Alas

Alas, the trail of Jane Caldwell has become murky. What would you expect? There are Wallaces and Caldwells all over Pennsylvania, and the army of people trying to pin one of their ancestors on to one of the existing people serve to muddy the waters.

Jane Caldwell, I had thought, would be Robert and John's sister, born in Ireland sometime before John (1796), grew up in Cecil County Maryland for a spell (her father John was there from 1797 to 1810, when he allegedly died), and evidence in the western Pennsylvania area would make my case that she, John, Robert, and other siblings ended up up there after his death. Robert would enlist in the War of 1812 at the age of 16; John would marry a Pennsylvania woman and move to Ohio. What about other siblings? No proof of John's death has been found, or that of Geneva Jane, their mother - perhaps they went back to Ireland? Or she did, after he died?

So one Jane Wallace married a Robert Caldwell and settled in Armstrong County, east of Pittsburgh. He however was. from the Somerset area and several people pointed out that she was of the Somerset Wallaces, thus her father was John Joseph Wallace (also born 1750, but in PA) - mother Geneva Jane, excuse me, wrong John, I believe. But the Somerset Wallaces are numerous enough that there are lots of Janes, no problem. They are from Antrim, center of County Down, northern Ireland. But I'm curious if there could be crossover - as, for example, the Cecil County Wallaces could just come to Somerset because they are vaguely related or perhaps closer than I can find. Could our Jane have come up there and simply found this Robert Caldwell? Why not? But in the end I had to rely on the facts as birth and marriage records provide them, and here it's pretty murky. Let's just say there was a Jane Wallace who married a Robert Caldwell, and had at least one child.

Then there was a Jane Caldwell in New Castle, for years, with a couple of kids. New Castle is more like it because remember, Geneva Jane had a sister in Wallace Run (near there), and Uncle Hugh ended up there (it seems). With family connections you could expect Geneva Jane to bring young kids up there if John did indeed die in 1810 (though Robert, the youngest, would have been fourteen already) - but there is no trail of them, Jane, Mary, Adeline, or one other male - in Cecil County that we know. So I'm looking at New Castle carefully. But this Jane Caldwell seems to be Jane Courtney Caldwell, unrelated. Not a Wallace. Back to the drawing board.
There are Jane Wallace graves scattered around. And, Jane Wallaces of unknown origin, probably Irish, who married into various families. It's not surprising that a genealogist would snatch one and say, she's ours, she's the sister of Robert and John. We suspect that, anyway, but it makes me wonder if DNA will be the only conclusive result, or will provide it.