My name is Julie (Jandreau) Jackson, I am the daughter of Lucien and Ida (Goodboe) Jandreau. I was born and raised in the tiny town of St. Francis, Aroostook County, Maine, and was blessed to have married my husband of 40 years, Keith Jackson, son of Albert and Sue (Harvey) Jackson.
My start into genealogy began after a back injury left me in a chair for many months. Who knew what a blessing that injury became. I found a passion for the hunting and digging required to find ancestors. My family lines have been largely finished; the "Jackson" line of my husband was a whole different thing.
The Jackson brickwall was enormous. No marriage record, census records with huge swings in year of birth and two different states of birth, no birth record and an oral history that was sparse. One story was that some of the Jacksons moved west. That story turned out to be true.
Taking what little there was, I decided to use DNA to see what I'd get. Well the tests gave me lots of matches but nothing that would jump up and say, "Here I am." I got thousands of matches through Ancestry.com. So what to do with all those matches was my dilemma. I began the painstaking task of going through each match to determine their lines. I knew that the matches I would be looking for would be in the 4th cousin and back because of the time period I was looking for. I further whittled down my list by focusing on Jackson's in Maine. Even with this done, I still had hundreds of matches. For several years I just worked on noting who my matches were and their possible connection to my Jackson line.
As anyone who has researched the Jackson surname knows, there are numerous Jackson lines. Lines coming from England, Scotland, Ireland as well as all over the Eastern coast of the United States. So which Jackson line was I looking for?
My answer came from a person I corresponded with for a brief moment, a man named Robert Jackson, from a different Jackson line. He told me about a Y-DNA test that could help me at least figure out the line. The only problem with a Y-DNA test is that this test is for men only and will only follow your line if the surname is the same. Thankfully with my husband's line being Jackson I had the ability to get the samples I needed. The tests aren't cheap, in fact that first test cost over four hundred dollars at that time. It was worth every penny.
What a wonderful breakthrough I got with that first Y-DNA test. My results came back with one match. This match Arthur R. Jackson had done a Y-DNA test years before and had no matches for this Jackson line until my test kit showed up. Another blessing is that he knew his ancestry line and had built his tree leading back to Walter Jackson, Scottish prisoner, who ended up in Oyster River, (Durham), New Hampshire.
From this point, I started adding more DNA tests at Ancestry.com as I was told I'd need that to find more matches. This information was correct.
Under "First DNA Clues" I talk about the match with brenn55. This match really excited me as it was in a tree with no other possible connection that I could find as to why she'd be a 4th cousin to my test subjects. That Oliver Jackson just teased me for a long time. There was so little information, as well as two Oliver Jackson in the same region, similar time.
Once I was able to separate the two Oliver, I started focusing on the census records. Who were the neighbors of Oliver Jackson and anyone of interest. Years of painstaking digging. Dozens of trees created on Ancestry tracing who the neighbors of neighbors were. This painstaking process is what slowly built my understanding; thread by thread, I started connecting family together and a pattern started to emerge.
I also decided that I'd start researching the surnames of the wives of these men. I looked for DNA matches among the women/mothers. This was the smartest move I made as all of a sudden I was finding many many matches to the Prescott line, specifically Patience Prescott wife of Benjamin Jackson. Once I found this, the dam opened. I was finding DNA matches to her cousins, siblings, parents, grandparents. It just all added up. From there I started researching the Prescott family from New Hampshire into Maine. I also started to wonder about Oliver M. Jackson and how he might be related to Benjamin Jackson as I was getting all these DNA matches to Benjamin and his wife Patience Prescott. Were Oliver and Benjamin related? Well that in itself took forever to figure out. You can read about my connecting Oliver and Benjamin under tab "Connecting Oliver and Benjamin Jackson II".
Finding Aaron's grandfather Benjamin Jackson I was possible because of the will of his grandfather Joseph Jackson. I began by working my way backwards from Walter Jackson. I had one end of the bridge at Walter and the other with Benjamin Jackson II. By researching the information out there, I eventually found Joseph Jackson's will where he mentions his grandchildren Benjamin, Aaron, and Abigail, children of his deceased son Benjamin. When the name Aaron popped out I was intrigued. This grandson Aaron Jackson, husband of Thankful Martin has intrigued many researchers. You can see my conclusion about him under "Debunking Aaron Jackson and Thankful Martin". Once I debunked this Aaron Jackson as our Aaron's father, that left Benjamin Jackson I, husband of "Widow Anna (LNU) Jackson". You can read about her under "Anna (Bunker) Jackson". The final piece of my puzzle fell into place with the DNA matches I was finding for this Bunker line. This confirmed that Benjamin Jackson II descended from Benjamin Jackson I and wife Anna (Bunker) Jackson, parents of Benjamin Jackson II, husband of Patience Prescott and parents of our Aaron Jackson.
This is a brief synopsis of my journey. As all researchers know, I took many other off roads and false leads in gathering information. I've tried to add all the clues I've found, even tiny leads that got me to where I am today. I hope others will be able to take this and find their matches as well and put our Jackson line in the history book with his family where he belongs.
The story continues as I'm still researching.
Julie (Jandreau) Jackson
researcherjax (find-a-grave)