A New Branch on the Tree

On 12 Mar 2017 I received an email from Patrick Shade, a third cousin. We are both gg grandsons of Rev. Richard Wright of Cass and Clark counties, Illinois. Like many of us, Pat has had an interest in determining Rev. Wright’s origins. We knew that Rev. Richard had been born in Maryland, but that was the limit of our knowledge of his history prior to Illinois, where he married Joanna Ruth Paschal, our gg grandmother. We did, however, believe that we knew almost everything about Rev. Richard after he left Maryland. We were wrong.

Pat’s email let me and others know that he had found an autosomal DNA match linking him to someone with a William Wesley Wright in their tree. And he found related matches for other known Rev. Wright descendants. But we knew of no descendant of Rev. Wright named “William Wesley.” Pat, with a huge amount of perseverance and skill, proceeded to develop a paper trail from William Wesley Wright, to William's father, Charles X. Wright, to his grandfather, Richard Wesley Wright, and finally to his great grandfather, Richard Wright, husband of Malinda Ann Swayze of Helt Township, Vermillion County, Indiana.

Not only had a Richard Wright and Malinda Swayze married in Indiana on 2 Jun 1840, but their child, Richard Wesley Wright, stated in censuses that his father had been born in Maryland. Moreover, Rev. Richard Wright of Clark County, Illinois, had a daughter with the middle name “Malinda.” And one of Rev. Wright’s children, Virginia, had married Thomas Skidmore, of Helt Township, in Vermillion County. But autosomal DNA results are often misleading and “Richard Wright” is a rather common name. So when Pat stated that “there are all kinds of indications that this family ties into ours, but it's not quite a certainty,” I couldn’t agree with him more. As far as I was concerned, not only was there no certainty, but the whole thing was highly doubtful. I was far too pessimistic.

James Wright’s 26 Aug 1889 deposition with the list of heirs.

On 19 Apr 2017, Frank Helton, another gg grandson of Rev. Wright and a highly active Wright researcher, pointed out a 26 Aug 1889 deposition for letters of administration by James Wright, one of Rev. Wright’s sons, following Rev. Wright’s death. Submitted in Clark County, Illinois, the deposition listed Rev. Wright’s heirs, his living children. But the list showed seven children, not six as it should have, with the first being a Richard Wesley Wright, a previously unknown child. This was the smoking gun, for Pat Shade’s research had shown that Richard Wright and Malinda Ann Swayze had a son named "Richard Wesley." There was now no doubt. Joanna Paschal was not Rev. Richard’s first wife. Malinda Ann Swayze was. And there is now a whole new branch on Rev. Wright's tree.

But our story of discovery does not end there. We were not really the first to find an earlier marriage. Following the recent "breakthrough," Pat Shade found among the records of his uncle Sylvester Shade a Family Group Sheet for Richard with the statements "Other wives Name unknown - had a son Wesley" and "Joann Paschal Richard's second wife." Then Gail Schenck, another Rev. Wright descendant and researcher, uncovered a letter from Sylvester Shade stating that Doug Williams, husband of Opal Hooper, Rev. Richard's gg granddaughter, claimed that "Richard Wright's first wife was a Swayzey [sic]." But these findings were never published, posted, or proclaimed. And Sylvester, Doug, and Opal are long deceased. Our story resembles that of Columbus's "discovery" of America. Columbus was not the first to make the discovery, but he was the first to make it known. Here, thanks to Pat Shade's diligence, with contributions by others, we are making the discovery known.