturing Co. (Saginaw, Michigan)

- Giles Boat + engine Co. (Michigan)

Giles Boat & Engine had just been incorporated in 1909. The company was founded by one of the early 20th century's leading engineers, an Australian named Edward Giles Stone.  (Based on DNA, I believe there is a family connection). Fay & Bowen Engine Company was run by Ralph Hart, with the help of his father Joe Hart. At the time, these were new and innovative companies with substantial funding.   What could they be writing Jesse about?   

DNA is the best aid for genealogical research, but it has its limits. It cannot tell you who someone is, but it can confirm or exclude relationships, based on the paper trail found for the family, and known relationship. But what about when those records are altered?  In researching my family history, I noticed that on my paternal grandfather's side, there were a bunch of little quirks and incidences that I didn't see while researching my other lines.  From census to census, ages were changed, the relationships between family members changed, and even their gender. The names were spelled differently on every census, cleverly evolving. (For example; Charles A. Wood, later using Charles Atwood). Records were found in states that I'm almost certain they did not live, Find-A-Grave pictures and accompanying obituaries linked to the wrong person, and family stories of why someone changed their name  (usually running from the law).

 BUT... I believe there are no coincidences. I view it as our brain noticing something subconsciously and saying, "hey...you may want to pay a bit more attention to this."  In addition to the altered records, I came across posts from others online researching the same extended families questioning the changed birthdates and names. The frequency of these things didn't seem right and over time, I realized this was intentional, versus sloppy record-keeping. Not knowing how this would evolve, I started saving anything I thought might be useful later and threw it in a folder and from that folder, this website was born.  My research centers around Jesse Lynch, my great-grandparent that the only thing people know about him is that "he just left one day, and never came back."