In Appendix Y of this history of my Alexander family, I analyzed the matches and mismatches on markers of Y chromosomes in samples from several Alexander family groups and concluded that most groups were at best very remotely related through their male lines; that is, their common male-line ancestor lived several thousands of years ago. At that time, I did not have access to any SNP results for most of these groups and could not have used SNP deviations for analysis even if I understood the meaning of each of them. From the analysis that I did, I concluded that three Alexander groups were relatively closely related to one another, having a common male ancestor less than one thousand years ago. I also concluded that their Alexander surnames probably had a common source. In this history and several other data sites, these three groups have been labeled the Spartanburg Confused, the Confused Too, and the Campbelltown Alexanders.
At present, SNP tests are available for most of the Alexander groups although no one from the Spartanburg Confused group had SNP results until two of us tested very recently. We are in haplogroup R-FTC62030, while the Confused Toos are in haplogroup R-FT100543, and the Campbelltown haplogroup group tested in haplogroup R-BY166028, although some Campbelltowns tested further downstream. Based on comparison of the SNP results of the three groups, it appears certain that my conclusions were incorrect. Geneticists who work with SNPs have concluded that the SNP mutation (DF105) that separated the Spartanburg Confused from the other two groups occurred about 1600 years ago. This estimate of separation time has a 95% confidence level which means the actual time could be several hundred years earlier or later.
To explain the significance of the new SNP results to our Spartanburg Confused, Floyd Owsley, a volunteer administrator for the Alexander DNA project wrote a letter to some of us. Until the last paragraph, he is only providing us data for our records. The final paragraph gives the important explanation. With Floyd's permission I have excerpted the following from the letter.
". . . your SNP lineage beginning with R-M269:
M269 > L23 > L51 > P310 > L151 > P312 > Z290 > L21 > S552 > DF13 > Z39589 > DF49 > Z2980 > Z2976 > DF23> Z2961 > Z2956 > Z2965 > M222 > Z2959 > S658 > DF104 > DF105 > FGC36289 > A223 > BY3339 > A225 > A224 > A1774 > FGC32899.
Some researchers have often wondered how closely related the Spartanburg Confused group is with the Campbelltown Scotland and Confused 2 groups in the Alexander DNA project. In my explanation, I will refer to you as the Spartanburg Confused group.
Here’s the SNP lineage for the Campbelltown Scotland group:
M269 > L23 > L51 > P310 > L151 > P312 > Z290 > L21 > S552 > DF13 > Z39589 > DF49 > Z2980 > Z2976 > DF23> Z2961 > Z2965 > Z2965 > M222 > Z2959 > S658 > DF104 > DF105 > DF85 > S673 > S668 > FGC8740 > BY3344 > FGC40093 > BY168440 > BY166028.
Here’s the SNP lineages for the Confused 2 group:
M269 > L23 > L51 > P310 > L151 > P312 > Z290 > L21 > S552 > DF13 > Z39589 > DF49 > Z2980 > Z2976 > DF23> Z2961 > Z2956 > Z2965 > M222 > Z2959 > S658 > DF104 > DF105 > DF85 > S673 > S668 > FGC8740 > DF97 (FGC8739) > Z236 > FGC19851 > BY3345 > FGC19846 > FGC19848 > FGC57795 > FT101936 > FT102660 > FT100543.
As you can see, the SNP lineages for all three groups are the same until after SNP DF105. Afterwards, the Spartanburg Confused group is different from the other two groups. So, the Spartanburg Confused group connects with the other two groups with the birth of SNP DF105. According to Big Y experts, the SNP DF105 occurred about 1,600 years ago, which was a long time before the utilization of surnames. This means the members of the three groups share a common paternal ancestor who was born about 1,600 years ago. The Campbelltown Scotland and Confused 2 groups also connect at SNP FGC8740, which occurred a few hundred years after SNP DF105. So, the Campbelltown Scotland and Confused 2 groups are more closely related to each other than with your Spartanburg Confused group."
Table of Contents
My father Nolan and my mother Louise, whose maiden name was Moody, would often refer to older relatives, but, except for their uncles and aunts and great-uncles and great-aunts, they had almost no knowledge of the actual relationships with those relatives. Since that time, there have been research projects on my mother's Moody family from the time they emigrated from Ireland along with their kin, the McCuistons, and a history based on that research has been compiled (1); however, I have found no similar history of my father's Alexander family. This lack may have been primarily because of most of our Alexander family's lack of interest in deceased ancestors whom they had not known; however, I was inspired to learn more about these ancestors because of the stories of one exception, a great uncle, Benjamin Franklin "Frank" Alexander, to whom I owe much.
This brief history, which honors the memory of Nolan and Louise Alexander, is an attempt to present a brief genealogical summary of our Alexander family. Appendices in this booklet include transcriptions of several documents that are not readily available, including abstracts of early deeds from North Carolina (hereafter NC), South Carolina (SC), Kentucky (KY), and Tennessee (TN); however, if census data are readily available to potential readers, they are merely cited by source and are reproduced or annotated only when such data appear to need explanation.
My goal was to identify Nolan's Alexander ancestor and the ancestor's spouse in each generation from him back as far as possible and to provide documentation, if possible, to support that person as the ancestor. At times, proof of the identity could be established only “beyond reasonable doubt,” not with absolute certainty, and relatives reading this history may decide whether their standards for beyond reasonable doubt exceed mine. When I began this tale, YDNA testing on me and on more than two hundred other Alexanders had provided many clues to Nolan's ancestors, and recent YDNA tests have provided additional support for an Alexander ancestor at least one generation older than previously identified. The research as of early 2016 has shown that a large majority of the DNA-tested Alexanders do not descend from Nolan's earliest identified Alexander or even that ancestor's ancestor several generations removed. A stronger conclusion based on YDNA testing of over three hundred members is that most Alexanders in the United States have no male-line ancestor in common with our Alexander family more recently than a few thousand years ago.
In addition to my aim of following our Alexander line back into the past as far as I was able, I had the second goal of expanding the list of characters to include other Alexander relatives and their lines. In all cases, I have tried, sometimes unsuccessfully, to identify spouses of direct ancestors and the direct ancestors' brothers and sisters, and, in several cases, I have been able to follow lines up until 1900.
While the research and compilation of this genealogical record was specifically for my father Nolan, the data apply equally well to his brothers and sisters, Benford D., J. C. (initials only), Richard, Mozelle, Desiree, and Jo Nell, and to the descendants of his Alexander uncles and aunts and great-uncles (no Alexander great-aunts). Since the list in appendix G includes names of of several generations of Alexanders after James and Ann, the information may also be useful to all descendants of William (if any), James of Spartanburg, SC, John of Buncombe County, NC, David of Pendleton County, SC, and Eleanor and Robert, both of whom lived their adult lives mostly in Lincoln County, NC.
I must mention that this history could not have been written without the extensive help of Robin Willis early in my investigations and again much later when we were digging for documentary evidence to bolster the YDNA evidence that she, I, and several others share common ancestors in James and Ann. Although some of my conclusions may not meet her standards of proof, I am extremely thankful for her help in writing about our earliest generations.
Finally, I dedicate this family history not only to the memory of my parents Nolan and Louise and Great-Uncle Frank but also to the still-active Betty Jo Paschall, my cousin and fellow researcher, who did as much of the early investigative work as I. Poorly supported conclusions are mine, not hers, because she is so careful she seldom makes genealogical errors.
Although I doubt that there was a conspiracy among my Alexander family members to hide their roots, it certainly worked out that, even when I was a child, no one in the family, including great-uncles and great-aunts, ever mentioned anyone earlier than my father Nolan's great-grandparents, John Priestly Alexander and Emily Jane Stephens. Of course, as a child, I considered the era during which those great-grandparents lived to be the ancient days; however, even so, I often asked about earlier ancestors.
Although I personally knew only my grandfather, Berry Alexander, and his siblings who survived beyond infancy, my father and many others of his generation and older knew Berry's father, Joseph Riley Alexander, who died a short time before I was born, and my great-aunts and great-uncles, except perhaps the youngest great-aunt, remembered Joseph Riley's father, John Priestly Alexander, known as Priestly. Back beyond that time, no one knew names, and most of my Alexanders appeared to have no great interest in their roots and considered departed ancestors as only ‘those people’. From discussions with cousins descending from great-great grandpa Priestly’s and great-great grandma Emily’s other children who survived past childhood, I found that those children apparently had the same lack of interest or, at least, lack of knowledge that existed in Joseph Riley's branch. Still, there is always some knowledge to be gained, and I'll attempt to provide what ancestral information I gleaned from discussions as I grew up.
There was one outstanding exception to the lack of interest in family history: my great-uncle Frank — Benjamin Franklin Alexander — had a deep interest in the past and in family relations and would discuss these matters for hours, often in my presence or with me after I developed an enthusiasm to learn of ancestors. Although those days were before the existence of cheap or moderately-priced recording devices, I wish today that I had been a scribe and had recorded all that he related, not only the information that pertains directly to ancestry but also each of his tales of life as he grew up because I have found that many of those tales contain clues to unraveling ancestral relationships. But the youngster that I was more than sixty years ago thought that his memory was sufficient to retain what he heard, and that youngster didn’t realize that the stories contained information that Uncle Frank didn’t even realize could help solve our ancestry puzzle.
Of course, even without notes to aid recall, I remember a great deal of Uncle Frank's revelations and also tidbits from others, including several mentions by Frank and my grandfather Berry that Berry was named for ‘cousin Berry Alexander', who seemed to have been a contemporary of Priestly. Frank also made numerous references to kinship with a Goldston family, specifically, the brothers Berry and Mont Goldston, and he confirmed the kinship between Luther Atkins, a grandson of the older Berry, and Luther's wife Rhoda Alexander, a granddaughter of Priestly. Also, one or more of Frank’s tales contained references to a Shell family, who were cousins to our family and with whom the Alexander family had interacted within his memory or within the memory of the person who related the tale to him; however, at this point, I can’t recall whether he mentioned which Shell was our cousin, and it turns out that there were several marriages between Shell family members and our Alexander family members.
From brief personal conversations with several of Priestly's grandchildren — my grandfather's generation — and great-grandchildren — my father's generation, and, from listening to their talking with other adults, I learned of kinship with several local people who bore the Alexander surname or had mothers or grandmothers named Alexander. These people were not descended from Priestly, and no one in our family seemed to know which ancestor we had in common, and, when I talked later with the people from the other Alexander family or families, I found that they too considered us to be kin but were unsure of our relationship except for our being 'cousins'.
Although I'm sure that I didn't recall all the names of people identified as 'cousins' by the time I became aware that investigating their records might lead to additional knowledge about Priestly's ancestry, I know that some of the people with whom I talked, at least briefly, about our Alexander relationship were Ronie Alexander, Ronie's son, Brown Alexander, Maurice Alexander, Luther Atkins, Jack Atkins, Berry Goldston, and Charlie Jimerson. None could provide definite information about how we were related, but all believed that we were distant cousins. I should also mention that my father Nolan worked with Elbert T. Alexander, called Buck, and that both believed it unlikely they were related, and the fact that my father's and Buck's beliefs turned out to be incorrect shows that traditional wisdom, pro or con, must always be checked before being accepted.
Although I don't remember finding out the name of Ronie's father from either him or Brown, I do remember that they mentioned a relationship to Dr. Luther Alexander, who was also mentioned as kin by several of my relatives. From Berry Goldston I learned that he was named for the same Berry Alexander for whom my grandfather Berry claimed to be named; however, although I now know the relationship, I could not remember from my conversation with Berry Goldston whether the older Berry Alexander was his uncle, grandfather, or great-grandfather. For some reason, I never asked Rhoda Alexander Atkins or her husband Luther Atkins about an ancestor they had in common, but I remember their saying they were about third cousins or, perhaps, they said they were second or third cousins. I am unsure of their exact words.
Although the opportunity to confirm that Priestly and I had close family ties to Ronie Alexander, Berry P. Alexander, Luther Atkins, and the others I mentioned didn't occur until I had already begun the data mining that I hoped would help me identify Priestly's father, I was not extremely far into that research when some men who descended from James Alexander of Spartanburg, South Carolina, and had well-documented relationships to Berry P. and his kin decided to participate in YDNA testing (1.1) with the purpose of determining if, as genealogists usually claimed, they descended from a certain James Alexander of Cecil County, Maryland, often referred to as James the Weaver because that is the title he was given in an early enumeration of Alexanders of Cecil County, Maryland (MD). I decided to join them in providing samples, which were analyzed by a well-respected laboratory, and these analyses showed that neither their YDNA nor mine corresponded even remotely to YDNA from descendants of James Alexander, the Weaver. On the other hand, YDNA from one of the men who were certainly related to Berry P. and Ronie matched mine exactly on thirty-seven of thirty-seven test sites, and YDNA from the others matched mine very closely, confirming that Priestly and I did indeed belong to the same family as they and Berry P. Although the tests confirmed the beliefs of our Alexanders from Henry County, those results didn't affect my search for Priestly's father and grandfather significantly because YDNA tests alone do not often identify a specific individual as one's ancestor.
Long before we had hope of learning the identities of ancestors earlier than James of Spartanburg, I was back to the digging. Although the YDNA test had narrowed the scope of my search, I knew that I had a huge task ahead to find John Priestly's father and grandfather, if it was indeed possible to find them. I began by doing research on the families of early Henry County, TN, Alexanders with special emphasis on those with whom Priestly was known to interact in matters relating to community, church, business, and legal transactions.
Not until several years into the YDNA project and a few years after I began writing this Alexander history did the results of a new YDNA tester unexpectedly match one of our extended family members perfectly and match the rest of us closely. This man had a fairly well-documented Alexander lineage that did not include James of Spartanburg but included a man, John, who was in the right place at the right time and with the right name to be a brother to James of Spartanburg. I had much earlier attempted unsuccessfully to connect James to siblings named John, William, David, Eleanor, and Robert, and finding a John who fit well prompted an extensive effort to get YDNA tests from other men who could, through documentation or family tradition, trace their ancestry back to the other likely brothers of James and John. The search successful in locating descendants of David and Robert, and results of their YDNA tests prove to me beyond reasonable doubt that James, John, Robert, David, and also Eleanor and William were siblings and the children of an earlier James Alexander, who died June 1753, and his wife Ann.
When I began digging several years ago, my research confirmed relatively soon that Berry Parks Alexander had been a contemporary of John Priestly Alexander in Henry County, TN, and a bit more digging showed that Berry Parks, whom the records show as born in 1822 and dying in 1908(2.1), was not only the grandfather of Luther Atkins, who was married to Priestly's granddaughter Rhoda Alexander, but also the grandfather of Berry Goldston. Although I made these discoveries on my own, I was not the first family researcher to do so. My cousin Betty Paschall, who has the same maiden name and married name, unearthed the information earlier, and, even though she did not have Uncle Frank’s tales to help her establish links, she was led down many of the same genealogical trails that I have followed and would likely have been completely successful if she had had access to all the records that have become available to me. All the family had always known that brothers Joseph R. Alexander and Thomas Richard Alexander were married to sisters Mary Gore and Louisa Gore, and Betty directed me to records in which the two sisters stated they were related to their husbands. Their answers when they registered the births of Mary's and Joseph's daughter Emily Jane and Louisa's and Thomas's son Noah(2.2) were that each wife was second cousin to her husband. Neither Betty nor I was able to resolve the problem because we could find no way in which their lines had joined in the past except for the marriage between Isaac D. Gore and Sarah Alexander, and, although Mary and Louisa were Isaac's daughters, neither was born from his marriage to Sarah. We put the mystery aside because it could not help us at that time.
I started with the bit that I knew: that Berry Parks and Priestly were close relatives but probably not siblings, because their being brothers would have meant that Berry Parks was my grandfather Berry’s great-uncle instead of cousin, a fact of which he would surely have been aware. Using the information at hand, I developed the hypothesis that Priestly and Berry Parks had the same grandfather or great-grandfather, and, when I began testing that hypothesis, I learned that a record, supposedly copied from Berry Parks's bible showed him as Hugh M. Alexander’s son.(2.3) I had also already seen reference to pension applications(2.4) made by Revolutionary War veteran Mathew, or Matthew, Alexander and his widow Ellenor, or Eleanor, Alexander, nee McMillin. When I obtained photocopies of the applications, I found that Matthew’s application named his father as James of Rowan County, NC, and Spartanburg County, SC, and that Eleanor’s application named their children as daughter, Jane, and seven sons, William, James, John, Hugh, Robert, Thomas, and Jefferson D. Thus, Matthew and Eleanor were Berry Parks’s grandparents. But were they Priestly's grandparents?
Before I could follow up on attempting to locate Priestly’s father by looking for records of Matthew’s and Eleanor’s sons, a complicating factor popped up. It seems that Matthew had a brother William, who was married to Eleanor’s sister Esther, and that both couples relocated from Spartanburg County, SC, to the soon-to-be Logan County, KY, around 1790 or in the early 1790s, along with their wives’ father, William McMillin, the wives’ brothers, Robert, Hugh, William, and John, and the wives’ sister, Elizabeth, and her husband Joseph Gilmore. Because my family includes several cases of double cousins, that is, kinship through both the mothers and the fathers, I was aware that my family members considered the kinship of double second cousins to be as close as that of singly related first cousins, meaning that Priestly could satisfy relationship requirements by being either a grandson of William and Esther or a grandson of Matthew and Eleanor. The path in either case led to Priestly’s great-grandfather on his father’s side being James Alexander of Spartanburg. Although Eleanor's pension application had identified the sons of her and Matthew, the sons of William and Esther, if any, were another matter, yet I knew my search for Priestly’s father would have to include both possibilities.
Matthew's oldest son, William Alexander, died in 1839, as recorded in the minutes of Antioch Primitive Baptist Church (2.5) and Henry County County Court records (2.6). The court records also provide the names of his children: the older three, who were not minors when William died, and the minor children, whose guardianship was assumed by William's brother Thomas. Priestly was not among those children.
It was more difficult to trace the children of the next-older son, James, but his brother Thomas's testimony in 1861, concerning inheritance after their mother Eleanor's death, seemed to show that James had migrated to Missouri at about the same time as he (Thomas) and that they had maintained contact. I found Thomas and James first in Dallas County, Missouri, on the 1850 census, and then in Webster County, Missouri, on the 1860 census. A descendant of James emailed me that James died without a will in 1861 but that the estate settlement named all of his children. Several of the names matched well those I had found on the censuses, but there was no John and no Priestly, with the most similar name being that of a James Preston, who seems to have ended up in Texas.
The next son in line, age-wise, was John, and I could find nothing certain on him except Jefferson's statement in the application for Eleanor's widow's pension that he would have been sixty-two years old, if living. Therefore, I could not eliminate him as a candidate for Priestly's father at that time.
Hugh was the next-older, and, as I have already stated, I found it unlikely that he was both Berry Parks's father and Priestly's father. Some time spent poring over censuses strengthened that conclusion because in 1840, Hugh's family included only one son age ten or over, Berry Parks. Hugh had a son named John Thomas, the only close fit in names, but he died in 1870 and and has a stone in Mill Creek Cemetery.
Robert, who was next, died in Henry County in 1841, and the Henry County Circuit Court Minutes list his children, both the minors for whom Jefferson became the guardian, and those who had reached adulthood. Priestly was not among them.
The next-older son, Thomas, had at least fifteen children from two marriages, but, according to records, the children didn't include Priestly. In fact, only two of his children, Martha Mahalia and Hezekiah Hamilton, seem to have been born by the latest possible birth date for Priestly, 1827.
The youngest son, Jefferson, had three daughters but only one son, William, all born in Henry County. Jefferson committed suicide in 1860, per the mortality tables associated with the 1860 federal census, and his children are listed in Henry County Chancery Court Enrollments (2.7). The census listing for him in 1850 includes not only his children but also Robert's minor children.
As I have stated earlier, I was not immediately able to use census records and court records to eliminate Matthew's son John as Priestly's father; however, during my going through court records relating to William's and Robert's children after their deaths, I learned not only the names of the children but also that there were misunderstandings and legal cases in the family after Matthew's death in 1841 and again after Eleanor's death about 1857. As part of the court proceedings, some of the brothers who were living at those times, James, Hugh, Thomas, and Jefferson, gave testimony, and I found that the estates were divided among the living brothers and the surviving heirs of the deceased brothers and that Priestly was not listed among those awarded a share. Thus, none of Matthew's sons was Priestly's father unless early Henry County records were incorrect to an extreme degree.
With Matthew's children dismissed, to my satisfaction, as the father of John Priestly, I began to look elsewhere There were two men in early Henry County closely associated with Priestly and with Matthew's family: James C. Alexander and John M. Alexander, both of whom lived in the Clear Creek community where Priestly, Hugh, and Berry Parks lived. Amateur genealogists often confused James C. with Matthew's son James; however, several of us, possibly Betty Paschall first, established that they were two different men. Although both left Henry County in the late 1840s at about the same time, James and his family moved to Missouri while James C. and part of his family relocated to Fayette County, TN. John M. remained in Henry County, apparently for the rest of his life, and, although I had no particular reason to choose one of the two men over the other as the more-likely parent for Priestly, I began to look first at John M. because he remained in Henry County.
During my sweeps of federal censuses taken in Henry County, I had seen the 1850 census listing for John M.'s family and knew that it showed the family as including Lydia, age 53 and born in SC, Jane, age 23 and born in KY, plus two young Alexanders born in TN: John H. or John M. (initial unclear), whose age appears to be 8 on the best census copy I have seen, and Thomas, age 6. It also included Martin Jones, age 10 and born in Alabama, and Susanna McClure, age 23 and born in TN. Because of the young McClure woman's presence, I suspected immediately that Lydia was Thomas McClure's widow, who would have been Lydia Gore, someone with whom I was familiar from research on the Gore line. A check of Henry County marriage records showed a listing for their marriage September 28, 1848, although her name was erroneously transcribed as Lydia M. Lewis. Since, earlier that year, Priestly had married Emily Jane Stephens, who belonged to the Stephens family that had migrated west from Union County and Spartanburg County in SC along with the Gores, this provided a bit of support for John M. as Priestly's father.
Additional digging through records kept at the Inman Genealogical Room and at the Henry County Archives turned up the record on page 238 of Registration of Deeds, Grants, Henry County, 1847, which showed that, on July 21, 1847, William S. Shell sold John Priestly Alexander a farm on Clear Creek in civil district 13, bounded by William Alexander and Hugh M. Alexander. Shortly before that date, William Shell married Eliza Alexander, whose father I believed to be John M., although I couldn't completely rule out James C. Since I thought that William Shell or William's and Eliza's children might be the Shells to whom Uncle Frank had referred, I continued research on the Shells to find if there were more links to Priestly.
With some additional searching, I soon found that William Shell's brother, John Shell, was married to Olive “Ollie” Stephens, a sister or cousin of Priestly's wife, Emily Jane Stephens. In addition to being closely related to Emily Jane, Ollie was almost certainly a sister of Aditha Stephens, who married James C. Alexander's oldest son, William H. (2.8) Thus, there is rather strong support for either John M. or James C. as Priestly's parent; however, the relationship was apparently not mentioned by even Priestly's two older sons, who must have known of both John M. and James C., although they may not have met either man. John M. probably died before 1860, and James C. moved to Fayette County, TN, about 1849, before those older sons, Thomas Richard and Joseph Riley, were born.
Since the parenthood issue was not settled to my satisfaction, I continued my research on James C. as a possible father for Priestly and found several pieces of evidence favoring him over John M. and one that made him seem very unlikely. I may not have discovered all the information in the order in which I relate it, but that order follows my methodology in evaluating the data.
Although I soon found that James C. was in Henry County by 1833 as shown by his appearing on the list of Henry County voters enumerated that year and by a joint purchase with George Atkins of 100 acres(2.9), I was unable to discover exactly when he came to the county. The James Alexander that I found on the census in Henry County in 1830 seemed more likely to be Matthew's son than James C. because the children's ages in that 1830 listing corresponded more closely to the ages of Matthew's James. Also, I knew from earlier reading of "Minutes of Antioch Primitive Baptist Church" that Matthew's James was in Henry County by 1830 because he and his wife Hester, or Esther, had helped establish that church about 1828. Both Jameses were listed on the census in Henry County in 1840, but, of course, children's names were not given because censuses before 1850 listed only the names of the householders.
Since I knew the Alexander family was in Logan County, KY, and surrounding counties in 1820, I began combing through censuses of that area for that year and included TN counties that joined the KY counties. I struck pay dirt in Robertson County, TN, where I found a James C. Alexander of the appropriate age, and, equally as rewarding to me, was my discovery that one of his neighbors was a John Priestley, a medical doctor.(2.10) A bit more research revealed that this was the only John Priestley or John Priestly listed in the federal census for that year, and, although these data proved nothing beyond doubt, I considered them strong support for Priestly's being the son of James C. and having been named for his respected neighbor.
From Robertson County, for further research on James C. as Priestly's father, I shifted my focus back to Henry County records that listed James C. Alexander. Other than the already-mentioned voter listing and land purchase, the first record I found for him was the 1840 census, and the enumeration on that census fits the family with Priestly included in it quite well except for including an otherwise-unaccounted-for daughter between five and seven. Another Henry County record shows that James C. and a son, William H.(2.11), ran into hard times financially in 1846 and 1847 and borrowed money and mortgaged property and that Priestly was listed among those from whom James C. had borrowed money. After selling land and considerable personal property, James C., William, and their families left Henry County late in 1849, and I found them on the 1850 census in Fayette County, TN, where the family included William H., Aditha (listed as Abitha), their two young children, James C., and some of his children. Those children included a son who was listed as idiotic and whose name has been interpreted by not only me but census indexers as John, Joba, or Joha. I looked for the family on later censuses and found them still in Fayette County in 1860 with the son's name definitely listed as John and in 1870 with the name as Job. Although I was uncertain of this son's correct name, the possibility that it was John gave me pause in adding John Priestly to the family because two sons of the same first name doesn't appear to be common in my family, even if one died very young, which John/Job did not.
Although the early investigations had led me to conclude that Priestly's father was likely John M., I could never be totally satisfied that this was the correct answer, and I decided that it didn't really make a great deal of genetic difference because it seemed highly likely that both John M. and James C. were sons of William Alexander, Matthew's brother, and Esther McMillin, Eleanor's sister. I knew of no male-line descendants of John M. unless I was one, but I succeeded in getting a descendant of James C. to take the YDNA test, and he and I and other descendants of James of Spartanburg County, SC, were all very close matches. Thus, I could safely say that the ancestral line of James C. went back through James of Spartanburg, who was named by Matthew as his father. Although the YDNA tests had already shown that the elder James was not even remotely related to James Alexander, “the Weaver,” I hoped that we, with several descendants now working on the task, would be able to trace our Alexander line back from James to one of the very early colonists. That didn't happen quickly, although there was an intriguing possibility, which I will address in the next chapter.
By this time, I was dedicating most of my personal genealogical work to the Alexander line and to helping with the Alexander DNA project; however, I still helped any Alexander, related or not, or any member of my other ancestral lines, Moody, Smith, Gore, Stephens, Chilcutt, and so forth, when they asked for my help. It was during one of these attempts to help others that I received more help than I gave. A few descendants of Amy Gore, married name Riggs, were tracing her Gore, Alexander, Morris, and Hall ties to her families in TN, and I offered to help because I had already come across Amy Gore and her brothers in my earlier research. (2.12) We were successful in establishing her ties to her TN families, but, as I have said, I gained more than I gave.
When I told my co-researchers on the Amy project of my family ties to Isaac D. Gore and to Sarah Alexander, one of them sent me a photograph of a badly damaged, pencil-written page from a family bible, probably made during Amy's childhood or young adulthood. As we progressed in our research, another of the descendants sent me a better copy of the poor original, and, as this viewer can best determine, the inscription by Amy states: "Amy John Francis Gore is the daughter of Saira and daughter of James Isacck Gore. My fathers mother was Alexander, old uncle Bille Alexander her brother and uncle jolby (or jotby) Alexander and Uncle Prinly her brothers." It's almost certain that Uncle Jolby/Jotby was Jobe or Job, and that Uncle Bille was William H.; however, although I’ve tried to read Uncle Prinly as Uncle Prissly to make it closer to Priestly, it seems to be Prinly. Still, I suspect that the uncle was Priestly because there is no one else who even remotely fits. There is more, but these are the most important entries.(2.13) After receiving this information to add to that from earlier, I decided it highly likely that Priestly's father was James C.
With my acceptance of James C. as Priestly's father, I found the statements by Mary E. and Louisa I. "Lieu" Gore about being second cousins to their husbands, Joseph R. and Thomas R. Alexander, more understandable when I noted two other facts simultaneously. One fact was that Louisa and Mary were very young when their mother died, and the other was that my family members seemed to consider Emma (Gore) Alexander as a full sister to Louisa and Mary even though she had a different mother. Louisa and Mary couldn't likely remember their mother, who died when Louisa was five and Mary was only three, and they knew only Sarah Margaret Wall, their father's third wife, who raised them, as their mother. Margaret Wall's mother was Martha, daughter of John M. Alexander, and, if James C. and John M. were brothers, Martha would have been a first cousin to James C.'s children, including Priestly. Margaret, as Martha's daughter, would have been a second cousin to all Priestly's children, including Joseph R. and Thomas R. This would then make Margaret's children and Priestly's children second cousins, once removed, not exactly as reported by Mary and Louisa, but close. I believe Louisa and Mary considered themselves Margaret's daughters, and, although I can't be sure this is the origin of their statements, it provides a possible explanation and strengthens my belief that James C. was Priestly's father.
With the question of Priestly's father settled as well as it could be settled at the moment, I turned my investigations toward examining what was known from contemporary records about James Alexander of Spartanburg, SC. This work presents the results of those investigations and then shifts its focus to the two sons of James of Spartanburg, Matthew and William, who married sisters and migrated west to Logan County, KY, with their families and their in-laws around 1790. From there, we follow Matthew and William and their offspring south to Henry County, TN, when western TN was opened for settlement shortly after 1820. We also take a look at the family and descendants of James of Spartanburg's son James, who settled about 1811 in an area of Roane County, TN, that is now Loudon County. Whenever I have been able to find the information, later chapters follow descendants of the early Henry Countians and Roane Countians forward up until about ninety or one-hundred years ago. There are a few other Alexanders who may descend from James Spartanburg, and, although it seems impossible to establish the exact ties of all at this time, I have delved into the possible relationships briefly.
I have devoted a separate chapter to each of the other children of James (died 1753) and Ann, that is James of Spartanburg's siblings, for whom we have been able to find descendants through records or through YDNA testing: John, David, Eleanor, and, Robert.
Children of John Priestly Alexander and Emily Jane Stephens were: James S. (died in childhood), William T. (died in childhood), Thomas Richard (married Louisa Isabella Gore: surviving descendants), Joseph Riley (married Queen Victoria Stagner and Mary Elizabeth Gore: surviving descendants with Mary), David (died in childhood), Travis Buchanan (married Martha McFall and Emma Victoria Gore: surviving descendants from marriage to Emma and from marriage to Martha), and John Wesley Alexander (married Nancy Clementine "Tiny" Wall: surviving descendants). Shortly before he died, Benford D. Alexander told me that he remembered his grandfather Joseph Riley stating that he believed he had a sister also but that she died young.
Thomas Richard Alexander's and Louisa Gore's children included: Jolee (husband William W. Cole); Dona (husband Albert A. Grubbs); Noah (wife Maggie May MNU); Alabama “Allie” (husband Crawford Jobe); Rhoda (husband Luther Atkins); Louize (died young); and Page (wives Robbie or Bobbie Ross and Lillian Johnson). There are surviving descendants of Page and Lillian, and I believe there are living descendants of Noah and Maggie and of Dona and Albert.
Children of Joseph Riley and Mary Gore were Louisa Ilena (married Thomas Jefferson Gore: no surviving line), Isaac Priestly (died as infant), William Thomas (married Myrtle Manning and Pearlie Wilson: surviving descendants from both marriages), Emily Jane (married Charles W. Moorehead: surviving descendants), James Riley (married Minnie Hicks: no children), Berry (married Johnnie Manning and Lula Mohundro: surviving descendants from both marriages), Benjamin Franklin (married Ocie E. E. Dowdy: surviving descendants), Alice Victory (married George T. Gore: surviving descendants), Tolly Elbert (married Goldie Dunlap: surviving descendants), Benford Squire (married Pearl Manning, Irene Dick, and Eula Stalls: no surviving children), and Daisy Mae (married Bill Hinchey: surviving descendants).
Travis B. Alexander's and Martha McFall's children included: John Luther (wife Vergie MNU); George Richard (wife Appie Lawrence); and Joseph Clinton (wife Ada B. Seaton). Travis's and Emma Gore's children included: Alvin P.(wife Mary Ross); Minerva (no marriage); Eula (husband Dan Snow); Mason (wife Ludie Gore); and Guylar Victoria (husbands Eddie Coleman [daughter] and Harvie/Harvey Paschall [daughters]).
John W. Alexander's and Nancy Clementine “Tiny” Wall's children included: Fronie (no marriage); Lola V. (husband Lorenzo Dow “Dowdy” Wall: surviving descendants); Bertha (husband Dowdy Wall: surviving descendants); Charley (wife Olllie Miller); Vera (died young); Herliss (wife Ruble Gallimore: surviving descendants); Raymond D. (wife Hallie Hart: possibly surviving descendants).
Click "Note 2.1" to return to the text. This reminder will not be repeated hereafter.
In this chapter, the author has not cited marriages in Henry County, TN, since they are included in Appendix H; however, a few of the people covered here married in Missouri.
After using family tradition, YDNA results, and some incomplete but persuasive records to trace Priestly's Alexander line back to James of Spartanburg and proving along the way that his family was not that of James the weaver, the next logical step was to examine others as James of Spartanburg's possible parents. Of the several Alexanders along the NC-SC border who qualified in some ways, James, who died in Anson County, NC, in 1753 and his wife Ann appeared most promising. Robin Willis, who then believed and has now proved to a near certainty that she descends from their daughter, and I devoted a great deal of effort to investigating this couple and their family, poring over all the evidence available at the time.
Although we examined the records and discussed their significance those many years ago, my co-researcher and I could not come to a conclusion as to whether James of Spartanburg was the same person as James's and Ann's James Jr. or even whether her ancestor was their daughter, although that seemed better established. We left it for future genealogical researchers to take the investigations further, but we had not counted on the increasing popularity of DNA testing as a genealogical tool. Since that time, we have been fortunate to have tests from three YDNA participants who, according to stories passed down in their families, descend from men who have the right names, were in the right age brackets, and were in the right places to be sons of James and Ann. From their DNA results and from records, we can conclude with great confidence that John, James of Spartanburg, and Robert were brothers and sons of James and Ann. A descendant of Robert, who has the best paper trail to James and Ann, is an exact YDNA match on 67 markers to a descendant of James of Spartanburg, and a descendant of John is a very close match to them. The case for David on DNA evidence alone is less strong, but he is assuredly closely related to the others, and, currently, the only genealogical niche available for him is as their brother. Of course, a brother or cousin of James who had the wife Ann could one day be found to have roamed around the NC-SC border, and to have had a son David of about the same age as James's and Ann's David; however, it seems far more likely to me that all the men we have traced were children of one couple, and I accept that conclusion.
James Alexander who was married to Ann died 15 June 1753 and, before his death, made deeds(3.1) in lieu of a will, leaving property to his children, who are named in the deeds as: James Jr, John, David, Eleanor, and Robert. The first two and their older brother William, who had probably already received property from his parents, were adults while the last three were minors when Ann made bond as administrator of the estate on 9 October 1754(3.2). Although the reason is unclear to me, in 1756, upon payment by Ann, the mother of all, William, the oldest son as stated in one of the deeds, gave title to David and Robert for the land already deeded to them by their father(3.3). Since William was not mentioned in the 1753 deeds, perhaps he believed he should have received land also, even if he had already been given land when he reached adulthood. In any case, these deeds tie down ages to help us learn the ranges of likely birth years for James's and Ann's children.
Although we have found no records showing when William, James Jr, or John was born, I estimated birth dates for them and for their younger siblings and exchanged estimates with Ms Willis, who was working on a paper on the family. Each made some minor changes based on the other's arguments, and we agreed that the following are the approximate birth years, although we may be off slightly. (3.4).
Shortly before the death of the older James, he deeded half of a 640 acre tract on Cadle Creek (probably the same as Coddle Creek) and half of a 500 acre tract on Catawba to his son James, Jr. The other halves of the tracts were left to the son John. On the same day, land was deeded to sons David and Robert, and a mare and cows were deeded to daughter Eleanor.
Although it has no significance without other information tying all together, before James and Ann and their family came to North Carolina, they were almost certainly in Amelia County, Virginia, as revealed by deed books, will books, and other court records(3.5) from that county, which was formed from parts of Prince George County and Brunswick County in 1734. Some of the land transfers in Virginia mention James and Ann Alexander and Samuel and James Ewing, and, although I have not determined whether there was one Ewing family or more than one, Ewings were also involved in transactions with the family of our James in Spartanburg County, SC, and in Roane County, TN.
Many people have claimed descent from son John and his wife Rachel Davidson and from son David and wife Mary Davidson, and several have given detailed information about names, births, marriages, and deaths; however, no one has provided adequate basis for this detail. In Robert's family, Ms Willis has done extensive research and has documented ties from generation to generation carefully, and, although she considers some links weaker than she would prefer, both she and I believe she has provided a sufficient basis for links in the branches she has investigated.
In this work, I have focused on finding records of marriages, censuses, deeds, wills, and other legal affairs and have cited sources relating to John's and David's lines. I have actually found that most of the unsupported claims about people in the family are likely correct, and I believe that the sources I have cited can be used by anyone wanting to add people and events to either line.
Very little is known about James Alexander, often referred to as James Sr. in older genealogical papers. As mentioned previously, several earlier Alexander researchers had identified him as a son of Moses Alexander, who was born between 1680 and 1690 in Cecil County, MD; however, YDNA testing has disproved this connection, and we know we are not part of the family of Moses and James "the weaver," often called the Seven Brothers Alexander family.
The little that is certain about James of Spartanburg comes from his son Matthew’s pension application, from some Carolina deeds, many of them collected by Rhea Alexander(4.1), from census records, and, by implication, from records of his son, James Alexander, Jr., who migrated from Spartanburg County, SC, and arrived in Roane County, TN, about 1811.
James of Spartanburg was born about 1730, but we don’t know the place of birth, and even the date must be deduced, because there is no document that gives it. Since Matthew’s pension application states that he was born in 1757 and James Jr.’s gravestone gives his birth date as 1755, James’s birth year was probably no later than 1735. The earliest limit for his birth can be estimated from Matthew’s pension application(4.2), which makes it clear that he was serving for his father, who had become ill after being called to arms and serving in the South Carolina Line for about a month around 1780, when the Revolutionary War came to the Carolinas. I have been unable to establish the upper age limit for being required to serve in SC, but, although men up to sixty were theoretically required to serve in the militia, the age for actual service as a private appears to have been around fifty in most colonies, leading to an earliest birth year as about 1725, even assuming he was a few years beyond fifty. Thus, we can say James of Spartanburg’s birth was between 1725 and 1735, with the higher probability being around the midpoint of the span.
James’s place of birth is completely uncertain but was likely either in or near the area where southeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland come together or in Virginia since those are the origins of most of the early settlers of the Carolina colonies. The first certain mention I have found of him was 18 November 1752, when he was granted 700 acres(4.4) in what was then Anson County in the Colony of North Carolina but which became Rowan County, NC, and finally Spartanburg County, SC, when boundaries were settled. The uncertainty lasted from the time of the division of the Carolina Colony(4.4) into the North Carolina Colony and the South Carolina Colony up to and even after they were the states of NC and SC. At this date, 18 November 1752, he had probably reached his majority, agreeing well with other indicators of a birth year of about 1730. In the years between 1725 and the Revolutionary War, our James was only one of several James Alexanders who lived along what was then the western section of the boundary between the colonies of North Carolina and South Carolina, and some of these Jameses are difficult or impossible to identify with certainty.
We know that James’s wife was named Mary because she is named along with him on a deed made in 1759; however, we do not know her maiden name and we cannot even be completely certain that she was the mother of James Jr., Matthew, and William or of any of the other children. Likewise, we do not know the date or place of her birth; however, the 1759 deed makes it almost certain that she was born before 1740, and it is likely that she was around her husband’s age, probably a few years younger. The 1790 federal census did not help because it doesn’t provide ages or even age ranges for females, while the 1800 federal census shows only that both James and a female in the household were over age 45.
The family’s life, whether in the Colony of North Carolina or the Colony of South Carolina, remains in the dark until the Revolution, except for data provided by deeds. In the pension application, Matthew relates that his father James became ill and gives a bit of detail about army maneuvers, telling that he was in only one major battle with the British army and SC Tories at Enoree River and that his unit also marched to King’s Mountain but arrived after the battle was over. When he was released after Cornwallis’s surrender, he had spent about twenty months in the South Carolina Line, but he doesn’t provide information about James’s family before or after the service, even though he was probably still living at home.
The only children of James and Mary of which we can be certain are James Jr., Matthew, and William, even though Alexander genealogical researchers have claimed several other children for them. Although most early researchers identified Ebenezer R., born between 1755 and 1760, as a son, the only evidence I could find supporting him as a son was that he, Matthew, and William were neighbors and possible business associates in Logan County, KY, and YDNA testing of several of his male-line descendants has now shown them not to be related to Matthew’s and William’s descendants(4.5). In fact, the YDNA shows that Ebenezer was a member of the Alexander group to which our James of Spartanburg was long assigned incorrectly. These same early researchers claimed a daughter Margaret for James and Mary; however, I have found nothing to verify these claims, although they may be true because James Jr. named a daughter Margaret. The only potential additional children of James for whom I have found some supporting evidence are sons named John, Robert, Thomas, and David.
The first United States census in 1790, which didn’t include age categories for females, found that James’s household in what became Spartanburg County included himself, a female who was probably his wife, two other males over age 16, and a second female. The two males over 16 were not James Jr., Matthew, or William because they are found elsewhere in the county. Matthew’s household, with his surname spelled as Alleckzander, was enumerated two listings before that of James, and James Jr.’s household was enumerated a few households later, still on page 33. The household of a William Alexander, who was probably James’s son William, was enumerated near the households of the McMillin families and listed a few pages before those of Matthew, James, and James Jr.
The 1800 census in Spartanburg District/County, which contains more data, shows the older James Alexander, over age 45, a female over 45, a male between 26 and 45, a female between 16 and 25, and a female under 10. One can guess that a son and his wife or a daughter and her husband, along with that couple’s young daughter, lived with James and his wife. James Jr.’s household was nearby, and a John Alexander, whose family lived nearby, was likely also a son. By this time, both Matthew and William had left SC to go to Logan County, KY, where they appear on the 1800 tax list for that county. Mathew Alexander was taxed for 50 acres on North Fork of Red River, acquired 27 July 1796, and William was taxed for 175 acres on Muddy River, acquired 18 August 1796.
The 1810 census lists households for two James Alexanders in Spartanburg County, with each having one male over 45, one female between 25 and 45, and two males between 16 and 25. The two listings, very likely for the same family, do not match the composition of James Jr.'s family, which had two sons with birthdays between 1800 and 1810, meaning two males under ten, and the listings not being for James Jr. is consistent with tradition in the family of Alice Alexander Grubb, descendants of James Jr., that he had left SC before the census date of August 1810. That James Jr. left before the death of his elderly father and probably that of his elderly mother makes it seem likely that there were other Alexander sons or daughters in Spartanburg to provide assistance to the parent, meaning that the census listing included a son's or daughter's family along with the father. The listing would also mean that the older James's wife Mary must have died since 1800 since there is no older female. Although it is not pertinent to this history, I believe it is very probable that a single James Alexander family was enumerated twice and that it was, indeed, the family of our James of Spartanburg in both listings. The first James Alexander family stands alone, and the second immediately follows the family of Robert Alexander, with the family of a John Alexander near them. The dual listing on this census can be explained if James or someone else in his household gave the information when they were visited by the enumerator, and, then, Robert or John provided data for his father’s household again while he was giving information about his own household.
I have no supporting evidence other than the census data for a son John or a son Robert, and direct evidence for a son Thomas is nearly as sketchy. Two women for whom a male cousin took a YDNA test that provided strong evidence that he and they descend from either James of Spartanburg or a very close relative of James trace their Alexander ancestry back to a Thomas Alexander, whose father was, by their family tradition, also named Thomas Alexander. The age of the older Thomas was correct for his being James’s son, and both Thomases lived in or near Spartanburg County. There will be more discussion of the parentage of Thomas when his descendants are discussed in Chapter 9; however, at this moment, we can prove only that he was closely related to James of Spartanburg. There is more written evidence for David as a son; on 15 February 1788, he and Matthew were witnesses to a deed(4.6). transferring land to Matthew’s — and perhaps David’s — brother William.
Perhaps it is only fitting that the ends of James’s and his wife Mary’s lives are as clouded as their beginnings. If Mary was the only wife of James, as my research and that of others suggest, she must have died after 1800 and before 1810, because, in 1800, a woman over age 45 was listed on the census along with James, and, in 1810, no woman of the appropriate age was enumerated on the census. James may have died in Spartanburg County; however, one family researcher insisted that he came to eastern TN to join his grandson George Alexander. I have found nothing to support his contention or to disprove it, but the death, whether in SC or in TN, probably occurred after 1810 and before 1820.
James Alexander Sr's sons Matthew and William were already married and had families before they relocated from the Spartanburg, SC, area to the area that became Kentucky a few years after their migration. Although the application for a widow's pension for Matthew's Revolutionary War service proves only that his wife was named Eleanor, William McMillin's will and a deed made by his heirs(5.1) provides the information we need. The will mentions all daughters and sons by first name (Esther as Easter) but does not identify the husbands or wives. The deed, on the other hand, identifies Eleanor's husband as Matthew Alexander and Esther's husband as William Alexander and seems to list the McMillin offspring in order of their ages, implying that Eleanor was older than Esther.
A brief summary of the early history of KY counties is probably needed to understand events relating to the Alexanders in KY. Although I have collected these data over time from several miscellaneous sources and, thus, cite no references, anyone can check facts or get more information at almost any library. Any events in KY before June 1, 1792, when KY became the fifteenth state, would have occurred in Virginia’s Kentucky County. Logan County was not one of the original counties, but, on September 1, 1792, it was formed from Lincoln County and included most of western KY. In 1796, KY used part of Logan County to form Warren County, and the next year, another section formed Christian County. In 1798, part of Logan County was reunited with part of Christian County to form Muhlenberg County, and, after 1800, Logan County contributed areas for the formation of several other western KY counties. Records of the children and grandchildren of Matthew and William Alexander might be found in any of these counties that have records going back that far, even if the family never moved far from the neighborhood where they first settled in Logan County.
The federal census of 1800 for KY was lost, but, as mentioned in the previous chapter, the tax list for Logan County shows Matthew and William and their father-in-law William McMillin as landowners. After 1800, there were more land purchases by Matthew Alexander and by a William Alexander, but there is not real certainty that the William who made these purchases was Matthew's brother William.
The family can be tracked to some extent through early marriages in KY(5.2). On February 26, 1806, William Alexander married Hettie Hinton in Logan County, and this William was likely Matthew’s son because we know that Matthew had a son named William who did marry during this general period of time. We can’t rule out that the William who married Hettie was the son of Matthew’s brother William or even some William who was not in our family, but, in spite of lack of records, two items from Logan County provide reasonable assurance to us that Hettie married into our Alexander family. Taken out of chronological order, one item is that Matthew Alexander was a witness for John Hinton's will, which was probated in Logan County November 10, 1809(5.3). Although I have been unable to discover John Hinton’s relationship to Hettie, he was probably her father. The second item is that, on April 22, 1808, in Logan County, Samuel Alexander married Elizabeth Hinton, and we can establish through deeds, censuses, and other records that this Samuel was Samuel E. Alexander, the son of Matthew’s and William’s older brother, James Jr. Apparently, while his parents were still in Spartanburg County, SC, Samuel made the journey to western KY to visit or live with one of his uncles. It seems to have been usual in those days that, if one member of the family had married into another family, there would be more marriages between members of the two families. In any case, by 1812 or 1813, Samuel and Elizabeth retraced his path as far east as Roane County, TN, where they settled near his parents and raised a large family. Samuel and Elizabeth named their oldest daughter, born 1809 in Logan County, Esther, probably Hettie's real name(5.4), and they named their oldest son, born in 1813, John Hinton. Both facts support the inference that John Hinton, who died in 1809, was likely the father of both Hettie and Elizabeth.
Other marriages in early western KY of people who can later be found in Henry County, TN, were: that of John Alexander and Peggy Burns(5.5) (sometimes transcribed incorrectly as Bivins) on 25 March 1813 in Christian County, KY; that of Robert P. Alexander and Nancy Black on 29 April 1820 in Christian County, KY; and that of Thomas Alexander and his cousin Elizabeth McMillan on 17 May 1822 in Logan County, KY.
In 1810, Matthew and Eleanor were enumerated as living in Logan County, and eight males under age 25 and one female under age 25 were in the household. The ranges of age for males are correct for their sons plus one male between age 16 and age 25. We could speculate that the extra male was Matthew's nephew Samuel, but both he and Matthew's son William were married before 1810 and would presumably have had Elizabeth and Hettie with them. A possibly more-fitting scenario is that Matthew's daughter Jane was still alive in 1810 and that the extra male was her husband; however, we can only guess. There are reasons to believe she had no surviving offspring because none were named in the legal affairs after Eleanor's death. In the same neighborhood, Eleanor's sister Elizabeth and her husband Joseph Gilmore were listed.
Eleanor Alexander's and Esther Alexander's father, William McMillin, died in KY, apparently late in 1810 or very early in 1811, and his will, probated in Christian County, and the deed for sale of his land by his heirs, recorded in Logan County, provide information about the family in western KY. Because neither the probate nor the deed mentions an agent for any of the heirs, all family members apparently lived relatively nearby through most of 1812, at least.
In 1820, Matthew and Eleanor were still in Logan County, with Thomas and Jefferson still in their family. Hugh was probably not with them, although the family had young people who are not accounted for(5.6). Their son Robert and his newly-wed wife lived next door, or, at least, was enumerated alongside them, and a John Alexander, probably their son John, was nearby in Logan County. William and James had likely already moved to TN and were probably enumerated in Stewart County. The family compositions of the Stewart County men are not perfect fits to the families of Matthew's William and James, but are close. James's family on the census has a girl, age 10 to age 15, who was not a daughter, and William's family has an extra young male, age 16 to age 25. This would have been the correct age range for his brother Hugh, and it is likely that it was he because one of his descendants told a family tale about his obtaining a marriage license in the Stewart County in 1820 or possibly 1821.
William Alexander and wife Esther McMillin make no further appearance on our stage after 1812, when they are mentioned on the deed for her deceased father's land and when William is probably on the list of taxpayers in Robertson County, TN,(5.7) but I have found their sons John M. and James C. John M.'s grandson James F. Wall reported(5.8) that John M. and his family were in the Christian County, KY, area until after 1830, and a John M. and his family were enumerated on the census there in 1820. In addition to John M. and Margaret, the family contained individuals who could not have been their sons or daughters; however, I have few details about the family of either, including younger brothers and sisters who could have lived with them.
By 1820, James C. had relocated across the state boundary to Robertson County, TN, where his family was enumerated for the 1820 federal census. I have already mentioned that one of the neighboring families was that of Dr. John Priestley, and another neighbor was Job, or Jobe, Siddle, often spelled Siddall. Job was the father of Esther, the wife of James C.'s cousin James (no initial) and several other children including another daughter Judith Alexander. whom I strongly suspect to be married to our James C. (Although there is not sufficient evidence for certainty, in this tale, I will accept Judith as our ancestor.) Jobe died later in 1820, and James C., James, Matthew, Robert P., and William (probably Matthew's son) attended his estate sale and purchased many of the items sold(5.9).
By 1830, the family of Matthew and those of all his sons except, perhaps John, had relocated from western Kentucky to Henry County, Tennessee, and, if John was living, it's almost certain that the John Alexander there in 1830 was he.
The children of Matthew's brother William and his wife Esther is less certain in 1830. John M. and his family were still in Christian County, KY, as the census shows; however, I have been unable to find an 1830 census listing with an appropriate family composition for James C. Alexander, James Alexander, J. Alexander, or even James C. with a surname that seems a reasonable mistake for Alexander. I could have overlooked him, of course, but, if not, the census-taker apparently missed his family.
Although I'm unsure of the exact moment or even the year, the families of James C. and John M. had relocated to Henry County by the mid-1830s, and, if they left family behind in KY, I have no knowledge of it. The western Kentucky story had come to an end.
The Alexander family, beginning with Matthew's sons William, James, and Hugh, were among the earliest settlers in Henry County, which was officially opened for settlement in 1819, after the Chickasaw Indians were forced to sell their rights to the area of Tennessee west of the Tennessee River. As mentioned in the previous chapter, these Alexanders were 1820 neighbors of Adam Rowe, who is credited with being the earliest European settler of Henry County, no later than 1819.
Records show the presence of most of Matthew's and William's Alexander family in the very early days of Henry County. Deeds reveal that Robert P. was purchasing and selling land there by 1825. According to the declaration in his application for a pension as a Revolutionary War soldier, Matthew had lived in Henry County about eight years in 1832, making him a Henry Countian by 1824. Teen-aged Jefferson D. was still in the parents' family at that time, and Thomas came from KY at about the same time as his parents, as shown by the birth of his oldest child in KY in 1823 and the birth of the next in Henry County in 1826. The 1827 tax list in Henry County shows the presence of these Alexanders: Matthew, William, James C., Hugh M., Robert P., and Thomas. Neither of Matthew's sons John and James are mentioned, but the tax list probably missed a few people, and, in addition to the 1820 census listing James as being there, the minutes of Antioch Primitive Baptist Church show that he and his wife helped establish the church in the early days. As already stated, we have no certainty that John ever came to Henry County, and John M. did not leave Christian County, KY, until after the 1830 census.
Although the official history of the county doesn't recognize William, James, and Hugh M., as it does their neighbors Adam Rowe and James House as being among the pioneers on the western Tennessee frontier and doesn't feature the Alexanders as prominent citizens of the county, they left their marks, both good and less than stellar.
To illustrate that our ancestors were real people, just as we are, not wooden characters with no weakness to go along with their strong points, James and Esther, along with Edward and Nancy Branscom, Harmon and Nancy Reed, Thomas James, and Moses Short, helped organize one of the earliest churches, 11 December 1828, and a few years later, James was excluded from the church he helped establish for “making too free use of ardent spirits”.(6.1)
Congress passed legislation providing for pensions for indigent veterans of the Revolutionary War, and, from my research on the pension-application files and pension awards, it seems that not all those applying for or receiving pensions were totally without means as the congress had intended. Matthew applied for a pension in the period of 1831 and 1832, as is recorded in Appendix A, which also has the application by his wife Eleanor for a widow's pension. The applications provide much of what we know about their early lives, and Eleanor's application provides names of the children and ages at the time of filing.
Although marriages occurred in the county from the time of its formation, marriages before 1838 were not officially recorded, and the marriage of one of our Alexanders was among the first to be found in the records. Sarah Alexander, the daughter of James C., married Isaac D. Gore 14 June 1838. Isaac is worthy of a further mention because he and his three wives, Sarah Alexander, Sarah Caroline Stagner, and Sarah Ann Margaret Wall, are several-times great-grandparents of many of the present-day Alexanders, Gores, Walls, and Paschalls with Henry County roots. The marriage is also worth noting because one of the grandchildren of Sarah and Isaac was Amy Gore, whose notes on her early childhood and on her visit to Henry County as an adult helped provide data for sorting out my ancestors.
After Sarah's marriage to Isaac Gore, one of the next sequence of events that I have found well-documented for the Alexanders in Henry County related to the illness, death, and subsequent court proceedings(6.2) concerning the minor children of Matthew's son William. The minutes of Antioch Church, already referred to, record his inability to carry out his duties because of his weakness and, finally, of his death 18 October 1839. His wife's name is given as Martha in both the church minutes and in the court records; however, the records don't provide Martha's maiden name. The series of court records name the children who have reached adulthood and the minor children, as given in the summary of Alexander descendants of James Sr.(6.3) His brother Thomas assumed guardianship of William's minor children, with another brother, Hugh M., and a cousin, James C., signing to ensure the guardian bond.
John M. brought his family to Henry County before 1840, as shown by the federal census, which also shows that his wife Margaret must have died by then. He acquired a home and farm in what would now be considered the Puryear-Jones Mill area, near his brother James C. and Matthew's sons Thomas, Hugh M., and William, before William's death. James probably lived nearby also, but that is only conjecture. I'm uncertain of the date, but John M. and at least one other man donated land for Clear Creek Primitive Baptist Church, later renamed the Puryear Primitive Baptist Church when it relocated into the village of Puryear.
The court records show that, on 7 September 1840, Robert P. posted a bond and was appointed guardian to his own children, apparently after the death of his wife, Nancy Black. The court record(6.4) names his children as given in the list of James Sr. descendants in Appendix G. Robert P. himself died in late 1840 or in January 1841, and court records show that his brother Jefferson was made guardian of his minor children. The court records provide names of the children but are inconsistent, from record to record, whether J. Smith was James Smith or Joseph Smith and whether J. Dickson was James Dickson or Joseph Dickson. In adult life, each seems to have used only the first initial and the middle name; however, a descendant of Dickson reported that family lore had the name he used as John Dickson.
Matthew died in January 1841, and, although there are no official records of the death, the story has passed down that it occurred during a cold winter. He was buried on his and Eleanor's farm, which was just outside the city limits of present-day Paris, very near one of the gates to World War II's Camp Tyson. The grave, which now has a DAR marker, is less than a mile off State Route 54, the highway between Paris and Dresden. Eleanor is supposedly buried beside her husband, but no one appears to know whether there are other family burials there.
In the mid-1840s, there was controversy between Jefferson D. and Thomas over Thomas's administration of their brother William's estate. Jefferson maintained that all the estate except the land left by William was gone and that, since William had borrowed money from their father to purchase the land, the land should be sold and the money received for it divided. Jefferson took the affair to court, and, after the settlement, Thomas and his family left Henry County for Missouri, taking William's minor children along and being accompanied by at least one of the married adult sons. In Morgan County, MO, where they apparently went first, they settled near James M. Alexander, whose relationship to them is unknown. What is known implies a family relationship: James M. had married Martha J. Burns, the older sister of Sarah Catherine Burns, who was to marry Thomas's son Louis (or Lewis).(6.5) Thomas's older brother James appears to have moved to MO a short time earlier, and the families were near one another.
Marriage records show that, on 19 September 1846, James C.'s son, William H., married Aditha Stephens and that, nearly a year and a half later, on 19 February 1848, his son John Priestly married Aditha's relative, possibly a sister, Emily Jane Stephens.
After a series of financial misfortunes in the late 1840s, James C. Alexander and his son William H. became indebted to several people, and, in 1847, they made deeds of trust to come due at the end of 1848 for most of their real estate. Somewhat later, they also put up much of their personal property for public auction, and, interestingly, that personal property included James C.'s distillery, with the tubs and coils listed separately. James C., William, William's wife Aditha, and several of James C.'s younger children left Henry County, probably in 1849 or early 1850. All appear on the 1850 federal census in Fayette County.
On 28 September 1848, John M. married Lydia McClure, Isaac Gore's much-older widowed sister. This was the same Isaac Gore whose first marriage was to James C.'s daughter Sarah. The 1850 census shows John M. and Lydia with children and probably grandchildren from their earlier marriages.
Although, after 1850, there were fewer of our adult Alexanders left in Henry County, several remained instead of migrating elsewhere. John M. was there, as were his daughters: Eliza, married to William Shell, Martha B., married to Andrew J. Wall, and Penina, married to William Mooney. Hugh M., wife Mary, and their family remained, and adults in their family included sons Berry P. and Meredith and daughters Sarah Ann, Mary Ann, and Elmira, the daughters all married into the Mathis family. Jefferson D.'s and Nancy's family in Henry County included their daughters and son, who were minors, and Robert P.'s minor children. Robert P.'s adult son J. Smith and Smith's brothers, Elbert M. and Bayles, were still county residents in 1850, and Robert P.'s son J. Dickson returned later to live in Henry County again.
A county record dated May 20, 1853, shows that J. Smith and J. Dickson Alexander, sons and heirs of Robert P., wanted their uncle, Jefferson D., to give them their share of Matthew's estate. The three agreed to submit the matter to John Alexander and I. G. Harris (the future Tennessee governor?) for arbitration and settlement, and the arbitrators awarded $519 to Robert P.'s heirs but also found that Robert had owed Jefferson $718.75. Jefferson, Dickson, and Smith signed the agreement (or used their seals instead).
Although I have no proof, I believe that the John who helped decide the argument for Smith, Dickson, and Jefferson D. was John M. for no other John appears to fit. If the record does refer to John M., it marks his final appearance on the scene because he apparently died shortly afterward, and I have found no further reference to the young Alexanders listed in his and Lydia's family in the 1850 census.
Although several of his relatives were gone, Priestly and his wife Emily Jane lived out their lives in Henry County, and marriage records, censuses, tax lists, and other legal records show that some of Hugh M.'s sons and daughters and at least two of Robert P.'s sons did likewise.
Hugh M.'s children who remained included: Berry P., whose wives were Mary Ann Mathis and Nancy Jane Barton; Meredith, who married Nancy Goldston; Mary Ann, who married Samuel Mathis; and Elmira, whose husband was Josiah Mathis. Hugh P., who may have been Hugh M.s biological son but who more likely was the son of Berry P. and Mary Mathis, married Rebecca Mathis, and they also lived out their lives and raised their family in Henry County. Hugh M.'s daughter Sarah Ann “Sally” married John Mathis in Henry County, but, although they lived there for some time, they moved to MO before their children reached adulthood.
Berry P. and his first wife, Mary Mathis, may have parented Hugh P. (married Rebecca Mathis) before Mary's early death, although Berry's parents included Hugh P. in their family on censuses after 1850. I use a two-pronged argument for this conclusion: Hugh M.'s wife, Mary Flippo, would have been in her mid-forties by the time of Hugh P.'s birth, and the 1850 census does not show Hugh P. in Hugh M.'s family. Berry P. and his second wife, Nancy Barton, had several children, including at least Luther L. (married Sally Barbee and Adelade Bradley), Mary B. (married John C. Humphreys), Malissa E. (married Samuel M. Goldston), William Porter (married Freedonia Adaline Stark), Jamima Evaline, who died as a child, and Sarah Alice (married John P. Atkins).
Robert P.'s and Nancy Black's Henry County sons were, for certain, J. Smith and J. Dickson, who married sisters, Lucy A. and Louise A. Goodall, and, although, at the time of the 1860 census, shortly after their marriage, Dickson and Louise lived in Arkansas near her parents, George and Mary Goodall, they returned to Henry County after the Civil War. Their daughter Martha married Wilson N. Roberts, but I haven't found the fate of their sons, Elbert M. and Bayles.
Smith's and Lucy Goodall's children included: Mary (married a man surnamed Travis), Ada (married Albert B. Mitchum), Arthur G. (married Fannie B. Roan[e]), Clarence L. (married Annie Crawford), and Ella A (married Alexander Loving and E. J. Travis). I do not know that there were not others.
My great-great grandparents Priestly Alexander and Emily Jane Stephens raised four sons who survived to adulthood and who already been discussed: Thomas Richard (married Louisa Gore), Joseph Riley (married Mary Gore), Travis Buchanan, (married Martha McFall and Emma Gore), and John Wesley (married Clementine "Tiny" Wall). These couples had numerous grandchildren, and several of their descendants never moved away or moved and returned. Since Joseph's and Mary's, my great-grandparents, only child who died as an infant or in childhood was son Isaac Priestly, I could follow the lives of my grandfather and my great-aunts and great-uncles, who were living as I was growing up during the nineteen-forties and nineteen-fifties. Most lived in or near the community where they were born and raised, and we visited or were visited by the ones who lived elsewhere. Even though they were not interested in genealogy, they would often speak of their parents and of uncles, aunts, and cousins among whom they grew up.
This history of my Alexander family does not proceed time-wise beyond the great-aunts and great-uncles: Louisa Ilena (married Thomas Gore), William T. (married Myrtle Manning and Pearlie Erin Wilson), Emily Jane (married Charles Moorehead), James Riley (married Minnie Hicks), Benjamin Franklin (married Ocie Dowdy), Alice Victory (married George Gore), Tolly Elbert (married Goldie Dunlap), and Benford Squire (married Pearl Manning, Irene Dicks, and Eula Stalls). Interested descendants can easily take their family forward to the present.
Although Chapter 2 mentioned the financial troubles that led to part of James C.'s family relocating from Henry County, TN, to Fayette County in the same state, it seemed appropriate to refer to the records concerning those troubles here where this branch is covered in more detail.(7.1)
When James C. went with his son William H.'s family to Fayette County, TN, he took along his mentally handicapped son Job(e), and his teenaged children, James R. and Nancy J. Wife Judith Siddle had died before 1850, probably before the move, and James C. apparently died between 1850, when he, Jobe, and the other children appeared on the census with William H., and 1860, when Jobe is in William H.'s family without the father.
Of James C.'s children who went with him to Fayette County, I have been unable to follow James R., but a bit of research showed that Nancy J. married Hugh A. Cullum and that James M. had a wife whose first name was Mary. I have been able to follow them to some extent.
Nancy and Hugh Cullum moved their young family from Fayette County to White County, AR, before 1860, and they lived out their lives there, with Nancy dying about 1874 or 1875. Their children were Sarah E., Hugh C., Mary L. or E., Christopher C., and a daughter whose name I estimated from the 1870 census as Tamson or Jamson. I have been unable to determine whether any of the family knew that some of their Siddle/Siddall cousins came there from Fayette County, TN, at about the same time.
Arkansas records of marriages show that Hugh C. married Zoda Hackney; Mary married Peter Ludi; and Christopher married Sarah Adkis(s)on. It is claimed that Sarah married Oliver Beals, and I have found nothing to discredit the claim but also nothing to support it. I have found nothing on a marriage for Tamson and don't know that she survived childhood.
James C.'s son William H. and Aditha Stephens had several children, including James M., Olive J., Jefferson, Anna Dora, and William Buchanan, and I have been able to trace all except possibly Jefferson.
James M. married Mary J., whose surname I have been unable to find. They had a son, James E., who was enumerated with his Uncle William B.'s family in 1900. There is no certainty that the James E. who married Irene Nichols in Shelby County, TN, and shared life with her in Oklahoma was the James E. who was the son of James M., but there is considerable evidence for that conclusion. The son of James M., on a federal census (1900),reported his birth as occurring February 1875 in TN, and the James E. who married Irene reported his birth state as TN, while the cemetery information from Find A Grave lists his birth as also being in February 1875. Memphis, Shelby County, TN, where James E. and Irene married was also where our Alexanders were enumerated in the 1880 census, and it is just across the river from Crittenden County, AR, where James E. lived with his uncle, William B., in 1900. Before 1910, both William B.'s family and James E.'s family were living in Oklahoma, although, it must be admitted, not in the same county. Although Irene's husband James E. could be completely unrelated, I choose to include them as family. James E. married Irene Nichols, and they had at least three daughters and one son, all of whom were born in OK, where James E. and Irene lived until their deaths.
Olive J. married William C. Champion, and they had a daughter Lula, who apparently died young, and, according to the 1880 census in Arkansas County, AR, and a CA death record, a daughter Ida Harritte or Hariett. Although neither record identifies the mother, the birth date for Ida fits only if Olive was the mother. Ida H. married John H. Martin, but, although they had several children, I have not tracked them. Although Ida and John died in Los Angeles, Find A Grave shows their gravestone in Arkansas County, AR.
Anna Dora married her cousin Lafayette Jasper Shell, whose parents were Olive "Ollie" Stephens and John Shell, and, after living for a brief time in Missouri, moved with him back to Henry County, TN, where they lived for several years before moving to Hardeman County. Several of my family apparently knew them because they attended Clear Creek Primitive Baptist Church (later named Puryear Primitive Baptist Church), where many of my Alexanders also attended at that time. Anna Dora's and Lafayette J.'s children included Clara Ethel (married John R. McKinney/McKinnie while in Henry County); Norris (married Annie Luela Blackard(7.1)); Luna Pearl (married Lee L. Alexander, who died while they were still in Henry County); Lillie Eugenia (married Robert D. Hendrix); and Erin Aditha. Most, if not all, of Anna Dora's offspring had children, but only Norris and his family stayed in Henry County when the parents and the others left.
William Buchanan married Clara Dale Roach, whose parents were James Roach and Martha Throgmorton. Although William and Clara were from Tennessee, they married in Crittenden County, AR, where Clara's Uncle James C. Throgmorton lived. William's and Clara's children included: Arthur P., Cora Lena or Cora Leona., Joseph Leroy, Samuel Henry, Gertrude, William Jefferson, Robert Earl, and James B., and there may have been another child who died young. Although most were born in TN, James B. was born in Oklahoma, and Robert E. may have been born in either OK or Crittenden County, AR, even though he gave his birth state as TN. After moving to OK shortly after 1900, William and Clara lived the rest of their lives in Oklahoma County, OK.
I have been unable to follow Arthur Porter sufficiently well to determine whether he had a family; however, after some period in Chicago, where he registered for the draft in June 1917, he settled in California after the war, where he was enumerated on censuses and where he died. Although he reported himself as married in 1917, in 1942, on his WWII draft registration form, he mentioned no wife and reported that his brother Samuel Henry would always know his address and reported that his workplace was the market owned by Samuel Henry. His CA death certificate lists his mother's maiden name as Roach.
Cora Lena married Allen Ray Mooney, and they migrated from OK to CA during the dust-bowl days. Their children included: Leroy, Clifford D., and Ivan Earl, who were born in OK before the move. The Mooneys lived the rest of their lives in CA, but I have not attempted to follow them past Leroy, Clifford, and Ivan.
Joseph Leroy married Ollie Bell, whose maiden name I found from the CA death certificates of their sons, and they also moved to CA during the 1930s. Their children, all born in OK before the CA migration, included: Karl Rex, a son sometimes known as James Joseph and other times known as Jimmy Joe, and Joycelyn. After Ollie's death, Joseph married Bertha Luker, and they had at least one child, Gerald Leroy. Joseph and Ollie have living descendants, including an Alexander who agreed to take the YDNA test, the results of which were an almost perfect match to my results. Joseph and Bertha may also have descendants through Gerald, who died in his early sixties.
Samuel Henry married Fern Boye, and they were probably the first of the family to migrate to CA, arriving there before 1930. They had a son who died very young and another who lived until a short time ago (2014), and that son, Veryl Wayne, and his wife, who survived him, have living offspring and grandchildren, many of them still in CA.
Gertrude married Cecil R. Rowen, and they remained in OK to live out their lives. They had at three daughters, Lola Bernice and two others still living in late 2016, and two sons, Royden Eugene and Kenneth Wade. I know there are living descendants. Sharon Rowen, granddaughter of Cecil and Gertrude, gave me information that was very helpful with this family and also passed along information about the relatives in California, although she had no knowledge of the present generation.
William Jefferson married Elvira Sipple; however, I am unsure where or when, since the 1920 federal census in Multomah County, Oregon, shows her as single. They were in California by 1940, but I know little more about them. Even her maiden name had to be discovered from her CA death record.
Robert Earl married Ivyle Maxine Boye, who was related to Fern Boye, but they divorced without children after a short time, and Robert then married Fern Maryetta Fink. They had at least one son, who may still be alive, and possibly other children. They lived out their lives in CA.
James B., listed as James Brook Alexander on a social security form filed 22 November 1985, married Dorothy Irene Ridlinghafer, and they relocated from CA to the Seattle, Washington, area before 1940. If they had children, they were born after 1940, probably after World War II, and would likely still be living.
All the people covered in this chapter are cousins of my father Nolan through descent from James C., and most are also cousins through Aditha Stephens, wife of James C.'s son William H.
The family of James M. Gore, who was the son of James C.'s daughter Sarah, could have been added to the list of Fayette Countians because he moved there after his Civil War service and married Minerva (Hall) Morris, the widow of a soldier with whom he served; however, they were covered in Chapter 2 because notes made by James's and Minerva's daughter Amy Gore Riggs played a significant role in convincing me that James C. Alexander was Priestly's father. It appears likely that both James M. and Minerva died when their three children were very young, and, after their deaths, the children went with their Aunt Eliza to live in Henry County and then with her when she and her family moved to Texas.
Citations for this chapter are not categorized in the usual manner but are instead listed for the various counties and states in which the participants lived. I have not attempted to cite records in the text for each event, but if a descendant wishes to re-trace the trail, he or she can find the records in Fayette County, TN(7.3); Wayne County, TN(7.4); Shelby County and Hardeman County, TN(7.5); Henry County, TN, where Anna Dora's family returned to live for a while;(7.6); White County, AR(7.7); Crittenden County, AR, and Arkansas County, AR(7.8); Oklahoma County, OK(7.9); Dewey County and Custer County, OK(7.10); Kay County, OK(7.11); counties in the Greater Los Angeles, CA, area(7.12); King County, WA(7.13); and others(7.14). Many of the people are also listed in "Find A Grave;" however, not all the biographical information there is correct.
When Matthew and William moved themselves and their wives and children west to Logan County, KY, along with their McMillin inlaws shortly after 1790, most of their family remained in the Spartanburg, SC, area. Although it is possible that their nephew, Samuel, James Jr.'s son, went west along with them, it appears very unlikely that he went at that time because he would have been younger than ten. The 1800 federal census, a few deeds, and a power-of-attorney document show that the older James, James Jr., and one or more brothers stayed behind.
James Jr. and his wife Mary (maiden name unknown) appear to have been gone from SC, along with their children except perhaps Lawson, by the time of the 1810 census, and what is known is that he had acquired property in Roane County, TN, by 1811. At least a portion of the land that he acquired then is still owned by his descendants and is designated as a farm that has been in a family for two centuries. The graves of James Jr. and Mary are in Pleasant Grove Cemetery, just off I-40 in Lenoir City, TN.
James Jr.'s and Mary's children included George, Samuel E., Lawson, Margaret, Thomas D., Ezekiel, and Hugh E., and they are often claimed to be the parents of David. I have followed most of the offspring for several generations but have little data on George, Margaret, and Hugh. George eventually settled in Monroe County, TN, and had at least one son, also named George. Hugh married Sarah Caldwell, and they very likely had at least two children. Margaret married Robert Spence, and (after his death?) moved to MO
James Jr.'s and Mary's son Samuel has one of the most interesting of the family tales. When he was a young man, not yet twenty-one, he made the journey from his parents' home in or near Spartanburg, SC, to Logan County, KY, where his uncles, Matthew and William, had settled. It is likely that he went with a group migrating to western KY, but we cannot be sure. What we know for sure is that his cousin William Alexander married Hettie Hinton in Logan County 26 February 1806 and that Samuel married Elizabeth Hinton there 22 April 1808. Hettie, possibly formally Esther, and Elizabeth were probably daughters of John Hinton for whom Matthew witnessed a will. Samuel and Elizabeth supported this conclusion by naming their oldest daughter Esther and their oldest son John Hinton.
John Hinton, the wives' father, died before November 1809, and, a few years after that time, Samuel and Elizabeth made their way east to Roane County, TN, where his parents, James Jr. and Mary, had recently settled. Samuel may participated in the beginning of Cumberland Presbyterianism, which occurred about that time in the Logan County area, but is only certain that Samuel and Elizabeth were Cumberland Presbyterians and that they helped organize one, perhaps two, churches back in eastern TN.
The first two children of Samuel and Elizabeth were born in KY, and the others were born in Roane County. Their children included: Esther (married Addison Lyle), Miriam (married Samuel R. Lyle), John Hinton (married Barbara Smith), Elias (married Jane Rankin, Sarah Rankin, and Harriet Bradshaw), Robert C. (married Sarah Ann Prewitt/Pruitt), Mary Ann (married William Findley), Sarah (married Patrick McGuire), Margaret (married Andrew Hankins), Elizabeth (married William Watson), Louisa (married Thomas Rodgers), and Samuel Logan (married Elizabeth [unknown maiden name]). My research has not focused
on Mary Ann, Margaret, Elizabeth, and Louisa, and this document presents no additional information on them or their descendants.
As mentioned Esther married Addison Lyle, on whom I have done just enough digging to learn that he and Miriam's husband Samuel are related to each other and to the McGuires of Jefferson County, TN, and that Addison's Lyle line may be through his mother. Anyone who wants to investigate further will probably find that researchers of Lyle and McGuire genealogy have Addison's and Samuel's lineage fairly well established.
Esther's and Addison Lyle's children included: Ezra A. (married Clementine Richardson), Jane E., Margaret L., John A., Mary S., Eliza A., Sarah C., and Amanda C. I have no other verified data on the family, but I believe some of them moved to Missouri.
Miriam's and Samuel Lyle's children included: John D., William H., Samuel A., Amanda E., James N., Sarah L., Ariadne. After Samuel's death before 1850 and Miriam's death before 1860, their children lived with her brothers and sisters. This work does not follow them further, but most of them lived their adult lives in Jefferson County, TN.
John Hinton's and Barbara Smith's children included: William S. (died young in Civil War), John S.(died young in Civil War), Robert H. S. (married Nancy Munger and Mary Elizabeth Grant), James Thomas (married Susan Jane Keith), Nancy H., Elias R. (apparently did not marry), Margaret S., and Andrew J. (apparently died as a child). I have extensive data on only James Thomas, who moved his family to Hamilton County, TN, where they put down roots.
Samuel's and Elizabeth's son Elias had several children with his first two wives, who were both Rankins. The women were cousins, although apparently not first cousins, and, as proved by YDNA on their fathers's line, were related to the Rankin family to which Chapter 13 is devoted, although the common ancestor for the two branches is currently still a mystery.(8.1) Elias and his children lived in Jefferson County, TN, but I have only identified them and not followed them. With Jane, the children who survived infancy were Thomas Theron, Emma Lillian, John M., and Samuel, and, with Sarah, there was but one child, Walter, before she died.
Robert C.'s and Sarah Prewitt's children included: Asberry William (married Sarah Ann Adams and Rebecca, whose maiden name I do not know), Samuel L. (married Sarah Danielson), Mary E. (married William Ramsey), and Columbus (married Girtie Kirkline). The members of this family lived mostly in Morgan County, Fentress County, and Putnam County in TN.
The marriage of Samuel's and Elizabeth's daughter Sarah to Patrick McGuire resulted in a family that included: Elizabeth J., Mary Ann, Joseph, Samuel, Lou (apparently died as a child), a daughter known to me only as M, who apparently died young, James, Thomas, Sarah Catherine, William, and Ernest Patrick. Sarah settled with Patrick in Jefferson County, TN, and, although I have not followed members of this family further, a descendant of Matthew Alexander, who married a descendant of Ernest Patrick McGuire and wife Minnie Talley, provided information on their branch. Their children were: Boyd, 1898, Walter, 1900, Beulah, 1903, Ralph, 1910, William, 1912, and Leslie (daughter), 1915, plus at least two children who died very young.
Samuel Logan and Elizabeth moved their family to Sebastian County, AR, after the Civil War, and I have only some bits of information on them thereafter, but their children included: Samuel B. (married Dona, probably Fredonia, Scott), Sarah E., and William R. (married Dora).
That brings us to James Jr.'s and Mary's next oldest child, Lawson. Nothing is known about his early life, and he appears first as other than a number on a federal census in 1823, when he married Jane Barry (or Berry) Elliott. Their two oldest children, Andrew and James, and two younger daughters, Mary and Margaret, died in early childhood. The children who survived were: William Lawson (married Jane Brittain), Jane A., and Emily M,, and neither Jane nor Emily had children, although one may have married late in life. William Lawson's family have remained mostly in the section of Roane County where they settled, but this part of the county became Loudon County after the Civil War.
The children of William Lawson and Jane Brittain included: Ann L. (died as a young adult), Annis D. (died in early childhood), Emily C. (died in early childhood), Hester J. (married John Davis), Cynthia E. (married John Nelson), William Tate (married Alice Spraker), and Joseph Peeler (married Jennie Matlock).
Hester and John Davis had at least two children, Elsie Rae and Curtis. Cynthia and John Nelson had at least three children, only two for whom I have found names: Ethel and Luther.
Children of William Tate and Alice Spraker included: Malissa Boyer (married Albert J. Eldridge), Edna Mae (married John J. Preston), Louse Burdett, and Paul Britton (married Mabel Thompson). There are living offspring from the marriage of Malissa Boyer and that of Paul Britton. The family provided this information.
Joseph Peeler and Jennie Matlock had two daughters, Reba (married H. C. Greenway), who is deceased, and Frances, who died as a child, and two sons, Joe Ralph (married Charlotte Hambright), who died recently at age 101, and a younger son who is still living. Information on this family comes from personal knowledge and from members of the family itself.
We now come to James Jr.'s and Mary's son, Thomas D., who first married Betsy Parr and, after her death, Elizabeth Burk. Thomas and Betsy had at least one son, James M. (married Elizabeth Keneaster), and his and Elizabeth Burk's children included: John H. (married Amy Jane Prather), William, Mary Elizabeth (married James W. Prather), and Martha J. (married Robert Waggoner). Thomas's family, including James M., migrated to Johnson County, Indiana, where they settled down for life. The information on Thomas's and Elizabeth Burk's children and grandchildren was, for the most part, provided to me by two descendants of John H. and Amy from family records and, although I have not fully verified it myself, I accept their assurances of accuracy. I have family data from them on only the children of John H.
The children of John H. and Amy Prather include William T. (married Sarah Catherine Fisher), Madison O. (married Minerva Smyser and Nina DeLong), Jarvis Asbury (married Amy Frances Hiland and Elgie Ward), Mary A., Joseph A. (married Frances Matilda McFadden and Emma Louise Swenson), Lawson Edward (married Gertrude Kephart), Eugene Scott (married Kathryn Riggs), and Maria Ella (married William Pitcher). My information includes offspring for only Madison O. and Joseph A.
Madison and Minerva Smyser had at least one son, Mervill (married Ruth McQuinn), and they have living descendants.
Joseph A.'s and Frances Matilda McFadden's children include Jessie Frances and Emily Blanche, and his and Emma Louise Swenson's children include Beulah Beatrice (married Raymond Rushton Sr.), Joseph A. Jr., Jarvis Madison (married Marjorie Murray), and Helen Jane (married Robert Burnam). Beulah Beatrice and Raymond Rushton and Jarvis Madison and Marjorie Murray have living descendants.
James Jr.'s and Mary's son Ezekiel married Elizabeth G. Ewing, and their children included James Ewing, Margaret E., Martha, and George. Ezekiel moved his family to Newton County, MO, perhaps after a stopover in KY. After Elizabeth's death, he married Margaret Brittain, a widow, and they had no children. Brittain was Margaret's married name, and, from her first marriage, she was the mother of Jane Brittain, who married Ezekiel's nephew William Lawson.
Ezekiel's son James Ewing married Mary Matlock, and they were parents of Rebecca E. and John. Unless Mary Matlock's name was Mary Eliza or vice versa, James E. married Eliza in KY before reaching MO. Her maiden name is not known, but she and James E. had a son Rufus, who apparently died as a child. On censuses, James Ewing listed his occupation as a cabinet-maker and as a plow-maker, and, although I have seen no documentation, he is said to have held a patent for an improved plow.
Son George C. married Madeline Delk(8.2), and they had children, including William A., Martha P., Julia A., John C., Thomas, Benjamin F., and Mary.
Ezekiel's and Elizabeth's daughter Margaret E. married George W. Breazeale, and I believe they went to MO along with her father's family and her brother's family.
Almost nothing is known about James Jr.'s and Mary's son Hugh E. except that he married Sarah Caldwell and that they were parents of Mary Jane and J. F., who may have been John or Joseph, and also a son James who died in infancy. The family may have moved to KY, then to IN and possibly IL, and the family of Mary Jane, who married Jonathan James, ended up in Boone County, Iowa. Their children included Sarah A.~1862, Mary J., ~1855, Margaret E. ~1857, Laura~1859, and Joseph (~1863). If J. F. was Joseph F., born after Hugh and Sarah were in IN, he and his wife Mary Jane Barns, or Barnes, also moved their family to Boone County, where they lived for some time before relocating to TX. Since the data I have found does not provide adequate links between Joseph and Hugh and Sarah, I leave the task of trying to establish that link to another researcher, and I have listed census records that identify children and grandchildren of Joseph and Mary Barnes. It is worth noting that two of their several children were named Sarah and Lawson and that, on the 1880 federal census, Joseph named his father's birth state as NC and his mother's as TN, correct for Hugh and Sarah.
Records pertaining to James Jr.'s family in SC, that is, census records and deeds for land transfers, were cited when the family's origins there were addressed, and the Kentucky records included that of Samuel E.'s Logan Co. marriage. Other records pertinent to the family history, which are listed in this chapter, are federal census records from several states and marriage records from: Mecklenburg County, NC, Roane County, TN, Loudon County, TN, Blount County, TN, Johnson County, IN, Carroll County, IN.
That Jane, Sarah, and the other Jefferson County, TN, Rankins have a common Rankin ancestor with Samuel Rankin who married Eleanor Alexander is shown by comparison of the YDNA from people known to be in the two groups. Samuel's known descendant matches with three Jefferson County test participants as follows: four mismatches on sixty-seven markers, three mismatches on thirty-seven markers, and four mismatches on thirty-seven markers. If only the final man's DNA were compared, there could be some doubt about kinship, but he matches the other two Jefferson County men closely. Readers who are unfamiliar with YDNA and YDNA-testing can refer to Appendix Y for background information.
Notes for Chapter 8
Federal Census Records
NOTE: The transcription in the marriage book lists the bride as Jenny (not Jane) Berry Elliott and the groom as Lawson Alexander. The bondsman was George Elliott, and, since the witness Isaac S. Alexander, may have been Isaac Alexander, the clerk at the courthouse, he was probably not Lawson's kin, merely a convenient witness.
Tennessee State Marriages, 1780-2002, Roane Co. Marriage Books (from more than one volume); marriages for:
Tennessee State Marriages, 1780-2002, Loudon Co. Marriage Books (from more than one volume)
Tennessee State Marriage, Blount Co. Marriage Book
Tennessee State Marriages, Jefferson Co. Marriage Book, December 1792 to July 1881 (Licenses issued as early as October 1792 recorded)
Joseph F Alexander to Mary Jane Barns, 29 Nov 1849, Carroll County, IN
Mary Jane Alexander to Jonathan C. James, 7 April 1851, Edgar County, IL,
For several years prior to putting fingers to keys to type and encode this history, I had corresponded sporadically with twin sisters who were trying to trace their ancestry back beyond Thomas Alexander, who was married to Jane Wood(s), and beyond Thomas's father, who their family tradition also had as being named Thomas. While the reported birthplace and earliest-known residence of their certain ancestor and the names in the family made us believe the twins descended from James of Spartanburg or a close relative, we were unable to verify the link; however, after we had begun the Alexander DNA project, a male Alexander cousin of the twins agreed to take the YDNA test. By that time, the project had shown that over one hundred DNA testers (more than three hundred fifty in 2016) could be put into several family groups with no likely kinship or only very remote kinship between the family groups, and the test placed the cousin's DNA in James of Spartanburg's DNA group almost beyond doubt.
During my investigations for this history I have found that the Thomas married to Jane Wood told his children or grandchildren that his father died when he was a very young child and that his step-father was Andrew Ferguson. In support of this oral history, a probate document from Spartanburg Co., issued in 1796, approves Mary Alexander as administrator of the estate of a deceased Thomas Alexander, and a second document from 1804 names Mary Ferguson and Andrew (written as Andw) Ferguson as responsible for Thomas's estate. This Andrew Ferguson was probably the same man who was a neighbor of James of Spartanburg and who witnessed several deeds for him and his family. Ferguson family tradition provides some support to this, in that several of Andrew's descendants believe his wife was Mary Alexander; however, they usually report her to be the daughter of James Alexander and Mary Peden, a couple whom early genealogists often mistakenly identified as our James and our Mary. If it is true that Andrew Ferguson's wife Mary belonged to the Alexander-Peden family, that means that she was probably not the widow of the older Thomas Alexander; however, I believe evidence leans toward the conclusion that she was. The younger Thomas apparently had an Alexander sister, but I have found no mention of her name.(9.1)
As reported in interviews in 1905 (excerpts in Appendix J), the younger Thomas's family seemed to believe that he lived in Buncombe County, NC, with his parents until this father's death, at which time he came to Spartanburg, SC, and it may be true that they lived in the area that became Buncombe County, which would probably have been at the northwestern corner of Spartanburg County, SC, because the elder Thomas's uncle John and John's children were early Buncombe County settlers (Chapter 10), and it may be that John's and James's brother William, whom we have been unable to trace, settled there also because some unverified tales mention other unidentified relatives as settlers. Whether William was or wasn't an early Buncombe County settler, he, instead of James, could have been the parent of the older Thomas who lived there with his wife Mary when the younger Thomas was born; however, we have tentatively identified the older Thomas as James's child. Although it's possible that the descendants were mistaken about the younger Thomas's place of birth and the older Thomas's place of death, I choose to accept their tale as true because they have been remarkably accurate about other matters.
Thomas's and Jane Wood's children and grandchildren and their families for whom I have data are covered in Appendix G as descendants of James of Spartanburg, and I have found old newspaper obituaries(9.2) that provided some details. The newspaper article partially reproduced in Appendix I names the children of Thomas and Jane and their places of death or where they resided, if still living, around 1900. One should be aware, however, that the picture presented may be a bit rosier than reality; for example, although Thomas's son John Henry made an adequate living from mining, he doesn't seem to have made a fortune. Although some of Thomas's and Jane's descendants are still in the old Pickens County, SC, region, many have migrated elsewhere, Missouri, Indiana, California, and other states.
As is usually true, federal censuses have helped in identifying and tracking the descendants of Thomas and Jane.
Although these Alexanders are certainly related to James of Spartanburg, as suggested by their first known locations and as verified by YDNA tests of descendants, no one has been able to trace them back beyond the ancestors for whom we have named their branches, and the forefather could be one of James of Spartanburg's sons, James, William, or Robert, or possibly one of his brothers, William, John, David, or Robert. When the history gets to James Wardlaw Alexander, it does not follow his descendants closer to the present than his children, and, in Appendix G, they are indexed with James's descendants, although they may well descend from one of his brothers.
Matthew and William Andrew and Their Wives, Judah Anderson and Elizabeth Resign Anderson
One of the family branches for which we have no certain evidence of the exact kinship is that descending from William Andrew Alexander and Matthew Alexander. Although the YDNA tests had revealed that a descendant of William Andrew fit in among the descendants of James of Spartanburg, we were not even sure that William Andrew and Matthew were related to each other until William's descendant persuaded a descendant of Matthew to take the test, which proved what we had believed: that they were closely related and very likely brothers. We are not even certain where they were born since they gave census takers inconsistent states as their birthplaces. The birthplace was likely South Carolina, in or near the old Pendleton District, or GA, Habersham County or Union County. Both married women surnamed Anderson in Union County.
Although the parents of William A. and Matthew cannot be identified, there are tantalizing hints that their grandfather may have been a Revolutionary War veteran named Matthew(10.1). The 1790 federal census, on page 7, shows the family of Matthew Alexander in Pendleton District, SC, with one male age 16 or over, two females with no age range given, and five males under 16. The 1820 federal census in Habersham County, GA, page 118, shows Matthew's family to consist of a male and a female, both of age 45 or greater, one male and one female 16 through 25, two males and two females under 10. Interestingly, although David Alexander, a son of James (died 1753) and Ann, could not have been his father, the family of David Alexander was listed on page 14 of the same district; however, their proximity may not have significance.
Although I have been unable to find Matthew as a head of household in 1830, he may be the elderly male enumerated with Purnell Tindle/Tindell's family in Habersham County that year. The Tindell family has reported that they possess some record or records showing that Purnell Tindle's wife was Sarah Alexander, a daughter of Matthew and Martha, and this claim is supported by Purnell's and Sarah's having named a son Matthew Alexander Tindle/Tindell. If Matthew was listed with the Tindles in 1830, his wife Martha must have been deceased by then because she was not present. Her maiden name is uncertain, but, although I may be incorrect in my reasoning, I concluded from my very limited research that it is more likely Wofford (or some similar spelling) than any of the other names which people put forth for her. We can't be certain when Matthew died, but it was apparently after 1832, when he was a winner in a Georgia land lottery.
Even if the older Matthew was the grandfather of Matthew and William Andrew, we are left in the dark as to the identity of their father, and, although no records have come to light to show the older Matthew's relationship to our family, the possibilities seem to be only two if he is the grandfather. First he could be the son or grandson of James's and Ann's oldest son William, about whom almost nothing is certain after about 1760, or, second, he could be the unidentified son of James's and Ann's son John who was reported by siblings as having fought at the battle of Kings Mountain, as addressed in the section on the family of John and Rachel. At this time, we can make no decisions and will list William Andrew and the younger Matthew among the descendants of James of Spartanburg in Appendix G.
What we know is that William Andrew and wife Elizabeth Resign Anderson remained in Union County, GA, for several years after their marriage and that all their children were born there before they or Elizabeth as a widow moved to Polk County, TN, some time shortly after 1860.
Meantime, Matthew and Judah moved to Habersham County, GA, for a short period after their marriage but didn't remain there long before moving their family to the area around Atlanta, where many of them lived out their days, although their descendants have dispersed across the nation. The children were John J., Jane, William J., Posey, Josiah Simon, Charles, and Matthew, who was apparently known as Babe, even being listed by that name on a census.
Matthew died no later than 1869, as seems to be shown by a Fayette County, GA, deed, dated 3 November 1869, which transfers part of a lot 37 from Judah (listed as Julia) to William Ewing. Judah must have died between 1880 and 15 November 1890 because the remainder of the lot, then lying in Campbell County, was transferred on that date to Josiah Simon by her other children. (Campbell County has now been absorbed by Fulton County.)
For Matthew's and Judah's children, other than John J., who seems not to have married and Charles, who apparently died young, spouses' names can be found in marriage bonds, or, in the case of Posey in a death record, and federal censuses identify Alexander offspring. Jane wed James Harding; William married Nancy Cato; Posey married Molly Ganus; Josiah Simon wed Australia Waites (or Weites); and Matthew's wife was Martha H., with her maiden name not discovered by me. All of the marriages produced children, but I have not followed offspring of those children.
William Andrew's and Elizabeth Resign's children were identified on censuses and other documents as Mary Jane, John W, William J. K. P., Margaret, Franklin, Eliza W., Joab L., Kansas W., America, Nancy M., and Thomas Andrew. Kansas and America were females and appear to have been twins. A descendant of William and Elizabeth has reported that John W. and Franklin were soldiers and died during the Civil War. I have been able to trace descendants for only Thomas Andrew and William, who sometimes used a nickname and sometimes used a middle initial that was not J, K, or P.
William Andrew died after 1860, when he was listed on the federal census in Union County, GA, and before 1870, when Elizabeth was listed without him in Polk County, TN, in the household headed by her son William. Elizabeth Resign appears to have been dead by 1900, when the household of neither son William nor son Thomas includes her as a member.
Thomas Andrew married a woman whose name I could not discover with certainty, but whose birthplace was reported as England on the 1900 census, born no later than 1881 or 1882, and, based on this census and the 1880 census, was very likely Maggie Scott.(10.2) She and Thomas Andrew had at least three children, Lizzy R., Annie, and William A. before her appaent early death. After her death, Thomas married Lenora "Lena" Ivins, in May 1890, and their children included Kenneth Raymond, Verdon Earl, Creed Bates, Chester F., Myrtle, Lela, Courtland, and Mable. Some of the off-spring died in childhood, and I have been unable to follow Lizzy, Annie, and William.
Kenneth, Verdon, Creed, and Chester married and had families, some of whom remained around Hamilton County, TN, or returned there to finish their lives and others who dispersed across the country from sea to sea. Through these sons, Thomas Andrew has several living descendants.
William J. K. P. married Sarah Hill, daughter of John and Martha "Patsy" Hill, and remained in Hamilton County until after 1880, when his family was listed on the federal census there. They were probably there until at least 1892 since the youngest child's death certificate listed Daisy, TN, as his birthplace. Their children included Ida, William N., James H. (middle initial sometimes recorded as R), Charles F., John Wesley, Myra, Rhoda, and Thomas Benton. By 1900, Sarah had died, and William had relocated to Anderson County, TN, where he continued working as a coal-miner. I have been unable to track the oldest child, Ida, who may have remained in Hamilton County, but the others moved along with him. In 1902, William, using the middle initial A, married Rebecca Hinds; however, he didn't live long afterward. Rebecca appeared on the 1910 census with Charles, Thomas Benton, and Rhoda in her family.
William N., using the name Poley, married Rachel Disney in Anderson County in 1895, and we, thus, know that some of the family had relocated by that time. We can be sure that the groom was William J. K. P.'s son only through examining other records. He used the name William with the middle initial appearing to be L on the 1920 census and his death certificate reports his birth place as Ducktown, TN, and his parents as William Alexander and Mary (not Sarah) Hill. Also his step-mother Rebecca, who had remarried to J. A. Leinart and had been widowed again, lived with him and Rachel in 1940. I have found no children for Poley and Rachel.
Anderson County records list a marriage for James H. and Mary "Mollie" Adkins, and federal censuses show that they had children, both sons and daughters, some of whom married and raised families in near by counties, although they apparently left Anderson County(10.3) since Poley and Rachel and Maggie and her son Robert were the only Alexanders enumerated there in 1940.
William's and Sarah's son Charles may have married, possibly in Anderson County, but that is quite uncertain, even unlikely. He lived with his step-mother and younger brother and sister, Thomas Benton and Rhoda, and reported himself as single in 1910 when he was thirty, therefore, making it unlikely that he was the Charles Alexander who married a woman named Mary no later than 1911 and who reported his first marriage as occurring when he was twenty-one. Although the first marriage for the man at twenty-one may not have been to Mary, all things considered, this man appears very unlikely to have been William's and Sarah's Charles.
John Wesley married Maggie Leach, a widow, maiden name Probert as shown by her previous marriage record, in 1904 and lived out his life in Anderson County or nearby, although he died quite young. They had two daughters in addition to Maggie's son, who lived with them.
Myra married William Pebley, and they had at least three children before her early death at age 30, but I have not followed them forward.
Rhoda married Esaw Savage, and they lived chiefly in Campbell County, just north of Anderson County. I have found no children for them.
Thomas Benton married Anne Maude Gaylor, and they lived first in Campbell County, TN, and ultimately in Claiborne County, farther north in TN.
James W. Alexander
After learning that YDNA results from this family branch matched closely with those from descendants of James of Spartanburg, I investigated records in SC and Mississippi to support conclusions reached by one of the descendants in the branch, and my data generally agreed with that of the other researcher. Except for his branch, this history does not follow descendants past the children of the earliest certain family ancestor.
This family is traceable at its earliest back to James W. Alexander, James Wardlaw Alexander by family tradition, but no one from our group was able to establish the exact connection to James of Spartanburg nor, after fitting him into the family of James and Ann, to any of his brothers, John, David, or Robert. Any of James of Spartanburg's unproved but likely sons, John, David, and Robert, -- yes, the same names that his brothers wore -- could have moved the short distance from Spartanburg County to Abbeville County before the date of James Wardlaw's birth, or the unidentified son of John and Rachel Davidson could have gone there when his parents moved from Lincoln County, NC, to Buncombe County, NC, and could have been James Wardlaw's father or grandfather. Not enough is known about the history of some of brothers David's and Robert's sons to rule them out as James Wardlaw's parent.
James Wardlaw's family passed along the story that he was born about 1813 in Abbeville District, SC, just to the southwest of Spartanburg County, or District as it was then called. Although the Abbeville County Historical Society reports that, with the exception of a few wills and probate proceedings, most early records were destroyed in fires in 1872 and 1873, the surviving documents include a will made by a William Alexander, who died between April 1793 and November 1795, and a will made by an Aaron Alexander, who died in 1796. It is possible that Aaron was an ancestor to James Wardlaw because the only Alexander family left in Abbeville County in 1800, or at least the only family enumerated on the census there in 1800, was headed by Aaron's widow Jean or Jane, who was, I believe, a second wife.
James Wardlaw's first marriage, probably to Mary McCartney, occurred in SC.(10.4) His family may have been in Spartanburg Co., SC, in 1840, but the census data fit his family only if there was an older male in the family and if wife Mary had children from a previous marriage. A family in Charleston, SC, fits better but would likely belong to him only if the tales of birth in Abbeville are quite far amiss.
James Wardlaw's family migrated to Pontotoc County, MS, by early 1843, if the 1850 census lists the birth state of his second-youngest child correctly. George T. Alexander confirms that the child's birth is recorded as June 1843. The first record for James W. in MS lists a marriage to Nancy Wardlaw, possibly a relative, in Pontotoc County in 1849. After Nancy's death, he married three more times, with family history, as provided by George T., giving the wives' names as Martha Maynard, Sarah Wade, and Mary Easley. After the Civil War, James Wardlaw lived out his life in or near the Poplar Springs community in northern Mississippi and is buried in a cemetery near there.
James Wardlaw's children included James W., John M., William A., David H., Orlando Lee, Lamar J., Silas Baxter, Martin Luther, Thomas Hamilton, and Ida Sarah (or Sarah Ida).
The oldest child, James W., James Warren per most records to which I have referred, married twice, first to Elizabeth, whose name I have not found, and, on 1 December 1880 in Chickasaw County, MS, to Mollie (M. J. on marriage record) Flanagan. There were several children.
The second child, John M. Alexander, married Kate Brown in Yalobusha County, MS, 8 September 1869. She was listed as Catherine C. on a federal census. They appear to have lived out their lives in Yalobusha County and are buried there. John and Kate had children including George Hamilton, Anne, John, Lucia T., Effie G. Lucia and Effie appeared as sisters of George H. on the 1900 census in Yalobusha County, and Lucia as John's and Catherine's child is confirmed by Tennessee Death Certificate #55-18790.(10.5) There was apparently an earlier Effie, who died in childhood.
William was married to a woman named Mary, said by a descendant to be Mary Harvell and said by another to be Mary Doss, but I have found no record of the marriage. The 1880 federal census shows that William and Mary had children.
David H. married Martha E. Spruill in Marshall County, MS, 2 February 1867, and they lived mostly in Chickasaw County, MS, where they raised a family, died, and are buried.
Orlando L. was married first to a woman whose name I have not found, and second to Nancy A. Martin. Although I have found no marriage record to show her maiden name, the 1880 and 1900 federal censuses showing her with her parents William and Mariah Martin and the 1920 census showing Mariah Martin living with her and Orlando as his mother-in-law should be adequate to accept Martin as the maiden name. Orlando had children with both wives.
I have found no records for Lamar except for his appearing a child in James W.'s family on a federal census.
Thomas H. was married to a woman named Eunice, with whom he had children. Eunice's maiden name was probably Ellard since Willie Ellard lived with her and Thomas as Thomas's brother-in-law when the 1920 federal census was taken in Calhoun County, MS.
I have found census data and marriage records that are probably correct about Silas B.; however, I cannot be certain that the information is for James W.'s son; therefore, I will leave him for other researchers to follow.
Ida S. appears to have been married to Robert Gillispie, although I found no record of the marriage. At the time of the 1920 federal census, Mary Alexander, age 75, lived with Robert and Ida as his mother-in-law, and a Mary Alexander with the same data except for being 85 was listed as the mother of Ida Alexander's brother Thomas H. in 1930, not proof but strong evidence that she was the same woman and the mother of both Ida and Thomas. Ida and Robert had several children who should be easy to trace for anyone who is interested.
Long after I had begun this history, in fact, when I believed I had it completed except for some minor revisions, YDNA results from the Alexander DNA project revealed a participant whose DNA-test results matched that of descendants of James of Spartanburg very closely, while records proved that he was not descended from James. The earliest Alexander ancestor to whom this participant could trace was John, born around 1730, who was married to Rachel Davidson; however, I remembered that John, born about that date, was the name of one of the sons of James (died 1753) and Ann, whom Robin Willis and I had investigated as parents of James of Spartanburg and her then only probable ancestor Eleanor Alexander, who married Samuel Rankin (Chapter 3). A lot of hard work by the coordinator of the Alexander DNA project, Roger Alexander, also a descendant of James of Spartanburg, resulted in DNA tests by descendants of men who fit the profile of two other sons of James and Ann, David and Robert. Their nearly perfect DNA matches to the descendants of James and John provided what she and I considered satisfactory proof that all four men, James, John, David, and Robert were brothers. Unfortunately, no current DNA tests on descendants of Eleanor will show satisfactorily that she was very closely related; however, we consider the circumstantial evidence sufficient for this conclusion, as addressed in Chapter 3.
During my investigations for preparing this history, I found that John's and Rachel's four often-recognized children, James, Ann, Mary, and Thomas, had a brother whose name may have been William or Matthew, although I found insufficient support for any name. Frequently, extensive family trees are available claiming descent from John and and his wife Rachel; however, most of these trees provide only hearsay evidence. An exception to the lack of documentation is the line from James Alexander and Rhoda Cunningham through their son Humphrey Newton, as he was named at birth, or Newton Humphrey, as he was called as an adult.
James, the oldest or second son of John and Rachel, was married to Rhoda Cunningham, the daughter of Humphrey Cunningham, and it appears very, very likely that John Cunningham, who married James's sister Ann, was the older brother of Rhoda. James's and Rhoda's family bible lists their birth dates as December 1756 and October 1763.(11.1)
After moving to the area that become Buncombe County, NC, at some time after the Revolution, James and Rhoda lived the remainder of their lives there, and most of their children, possibly all, were born there. Although Forster Alexander Sondley, a descendant, has detailed information about the Alexanders and their relatives in Buncombe County, (11.2), I do not accept his early history as correct unless other records support it. What is more certain is that they were among the early settlers there and that some of the descendants remain there today while others have spread the family throughout the nation. James's and Rhoda's children, as listed in the bible cited above, were: John C., Rhoda, William D. (died very young) George C., James M. Robert S., Rachel, a second William D., Humphrey N., and Elizabeth. As the bible records show, John married Jane Patton; James M. married Nancy Forster; George C. married Elizabeth Forster; Robert married Jane Wilson; Rachel married Moses White; William married Leah Burgin; Humphrey N. married Polly Forster; and Elizabeth married Joseph A. McEntire. Although I could find no marriage listed for Rhoda, family members have stated that she was married.
James's and Rhoda's son John C. and his wife Jane Patton had at least three sons, John P., born about 1826, William M., born about 1828, and Robert W., who was perhaps a twin to William, and, based on their having gravestones in Berea Baptist Church Cemetery with the parents, John C. and Jane, they were probably also parents of Rhoda E., born March 1812, George N., born March 1813, and Rachel C., born February 1821. Sarah Ann Alexander, born 1827, who was married to a Shope and is also buried there, may be another daughter, but there is less certainty about her.
Children of James's and Rhoda's son George C. and Elizabeth Forster included James H., Orra, Thomas F., Salina, George W., Rhoda, and William F. I have not found records to follow most of the children; however, there are marriage records for James H. and Mary E. C. White in 1852. Mary is sometimes reported to be James H.'s first cousin, the daughter of Rachel Alexander and Moses White, and this could be correct; however, there are discrepancies that should be investigated by anyone believing this to be true.(11.3) The couple lived out their lives and raised a family in Buncombe County, while their children spread throughout the nation.
James's and Rhoda's third surviving child, James M., and his wife Nancy Forster had several sons and daughters and many descendants, but I will not give this branch additional coverage since a grandson, Forster Alexander Sondley, already cited above, covered it well. Although his publications have some misinformation about earlier history, he had personal knowledge or knew from his parents and other family members of James M.'s descendants, and the information should be reliable.
The children of James's and Rhoda's son Robert and and his wife Jane Wilson included Louisa, Rhoda, Harriett, Mary, James, Fanny, and possibly others. Apparently James never married, and Fanny, who married James Wilson, had at least one son, Edgar. I have not managed to trace the others.
James's and Rhoda's daughter Rachel and her husband Moses White had children, and they included James, Rhoda, Robert, Mary, George, Rachel, and William. Except for Mary, who features in endnote 11.3, I have not attempted to follow the family further.
William D., the next oldest child of James and Rhoda, and his wife Leah Burgin had a family which included John Burgin, 1825, Benjamin Julius, 1830, who married Martha Davidson, Harriett, 1832, Albertus, 1834, who married Mary Adeline Davidson, Rhoda, 1836, Sophronia, 1838, and William, 1840. William and Leah raised their family in Buncombe County, and several of their offspring remained in the area.
The children of Humphrey N., or Newton H., and his wife Mary, or Polly, Forster were: William Julius, James M., Harriett Emmaline. "Hattie", and Henry Newton. Although he is listed in the birth and marriage entries of his parents' bible as Humphrey N., he was known as Newton H. during most of his adult life and was called Newton H. in his father's will. (11.4) Newton H. died in 1847, and Polly appears to have died in late 1852 or early 1853 because, in April 1853, the minor children, James M., Harriett E., and Henry N. were were assigned guardians, James Baxter, William D. Alexander, and William Julius Alexander, respectively. Of these offspring, I've been successful in tracing only William Julius and Henry Newton.(11.5)
William Julius, apparently known as Julius, and Margaret Moore married in 1855 in Buncombe County and lived there to raise their family and to provide a home for Henry Newton for several years. Late in life, they, or, after her death, he, moved to Arkansas, where Julius lived with his son Charles M. Other children in the family of Julius and Margaret included Harriett E. "Hattie", James R., David, Lucy (probably Lucinda for her maternal grandmother), and Fanny.
Henry Newton, who was only three when his father died and still very young at his mother's death,lived with brother Julius and his wife Margaret until the onset of the Civil War, when he left to join the Confederate army, although he was only a teenager, and, at the end of the war, he found himself in Henry County, TN, where he had numerous cousins. Although it is impossible to know with certainty whether he and the cousins were acquainted, he lived in a community where some of them also lived, and he married Samantha Veazey from a family that was well-known to the Alexanders of that area.
While Henry and Samantha lived in Henry County, their first three children, James Robert, William Clyde, and Minnie May were born. Some time between December 1872, the time of Minnie's birth, and August 1875, when the next child, Sidney Clifford, was born, they moved from TN back to NC. The journey east was made at the urging of Henry's brother Julius, as the tale was handed down in the family to Sidney Clifford's grandson, Boyd Alexander. Other children of Henry and Samantha born in NC were: Walter Newton, Ossie, Wayne Edgar, Kelly Emma, and Lottie Lee. Ossie seems to have died before reaching adulthood.
James Robert, Henry's and Samantha's oldest child, moved west and settled in Carroll County, Missouri, where he first married Sara Carl, who died within a few years of their marriage, leaving him with a son Carl Alexander. James Robert then married Daisy Summers in Carroll County, and his and Daisy's offspring were Della, Lottie, Nadine, James Robert Jr, and Samuel.
William Clyde married Cora Courtney in 1896 in Buncombe County, but, after marriage, they spent little time in North Carolina before moving west to Lonoke County, Arkansas, near the area where children of William Julius had settled earlier. Their tendency to give varying names to officialdom made it difficult to follow them through life. He seems to have been known as Clyde as he grew up, but he married as W. C. and is listed on censuses as William C., Will C., and Clyde, while his wife married as Cora D. and appears on censuses as Cora, Dell, and Dellar. Their children who survived childhood were Carrie Sue, Hilda, William Clyde, Jr, and Jolly Dell, a daughter.
Minnie May, the last of Henry's and Samantha's Tennessee-born children, married Jules Henry Golay in Buncombe County in 1895, and they left the area shortly afterwards to live mostly in Virginia. Their children included Lewis A., Lucille A., Wilmoth A. (a daughter), Helen B., and Henry J. Minnie died in May 1973, over a century, after her birth in December 1872.
Sidney Clifford, whom I found listed sometimes as Sidney and sometimes as Clifford, was married in 1899 to Annie Hume in Buncombe County, and they had one child, William Henry, before her early death. Afterwards, Sidney Clifford, who became a traveling salesman, married Susie May Chamberlin in 1912 in Warren County, Ohio, where they lived until she died in 1961 and he in 1963. There were no surviving children from the marriage.
Walter N. left Buncombe County as a young man and, in 1900, was in Gibson County, TN, with the family of J. A. Veazey, his mother's brother. On the 1930 federal census, when he gave his age as 50, he listed his first marriage as occurring at age 44, and his wife Clara, age 38, gave her age at first marriage as 32; however, there was a son William Alexander, age 11, implying a previous relationship. Later, son William, on his application for social security, listed his father as Walter N. Alexander and his mother as Clara Peloubet. Perhaps William's memory of his biological mother, if not Clara, had dimmed, and Clara was the only mother he remembered. I know of such an occurrence with two of my father's great aunts whose mother died when they were toddlers.
For Henry's and Samantha's son Wayne, I have found no record of marriage, but federal censuses show that his wife's name was Addie, and the grave stone for Wayne and Addie Alexander, as pictured on FindAGrave shows her name inscribed as Addie Gaston. Wayne and Addie had at least one child, Wayne, Jr. They lived much of their lives in Arkansas but died and are buried in Buncombe County, NC.
Lottie L. was married first to James G. Anderson, who died young, leaving her a widow with five children: John B., James G., Jr., Glenn E., Margaret L., and Arthur A. After the first husband's death, Lottie married Donald I. Gross in 1936 with her three oldest sons as witnesses. There were no children from the marriage, and she outlived the second husband also.
Kelly E. completes Henry's and Samantha's family, and she married Robert G. Eckles fairly late in life, though still within childbearing age; however, I have found no children for them.
James's and Rhoda's youngest child, Elizabeth, and her husband Joseph McEntire reportedly moved to GA after their marriage, and the 1850 federal census in Murray Co., GA, listed the family of a Joseph A. McEntire of approximately the correct age, with the wife seemingly deceased. The names and ages of the children of the family, Martha A., 17, James A., 14, Rhoda J.,12, and Mary E., 9, make it likely that it was the correct family, but I have not followed them further.
Much of the information about John's and Rachel's oldest daughter, Ann, comes from her pension application and her will, which I have included as Appendix L because the documents, which are in the Carroll County, TN, archives, are likely still difficult to find. Appendix L also contains other somewhat-obscure documents or excerpts relating to Ann's life.
Ann was married several times, the first time to John Cunningham, said to be a brother of Rhoda, which is almost certainly true. He died a short time after their marriage but was the father of her oldest child, also named John Cunningham. Although others have reported, perhaps correctly, that the younger John Cunningham married Jane Henderson about 1810, I have found no record to verify this.
Ann married William Patterson in December 1786, in Lincoln County, NC, and, before William's death August 1793, they were parents of Rachel, Elizabeth, Arthur, and Josiah. At the time of Ann's death in 1843, Rachel and Elizabeth were married to husbands surnamed Montgomery and Crawford, respectively, and I have found nothing more concerning Elizabeth. From marriage records maintained by Jackson County, GA, and Maury County, TN, it appears that Rachel was first married to Patton Gardner in August 1808 in GA and then to Jacob Montgomery in May 1811 in TN; however, I have no further information about her or her family.
After William Patterson's death, Ann married James Holmes, who had been recently widowed by wife Mary Neill's death. The two families were acquainted, and Mary was closely related to Robert Neill, the husband of Ann's sister Mary. Mary Neill had a brother Robert, about the correct age to be Mary Alexander's husband; however, a descendant of Robert Neill and Mary Alexander informed me that her Neill investigations showed Robert and James Holmes's Mary to be first cousins. Although I have not proved the relationship, merely checked some sources, her research appears sound.(11.6) Ann and James were parents of two daughters, Mary Neil(11.7), named either for the deceased first wife or Ann's sister (or perhaps with a nod to both), and Sophronia. Daughter Mary appears to have married John Davidson, although, if so, the marriage date would have made her no older than fifteen. Sophronia's married name was Atkinson or Atkisson, and, although she died very young, Ann's will includes unnamed children from the marriage as her heirs.
Returning to the children of John and Rachel, the ancestors of this line, son Thomas was married to a woman named Elizabeth, whose maiden name is said to have been Davidson, a claim for which I have found nothing contradictory. Although most mentions of Elizabeth have her death as occurring in 1843, records show that she died in 1842(11.8). The names of their children, at least those who reached adulthood, are well documented because Thomas was declared a lunatic in the final years of his life, and there were several court cases over his estate in the TN counties of Davidson and Williamson. The court documents list their offspring as: William Morrison Alexander, Peggy Hutchinson, Ruth Kelly, John Davidson Alexander, Rachael Wade, Alfred Alexander, Mariah Bridges, and Jane Inman. Although the legal papers for Thomas named Mariah's husband as James Bridges and gave their residence as Kentucky, I have found nothing more for them.
For Peggy and Rachael, who were deceased when the legal documents concerning Thomas's insanity were filed, I could find only a marriage record to Spencer Hutcherson for Peggy and a record of marriage to Middleton M. Wade for Rachael. The legal documents name the Wade children as Sarah, Elizabeth, Andrew, George, and Minerva, and one of the Hutchinson, or Hutcherson, children as Thomas.
William Morrison and wife Mary Inman and at least several members of their family, which included Elizabeth, Lazarus, Matilda, Emily, Thomas, and John, relocated to Graves County, KY, where daughter Matilda married Thomas Merideth Kinsey in 1852, meaning that it is probable, but not certain, that the older couple and some offspring moved there before the marriage but after the 1850 federal census in Williamson County, TN. In any case the family was counted on the federal census in Graves County in 1860. I have found no trail to follow for Elizabeth, Thomas, and John; however, Elizabeth may have been the one who married Francis W. Byers in the old home county in 1858.
It is possible that Matilda came to KY alone or with some other family member, and she could have been acquainted with her husband-to-be prior to the move. Since the 1860 census shows T. M. Kinsey without Matilda and with sons William, 6, and Elijah, 4, we should assume she died before then. In 1880, William's grandmother Mary was widowed and living in his household, or he in hers.
William Morrison's and Mary's son Lazarus remained in Williamson Co. until at least 1855 -- or returned there at that time -- to marry Alitha Jane, or Talitha Jane, Alexander. Alitha was the daughter of David Alexander and wife Rachel, but, although both families made the short move from Williamson County, TN, to Graves County, KY, I have been unable to determine if David and William Morrison were related.(11.9) In their new home, Lazarus and Talitha settled near other members of his family and her family and raised their children, William E., Parthena, Ada, Mary A., David M., and Maggie.
Since William M.'s and Mary's daughter Emily married Edward "Dutch" Alexander in Williamson County in 1858, some of the family had likely remained there until then. Emily and Edward came to Graves County, but she died very young, leaving Edward with child, Mary.
Thomas's and Elizabeth's son John Davidson was almost certainly the John D. Alexander who married Charlotte Horton November 1826 in Williamson County, and there is a possibility that he was previously married to Henrietta Williams. The insanity papers give John D.'s residence as Perry County, TN, but I found him, Charlotte, and their family in Hardin County, just southwest of Perry County. Although there were more children, I found records for only Maria L., Henry B., James M.., William P., Mary E., Barkly (or Bartly) M., Harriet A., Martha M., and Andrew J. I have been unsuccessful in efforts to trace any of this family closer to the present.(11.10)
Following the lead provided by the testimony about Thomas's sanity, I found his and Elizabeth's son Albert and wife Rebecca Kerby as early settlers in Stoddard County, MO, where they raised their families and lived out their lives. Their children included William M., Elizabeth, Maria, Tennessee A. (a daughter), Mary A., Sarah Jane, and another child. In 1860, on the census, William's and Rebecca's family contains a nine-year old child, listed as a male and a name, or abbreviation, that transcribers have listed as Wm; however, the character taken to be W is different from other Ws on these census sheets. To challenge the identification of the child as William further, a biographical sketch published in 1889 states that William M., the only child with sufficient records to follow, was the oldest of seven children and the only male. (11.11)
As recorded in the Goodspeed history, William M. married Sarah Edwards, with whom he had six children, three of whom, John Davidson, James R., and William Frank, lived to be adults, and these sons married Mary Berna, Maggie Bledsoe, and Carrie Fleming, respectively. William's and Carrie's children were Byron and Thelma, whom I have not been able to follow, while James and Maggie had only a son, James Reavis, before his early death. The children of John D. and Mary were Milton Caruth, James Claude, Paul R., Fred J., and Tom Frank. Some lines can be easily followed to the present; however, this history does not address them further.
There is a additional bit of mystery about the Stoddard County Alexanders. A nearby neighbor of Alfred and Rebecca for the 1850 census was a younger Alfred, age 24, and Elizabeth, age 15. Although he could not be the product of Alfred's marriage to Rebecca and not his son at all unless fathered when he was very young, the two Alfreds are probably relatives. Next door to the younger Alfred was Robert Neil, age 22, possibly also a relative since his death certificate gave his father's name as Andrew, a common name in the line that includes Robert A. Neill.
As already mentioned, John's and Rachel's daughter Mary married Robert Neill, sometimes found spelled with one 'l' and sometimes even listed as Neal, and a Robert Neill was on the tax list in Robertson County, TN, in 1812(11.12), about the time that my ancestor William Alexander purchased land there. I found it interesting that, in 1820, they lived in Springfield, county seat of Robertson County, which was also the home of my ancestors James C. Alexander (William's son, James of Spartanburg's grandson) and Judith Siddle. Of course, it is impossible to know whether these two branches of our family were acquainted.
Robert and Mary parented several children, who were, as named in his will(11.13) William C., John A., Robert, Elizabeth Bigbee, Mary Adams, Frances Baily, and Gilbreath F. Daughters were listed in the will by their husbands' surnames. Since the 1840 census lists Mary Neill as head of household, Robert must have died by then. Although many have reported Mary (Alexander) Neill dead by 1855, the 1860 census shows that she was still living in Robertson County with her daughter Elizabeth Bigbee. I have traced only William C., John A., Elizabeth, and Gilbreath F.
Robert's and Mary's daughter Elizabeth, along with her children, lived in Robertson County with her mother after Mr. Bigbee's death and her father's death. Elizabeth and her spouse had at least two children, a son Robert Bigbee, who may have died as a young adult, and a daughter, whose name seems to be Mary Ann Elizabeth and who married John Gunn.
Son William Neill was married to a woman named Mary, probably Mary Clinton(11.14), and lived with her and three young females, undoubtedly daughters, near the area where Robert and Mary lived for the 1830 census, and they lived next door to his mother for the 1840 census. By 1850, they had moved a short distance to Todd County, KY, where Mary died shortly afterwards, following which William probably married widow Emily Henson (married name).(11.15) William and Mary had children including Eliza, Ellen, Clinton, Leonidas, Mary, William, and probably daughters and sons who had left home before being listed by name on the 1850 census. The children of William and Emily included Teran, a son, and Powhattan, a daughter.
With the help of descendant Marcy Porter, I found that Robert's and Mary's son John married Hester Humphreys and that the couple were parents of Robert E., Marcus, Mary, Benjamin F., and Samuel. After following the family to Caldwell County, Texas, where John apparently died fairly young, I was unable to trace most of the family; however, I discovered that Robert E. and wife Elizabeth Shelton raised a family and have numerous descendants, not only in Texas but elsewhere.
Robert's and Mary's son Gilbreath F. was probably the man who married Carline Hart in Robertson County, TN, in November 1845 and also the one who married Helen Humphries, or Humphreys, in Lowndes County, MS, in 1864, after the death of Carline. Gilbreath and Carline had Henry, Amanda, Gilbreath F. Jr., a child for whom I have only the initial R, and Judith. Helen was many years younger than Gilbreath, and she and he had children William, Samuel, John, Ossian C., Eugene, and Helen.
As usual, marriage records, death records, and federal census records have assisted in following the family's history.
Although finding the YDNA matches between the descendant of John Alexander and wife Rachel Davidson and the descendants of James of Spartanburg and wife Mary was fortuitous, it led to renewed interest in James, died 1753, and Ann as parents of both. Soon, his fervor and my encouragement led to the Alexander DNA Project co-ordinator's finding and getting the participation of men whose early ancestors along the NC-SC border were David and Robert, who corresponded well to the David and Robert named in the deeds made by James and Ann(e) in Anson County, NC, shortly before James's death in 1753. For background information, refer back to Chapter 3.
We know that David was married to Margaret Davidson, although the marriage record from Rowan County, NC, in April 1763, gives her surname as Davison(12.1). We can also identify their children from the will David made in 1795, shortly before his death(12.2). He names the sons and daughters as Anne Gotcher, Jane Moore, David Alexander, Margaret Davis, Catherine Brown, Ellenor Read, James Alexander, Elizabeth Woods, John Alexander, William Morrison Alexander, and Ruth Alexander, using the husbands' surnames for the married daughters.
The 1790 federal census in Pendleton District, SC, lists David's family as having three males under 16, one male in addition to him over 16, and six females. This accounts for the four sons but only five of the daughters, meaning that two older daughters, probably from among Anne, Jane, and Margaret, have married and left home. Only John, William, and Ruth had not married by August 1795, when David made his will. It is likely that several of the children had offspring of their own; however, I have been unable to locate and follow families of any except son James, daughter Margaret, and, for a short while, David Jr. There are also claims made about the family of John, and I found a family that could be his; however, I could not verify that this was the son of David and Margaret, and the ones claiming John as an ancestor provided no references, not even family tales, to support the claim. It is very probable that daughter Margaret married Paul Davis and that they had several children, most of whom settled in or around Fayette County, IN(12.3). In trying to trace the other daughters through their husbands' surnames, I found either no men of that surname in Pendleton District in 1790 and 1800 or so many of that surname that it was too difficult to choose correctly.
Although I found no records from which I could identify the younger David's children accurately, he appears to have stayed and raised his family in Anderson County, SC, which was formed from Pendleton District. Although not certain, he probably had a son James, born shortly after 1800, as shown by the appearance one line below David on the 1830 census of a James and wife between 20 and 30. Although the younger David died in July 1849, per the federal census mortality schedule, and did not appear on a federal census that named family members, his wife may have been Jane, and he may have had a daughter named Elizabeth. Jane and Elizabeth, aged correctly to be wife and daughter and born in SC, were in Anderson County in 1850, but I am not sufficiently confident about Elizabeth being a child to include her in Appendix G. Other Alexanders enumerated in the county in 1850 were very unlikely to be David's children since they were born in Georgia.
The families of David, James, and John remained in Pendleton District until after the 1800 census, and David and James were there in 1810, although James apparently moved away soon afterwards. Stories passed down in James's family have him and his sister Margaret, along with their families, migrating from SC to Fayette County, Indiana, and I believe that I found both families there in 1820. They were among the earliest settlers and appear to have put down roots there, although, throughout the years, they spread out to other parts of the country.
James and wife Martha had seven or eight children, and, of these, William, Simpson, Thompson, and John appear in public records that allow them to be traced readily. There was another son, Nesbit, whose tale will be related later in the chapter. Although he is not named as a son in any record I have found, it is very probable that Hezekiah Alexander, who married Electa Williams in Fayette County, was a son and that his wife contributed her quite unusual name to William's daughter Electa. Hezekiah and Electa also had a son named Neisbit, another item in support of Hezekiah's being a brother of the earlier Neisbit. Apparently Thompson, who is listed in the households of other family members in federal censuses, did not marry.
James's son William married Parmelia Cunningham in 1823, and the couple's children included John, William, Thompson, Martha, Austin, Electa, and Mitchell. There may have been children older than John, who was born about 1828, but, if so, they had left home before the first federal census that provided names of members of the family.
James's son John, who married Prudence Ball in 1830, was father to Amanda, Neisbit, as listed on the 1850 federal census, and Stephen. The absence of Nesbit, apparently named for his father's brother, on the 1860 census probably means that he had died before that date.
In the beginning, I must state that, although many unfounded records of this family branch exist, I have accepted only those relationships that have been verified by me or by Robin Willis. Here and in Appendix G, I often list others but identify them as as not certain.
As discussed in Chapter 3, Eleanor, the only daughter of James and Ann, was born in 1740. In the early Carolina colonies, marriage required only announcement of the intent and performance of the marriage in the church, and, as is often the case, no record of Eleanor's marriage to Samuel Rankin seems to have survived. The marriage could not have occurred before the late 1750s and was no later than 1760. Although many family histories have the marriage in PA, it almost certainly occurred in Rowan County, NC. Their first child William was born in 1761(13.1), and the youngest appears to be daughter Eleanor, who was born around 1785, when her mother was in her mid-forties. In between the oldest and youngest, they parented Jane (or Jean), Samuel Jr., Robert, David, Richard, Anne, Alexander, and James, not necessarily in that order. All of the children except Richard, who died in 1804, are mentioned in Samuel's will, written in 1814 but not probated until 1826(13.2).
In the unlikely case that any of their offspring married before 1790, the marriages were apparently short-lived and produced no children, as evidenced on the 1790 census by Samuel being head of a household in Lincoln County, NC, that had ten members in addition to him and Eleanor.
Eleanor and Samuel began life as a couple in what became Lincoln County, NC, and lived there for several years; however, several court records and census records show that some members of the family married in Mecklenburg County by 1791 and lived there for the 1800 federal census. Richard, who died 1804, and Samuel Jr.'s first wife, Mary Doherty, are buried there along with a newborn child who is buried with Mary(13.3).
Although William married Mary Campbell (listed as Camble on the marriage bond), her maiden name was almost certainly Moore, as is related by descendants. For the 1790 census, Mary Campbell's family, with her as head of household, was listed on page 127, shortly after the family of Samuel and Eleanor, listed on page 125. The 1790 census had no age ranges for females, but Mary was apparently a widow with children. The data I have found supports the family tradition that her deceased husband was Thomas Campbell, two of those data being that Mary's daughter Anne married William's younger brother David and that they named a son Thomas Campbell Rankin.
The children of William Rankin and Mary Moore Campbell include John and Richard, and, if a newspaper article about the family, written over a century after their deaths is correct, there were seven more, not named in the article. I examined censuses and all the other evidence I could find and, in disagreement with many Rankin authors, in particular A. Gregg Moore, I concluded that John D. Rankin who married Mary Johnson and Salena Jenkins was William's son(13.4). The children from these marriages were Martha, Mary, Robert, Elizabeth Caldwell, Leroy, Wade, Wallace, Jane C., Walter, and John. Many of them had offspring and raised them in the area. Richard married three times, first to Ann Hartgrove, daughter of his Aunt Jane Rankin, next to Caroline Beatty, and finally to Delia Bisaner. He and his wives raised a large family, many of whom remained in the area to have their own families. Moore's The family Rankin(13.5) discusses Richard's family and the family of John B. Rankin, whom he incorrectly believed to be Richard's brother.
As already mentioned, Samuel Jr. married Mary Doherty, known as Polly, and they had five children, Alexander, Eleanor "Nelly", Richard, John, and Violet, before she died, along with a sixth newborn infant. The daughters were named in their grandmother Agnes Doherty's Mecklenburg County will (June 1807) as Violet and Nelly. The children and their names are also substantiated by the will of Alexander Rankin in Rutherford County, TN, (refer to the section on Rutherford County). Although there is some confusion about Richard and John(13.6), it is certain that John remained in the area of Gaston County, NC, married Sarah Farrar, and they had at least two daughters and a son, who were named in his will. As mentioned above, Gregg Moore covers the family of John, although he assigns his parentage to William and wife Mary Campbell. John's will, made in 1874, named his brother Richard as executor, making it appear that Richard was in the area; however, brother Alexander's will named Ritchie Rankin of Bedford County, TN, as an heir along with other siblings and half-siblings.
Other sons and daughters of Eleanor and Samuel who remained in Lincoln County and Gaston County and nearby included Ann, who married James Rutledge, Alexander, who married Elizabeth Moore, and James, who married Mary, or Polly, Johnson.
Several members of the Eleanor's and Samuel's Rankin group moved west from NC, the first migrants apparently being the family of David and wife Anne Campbell, who were in Rutherford County, TN, by the time of the 1810 federal census. Before the 1820 census rolled around, David and Anne had been joined in Rutherford County by the families of his brothers Samuel Jr. and Robert and, perhaps, by some of the children of deceased brother Richard, although, if so, Richard's sons moved on. Sister Eleanor, her husband Joseph Dickson, and their family were also there by the early 1820s, although they left for Illinois before the date of the 1830 census.
In the 1820 census in Rutherford County, there were two families that I cannot place, one headed by an extra Samuel Rankin and one by Catharine Rankin. Catharine, who was probably Catherine and seemingly a widow, was born no later than 1775 (45 or over on the census) and had a house full of younger people, three under 10 and four between 16 and 25. I have found no relationship to Eleanor Alexander's husband Samuel Rankin, but I have performed only a cursory investigation. The only difference, other than living in different areas of the county, between the two households headed by the two Samuel Rankins was the presence, in one but not the other, of two females aged 10 through 15.
Although I found it impossible to determine when they came to the county, Alexander and James were among the Rankins settling there, as shown by their wills in this county. Alexander died about June 1835, and James died May or June 1844. Their wills help identify them and their siblings and half-siblings, although James identified Richard only as a brother.(13.7)
The Rankin family left records that we can trace in Rutherford County, land-transfer records, marriage bonds, census enumerations, wills, and other death data. Although the brothers often used the same names for their children, making it difficult to determine family relationships, sorting was simplified somewhat by the departure of the families of Samuel and Robert for Illinois, either with their sister Eleanor or shortly after her.
Among the first Rankins marrying in Rutherford County, TN, or adjoining counties was Eleanor, daughter of Samuel Jr., to Richard Fleming in 1814, Eleanor, daughter of David, to James Reed in 1817, another Eleanor, daughter of Robert, to William Yearwood in 1822. Rutherford County marriages of Rankins for whom it was more difficult to establish parentage reasonably well include: Mary to Michael Rooney and very likely Joseph A. Montgomery, Thomas C. to Louisa Warren, William C., to Mary Ann Powell, Joseph to Mary Ivy, Samuel to Nancy Vaughn (probably the son of Robert, as attested by his relocating to Illinois and living near other family members), and, somewhat late in life, Jane to James Bone. I've been unable to ascertain the parent of Anne, who married Ezekiel Geaslin, although some claim that she was a daughter of David and others that she was a daughter of Robert, one or the other probably being true.
Most of the Rankin families appear on federal censuses in Rutherford County, if they did not leave for IL. Also, family members are sometimes buried in the same cemetery, and that helps in assigning individuals to families. My analysis is certainly subject to question and not proof of parent-child relationships; however, I have attempted to use information from several records to place individuals.
From Old City Cemetery, Murfreesboro, TN, Find A Grave lists four Rankin burials. First is David Rankin whose stone inscription includes his name, death date of 3 February 1830 and, "Age 62 years, 4 months and 13 days. Next in date of birth is "Anne M. Rankin with the gravestone legend of "Born Oct 22 1782 Died Sep 9 1872." He was the son of Eleanor and Samuel, and she was his wife Anne Campbell. The inscription on another stone in the cemetery gives the death date of November 1840 and the legend, "Sacred to the memory of Erminia consort of J.P. Rankin, age 34 years 9 months, 9 days." The final Rankin stone states, "Jane C (or G) Rankin Wife of James Bone Born Sept 2, 1813 Died Jan 21 1892". I believe this is fair evidence that Jane and James Porter are children of David Rankin and Anne Campbell.
As one can see from the 1830 census, Thomas C. Rankin's family appears on the same page and just below that of David Rankin, and a few pages later there is the family of Porter (James Porter) Rankin, husband of Ermina who is interred in Old City Cemetery. This supports Thomas C. as a son and provides more support for James Porter also being a son.
David was dead by the time of the 1840 census, but his widow Anne, as Ann M. Rankin, is listed, as are neighbors William, as Wm Rankin, probably correctly said to be David's son, and Erminia, as Arminia Rankin. Further down the list in the county is Joseph Rankin, another probable son and almost certainly the husband of Mary Ivy. Rounding out the list on the same page as Anne and William is Joseph Montgomery with a probable wife and teen-aged male, and finding his household alongside that of Anne is significant because it supports the claim of some that, after the death of Michael Rooney, Mary Rankin had a marriage to the Joseph A. Montgomery who died in 1845. It likely shows also that there was a son from her marriage to Rooney since the household included a male aged 15 through 19, and Joseph Montgomery had no children before their marriage.
After the death of his wife Mary Ivy, Joseph Rankin and his family were enumerated in the household of his daughter Sarah and her husband, Baily P. Bone, who must have been James Bone's son Baily, who had a mother other than Jane Rankin who didn't marry James until 1850
Although we will follow the story of the Rankins no further in Rutherford County, many of them have remained and raised their families there and in nearby areas.
The families of Eleanor and Robert and at least some members of the family of Samuel Jr. relocated from Rutherford County, TN, to the counties of Shelby and Jefferson in Illinois in the 1820s and possibly the early 1830s. The obituary for Isabel Weeks states that she came to Shelby County with her parents, Eleanor and Joseph Dickson (misspelled as Dixon) as an infant in 1826 and had been married to John Storm and William Weeks, with both of whom she had children. I have not discovered exactly when Eleanor's brother Robert and his and Samuel Jr.'s families arrived, but another obituary, that of Samuel Smith Rankin, who died at 63 in May 1887, includes a statement that he came to the county with his parents when he was about 6, meaning some of the brothers were there by around 1830. All the Rankin family members were acquiring land, marrying, and leaving other records in these Illinois counties by the mid-1830s.
To identify the children of Robert and his wives Sarah McAllister and Sarah Vaughn, widow of Woody Vaughn, we can use the 1906 obituary of Lilly Rankin Storm, along with IL marriage data, census data, and other death data. The obituary identifies Lilly, the daughter of the second wife, as the widow of Vincent Storm and lists her brothers as Robert and Lemuel Rankin and her half-brothers and half-sisters as Samuel Rankin, James and Albert Vaughn, Mrs. John Templeton (Jane Rankin), Mrs. Thomas Brady (Martha Vaughn), and Mrs. Samuel Rankin (Nancy Jane Vaughn, daughter of his step-mother). Although the obituary does not identify the women except by their husbands' names, the other records give their names.
Still staying with Robert's family, a newspaper story, 12 July 1888, mentions that "Uncle Sammy" Rankin, who was 85, was one of the earliest settlers in the area and that seven of his nine daughters had married men named Storm, probably from the same family as that of Isabel Dickson's first husband and Vincent Storm, who married their Aunt Lilly. His grave stone is engraved with the legend, "Samuel Rankin Died Oct 10 1891 Aged 87 Y 9 M 5 (author: or 15) D". Although the newspaper does not have information about his parents, the 1830 census in Shelby County lists a Samuel Rankin in the correct age range the next line below Robert Rankin, suggesting a father-son relationship, meaning that he was Lilly's brother Samuel. Samuel's female children likely include most of those identified on Shelby County records as marrying Storms: Sarah Ann, Elizabeth, Harriett, Emily, Nancy, and Julia. Since they number only six, there were other daughters whom I have not identified. Sons, as identified by their obituaries, were Samuel and Greenberry, and another son, Henry, who may have died young, was in the family for the 1870 and 1880 federal censuses.
Robert, the brother named in the obituary of Lilly Storm, was the Robert B. who married Sinthia, possibly Cinthia, Yearwood in Jefferson County, IL, 1839. Both Robert and Sinthia were deceased by 1850, leaving daughters Sarah and Lilly, whom I have not attempted to trace.
The children of Lemuel S. Rankin, who was married to Malinda Curry and died early 1863, were named in the Shelby County Executor's Record Book, Vol A, as Mary Elizabeth, William, Nancy, Lilly Ann, and Rhoda E.; however, every census record I found from Jefferson County, IL, identified Mary E. as Sarah E. The other children were named as in the executor's record.
To conclude the pursuit of Robert's children, Eleanor Rankin, married to William Yearwood before leaving TN, and Sarah Rankin, married to Robert Yearwood after moving to IL, ended up in Jefferson County along with Robert B. and Sinthia, where they raised families. For the 1850 census, Eleanor's and William's family included Samuel, Sarah, William, Joseph, Aaron, Eliza, and David, and Sarah's and Robert's family had Aaron, Eleanor, Sarah, Emily, and John. Robert and Sinthia were dead by 1850, and their children Sarah and Lilly were in Sinthia's brother Aaron Yearwood's family.
Determining which of the Rankins were sons and daughters of Samuel Jr. and his second wife, Jenny Meek, was mostly a process of elimination, which was performed independently by me and by Robin Willis, who contributed so much to the task of writing this history. While not proved beyond any doubt, the children were likely James, Joseph, George, Samuel Smith, and Sarah. John and Richard, the sons of Samuel Jr. and his first wife, Mary Doherty, remained in NC,
Samuel Smith Rankin, born about 1824, was not the son of Robert, first, because Robert had another son named Samuel, born before Samuel Smith and outliving him, and, second, both Robert and his second wife Sarah Vaughn were deceased before 1850, per their grave stones as shown on Find A Grave, while there was an older Rankin female listed as Hanah, possibly meant to be Hannah, in the household of Samuel S. for the federal census that year. Samuel Smith and Sarah, also in the family, were apparently a son and a daughter of Samuel Jr. and Jenny Meek, and, based on naming of granddaughters of Samuel Jr., Hanah and Jenny were probably the same woman.
Samuel Smith Rankin married Sarah "Sally" Ann Ellis, and his sister Sarah married Clisbe Ellis, who may have been Sally's brother. None of the children of Sarah and Clisbe survived to adulthood, but Samuel S. and Sally had several children including Richard, Sarah E., Isapheena, Samuel, and Armisa.
My searches through Shelby County, IL, data on marriages, deaths, and federal censuses didn't reveal a great deal about the other offspring of Samuel Jr.; however, the limited data allowed me to determine marriages and some of the children, specifically Joseph and George.
Joseph married Mahulda Ellis, and their children were Sarah, Hanah, Mary, Joseph, John, Mahulda or Hulda(13.8), and George.
George M. married Elizabeth Sexson, and their family included James, Isaac, Caroline, Ann, Hanah, Jane, William, Isadora and, according to the mother's obituary, five more.
This history has not followed the lives of any of the Illinois Rankin family forward past the ones addressed here.
Although I asked that she not reveal the knowledge to me before I did some independent research, Robin (Rankin) Willis was aware that her Rankin grandparents were John Marvin Rankin and Emma Brodnax, that John Marvin's parents were John Allen Rankin and Amanda Lindsey, and that John Allen's parents were Samuel and Mary F. Rankin. That was the point from which she began her investigations. She did extensive research on the Rankins who settled in Tishomingo County, MS, for a brief time and concluded that the evidence met her very demanding standards for accepting them as the Samuel and William who were sons of Richard and grandsons of Eleanor and Samuel, and my less-exhaustive, but independent, investigation led me to conclude that she is correct. Records give place of birth, names of offspring, and approximate ages that fit facts known from Mecklenburg County, NC, although Samuel's age, as reported on censuses, varies wildly. I will refer to Ms Willis's ancestor Samuel as Samuel III when there is likelihood of confusion, although he never bore this title, so far as is known.
Many people have incorrectly reported Samuel III as being the Samuel found in Bledsoe County, TN, as early as 1830(13.9); however, the first appearance of Samuel III and William after their departure from NC is on MS land records from about 1837. They were on the 1840 federal census in Tishomingo County, MS, where Samuel's family has a man and woman and two male children. William's family has him, aged 30 to 39, and a woman aged 60 to 69, probably his mother. Samuel's age is listed as 20 to 29, which can't be correct for Samuel III, but the MS state censuses in 1841 and 1845, both of which list Samuel and William, do not help because they provide no ages. This discrepancy in age would normally be enough to cause questioning his identity as Samuel III, and Ms Willis and I considered that we might be wrong; however, we could not ignore other data or lack of data, as addressed next.
On the 1850 federal census in Jefferson County, AR, Samuel III's birth state is listed as NC, and the birth state of all children, aged 7 to 13, was reported as MS, meaning he, wife Mary, and their family were in MS before 1840. Only eight Rankin families, other than the two in Tishomingo County, were enumerated in MS in 1840, and all heads of household, including one female, fit the profile for Samuel III much more poorly than Samuel in Tishomingo County, even if the name used is ignored. I believe the best explanation is that Samuel III or the person providing census information was inconsistent in reporting his age on censuses and may have never given it correctly. For example, he is listed as age 62 in 1850 and age 60 in 1860.
William appears to have married and to have added one or more daughters to the household between the 1840 federal census, when there was no female under age 60, and the 1845 MS state census, when the household had one male and three females. A search for possible marriages leads to the discovery of a marriage between William Rankin and Rachel Swain 14 September 1844, and, although the marriage is documented as occurring in Alcorn County, that county did not exist in 1844 and was not created from Tishomingo County and Tippah County until after the Civil War. The marriage probably occurred in the part of Tishomingo County that became Alcorm County, and the record was probably transferred. That this is the correct marriage is supported by William's household being listed next to a Swain household on the 1840 state census. To make up the three females in the household, perhaps William's mother, the woman over 60 in 1840, was still alive, or, perhaps, he married a widow with one or more daughters.
I've been unable to find William or Rachel after 1845 and leave their branch in Mississippi.
I have found no record of the marriage of Samuel III and Mary F. Estes; however, the date of marriage can be estimated. Mary is listed as 31 on the 1850 census, and the oldest child was 13, meaning, first, that Mary was in her late teens when she gave birth in 1836 or 1837 and, second, that the marriage was no later than 1835 or 1836. It's a fairly safe assumption that Mary was no older than 32 or 33 in 1850 since she was quite consistent in reporting her age, and even if she married as early as 15, the marriage could not have occurred before 1833, thus pinning the marriage down to the period 1833 through 1836. This argument assumes that Mary was the mother of Richard and William, the two oldest children, as I have since learned from Ms. Willis is true. Still, Samuel III was probably at least 33 at the time of their marriage and could have been married earlier; however, there were apparently no surviving children, if so.(13.10)
The 1850 federal census in Jefferson County, AR, lists the children of Samuel and Mary as Richard, William, Joseph, and John, and the 1860 census provides information that Joseph has the initial "S" and that John has initial "O" or perhaps "A". It also adds the names of other children in the family, Elisha T., James D., Mary, Marion W., and Napoleon B., and the 1870 census, when Mary is a widow, tells us that Marion W. was Marion Washington and that there was an additional child, Elizabeth. Since Elisha T.'s age and James D.'s age in 1860 were recorded as 15 and 12, respectively, this raises the question of whether they were indeed Samuel's and Mary's sons or whether they were perhaps the children of his brother William, possibly deceased by 1860. While it was not extremely uncommon for one child to be missed on a census, omitting the names of two was much less common. Of course, possibly Elisha's name was omitted, while James was really born after 1 January 1850. In any case, all other evidence supports Elisha and James having been members of the family.
In 1857, Samuel III's son Richard married a somewhat-older Mary E. Kennedy, whose maiden name may have been Dunn(13.11). Richard does not appear on the 1860 census with his wife, and it is almost certain that he was the R. B. Rankin in Nacogdoches County, Texas, with the correct birth state and of about the right age. Upon reviewing an early draft of this history, Robin Willis contributed: "He was almost certainly the R. B. Rankin in Nacogdoches. His aunt Lucretia Estes Derryberry and her husband were there in 1860 as well, and so was Lucretia’s brother John B. Estes." In fact, both the Derryberrys and R. B. Rankin were listed there on page 133 of the federal census. The Nacogdoches claim is also bolstered by Richard's having served in a Texas military unit early in the Civil War. Late in the war, he served the Union in a Kansas Cavalry unit.(13.12)
Richard and Mary had at least two children, Samuel and John. Samuel is most likely the man who died in 1898 and is buried as Judge S. Rankin, and, if so, had four children, Mary L., Tony Edward, Barbara Jewel, and Birdie Lee, each of whom married and had offspring. Although I can find only undocumented claims of the identity, Samuel and Judge S. are likely the same person because I find no other record of Samuel. My searching leads me to believe it is correct to identify Richard B.'s son John as the John A. Rankin whose will was filed October 1932 in Cleveland County, AR, shortly after his death. John apparently had no surviving children or grandchildren because the will leaves everything he possesses to "sister Mrs. Frank Moore", who was undoubtedly really a step-sister, daughter of one of Richard's three later wives: Emily, whose maiden name or prior married name is unknown to me, Mettie Daniel, or Mary Griffin. This investigation leaves Richard B.'s family at about the beginning of the twentieth century, at a time where any interested person should be able to find records fairly easily.
William, the next-oldest son of Samuel III, married Eliza Jane Law in Drew County, AR, where they continued to live for some time before moving to Little Rock, where they finished out their days. They had a son, Fount Payton, and a daughter, Mary F., or Mollie. Mollie was omitted from the enumeration on the 1870 census, when she would have been about 8; however, she is listed on the 1880 census, and the obituary of Mollie Harcrow identifies her as born in Monticello, AR, the daughter of W. H. Rankin. Also, the 1910 census has the same Mollie, as Mary F. Harcrow, and her family listed just above William and Eliza Jane (13.13), which included a couple of Mollie's Hoffman children from a previous marriage. Fount married Louise (or Lula) Edgeworth, and they had one son, William Errol, although I have found him identified as William only on his grave stone. (His death certificate gives his name as Earl.) Mollie's children included sons, Charles D. Hoffman (not identified in his mother's obituary; thus, apparently deceased by 1932), Cecil H. Hoffman, and Will T. Hoffman, and daughters, Hettie Hoffman, Pauline Harcrow, Elsie Harcrow, and Janie Harcrow. Mollie's obituary listed a surviving brother Jeff P. Rankin of San Antonia, TX, who must have been Fount P. since he lived there and was her only brother.
Samuel's and Mary's next child, Joseph, married Nancy J.(13.14), and they had one daughter Mary who survived childhood. I have not followed Mary except for attempting unsuccessfully to find a record of marriage for her in Cleveland County and surrounding counties.
Next, after Joseph, was John, and, being unable to find him in the area around his parents' home county in AR, I widened the search and found a John A. Rankin who had the correct age and the correct birth information with wife Amanda Lindsey in Webster Parish and Claiborne Parish in Louisiana. Although I was initially unsure that he was the correct John, Robin Willis confirmed that John and Amanda were her ancestors. They married in Claiborne Parish in 1865 and were listed as being in that parish for the 1870 federal census, while, by 1880, they had moved to adjoining Webster Parish, where John served as deputy sheriff for the parish. Their children as listed on the censuses included Anna Bell, Samuel Edward, Lulu, Joseph, Marvin, and Melvin. In 1900, Amanda, a widow, and daughter M. Allice, Mary Alice from other records, were listed on the census with the family of Amanda's daughter Anna and her husband Alexander C. Sale. Marriages for the children of John and Amanda were Samuel Edward to Odie Brasher, Lulu to J. C. Sale, a relative of Alexander C., Joseph to Vesta Almand, and Mary Alice to Thomas Edgar Almand, a brother of Vesta, as shown by the 1880 federal census. Although I could not find marriages or families for Marvin and Melvin, I concluded that one or the other was the J. M. Rankin who married Emma Broadnax, and, when Ms. Willis reviewed my research notes, she verified that John Marvin Rankin and Emma Leona Brodnax (spelled by Emma with a single 'a') were her grandparents. All the offspring of John A. and Amanda raised families in Claiborne Parish or one of the nearby LA parishes or AR counties.(13.15)
Elisha T., the next child, apparently married fairly late because he is listed as single, neither widowed nor divorced, on the 1880 federal census in the family of his brother William; however, by the mid-1880s he had married Martha, whose maiden name I have been unable to verify. heir children were Claude A., William P., Samuel Tweed, Tony, John, Joseph, Mary Ola, Elisha Ben, Henry Homer, and Horace. A brief investigation suggests that the children remained in or around Pike County, where they were born, for most or all of their lives, and that most are buried in Roy Cemetery in Pike County. Since I have not done the in-depth research necessary to verify whether all the records I viewed were for these individuals or for others bearing their names, anyone interested should do additional research.
James D. Rankin married Mary A. "Mollie" Matthews, and they had at least five children, Allie (male), Maude, William, and Benjamin.
I have found no further records of daughter Mary unless she was the Mary Jane Rankin who married a man whose name is transcribed from the marriage record as Arek Scott, which is probably an erroneous transcription of his given name. I have only the marriage information for them.
For the next child, Marion Washington, I have no marriage records and, after his marriage, only a census record in Union Parish, LA, in 1900, when he was married but living alone in a rooming house. The only other information I have on him is that supplied by Ms. Willis.
Napoleon B., the youngest son, married twice, and he and his first wife had a son Victor Brooks, known as Brooks, before her early death. The given name of Ms. Brooks, is apparently illegible or nearly so on the marriage record, and she died in the interval between the 1880 federal census, before their marriage, and the next in 1900, thus, not having her name listed there. Brooks's full name and the name of his father can be found on the World War I registration for the draft in Seminole County, OK, on which occasion he gave his full name and his father's name, and on the Shawnee, OK, City Directory for 1909, where he and his father are listed as painters living at the same address.
The youngest child, Mary Elizabeth "Lizzie", married Robert Bearden, and they had at least two daughters, Mary Elizabeth and Flossie Beulah. There were probably other children.(13.16)
In this chapter, I have often not cited federal censuses, marriage records, death records, and cemetery data in the text, but I have provided the references for those interested in verifying my conclusions.
Except for one sub-branch, I have been unsuccessful in following members of the family of Robert Alexander and his wife, Mary Jack of Lincoln County and Gaston County in NC, and identifying and tracing this one sub-branch has been possible chiefly because Kenneth Bower Alexander, a descendant, provided information that is in agreement with my research. The tradition within his family is that his Alexander line traces back to Robert and Mary, who were both born around 1740.
When this Alexander's YDNA results matched my results on all 67 of the markers on which he tested, we suspected immediately the Robert to whom he traced his lineage was Robert, the son of James and Ann Alexander. The age was correct; the locale in which they lived was correct; and there was evidence from an independent source that Robert was the brother of Eleanor Alexander, whose family was addressed in Chapter 13. The arguments used in identifying the brothers, James, John, David, and Robert, appear in Chapter 3.
Kenneth Alexander's family traces its roots back through his grandparents Robert Baker Alexander and wife Sarah Wheeler, his great-grandparents Joseph Frank Alexander and Mattie L. Baker, his great-great-grandparents William T. Alexander and Jennie Frank, his triple-great-grandparents Robert J. Alexander and Mary Smith, his fourth-great-grandparents Robert Alexander and Louisa Moore, and ultimately Robert Alexander and Mary Jack.
Although there is near certainty that the Robert who married Mary Smith, whom we will call Robert III for identification purposes, is the grandson of the Robert who married Mary Jack, whom we will call Robert I, the weakest link in certainty of the YDNA test subject's line is that from Robert III to the Robert J. Alexander who married Louisa Moore, whom we will call Robert II. People quote marriage dates ranging from 1762 to 1780 for Robert I and Mary Jack, but no one cites even a family history as a record for the marriage. Inconclusive evidence for the latest possible year for their marriage is found in Robert Alexander's appearance as bondsman for the marriage of Ann Alexander to John Sumter July 1785 in Lincoln County. If Robert I was signing for the marriage of his oldest child, a daughter, who must have been at least 14 or 15, that places his and Mary's marriage no later than 1768 or 1769. Thus, Robert II, who was born to Robert I and Mary about 1779, could have had an older brother, already married and out of his parents' household by the time of the 1790 federal census when the males in the family were Robert I and a male under 16, apparently Robert II; however, an older brother seems doubtful since I was unable to find an Alexander male marrying in Lincoln County or any county adjoining Lincoln in the period from 1780 to 1790. Although this failure doesn't prove an older brother of Robert II was not the father of Robert III, Robert II appears to be the only viable candidate on the scene.
In addition to Robert II and Ann, for whom I believe there is enough evidence to include as a daughter, Robert I and Mary Jack had other children. The family in 1790 and 1800 included at least one additional male, younger than Robert II, and at least two additional females, younger than Ann, and one of the daughters was probably Lilly, who married James Martin in Lincoln County in 1792. James Martin was later the bondsman for the marriage of Robert J. (Robert II). I have not followed the family of Ann or Lilly, and I have found no records providing names of offspring of Robert II, who is buried in Goshen Cemetery in what was then Lincoln County and is now Gaston County, NC.(14.1)
In 1810, the family of Robert J. Alexander (Robert II) and Louisa Moore was enumerated and listed just below the family of the older Robert, and the family of Ann Sumter, apparently a widowed head of family, appeared a few pages later. Although the appearance of a male under 10 in Robert J.'s family doesn't prove that the male child was Robert III, it is one more argument in favor of that hypothesis. I have been unable to find a great deal on the family of Robert and Louisa; however, my studies lead me to believe that they had a son named Charles M., born about 1819. A future researcher may take the evidence I have found(14.2) and use it to decide whether this son was Charles M. Alexander, who migrated from NC to AL, where he lived for a while, belonged to our Alexander family. He is listed as marrying in Calhoun Co., AL, in 1846; however, the county was still Benton County because it was not renamed until a few years later. Charles and his wife went west to Van Zandt County, Texas, before 1850 and lived out their lives there and still have descendants in the state. It is interesting that Benton County, AL, was the county in which the family of Robert Alexander III and Mary Smith lived at the time. Since the family requires further research by a future historian, I will mention only that Charles's and Darney's children were John K. and William T., born before they left Alabama, and Mary L., James A., Robert, Augustus W., Laura, and Charles, born in Texas. Charles married again after Darney's death, but they had no children. Laura and Charles probably died during childhood.
Robert III and Mary Smith were apparently married in NC, where both were born and where censuses show their children born earlier than about 1833 to have been born; however, they migrated to either Georgia or Alabama by the early 1830s, and they raised their family in Benton County, AL, (later re-named Calhoun County).The names of at least some, possibly all, of the children appear on federal censuses. On the 1850 census in Benton County, the children begin with Robert P., the oldest at 23, meaning he was born before Mary was 20 and might well be the first child. Others were Mary, Caroline, Zelima, Alonzo, Louisiana, Catherine, William T., and Leroy. The 1860 census, with the county then re-named Calhoun, adds the names of Adda (Addie) and Charles. Although William T. was not listed with the family in 1860 he was living nearby with a Forney or Farney family.
Interestingly, Zelima and Louisiana appeared in a second family on the 1850 census, that of William B. and Clara E. Terhune, leading me to search for the marriage record of William and Clara, which shows that Clara E. Alexander married William B. Terhune in January 1847 in Benton County, although the record seems to have prematurely re-named the county as Calhoun County a few years early. Thus, Robert III's and Mary's family expands to include Clara, who must have been Clara Elizabeth since she was sometimes known as Lizzie.
I have been unable to find Robert P. in censuses after 1860 or in marriage records, and he may have died as a result of the Civil War, although I found no conclusive record of his death.
Clara and William Terhune moved to Floyd County, still in GA, after the 1850 census and before the 1860 census, and they lived there through most of their lives. The 1910 census revealed that Clara gave birth to only five children, and they were born Mary, Cornelius, John, William, and Clara.
Although not certain and not proposed by anyone else, so far as I am aware, Robert III's and Mary's daughter listed as Mary M. on the 1850 census may have been Mary Ann Alexander who married Robert Fain in Calhoun County in 1855. If so, she had a daughter Elizabeth and possibly a son John and a daughter named Mary Frances prior to her death before 1870. After Mary's death, Robert Fain and the ended up back in GA, where others in his family lived, and he was married to Angeline F. Williamson (maiden name Albright), who may have been the mother of John and Mary Frances.
Daughter Caroline married Thomas Williamson, a wealthy farmer in his late fifties, when she was in only her middle twenties, and they had five children, Robert, Mary A., Eudora, Caroline, and John before he died. The couple married and lived in Floyd County, GA, where the children were born; however, after Thomas's death, she and the children lived in Florida for a short while before returning to GA and then moving to Hamilton County, TN, where Caroline finished her life. Late in life, she married Daniel Mitchell, and they had no children.
Zelima appears to have married James B. Farmer in 1855, although the Calhoun County marriage record, as transcribed, lists the bride as L. Alexander. While the 1860 census and 1870 census in the same county have James B. Farmer's wife listed only as Z. R., the 1880 census finally gave her name as Zelema. Their children were Joel, Alfred M. (died as a child), Henry, and James. In 1900, she was living with her sister Addie and her brother-in-law James Camp, but the enumerator renders her name as Zena.
Alonzo died in Virginia as a Confederate soldier; however, he is listed as brought home and buried in Calhoun County.
Louisiana married Robt W. Echolds (Robert Walter Echols) as Lucy Alexander in Calhoun County, AL, but they soon moved to Floyd County, GA, where two of her sisters, Clara Elizabeth and Caroline were located. They appeared there for the 1860 census as Lou and R. W., but, by 1870, Lou had moved back to Calhoun County where she, as a widow, and her children, Robert M., Ella Frances, Alonzo (died barely into adulthood), and Walter (although listed as Wm), apparently lived next door to her parents. Lou's husband Robert Walter seems to have died as a Civil War soldier, although that is not certain. His grave stone, found on Find A Grave, shows him as "Lieut. R. W. Echols, Floyd Inft., 8 GA." and lists neither date of birth nor date of death. I was unable to find anyone except Ella on the 1880 census; but Lou and her family were back in Floyd County by 1900, and Lou is buried as Louise Alexander Echols in Rome, GA, along with her husband and some of their children.
Catherine, next older of Robert III's and Mary's offspring, married A. P. Clark(e) in Calhoun County in 1865, and they had at least one daughter, Mary. I have been unable to trace them after 1870, although I found an A. P. Clark, of the correct age category and born in either AL or GA, as a railroad contractor in Texas.
Since Leroy, who occurs after William T. in birth order of Robert III's children, was called Lee on the 1870 census, I suspected that he was the Lee with wife Addie listed on the same page as William T. and wife Jenny for the 1880 census in Etowah County, AL. Searching for marriages under Lee as well as under Leroy revealed that a Lee Alexander married Addie Coleman in Pike County, AL, October 1879, and the death record for Lee Alexander confirmed that his spouse was Addie Coleman and that his parents were Robert Alexander and Mary Smith. Their children were Anna, Robert H., and Cathey Y., a son.
For documentation, I have found only the the marriage record, a few census records, and the death record of Anna Rosenstihl, which lists her as the daughter of Lee Alexander and Addie Coleman, but that was adequate to confirm that Anna married Henry J. Rosenstihl. Apparently, Anna's and Henry's only child was Helen, although the trail might be confused by the presence of Henry's daughter Annie C. or, perhaps, Anna C. from his first marriage to Emily Randle, but Annie was born before Emily's death and before his marriage to Anna Alexander. I have not made the effort needed to follow the family further.
Robert Henry, Lee's and Addie's older son, married Ruby Moore, whose maiden name was Griffin. There were apparently no children from the marriage, nor were there children to be adopted from her first marriage. They lived out their lives in Jefferson County, AL. The trail to determination of Ruby's maiden name can be followed by those who wish.(14.3)
Although there is not absolute certainty that the man I traced is Lee's and Addie's son Cathey Y., it is highly unlikely that there were multiple men of that name and of about the same age who were also office workers. Cathey married Elizabeth Willingham in Bibb County, GA, November 1912, and they had one child, Elizabeth B., born about 1916. Later in life, Cathey became manager of the plant for which he worked. In 1940, the census shows Elizabeth B. and her husband W. H. Smith living with her parents.
Returning to Robert III's and Mary's children, we find that Addie married James O. Camp February 1875 in Calhoun County. They had three children, Walter, James, and Robert, but I have not followed the children to marriage, career, and children of their own.
Although I have found a few Charles Alexanders who fit the profile for Robert III's and Mary's son, I cannot be confident that any of them are the correct person and will not add more about Charles here.
The only child of Robert III and Mary for whom I have been able to follow Alexander descendants forward to the present or nearly to the present is William T., and I will cover his line in more detail than those of his brothers and sisters. As a youngster of only 14, he joined Company B of the Alabama 30th Infantry Regiment.(14.4)
After the war, William married Jennie, perhaps Jenny, Frank(14.5) in Calhoun County in 1870, but they were in Etowah County, AL, by the time of the 1880 census, which shows them with four children, Mary, Addie, Joseph F., and Carrie Lee. Jenny's grandmother, Sarah Fell, was also living with them. I have been unable to tract them between 1880 and 1900, but when the 1900 census rolled around, they were in Hamilton County, TN, and had added two daughters, Jennie and Ona A., to complete the family. William and Jennie remained in Hamilton County for the rest of their lives and are buried there in Citizens Cemetery.
The lives of William's and Jennie's daughters Mary A. and Carrie L. can be addressed together since they seem to have lived in a home together almost continuously. Mary appears to have used the name Mamie for a few years and was reported as Mamie Burns in her parents' family in 1910 and as Mamie Alexander in 1920 while she and Carrie were living with their widowed father. The man to whom Mary was married appears to have been H. C. Burne, not Burns, as shown on the marriage record. A strange episode in the lives of both had them in Boston, Massachusetts, with their sister Addie when the 1930 census occurred. Apparently Mary and Carrie were visiting Addie, who lived in Boston until at least 1935, because both women were also counted on the census in Hamilton Co., TN, for 1930. Although I have not located the place of Carrie's death and burial, Mary is buried as Mary Adelia Alexander in the same cemetery as her parents, her sister Ona, and her father's sister Caroline.
Daughter Addie married E. W. Hausman, and she appears along with Edward Hausman on the 1920 census in Jefferson County, AL, and she is also listed as Addie Hausman in censuses for 1930 and 1940 with her sisters Mary and Carrie Lee. From the 1930 census, we find that she was working in Boston as a home economist for an electrical business, and the 1940 census, back in AL, provides the information that she was still in Boston in 1935. She was not young when she married Mr. Hausman and apparently had no children. Her death record and the cemetery record in Tuscaloosa County, AL, show that she lived over 99 years.
William's and Jennie's daughter Jennie was married to David B. Harrell in Calhoun County, GA, although the 1910 census lists her surname as Harold; thus, I am unsure which spelling is correct. Although she may have been widowed, the census lists her marital status as married. She had one son, Will, possibly William, but I have found no more on Jennie, David, or Will.
Ona died before adulthood, age 17 or 18, and is buried in Citizens Cemetery in Chattanooga near her parents and some of her siblings.
William's and Jennie's son Joseph Frank is the only child for whom there seems to be Alexander descendants going forward. Joseph married Martha "Mattie" Lou Baker October 1905 in Whitfield County, GA, just south of his parents' home in Chattanooga, and their first child, Martha, was born about one year later. Martha was followed by Robert B. and Jennie, both born in TN, probably while Joseph and Mattie were living with his parents, where they were enumerated on the 1910 census. Joseph worked for Express Delivery, probably Railway Express, the company for which he worked for many years and in several cities. By 1920, the family had added son Joseph to complete the family, and, on the census that year, Joseph and Mattie are in their own home, still in Chattanooga. Mattie's parents were living with them.
The Atlanta, Georgia, City Directory, 1924(14.6) shows that they had moved to that city and that he was still working for Railway Express, which makes them easier to follow. They remained in Atlanta until, perhaps, disability prompted them to relocate to Louisville, KY, closer to a family member, apparently their son Robert, who gave the information for Joseph's death certificate. Both Joseph and Mattie are buried in Louisville.
Joseph's and Mattie's son Joseph died without progeny as a young adult, and the history will follow the other children, Martha, Robert Baker, and Jennie no further than searching records for their marital partners. Marriages were: Martha to Ellis W. Bullock; Robert to Sally Richter Wheeler; and Jennie to Robert W. Greene. (14.7)
All the information I have included but not specifically cited can be found in or deduced from the census records, marriage records, and death records for this chapter. Occasionally, records are included to show that the person in the record is not the individual being discussed, but I believe that I have stated this when it occurs if it is not obvious from the context.
Mathew Alexander of Henry Co in the State of W.T. who was a pvt in the ?? commanded by Captain Parsons of the regt commanded by Col Shelby in the S.C. line for _____
Inscribed on the Roll of W.T. at the rate of 66 Dollars 66 Cents per annum, to commence on the 4th day of March, 1831.
Certificate of Pension issued the 11 day of Sept 1833 and sent to W. Fitzgerald Dresden
Arrears to the 4th of Sept | 166.65 | |
Semi-anl. Allowance ending 4 Mar. | 33.33 | |
______ | ||
199.98 |
Revolutionary Claim Act June 7, 1832
Recorded by David (NOTE: or Daniel) Boyd Clerk, Book 6 Vol. 7 Page 70
____________
BRIEF in the case of Mathew Alexander of Henry County in the State of Tennessee
(Act 7th June, 1832)
1. Was the declaration made before a Court or a Judge? | Court |
2. If before a Judge, does it appear that the applicant is disabled by bodily infirmity? | No answer |
3. How old is he? | 75 |
4. State his service as directed in the form annexed. |
Period | Duration of Service | Rank | Names of General and |
Fall 17-- | 3 mo as sub | Capt Parsons, Col Shelby, | |
May or June, | As a vol and remained in the | Capt Parsons, Lt Hampton, |
5. In what battles was he engaged? | Left blank |
6. Where did he reside when he entered the service? | South Carolina, Spartanburg County |
7. Is his statement supported by living witnesses, by documentary proof, by traditionary evidence, by incidental evidence, or by the rolls? | Traditionary |
8. Are the papers defective as to form or authentication? And if so, in what respect? | Definite duration of service not given to xxxx xxxxx. |
On this 9th day of September 1832, personally appeared in open court before the justices of the county court now sitting Mathew Alexander a resident of the County of Henry and state of Tennessee, aged about seventy five years, who being first duly sworn according to law, to the benefit of the act of congress passed June 7 1832. That he entered the service of the United States under the following named officers and served as herein stated.
"I entered the service of the United States in the fall of the year 17-- as a substitute for my father James Alexander, who was taken sick a few days before the army was to march, which was the first call for men in the state of South Carolina against the British. The officers that I recollect were Captain Parsons, Colonel Shelby, and General Rutherford. I entered the service at Spartanburgh County South Carolina for three months. We marched across the county to McCorxx Creek where we were discharged in January or February 17-- by Captain Parsons. I was in no engagement.
I volunteered in Spartanburgh County South Carolina in May or June 17-- under Captain Parsons of the cavalry and Lieutenant Moore. Captain Parsons with his company of from twenty to thirty men marched to General Sumpter's camp, where we tendered our service and were put under the command of Colonels Shelby and Roebuck. We were marched to Musgrave's Mill on the Eneree River South Carolina where we had a battle with the British and Tories. We took sixty prisoners or more and got them away with us although we retreated. From here, we marched to a place called Ninety-six in South Carolina, where we were stationed three months. We were furloughed a short time and then were marched to King's Mountain, but did not reach there in time to be in the battle, which proved the defeat of Ferguson. After this, we had no regular campaign but were scouring the country to suppress the Tories till the taking of Cornwallis, after which we were discharged in Spartanburgh County by Captain Parsons. I remained in the service from the time of the volunteering nearly two years without intermission. I have no documentary evidence and know of no person whose testimony I can procure who can testify as to my service. I hereby relinquish every claim to a pension or annuity except the present and declare that my name is not on the Pension Roll of the agency of any state."
1. Where and in what year were you born? | "I was born in Roane (should be Rowan - JFA) County North Carolina in the year 1757." |
2. Have you any record of your age and if so where is it? | "I have only a memorandum of my age." |
3. Where were you living when called into the service; where have you lived since the Revolutionary War; and where do you now live? | "I was living in Spartanburgh County South Carolina when I entered the service. I remained in Spartanburgh County 7 or 8 years after the war. From there I moved to Logan County KY where I lived 32 or 33 years. From there I moved to Henry County Tennessee where I have lived about 8 years, and I now live in Henry County Tennessee." |
4. How were you called into the service; were you drafted; did you volunteer; or were you a substitute, and, if so, substitute for whom? | "The first time I entered the service, I was a substitute for James Alexander. After that I was a volunteer. I never substituted?" |
5. State the names of some of the officers of the regular army who were with the troops where with the tr where you served, such continental and militia regiments as you can recollect and the general circumstances of your service. | "I know of no officers except Captain Parsons, Colonels Shelby and Roebuck, General Rutherford, Lieutenant Moore, General Sumpter, and such other officers as I may have named in the body of this declaration." |
6. Did you ever receive a discharge from the service, and, if so, by whom was it given, and what has become of it? | "I received a discharge as a substitute and also on my own account. They were given by Captain Parsons, and they are lost." |
7. State the names of persons to whom you are known and who can testify as to your character for veracity and their opinion of your having served in the war of the revolution. | "For character for veracity and their opinion of my having served in the Revolutionary War, I refer to Stephen Townsend and George Cryder." |
Mathew Alexander (his mark)
Sworn to and subcribed the day and year aforesaid.
Thos. K. Porter Clk
We, Stephen Townsend and George Cryder, residents of the state of Tennessee and county of Henry, do hereby certify that we are well acquainted with Mathew Alexander, who has subscribed and sworn to the declaration. That we believe him to be seventy five years of age as he has stated and that, from his high respectability and undoubted veracity, we believe him to have been a soldier of the Revolution.
Stephen Townsend
George Crider
Sworn to and subscribed this day and year aforesaid.
Thos. K. Porter Clk
And the said court do hereby declare their opinion, after the investigation of the matter and after putting the interrogatories prescribed by the war department, that the above named applicant was a Revolutionary soldier and served as he states, and the court further certifies that it appears to them that Stephen Townsend and George Cryder are residents of the county of Henry and state of Tennessee; that they are credible persons; and that their statements are entitled to credit.
John xxxx PD (Seal) Chairman of Henry County Court
I Thomas K. Porter Clerk of the county court for the county and state aforesaid do hereby certify that the foregoing contains the original proceedings. ===============================================
The amended declaration of Mathew Alexander
State of Tennessee
Henry Circuit Court of Law and Equity
May Term 1833
Personally appeared in open court before the Hon. Joshua Haskell, judge thereof, Mathew Alexander, who being duly sworn deposeth and saith that by reason of old age and the consequent loss of memory and from his want of learning as he cannot read nor write, by which he could have refreshed his memory as to date, he cannot swear positively as to the precise length of his service, but according to the best of his recollection, he served not less than the period mentioned below and in the following grades.
In his first tour as a substitute for his father James Alexander who had been drafted and served one month and was taken sick, the declarant took his place and served out the tour of three months for which he had been drafted, making at that time two months service for declarant.
His next service as a volunteer under Capt Parsons as a private. He entered the service in Spartanburgh S Carolina, the time he cannot recollect but remained in active service as he has before stated, except for two days which he had a furlough, until the surrender of Cornwallis when he was discharged, comprising a period of not less than eighteen months actual service, making in the whole a period of twenty months of actual service, for which he claims a pension.
May the 28th 1832
Matthew Alexander (his mark)
Sworn to and subscribed in open court.
James Jones Clk
State of Tennessee
Henry County
This day personally appeared in open court the Rev James Miller ( Samuel Hawkins is marked through), a regular minister of the gospel, and Terrence Cooney, who after being duly sworn, deposeth and saith that they are well acquainted with Matthew Alexander the above declarant, who has sworn to and subscribed to this amended or the former declaration which has been submitted to us; that we believe him to be of the age he represents himself; that he is reputed and believed in the neighborhood where he resides to be a man of respectability and veracity and also to have been a soldier of the Revolution and service as he states, and we concur in that opinion In xxx to and sworn in open court.
The 28th May 1833
James Miller
T. Cooney
James Jones Clk
(names on separate lines)
=================================================
Cover Page
No 5892
Tennessee Jackson
Eleanor Alexander widow of Matthew Alexander who served in the Revolutionary war as a private, SC commanded by Captain Parsons of the regt commanded by Col Shelby in the S.C. line for _________
Inscribed on the Roll at the rate of 66 Dollars 66 Cents per annum, to commence on the 4th day of March, 1848.
Certificate of Pension issued the .29 day of Mch 1852 and Hon I. G. Harris Hof?? (NOTE: Isaac Harris would not have been governor in 1852.)
Recorded on Roll of Pensioners under act February 2, 1848, page 282 Vol. 3
============================================================
(Author's note: I don't know what this page is. Question marks represent unreadable. It provides no additional information.)
236.461 Act Mar 3 55 Written across the face is No 36632 ??
Feb 28 56 Aug 7 16
Elenor Eleanor Alexander and? wid?
Matthew Alexander
Priv
????
War ?????
Pens. Act Feb. 2 1848
Tenn ??? 48-- 5892
??: 160 ?? Aug 27 56
(Signature)
Claimant
Paris TN
============================================================
State of Tennessee
County of Henry
On this first day of December 1851, personally appeared before the county court of the county aforesaid Ellenor Alexander, a resident of Civil District No 1, in the county of Henry, aged 87 years, who being duly sworn according to law, doth in her oath make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefits of the provisions made by the several acts of congress passed July 29 1848 giving pensions to widows.
That she is the widow of Matthew Alexander, who was a private in Capt Parson's company, Col. Shelby's regiment of South Carolina Volunteers in the Revolutionary War and was prior to his death a pensioner under the act of 7th June 1832 at the rate of $66 66/100 per annum.
She further declares that she was married to the said Matthew Alexander on the 17th day of May in the year seventeen hundred and eighty two; that her husband, the aforesaid Matthew Alexander, died on the 14th day of January 1841; that she was not married to him prior to his leaving the service, but the marriage took place previous to the second of January eighteen hundred, viz, at the time above stated. She further swears that she is now a widow and that she has never before made any application for a pension.
Eleanor Alexander (her mark)
Sworn to and subscribed on the day and year above written before in oppen court, December the 1st 1851. C. Frazier, Clerk
State of Tennessee
County of Henry
Personally appeared before the subscriber, an acting justice of the peace in aforesaid county Terence Cooney and Samuel Kendall, who being duly sworn, state that they have for twenty five years past been acquainted with Ellenor Alexander of said county widow of Matthew Alexander decd.
That they have also been acquainted with several of her sons for the same period of time; that her son Hugh is about sixty years of age, and that her sons James and William (the latter now dead) were both older than Hugh.
That they have always understood and believed that the said James, William, and Hugh Alexander were the sons of Matthew Alexander decd and the said Ellenor Alexander. They also know the fact that said Matthew Alexander during his lifetime drew a pension for Revolutionary service.
Given under our hands and seals at Paris Tenne this 4th day of
February 1852.
Samuel Kendall (seal)
Sworn to and subscribed before me Feb 4th 1852 and I do further
certify that I am well acquainted with Terence Cooney and Samuel
Kendall and that they are credible witnesses. Given under my
hand Feb 4th 1852.
B C? Brown Justice of the peace
State of Tennessee
Henry County
I Constantine Frazier do hereby certify that Benjamin C. Brown
whose signature appends to the foregoing certificate is now
and was at the time of the signing the ??? an acting justice
of the peace in aforesaid county duly commissioned and
qualified to act as such and that full faith and credit are
due and ought to be given his official acts as such.
Witness my hand at office this 4th day of February 1852.
C. Frazier, Clerk County Court
The supplemental declaration of Ellenor Alexander widow of Mathew Alexander decd for the purpose of obtaining a pension. (Author's note: Supplement is spelled with one p throughout.)
The said Ellenor declares that she made out her original declaration to which this is a supplement before the Henry County Court of Tennessee on the first day of December 1851 and that she now states in addition to the facts therein set forth that she was married to the said Mathew Alexander on the 17th day of May AD 1782 in the state of South Carolina and that she is informed and believes that the laws of that state do not require any record to be kept of marriages and that no records of her said marriage exists. She further declares that she has no family record either of her marriage or the ages of her children.
She further declares that the reason why she did not make this application at an earlier day is that she was ignorant of her rights to a pension until some time in the year 1851.
Ellenor Alexander (her mark)
State of Tennessee
Henry County
Personally appeared before Samuel Kendall me Samuel Kendall a justice of the peace in and for the state and county aforesaid Mrs Ellenor Alexander and made oath in due form of law that the facts stated in the foregoing declaration of her own knowledge are true and those stated upon the information of others she believes to be true.
This the 9th day of March 1852.
Ellenor Alexxander (her mark)
Samuel Kendall J. P. (seal)
State of Tennessee
Henry County
Personally appeared before Samuel Kendall an acting justice of the peace for said county Jefferson D. Alexander and made oath that he is the youngest son of said Ellenor Alexander and her husband Mathew Alexander.
"That I am now in my forty fifth year. That the said Ellenor and Mathew had seven children older than myself viz Thomas named and ages as follows to wit Thomas Alexander who is about 50 years old, Robert Alexander (if living) about 54 years old, Hugh Alexander who is fifty nine to 60 years old, John Alexander (if living) about 62 years old, James Alexander about 65 years old, William Alexander about 68 years old, Jane Alexander (who is dead) about 69 years old.
From information my said parents married and lived for several years thereafter in the state of South Carolina."
Sworn to and subscribed before me this
March 9, 1852.
J. D. Alexander
Samuel Kendall J. P. for said county
State of Tennessee Henry county
I Samuel Kendall an acting justice of the peace for said county do hereby certify that I have been personally acquainted with the sd Jefferson D. Alexander (sighned? as above J. D. Alexander) for many years and that he is a respectable man and a credible witness and that full faith and credit should be given to his statements as such.
This given my hand March 9 1852
Samuel Kendall J. P.
=========================
(Author's note: this was with the pension application; it is a claim for Revolutionary bounty land.)
State of Tennessee County of Henry SS _____
On this 18th day of January AD one thousand thousand eight hundred and fifty six, personally appeared before me Samuel Kindall a justice of the peace in and for said county, duly authorized to administer oaths within and for the county and state aforesaid, Elennor Alexander, aged about ninty years, a resident of said county in the state of Tennessee, who being duly sworn according to law, declares that she is the identical relic and widow of Matthew Alexander, who was a pensioner at the time of his death and was inscribed on the United States pension list under the xxxxal Pension Act of 1832 and that she is the identical widow who is now a pensioner under a renewal of the above mentioned Matthew Alexander's pension under the act of February 8th 1848, as will appear by reference to the pension list.
She makes this declaration for the purpose of obtaining the bounty land to which she may be entitled under the acts granting aditional bounty land to certain officers and soldiers who have been engaged in the military service of the United States, approved March 3rd 1855.
She further declares that she has not received a warrant for bounty land under any other acts of congress nor made applycation therefor.
Elenor Alexander
Sworn to and subscribed before me the day and year above written, and I hereby certify that I believe the said Elinnor Alexander who signed the above declaration and is now present to be the identical widow as above stated, and that she is of the age above xxxx and has that I have no interest in said claim.
Samuel Kindell J.P. for said county of Henry
State of Tennessee, County of Henry SS
Personally appeared Wm Melton and Lafaet B. Stalls citizens of the said county and state aforesaid, who being duly sworn, depose and say that they are personally acquainted with Elinnor Alexander, and that she is the person now present who signed and executed the within declaration.
William Melton (his mark)
L. B. Stalls
=======================================
Paris Essex? County Ill (This may be incorrect deciphering.)
August 28th 1856
Comm of Pensions
Washington City DC
Sir
A land warrant for 160 acres under the act of March 3rd 1855 has come to this place for "Eleanor Alexander Widow of Mathew Alexander Revolutionary Soldier No 36632."
I have inquired for the lady? and cannot find her. Should it be mailed to this place?
Did I make out the application? I anticipate it has been directed (w)rong. Please ad(d)ress and I will act accordingly. If I made out the application, I have forgotten.
Yours
G. W. Rives? Rines?
A photograph that has a legible copy of Amy's inscription on the inside of the cover can be seen below.
==========
Attempt at transcription: "Amy John Francis Gore is the daughter of Saira and daughter of James Isacck Gore. My fathers mother was Alexander, old uncle Bille Alexander her brother and uncle jolby (or jotby) Alexander and Uncle Prinly her brothers."
Amy John Francis Gore bornd Fayett Mississippi (Note by JFA: the locale was actually Fayette County, Tennessee, on the Mississippi border, but Amy left there when she was five or six.) Daughter of James Isac & Sara Ann Manorva Gore. Her fathers mother was Bill (marked out) Elexanders daughter of Bill Elexander her uncles names Jeff, Tommy Elexander. (Note by JFA: Sarah Alexander had a brother William and may have had brothers Jeff and Tommy or Thomas, but I haven't discovered them; however , I know she had Alexander cousins named Jeff and Tommy.)
Her mother was a Hall. Daughter of John Hall. (JFA: research shows this to be true.)
She had an uncle All Gore. (JFA: She had no Uncle Al Gore, but she had an Uncle Al Hall.)
Her fathers half bros names were Jeff, Lee, Ran, Horace Gore. (JFA: there were others, but these were near Amy's age.)
Her sister married Jim Gilliam. (JFA: Minerva's sister married a Gilliam.)
Her Aunt married John Walker. (JFA: this is probably true, but I have no knowledge of it.)
Her half-aunt (I believe the word marked through is married.) Cora Gore. (Cora was one of several.
Her brothers names
Jim or J. I. and William Gore
Jim's children (JFA: the children are listed, but I have not followed any of them.)
I have not seen the paragraphs below, but the transcription was sent to me by one of Amy's descendants, and I believe they are as written in the record. The second paragraph is, in fact, almost the same as the document depicted on the previous page and transcribed above and was probably copied from the depicted document by Amy during her later years. Note the mention of Rhoda Alexander, who was the daughter of Thomas Richard Alexander and Louisa Gore and Amy's cousin through both Thomas R. and Louisa.
First Paragraph: Born in Fayette Co., Miss., moved to Henry Co., Tenn. lived there for ten years, came to Mesquite, TX. in 1882, married Dec. 23, 1886, lived in Dallas Co. for 5 years, moved to Cooke Co., Tx, bought a home stayed 6 years, moved to Montague Co, stayed one year, moved to Indian Terr. Ok. stayed for 5 years, came back to Denton Co., Tx. lived there for the next 25 years. [NOTE: there is no Fayette County, in MS; she was born in Fayette County, TN, on the MS border, but her memory of it would have been hazy since she left there while very young.
Second Paragraph: Daughter of James Isaac Gore and Sara Ann Manorva Hall. Her mother was the daughter of Bill Alexander. Uncles names: Jeff, Tommy, Bill, Joey. Her mother was the daughter of John Hall. A uncle: Al Gore. Father's half-brothers: Jeff, Lee, Ran, Horace Gore. Sister: married Jim Gilliam. Aunt married John Walker. Brothers names: James Gore, William Gore. Mother's uncles: Thomason, Gallihugh, Hall, Gore, Alexander, Cousin Rhoda Alexander. (More but not pertinent)
Much of this information comes from Rhea Ghormley Alexander, who, before her untimely death, did extensive genealogical research, including much on the her husband's Alexander family. Although she did not live to organize her notes or to make hypotheses from comparing them with other researchers' notes, I have had the opportunity to review part of her excellent work. I do not know whether the series of notes she made on land transfers in Anson County, NC, Rowan County, NC, Mecklenburg County, NC, and Spartanburg County, SC, were from Brent Holcomb's collection or from original county records; however, they show transactions by a James Alexander for a tract of land on the South Pacolet River, adjacent to John Clark's lower corner. Rhea's husband has donated many of her files to the East Tennessee Historical Society, where they can help genealogical researchers.
All deeds appear to pertain to the same James or his family, and internal
evidence and my research and notes on the Alexanders, McMillins, and Gilmores establish links to our James, identified sometimes as James Sr.
Many of the records in this appendix were originally provided to me by Robin (Rankin) Willis, who has collected sufficient data to persuade her that she is a descendant of Eleanor, or Ellen, Alexander and Samuel Rankin. The abstract of the deed from James to son John is missing in Holcomb's publication, but Ms Willis found a typed copy of the deed in the county archives. Later, Carol Vass, who is not a descendant of James and Ann, provided duplicates of much of what had been provided by Ms Willis and did an independent analysis of the data. I owe thanks to both. -- Author's note
Pages 314-315: 12 Jan 1753, James Alexander of Parish of St. George, Anson Co., planter, to son James Alexander Junior of same, planter, (1) half of 640 A on Cadle (sic, Coddle) Creek and (2) half of 500A on Catawba, for love & good will...James Alexander (Seal), Ann Alexander (admin), Test: Wm. Mackey, Henry Hendry.
Pages 315-315b: 12 Jan 1753, James Alexander to son David Alexander of Anson Co., planter, for love and good will . . . half of 640 A...so as not to hurt improvements made by my son Robert. James Alexander (Seal), Ann Alexander (admin) (Seal), Wit: Wm. Macky, Hen. Hendry.
Page 315b: 12 Jan 1753, James Alexander to daughter Elener Alexander for love & good will . . . gray mair & three cow yearlings . . . James Alexander (Seal), Test: Wm. Macky, Hen. Hendry.
Pages 315b - 316: 12 Jan 1753, James Alexander to son Robert for love and good will . . . half of 640 A & dwelling house where I now live . . . James Alexander (Seal), Ann Alexander (admin) (Seal), Wit: Wm. Mackey, Henry Hendry.
Estate of James Alexander: 8 Oct. 1754, Ann Alexander, Jas. Carter, John Luckie. Before Charles Codgell, Junr. (This was determined to be a bond from Anson County, by deeds from James Alexander & wf Ann; See Anson County Deed Book B, pp. 314-316)
Pages 314-315: 12 Jan 1753, James Alexander of Parish of St. George, Anson Co., planter, to son John Alexander of same, planter, (1) half of 640 A on Cadle (sic, Coddle) Creek and (2) half of 500A on Catawba, for love & good will...James Alexander (Seal), Ann Alexander (admin), Test: Wm. Mackey, Henry Hendry.
Book 3, page 495: 10 June 1756, William Alexander, eldest son & heir of James Alexander, to Robert Alexander orphan of the sd James, under 21 and brother of sd William (James died intestate 15 June 1753) for 75 sh, 6d paid by the widow Anne Alexander, mother of sd Robert and William, 320 A on both sides Cathey's Mill Creek. Robert Gray, Francis Beatey. Prvd Apr. Court 1757.
Book 3, page 498. 10 June 1756. William Alexander, eldest son & heir of James Alexander, to David Alexander, orphan of sd James, under 21, and brother of sd William, by his mother Anne, widow, for 7 sh 6d sterl, 320 A on both sides James Cathey's Mill Crk/ Robert Gray, Francis Beatey. Prvd Apr. Court 1757.
1746, 16 May: "James Allexander to James Ewing. Consid: 60 pounds. Wit: None. 300 acres, bounded in part by mouth of branch N/S Fort Creek, Samuel Ewing's cor., and the creek . . . James Ewing paid 60 pounds, consid. Money for the land, on May 15, 1746 & obtained possession. Deed ackn. by James Allexander on May 17, 1746 & ordered rec., after Ann, his wife, relinquished her right of dower."
1744, 17 May, page 142: "To Samuel Ewing from Edward Brifwat (sic Braithwate) 238 1/2 acres of land standing on the side of Fort Creek by James Alexander's land." [James Ewing bought part of the land which James Alexander had purchased from Edw. Braithwaite. The deed was signed by Edw. Braford (sic Braithwaite) with an "x" and by Brigt. Brafford (sic Braithwaite) with an "x". It stated that buyer Samuel Ewing obtained possession on 17 May 1745; that would be a year after the purchase.]
I William McMillin being sound in mind do make and bequeath this my last will and testament in manner and form as followeth.
1. It is my will that my son Robert gets ninety dollars out of Curd's bond.
2. Also my son Hugh gets ninety six dollars out of said bond.
3. My son John is to get sixty dollars out of Dick's price when sold, and the ballance of said negroe's price to be divided (after all my lawful debts and funeral expences is discharged) is to be equally divided amongst my beloved children, namely Robert, Hugh, William, John, Elizabeth, Elinor, and Easter.
4. The balance of Curd's bond is to be equally divided amongst my three daughters, Elizabeth, Elinor, and Easter.
And I do appoint my friends Thomas Garvin and William McMillin Jnr to be my executors of this my last will and testament where unto I have set my hand and seal this 9 November in the year of our Lord 1810.
Witness present
Thomas Garvin
John Garvin
William McMillin X his mark
This last will and testament of Wm McMillin deceased was exhibited in court and proven by the oaths of Thos Garvin and John Garvin to be the act and deed hand and seal of said McMillin deceased and this will was ordered to be recorded and is thereupon truly admitted to record.
Att John G. Reynolds ==========
The amount of Vandue* cash and bonds found in possession of William McMillin
Sept 6th 1811 Christian County Court September Term 1811
This account of sales of the estate of Wm McMillin was this day exhibited to me and ordered to be recorded and is truly admitted to recorded.
Att John G. Reynolds
*Explanation of word vandue: apparently vendue; I may have transcribed incorrectly, or the spelling may be obsolete. Vendue was a old word used for a public auction. (Return.)
This indenture made this 11th day of May 1812, between Robert McMillin, Hugh McMillin, Joseph Gilmore & Elizabeth Gilmore his wife, Matthew Alexander & Elenor his wife, William Alexander & Esther his wife, William McMillin, and John McMillin, Heirs at law of William McMillin, decd., of the one part, and John Curd of Logan County & state of Kentucky of the other part. Witnesseth that for and in consideration of the sum of Six Hundred and seventy five dollars to them in hand paid, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, have granted, bargained, and sold and by these presents do grant, bargain, and sell unto the said John Curd, his Heirs, and forever, two certain tracts or parcels of land lying and being in the said ___________. Gabriel Lang's line, thence N35E 90 poles to William McMillin's (fence?) line, thence with his line S30E 126 poles to a stake on a white oak in Gabriel Lang's line and corner to the before mentioned tract running eastwardly 124 poles to a stake, thence N60E 86 poles to an elm and two spanish oaks corner to ___ survey, thence a direct line to the beginning. To have and to hold the said tract or parcels of land with all and every of their appurtenances to the said John Curd, his heirs forever, and the said Robert McMillin, Hugh McMillin, Joseph Gilmore & Elizabeth Gilmore his wife, Matthew Alexander & Elenor his wife, William Alexander & Esther his wife, William McMillin, and John McMillin, heirs as aforesaid, do further in covenant to and with the said John Curd that they will forever warrant and defend this before described promises with all and every of their appurtenances to the said John Curd, his heirs, before ___________. In testimony whereof, they have hereunto set their hand and affixed their seals the date aforesaid.
Witness Berry Barnes or Burnes (Burns?)
. . . .
Item My will and desire is that all of my estate that is not above named both real and personal shall be sold at public auction and after the payment of my just debts and the donations? before named in money that the net? proceeds be equally divided among all my children to wit, Joshua Siddle, Esther Alexander, Judith Alexander, Samuel Siddle, Betsey Siddle, Sally Siddle, Job Siddle (the word 'and' struck through) Nancy Siddle, and Patsey Siddle.
. . . .
He affixed his signature as Job Siddall, a spelling used on about half the occurrences.
The descendants of each child and his or her spouse, James and Mary, John and Rachel Davidson, David and Margaret Davidson, Eleanor and Samuel Rankin, and Robert and Mary Jack, are listed under a different heading.
Birth year is often approximate, sometimes very approximate, perhaps only accurate to five years or more. Look under first name and middle name because consulted documents don't always agree on a person's name or, if double-named, the order of the names. Although I have placed William Andrew and Matthew and their descendants with James's offspring, it is quite possible that they are descendants of one of his brothers. An asterisk denotes uncertainty.
Robin Rankin Willis did extensive research on this branch, and I owe her thanks for permission to use her work. As with other branches of the family, users of this history should do their own research before accepting anyone marked with an asterisk. Although their identities are often correct, they have not been verified by me or Ms. Willis and are suspect even though many histories list them without citing sources.
A special case is that of people listed as descendants of William Rankin and Mary (Moore) Campbell for whom a fairly detailed history exists of their children, grandchildren, etc. Although I have found one instance where people quoting their history are definitely incorrect, as addressed in the body of this current work, I suspect that the identification of their offspring is correct in the other cases.
I have included the names of these probable, but unverified, descendants to provide a starting point for anyone wishing to investigate further. As with others, birth year is sometimes only approximate, perhaps off by several years. Look under first name and middle name because consulted documents don't always agree on a person's name.
I have included the names of some probable, but unverified, descendants to provide a starting point for anyone wishing to investigate further, and have identified them as unverified by an asterisk. As with others, birth year is sometimes only approximate, perhaps off by several years. Look under first name and middle name because consulted documents don't always agree on a person's name.
After The Sale, September 1812
1. Vandue the amount of the _ains
$446.68 (letters "ains" may be wrong)
2. Cash
2.75
3. John Curd's bond
390.50
4. Thomas G. Greenfield
30.00
5. Thomas Garvin 1 bond
either 5.00 or 205.00
(Total appears to be)
either 874.88 or 874.83
Thomas Garvin
Wm McMillin
Book C, p 436 of Logan County Deeds
Robert McMillin
Hugh McMillin
Joseph Gilmore
Elizabeth Gilmore
Matthew Alexander
Elenor Alexander
William Alexander
Esther Alexander
William McMillin
John McMillin
Appendix F:
Siddle Documents Relating To The Presence Of
The Alexanders In Robertson County
Back to TOC
Excerpt from Job Siddle's Will, Probated November Term 1820, Robertson County, TN
Buyers At The Sale To Settle Job Siddle's Estate, Robertson County, TN, 1821
Rich'd Stone?
Randolph Britt
James Alexander - - husband of Esther Siddle/Siddall
Thos Mathews
Andrew Thompson
David Lollach?
Charles Roberts
John Stone
Samuel Siddall
James Byrne?
Peter Wynn
Bazel Rose
Lydia Siddall - - second wife of Job Siddle/Siddall
Josiah -yde
Wm Fuller
Archibald Marshal
Joshua Siddall
James Eddings
Wm Murry?
Nancy Siddall
James C Alexander - - almost certainly husband of Judith Siddle/Siddall
Matthew Alexander - - father of James Alexander and Robert Alexander and likely the father of the William Alexander at the sale
Sally Siddall
Ovel Rose
John Watkins
Robert Alexander
Alexander B Porter
Richard Qualls
Thompson Porter
Joel Vaughan
Robt Draughan
Thomas Cox
Gabriel Martin
Jacob Miles
Robertson Stratton
William Alexander - - probably Matthew's son William but, if James C.'s father William was still alive in 1820, could have been he
H Damewood
Alfred Ray
Alexr Miles
Joseph Fi?er(s)/Thier(s)
William Hubbard
John (Rose or Ross)
Elijah Henly
Alexander Guinn
Abner Qualls
Betsey Siddall
Appendix G:
Descendants of James (d. 1753) and Ann
Back to TOC
Descendants of James Alexander of Spartanburg and Mary
Alexander
Arrn or Arnn
Atkins (children of Sarah Alice Alexander and John)
Champion (child of Olive J. Alexander and William)
Cole (child of Jolee Alexander and William W.)
Cullum (children of Nancy J. Alexander and Hugh)
Goldston (children of Malissa Etta Alexander and Samuel "Squire")
Gore
Grubbs (children of Dona R. Alexander and Albert)
Hinchey (child of Daisy Mae Alexander and Bill)
Humphreys (children of Mary B. Alexander and John C.)
Jimerson (children of Mary Polk Alexander and Jefferson)
Jobe (children of Allie Alexander and Crawford)
Lyle
McGuire (children of Sarah Alexander and Patrick)
Mooney (children of Penina/Pemina Alexander and William Mooney)
Moorehead (children of Emily Jane Alexander and Charles W. “Charlie”)
Overton
Paschall (children of Beulah M. Alexander and Zenith)
Roach
Shell
Stephens
Thomason (children of Eliza Jane Gore and George)
Wade (children of Cynthia Alexander and Joseph M.)
Wall
Wood(s)
Descendants of John Alexander, Son of James and Ann, and Wife Rachel Davidson
Users of this history should do their own research before accepting anyone marked with an asterisk. As with others, birth year is sometimes approximate, even very approximate. Look under first name and middle name because consulted documents don't always agree on a person's name.
Alexander
Anderson (offspring of Lottie Lee Alexander and James Anderson)
Bigbee (offspring of Elizabeth Neill and husband
Cunningham (offspring of Ann Alexander and John Cunningham
Golay (offspring of Minnie May Alexanderand Jules Golay)
Hutchinson or Hutcherson
Neill
Patterson (all offspring of Ann Alexander and William Patterson
White (all offspring of Rachel Alexander and Moses White)
Descendants of David Alexander, Son of James and Ann, and Wife Margaret Davidson
Users of this history should do their own research before accepting anyone marked with an asterisk. As with others, birth year is sometimes quite approximate. Look under first name and middle name because consulted documents don't always agree on a person's name.
Alexander
Descendants of Eleanor Alexander, Daughter of James and Ann, and Husband Samuel Rankin
Rankin
Dickson
Hartgrove
Rutledge
Descendants of Robert Alexander, Son of James and Ann, and Wife Mary Jack
Alexander
Clark(e) (child of Catherine Alexander and A. P. Clark)
Echols (children of Louisiana Alexander and Robert Echols)
Fain (children of Mary Alexander and Robert Fain)
Harrell or Harold (child of Jennie/Jenny Alexander and David B. Harrell/Harold)
Rosenstihl (child of Anna C. Alexander and Henry J. Rosenstihl)
The first number denotes the generation after James and Ann, and the first alphabetic character denotes the order I assigned to the second generation (not the birth order since I didn't assign a character to William, about whom nothing is certain, and assigned #1a to James, #1b to John, and so forth. For the next generation, #2a to my ancestor William and #2c to James Jr, who didn't migrate to western KY and then to Henry County, TN, where I grew up.
John M.'s Descendants
3a1b. (John M. and Peggy (Burns) Alexander's branch restarts.)
I have, in general, taken Matthew's and Eleanor's branch only two generations forward from them; however, for a few, mostly Henry Countians, I have taken them closer to the present.
I have, in general, taken James Jr.'s and Mary's branch only two or three generations forward from them; however, for a few, I have included data on descendants closer to the present.
The YDNA tests prove that these people were closely related to James of Spartanburg, perhaps descendants of his likely sons, John, David, or Robert, or possibly from a brother or even a first cousin of James.
The generational numbering with which the following family begins is more or less arbitrary since the actual generation is unknown.
The generational numbering is arbitrary since the actual generation is unknown.
The first number denotes the generation after James and Ann, starting with John as 1b, and the alphabetic character denotes the order I assigned (not always the birth order).
Unidentified son of John and Rachael: Ann and Thomas stated that they had a second older brother (in addition to James) who fought in the Revolutionary War. Those are the only references to him that I have found.
The first number denotes the generation, starting with David as 1, and the first alphabetic character denotes the order I assigned to the second generation (not always the birth order).
The first number denotes the generation, starting with Eleanor as 1, and the first alphabetic character denotes the order I assigned to the second generation (not always the birth order).
The first number denotes the generation after James and Ann, starting with Robert as 1e, and the alphabetic character denotes the order I assigned (not always the birth order).
Endnote 1: The most probable birth year for Hugh P. is either 1846 or 1847, but he does not appear on the 1850 census with Hugh M. and Mary, nor was Berry P. enumerated in Henry County, circumstances which lend credence Hugh's being the son of Berry P. and his first wife.
Endnote 2: 1870 Fed. Census Mortality Schedule, Deaths between 1 Jun 1869 and 1 Jun 1870, Buncombe Co., NC p. 77; died Jan 1870
EndNote 3: My estimated dates were correct to only plus or minus a few years. Exact dates were provided by a descendant of John Alexander and Prudence Ball.
EndNote 4: Although I am confident that they belong to the family of James and Ann, members of this family must be viewed as suspect because, without YDNA evidence to support the link, documentation is not adequately convincing. Note 14.2 in the text lists some arguments for and against including Charles M. and his descendants as members of our family.
EndNote 5: The grandchildren of Charles M. Alexander and Darney Robinson appear in the list of descendants of Robert and Mary Jack without links to their parents. The footnote in the Alexander history has sufficient citations to trace each back to Charles M. and forward toward the present, if a researcher wishes.
Probably, not all of these marriages were for members of our Alexander line, and I have added notes for the ones for whom I have doubt about their being in our family. Samuel Alexander, who married Elizabeth Hinton, was the son of Matthew's and William's older brother, James Jr.
Copies of Dodd's transcriptions can be found in the LDS's Family History Library at Salt Lake City and in many of their branch libraries. The data can probably also still be found at:
Ancestry.com. [database on-line] Compiled Marriages, Kentucky, 1802-1850 Original data from Kentucky Marriages to 1850, compiled by Jordan Dodd (ranscription of marriage records from individual counties in Kentucky)
Peggy Alexander | William Anderson | 26 Jan 1801, Logan Co.(1) |
William Alexander | Rachel Anderson | 7 Jan 1813, Christian Co.(1) |
William Alexander | Hettie Hinton | 26 Feb 1806, Logan Co. |
Samuel Alexander | Elizabeth Hinton | 22 Apr 1808, Logan Co. |
John Alexander | Peggy Burns(2) | 25 Mar 1813, Christian Co. |
Robert P. Alexander | Nancy Black | 29 Apr 1820, Christian Co. |
Thomas Alexander | Elizabeth McMillan | 17 May 1822, Logan Co. |
Although there was no return of the license or bond by the justice of peace or minister for some of these marriages and a possibility they never occurred, the bonds, or in some cases only a list, are on file in the Henry County Records Archives. The record collection begins in 1838; however, there were marriages in Henry County from the early 1820s onward. Although there were many other Alexander marriages, I have listed only those of descendants or probable kin of Matthew and William, and it's highly likely that I've missed several.
All the marriage data come from one of the following publications, which were compiled from records on file at Henry County Archives.
Henry County, Tennessee, Marriages, compiled by W. O. Inman, Vol. 1 (1838-1852), Vol. 2 (1853-1867, and Vol. 3 (1868-1880) Paris, TN, 1974
Record Of Marriages Henry Co., Tenn. 1881-1890 by Charles D. Robbins and Johnny D. Walker, Paris, Tenn., Oct. 1983
Record Of Marriages Henry Co., Tenn. 1891-1900 by Charles D. Robbins and Johnny D. Walker, Paris, Tenn., 1984
1901-1906 Marriages Of Henry Co. TN compiled and published by Gwen Bellamy McNutt, Paris, TN, 1988
Thomas Alexander | Jane Blan | 27 Feb 1839 |
Sarah Alexander | Isaac D Gore | 16 Jun 1838 |
Cintha A Alexander | Joseph M Wade | 19 Oct 1839 |
M M Alexander(a) | James M Mathis | 25 Mar 1839 |
Livinda Alexander | Westley Overton | 6 Apr 1839 |
Sarah Ann Alexander | John Mathis | 15 Oct 1839 |
Sarah A Alexander | Samuel B Hill | 21 Nov 1839 |
Ira Alexander | Sarah Hunt | 8 Dec 1840 |
Mary Ann Alexander | Samuel W Mathis | 28 Oct 1841 |
Elmyra Alexander | Josiah Mathis | 14 Dec 1843 |
P Alexander(b) | William C Mooney | 11 Sep 1844 |
Hamilton Alexander | Martha J Mathis | 16 Sep 1846 |
William Alexander | Aditha Stephens | 19 Sep 1846 |
Eliza Alexander | William S Shell | 18 Mar 1847 |
John M Alexander | Lydia McLenr(c) | 27 Sep 1848 |
John P Alexander | Emily Stephens | 19 Feb 1848 |
Samuel W Alexander(d) | Edy C Smotherman | 14 Mar 1849 |
Berry P Alexander | Mary Jane Alexander(e) | 27 Jan 1850 |
F E Alexander(f) | Lively A Bratton | 11 Dec 1852 |
Harriet A Alexander | Henry F Molton(g) | 27 Nov 1855 |
J D Alexander(h) | Louisa A Goodall | 1 May 1856 |
Meredith Alexander | Nancy Gholston | 15 Nov 1856 |
F E Alexander | Sarah E Wall | 4 Apr 1864 |
H P Alexander(i) | Rebecca Mathis | 3 Jan 1865 |
Henry N. Alexander(j) | Samantha B. Veazey | 7 Aug 1867 |
M B Alexander(k) | J C Humphreys | 4 Jan 1869 |
Thomas R Alexander | Louisa I Alexander(l) | 26 Mar 1872 |
Malissa Alexander | S M Gholdson | 27 Jan 1872 |
Luther L Alexander | Sallie P Barbee | 8 Feb 1873 |
Maggie H Alexander | W T Porter | 15 Oct 1874 |
Joseph R Alexander | Queen Victoria Stagner | 10 Dec 1874 |
Ella A Alexander | Alex Loving | 6 Jan 1876 |
J R Alexander | Mary E Gore | 14 Feb 1876 |
Marry P Alexander | B F Stevens(m) | 8 Mar 1879 |
Travis Alexander | Martha A L McFall | 22 Jun 1879 |
Sarah A Alexander | John P Atkins | 27 Oct 1880 |
Lavenia Ida Alexander | Preston D Mathis | 19 Apr 1882 |
John W Alexander | Nancy C Wall | 27 Dec 1882 |
Ada Alexander | A B Mitchum | 16 Sep 1883 |
Mary P Alexander(n) | Jefferson Jamerson | 4 Aug 1885 |
J Alexander | S S Aron | 1 Nov 1885 |
J H Alexander | M T Jamerson(o) | 4 Aug 1885 |
Travis Alexander | E V Gore | 5 Aug 1890 |
A G Alexander(p) | Fannie Roan | 29 Dec 1891 |
Julia Alexander | W W Cole(q) | 24 Dec 1893 |
Clarence Alexander | Annie Crawford | 10 May 1894 |
Isom L Alexander(r) | Minnie Bandy | 10 Apr 1894 |
Arlena Alexander | T J Gore | 20 Dec 1896 |
C B Alexander(s) | Daisy Lemonds | 28 Sep 1898 |
Data for these marriages comes from Fayette County, Tennessee Marriages: 1838 - 1871 Byron Sistlerand Barbara Sistler, Nashville, TN, Byron Sistler & Associates, Inc., 1989.
Nancy J. Alexander | Hugh A. Cullum | 17 Nov 1854 |
O J Alexander(1a) | W C Champion | 22 Oct 1868 |
A D Alexander(2b) | L J Shell | 6 Dec 1875 |
Fayette Countian married in Crittenden Co., Arkansas | ||
William Alexander | Clara Roach | 23 May 1883 (bond) |
Although the deeds had no commas, I have added them to separate items conveyed and sometimes to separate clauses. Sometimes and was spelled and sometimes written as &, and I may have unintentionally spelled out the word when the symbol was used in the original.
James C. McNeill, Trustee
Personal Property Conveyed by Wm Alexander
recorded Feby the 2nd AD 1847
I William Alexander have this day bargained & sold & do for the sum of one dollar to me in hand paid by James C. McNeill hereby transfer and convey unto the said James C. McNeill all the right, title, & interest that I have to one small bay horse, three yoke of oxen, one ox waggon, one still, one cap & worm, & twelve still tubs to have and to hold the same for the purposes hereinafter mentioned (viz) the said William Alexander being indebted to one Robert D. Caldwell in the following sums (viz) one note made payable to James C. Alexander dated the 25th March 1845 due the 25th due the 25th (Author's note: as written in the original) December 1845 for one hundred & fifty dollars with a credit on it the 9th November 1846 for thirty four dollars & ninety one cents, one note for twenty six dollars dated December 1846 with James C. Alexander as surety thereon due one day after date and being desirous to secure and make certain the payments thereof to the said (Page 151 begins here.) R. D. Caldwell, I have this day made the above named conveyances & for no other purpose. It is however agreed by all the parties herein concerned that the said horse, the three yoke of oxen, the wagon, the still, cap, worms, and tubs shall all remain in the possession of the said William Alexander until the 25th of December next. If the said Wm Alexander shall fail to pay the aforesaid note by the 25th of December next then the aforesaid James C. McNeill shall proceed to advertise and after giving twenty days notice at three or more public places, one being the courthouse door in Paris, shall expose the before mentioned property to public sale on the public square in the town of Paris for cash in hand & shall first pay off all costs as (uncertain of word) necessary on said sale and then shall apply the balance of the proceeds to payment of the before mentioned notes & if there should be anything left shall pay it over to the said Wm Alexander.
In testimony whereof we have hereunto set our hands & seals this February the 4th 1847. Should the said James C. McNeill die or refuse to act, then (author's note: no said) the R. D. Caldwell may have the power of appointing another and is herey authorised to exercise it.
William Alexander (Seal)
State of Tennessee, Henry County
Personally appeared before me Constantine Frazier, Clerk of the County Court for said county, Wm Alexander the bargainer to the foregoing deed of trust with whom I am personally acquainted who acknowledged that he had executed the same on the day it bears date & for the purposes therein contained. Witness my hand at office this 4th February 1847.
C. Frazier Clerk
Came to hand for registration Feby the 4th at 2 oclock PM 1847
Hugh M. Alexander, Trustee
Land & Personal Property Conveyed by Wm Alexander
recorded Feby the 4th AD 1847
I William Alexander have this day bargained and sold and (&) do hereby convey to Hugh M. Alexander for the sum of five dollars to me paid and the other considerations hereinafter mentioned one tract of land lying in the 13th civil district in Henry County containing by estimation about eighty eight acres bounded as follows (viz) by Robert Bradley & Jesse McLure's (Author's note: Jessee McClure was a relative.) tracts of land on the north & east, on the west by Samuel W. Mathis & Josiah P. Mathis tracts and adjoining Wm. S. Shell's tract on the south being on the waters or near the waters of Clear Creek; also some personal property, viz, one ox wagon, one yoke of large oxen being black & white pided. (Author's note: I'm uncertain whether the writer meant sided or pied, as in piebald. The oxen would be white with black spots in either case.) To have and to hold the same to the said Hugh M. Alexander, his heirs and assigns forever. I do covenant with the said Hugh M. Alexander that I am lawfully seized of said real & personal property (and missing) have a good right to convey it & that the same is unencumbered. I do further convenant and bind myself, my heirs, & representatives to xxxxx and for forever defend the title to the real and personal property and every part thereof to the said Hugh M. Alexander, his heirs, and assigns against (Page 152 begins.) the lawful claims of all persons whatever, but this deed is made for the following uses & trust & for no other purpose, that is to say, I am indebted to one Isaac D. Gore in the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars due by note under seal due the 25th of December 1847 and am desirous to secure and make certain the payment of the same. Now if I should pay the said debt by the 25th of December 1848, then, this deed is to be void, but, if I should not, then the said Hugh M. Alexander as trustee after giving ten days notice at the courthouse door in the town of Paris, Tennessee and at the election grounds of the 13th civil district and three other public places in the neighborhood may expose all of said property to public sale and sell it to the highest bidder for cash and appropriate the proceeds first to the payment of the necessary expenses & costs, secondly to the satisfaction of said debt of two hundred and fifty dollars, & thirdly to pay the balance if any to me.
February the 4th 1847
William Alexander (Seal)
State of Tennessee
Henry County
Personally appeared before me Constantine Frazier, Clerk of the County Court for said county, Wm Alexander, the bargainer to the foregoing deed of trust with whom I am personally acquainted and acknowledged that he had executed the same on the day it bears date & for the purposes therein contained.
Witness my hand at office this 4th February 1847
C. Frazier Clerk
Came to hand for registration Feby the 4th at 2 oclock PM 1847
Jesse McLure, Personal Property
Conveyed by James C. Alexander &
recorded Feby the 4th AD 1847
I James C. Alexander have this day bargained and sold and (&) do hereby convey to Jesse McClure for the sum of five dollars to me paid and the other considerations hereinafter mentioned two feather beds and bed clothing, steads, & furniture, one claybank mare, one sorrel stud colt, one cow, & side saddle. To have and to hold the same to the said Jesse McClure, his heirs and assigns forever. I do covenant with the said Jesse McClure that I am lawfully seized of said property and have a good right to convey it and that the same is unemcumbered but this deed is made for the following uses and trusts & for no other purpose. That is to say I am indebted to one John P. Alexander in the sum of one hundred and thirty five dollars due about the 25 December 1847. and am desirous to secure and make certain the payment of the same. Now if I should pay the said debt by the 25 (th missing) of December 1848, then this deed to be void, but if I should not then the said Jesse McClure as trustee after giving ten days notice in writing at the courthouse door in the town of Paris, at the election ground of the 13th district in Henry County, Tennessee, and three other public places in the neighborhood may expose all of said property to public sale and sell the same to the highest bidder for cash and appropriate the proceeds first to the (Page 153 begins.) payment of the necessary expenses and costs, secondly to the satisfaction of said debt of two hundred & fifty dollars, and thirdly to pay the balance if any to me.
This 6th day of February 1847.
James C. Alexander X(his mark) (Seal
Test
Jesse M Clure
State of Tennessee
Henry County
Personally appeared before me Constantine Frazier, Clerk of the County Court for said county, James C. Alexander the bargainer to the foregoing deed of trust with whom I am personally acquainted & acknowledged that he had executed the same on the day it bears date & for the purposes therein contained.
Witness my hand at office this 6th February 1847.
C. Frazier Clerk
Came to hand for registration Feby the 6th at 12 oclock PM 1847
South Carolina
By the honorable the judges of the county court of county of Spartanburgh in the state aforesaid ~ To Mary Alexander ~ Whereas Thomas Alexander deceased died intestate having whilst he lived and at the time of his death divers goods rights and credits within the said county by means whereof the full deposition and power of granting the administration of all and singular goods rights and credits of the said deceased may be truly administered, converted and disposed of Do hearby grant unto the said Mary Alexander full power & authority by -----? of these presents to administer the goods rights and credits of the sd deceased and to pay the debts in which the deceased stood obliged so far as his goods rights and credits will extend? according to the rule? & order of Law. They being first duly sworn to make a true and perfect inventory of all & singular goods rights and credits of the said deceased and to exhibit the same unto the clerk's office of the county aforesaid in order to be recorded on or before the second Monday in April next insuing?. Witness William Lancaster clerk of our said court dated at my office the 23rd of January Anno 1796 and in the Twentieth Year of American Independence. Signed John Lancaster (not William)
South Carolina, Spartanburg District --- By Gabriel Bumpass Esqr Ordinary
To Mrs Mary Ferguson al--? Andw Ferguson
Whereas John Gowen hath petitioned the court to be released from his securityship wherein he stands bound for your good and faithful administration of the estate of Thomas Alexander decd you are hearby informed that you ---? appear before me in the court of ordinary on the 11th instant at the Spartanburgh Courthouse & then abide by and perform such order or decree as the said ordinary shall make.
Given under my hand & seal this 11th day of November 1806. -----
I hereby acknowledge that this citation has been duly served this 11th Novm 1806.
Signed Andw Ferguson
It was within the walls of this ancient cottage and about its sacred hearth, that Elizabeth, Theodore D., Wilburn O., Marshall L., Louisa, Harriet, Susan M., and James took their first lessons. Within these same walls Thos. Alexander and wife, reared eleven children, seven boys and four girls, all reaching maturity except Thomas, Jr., who died at the age of seven and whose remains wore the first to be buried in tho family cemetery on a mound overlooking Conneross, a few hundred yards distant. They were Andrew, of Mississippi, James S., who was a soldier in the late war and near its close died in Virginia, Memory, John Henry, of California, Joseph, also a soldier and died in the service of his country, and Isaac N., the only survivor of the boys who lives near Greenwood. The daughters are Eleanor, now Mrs. William Deaton; Mary Ann, now Mrs. Elijah Deaton; Lovey, now Mrs. Alf O. Adair ; Martha Jane, now Mrs. William Gibson - all living in Oconee, in usual health and at advanced ages, with large families.
Of Thomas Alexander, little is known, save that he was born in Buncombe County, North Carolina, in 1795, became an orphan at an early age and went to Spartanburg, where, in 1817, he married Jane Wood, and in 1821 concluded to emigrate to Missouri on pack-saddles, in company with Andrew Ferguson, his step-father. While en route his wife took sick near Conneross and they were forced to stop until she recovered. With his wife and an only sister they rented the Jenkins farm, now owned by Hud Hall, on which they raised a crop. It was while living at the Jenkins place that Mr. Alexander, while squirrel hunting, fancied and bought 350 acres on which he was to spend his days for the consideration of $300.
. . . .
Had Thos. Alexander's children remained on their native heath, we predict, by geometrical ratio, that in another generation his descendants would be a power behind the throne in a county election. But they did not do this. The world had too many attractions. Several went abroad and carried their sturdy manhood and habits with them, and, so far as heard from, all achieved, in a reasonable degree, success. John Henry Alexander . . . went to Missouri, where he spent a year, thence to California, where he grew very prominent, and acquired a fortune mining . . . .
James Alexander was born December 15, AD 1756
Rhoda Alexander was born October 15, AD 1763
John C. Alexander was born March 22, AD 1783
Rhoda Alexander (I believe the word may be Jnr) was born November 6, AD 1785
William D. Alexander (some word) was born January 28th, AD 1788
George C. Alexander was born September 10th, AD 1790
James M. Alexander was born May 12th, AD 1793
Robert S. Alexander was born September 2nd, AD (A may be missing) 1795
Rachel Alexander was born December 30th, AD 1799
William D. Alexander was born December 10th, AD 1800
Humphrey N. Alexander was born June 11th, AD 1804
Elizabeth Alexander was born April 10th, AD 1806
James Alexander and Rhoda Cunningham was married March 19th, AD 1782
John Alexander and Jane Patton was married December 31st, AD 1808 (could be 1805)
James M. Alexander and Nancy Forster was married September 8th, AD 1814
George C. Alexander and Elizabeth Forster was married June 23rd, AD 1818
Robert S. Alexander and Jane Wilson was married May 25, AD 1820
Moses White and Rachel Alexander was married December 2nd, 1824
William D. Alexander and Leah Burgin was married April the 21, 1825
Humphrey N. Alexander and Polly Forster was married December th 26th, 1826
Edward For (all except Ed marked through)
Edward Forster (appears to be 'and') (unsure of first name ) Forster (all the words marked through)
Joseph A. McEntire Elizabeth Alexander was married the 9th (unsure of 9) of January, 1832
In these transcripts, I have not attempted to correct punctuation or capitalization. Compare with copies of the original documents.
Declaration
In order to obtain the benefit of third section of the act of Congress of the 4th of July 1836 And an act to amend the Acts of July eighteenhundred and thirtysix and eighteenhundred and thirtyeight allowing pensions to certain widows [NOTE: number written as single words]
State of Tennessee
Carroll County
On this 23rd day of January eighteenhundred and fortythree [NOTE: three illegible except for letters th] personally appeared before me Samuel Killough justice of the peace in and for said county of Carroll and state of Tennessee Ann Craig of the State of Tennessee and the County of Carroll aged aged [NOTE: aged written twice] eighty years on the 30th day of June next who being first duly sworn according to law doth, on her oath, make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the provision of the act of Congress passed July 4th 1836 and an act to amend the Acts of July 4th 1836 [1836 not legible, but previously said to be the date] and 1838 approved August the 23rd 1842. That she was the widow of John Cunningham who was a Captain in the [NOTE: not legible but must be revolutionary since following word is war] war in the militia of the State of South Carolina.
He entered the service in an early part of the war as she believes he was a militia Captain prior to the time of the War being carried into the State of South Carolina and left the service in September [NOTE: word not legible but mentioned later as definitely being September] in seventeenhundred and eightytwo [NOTE: new sentence must begin] she believes that John Cunningham served in the Revolutionary War three years or more and under Col Bratton mostly and part of his time Col Love and Col Watson and was in the battle at Kings Mountain
the reason why she so well recollects that Battle she was residing and living in hearing and did hear the sound of the drums and fire arms and her father and two of her brothers were in the same battle in Capt Barber’s company. She then resided in the state of North Carolina in Lincoln County joining the State of South Carolina and York District in which District of [End of first page]
[Second page] York John Cunningham then resided because she was at that time personally acquainted with him and had visited his fathers house in York District in the aforesaid State of South Carolina he being a family connection and particular acqainances [NOTE: as written in document] [NOTE: must be new sentence] she believes that he was in two battles in the summer of seventeen hundred and eightytwo in the lower part of South Carolina it being the dest--- [NOTE: uncertain of word] place but the precise places she does not now recollect. But recollects that the two battles or skirmishes took place after she was married to the aforesaid John Cunningham who was a captain in the militia of the aforesaid State of South Carolina. The reason why she so well remembers that The service terminated in September 1782 is, That she then was his wife and that she had a dangerous spell of sickness and that her husband John Cunningham was sent for by his father and that before she recovered it was some time.
That she further declares that she was married to John Cunningham who was a captain on the 28th day of February seventeenhundred and eightytwo and that her husband John Cunningham, Capt in the Revolutionary War And that he died on the 6th day of March seventeenhundred and eightythree. And she was afterwards married to William Patterson who died the 17th day of August 1794 and that she afterwards married to James Holmes who died in December 1807 and that she afterwards married to James Crig [NOTE: as written] on the 17th day of November 1814 who died on the 7th day of September 1828. And all the foregoing named husbands were in the battle of Kings Mountain in the State of South Carolina and District of York And that she has remained a widow eversince the 7th day of September eighteenhundred and twentyeight as will more fully appear by reference to the proof hereunto annexed. [END of second page]
[Page 3 begins]
Sworn to and subscribed on
the day and year before
Written before
Witnesses
Ann Craig, (her mark)
Samuel Killough J. P.
John Holmes
John Woods
[NOTE: the remainder of page 3 has only the legal statement required for the justice of the peace to certify Ann's declaration.]
State of Tennessee
Williamson County
Personally appeared Thomas Alexander before me Reuben White one of the acting justices of the peace in and for Williamson County and state of Tennessee who first being duly sworn according to law doth on his oath say that he is personally acquainted with Ann Craig the subscriber to the foregoing declaration
That she was married to John Cunningham who was a captain in the revolutionary war the day of the month or the month he cannot recollect but the reason he recollects Ann Craig now once Ann Cunningham is that the said Ann Craig is his sister. And the reason why he recollects that the marriage took place before the revolutionary [war] ended is that his sister then Ann Cunningham now Ann Craig was taken dangerously sick that her husband John Cunningham was sent for for he was then in the Army of the United States that some time the ensuing spring he died and that his father moved his sister then Ann Cunningham who then resided in York District South Carolina into Lincoln County in the state of North Carolina the distance of about twenty miles.
That the reason Why he recollects that John Cunningham was a Captain that he went to school in one half mile of his house in York District in John Cunninghams lifetime. That he has no record of his own age but was not old enough to be compelled to bear Arms himself that his father and two of his brothers was in the Army of the United States and he stayed at home that he always understood that Captain John Cunningham served a great deal in the Army that he now believes from every circumstance and hearsay from persons that was with him that he served as much as three years or more that he always heard it asserted that John Cunningham was a Captain and as brave a man as ever burned Powder that his own age is about seventy four years or seventy five years of age.
Sworn to and subscribed
on this 10th day of August 1843
Reuben White,
Justice of the Peace for Williamson County
Thomas Alexander
Bible page listing Ann's children and birth dates before marriage to James Holmes
John Cunningham was born [NOTE: some marked through and day illegible to me] of July Domini 1783Bible page listing James Holmes's children and birth dates before his marriage to Ann Alexander
Elizabeth Holmes born May 3 1774Through their guardians appointned upon William's death, his and Ann's four children, Arthur, Josiah, Rachel and Elizabeth, who were minors, w ere plaintiffs against James Holmes and his wife Ann Holmes, their mother and widow of William Patterson. Arthur Patterson, the plaintiff children's grandfather [NOTE: italicized words are those of the court document.] was listed as a co-administrator of William Patterson's estate.
Will dated 22 June 1793; probate November 1793; heirs
". . . Daughters Sarah, Hannah and Elizabeth. Sons: William - land he lives on; Archibald; James - plantation he lives on, a part of tract where William lives; Robert - land I live on including new entry joining old and Samuel Neill's, Andrew Ramsey's and James Patterson's land. Son-in-law James Holmes and each heir of daughter Mary, now deceased . . .
Executors: wife and son Robert
Witnesses:James Kerr & John Falls"
Ann Crage Will, Page 139 Of Will Book, Carroll County, Tennessee
Ann Crage being weak of body but of a sound mind do make and decree this to be my last will and testament revoking all other will or testaments. I give to Mary Ann Patterson 1 bed 1 coverlid(???) 1 bed quilt 2 blankets 2 sheets 2 pair of pillow slips & 1 counterpin. I give to Nancy S. Patterson 2 bed quilts 1 counterpain 1 bed 2 sheets 2 blankets & 2 pair of (I believe there is an of, not that it matters) pillowslips. I give to Rachel J. (or I.) Patterson my saddle riding skirt saddle blankett & --and (I can't decypher one or two characters.) bed cartains (curtains?). I give to Arthur Patterson my Filley. I give to my children John Cunningham Rachel Montgomery Elizabeth A. Crawford Arthur Patterson Josiah (a blank space large enough for a long name or double given name) Davidson and the children of Sophronia Atkisson (or Atkinson) and equal share in any money that may be obtained on account of John Cunningham in the revolutionary war setting apart previously one hundred dollars for the use of John Cunningham Jr and one hundred dollars for the use of Arthur Patterson. I wish Jane Patterson to have the disposal of my bed cloths and the remainder of my bed cloths after Mary Ann Patterson and Nancy S. Patterson receives their share above allotted to them all the ballance of my property of enny name and description to be sold and after paying all my just debts the ballance to be given to Arthur Patterson. I leve my negar woman to the care of my executor. I appoint George S. Moore and Anthony Patterso my executors and adminstrators.
Ann Crage X(her mark)
Witness
S. ?? Chapin
John M. Thompson
I have included these wills because those of Alexander and James are not available except from the county archives and that of Samuel is difficult to find and is not transcribed accurately when I have found it. The transcription errors are not important except for accuracy as can be seen by comparison with a copy of the written will (included).
Lincoln County, North Carolina, Will Records, 1824-1964, Will Index, 1772-1964; Estate Records, 1735-1914; North Carolina Superior Court (Lincoln County); Probate Place: Lincoln County, North Carolina
April Sessions 1826
In the name of God Amen
I Samuel Rankin of the State of N Carolina and County of Lincoln being of sound and perfect (mind?) and memory blessed be God do this 16th day of December in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred & fourteen, make & publish this my last will and testament in the manner following (viz) Item 1st I allow all my worldly debts to be paid out of my estate. Item 2nd I give unto my daughter Jean Heartgrove one dollar. Item 3rd I give unto my son William Rankin one dollar. Item 4th I give unto my son Samuel Rankin one dollar. Item 5th I give unto my son David Rankin one dollar. Item 6th I give unto my son Robert Rankin one dollar. Item 7th I give unto my son Alexander Rankin one dollar. Item 8th I will unto my daughter Ann Rutledge two cows which she has now in her possession and no more. Item 9th I give unto my daughter Nelly Dickson one dollar. The above mentioned monies that I have willed unto my children I allow the same to be paid out of my estate. Item 10th I will and bequeath unto my son James Rankin and his heirs the plantation whereon I now live. Item 11th I will unto my son James Rankin my sorrel horse & all my stock of cattle & sheep and my bed & furniture of every kind likewise one large kettle & one fla(g/p)(k/h)et (Author's note: I can't decipher the word. From the context, I would expect the item to be a part of a still.) And I hereby make and ordain my worthy son Alexander Rankin exr (abbreviation for executor) of this my last will and testament in witness whereof I the said Samuel Rankin have to this my last will and testament set my hand and seal the day and year above written. Signed sealed published and declared by the said Samuel Rankin the testator as his last will and testament in the presence of us (Author's note: the word was cut off but couldn't be more than two letters and must be us.) who were present at the time of signing and sealing thereof.
Signatures
Thos McGee
Blair McGee Jurat(?) (Author's note: totally unsure of most of letters of the word)
George Graham
Samuel Rankin (his X mark) and seal
Alexander Rankin Exr(?) Sworn(?) (Author's note: unsure of words)
Omitting the usual introductory words necessary for legal reasons, Alexander Rankin's will of 3 June 1835 reads:
". . . to prevent those disputes which frequently arise between the friends and relations of deceased persons, do dispose of my estate as follows.
First. It is my will that my horse, saddle, bridle, watch, and such other perishable property as I may die possessed of (exclusion of my wardrobe) be converted into money, so soon as my executors may think advisable., and in whatever manner they may consider most beneficial to my estate.
Secondly. That the sum thus raised, be added to the first receipts from my books and papers, now in the hands of my executors, who are instructed to pay therefrom all my just and lawful debts, and to dispose of the residue as follows, viz.
It being impossible for me to say what may be the sum thus remaining, it is my will that from this total amount the sum of five hundred dollars be first deducted, and the balance equally divided between John Rankin of Lincoln County, North Carolina, Ritchie Rankin of Bedford County, Tennessee, the children of Violet Rankin (wife of Jacob? L. Fleming) of Shelby County, Illinois, the children of Eleanor Rankin (wife of Richard Fleming, deceased), late of Shelby County, Illinois -- Naomi Rankin of the county and State last mentioned, and James Rankin of Murfreesborough, Tennessee and that the five hundred dollars heretofore spoken of, be added to the sum which the said James may be in this matter entitled to, thus giving him five hundred dollars over and above the amount which may be found due and owing to either of the other legatees. And I hereby constitute and appoint Russell (Davis?) and James Holmes, both of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the lawful and approved executors of this my last and only will and testament, and in presence of the subscribing witnesses, affix my name and seal this 3d day of June one thousand eight hundred and thirty five."
A. Rankin
Robt S Morris
Drury Dance
Omitting the usual introductory words necessary for legal reasons and to give instructions for paying his funeral expenses, James Rankin's will of 3 May 1844 reads:
"Item second, I will and bequeath to Col William B. Lillard, in trust, as trustee and as trustee only the sum of four hundred dollars for the exclusive benefit of my brother Richard D. Rankin's children to be divided equally among them all for the purpose of education & (unable to be sure, but a character that may stand for and so forth).
Item third, I will and bequeath to James M. Flemming, in trust, as trustee and as trustee only the sum of four hundred dollars for the exclusive benefit of my half-sister Violet Flemming living in the state of Illinois, the said sum of four hundred dollars. It is my will and desire that the said James M. Flemming should espend (uncertain about word) in land for the benefit of my half-sister Violet Flemming and take the deed for the land to him in his official capacity as trustee for her benefit.
Item fourth. I will and bequeath to George Rankin, Samuel Rankin, Joseph Rankin, and Salley Rankin the tract of land on which they (I marked out and they written above) now live on, containing eighty five acres to be equalley divided between them, said land is in the state of Illinois.
Item fifth, I give and bequeath to Andey Fleming, Samuel Flemming, Franklin Frazier, and Rowan (uncertain of "o" and "w") Frazier the sum of four hundred dollars to be equalley divided between them.
Item sixth. I will and bequeath to William Flemming the sum of one hundred dollars.
Item seventh. I will and bequeath to my friends (Col. William B. Lillard marked through), Sarah Harrison, Jean Harrison, and their mother the sum of twenty five dollars to be equalley divided amongst the three.
Item eight. I will and bequeath to Mrs Sarah Cates the sum of four dollars.
Item ninth. I will and bequeath to Mrs Anna Black the sum of four dollars.
Item tenth. I will and bequeath to Mary Lewin (or Irwin) and Susan Vaughn the sum of five dollars each.
Item eleventh. I will and bequeath to the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church the sum of fifteen (ten marked through) dollars.
Item the twelfth, I will and bequeath to James M Flemmings wife and two daughters the sum of fifty dollars to be divided equalley between them.
Item thirteenth, I will and bequeath to Alfred Flemmings' wife the sum of fifty dollars.
Item fourteenth, I will and bequeath to my friend Col. William B. Lillard my fine gold watch chain and key.
---- More bequeathing of small sums to friends; no family members named.
Item nineteenth, I do appoint my friend William B Lillard and James M. Flemming executors to this my last will and testament, in testimoney whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my seal, this 3rd day of May 1844.
Signed by James Rankin
Witness
(I was unable to read the first witness's name, but the probate in court, June term 1844, lists his name as Joseph Lindsey.)
H. R. Kerby
The probate in Rutherford County, TN, was signed by Robert L. Morris, clerk.
Originally Published in "History of Johnson County, Missouri," by Ewing Cockrell, Historical Publishing Company, Topeka, Cleveland, 1918.
Patrick H. Alexander, an honored and noble pioneer of Johnson county and Civil War veteran, now living retired in the city of Warrensburg, was born in March, 1834 in Henry county, Tennessee. He is the son of William and Martha (Job) Alexander, the former, a native of Kentucky and the latter, of Nashville, Tennessee. Both parents died, leaving their son an orphan when a very small child. When he was a little lad, Patrick H. Alexander came from Tennessee to Missouri with his uncle, who settled in Crawford county. Three years later, the child came to Johnson county with his sister and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. J.H. Wood. The Wood family settled on a farm in the eastern part of the county and with them the boy made his home, while he "worked out," for other people, to earn his way. As long as Colonel J. H. Robinson lived, Patrick H. Alexander was always sure of a place to work. Colonel Rob- inson was one of the very first settlers of Johnson county and he was very fond of the Alexander youth, always employing him whenever he had work to be done. Mr. Wood entered 40 acres of land, and Patrick assisted his brother-in-law by working for Colonel Robinson for a wage of six dollars per month, turning over his wages to pay for the land. In 1849, Patrick H. Alexander made his first trip to Warrensburg. He came on horseback, bringing two sacks of corn to the mill. The mill was of the old fashioned tread type and he waited all day for his grist. Each person must wait his turn at the mill in those days, even if it took a week. Until 1854, Mr. Alexander lived with his brother in-law and at that time he came to Warrensburg to make his home with Major Morrow for whom he worked many years. In 1853, Mr. Alexander was employed as "bull whacker" in charge of a train, composed of 36 wagons, in command of Mr. Smith, bound for Fort Laramie, Wyoming, the trip to be made across the plains for Majors & Russell. Troops guarded the train from the savage red men and three months were gone before the end of the journey was reached. It was a wild, dangerous experience, one that is never forgotten. Mr. Alexander went to Kansas in 1859 and took up a claim of land in what is now Cherokee county. The Civil War broke out before he had proven his claim and as most of his neighbors were killed by either the Indians or "bushwhackers," Patrick Alexander deem- ed it best to return to Missouri, where he was better known. The following year he went to Tennessee, traveling in a wagon. In July, 1861, Mr. Alexander enlisted in the 27th Missouri Mounted Infantry, serving under Colonel Grover, who was mortally wounded at the battle of Lexington. He served with Colonel Grover's regiment 9 months and when his time of enlistment had expired, he returned to Warrensburg and enlisted with Catherwood's regiment for 3 months and then with Colonel Phillip's 7th Missouri Cavalry, for the remaining 2 1/2 years. Mr. Alexander saw active service in Arkansas and he was with the regiment sent after General Price, when on his raid through Missouri and Kansas. For 90 days after the war ended, Patrick H. Alexander served as first lieutenant in the Missouri state militia, his division being known as "Fletcher's Militia," which was called out to subdue the bushwhackers. Fletcher was well known in Warrensburg. After the war, Mr. Alexander purchased a farm of 120 acres of land located 7 miles south of Warrens- burg and on this place resided until about 10 years ago, when he re- tired from active farm labor and moved to his city property in Warrens- burg, where he now resides. The Alexander home is a nice, comfortable residence at 813 Holden street. Patrick H. Alexander was united in marriage with Mrs. Mary E. (Marr) Jewell, September 15, 1867. Mrs. Alexander's former husband was a lieutenant in the Civil War, in which he was killed. By her first marriage, she is the mother of one child, a son, John M. Jewell, who is now a prominent manufacturer at Atlanta, Georgia. To Patrick H. and Mary E. Alexander have been born the following children: David William, Warrensburg, Missouri; Robert T., who is engaged in the transfer business in Kansas City, Missouri; Mrs. Martha Gardner, of Post Oak township, Johnson county; Sidney H., who died in 1916; and Julius Calvin, who is engaged in farming on the Alex- ander homestead in Post Oak Township. Mr. and Mrs. Alexander are worthy, fine people, citizens of whom Johnson county may well be proud.
Published in The History of Crawford County, Arkansas,
Goodspeed Publishing Company, 1889
William M. Alexander, farmer and stock raiser, was born in Williamson County, Tenn., in 1828, his parents being Alfred and Rebecca (Kerby) Alexander, natives of the same county, where they lived until 1837. They then started for Oregon, but stopping in Stoddard County, Mo., died there in 1881 and 1883, aged seventy-six and seventy-one, respectively. In religion they were Methodists. The grandfather, Thomas Alexander, was born in Buncombe County, N. C., was an early settler of Tennessee, a soldier in the Revolution, and died in Williamson County, aged one hundred and five, on the farm on which our subject's father was born. His father came to America from Ireland and died in Tennessee, aged one hundred and ten, on the farm upon which our subject's father was born. William M. is the eldest of a family himself and six sisters, and was reared in Stoddard Couonty, Mo., during the pioneer days, receiving but a very limited schooling. In 1856 he married Sarah M., daughter of John Edwards and a native of Kentucky. Mr. Edwards was born in England. In 1872 Mr. Alexander moved from Stoddard County to his present farm in Vine Prairie Township. He now owns eighty acres of well-improved land, all of which he has cleared. Having learned the cooper's and blacksmith's trades, he works at them in connection with his farming. He is always willing to aid any enterprise for the advancement of the county, and is known as one of its upright and well-to-do citizens. He cast his first presidential vote for Pierce, and with the exception of 1864, when he voted for Lincoln, has supported every Democratic candidate since. He is a member of the Producer's Trade Union and Knights of the Horse. Himself and wife belong to the Methodist Church.
You can find all this information in almost any modern book on human biology, but I'll summarize it to make it easy, I hope. Actually, I found it difficult to understand all the discussions of DNA mutation, short tandem repeat (STR), haplotype, allele, single nucleotide, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP, which is usually just called a SNIP), and haplogroup; therefore, I'll define each term so that anyone interested can look back for reference. Still, I'll try to use most of the terms sparingly, often substituting other words.
To begin, we need to introduce cells, chromosomes, and DNA, all words you probably remember from high-school biology, even if you are as old as I am. Our bodies are formed of cells, and the nucleus of every normal cell in our bodies contains 46 chromosomes, 23 from each parent. Occasionally, there are people with exceptions, but the exceptions are rare. Each chromosome is made up of a DNA molecule wrapped around other material.
Two of these 46 chromosomes are the sex chromosomes. For each female, the sex chromosomes are both X chromosomes, one given by her mother and one given by her father. For each male, one sex chromosome is an X chromosome from his mother, and one is a Y chromosome from his father. The Y chromosome is always inherited from the father; so it comes down to each male from his father, from a grandfather, from a great-grandfather, and on back to a very ancient human male.
A segment of a DNA molecule might consist of four or five components, perhaps as simple as GTTC (above), repeated over and over with the second G hidden by the helix band. Before the first G, there was some other sequence. Personnel at DNA-testing laboratories and other genetic scientists call the sequence that is repeated a short tandem repeat (STR), but the STRs selected for testing may also be called markers because that is the designation often used by laboratories, and marker is the name we will use. The marker to be tested ends when the sequence changes from repetitions of GATC or whatever sequence was present to repetitions of a different combination, perhaps TAGCC. We need to consider the bases on only one side because when a sequence changes on one side, it changes on the other. This occurs because the same bases are always paired; for example, T as a base on one side of the unwound molecule is always paired with A as the base on the other side. Thanks to mapping done during the Human Genome Project, the exact location on the YDNA molecule, the helix, is known for each marker that genetic laboratories have designated as sites that are suitable for genealogical testing.
As already stated, a segment of DNA, which may be called a marker when it is tested in a laboratory, can have many repetitions of the same sequence of base pairs. The number of repetitions usually ranges from about seven to more than forty; however, the range of values for any given marker is much smaller, with more than ten possible values (alleles, if you wish) being extremey unusual. Examples from the Alexander DNA project illustrate the relatively few values found even for markers where mutations occur most frequently. Marker DYS439, a rapidly mutating marker has values ranging from 10 to 14, with almost all the repetitions being 11, 12, or 13. Marker DYS449, also a rapid-mutation site, has values from 26 to 34, but very few at either extreme, mostly 29, 30, 31, or 32. DYS390, which does not mutate rapidly, has values from 21 to 27 but, out of approximately 300 men tested at the time I did the analysis, there were only two values of 21 and only one value of 27. DYS454, which mutates extremely slowly, has only one value, 11, for all members of the project. In the male population at large, values of 10 and 12 occur for marker DYS454, although rarely.
For each person tested, each marker has a specific value, and the collection of those values is his haplotype. People who are closely related should be the same haplotype or have only a few mismatched values; however, there is some possibility of change each time YDNA passes from father to son. Although this means that even a man and his father may have one or more mismatches, the mutation rate is slow enough that mismatches in the Alexander project range from zero to four or five (out of sixty-seven) for people whose lines split in the days of Colonial American.
In addition to testing for the times a sequence of pairs repeats before changing, there is another type of YDNA test that can help in determining relationships, the single nucleotide polymorphism, the SNP or SNIPs, mentioned earlier. DNA genealogists and genetic anthropologists define a haplogroup by reference to the SNP that distinguishes it from all other groups. The person in whom the SNP occurred would likely be considered to be in the same haplogroup as his father, uncles, brothers, and cousins, but he might later be assigned the title of a new haplogroup if he has a very large number of male-line descendants, but that would not be known for several generations after he lived.
In an earlier draft, I had a discussion of SNPs; however, I decided to omit that discussion after a reviewer informed me that my attempt to simplify did not make SNPs understandable. There is not an extremely large number of SNPs in the entire ancestral line of any one man, and all those in a haplogroup will have the same series of SNPs.
With the necessary words and terms defined simply but not incorrectly, I hope, let us look far, far back in prehistory to the lifetime of the most-recent man from whom all living men descend. This doesn't mean that there were not other men alive at that time also, but, over the centuries and millenia, the lines of the other men ceased having males born to the lines. To make that concept easier to understand, consider that, if you are an Alexander, your Alexander great-great grandfather may have had five brothers and that, out of all six men, there may be living male-line descendants of only one, your great-great grandfather. Lines die out, as several women seeking male cousins to take the YDNA test have discovered!
Let us call the haplogroup of this ancestor of all living men "A," with the knowledge that there is nothing special about calling it A. We could just as well have called his haplogroup "Jim," if that was the name he used. His father, his brothers and perhaps many uncles and cousins in the neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods belonged to the same haplogroup and might have objected to their group being dubbed Jim, but that would have been their problem, not ours. Anyhow, the brothers', uncles', and cousins' male lines all died out, leaving only Jim's male descendants. We have called that descendant and all his descendants haplogroup A, at least up to the point that someone in the group had a SNP. SNIP! Their STR, or marker, values may have differed slightly from one to another, but they all belonged to the same haplogroup.
If Jim's descendant in whom the SNP occurred had a large number of descendants in his own male line, the SNP produced a new haplogroup that we could call A1, which is probably the designation actually given by genetic anthropologists, or we could call the new haplogroup B or X or whatever we wished. Names aren't particularly important except to distinguish one group from another, and the responsible organization changes haplogroup names from time to time. Call the new group A1, and the world now had two patrilineal haplogroups, A and A1. Even if the man in whom the SNP occurred and resulted in creation of haplogroup A1 had marker values almost identical to those of most of his cousins who remained in haplogroup A, marker-changing mutations would occur in both groups as generations passed. Over time, by chance, these marker-changing mutations would likely make the most common marker values in one haplogroup different from the most common marker values in the other.
Since a genetic mutation produced haplogroup A1 from haplogroup A, it shouldn't come as a surprise that additional mutations occurred in A and A1. Some of the mutations were SNPs, and some were increases or decreases in the values associated with DNA markers. Both types occurred, slowly but inevitably and produced more haplogroups and more variation in marker values among the haplogroups. Each haplogroup has come to have marker values that are almost a signature for that haplogroup, not the value of any specific marker but the values of a group of markers. For example, a genetics expert can look at the marker values for a perso1n in the Spartanburg Alexander family and say with almost, but not quite, perfect certainty that the person belongs to the M-222 haplogroup without a test for the M222 SNP being performed. Such discrimination will probably take comparison of several tens of markers.
Most of the approximately 370 men participating in the Alexander YDNA project by the middle of 2016 tested at least thirty-seven markers, and almost all had those tests run by the same laboratory. Several have had sixty-seven markers tested, and a few have had tests on one-hundred-eleven markers or more. The genetic scientists at the laboratory performing the tests don't say that two individuals are definitely related but, instead, provide only estimates of the likelihood of their having a common male ancestor within a given number of generations. Still, the statements they are willing to make can be taken to mean that a common ancestor since around 1500 or 1600 is unlikely if there are mismatches on more than four or five markers out of thirty-seven or more than six or seven out of sixty-seven, the maximum tested by most participants. Based on the laboratory's estimates, several participating Alexanders have so many mismatches with others in the project that it is unlikely they have a common ancestor within the last few thousand years.
In the project, we have learned that most family groups, as brought together from their YDNA results, have no more than four or five members. This means that there were many origins for the surname Alexander, even within the British Isles, where most of the project participants believe or know their roots to lie.
The largest family in our project, with more than seventy members in 2016, is the family deriving from James "the Weaver" or one of his close kinsmen, the family to which almost all United States Alexanders were assigned by early genealogists. The group is called the "Seven Brothers Family," although it is unlikely that there were as many as seven brothers as was once believed. Some of the project members of this family knew or strongly believed they belonged to the family, but others now in the family had no inkling of their origins. The YDNA mismatches between this family and our family group, which we can trace to the area around Anson County, NC, and Spartanburg County, SC, suggest a separation of at least a thousand years, and analysis of a specific mutation pushes the split back to well beyond a thousand years, meaning we are no closer to them genetically than to almost any person we meet casually on the street.
Only four or five other Alexander families in the project have more than about a dozen members, and our Spartanburg group is one of them, with about twenty members. A third family that can trace a few of its ancestors back to Glasgow, Scotland, and a fourth family that can trace some of their earliest known ancestors back to Campbelltown, Scotland, have nearly thirty members each. A fifth family, which has few common threads except YDNA that matches very closely within the group, can mostly trace to an area in SC near Spartanburg County, and, interestingly, this group and the Spartanburg group match so closely that there is only a low probability that our Alexander name does not have a common origin. They and we have designated our family groups as "Confused," or Cons. Although the laboratory geneticists are hesitant to say that the two groups have a common Alexander ancestor, I have studied the matches and mismatches and have done a statistical analysis that leads me to the conclusion that our common ancestor lived around 1300 to 1500, shortly after the time most Europeans were getting family names, by choice or by assignment. The YDNA of the group called the Campbelltown family differs from that of the Spartanburg Cons and the Cons Too (or Cons Two!) much less than is usually found between two families in our project, and the three groups probably have a common ancestor in the period around 1200 or a bit earlier. Although it is unlikely that we will ever trace the three families or two of the three to a common ancestor, we can perhaps hope that future advances in DNA analysis will help us trace them to a common time and place.
From the discussion so far, it is likely apparent that, in general, YDNA markers for men of a common surname can match closely or match very poorly, and, if they have tested on 67 markers or more, it is usually easy to determine whether they have a recent common ancestor of that surname. Good matches between individuals with the same surname mean they are likely related unless there is reason to believe otherwise; for example, one man's family has roots in Britain, and the other's family has roots in southern Europe or Russia. Although it is fairly unusual to have an exact match on all tested markers between two people whose most-recent common ancestor lived in the eighteenth century, there is likely to be no more than one, two, or three mismatches even then. Remember, however, that the exactness of the match does not depend directly on the closeness of the kinship. For example, I match exactly on all markers tested with three Alexanders with whom I have no common ancestor born later than about 1730, while each of them differs on one or more markers with a closer cousin, and I differ by one from a cousin who is closer to me. For the three of us matching exactly, each marker's value was the most common value found on that marker for several other Alexander YDNA testers, all but one of whom could trace his ancestral roots back to an area near Spartanburg County, SC. None of them differed from us by more than four markers, making all of us almost certain cousins.
A look at the table will show that each of two of the family groups, the Seven Brothers group and the Glasgow group, have so many DNA mismatches to each other and to the other three that no paternal-line kinship can exist. The Seven Brothers and the Glasgows are quite representative of the project's family groups in that they are quite distinct from the other families. Very few -- in fact, almost no other -- family groups match as closely as the Spartanburg group, the Cons Too group, and the Campbelltown group match one another.
Family | Haplogroup & Identifying SNP | Mismatches on 67 Sites | Mismatches on 111 Sites |
Spartanburg Cons | R1b1a2a1a1b4b SNP: M222 | -- | -- |
Seven Brothers | R1b1a2 | 19 | 33 |
Cons Too | R1b1a2a1a1b4b SNP: M222 | 7 | 14 |
Campbelltowns | R1b1a2a1a1b4b SNP: M222 | 8 | 16 |
Glasgows | R1b1a2a1a1b | 23 | 38 |
Just space
Family | Haplogroup & Identifying SNP | Mismatches on 67 Sites | Mismatches on 111 Sites |
Seven Brothers | R1b1a2 | - | - |
Spartanburg Cons | R1b1a2a1a1b4b SNP: M222 | 19 | 33 |
Cons Too | R1b1a2a1a1b4b SNP: M222 | 18 | 30 |
Campbelltowns | R1b1a2a1a1b4b SNP: M222 | 18 | 33 |
Glasgows | R1b1a2a1a1b | 16 | 30 |
Just space
Family | Haplogroup & Identifying SNP | Mismatches on 67 Sites | Mismatches on 111 Sites |
Cons Too | R1b1a2a1a1b4b SNP: M222 | -- | -- |
Spartanburg Cons | R1b1a2a1a1b4b SNP: M222 | 7 | 14 |
Seven Brothers | R1b1a2 | 18 | 30 |
Campbelltowns | R1b1a2a1a1b4b SNP: M222 | 12 | 18 |
Glasgows | R1b1a2a1a1b | 21 | 34 |
Just space
Family | Haplogroup & Identifying SNP | Mismatches on 67 Sites | Mismatches on 111 Sites |
Campbelltowns | R1b1a2a1a1b4b SNP: M222 | -- | -- |
Seven Brothers | R1b1a2 | 18 | 33 |
Spartanburg Cons | R1b1a2a1a1b4b SNP: M222 | 8 | 16 |
Cons Too | R1b1a2a1a1b4b SNP: M222 | 12 | 18 |
Glasgows | R1b1a2a1a1b | 21 | 34 |
Just space
Family | Haplogroup & Identifying SNP | Mismatches on 67 Sites | Mismatches on 111 Sites |
Glasgows | R1b1a2a1a1b | -- | -- |
Seven Brothers | R1b1a2 | 16 | 30 |
Spartanburg Cons | R1b1a2a1a1b4b SNP: M222 | 23 | 38 |
Cons Too | R1b1a2a1a1b4b SNP: M222 | 21 | 34 |
Campbelltowns | R1b1a2a1a1b4b SNP: M222 | 21 | 34 |
The Spartanburg Alexanders fathered by James (died 1753) -- and perhaps by a brother or close cousin of James -- make up a separate family group, probably joined to the Con Too Alexanders and the Glasgow Alexanders a few centuries before they began migrating from the British Isles to colonial America. Of the approximately three hundred seventy men who have submitted their YDNA for testing, not one who can trace his Alexander ancestry back to earlier than 1700 matches our group extremely well; however, at least two of the Cons Too Alexanders, who are fairly close, claim an Alexander ancestor born in the mid-seventeenth century. It is likely that future advances in DNA research will permit narrowing down the time our Alexander line and the Cons Too Alexander line diverged, and we might even learn the area or village in which they then lived, but that is not currently possible, thus leaving James (died 1753) as our earliest-known Alexander ancestor.
We know that our original James passed on his YDNA to William, of whom little is known, James of Spartanburg, John, who is said to have died in Williamson County, TN, David, who lived and died in Pendleton District, SC, and Robert, who lived and died in Lincoln County, NC. (The area became Gaston County.) With the YDNA passed on to each son, the following occurred: (1) most likely, no changes, (2) a small probability of a genetic mutation in one marker, or (3) an extremely low probability of a mutation in more than one of the markers. Each son then passed on YDNA to their sons with zero, one, or more than one change in the series of numbers, and each succeeding generation of males similarly passed on YDNA to sons with some small probability of mutation at each transfer. The YDNA from me, descending from James of Spartanburg, and a test participant descending from Robert matched exactly on 67 of 67 markers tested, while my DNA and that of a descendant of another brother differed on four markers; however, his DNA matched that of another descendant of Spartanburg much more closely.
Sometimes comparison of the values of each marker in a family can reveal additional information. For example, in the line of James of Spartanburg, all tested descendants of Matthew Alexander’s son Thomas have a value of 14 on a marker for which all other family members have a value of 13, meaning that the defining mutation occurred either when Thomas received the YDNA from Matthew or when Matthew received it from James of Spartanburg.
Likewise, both tested descendants of another grandson of James of Spartanburg have a value of 29 on a marker for which all others have a value of 30. These two descendants also have higher values than anyone else on a second marker, and it is of interest to note that they don't have the same value for this marker, meaning that two separate mutations occurred on this marker for one of them or that mutations in opposite directions occurred for both. Mutations such as these that show up on the tests of some members of a family but not other members are often called branch identifiers because they may allow determination of which of several sons in a family was the patriarch of the branch even when there are no records to help.
There was an error in the original book as distributed and in this HTML file as originally posted, where I gave the maiden name of Nancy Clementine Wall as Gore, although I had referred to her correctly previously. The paragraph originally read: "John W. Alexander's and Nancy Clementine “Tiny” Gore's children included: Fronie (no marriage); Lola V. (husband Lorenzo Dow “Dowdy” Wall: surviving descendants); Bertha (husband Dowdy Wall: surviving descendants); Charley (wife Olllie Miller); Vera (died young); Herliss (wife Ruble Gallimore: surviving descendants); Raymond D. (wife Hallie Hart: possibly surviving descendants)." This error has been corrected in the present online version.
Robin Rankin Willis, whose help was so valuable in research for the book, found a reference to our earliest known James Alexander after the book's publication. Appendix A-4 of Cheeseman’s book, styled Biographical Information on the Pioneering Families of Mill Bridge, 1747-1752, was adapted from Ramsey’s Carolina Cradle. Robin and I discussed the data and the source and concluded that nothing in it disagrees with records we have found. Although no other reliable record mentions James as being from Cecil County, his original home in the colonies was in that general area, and Cecil County may well be correct. Our James must not be identified as being the James from Cecil County's "seven brothers." Although many amateur genealogists make this claim, YDNA evidence proves them incorrect.
“James Alexander of Cecil County, Maryland, migrated to Lancaster County, PA before 1737. He and his son, William, were in the Shenandoah Valley in 1747 and moved on to Carolina within three years. James Alexander acquired a 640-acre tract on the upper reaches of Cathey’s creek … [f]ollowing James’s death in 1753, William Alexander seems to have moved to the site of Salisbury.”
Our co-researcher, Roger Alexander, discovered a will too late for it to be included in the original book. From the will of Robert, son of James and Ann: ". . . and as to my western lands that I die possessed of I allow my executors to make a deed of 120 acres out of said lands to my brother James Alexander or to his order should he not hold the land that I have made him a deed for long time ago. . . .”
The first two pages were written and witnessed October 1811, and the third page was added March 1813. At that time, at least two things had changed: Robert's wife was pregnant, and one of the executors had entered the army. Robert seems to have died by the court session in July 1813. The child apparently did not survive birth or childhood because Margaret's will in 1819 mentioned only the three daughters, Elisa, Evalina/Avalina, and Charity Amanda. (If I had found these daughters, I would have mistakenly guessed Charity to be the daughter of Robert's first wife, Mary Jack, since she had a sister named Charity.)
I was able to decipher the words relating to directing the executor to make a deed to brother James for 120 acres of western lands, but I was not able to get the meaning. Were the western lands the same for which he had made James a deed "a long time ago", or were they additional land? The western lands that could have been given "a long time ago" were not those on which the Alexanders settled in Loudon County, TN, because they were not open for settlement. They could have possibly been in Jefferson County, TN, or in Logan County, KY. I don't know about Jefferson County, but Matthew and William seem to have acquired the Logan County lands through a different process.
My comments: The will shows that, when writing my history, I dismissed the idea of Robert's marriage to Margaret, although I found a listing for it without any supporting evidence, and also that I should have included a daughter Margaret, who married a Lowery, although I then considered the evidence as insufficient. I did include Ann, who married John Sumter, and Lily, who married James Martin. I'm unable to find how Abraham and Marcy Scott fit into the family.
A few years after I finished the Alexander Book, I met a previously unknown relative, James Alexander, who provided additional information on his Alexander line, which descends from Isham L. Alexander, the son of Joseph Dickson (or Dixon) Alexander and Louisa Goodall, who are addressed in the original history. I had discovered and listed Isham Alexander's and Minnie Bandy's children as Edward D. and Howard S., but I had no information on spouses or children of either. Edward Dixon was born 30 November 1899, and Howard Smith was born 18 August 1901.Note 1"
Edward Dixon Alexander married Beulah Louise Travis.Note 2"
James's grandfather, Howard Smith Alexander married Bessie Elaine Lee, daughter of Robert E. Lee and Ella Turpin. Bessie Elaine died in an accident while she was young, but, before her death, she and Howard had several children, Kathryn, Sue, Ella, Howard Smith Jr, Robert, and John Daryl, born 18 September 1939. All were born in Henry County. John Daryl, who is deceased, was James's father.Note 3"
Note 1: Record of Birth Occurring Prior to 1914, Tennessee Certificate #44335, filed 18 March 1901, Edward Dixon Alexander, born Henry Co., Parents Isam Lee Alexander, born Tennessee, and Minnie Bandy, born Tennessee; first child of mother. Data on Howard Smith was from family records available to James D. Alexander.
Note 2: Tennessee Records of Marriage: Edward Alexander license to marry Miss Beulah Travis, 30 November 1921, Henry Co., TN. The couple had daughter, Mary Louise, born February 1924 and now deceased.
Note 3: Personal knowledge of James K. Alexander, son of John Daryl Alexander
Federal Censuses
1930Fed Census Henry Co, TN, p. 13b, p. 23b
1940Fed Census Henry Co, TN, p. 1a, p. 3a
In the history, I theorized that Elizabeth Hinton could be the daughter of John Hinton whose will, witnessed by Samuel's uncle Matthew Alexander, was probated in Logan County, KY, November 1809. She was the daughter of John Hinton but not the John Hinton who died before November 1809. Federal censuses in Hardin County, KY, show that he was still living in 1810 and later. Elizabeth's mother was Margaret Dever. The will of David Hinton (shown below), which identifies Elizabeth Alexander as his sister and Henry D. Hinton as his brother, and the 1883 will of that brother Henry where he identiies himself as having the middle name Deaver, are evidence for John and Margaret as the parents. Henry Deaver Hinton's will is important for this history only for its mentioning the name Deaver. How the John Hinton who died before November 1809 in Logan County is a mystery for a later time.
The documents cited or included in Chapter 8 did not include a record of the marriage of John Hinton Alexander to Susan Jane Keith although I stated that the marriage took place in 1833 in Knox County, Tennessee. This record is attached below.