Unraveling the Clarke–Goodan Mystery: How DNA Solved a 100+ Year-Old Family Mystery

Note: This story is something I have worked on for the last 8 years intermittently, and some in my family may prefer I hadn’t pursued it. It began with my mother’s request to “find the first wife of James Clarke,” after she struggled for years to find her. That single question launched my DNA research journey and eventually my genetic genealogy career of helping others with their family mysteries. With Kentucky’s vital records long gone, DNA became the only way to prove the truth, although there were complications with DNA as you will see. This is the shortened, readable version of a much longer report. If you’d like the technical references, contact me directly.

A Family Story That Never Quite Fit

For over a century, our family believed that Molly Chism (or Lou Case) was the first wife of my great-great-great-grandfather, Judge James Edward Clarke of Rowan County, Kentucky. When it was published in a family memoir by a cousin, it became accepted as a fact. According to the legend, Molly died young after having two daughters, Jennie Bell and Loulie Leona, and James later married Mary J. (Goodan) Oxley, who became their stepmother.

It was a neat story — one that conveniently explained away the questions people might ask about the later marriage between Daniel Goodan (Mary Goodan’s brother) and Loulie Leona Clarke (James Clarke’s daughter).

When I began my research, I wasn’t looking for scandal, I was looking for proof. I wanted to confirm the identity of the woman who gave birth to Loulie Leona Clarke, born around 1865 in Rowan County, Kentucky, who married Daniel Leviticus Goodan in 1891, and died only six years later in Wyaconda, Missouri.

This image was created by AI based on a grainy black and white picture in a book. It is said to be Loulie and Daniel Goodan on their wedding day.

It seemed like a simple question. It turned out to be a century-old family secret. And when the paper trail went cold, I turned to something even older than courthouse ledgers: DNA.

The Historical Problem - Kentucky Genealogy

Kentucky is notoriously difficult for genealogists working between 1857 and 1911. Counties briefly kept vital records after 1852, but the law was repealed in 1862, and the Civil War and courthouse fires destroyed what little documentation existed. Rowan County’s records burned not once, but twice — in 1864 and again in 1880. Without birth or marriage certificates to guide me, I turned to census records — and found not answers, but contradictions.

In both the 1870 and 1880 U.S. federal Census, Jennie Bell and Loulie Leona appear as daughters in the household of James Edward Clarke and Mary J. (Goodan) Oxley Clarke. On paper, that should have settled it. Except census takers only recorded relationships to the head of household, not the spouse. So “daughter” confirmed a tie to James, but not explicitly to Mary. It is one of the quirks of a census record: you can infer a relationship but can't always confirm it.

Later census records complicated the story even further.

In the 1900 U.S. federal Census, Mary reported having eight children, with six still living, and she and James listed themselves as married for thirty-nine years — implying a marriage around 1861. That date fits perfectly for Mary to be the mother of both Jennie and Loulie.

A decade later, in 1910, those numbers changed: six children born, six living, forty-four years married — a marriage around 1866, after Loulie’s birth. This had the effect of erasing her two oldest children, Jennie Belle and Loulie, from the records.

The likely informant that year was their daughter Rebecca Clarke DeSabla, who was living with them. Rebecca was seven years younger than Loulie and signed as a witness on Loulie’s 1891 marriage license to Daniel Goodan. Rebecca absolutely knew the truth — she had been there when Loulie married Daniel. And yet, even after Loulie’s death, Rebecca repeated the family story. Whether out of loyalty or protection, she helped write the myth of “Molly Chism” into the federal record itself — transforming a family secret into official history.

Mary’s First Family: The Oxley Connection

Before marrying James Clarke, Mary J. Goodan was married to William P. Oxley. She had two sons with him — Maxey Oxley (born 1858) and Phillip Oxley (born 1860). Both Oxley boys appear in early census records living with their mother and stepfather, James Clarke, alongside Jennie and Loulie. That overlap created the opportunity for modern DNA to test the relationships between the Oxley and Clarke descendants.

How DNA Solved the Mystery (in Plain English)

DNA testing can confirm family relationships when records can’t, think of DNA like invisible family photographs. If two people share a stretch of identical genetic code, it means they both inherited it from the same ancestor. Normally, I would look for anyone in the family line to map to a parent or grandparent of the target, but because Mary and Daniel were siblings, I couldn't do that. They both share DNA to their parents, and it couldn't be used to prove the theory.

Here’s the logic:

• If Mary J. (Goodan) Oxley Clarke was the mother of Jennie and Loulie, then descendants of her son, Maxey Oxley, and her Clarke daughters should share DNA.

• If she wasn’t, there would be no DNA overlap at all because the Oxley and Clarke children would come from different mothers.

The results were decisive:

Andy L. and Susan, descendants of Mary’s Oxley son Phillip, share 20 cM of DNA with Carol B., a descendant of Loulie Clarke Goodan.

Those matches mean all these people inherited DNA from the same maternal ancestor — Mary J. (Goodan) Oxley Clarke. There is simply no genetic path for that DNA to exist if Mary weren’t Loulie’s mother.

In other words, the molecules themselves told the truth that paper could not.

I created this chart to explain the DNA matches easier. (Hopefully!)

The matches of descendants from the acknowledged son Maxey Oxley, to those of the Goodan descendants prove they all had the same maternal ancestor, Mary Goodan.

A Hidden Story of Love and Loss

This revelation explains both the confusion and the heartbreak. In 1891, my great-great grandmother Loulie Clarke, married Daniel Leviticus Goodan — her mother’s younger brother. It’s hard to imagine what that moment felt like for the family. Her father, Judge James Clarke, would have known the marriage was illegal in Kentucky (and everywhere in the United States).

Soon after the wedding, Loulie and Daniel left Kentucky and began a new life in Colorado, leaving both of their families — and the law — behind.

For Mary Goodan Clarke, the cost was unthinkable. She lost her two eldest daughters, Jennie Bell and Loulie Leona, not to death but to silence. In 19th-century rural Kentucky, such a union wasn’t just a scandal — it was socially and morally impossible. Silence became the family’s only defense.

To protect them, a story was created: a “first wife” named Molly Chism. In that story, Mary was no longer their mother, only their stepmother. It was a fiction born of love and fear — a mother choosing to erase herself to shield her daughters.

No record captures that kind of heartbreak. But if you read between the lines of the census, you can almost see it — a woman written out of her own family to keep it whole.

What the DNA and Genetic Genealogy Restores

Now, more than a century later, DNA has given Mary her daughters back.

The genetic evidence proves what the records could not:

Mary J. (Goodan) Oxley Clarke was the biological mother of Jennie Bell Clarke and Loulie Leona (Clarke) Goodan.

The myth of “Molly Chism” wasn’t malicious. It was an act of protection — a story told to preserve reputation and dignity in a time when truth could destroy both.

But DNA doesn’t care about reputation. It quietly preserved the memory of the family ties that they were forced to deny, and now, finally, so do we.

If your family has its own buried story, remember: truth doesn’t erase the past — it restores it.

Sources and Further Reading

• 1870, 1880, 1900, and 1910 U.S. Federal Censuses, Rowan County, Kentucky

• FamilySearch and Ancestry DNA test results (Oxley, Clarke, and Goodan descendants)

• “Goodan–Oxley Family Tree,” 2025 compiled DNA chart

• Historical background on Kentucky marriage law (1860s–1890s)