Now more than ever, genealogy seems to be a moving target. My own third cousin has just received results from DNA testing. He is a 37 of 37 marker match to two of the descendants of Jedediah Garrison of Georgia and a distance of two from the descendant of Ebenezer Garrason of South Carolina with a haplogroup of R1b1b2. That was a surprise for reasons I’ll detail below. We are direct descendants of Zebulon Garrison and his wife Rebekah Allen. Zebulon was born about 1770 and died 1830 in Montgomery County Illinois. He appears in the records of Franklin County Georgia from about 1800 until after the 1820 census. After a brief stop in Tennessee, Zebulon and part of his family moved on to Illinois by 1829. This is the line of the late Sam Garrison as he was also my third cousin. He believed that he had gathered solid proof that Zebulon’s parents were John Garrison and Elinor Robinson of New Castle, DE. I would love to hear from others researching this line or the lines of Jedediah, Ebenezer, or anyone else who may possibly connect to these ancestors.

DNA testing is separating various lines that were previously thought to be connected. There is a Garrison who has a very credible paper trail back to the same ancestor that our line has claimed for many years. He believes his ancestor is Henry Garrison, son of Garret Garretson & his second wife Mary Baldwin. We believe our ancestor was John Garretson, son of Garret Garretson and his first wife Elizabeth Erickson. The children of Garret migrated to Orange Co NC. However, DNA testing of that Garrison descendant has proven that he does not match our line, being a match to the descendants of James Garrison who married Hester Roberts. I cannot say right now who has made the correct connection. We all clearly have more work to do.

I would encourage those who have not participated in DNA testing to do it now. There are now enough Garrison participants in the two active projects to increase the chances of a match. In my case, more than one person pooled resources and paid for the testing of our participant. With more participants and more results, perhaps we can knock down some brick walls together.

Karen Back Simmons
Southern Illinois