It Took Over 30 Years to Find My Great Grandfather

DNA solved this mystery

Genealogy Matters Storyteller Tuesday Challenge: BRICK BUSTER
Due by June 24, 2025

More than 30 years.

That’s how long I spent trying to figure out my great grandfather.

Harry Kenneth Jackson born 24 Jan 1870 in England, died in 1950 in Oakland, CA. Occupation: marine fireman

That’s what I started with and I was stuck there for decades.

That’s because his name wasn’t really Harry Kenneth Jackson.

It wasn’t the name he was born with.

One day in 2021 out of frustration, I posted on Facebook that Harry was a pain in the butt. A friend helped me use my DNA matches to find his parents.

The group of matches I focused on kept pointing to this couple:

Arthur Jobson b. 1840, Lambeth, England and Susanna Bellars b. 1839, Wisbech, England.

These matches were close enough to me that Arthur and Susanna might be my ancestors, too.

I reconnected with a match in England and she reviewed her tree. The name that stood out was Ernest Jobson, the son of Arthur and Susanna.

According to my grandmother, Harry’s mother died when he was about 9. His father remarried. He didn’t like his stepmother, so he stowed away on a ship.

Ernest’s mother died in 1881 when he was 11. His father remarried in 1883. The 1881 Census is the last record he appears in.

Here is where I got lucky.

I researched Ernest in California in the 1880s. I found only one living in Oakland. He married Marian Goudie in 1893. They separated soon after.

Ernest Jones Jobson’s family tree

Ernest moved to San Francisco. The 1900 San Francisco City Directory lists him at 556B Folsom and employed as a marine fireman.

Ernest isn't in the 1901 City Directory. Harry is. At 566B Folsom and he’s a marine fireman. Thank goodness the DNA works out or I’d be entertaining thoughts that Ernest murdered Harry and stole his identity.

I could not have solved this without DNA. I didn’t expect to find documented proof of a name change, but the city directories helped. Harry Jackson was Ernest Jobson.