Tag: Haney Oakes Harkins

AHA! moments in family history research

If you are a genealogy hobbyist, you have undoubtedly experienced one or more joyful “AHA!” moments of discovery. As my friend and distant cousin Roger Alexander says, “Nobody has more fun than we do!”

AHA! moments strike when you finally locate evidence conclusively proving the identity of an ancestor you have been hunting. That usually happens when you have been doggedly mining whatever records you can find.[1] Then, voilà, your search turns up proof.

I would love to hear your AHA! stories. Please tell me about them with a comment on this blog or, alternatively, via an email. If you don’t have my email address already, I’ll bet you can find it in a New York minute, sleuth that you are.

Here are two of my AHA! moments, one of which concerns an Oakes and the other a Rankin. Also one of Gary’s, which involves a Willis.

Claiborne Parish, Louisiana: the Oakes

My father Jim Rankin grew up in rural north Louisiana in Webster and Bienville Parishes. He was certain that our Rankins were related either by blood or marriage to the Oakes family of Claiborne Parish, but he never figured out the nature of the relationship.

So I was stalking Oakes early on in this hobby, trying to prove that there was an Oakes branch on the Rankin family tree. I worked on the issue for a long time. I had my father’s maternal line back to one set of his great-grandparents, like so:

Jim Rankin, the first genealogist in the family; Emma Leona Broadnax and John Marvin Rankin, Jim’s parents; Susan Demaris Harkins and James Harper Tripp Broadnax, Emma’s parents; and Haney and Isaac Harkins, Susan’s parents.

I dug through available Claiborne Parish records in Houston’s Clayton Library ad nauseam researching  those folks. I spread out into their extended families of cousins and in-laws. Clayton has thorough marriage and cemetery records for Claiborne. My Claiborne records expanded exponentially.[2] But I still couldn’t prove a Rankin-Oakes connection.

Gary and I were researching in Salt Lake City sometime in the late 1990s. Back then, the only way one could get county or parish records (other than published abstracts) was at the county courthouse, which was always a good place to meet friendly people. However, it is not a good way to research for two genealogists having virtually no geographic overlap.

Alternatively, one could research in films made by the Church of Latter Day Saints. These filmed records weren’t available online back then.[3] You had to go either to a local Family History Center or the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. The local centers had to order films from SLC, so doing research under those conditions was a slow, painful process. Salt Lake City was far more efficient — and way more fun. We often met relatives or friends there, or made new ones.

So there we were. To review filmed records, one sat in one of what we recall as three long rows of back-to-back microfilm readers at the Family History Library.[4] The microfilm room is dark and the readers are, or were, dusty, huge and archaic. In recompense, the chairs, which swiveled and were on wheels, had comfortable seat and back cushions. But finding and interpreting a specific record in sometimes indecipherable handwriting was always challenging. Sitting in front of a microfilm reader with 40 – 50 other people felt like being in a room full of code breakers in WW II, struggling to decipher enemy messages.

Actually, that’s a pretty good analog all the way around except for the enemy part. Although I occasionally find myself wishing I could exhume a county clerk and shoot him.

On the fateful day in question, the room of microfilm readers was full. You had to arrive when the library opened to get one of the more desirable readers.[5] We were late, so I was 6 or 7 people down one row with an antiquated reader. I was slogging my way through Claiborne Parish records. I found a succession record — called a probate record in most jurisdictions — for one W. L. Oakes in 1892.[6] Bless W. L.’s heart, he died intestate, i.e., he did not have a will. That means all the heirs had to be a party to estate proceedings. There is nothing better for a family history researcher than records of an intestate’s estate.

Better yet for me, as it turned out, W. L. Oakes had no children. Under the Louisiana law of intestate descent and succession, his heirs were his siblings. His widow’s petition for administration of his estate had to name all the heirs and their relationship to W. L. The list of heirs included  “Mrs. Haney Harkins, sister of deceased.”

 Thus I nailed Haney OAKES Harkins, Jim Rankin’s great-grandmother.[7]

I shoved back from the microfilm reader into the center of the aisle, swiveled my chair in 3 or 4 circles, sticking my arms up and down in the air while making the “V” symbol with both hands. Everyone on the aisle turned and grinned, and everyone knew exactly what had just happened.

Wish Jimmy had been there.

The Elusive, Irascible Samuel Rankin

The very first genealogical research I did was on the Rankin family. Of course. I am one. My father took our line back to a Samuel Rankin of Jefferson County, Arkansas, but could go no further.

In an effort to assemble hard facts, I quickly learned that Samuel’s age was impossible to pin down. In 1850, the census said he was 62. In 1860, he was 60, pulling off the fabulous feat of getting younger over the course of a decade. Inconsistencies multiplied as I found him in earlier records. I called him “Young Sam.”

I also learned he may have been a character. He had sons named Napoleon Bonaparte Rankin (“Pole” was his nickname) and Washington Marion Rankin ( or Marion Washington, “Wash”). What kind of person sticks a kid with those monikers? All told, Young Sam had 10 children, including eight sons. His eldest was named Richard Rankin. If that family employed the Anglo naming system for at least the first few sons, that was a clue that Young Sam’s father might have been named Richard.

The 1850 and 1860 censuses also indicated that Young Sam was born in North Carolina. Arkansas deed records revealed that his wife was Mary Frances Estes, daughter of Lyddal Bacon Estes and “Nancy” Ann Allen Winn Estes of Tishomingo County, Mississippi. Sam and Mary’s first six children were born there.

The Tishomingo records also established that Young Sam almost certainly had a brother William. The Mississippi state censuses added further confusing evidence about his age. I sort of, uh, averaged all the records and guessed he was born about 1800.

So. Here’s what I had to go on. Samuel Rankin, born about 1800 in North Carolina. Likely brother William. Possible father Richard. Whoop-dee-doo.

Armed with that miniscule information, I hauled my rookie researcher self off to North Carolina abstracts and started mucking about in Rankins. This is how I eventually became an expert in North Carolina Rankins. Do you have any idea how many of them there were around 1800? In how many counties? I will leave that for you to suss out. The point is that it was immediately obvious I was in for a long slog. Discouraged, I went back to Arkansas looking for anything.

In the Arkansas section of Clayton Library books, I found one with biographical information on prominent Arkansans. Lo and behold, one of them was Sam’s grandson, Claude Rankin. Claude said that Sam “reached adulthood in Lincoln County, North Carolina.” He then went, said Claude, to Rutherford County, Tennessee.

Off to Lincoln County records I went, armed with additional facts and renewed determination. The prominent Rankin family in Lincoln jumped out of the records in about three seconds: a Samuel Rankin whose wife was Eleanor (“Ellen”) Alexander. Turns out his nickname was “Old One-Eyed Sam.” They had ten children.

Lo and behold, Old One-Eyed Sam had a son who predeceased him named Richard. One problem: Richard lived in Mecklenburg County, adjacent Lincoln on the east side of the Catawba River. Claude expressly said that Young Sam “reached adulthood” in Lincoln County.

Following Claude’s lead, I did more research into the Lincoln County section at  Clayton. Fortunately, Clayton has abstracts of Lincoln court records. I was poring through them when I found an indenture dated October 1812 that read as follows:

Ordered that “Samuel Rankin, about 13 years old, an orphan son of Richard Rankin, dec’d, be bound to John Rhine until he arrive to the age of 21 years to learn the art and mistery [sic] of a tanner.[8]

The Clayton chairs aren’t on wheels and they don’t revolve. They are made out of solid wood and weigh a zillion pounds or so. I shoved mine back and stood up, tipping the chair over, and just thrust both hands in the air flashing the “victory” sign. There were a couple of blue-haired D.A.R. types at the next table who looked at me with patent disapproval. The hell with ’em if they can’t take a joke.

Finally, four of Old One-Eyed Sam’s and Eleanor’s children went from Lincoln County to Rutherford County, Tennessee — Claude’s second hint. One of them was Samuel Rankin Jr., who had been appointed guardian of Young Sam when his father Richard died.

Jim Rankin would have patted me on the back and said, “good job, sweetie.” I would have had to admit to him that a review of Mecklenburg court records would have turned up the fact that Samuel Jr., a son of Old One-Eyed Sam, was appointed the guardian of Richard Rankin’s four orphans, including sons named Samuel and William.

Fortunately, the elation of the AHA! moment isn’t dimmed by the fact that one fails to take the easiest route to the destination.

I could also use this story as an illustration of how circumstantial evidence can add up to a rock-solid conclusion. Claude’s two hints, plus an estimate of Young Sam’s birth year and identification of Richard and William as possible names for his father and a brother, add up to a “gotcha!” when you add the Mecklenburg guardian record and the Lincoln indenture. Happily, the fact that Young Sam was from the line of Old One-Eyed Sam and Eleanor Alexander Rankin is confirmed by both autosomal and Y-DNA evidence.

John Willis: the Wantage connection

I am stealing one of Gary’s AHA! moments here. I don’t really know what he went through, research-wise, but I do know about him accidentally tripping over a clue bigger than Dallas.

He traces his Willis line back to a John Willis of Dorchester County, Maryland. John was born about 1680 and was the original immigrant in Gary’s Willis line.

John acquired some Dorchester County land in 1708. Like all of the Maryland landowners of that time, he named his tract. Some were humorous: “Sloane’s Folly.” Others were optimistic: “Smith’s Hope.” John named his tract “Wantage.” That rather peculiar name didn’t ring any bells with either of us. We focused on “Want,” as in I want some good luck.

We should have gone to Maps to see what the name would turn up. What we actually did involves far more Wantage luck.

We are both avid readers. At the time, we were wading through the entire oeuvre of Dick Francis, a former British steeplechase jockey and writer of mysteries involving horse racing.

Gary read one that had an owner trailering his horse through the English village of Wantage. “Robin!!!!,” he said. “Guess what?”

Moral: you can never tell where an AHA! moment might knock you down. Even murder mysteries qualify. Where else, I ask you, can John Willis have come from?

Wantage is a charming village in what is now Oxfordshire County, England (formerly Berkshire), west-southwest of London. We had to go there, of course. We stayed at the hotel in the public square called The Bear. It has (or had) a great pub and a nice breakfast-lunch room lit by skylights. I would describe the bedrooms as “adequate,” but for the fact that a friend of ours — whose taste in hotels and restaurants runs to ostentatious decor and astronomical prices — called our favorite hotel in Paris “adequate” after he stayed there. We love the Mayfair, and would never demean it in that fashion.[9] Using our friend’s rating scale, though, one would probably be forced to call The Bear’s accommodations “primitive” rather than “adequate.” I would nevertheless recommend The Bear to anyone except our friend.

Yes, Wantage has and had its share of men named Willis, a fairly common name in the region. One of Gary’s distant Willis cousins obtained a Y-DNA sample from one of them. Alas, that man is not related to Gary’s ancestor John Willis of Dorchester. In fact, he wasn’t a Y-DNA match to any Willis: he is apparently an NPE. Gary is still looking for Y-DNA proof, but is 99% certain his ancestor’s home was Wantage.

The square in front of the Bear has a wonderful statue of King Alfred, a many-greats grandfather of King Charles. Below are pictures of King Alfred and the Bear. It was obviously a glorious day in merrie olde England. Or perhaps it was merely adequate. <grin>

And that’s all the news that’s fit to print. See you on down the road.

Robin

 

                  [1] Evidence includes deed, probate, and tax records, court, military, and Bible records, census data, and/or whatever other county, state, or federal documents you can find. See the article at https://wp.me/p7CQxS-il , which includes a link to an article on the same topic by my cousin Roberta Estes from her “DNA Explained” blog. Relationships in online trees do not, repeat NOT, constitute evidence. They are only clues about family relationships.

                  [2] Based on advice from a professional genealogist, I organize my research results by county or parish in an idiosyncratic format I refer to as a “data table.” It has worked well for me for at least three decades now.

                  [3] You can now view images of original county and parish microfilms at the FHL website. It is free and is a goldmine of actual evidence. You can search the FHL catalog by location. Be aware, however, that the FHL website also has family trees having about the same credibility as trees on Ancestry. https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog

                  [4] Because many of the FHL films of original county records are now available online, newer family history researchers may not have had the Salt Lake City microfilm experience. It was a trip!

                  [5] The last time we were there, the microfilm readers were mostly unused. Microfilm images can be had on a computer, unless one is researching among “locked” records unavailable unless you are at a Family History Center or the SLC Library.

            [6] Claiborne Parish, LA Probate Record E: 799, FHL Film # 265,999.

            [7] As it turned out, the Oakes, Harkins, and Broadnax came to Claiborne Parish from Perry Co., AL. Perry records include an 1846 marriage for Haney Oakes and Isaac Harkins. The Oakes issue should therefore have been a piece of cake for me, but for the fact that the Perry County marriage abstract at Clayton showed the bride’s given name as Nancy. Moral: always check the original record. There were several other records in Louisiana and Alabama that could have proved Haney’s maiden name for me. I was a rookie at the time, however, and made every mistake in the book, evidently as a matter of principle.

 

            [8] North Carolina State Library and Archives file, C.R.060.301.4, “Lincoln County, County Court Minutes Jan 1806 – Jan 1813,” p. 589.

                  [9] The Mayfair Hotel is about a block off the Place Vendôme, where both Coco Chanel and Chopin once resided. The Ritz Hotel is on that square. Jardins des Tuileries are less than a block south of the Mayfair. The Place de la Concorde, where Marie Antoinette and her unfortunate husband met the guillotine, is within a few blocks, at the west end of the Tuileries. It is a short walk to the Louvre (at the east end of the Tuileries) and the d’Orsay (just across the Seine to the south).

Martin & Buckley, Part 1: Oglethorpe/Elbert GA, & Perry AL

My ancestor Claiborne (“Clay”) Martin has been a longstanding brick wall. He was born in North Carolina in the latter part of the 18th century. Unfortunately, Martin is a relatively common name in that time and place: the 1790 federal census has 177 Martin heads of household listed in North Carolina. The numbers are daunting.

Frustrated by lack of success, I have abandoned research in NC in favor of writing what I know (or think I know) about Clay and his wife Frances. Here are the two issues this series of posts will address:

  • who were Clay’s siblings and parents?
  • who were the siblings and parents of Clay’s wife Frances?

God willing and the creek don’t rise, I will manage to complete a series of articles addressing these questions before I get diverted onto yet another Rankin rabbit trail. Let’s start with a brief summary of Clay’s life.

He was born in North Carolina about 1767,[1] but had moved to Georgia by at least 1785.[2] Given his relatively young age at the time, it seems likely he moved with family. He was a farmer and a slave owner.[3] He married his wife Frances circa 1794, probably in Elbert County, Georgia.[4] Clay and Frances raised a large family – two sons and nine daughters survived to adulthood – in Oglethorpe County, Georgia, before moving to Perry County, Alabama.[5]

I like Clay, despite his slave ownership, because (among other things) he took care of his extended family. When one of his brothers died in Oglethorpe, Clay paid property taxes on behalf of his brother’s widow for several years.[6] He also paid taxes for a year on behalf of a widowed sister.[7] He stayed out of politics, public life, jail, lawsuits and other controversies. So did his children. He and Frances were married for roughly sixty years, which is no mean feat (said the woman who has been married more than 50 years).[8]

Here is a charming thing about Claiborne and Frances Martin: they had mules named Bill and Cuff and horses named Jimmie and Ned.[9] What are the odds that, 170 years from now, someone will unearth the name of your animals? Only, I’m guessing, if they are preserved in answers to the security questions on your bank account.

Clay is identified in an abstract of Georgia records as a Revolutionary War veteran.[11] That is probably wrong. At first glance, it seems unlikely that Clay served, because he was only fourteen (maybe sixteen, given the margin of error in census age reporting) when the war was mostly over. However, my husband Gary tells me that there were actually soldiers that young.

The evidence is at odds with the abstract, even ignoring the age issue. First, Clay never applied for a Revolutionary War pension, although he would have been eligible under the act of 1828 if he had served for at least nine months – or six months, under the 1832 act.[12] Clay was still alive in 1832, and would presumably have applied had he been eligible. Second, the abstract also names Gibson Martin, Clay’s brother, as a Revolutionary War soldier. Gibson’s grandchildren kindly erected a tombstone for him in Oglethorpe County giving his birth date as September 10, 1770.[13] Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown in September 1781, when Gibson was just turning eleven, much too young to have served. If the abstractor erred with respect to Gibson’s war service, he/she was probably also wrong about Clay, since both names purportedly came from the same list found in the office of the Oglethorpe Court of Ordinary. Eventually, I will get a look at that record. I suspect it will be evidence that Clay and Gibson were entitled to draw lots in the Georgia land lottery because their father was a Revolutionary War soldier.

In September 1818, Clay sold his land in Oglethorpe.[14] Some time during the next twelve months, Clay and Frances and a large extended family moved to Alabama. One of Clay’s daughters – my ancestress Amy Martin – married my ancestor Isaac Oakes (also born and raised in Oglethorpe) in Dallas County, Alabama in October 1819.[15] Clay was not listed as a head of household in the 1820 census for Dallas County, and there is no extant 1820 census for Perry County, so the census is no help. It’s a good bet, however, that Amy, age nineteen at the time, didn’t move from Georgia to Alabama without family chaperones.[16] In fact, Claiborne’s father-in-law was definitely in Perry County by 1819.

Once in Perry County, Clay farmed and cared for family. He gave his eldest son a gift of land, provided for his children and grandchildren in his will, and took care of his widowed daughter Sarah and other family members.[17] The Martins apparently never got to enjoy an empty nest. In 1850, when Clay was 83 and Frances was 74, they had seventeen-year-old and fourteen-year-old girls living with them (children of their widowed daughter, Sarah Martin Crow).[18] In the 1840 census, there were six children under the age of fifteen and several young adults in Frances and Clay’s household.[19] So far as I can determine, their own youngest child was born in the middle 1820s at the  latest, and was married before the 1840 census.[20] Consequently, the six kids living with the Martins in 1840 likely qualified as extended family, probably grandchildren. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

Clay died in Perry County about September 1853, leaving a decent estate that generated a huge probate file.[21] Those documents conclusively prove his wife Frances, the identities of children and some of their spouses, and quite a few grandchildren.[22] The moral: in genealogy, as with everything else in this life, it pays to come from a family that is moderately well-to-do.

Here are Claiborne and Frances Martin’s children and their spouses, all proved in Clay’s will and/or in Perry County estate files.

  • Elizabeth Martin,vb. abt 1794 Oglethorpe, d. by 1851, Perry, m. Theodoric Oliver 1820, Dallas AL. Two children.
  • Haney Martin, b. abt 1796 Oglethorpe, d. after 1880, Perry, m. Thomas Oakes (1785-1857) in 1816, Oglethorpe. One child, Lucy Oakes
  • Fanny Martin, b. abt. 1798 Oglethorpe, d. 1860-70, Union Par. LA, m. John Smith 1814 Oglethorpe. Six sons.
  • Amy Martin, b. 1800 Oglethorpe, d. 1865 Claiborne Par. LA, m. Isaac Oakes (b. 1797 Oglethorpe d. 1885 Claiborne) 1819, Dallas Co. AL. Ten children: Elizabeth, Elijah Moseley, Haney, Washington Lafayette, Reuben M., Susan, Isaac C., Lucy Frances, Nancy Wisdom, and John L. Oakes.
  • Frances Martin, b. bet. 1800-1810 Oglethorpe, d. bef. 1865, m. David Chandler 1827 Perry Co. 6 children.
  • William Buckley Martin, b. abt. 1806 Oglethorpe, m. Susan A. MNU. Probably 10 children.
  • Sarah A. martin, b. abt. 1807 Oglethorpe m. Silas Harlan Crow 1827, Perry AL. Children Mary Frances, Silas H. and Isaac M. Crow.
  • Clara Martin, b. abt 1812 Oglethorpe d. aft 1880 m. John J. Hunter 1830 Perry AL. 8 children.
  • Lucinda “Lucy” Martin, b. abt 1812 Oglethorpe d. bet. 1860-70 Perry, m. Jesse Suttle 1831 Perry AL. Eleven Children.
  • Claiborne Jackson Martin, b. 1815 Oglethorpe d. 1892 Freestone Co., TX, m. Elizabeth b. Kelly (1818-1903) 1837 Perry AL. Five children.
  • Malinda Martin, b. abt 1823 Perry d. 1853-56 Perry, m. Zachariah Chandler 1839 Perry AL. Seven children.

Frances Martin died in Perry County in 1865, about age ninety.[23] By my count, the Martins had 69 grandchildren. I may have missed some. She and Clay were undoubtedly both buried in Perry Co., probably on their own farm. Their tombstones, if there were any, have long since either been reclaimed by the land or swiped by someone who collects that sort of thing.

That will have to remain a mystery. There is NO WAY I am wandering around any more woodsy cemeteries in Perry County looking for ancestors’ tombstones. Gary and I did that during a genealogy trip in August 2007, and we learned a very, very hard lesson about Alabama chiggers.

That is pretty much everything I know about Clay’s life, other than some facts relevant to identifying his family. I will save those for subsequent posts in this series.

See you on down the road. It’s kind of nice to let the Rankins be for a while.

*   *   *   *   *   *   

 [1]1850 federal census, Perry Co., AL, Radfordsville, dwl 61, listing for Claiborne Martin, 83, b. NC, farmer, Frances Martin, 74, b. VA, Sarah Crow, 43, b. GA (neé Martin), and Sarah’s two daughters.

[2]Clay first appeared in the records in a Wilkes Co., GA deed of 28 Dec 1792, when he was about twenty-five (see note 1). Michal Martin Farmer, Wilkes County, Georgia Deed Books A – VV 1784 – 1806(Dallas: Farmer Genealogy Co., 1996), abstract of Deed Book PP: 1, deed from David Martin and wife Alcy of Elbert Co., GA to Archer Skinner of Wilkes Co., witnessed by Clabourn Martin. David Martin had been appearing in the Wilkes County records since 1785. Assuming that David was Clay’s brother, which is highly likely (more on that later), it is reasonable to assume that Clay had alsobeen around Georgia since at least 1785.

[3]E.g.,1840 federal census, Perry Co., AL, p. 250, Claiborne Martin enumerated with five slaves; 1850 federal census, slave schedule, Perry Co., AL, Radfordville, Claiborne Martin listed with twelve slaves.

[4]The Martins’ marriage date of 1794 is a rough estimate based on Frances’s birth date (1775 or 1776 according to the 1860 or 1850 census) and the births of their children, three of whom were born during the 1790s. Seenote 1 (1850 federal census); 1860 federal census, Perry Co., AL, p. 633, dwl 22, listing for Frances Martin, 85, b. VA; Mary Bondurant Warren,1800 Census of Oglethorpe County, Georgia(Athens, GA: 1965), Claiborne Martin enumerated with three females under age ten in his household. Clay and Frances were likely married in Elbert Co., because that is where both lived when they married.

[5]FHL Film 1,509,297, Perry County, Alabama Probate Records – Lockett, Napoleon to Martin, George M., File #53-022-1069, estate records of Claiborne Martin (hereafter “Martin Estate Records”). The file, which I copied in its entirety and have transcribed, contains numerous documents identifying Clay’s children and heirs. Documents include Clay’s will, depositions, and several accounts of the estate distribution. Clay and Frances left Oglethorpe for Perry Co. about 1818.

[6]FHL Film 177,699, Oglethorpe County, Georgia Tax Digests, 1806 – 1815. Claiborne paid county land  taxes on behalf of Gibson Martin, deceased, or his widow Sarah/Sally Martin, during 1810 through 1816.

[7]Id.Claiborne paid land tax on behalf of Elisha Herrin (whose wife Sally was neé Martin) in 1811.

 [8]Clay and Frances were probably married circa 1794, see note 4. Clay’s will was recorded on 12 Sep 1853, and he probably died shortly before that date. Martin Estate Records.

[9]Martin Estate Records, appraisal dated 8 Sep 1865 of the personal property of the estate of Claibourn [sic] Martin, taken after Frances died. Per her husband’s will, Frances owned only a life estate in their property. That ownership interest terminated when she died. As a result, the estate remaining after her death was administered as part of Claiborne’s estate, even though Frances died about twelve years after Claiborne. The remaining estate was therefore disposed of in accordance with the terms of Claiborne’s will.

[10]Marie De Lamar & Elisabeth Rothstein, The Reconstructed 1790 Census of Georgia(Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1989).

[11]Rev. Silas Emmett Lucas, Some Georgia County Records Vol. 7(Greenville, SC: Southern Historical Press, Inc., 1993) at p. 465, from a list dated 1 Feb 1804, “Names of Revolutionary Soldiers who drew Land Lots, found of record in the Ordinary’s Office of Oglethorpe County, Georgia.”

[12]The 1828 act did not require the applicant to prove he was indigent, as had the previous pension legislation. W. T. R. Saffell, Records of the Revolutionary War(Baltimore: Clearfield Company, Inc., originally published 1894; reprinted by Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, 1969).

[13]Historic Oglethorpe Co., Inc., Cemeteries of Oglethorpe County, Georgia(Fernandina Beach, FL: Wolfe Publishing Co., 1995).

 [14]FHL Film 158,677, Oglethorpe Co., GA Deed Books J and K, 1818 – 1823, deed of 18 Sep 1818 from Claborn [sic] Martin of Oglethorpe to John McCleath, 170 acres on the waters of Big Creek, Deed Book J: 154. Clay’s last appearance on the Oglethorpe County tax list was also in 1818. FHL Film 177,700,  Oglethorpe County, GA Superior Court Tax Digests, 1816 – 1824.

[15]Family Adventures, Early Alabama Marriages 1813 – 1850(San Antonio: 1991), 18 Oct 1819 bond, Isaac Okes [sic, Oakes] and Anna [sic, Amy] Martin, Dallas Co., AL.

[16]The first Alabama record I found for Clay was a May 1822 order in the court minute book appointing him to a jury to lay out a road. Original of Perry County Record Book 1826 – 1840 at p. 29, viewed at the Perry County courthouse in August 2007. Note that the title of the book suggests that it dates from1826. However, actual entries begin in 1820. Perry County was created 13 Dec 1819.

[17]FHL Film 1,578,227, item 1, Perry County, Alabama Deed Book B (cont’d), deed from Claiborne Martin to his son, Buckley Martin, for love and affection, 158.52 acres. Deed Book B: 56. See also Martin Estate Records and notes 6 and 7.

 [18]1850 federal census, Perry Co., AL.

[19]1840 federal census, Perry Co., AL.

[20]Family Adventures, Early Alabama Marriages 1813 – 1850(San Antonio: 1991), marriage bond of Zachariah M. Chandler and Malinda Martin, 7 Mar 1839.

[21]Martin Estate Records.

[22]See id. Claiborne and Frances’s eleven children were Elizabeth (wife of Theodorick Oliver), Haney (second wife of Thomas Oakes), Fanny (wife of John Smith), my ancestor Amy (wife of Isaac Oakes), Frances (wife of David Chandler), William Buckley Martin (wife Susan LKU), Sarah (wife of Silas H. Crow), Clara (wife of John J. Hunter), Lucinda (wife of Jesse Suttle), Claiborne Jackson Martin (m. Elizabeth Kelly), and Malinda (wife of Zachariah M. Chandler). Isaac and Amy Martin Oakes had a daughter named Haney, my ancestress, who is easy to confuse with her aunt Haney Martin Oakes, wife of Thomas.

[23]Martin Estate Records.