My Ahnentafel
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Photo courtesy of Joan G Italiano
According to the census schedules, Joseph
could neither read nor write. The natural assumption, then, is that he
didn't know how to write his own name, perhaps even to spell it. Because
his daughter appears to have spelled it
Several years ago while browsing the genealogy pages of fellow researcher and Joseph-descendant Rick Lewis, I noticed that the contemporaneous descendants consistently spell the name as Pettet. The convention obviously passed through to at least some of Joseph's children and grandchildren. Despite Joseph's illiteracy, he might well have known how to spell his name. My question now is whether they knew why they spelled differently. Did they merely want to distinguish themselves from their New Jersey bred Pettit neighbors? Or were they complying with ancient family mythology, as Oscar B La Pettit appears to have intended? Indeed, the "et" spelling appears to have originated prior to their migration into Ohio. For whatever reason, it's a long-standing convention among the Morgan County, Ohio Pettets so I no longer shy from the Pettet spelling. That it didn't survive down my branch of the family is no reason to doubt the purposefulness of it. And, despite what most of the records for Joseph state, I've decided to re-christian (as it were) this most elusive ancestor as Joseph Pettet. According to the 1900 Federal census131 for Joseph's wife, Elizabeth Pettet, they had ten children, nine living. I don't know the identity of the tenth child:
Piecing together the Pettets of Morgan County, Ohio is very complicated and possibly the most difficult genealogical puzzle I've encountered. I'll present an overview here but there's no point in repeating what I'd already published in The Pettit Correspondent. Before providing some of the background, it may be best to first explain my pet theory about Joseph's parentage to illustrate the relevance of the following. There are two theories. The first and the simplest — that has was one of the younger, unknown sons of Thomas Pettit of Muskingum County, Missouri — may be the best. But there's a good and sensible second theory, particularly considering that Joseph has been so difficult to connect to the main branch. I believe he may have been an illegitimate son of Nancy Ann Pettet, daughter of the below mentioned Elijah Pettit and niece of the above-mentioned Thomas. Although we're not yet certain about Joseph birth year, 1815-1816 seems likely. Nancy is known to have had an illegitimate daughter (Martha) in Perry County, Ohio in 1818.3 In 1825, she married her cousin, Plummer Pettet, in Muskingum County, Ohio as his second wife, bearing him three sons (he had two sons from his previous marriage to Amanda Bixby). Plummer died by 1830 and Nancy married her widower brother-in-law, Hugh Riley — her deceased sister's husband — in Morgan County in 1834. This already leads us to a rather twisted genealogy, especially when considering that her illegitimate daughter, Martha Pettet, married into the New Jersey line of the Pettit. (I had long considered that the two families were not related. But Y-DNA results are telling us a different story.) Genealogists often look toward our subjects' neighbors for clues. Nancy and two of her sons from Plummer are living near Joseph much later in Putnam County, Missouri. This doesn't prove anything — cousins often relocated near one another. But considering Nancy's history, the relationship is very possible, if not likely. The Pettets lived in Morgan, Muskingum and Perry counties Ohio in reasonably large numbers by the 1850 census. Apart from some marriage records, deeds, and census records, few primary documents survive from the earlier dates. It's certain, however, that an Elias Pettit died and left a will in Westmoreland county PA in 1789. It names sons George Hughes, Thomas Pettit and Elijah Pettit. (Anyone's best guess at this time is that George Hughes was either a stepson or son-in-law.) Son Elijah died in the same county only ten years later, leaving the following heirs: wife Leah, daughter Ann (Nancy), son Joseph and daughter Elizabeth (Betsy). An 1816 deed in Washington county, Ohio ties Elijah's family to the Morgan county Pettets. His son Joseph, born June 5, 1795 sold the father's land, by consent of his co-heirs, to Henry Kerns. Elijah's heirs are listed in the deed as Thomas and Lea Fate (his widow and her second husband), Ann Pettit (Nancy — she was not yet married), and Hugh and Elizabeth Kelly [sic, should be Riley], all of Washington County. (Elijah's daughter, Elizabeth, married Hugh Riley the previous year in Fairfield County, Ohio.) So, per the 1816 deed, we can prove the following, leaving out "son" George Hughes: 
Does Joseph Pettet fit into that family? Only if he was Nancy's son or a son of her uncle Thomas. Elijah's son, Joseph Pettet, had three children, all sons:
Joseph Jr, it should be noted, was divorced by his wife after running off to Louisiana. Elias's son, Thomas (brother of Elijah), is not as well documented. But we do know he had a daughter named Lovey. An article was published about her in 1905, which I reprinted in TPC. From that we know the following:
The following obituary came to me from Ann Auskin in June, 1985. The particulars, including the year of emigration to Ohio, fit perfectly. PETTET-Death has invaded the home of Thomas Pettet, and claimed him for its victim. He was born in Mercer county, Pennsylvania, March 19, 1807; removed with his parents to Ohio at the age of 12 years; married to Jennie Barron, June 21, 1838, with whom he lived happy for over fifty years. He died July 19, 1888, aged 81 and 4 months. He leaves a wife, three sons, four daughters, four grand-sons, four grand-daughters, one brother and three sisters to mourn their loss. According to researcher Elvin Pettet, his William Pettet, who died in Hocking county, Ohio in 1885, is of this family. I received this in an email from him in December 2007: I met Mary Mossaline (Pettet), Ketchum in Perry County, who was 95 years old, and sharp as a tack! She was a gg granddaughter of Thomas b. 1765, and had a large family bible filled in with the family line, back to this Thomas. She didn't have his birth year filled in, but I saw his name listed in her bible, as the father of Thomas b.1807, and William b.1805 We now have this as a possible re-creation of Thomas's family: 
The living brother in 1888, the year of Thomas's obituary, was probably Daniel (1811-1900+). The last known record for Joseph is the 1880 census. If the Lovey story is accurate, and Joseph belongs here, he was dead by 1888. A Rachel Pettet (note the spelling) married Peleg Rumfield on 18 April 1839 in Morgan Co, OH. She was born in PA in 1819. Might she have been the infant in the 1819 immigration story? She died in Miegs County in 1886 so could have been the second of the two who died by 1888. The 1800 Mercer county, PA census shows Thomas with no wife, two males to 10 and two females to 10. If this is an accurate representation of his family, then we can assume that Thomas had four children, one of them Plummer, by his first wife, all born in the 1790s, and that she was dead by 1800. His second wife, then, bore six children by the time of her death in 1821: Lovey, Thomas and four others. Here we have Thomas with six children, four (presumed) sons and two daughters, along with his wife in 1810. Clearly, his son Thomas had a brother close to his own age — William. Plummer and Lovey would also have been enumerated. 1810 > PENNSYLVANIA > MERCER > MAHONEY TWP Series: M252 Roll: 52 Page: 64 Thomas Pettit 20201 1101000 So we have Plummer and an unknown male (presumably the second boy on the 1800 census), William and Thomas, Lovey (born within the year), and a daughter some years older than her. In other words, we can be certain of four of the six children listed on the 1810 census. There are two Thomases on the 1820 census for Zanesville. Thomas B Petit is engaged in commerce, 26-45 years old. He is probably the shoemaker, Thomas B Pettet, of Morgan county. Thomas was born in Pennsylvania, 28 August 1795 and died 11 Dec 1873 in Morgan County. More on him later. Thomas Pettit, found on the next page, is likely Lovey's father. However, the enumeration doesn't match to what we know of his family. There is no female, for example, of sufficient age to have been Lovey's mother. In fact, the three females listed are all 10 or under. Lovey would have been closer to 11. Also, there are 10 children altogether. Far more than Thomas would have had living at home at the time. 1820 > OHIO > MUSKINGUM > ZANESVILLE Series: M33 Roll: 92 p 136 Thomas B Petit 000010 01010 p 137 Thomas Pettit 321101 30000 There is Thomas Petit in Bush Creek town (page 156) but he is of insufficient age, 16-26, to have been Lovey's father.
We know from the article on Lovey that her father moved to Bearfield township in Perry county, which is just across the county line from Deerfield township, Morgan county. We can be fairly certain that this is him. Lovey was married to David Appleman by this time. 1830 > OHIO > PERRY > BEARFIELD Series: M19 Roll: 137 Page: 375 Thomas Pettit 001100001000 002000000000 Judging from the census and other data, Thomas was first married by the early 1790s and married again between 1800-1805, say c1803. The 1830 census indicates he was born between 1760-1770. If this is accurate, he had a son and two daughters born between 1816 and 1820, and a son born circa 1811-1815. It's now all but certain that the oldest of the two was was Daniel (1811-1900+). If Joseph was of the family, he was the younger of the two. The age would be right as he married Elizabeth Mohler in 1835. Everything fits. Elvin Pettet believes, and I am tempted to concur, that the elder male named in the 1840 census for William's household is William's father, Thomas. (It's possible, of course, that this person was an in-law or boarder.) 1840 > OHIO > PERRY > BEARFIELD Series: M704 Roll: 419 Page: 112 Thomas Petitt 0000101000000 1000200000000 William Petitt 1200010001000 2000010000000 As I edit this once again on 27 November 2018, I've stumbled on this note at this spot: "NOTE: This is where I left off 7 Dec 2007. I will resume soon!" Eleven years was a lengthy pause! It's okay, because each time I go through this, I learn something new. And it now seems more likely to me that Joseph was Thomas's son. Frankly, there are no other good candidates who could have been this missing son. At the end of December 2018, I published the article, The Pettit / Mellowes Y-DNA Profile. I've held off up until then because I've not been able to convince any Pettet cousins to test their Y-DNA. But we now have a solid benchmark with which to begin genetic investigations. Not only has a descendant of William Pettet (1805-1885) tested, so have a number of men who claim descent from Thomas Pettit (1609-) and Christian Mallows. One of the central premises of TPC was that researchers shouldn't jump to the conclusion that all Pettits were descended from this couple. However, the DNA results of at least eleven testers, including the Thomas Pettet family, are undoubtedly related to one another. Whoever the founding couple was, they left progeny throughout the country by the 19th century. DNA can begin sorting that out. If a male descendant of Joseph's has mismatching Y-DNA markers, then we're a step close to proving Joseph's illegitimacy. But I'm now more confident than ever that he was Thomas's son. Although a lot of blanks in the picture need to be sorted out, he's begging to fit in nicely. Thomas B PettetThomas B Pettet lived in the midst of this family. He undoubtedly used his middle initial (consistently) to distinguish himself from the other Thomases. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1795 and died in Morgan County, Ohio in 1873. And he's the only documented person for the area who could have been Plummer's brother of about the same age noted on the 1800 census. It would have been unusual for a father to name two sons after himself, but it wouldn't have been without precedence. If that happened, the "second" Thomas was born by the second wife. But Thomas B Pettet's progeny beyond his four grandsons has never be found. There may be no living Y-DNA among his descendants who could tell that story, even DNA-wise.
1. Thomas and James Avis were brothers.
2. Joseph Pettit was known to have resided in Franklin Parish. Louisiana. I find the following on the 1870 census:
1870 > LOUISIANA > FRANKLIN > WINNSBORO P O
Series: M593 Roll: 513 Page: 38
Pettit, Joseph 43 m w Physician Ohio
" Darcus 31 f w keeping house La
" Mary 4 f w La
Ballew, Sarah 16 f w at home La
Morgan, Lucy 9 f w " " La
3. This information came from Mary (Pettit) Ellis of Miami, FL. Her
grandfather was Ezra Gilbert Pettit, son of William and Martha (Pettet)
Pettit. She states that Martha's father was a traveling salesman from
Zanesville, that his surname was Bonnet and that he was related to John M
Bonnet, a jeweler, born in Germany in 1811.
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