Martha McCorkle, My Third Great-Grandmother
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
Week 27 of 2026
Prompt: A Source I Want to Understand Better
Earlier this year I thought I had identified my third great-grandmother Martha's maiden name and parents. I even wrote a Genealogical Proof Statement and shared the conclusion in a previous blog post. Yet something continued to bother me. Martha was not mentioned in James David Hennessee's will, nor did a well-researched Hennessee family website include her. My strongest evidence was a cluster of DNA matches descending from James David Hennessee and Sarah "Sally" Wilcher, along with the shared location of Warren County, Tennessee. My conclusion fit the DNA—but not all of the records.
It was time to go back to the McCorkle binder.
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The first page listed Daniel and Hester McCorkle's family:
Daniel and Hester McCorkle, parents of Thomas, Nettie/Nita (married Dr. Bettis), Elbert, daughters Lucille and Mary Margaret.
(Mattie was also one of Daniel and Hester's children.)
Then, after several blank lines, my mother had written:
1765 Joseph McCorkle
Wilson Co.
Warren Co.
The second page contained the names and phone numbers of Frederick McCorkle and Mary Warren, two of Thomas McCorkle's children. Beside each name my mother had noted that she had talked with them for about an hour. I also found copies of emails we exchanged in 2002 while trying to determine Mattie McCorkle's birth year for a new gravestone. I assume those phone calls were part of that effort.
Years ago, I used these notes to begin building the McCorkle side of my family tree.
What I had overlooked was the note about Joseph McCorkle, born about 1765.
Continuing through the binder, I found copies of correspondence from several experienced McCorkle researchers.
One was an email sent to me by Rob Rose, a descendant of Daniel and Hester's son Samuel. Attached was an earlier email sent to someone named Ralph by an unknown author. It stated that Martha was the daughter of Robert W. McCorkle and Priscilla and that she may have married Stephen H. McCorkle.
Rob also sent me a scanned descendant chart titled Descendants of Joseph McCorcle, apparently prepared by Robert and Violet McCord.
Generation 1: Joseph McCorcle, born 1765, wife Martha.
Generation 2: Robert W. McCorcle, born 1785, wife Priscilla.
Generation 3: Martha McCorcle, born about 1812, married Stephen H. McCorcle.
A third researcher, Cary, with whom I had corresponded through Ancestry, had reached essentially the same conclusion.
Suddenly I had three experienced McCorkle researchers independently placing Martha as the daughter of Robert W. McCorkle and Priscilla and suggesting Stephen H. McCorkle as her possible husband.
None of the three researchers cited sources.
That immediately raised a new question.
Were these truly three independent lines of evidence, or were they all relying on the same earlier, unsourced compilation? Until I can answer that question, I can't give these conclusions the same weight as a will, deed, probate file, or other contemporary record.
As I reread my own research, I realized something else had changed.
Over the years I had developed several theories for Martha's maiden name. Hollis and Hennessee were both based on DNA clusters. Today I am not abandoning those theories, but I am setting them aside until I can connect the DNA to documentary evidence. The DNA clusters remain. The records, however, have yet to identify Martha's parents or husband.
For now, my working hypothesis is that Martha was the daughter of Robert W. McCorkle and Priscilla and that she married Stephen H. McCorkle. It is a hypothesis worth investigating, not a conclusion to be accepted without proof.
The real source I want to understand better isn't a census record, a deed, or a probate file.
It's the research that came before mine.
Who first concluded that Martha was the daughter of Robert W. McCorkle and Priscilla? Where did that information originate? Was it based on records that have since been lost, or was it simply repeated until it became accepted as fact?
Those are the questions I hope to answer next.
Sometimes the most important source isn't the oldest one.
It's the one that tells us where to keep looking.
