Peanuts In My Pocket

In 1874, at the age of 22, my second great-grandfather, William Masterson of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, was murdered. Or so I thought.

With genealogy and family history, uncovering what happened 150 years ago is challenging; full of false starts and dead ends. For years, I believed this William (there are several) was the one at the heart of the story. But as I started digging deeper, I’m no longer so sure.

After re-evaluating my notes and following some new leads, I’ve come to a startling conclusion: William might not even be my second great-grandfather. Somewhere along the way, I seem to have lost the Masterson thread entirely. When that happens, I just want to give up, walk away from genealogy and hide. It’s incredibly frustrating.

The core issue comes down to age. Was he really 22 when he died? Married at 16 with four children? Or was he much older, and I simply got the facts wrong?

One thing I now know for certain: the murder information I had was incorrect. The murder was actually committed by his son-in-law. William wouldn’t have had a son-in-law at age 22. The dates and ages just don’t add up. Maybe I’ve even connected him to the wrong father. Yikes. What a mess.

I had set out to tell the story of a tragic murder and a subsequent hanging, and now I’m not even sure that story belongs in my family tree.

When I hit a roadblock like this, it makes my brain ache. But the path forward is clear: I need to start with what I know: my father, his father, and his grandfather. These facts are supported by documents like birth and death records. From there, I can build both vertically and horizontally, adding “leaves” to the family tree. If I’m lucky, someone else in the family has already done some of the legwork. If not, I’m in for a lot of painstaking research. It’s like casting a wider net—the more relatives I identify, the greater the chance of finding someone else who’s also into genealogy and willing to help.

As painful as it is, I’ve marked the Masterson line as provisional. I’m a ninth-generation American on this branch. It’s not my earliest family line, but it’s close. We came over from Ireland around 1700. I’d be disappointed if I have to rewrite this part of our history, but I’m already disappointed. So I might as well get to work.

That said, I do have a promising lead: William Masterson’s father may be Givens Masterson (1809–1893). It’s a name I’ve seen before, but never connected directly to my line. Encouragingly, the Givens line reconnects with my original Masterson branch at Edward Masterson (1730–1790), which gives me some hope. It appears I’ve simply been following the wrong branch of the tree.