Bass Family verified

I received the probate records for Jethro Bass and he is the father of my Emily. Edward Minnis is also listed in the probate record for Jethro and Polly. I have not been able to locate Polly's family. She is a Mitchell. I think her mother may be Abigail, but I will need to get documentation for that. It seems the families intermarried quite a bit. The Anderson's married into the Bass family, so I have Kate Anderson as a double grandmother (I guess that is what it is called) on the Anderson and Artis side. I also have William and Catherine Lanier doubled since their sons William and John fathered children who were father and grandmother of Prudence Bass, Jethro's mother.

Confused yet? Yeh... so am I.

The most interesting thing that has happened occurred Friday. You see, I work in an office in a small town in California. I'm not from this area but have migrated here like a lot Californians. One of the women I work with is also working on her family tree. Now my friend and I have similar in interests. We are obviously in the same job field and enjoy our work. She's Caucasian and I'm African American and as we've researched our family history we have been able to learn about the cultures of our ancestors. We talk about her Mormon family ties and how difficult it was for one of her grandfathers who lost a secession of wives to death due to illness, some in the same Cholera outbreak that took Elizabeth Lee. I've talked about my difficulty in finding my ancestors who may have been slaves (like Edward Minnis who I'm still stuck on)

My friend and I were both were surprised and excited to discover the family history of Emily and Jethro Bass. And my friend shared her own excitement and frustration when she found an ancestor who may have been a slave, but hasn't been able to trace her back past the 1840 census. After speaking with the family, she learned that there may be African American and Native American ancestry in her family.

This has been the best part! Most people have no interest in genealogy. Even people in your own family have no interest in genealogy. My husband has absolutely NO INTEREST in genealogy, though he is kind to pretend that he does. So having a friend who shares and interest in genealogy and having someone to talk to about and blogging about this (ok, I admit it's an obsession) has been rewarding.

Every day my friend and I discuss the information we found the night before while working on our tree. We brainstorm when we are stuck, vent when we are frustrated and congratulate each other when we have found a broken link in our chain of ancestors. Friday was no different.
My friend mentioned she had found a new thread that she was following by the last name of Jordan. Which seemed familiar, but you know how it is when you do a tree that someone else has already researched. At times the names seemed to blend together until you loose track of who you are because it seems so removed. This was the way this name seemed to reverberate in my head. I knew it seemed familiar but I couldn't remember how.

So, I looked it up and sure enough I had Jordan's in my tree as well. The problem was that the spelling for the Jordan's changed... I had Jordaines and she had Jourdaines. Turns out it didn't really matter because the wife of my Robert Jordaine and her Robert Jourdaine was the same Jane Coker.

So to sum it up...

Robert and Jane Jordaine had two son's, John and Thomas. Each boy married and had a child, who married... and so on until five hundred years later you reach my friend and I who it turns out are not only co-workers...but we're also thirteenth cousins twice removed (I think). Cool huh?