Brick Wall Wednesday #1: Matilda — Who Was She Before She Married Zachariah Green Trent?

Welcome to something new. I’ve decided to set Wednesdays aside for my brick walls — the ancestors I can’t break through no matter how hard I try. Every genealogist has them. This is mine.

Her name was Matilda Coffman/Kauffman/Kaufman, possibly also Matilda Scalf? I don’t know. That’s the problem.

She’s my 4th great-grandmother on my mother’s side — the maternal line. The chain goes: me → my mom (Nancy Lee Gilbert) → my grandma Mildred Marie Scheetz → Viola Beatrice Nickerson → Nancy Pratt → Caroline Trent Pratt → Matilda. And she is the key to the Native American heritage on my mother’s side of the family. My Barkhamsted Lighthouse heritage comes through my father’s people, the Barber and Chagum lines. But Matilda? She’s the other half of the story, and I can’t find her.

So here’s the question at the heart of all of this, in my own words: Who was she before she married Zachariah Green Trent? We don’t know.

What I Know About Matilda (Facts Only)

I’m going to lay out everything I can prove, and I’m going to be honest about what I can’t. That’s how we do this.

Matilda was born about 1818 in Knoxville, Knox County, Tennessee. I say “about” because that date comes from census records, not a birth certificate. There is no birth certificate. I’ve searched. There isn’t one.

Here’s her trail through the federal census:

• 1850 — Age 32, wife of Zachariah, living in Sneedville, Hancock County, Tennessee.
• 1860 — Age 42, wife of Zachariah, Sneedville, Hancock County, Tennessee. (The enumerator mangled the surname as “Z G Lunt” — one of those transcription headaches we all know.)
• 1870 — Age 53, listed as “keeping house,” head of her own household in Irvine, Estill County, Kentucky. A nine-year-old named Julia C. Bowlin is living with her.
• 1880 — Age 62, widowed, living with her daughter Caroline Pratt in Station Camp, Estill County, Kentucky.

That 1880 census is the last time anyone sees Matilda on paper. After that — nothing. No death certificate. No obituary. No burial record I’ve been able to find. I’ve searched, and I keep searching.

Her Name — Every Spelling I’ve Found

If you’ve done genealogy for any length of time, you know that names shift like sand. Matilda’s is one of the worst cases I’ve ever worked. Here’s every spelling I’ve found, all in one place: Coffman, Kauffman, Kaufman, Coffmen (C-O-F-F-M-E-N), Scalf, Scelf, Hoffman, Koffman, and Trent (her married name).

Where each one comes from:

• Coffman — Family tradition, and the spelling I lean toward. More on that below.
• Kaufman — This one matters. It appears on a primary record: daughter Caroline’s death certificate lists her mother as “Matilda Kaufman.”
• Kauffman — A variant spelling in my research files.
• Scalf / Scelf — A Tennessee marriage record lists a “Matilda Scelf.” ⚠️ Flagged as uncertain. I don’t know if this is her marriage to Zachariah, a different marriage, or a different Matilda altogether.
• Hoffman, Koffman — Alternate names in my family tree database.

Zachariah Green Trent — The Husband With Records

If Matilda is the mystery, her husband Zachariah is the anchor. He left a paper trail. Here’s what the records show:

Zachariah Green Trent was born between 1801 and 1803 in Grayson County, Virginia (one source says Hawkins, Tennessee — census ages wander, as we all know). He was the son of Alexander Trent, who served in the War of 1812. Zachariah was Alexander’s heir.

He went by several names in the records: Zachari Green Trent, Little Zack, Zak, Zachariah, Zackie, “Z G Trent.” If you’re searching for him, try them all.

What the records prove:

• Justice of the Peace in 1832
• 3rd Sheriff of Hancock County, Tennessee, serving 1849–1850
• Landowner — he acquired 830 acres from Samuel Nicholson in 1830, plus additional land from William D. Trent and Alexander Trent in 1833
• Appears in the 1830 census (Hawkins, Tennessee), 1840 census (Knox, Kentucky), 1850 and 1860 censuses (Hancock, Tennessee)
• Died about August 1860 in Sneedville, Hancock County, Tennessee
• Buried in Trent Cemetery, Sneedville, Hancock County, Tennessee

[IMAGE: Find a Grave memorial for Zachariah Green Trent, Trent Cemetery, Sneedville, Hancock County, Tennessee — Source: Find a Grave, Memorial #130592796]

Now, I want to address something directly. There’s a family story that Zachariah was killed in the line of duty as sheriff. I love that story. But his sheriff service ended in 1850, and he died around 1860 — ten years later. I have no record, no newspaper account, no county document confirming how he died. Until I find proof, it stays out of the fact column. It might even be a different ancestor entirely. Facts only. Always the facts.

Zachariah was married three times that I can document. Matilda was one of his wives.

The Key Link: Caroline Trent Pratt

The reason I can connect Matilda to Zachariah with confidence is their daughter Caroline.

Caroline Trent was born June 12, 1845, in Hancock County, Tennessee. On May 7, 1865, she married William Harrison Pratt. They had ten children, seven of whom were living when Caroline died.

Caroline died November 5, 1919, in Argos, Marshall County, Indiana, of a stroke. She was 74 years, 4 months, and 23 days old. Her obituary ran in The Argos Reflectors on November 13, 1919, and it names her plainly: “Caroline, the daughter of Zachariah and Matilda Trent.”

But the single most important document I hold is Caroline’s death certificate. Marshall County, Indiana, Board of Health, Certificate #307, Book Argos2, Page 122. I bought a copy myself in Plymouth, Indiana, on May 14, 2014. It names her father as “Zachari Trent,” born in Tennessee, and her mother as “Matilda Kaufman,” born in Tennessee. The informant was Mr. Jesse Tomlinson.

That death certificate is a primary record, and it’s the strongest proof I have of Matilda’s married identity and her maiden-name spelling as “Kaufman.”

The Kentucky to Indiana Move — Where I Lost Her

Here’s the timeline as I understand it:

The Pratt family — William Harrison Pratt, Caroline, and their children — lived in Estill County, Kentucky through the 1880 census. Matilda was with them, 62 years old, widowed.

Between 1880 and 1900, the family moved to Indiana. William’s census trail goes: 1850 Tennessee → 1870 Estill County, Kentucky → 1880 Estill County, Kentucky → 1900 Pulaski County, Indiana → 1910 Miami County, Indiana.

But Matilda? She doesn’t appear in any Indiana record I’ve found. She would have been about 82 in 1900 if she’d lived that long. Did she make the trip? Did she die in Kentucky before they left? Did she stay behind? I don’t know. The 1880 census in Estill County, Kentucky, is the last time I can put my finger on her.

Somewhere between Kentucky and Indiana — somewhere in that move — I lost Matilda.

The Tassey Emails: Family Tradition

In 2013, I heard from a descendant named Caroline Tassey. She wrote to me twice, and what she told me was significant.

Her mitochondrial DNA matches mine through Zachariah Green Trent and his wife Matilda — that’s the maternal line, mother to daughter to daughter, all the way down.

According to Tassey, the family tradition — passed down from Julia and Rosie, who were Nancy’s daughters and Matilda’s granddaughters — is that Matilda’s maiden name was Coffman, and that she was the daughter of Daniel Coffman. Julia and Rosie both knew their grandmother’s maiden name. That’s about as close to the source as family tradition gets.

Tassey also noted that the Bolin family (Nancy, Matilda’s daughter, married Milem Bolin) were originally Saponi, and that Zachariah Green Trent was reported to also have Native ancestry.

[IMAGE: Excerpt from email correspondence, Caroline Tassey to Coni Dubois, May 17, 2013 and September 14, 2013 — Source: Personal correspondence, shared with permission]

I want to be clear about what this is and isn’t. This is family tradition from direct descendants, backed by a mitochondrial DNA match. It’s a strong lead — one of the strongest I have. But “daughter of Daniel Coffman” is not yet proven by primary records. It’s in the “promising but unproven” column, and that’s exactly where it stays until I find the documents.

What I Still Don’t Have (The Honest List)

1. Matilda’s birth record. No birth certificate. The “about 1818, Knoxville, Tennessee” is census-derived only.
2. Matilda’s death record. No death certificate. No burial location confirmed. (One note in my files says “more than likely the Nauvoo Cemetery” in Francesville, Indiana — but that’s flagged as a guess, not a fact.)
3. Matilda’s obituary. None found.
4. Proof of her maiden name. Kaufman (death certificate), Coffman (family tradition), Scalf/Scelf (uncertain marriage record) — I can’t definitively close this.
5. Proof of her parents. “Daughter of Daniel Coffman” is tradition, not documentation.
6. Proof of Native ancestry. The Saponi connection through the Bolin line and the reported Native ancestry for Zachariah are family claims supported by DNA patterns, not primary documents.
7. Whether she went to Indiana. The trail ends in Kentucky in 1880.

Where I’ve Written About Them Before

I wrote about the Pratt and Trent lines back in 2017: My 3rd Great Grandparents: William Harrison “Henry” & Caroline M. (Trent) Pratt. That post has Caroline’s death certificate and obituary laid out in full. If you’re following this family, start there and come back here.

Can You Help?

This is why I’m doing Brick Wall Wednesday. I can’t break through this one alone.

• Do you have Coffman, Kauffman, or Kaufman records from East Tennessee — Hawkins, Hancock, Knox, or Greene County — from the early 1800s?
• Have you run into a Matilda born around 1818 who married a Trent?
• Do you have Daniel Coffman in your files?
• Have you hit this same wall?

If any of this rings a bell, I’d love to hear from you. Sometimes it takes another researcher’s eyes to see what I’ve been missing. You can reach me through the contact page here on the blog.

I’ll keep digging. That’s what we do.

— Coni

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Brick Wall Wednesday is a weekly series spotlighting the ancestors I can’t break through. New one every Wednesday.

© 2026 Ever Widening Circle Research by Coni Dubois LLC. All rights reserved.