Thanks for the help. The man who was long thought to be the father of Jasper Newton Acree died not long before Jasper's birth. His mother died a few years later. I wonder if there is a way to check property records to see who might have lived nearby. A handful of the Lawson's listed in the 1850s census were fathering children around the same time that Jasper was born. Makes me wonder if Jasper was a bastard child of one of these men, as his mother had been recently widowed, and the whole thing could have been swept under the rug. Especially considering that she died shortly thereafter. Fascinating to think that through DNA this mystery could be solved 170 years later.