Fact or Speculation? Are 50 Million Ancestry.com Fans Really Correct?

By Wilton Hudgens

23 June 2018

When confronted with all the family research now available because of websites like Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org, how do we know when it's fact or speculation? I've made serious mistakes in the beginning years of my research by blindly accepting information from family trees on Ancestry.com. I thought that there were so many people that had the same information that it must be true. This would prove to be incorrect in the case of my 3rd Great Grandfather, James T. Frost.

Before I knew about James T. Frost, his son George Washington Froust was as far back as I could go in the line. I was told stories by my paternal grandfather, Fred G. Hudgens, that the Frosts had come to Louisiana in wagons from Alabama a long time ago. My grandfather's middle name was George because of his maternal grandfather, George Washington Froust. I will always regret not having learned more from grandfather.

Armed with the basic knowledge that my 2nd Great Grandfather was George Washington Froust, and that the Frosts had come to Louisiana from Alabama, I set out in search of George's family and his ancestors.

My father had previously given me a subscription to Ancestry.com as a gift somewhere between 2006 and 2008. I started an online family tree with the information that I had from my parents and grandparents. Little green leaves (Ancestry hints) began to pop up in my tree.

At the same time I was using Ancestry.com, I also searched online for any information available. One of the only things that popped up about my Frosts was through a family tree website on Tripod.com. The website listed various Frosts, connected and unconnected, along with notes from census records, etc. The Tripod tree listed the parents of George Washington Froust as James "Cedric" Frost and Martha Ann Hendricks. James' parents were listed as William and Mary "Polly" (Rice) Frost from South Carolina that had lived in Bibb County, Alabama. This information seemed consistent with what I was seeing in trees on Ancestry.com, so I accepted it and added it to my online family tree.

After adding this information, I was contacted in May 2012 by another Ancestry.com member, Theresa "Terri" Farrington Lawrence. She informed me that William Frost of Bibb County, Alabama didn't have a son named James or Cedric Frost. Her William had a son named Shadrach that owned land in Louisiana and that's where her information on him stopped.

I asked Terri, "Are you sure he (William Frost of Bibb County, Alabama) didn't have a son named James at all?" She told me she was. Terri had a copy of a family bible record for William and Mary (Rice) Frost; later, the Will of William Frost of Bibb County would also prove this to be true. I also asked if she thought that Shadrach might be who people were referring to as Cedric.

Around the same time Terri had connected with me, a descendant of John Columbus Frost commented in my Ancestry tree on my John Frost that this was his ancestor. This was even more confusing as this man's ancestor John Columbus Frost was a brother of Shadrach Frost of Bibb County, Alabama.

As time went on, I searched for confirmation of my true Frost line. Through my cousin,

Sandra (Carlisle) Melton, I acquired copies of files kept by my grandfather Fred Hudgens' sisters about their family research. On page 29A, there was a reference to George Washington Froust's daddy maybe being "Cedric" or "Zederick." I was intrigued, as I'd initially thought that maybe the names Cedric and Shadrach were references to the same person. My grandfather's sisters made multiple references throughout their notes to George W. Froust's father as being Cedric. I thought, "What if my James really was just an illegitimate son of the William Frost from Bibb County, Alabama? What if, instead, he was really Shadrach Frost from Bibb, Alabama and had changed his name due to running afoul of the law?"

I had been able to locate George Washington Froust in the 1850 US Federal Census as living in Jackson Parish, Louisiana. His father was merely listed as James Frost. I further located the same James Frost (after much untangling) in the 1870 and 1880 US Federal Census Records. The only census I couldn't find was for 1860. Still, there was no reference in records to this James Frost as Cedric, nor was there any evidence of a middle initial.

On 30 July 2013, after hours of manually searching for my James Frost in the 1860 US Federal Census, I finally located him as living in Caldwell Parish, Louisiana. The search engines for Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org weren't turning up James in the 1860 US Federal Census because the writing was so bad for the page he appeared on. I had gone through multiple surrounding parishes' US Federal Census page by page. To my surprise, there was a middle intial listed for my James Frost. It was not a "C" for Cedric or an "S" for Shadrach. His name was listed as James T. Frost. The Ancestry search engine has since been corrected to bring up James for this census.

Meanwhile, I'd also been searching for information on Samuel Frost who'd been listed as a brother of my James Frost through the Tripod hosted Frost Family website. The notes for Samuel said that he'd been murdered in Lowndes County, Alabama. At the time, the only thing I ever came up with was a small newspaper clipping from The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, Louisiana from 7 Nov 1841 which referenced an Isaac Davis that was to be executed for the murder of a Mr. Frost in Lowndes County, Alabama ("Another." The Times-Picayune, 7 Nov. 1841, p.2. Newspapers).

One day, in my general online search for Samuel Frost and Isaac Davis, I saw a Worldcat-ArchiveGrid link having to do with Pardons, Paroles and Clemency Files during Alabama Gov. Bagby's term. When I clicked the link and began reading, I spotted this sentence in the description: "In 1841 Isaac Davis was convicted for the murder of Samuel Frost, a free black residing in Lowndes County." This was something completely new to me. Samuel Frost was referenced as "free black."

I proceded with my new findings and began to go back through Alabama US Federal Census records around 1840. I kept coming back to one 1840 US Federal Census page for Lowndes County, Alabama that listed four Frost males in a row. They were James, John, Samuel and Henry. This James and these other men seemed to fit as brothers possibly. However, none of them were listed as free men of color.

At this point, I'd accepted the fact that Terri's family bible record for her William and Mary (Rice) Frost was correct and that my James was not part of that group. It was further confirmed when I learned that John Columbus Frost of Bibb, Alabama had actually moved to South Arkansas very near to where my James had a brother John in northern Louisiana. The John Frost in Arkansas is listed there in the census at the same time as the other John is listed in North Louisiana. Two different John Frosts were living near to each other at the same time and traveled there from the same state.

I began to realize the mix up. The John Frost in Arkansas was the brother of Shadrach Frost but not the same John Frost that lived in Jackson Parish, Louisiana. Shadrach was highly likely the source of the mistaken name "Cedric." It's very possible that Cedric was a misremembrance of the name Shadrach. Somehow, my grandfather's sisters had happened upon the same information and mistakenly crossed two different John Frosts, and by default, then crossed our James Frost with Shadrach Frost. What a mess! Because of the way Ancestry.com works and how people constantly misuse its tools, that years old mistake has spread like wildfire.

Over time, I developed theories about who my James Frost's siblings were but had no solid proof to back it up. At the suggestion of my trusted colleague, Jedidiah K. Shepler (Anthropologist & Archaeolgical Adventurer), I had my DNA and my father's tested which revealed West and East African heritage. This at least supported the idea of our descent from free people of color.

With the help of Patricia Wilson at the Alabama State Department of Archives & History, I also purchased copies of the two rolls of microfilm having to do with Pardons, Paroles and Clemency Files during Gov. Bagby's term in Alabama. Rodney Sam aided in my utilization of the microfilm readers at the Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research (Houston, Texas) to create PDF files for the section having to do with Isaac Davis and save them to an external hard drive. The papers confirmed Samuel Frost as a free black man. After I'd made digital copies for myself, I donated the two rolls of microfilm to the Clayton Library Center in the hope that they may also be of use to someone else.

At the same time as I had accepted that William and Mary (Rice) Frost were not my 4th Great Grandparents, I simultaneously thought, "What if my 4th Great Grandfather's name was really William after all?" This set me to looking back through Alabama and South Carolina US Federal Census records for possible free people of color in the Dallas and Lowndes Counties area of Alabama. My 3rd Great Grandfather's first son being named William furthered my suspicion that maybe I was seeking another William Frost. My search led me to find a William Frost in the 1840 Butler County, Alabama, US Federal Census listed as a free man of color. Butler County was right next to Lowndes where Samuel was murdered. This William Frost also fit the right age bracket for being the father of my James.

Sometime around February 2016, I had the strike of a lifetime. I was searching on Ancestry.com through their Wills & Probate Records that were recently added to the search engine. My cousin, Carol Hodges, had mentioned that I should give it try in my searches. Per usual, when I find a new place to dig, I tried looking for Frosts. I searched in both Alabama and South Carolina. Since there had been references to the Richland District of South Carolina in military records concerning the family, I tried there. This is where I hit the jackpot.

In the Richland District, South Carolina Wills & Probates there was mentioned a William Frost having died about 1849. I opened the 50 plus page Will and immediately saw that it was from Butler County, Alabama. Still in shock, I began to go page by page until I saw a complete list of heirs and their locations. It was written proof that almost every one of my theories about James T. Frost's relatives was true. The Rials/Ryals family was mentioned as were the Aldays. The find of a lifetime doesn't even begin. I was able to utilize the Will of William Frost to fill out almost all of the missing gaps in my Frost Family Tree from that time frame. The rediscovery of the Wills of William and his son Thomas W. Frost helped me to also deduce that the Thomas Frost that went to Louisiana and lived near to my James and John was most likely the son of William Frost's brother, Benjamin; I had previously thought that this Thomas was a brother to my James T. and John Frost; their brother Thomas had stayed behind in Alabama and, along with his sister Sarah (Frost) Oliver, inherited their father's plantation.

Most people that have my James T. Frost in their trees on Ancestry still have him listed as James Cedric Frost with his parents as William and Mary "Polly" (Rice) Frost incorrectly. There are only a small handful of people who have the correct information at this point. It can be difficult not to want to "create" an answer when confronted with the many brick walls we face. That's the difference between speculation and fact. Speculation is useful and can be great in our search for ancestors. However, if it's not documentable (and not first hand), you can't necessarily call it a fact just yet. Believe me when I say that my Ancestry Family Tree still has mistakes in it that I made years ago. It's taken me a while to track them down and iron them out. The battle still rages on in that regard. The point is to never give up when searching for the truth and never just blindly accept undocumented information from someone without questioning it. Ancestry.com has many misguided and mistaken family trees, but it also has many valuable resources that when utilized properly can help unlock many of the mysteries that have plagued our family research for generations. Remember, sometimes...50,000,000 people can be wrong.

Sources:

http://beejay1.tripod.com/pafg08.htm#3469

www.ancestry.com

www.familysearch.org

"Another." The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana), 7 Nov. 1841, p.2. Newspapers. https://www.newspapers.com/image/25528929. Accessed 12 Mar. 2015.

https://beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid/collection/data/79625166

"United States Census, 1840," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9YY6-9WBN?cc=1786457&wc=31SV-44F%3A1588665921%2C1588666403%2C1588665902 : 24 August 2015), Alabama > Butler > Not Stated > image 23 of 75; citing NARA microfilm publication M704, (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).

https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/9080/004752762_00103?pid=134604&backurl=https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv%3D1%26dbid%3D9080%26h%3D134604%26tid%3D%26pid%3D%26usePUB%3Dtrue&treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true

Source Citation

Author: South Carolina. County Court (Richland County); Probate Place: Richland, South Carolina

Description

Notes: Estate Papers, Box 65, Packages 1601-1625, 1799-1955

Source Information

Ancestry.com. South Carolina, Wills and Probate Records, 1670-1980 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: South Carolina County, District and Probate Courts.