As we began branching out <ha! pun intended!> with incorporating DNA alongside traditional genealogy methods, several members of our families were interested in testing, or, at minimum, agreed to test under our management. So, by early 2017, we had nearly a dozen tests with which to work, and had confirmed, genetically, branches to whom we’d previously assigned genealogical relationships by historical methods.
We began noting, too, those who could not be placed in the family tree, at least as understood, historically. One in particular, K.I. (and their immediate relatives), had tested at Ancestry and also uploaded results or re-tested at additional sites: MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, 23andMe, and GEDMatch. By mid-2017, K.I. constituted the largest match to my siblings and me yet unplaced, and except for brief periods by since-solved matches, K.I. and their immediate relatives have held that position.
Ancestry’s Pro Tools Enhanced shared match features, along with analyses through WATO, BanyanDNA, and DNA-Sci, have certainly – within the limits of the science and statistics currently available – solved my K.I. riddle, as well as additional, related mystery matches uncovered, and this series is my informal, cited, narrative proof summary.
DeKalb, West Virginia
The little village of DeKalb, West Virginia, was home to the Stalnaker Plantation and it was assumed, in 1845, DeKalb was going to be the county seat for the newly-created Gilmer County (carved out from parts of Lewis and Kanawha counties). The village of Glenville, however, was selected. In addition to the old Native American migration trail (now, State Rt. 5), the U.S. 33/119 route, aka the “Glenville-Ripley-Ohio Turnpike,” also went through Glenville, providing access to the seat of government from more areas of the county to Glenville than DeKalb.
However, Glenville had no court facilities or jail, so DeKalb remained the de facto seat, if not the official seat, and reportedly lobbied to have the decision reconsidered. At some point, the official records were “spirited out of DeKalb under the cover of darkness,” and taken to Glenville, and the county seat issue was concluded.
The village of DeKalb then began to decline. The population and resources in the area dwindled, and DeKalb eventually lost even its U.S. post office in 1941.
The Families of the Neighborhood
Among those at the confluence of Enumeration Districts 37, 38, and 39 of the DeKalb and Center Districts in the 1910 U.S. Federal census1 were the Samuel Fletcher Whiting family (see an intro to SFW, here), the Ernest L. Radabaugh family, the Beall/Bell and Davis families, several Cain families, and Harvey H Williams, who had married Sarah E Cain – twice – and their family.
Samuel Fletcher Whiting (1851-1910) was first married on 5 Nov 18742 to Sarah Elizabeth Wade (1858-1895), one of at least ten children of Dennis O Wade and Lucinda Jane Townsend. SFW and Sarah E. had seven children: Estella (“Esta”) in 1875, Lee Roy in 1877, Devery in 1878 (who died prior to the 1880 census), Daisy in 1879, Jessie in 1884, Hallie in 1888, and Clyde in 1889. There may have been other children, given the gaps between, for instance, Daisy and Jessie, but no records confirming any other births have been located. Sarah Elizabeth Wade Whiting died on the ninth day of April, 1895, at 36 years of age.3
The 1900 census4 indicates SFW, widower, was head of the Whiting household which included his eldest daughter, Esta, and her husband of five years, Bert, and their son – SFW’s three-year-old grandson – Herbert; SFW’s eldest son, Lee, with his wife, Hattie, and their six-month-old daughter, Lillian; as well as the three youngest children of SFW and Sarah: Jessie, Hallie, and Clyde. Daughter Daisy had married Mack Danley, a teamster, and their household was near the John S Bell household in the DeKalb district.
The next property upstream, along the same side of Cedar Creek, from SFW was that of his eldest sister, Rebecca, her husband, Charles Wiant, and their adopted son, Carl. Carl’s biological mother was SFW’s sister-in-law, Martha Wade, who died during childbirth at age 18. Her widower, Granville Miller, allowed the Wiants to adopt baby Carl.
Across Cedar Creek from SFW’s land was the residence of Malinda Ellyson (1866-1951) and her second husband, Ernest L. Radabaugh (1868-1911).
Malinda was the daughter of Sarah Woodford and John Ellyson of Sinking Creek. 18-year-old Malinda had married 34-year-old William Henry Brannon (1850-1886) on 12 Mar 18855. W.H. Brannon reported the death of their unnamed female infant on 21 Aug 18856, and Malinda reported the birth of their daughter Matella on 19 June 1886 at Cedar Creek, into the Gilmer County records.
William Henry, commonly called Henry, was a descendant of the Brannon and Beall families of the area, his father being Henry Bascom Brannon and his mother Jemima Permelia Beall; both the Brannon and Beall families lived in the immediate DeKalb area. Henry Bascom Beall and Jemima Permelia Bell are household 8 in the 1870 U.S. Census of DeKalb District, while Robert Whiting and Sarah J McCray, the parents of Samuel Fletcher Whiting, et al., are household 9.7
William Henry Brannon’s property had been settled by the Joseph Hardman family in 1817. They established the first mill in the DeKalb district near the mouth of, what else, Mill Hollow Run.
According to Minnie Kendall Lowther’s History of Ritchie County, the Hardmans arrived in Lewis (Gilmer) County with three children and8 the last two – Benjamin and George Washington Hardman – were born on Cedar Creek. The Hardman children migrated to Calhoun, Roane and Ritchie Counties. … James H. and Christena Beall Cain later lived in the Hardman house with their five children.
William Henry Brannon bought the Cain property, and this is where he brought his bride, Malinda Ellyson upon their marriage, where they lost their first infant, and where their daughter Matella was born in June 18869.
In September 1886, William Henry Brannon died suddenly at 36 years of age. The Gilmer County Banner of September 24, 1886, is reported as having published on page three of its issue number 16 of Volume III10:
William Henry Brannon died Monday evening of paralysis. He had just passed through a severe spell of fever. One day last week he went from his home on Cedar Creek to his father-in-law's, John Ellyson, on Sinking Creek, and was there stricken down with paralysis from which he died Monday evening about six o'clock.
John Ellyson signed as Malinda’s surety on her administratrix and guardian bonds ($400 each) at the Glenville courthouse in November 188711.
Ernest L. Radabaugh (1868-1911) was a native of Barbour County, West Virginia, who arrived, with his parents and his siblings, in Gilmer County sometime between the 1870 and 1880 U.S. federal censuses. They lived in the Trace Fork area northeast of the village of DeKalb.
On 17 March 1889, Ernest married the young widow Malinda Ellyson Brannon (1866-1951)12 and they proceeded to keep house at the Cedar Creek property. By all evidence, Malinda’s daughter, Matella (“May”) Brannon, continued to reside with Malinda’s parents after her re-marriage, rather than her mother and Ernest.13
Malinda’s mother, Sarah, reported the births of Ethel Radabaugh on 25 Dec 1889, and, of Maud Radabaugh on 27 Aug 1892. The 9 May 1896 birth of Oren Radabaugh to Malinda Ellyson and Ernest Lee Radabaugh was registered in the books of Gilmer County by an unknown source.14 Sarah, again, registered the birth of Thelma Paulina of 16 Sept 1904. Hoy B’s 11 Sept 1907 birth was registered by his father, E.L. Radabaugh.
Malinda and Ernest’s son Oren Radabaugh married another DeKalb native, Evelyn Elizabeth Davis, who was a Beall/Bell descendant through her maternal grandfather Alfred Beall. Evelyn was also a Whiting relative through her paternal grandmother, Louvernia Whiting (1848-1942), another sister of SFW. This made Evelyn a 2C1R to her husband Oren’s half-sister, Matella, but no historic genealogical relation to Oren.
The Mysteries
The tools available at the DNA sites at the time left us with three mysterious matches:
- Where does K.I. and their kin fit into this scenario?
- Why does A.B. [name disguised], who, according to their DNA kit manager, is a descendant of Oren and Evelyn, match the descendants of Samuel and Sarah at such significant amounts – 276cM on average, rather than an expected amount of 73cM – based on the tree associated with the kit?
- Adoptees C.B. and M.F. also have shared matches within this group, but how?
Navigation
Footnotes
- “United States, Census, 1910,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MPJC-WQW : Sun Oct 19 13:47:12 UTC 2025), Entry for S Fletcher Whiting and Gertrude Whiting, 1910. ↩︎
- “Gilmer County, West Virginia, Marriage Record No. 1 and 2 – Copy,” p. 20, S.F. Whiting-Sarah E. Wade, 5 Nov 1874; digital images, West Virginia Vital Records Research, https://dach-image-proxy.digital-relativity.workers.dev/?film=808589&frame=00116 ↩︎
- “Find a Grave Index”, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVL1-K2KZ : Wed Apr 02 16:14:40 UTC 2025), Entry for Sarah Elizabeth Wade Whiting. Also, Whiting Family Traditions, Jo Craddock, compiler (MSS notes, ca. 1969-2005); private held by Craddock, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Hallie Whiting Craddock’s mother died when she was six years of age, reported by Hallie Whiting Craddock, ca. 1969. ↩︎
- “United States, Census, 1900”, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M9CN-C81 : Thu May 29 17:47:07 UTC 2025), Entry for Samuel F Whiting and Estella Withers, 1900. ↩︎
- “Gilmer County, West Virginia, Marriage Records,” Brannon – Ellyson, 12 Mar 1885; digital images, West Virginia Vital Records Research, https://dach-image-proxy.digital-relativity.workers.dev/?film=808589&frame=00131 ↩︎
- “Gilmer County, West Virginia, Death Records,” Brannon, ——-, 12 Aug 1885; digital images, West Virginia Vital Records Research, https://dach-image-proxy.digital-relativity.workers.dev/?film=808255&frame=00013. ↩︎
- Year: 1870; Census Place: De Kalb, Gilmer, West Virginia; Roll: M593_1686; Page: 198B; Family History Library Film: 553185 ↩︎
- Radabaugh, Doris M & Mary E. Radabaugh, compilers, The Families of Ephraim and Maria Conger Davis and Robert and Sarah Jane McCray Whiting. Parkersburg, West Virginia, D.M. Radabaugh, 2005. ↩︎
- “Gilmer County, West Virginia, Birth Records,” p. 19E, Brannon, Matella, female live birth, 19 Jun 1886; digital images, West Virginia Vital Records Research, https://dach-image-proxy.digital-relativity.workers.dev/?film=808256&frame=00038 ↩︎
- https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/131317096/william-henry-brannon ↩︎
- “Gilmer, West Virginia, United States records,” images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-99K9-BDQY?view=explore : Mar 23, 2026), image 62 of 376; .
Image Group Number: 007618719 ↩︎ - “Gilmer County, West Virginia, Marriage Record No. 1 and 2 – Copy,” p. 41, Ernest Radabaugh-Malinda Brannon, 17 Mar 1889; digital images, West Virginia Vital Records Research, https://dach-image-proxy.digital-relativity.workers.dev/?film=808589&frame=00137 ↩︎
- “United States, Census, 1900,” Census Place: De Kalb, Gilmer, West Virginia; Page: 4; Enumeration District: 0030; FHL microfilm: 1241758. Page 38A, entry for May Brannon, 1900. ↩︎
- “Gilmer County, West Virginia, Birth Records,” p. 141F, Oren Radabaugh, 9 May 1896; digital images, West Virginia Vital Records Research, https://dach-image-proxy.digital-relativity.workers.dev/?film=808256&frame=00231 ↩︎