Reprint from the Fall 2025 issue of the Wake Genealogy Watch Newsletter. In case you missed this useful contribution from Belle Long, here is your chance to catch up. The link to Belle's in-depth article is included in the body of this post. - CD
Disambiguating same named persons in one’s family history is always tricky. Add extra challenge points if those persons were close relations with nearly identical time lines in nearly identical locations. You really have only two choices. Run away very quickly or dive down that deep rabbit hole.
Success in these complex same-name cases comes from gathering as many data points as possible for each person. These data points provide a richer context of each person’s life and FAN club (Friends, Associates, and Neighbors). Contrasting the actions and events of two persons against each other helps make their differences apparent. Careful analysis leads to a solid conclusion about their uniqueness in time and place.
Belle Long, an experienced Wake County researcher and former Director of the Joel Lane Museum House, has faced just such a dilemma and has emerged successfully. Read her results which she has generously shared with us here.
Belle describes the task set before her below:
“I have been working with two ladies who are seeking proofs for ancestors for the DAR. Both are descendants of Colonel Joel Lane's descendants who went to TN in the early 19th c. So once I started helping them, I have gone WAY down several rabbit holes to make their connections and others.
When I worked at the Joel Lane Museum House, I could never keep straight the two men named for Col. Joel Lane: one his son, Joel Hinton Lane, and the other his nephew, Joel Lane. Both went to TN.
After extensive research, I have figured it out and would like to submit the attached for possible sharing with your members.”
Belle’s conundrum was two men named Joel Lane. Not the one known by most Wake County old-timers as the “Founder of the City of Raleigh,” Col. Joel Lane, but two of his close relations instead. One was his son, Joel Hinton Lane. The other was his nephew, referred to as Joel Lane, Jr., the son of Col. Lane’s brother James. Refer to the descendant tree below to get an idea of how all the important players interconnect. (The earliest ancestor line is grayed out as it only adds a little context here but does not help to tell the story of the two Joel Lanes.)
Belle introduces “the Joels” in this summary:
1) “Joel Lane, Jr (1772-1848), son of James Lane (brother of Col Joel Lane) and Lydia Speight, was born 10 Feb 1772 in Wake Co NC and died on 27 Mar 1848, probably in Tennessee. This Joel married Eve or Evey Darnal or Darnold in Wake in 1794. He is referred to as “Jr” in the marriage record to Eve Darnel. (Jr was used in this period to distinguish a younger man from an elder one of the same name who was living at the same time. Col Joel Lane who died in 1795 would have been the elder at the time of Jr’s marriage.) Joel Lane Jr moved to TN by 1809, was living in Bedford Co in 1812, and bought land in Giles Co in Dec 1813. He appears to have lived the rest of his life in Giles Co.”
2) “Joel Hinton Lane (JLH) (1790-1832), son of Col. Joel Lane and Mary Hinton, was born in Wake County on 11 Oct 1790, died on 22 June 1832, and is buried in Giles Co TN. JHL married Mary A G Freeman on 4 Jan 1815 in Warren Co NC. He is reported to have left Wake Co NC for Tennessee in 1824 after many financial and legal difficulties.”
There was a third Joel contemporary to these two, who is only mentioned briefly at the outset of her notes. “This other Joel Lane (1816-1854), is probably the son of Col Joel Lane’s son, John Lane (1775-1864).” She was able to distinguish him from the first two based on age, proximity to John Lane and his other sons, and the specificity of the land records this family left behind in Bedford and Marshall Counties in Tennessee.
Belle’s research file is a great road map to follow if you are faced with a similar confusion between individuals. You will benefit from following her lead as she goes beyond census records and vital statistic records to establish the identities of the two Joels.
Belle made extensive use of tax records, wills, deeds, bills of sale, land records, bible records, news clippings, and court records — including a lengthy divorce proceeding against one of the Joels. She consulted the records for Wake County and the respective home counties in Tennessee for each man.
It is also useful to notice her use of a timeline and chronological order as she recorded her findings for each man. She frequently paused to analyze the data, ruling in or out one man as she studied the individual records.
You will find Belle’s complete research file available to read and review at this link. WCGS is grateful that she wished to share with us. This glimpse at her work process is a skill building exercise that will strengthen any researcher, local or otherwise. It is certainly a gold mine for any one with Wake County Lanes in their family tree.
Thank you, Belle Long, for going down the rabbit hole and leaving a nice guide for the rest of us to follow. - CD
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