William Rankin Archives - Page 5 of 5 - Digging Up Dead Relatives:

More on the Line of Samuel and Eleanor (“Ellen”) Alexander Rankin: Richard Rankin’s son Samuel

This article is about the Samuel Rankin whom I have described elsewhere as an “incorrigible character.”

Sam earned that characterization fair and square. First, his birth year varied so wildly in the census that he must have fibbed about his age just for fun. Second, he named a son Napoleon Bonaparte Rankin. What kind of merry prankster lays that on a newborn? Third, I had such a hard time identifying his parents that he seemed deliberately elusive. Fourth, there is evidence that Sam may have been an unmanageable child, but that’s getting ahead of the story.

There isn’t much information in the records about Sam’s adult life. He was a farmer in Tishomingo County, Mississippi and Jefferson County, Arkansas. He and Mary Frances Estes (daughter of Lyddal Bacon Estes and “Nancy” Ann Allen Winn)[1] married about 1836 in Tishomingo. They moved to Arkansas about 1849 and had ten children who reached adulthood. Sam died in 1861 or early 1862, when his youngest child was on the way. One branch of the family thinks he died in the War, but that is unlikely. He was too old to be conscript fodder, four of his sons enlisted, his wife was pregnant, and the National Archives has no record of him.

A researcher typically begins with two questions in a search for an ancestor’s parents: where and when was he/she born? Sam makes the first question easy, since the census proves that he was born in North Carolina.[2]Using the census to pin down his birth year is a problem, though. Viewed together, the 1837 Mississippi state census and the 1840 federal census suggest Sam was born between 1810 and 1819.[3] The 1850 census gives his age as sixty-two, born about 1788.[4] In the 1860 census, Sam was sixty-one, born about 1799.[5] During the decade of the 1850s, Sam somehow got a year younger, a skill I wish I could master. I threw up my hands and guessed Sam was born circa 1800.

Mississippi records reveal one other thing. Sam almost certainly had a brother William. A William Rankin was listed near Sam in the 1837 state census in Tishomingo.[6] William did not own any land, but Sam had ten acres under cultivation.[7] They were the only two Rankins enumerated in Tishomingo in 1837 and 1840. William was born between 1800 and 1810, so he and Sam were from the same generation.[8] Finally, William married Rachel Swain, and the JP who performed the ceremony was Sam’s father-in-law Lyddal Bacon Estes.[9] Sam’s wife Mary Estes Rankin had a sister who also married a Swain.[10]

On those facts, Sam and William Rankin were probably brothers farming Sam’s tract together. If that is correct, then I was looking for a Rankin family having sons named Samuel and William who were born about the turn of the century in North Carolina.

Big whoop. If you have spent any time among the many North Carolina Rankin families, you know that is an absurdly slender clue about Sam’s family of origin. Discouraged, I left the records and turned to oral family history. That led me to conclude that Sam’s parents were Richard Rankin and Susanna (“Susy”) Doherty, who married in 1793 in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.[11] There is no doubt about the identity of their parents. Richard was a son of Samuel Rankin (“Samuel Sr.”) and his wife Eleanor (“Ellen”) Alexander Rankin.[12] Susy Doherty Rankin was a daughter of John Doherty and his wife Agnes, birth name unknown.[13]

The key oral family history is in an Arkansas biography of Claude Allen Rankin, a grandson of Sam and Mary Estes Rankin. Claude reported that his grandfather Sam Rankin “reached manhood in Lincoln County, North Carolina,” and then “removed to Murfreesboro, Tennessee,” which is in Rutherford County.[14]

Those specific locations convey a bulletproof certainty. It is highly unlikely that Claude invented them out of thin air. Consider the odds. Lincoln is one county out of one hundred in North Carolina. Rutherford is one county out of ninety-five in Tennessee. The odds are 9,500 to one that Claude would have identified both counties as places his grandfather Sam had lived in just those two states.

If Lincoln County, North Carolina and Rutherford County, Tennessee are places where Sam lived, it is a virtual certainty that he was a grandson of Samuel Sr. and Eleanor Alexander Rankin, who lived in Lincoln County, North Carolina. Three of their sons and one daughter moved to Rutherford County.[15] I have found no other Rankin family who moved from Lincoln to Rutherford during the relevant time period.

This boiled the search down to identifying which of Samuel Sr. and Eleanor’s sons could have been the father of Sam. Four of the couple’s sons – William,[16] David,[17] Alexander,[18] and James[19] – are eliminated by their locations and/or children. The three remaining sons – Robert, Sam Jr. and Richard – were possibilities to be Sam’s father.

I started with Richard Rankin and his wife Susy Doherty because Sam and Mary named their eldest son Richard, and the Anglo naming tradition dictates naming the first son for his paternal grandfather.[20] Richard and Susy lived on Long Creek in Mecklenburg County, just across the Catawba River from the home of Samuel Sr. and Eleanor in Lincoln (now Gaston) County.[21] Richard’s brother Sam Jr. also lived in Mecklenburg with his first wife, Susy’s sister Mary (“Polly”) Doherty.[22] Richard Rankin and his sister-in-law Polly Doherty Rankin are buried at Hopewell Presbyterian Church on Beatties Ford Road, just northwest of Charlotte, alongside John Doherty, father of Susy Doherty Rankin and Polly Doherty Rankin.[23] Richard’s headstone is in the left foreground of this picture. Headstones of his sister-in-law and father-in-law are to the right of Richard’s stone.

Richard and Susy appeared in the 1800 census for Mecklenburg with three sons and a daughter, all born between 1794 and 1800.[24] The “family tree” of Samuel Sr. and Eleanor indicates that Richard and Susy had five children, one of whom must have been born between 1800 and 1804.[25] Only four children survived until 1807. In April of that year, the Court of Common Pleas & Quarter Sessions for Mecklenburg County appointed Richard’s brother Sam Jr. to be guardian of Richard’s four children: Joseph, Samuel, Mary and William Rankin.[26]

There we are, brothers Samuel and William Rankin, born around the turn of the century. When I found that court record in a Clayton Library abstract, I sprang from my chair and did a little victory jig, earning disapproving glares from some blue-haired ladies at the next table. It was my first real break in the search for Sam’s family of origin.

I don’t know how Richard Rankin died. The fact that he was only thirty-five and left no will indiates his death was unexpected. He was a sheriff, patroller, justice of the peace and tax collector, all public positions of trust and responsibility; he ran unsuccessfully for county coroner and high sheriff.[27] He had a hard time managing money in his official duties, though, because the court had to haul him up short more than once.[28] That was a harbinger of things to come.

Richard died up to his eyeballs in debt, although that wasn’t immediately apparent. Right after he died, before the judgments against his estate started rolling in, Richard seemed to have been reasonably well-to-do. The administrator’s bond on his estate was either £ 1,000 or £ 2,000, neither of which was inconsequential.[29] The sale of his personal property brought £ 935.[30] The 1806 and 1807 Mecklenburg tax lists indicate that Richard’s estate owned 800 acres.[31] The honorific “Esquire” with which he appeared in court records conveys the image of a well-to-do and respected man.

Reality soon reared its ugly head in the form of judgments against Richard’s estate. I quit taking notes on these suits, although there were many more, after the trend became painfully obvious. A sampling:

October 1804, Andrew Alexander’s Administrator v. Richard Rankin’s Admr., verdict for plaintiffs, damages of £ 103.50.[32]

April 1805, William Blackwood’s Administrators v. Richard Rankin’s Admr., verdict for plaintiffs, damages of £ 38.18.1.[33]

April 1805, Robert Lowther v. Richard Rankin’s Admrs., verdict for Plaintiff, damages of £ 34.18.9.[34]

January 1806, Trustee Etc. v. Richard Rankin’s Admrs., verdict for Plaintiffs, damages of £ 18.9.0.[35]

October 1807, Richard Kerr v. Richard Rankin’s Admrs., judgment for Plaintiff for £ 7.15.9.[36]

Creditors finally attached Richard’s land because the estate ran out of liquid assets with which to discharge judgments:

Oct 1807, John Little v. Richard Rankin’s Admrs, judgment and execution levied on land for £ 16, administrator pleads no assets. Ordered that the clerk issue scire facias against Samuel Rankin, guardian of the heirs, to show cause.[37]

The minute book abstract is silent regarding the purpose of the show cause hearing. In context, it is clear that Sam Jr. was to show cause, if any, why part of Richard’s land should not be sold to pay the judgment creditor(s). Sam Jr. made no such showing, because the Mecklenburg real property records include a sheriff’s deed dated October 1807 reciting as follows:

“[B]y execution against the lands of Richard Rankin, dec’d … being divided by the administrator and Samuel Rankin off a tract of 500 acres held by Richard Rankin … [the tract sold] containing 200 acres including the old house, spring, meadow and bottom on both sides Long Creek.”[38]

Wherever Susy and her children were living, it was clearly not in the “old house.” Some of Richard’s land remained after this sale, but I did not track its disposition.

It eventually dawned on me that I was mucking about exclusively in the records of Mecklenburg County looking for evidence of Susy’s family. Claude Allen Rankin’s biography said that Sam “reached manhood” in Lincoln County, not Mecklenburg. I went back to the Lincoln records looking for evidence regarding Susy’s whereabouts after Richard died.

Lo and behold: Susy was living in Lincoln County by at least 1808, when she was a defendant there in a lawsuit.[39] I did not find her listed as a head of household in the 1810 census, although she was alive until at least 1812.[40] The family was undoubtedly still residing in Lincoln County in October 1812, when the Lincoln court ordered that “Samuel Rankin, about thirteen 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.”[41]

If the indentured Sam Rankin was the same man as my ancestor Sam Rankin, which is 99% certain on the available evidence, there is no doubt that Sam “reached manhood” in Lincoln County, as Claude said. That is where John Rhyne lived, and the indenture lasted until Sam reached legal age.[42]

Sam’s indentured servitude was not an unusual fate for a destitute child whose father had died. Five years before the indenture, it was painfully clear that Richard Rankin’s estate was rapidly vanishing. None of Richard’s other three children were indentured, however. Why just Sam? And why wasn’t he indentured earlier?

In my imagination, the teenage Sam was incorrigible – the child who “acted out” the Rankin children’s collective anger and grief at the loss of their father, money, and social status. It would certainly go a long way toward explaining a man who didn’t marry until his late thirties and who named a son Napoleon Bonaparte. Perhaps it would also explain why the prominent and wealthy Rankin family of Lincoln County did not prevent the indenture of a 13-year-old family member whose father died when he was five.

Whatever Sam’s temperament, or the reason his rich Rankin relatives consented sub silentio to his indenture, his mother Susy had been having an abjectly miserable time of it. In 1803, she lost her sister Mary Doherty Rankin, the wife of Richard’s brother Sam Jr.[43] In 1804, her husband Richard died.[44] One of her children died between 1804 and 1807.[45] Susy’s mother Agnes Doherty died in 1808.[46] Part of Richard’s land was sold to pay a judgment debt because his estate had insufficient personal assets.[47] In 1809, Susy sold via a quitclaim deed her dower right to a life estate in one-third of Richard’s land.[48]

Do you think she may have needed cash?

In the midst of those excruciating losses, Susy’s brother-in-law William Rankin (and former co-administrator of Richard’s estate) sued her.[49] In 1808, William obtained a judgment against Susy for £ 106.7.6, about half of which he collected by garnishing the funds of a man who owed Susy money.[50] William was enumerated in the 1810 census (immediately followed in the list by Thomas Rhyne, John Rhyne, and Samuel Rankin (Sr.)) with eleven enslaved people, so the suit was obviously not a matter of economic need. I hope that his orphaned nephews and niece were not going hungry. He was obviously a vengeful and greedy sonuvabitch, and I don’t like him. Whatever Susy’s sins may have been, her children deserved better from their uncle.

As for Susy, I haven’t found a worse record of persistent and pernicious emotional and financial calamity among any of my other ancestors. If she retained even a modicum of sanity through all that, she had some true grit. However, she apparently couldn’t cope with her teenage son Sam.

Sam’s master John Rhyne was connected to the family of Samuel Sr. and Eleanor Rankin. William Rankin (the vengeful SOB) and his son Richard Rankin both witnessed the will of John Rhyne’s father Thomas.[51] The Rhynes lived on land adjacent to Samuel Sr. and Eleanor’s plantation on Kuykendall Creek.[52] Susy’s son Sam Rankin therefore served his indenture within spitting distance of his wealthy grandfather.[53] No wonder Sam declined to pass on his given name to any of his eight sons. Sam did, however, have children who shared the name of each of his three surviving siblings: Joseph, William and Mary, and his father Richard.

Sam remained with his master John Rhyne through the 1820 census.[54] There was a male age 16 – 26 listed with Rhyne that year who was not his child and who would most likely have been Sam, the indentured tanner, born about 1799.[55] The 1820 census for John Rhyne also indicates that one person in the household was engaged in manufacturing, and tanning was deemed a manufacturing business.

Meanwhile, some of the Lincoln/Mecklenburg Rankins began moving to Rutherford County, Tennessee. Richard’s brother David and his wife Anne Moore Campbell were in Rutherford by August 1806, when David acquired a tract there.[56] In 1810, both David and his brother Robert Rankin appeared on the Rutherford County tax rolls.[57] By the 1820 census, David, Robert and their brother Sam Jr. were all listed as heads of households in Rutherford County.[58] Sam undoubtedly made a beeline for Tennessee the day he turned twenty-one. Recall that his uncle Sam Jr. had been Sam’s guardian, and Sam’s siblings may have migrated with Sam Jr.

I vacillated for years whether my great-great grandfather Sam Rankin was a son of Richard and Susy Doherty Rankin and a grandson of Samuel Sr. and Eleanor Alexander Rankin. DNA testing resolved my uncertainly. A Rankin first cousin is a Y-DNA match to other proved descendants of Samuel Sr. and Eleanor, and I am an autosomal match with another one of their descendants.

MORAL: if you have not done DNA testing, do it now! If you are a man named Rankin, please go to the Family Tree DNA website ASAP, sign up for a Y-DNA test, and join the Rankin DNA Project. Autosomal tests are available for both men and women at FTDNA, Ancestry, and several other vendors. I would be happy to provide whatever information I have about your Rankins.

* * * * * * * * * *

[1] See an article about the Lyddal and Nancy’s children here.

^[2] 1850 federal census, Jefferson Co., AR, dwelling 426, Samuel Rankin, 62, born NC; 1860 federal census, Jefferson Co., AR, dwelling 549, Samuel Rankin, 61, born NC. Several of Sam’s children lived to be counted in the 1880 census, which asked where each person’s parents were born. Sam’s children identified their father’s state of birth as North Carolina fairly consistently. E.g., 1880 census, Dorsey (Cleveland) Co., AR, dwelling 99, Richard Rankin, 43, b. MS, father b. NC, mother b. AL.

^[3] Laverne Stanford, Tishomingo County Mississippi 1837 State Census, 1845 State Census (Ripley, MS: Old Timer Press, 1981). In 1837, Samuel Rankin was age 21 < 45, born 1792-1819; 1840 federal census, Tishomingo Co., MS, Samuel Rankin, age 20 < 30, born 1810-1820.

^[4] See Note 2, 1850 federal census, Samuel Rankin, 62.

^[5] Id., 1860 federal census, Samuel Rankin, 61.

^[6] Stanford, Tishomingo County Mississippi 1837 State Census, listing # 54 for William Rankins, age 21 < 45, a female > 16, no enslaved people, and no acreage under cultivation.

^[7] Id., listing # 64 for Samuel Rankins, age 21 < 45, no enslaved people, 10 acres under cultivation.

^[8] 1840 census, Tishomingo Co., MS, listing for William Rankin, 1 male 30 < 40 (born 1800-1810) and 1 female 60 < 70 (born 1770-1780). The woman with William in the 1837 and 1840 census, taken before William married in 1843, may have been his mother.

^[9] Irene Barnes, Marriages of Old Tishomingo County, Mississippi,Volume I 1837 – 1859 (Iuka, MS: 1978), marriage bond for William Rankin and Rachel Swain dated 7 Sep 1843, married by L. B. Estes, J.P., on 14 Sep 1843. Lyddal Bacon Estes was Sam Rankin’s father-in-law.

^[10] Id. Martha Ann Estes, Mary Estes Rankin’s sister, married Wilson Swain.

^[11] Brent H. Holcomb, Marriages of Mecklenburg Co., NC, 1783-1868 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1981).

^[12] Richard was not named in his father Samuel Sr.’s will because Richard predeceased Samuel Sr. Other evidence is conclusive. First, William and Alexander Rankin, proved sons of Samuel Sr. and Eleanor, were administrators of Richard’s estate along with Richard’s wife Susy. NC State Archives, C.R.065.508.210, Mecklenburg County Estates Records, 1762 – 1957, Queen – Rankin, file folder labeled “Rankin, Richard 1804,” original bond of Susy, William, and Alexander Rankin, administrators of the estate of Richard Rankin. Second, Samuel Rankin Jr. (another proved son of Samuel Sr. and Eleanor) became the guardian for Richard’s children after Richard died. Herman W. Ferguson, Mecklenberg County, North Carolina Minutes of the Court of Pleas Volume 2, 1801-1820 (Rocky Mount, NC: 1995), abstract of Minute Book 4: 663, court order of April 1807 appointing Samuel Rankin guardian for the children of Richard Rankin.

^[13] Herman W. Ferguson and Ralph B. Ferguson, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina Will Abstracts, 1791-1868, Books A-J, and Tax Lists, 1797, 1798, 1799, 1806, & 1807 (Rocky Mount, NC: 1993), abstract of Will Book C: 21, will of John Doherty of Mecklenburg dated 20 May 1786 naming wife Agnes, son James, and daughters Susanna and Mary; id., Will Book C: 34, will of Agnes Doherty of Mecklenburg dated June 19, 1807, proved Jan. 1808, naming daughter Susanna Rankin and granddaughters Violet and Nelly Rankin. The granddaughters were children of Sam Rankin Jr. and his first wife Polly Doherty, who predeceased her mother Agnes.

^[14] D. Y. Thomas, Arkansas and Its People, A History, 1541 – 1930, Volume IV (New York: The American Historical Society, Inc., 1930) 574, biography of Claude Allen Rankin.

^[15] Samuel Sr. and Eleanor’s children who moved to Rutherford County were David, Robert, Samuel Jr., and Eleanor Rankin Dixon/Dickson. Eleanor Rankin married Joseph Dixon; David Rankin married Jane Moore Campbell, a widow. Jean or Jane Rankin, another daughter of Samuel Sr. and Eleanor, married James Rutledge. The Rutherford County records are full of entries in which the Rankins were associated with Dixons, Rutledges and Moores. E.g., WPA Tennessee Records Project, Records of Rutherford County, Tennessee Vol. C, Minutes 1808 – 1810 (Murfreesboro: 1936), abstract of Minute Book C: 197, entry of 1 Jan 1810 regarding a lawsuit styled William Dickson v. Robert Rankin, George Moore, Robert Rutledge and Joseph Dickson, Jr.

^[16] William Rankin, the eldest son of Samuel Sr. and Eleanor Rankin, remained in Lincoln County and did not have a son named Samuel. See A. Gregg Moore & Forney A. Rankin, The Rankins of North Carolina (Marietta, GA: A. G. Moore, 1997).

^[17] Id. David Rankin and his family moved to Rutherford County. Their son Samuel King Rankin, born 1818, is not the same man as the Sam who married Mary F. Estes.

^[18] Id. Alexander Rankin remained in Lincoln and had no son named Samuel.

^[19] James Rankin had a son named Samuel, but he was born in 1819 and married Nancy Beattie. See also NC State Archives, CR.060.508.105, Lincoln County Estate Records, 1779 – 1925, Ramsour, George – Rankin, John, file folders for James Rankin labeled 1832 and 1842, naming the heirs of James Rankin as Robert, Rufus, Caroline, James, Louisa, Samuel, Richard, and Mary Rankin.

^[20] Sam and Mary F. Estes Rankin’s children were, in order, Richard Bacon Rankin, William Henderson Rankin, Joseph Rankin, John Allen Rankin, Elisha (“Lish”) Thompson Rankin, James Darby Rankin, Mary Jane Rankin, Washington (“Wash”) Marion Rankin, Napoleon (“Pole”) Bonaparte Rankin, and Frances Elizabeth (“Lizzie”) Rankin.

^[21] Microfilm of Mecklenburg County Deed Book 18: 365, Sheriff’s deed dated Oct. 1807, execution against the lands of Richard Rankin, dec’d, 200 acres off a tract of 500 acres owned by Rankin crossing Long Creek, widow’s right of dower excepted.

^[22] Holcomb, Marriages of Mecklenburg, Nov. 16, 1791 marriage bond of Samuel Rankin and Mary Doherty, bondsman Richard Rankin (Sam Jr.’s brother); 1800 federal census, Mecklenburg Co., NC, household of Samuel Rankin, 1 male age 26 < 45, female same age, 3 males < 10, and 2 females < 10.

^[23] Charles William Sommerville, The History of Hopewell Presbyterian Church (Charlotte, NC: 1939, 1981). Sommerville incorrectly states that Richard Rankin was married to Mary (nicknamed “Polly”) Doherty Rankin, probably because their graves are side-by-side. The records, however, are clear that Richard married Susy Doherty, Sam Jr. married Polly Doherty, and Richard’s surviving widow Susy was still alive after Polly died.

^[24] 1800 federal census, Mecklenburg Co., NC, Richard Rankin, age 26 < 45, with four children under the age of ten, a female 26 < 45, and a female > 45, most likely Richard’s widowed mother-in-law Agnes Doherty.

^[25] The somewhat mysterious Rankin “family tree” (I have never seen it) is referred to several times as a source in The Rankins of North Carolina.

^[26] Ferguson, Mecklenberg Court Minutes, abstract of Minute Book 4: 663, April 1807 order appointing Samuel Rankin guardian of Joseph, Mary, Samuel and William Rankin, orphans of Richard Rankin, dec’d. “Orphan” just meant fatherless. Susy, the children’s mother, was still alive in 1807.

^[27] Id., Minute Book 4: 314, entry in Oct 1801 recording votes for the election of two coroners (John Patterson 11 votes, Robert Robison 8 votes, Richard Rankin 2 votes); Minute Book 4: 375, Oct 1802, Richard Rankin was appointed “Patroller” by the court, having authority to search for and recover runaway enslaved persons; Minute Book 4:387, Jan 25 1803, Richard Rankin et al. “being commissioned by his excellency the Governor to act as Justice of the Peace in this county, appeared in open court and was duly qualified as by law accordingly;” Minute Book 4: 397, Jan 1803, records of the County Trustee indicated that Richard Rankin was sheriff, 1797-1798; Minute Book 4: 409, Apr 1803, Magistrates appointed to take tax returns included Richard Rankin; Minute Book 4: 421, Jul 1803 election for high sheriff (7 votes for Wm Beaty, 5 for Richard Rankin).

^[28] Id., Mecklenburg Minute Book 4: 281, entry for Apr 1801, notice issued to Richard Rankin, former sheriff, to appear and show cause why he hasn’t satisfied a judgment; id., Minute Book 4: 300, entry of Jul 1801, motion of County Trustee, Richard Rankin ordered to appear and render to the trustee all money due him for county tax & stray money collected by Richard for 1797 and 1798. Richard confessed judgment for £ 104.12.2.

^[29] Ferguson, Mecklenburg Court Minutes, abstract of Minute Book 4: 458, April 1804, ordered that Susannah Rankin, William Rankin and Alexander Rankin administer on the estate of Richard Rankin, Esquire, dec’d, bond of £ 2,000. Another record shows the bond as £ 1,000. See North Carolina Archives, C.R.060.801.21, copy of original bond.

^[30] Ferguson, Mecklenburg Court Minutes, abstract of Minute Book 4: 478, Jul 1804 inventory and account of the sale of the estate of Richard Rankin returned by William Rankin, Alexander Rankin and Susy Rankin, £ 935.1.11.

^[31] Ferguson and Ferguson, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina Will Abstracts, abstract of the 1806 and 1807 tax lists, entry for Richard Rankin’s estate, adm. by Wm. B. Alexander, 800 acres.

^[32] Ferguson, Mecklenburg Court Minutes, abstract of Minute Book 4: 501.

^[33] Id. at 530.

^[34] Id. at 531.

^[35] Id. at 592.

^[36] Id. at 704.

^[37] Id. at 706.

^[38] FHL Film No. 484,186, Mecklenburg Deed Book 18: 365.

^[39] Anne Williams McAllister & Kathy Gunter Sullilvan, Courts of Pleas & Quarter Sessions, Lincoln County, North Carolina, Apr 1805 – Oct 1808 (Lenoir, NC: 1988), William Rankin v. Susy Rankin, court record for Jan 1808. The county court had no jurisdiction over a defendant who was not a resident of the county, so the fact that Susy was sued in Lincoln and the case was not dismissed for lack of jurisdiction proves that she lived there.

^[40] Ferguson, Mecklenburg Court Minutes, abstract of Minute Book 5: 277, entry of Aug 1812, on petition of Susannah Rankin, widow of Richard Rankin, regarding her right of dower in the land of her deceased husband. Although a court did not have jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant, anyone could petition a county court for relief, whether a resident or not. The land in which Susy had a dower right was located in Mecklenburg. She had to file in that county and nowhere else in order to assert her dower right.

^[41] North Carolina State Archives CR.060.301.4, “Lincoln County, County Court Minutes Jan 1806 – Jan 1813,” 589.

^[42] 1820 federal census, Lincoln Co., p. 224, listing for John Rhyne.

^[43] Sommerville, History of Hopewell Presbyterian Church, tombstone of Mary (“Polly”) Doherty inscribed, “Here lies Polly Rankin, died Jan. 30, 1803 in her 33rd year. She left 5 motherless children and a discomfortable husband.”

^[44] Id., tombstone inscribed “Sacred to the memory of Richard Rankin who died March 23, 1804, aged 35 years.” See also note 29.

^[45] See note 26, appointment of guardian for four children of Richard Rankin; Gregg & Forney, Rankins of North Carolina, citing the Rankin “family tree.” None of Richard and Susy’s children were of age in 1807 because the couple married in 1793. All of their living children would have been minors requiring a guardian in 1807.

^[46] Ferguson & Ferguson, Mecklenburg Will Abstracts, Will Book C: 34, will of Agnes Doherty dated June 19, 1807, proved Jan 1808, naming daughter Susanna Rankin.

^[47] See note 38, sheriff’s deed for part of Richard Rankin’s land.

^[48] FHL Film No. 484,186, Mecklenburg Deed Book 19: 606, quitclaim deed dated 15 Apr 1809 from Susy Rankin, widow and relict of Richard Rankin of Mecklenburg, $200, to David Smith, her right of dower in all land which her late husband died owning.

[49] See note 39.

^[50] Anne Williams McAllister and Kathy Gunter Sullivan, Court of Pleas & Quarter Sessions Lincoln County, North Carolina April 1805 – October 1808 (1988), abstract of court minutes for January 1808, William Rankin v. Susy Rankin, jury awarded plaintiff damages of £ 106.7.6, of which judgment was rendered against Samuel Lowrie Esq. for £ 48.16.

^[51] Miles S. Philbeck & Grace Turner, Lincoln County, North Carolina, Will Abstracts, 1779-1910 (Chapel Hill, NC: 1986), abstract of Lincoln Will Book 1: 405, will of Thomas Rhyne naming inter alia son John Rhyne, witnessed by William Rankin and Richard Rankin, 2 Jun 1834.

^[52] E.g., Lincoln Co. Deed Book 2: 543, deed of 19 Apr 1780 from James Coburn of Lincoln to Samuel Rankin, same, 180A on Kuykendall’s Cr. adjacent Thomas Rhine’s corner.

^[53] NC State Archives, C.R.060.801.21, Lincoln County Wills, 1769 – 1926 Quickle – Reep, file folder labeled “Rankin, Samuel 1826,” original will of Samuel Rankin of Lincoln County dated 16 Dec 1814, proved April 1826, recorded in Will Book 1: 37. According to a 1930s W.P.A. transcription of Samuel Sr.’s tombstone, now lost, he died in 1816.

^[54] 1820 federal census, Lincoln Co., NC, listing for John Rhyne, 26 < 45, 1 female 26 < 45, 1 male 16 < 26 (presumably the indentured Sam), 4 males < 10 and 2 females < 10; one person engaged in manufacturing.

^[55] John Rhyne didn’t marry until 1808, so the male in the 16 < 26 age bracket listed with him in the 1820 was not John’s son. Frances T. Ingmire, Lincoln County North Carolina Marriage Records 1783-1866, Volume I, Males (Athens, GA: Iberian Publishing Co., 1993).

^[56] Helen C. & Timothy R. Marsh, Land Deed Genealogy of Rutherford County, Tennessee, Vol. 1 (1804 – 1813)(Greenville, SC: Southern Historical Press, 2001), abstract of Deed Book A: 194.

^[57] FHL Film No. 24,806, Item 3, Tax List, 1809-1849, Rutherford County, Tennessee.

^[58] 1820 federal census, Rutherford Co., TN, listings for Robert Rankin, David Rankins, and two listings for Samuel Rankin.

Some Colonial North Carolina Rankin Lines: an Overview

It is extremely easy to conflate families having the same surname when they lived in the same area at roughly the same time. In North Carolina, all of the Rankin lines first appeared in the area that was originally Anson County. At its formation, Anson included an enormous territory. Its northern border was the Virginia, line until the formation of Rowan County in 1753. It had no western boundary until the formation of Mecklenburg in 1762. Its southern boundary was indeterminate until the survey of the SC line in 1764.

In short, the Rankin families of Rowan, Lincoln, Rutherford, Mecklenburg, Iredell, and Guilford Counties all lived in areas that were originally part of Anson. As if that weren’t bad enough, they all recycled the same male given names ad infinitum: Robert, David, John, Samuel, and William. With that in mind, here is some basic information about several of these colonial Rankin lines. The objective is to help you distinguish among those families when you run across them.

First, a caveat. If you have read my article about the Scots-Irish,[1] you know that the earliest migrants into the colonies from Ulster arrived around 1700 and settled mostly in New England. Among those were evidently some Rankins. I know absolutely nothing about New England Rankins. What I do know with a modicum of confidence is something about colonial Rankin families of North Carolina. I mucked about the North Carolina records for more than a year, trying to identify the parents of my last conclusively proved Rankin ancestor.

Here are the North Carolina Rankin families briefly sketched in this article: (1) Joseph Rankin of Delaware (1704-1764), two of whose sons went to Guilford County; (2) Samuel and Eleanor (“Ellen”) Alexander Rankin of Lincoln (then Gaston) County; (3) Robert and Rebecca Rankin of Guilford County; (4) David and Margaret Rankin of Iredell County; and (5) Robert Rankin (wives Mary Withrow and Leah MNU)of Rutherford County. Here are brief descriptions of each family.

Joseph Rankin of Delaware (1704-1764) (“Joseph of Delaware”), wife Rebecca MNU. Their sons John and William moved to Rowan/Guilford County.

Joseph of Delaware had definitely arrived in the colonies by 1731, when he acquired a tract in New Castle County, Delaware. He is buried at Head of Christiana Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Newark, New Castle County, where his tombstone survives. Joseph’s wife Rebecca (MNU) and his son William were administrators of his estate. His place of birth is unproved, although a serious gambler would put a lot of money on Ulster. One local history claims he was born in Clyde, Scotland, which is also possible. He had at least seven children. Four sons are conclusively proved (Joseph Jr., Thomas, John, and William), two sons are suggested by circumstantial evidence (Robert and James), and a daughter Ann, d.s.n.p., is proved by the will of her brother, Joseph Jr.

Joseph’s proved sons Joseph Jr. and Thomas remained in New Castle, where both died. Thomas, a Lieutenant in the Delaware militia, is buried in the same grave as his father. The DAR placed a “patriot” marker on the grave, probably giving rise to a claim by one researcher that Joseph (who died in 1764) was a Revolutionary War soldier. If so, he was a ghostly presence.

I have been unable to track Robert or James beyond brief appearances in the New Castle records.

Joseph’s other two sons, John and William Rankin, migrated to that part of Rowan Co., NC which later became Guilford County. John (born 1736, New Castle County, died 1814, Guilford) went to North Carolina first, about 1765-68. His wife was Hannah Carson. William Rankin (born 1744, New Castle, died 1804, Guilford) went to NC about 1768-70, where he married Jennet/Jean Chambers.

John and William are buried at the old Buffalo Presbyterian Church in Greensboro. They each had many children and grandchildren, and their lines were meticulously researched by Reverend Samuel Meek Rankin. His research is documented in his book, The Rankin and Wharton Families and Their Genealogy, originally published in 1931 and now available online in its entirety at at the UNC library website. For the record, Rev. Rankin’s book is dead wrong about Joseph of Delaware being the father of Samuel Rankin, see below.

Two of Joseph of Delaware’s proved descendants have YDNA tested and are a 37-marker match with a genetic distance (“GD”) of 1, a close match. One of the men is a participant in the Rankin DNA Project. Joseph’s line is part of Lineage 1B of the Rankin project, see the chart here. Joseph’s descendants also match the lines of Robert and Rebecca Rankin of Guilford County and David Rankin of Iredell County. More about them below. Together, those two families and Joseph of Delaware’s line comprise Rankin DNA Project Lineage 1.

Samuel Rankin (1734 – 1816) of Lincoln Co., NC and wife Eleanor (“Ellen”) Alexander (1740 – 1802)

Thanks to a family legend and YDNA testing, I am reasonably confident that Samuel and Eleanor are my ancestors. I therefore tend to be a bit prissy with respect to misinformation about them. Some researchers claim Samuel and Eleanor were married in Pennsylvania, which is demonstrably incorrect. Eleanor appeared in North Carolina deed and court records with her Alexander family of origin as a child in 1753 and 1755. She married Samuel about 1759-60, almost certainly in North Carolina. Their eldest son, William, was born in North Carolina in January 1761.

Some researchers assert that Samuel was born in Paxtang, Pennsylvania, although there seems to be no evidence for that claim. I think it’s highly improbable. Samuel may be the same man as the Samuel Rankin who appeared on the 1753 tax list for Sadsbury Township in Chester County, Pennsylvania There were no other Rankins on that list.

Samuel and Eleanor lived on Dutchman’s Creek in the part of Lincoln County that later became Gaston County. His nickname, I was charmed to learn, was “Old One-Eyed Sam.” I don’t know how he lost an eye. He and Eleanor had seven sons (William, Samuel, Robert, David, Richard, Alexander, and James) and three daughters (Jane/Jean, Anne, and Eleanor). William, Alexander, James, Jane, and Anne stayed in Lincoln County, or nearby. Richard Rankin died in Mecklenburg County, just east of the Catawba River. You can see Richard’s headstone on Beatty’s Ford Road north of Charlotte in the left foreground in the banner photo on this website. Three of Samuel and Eleanor’s sons (Samuel Jr., Robert, and David) and a daughter (Eleanor Rankin Dickson) went to Rutherford County, Tennessee. David stayed in Murfreesboro, but his three siblings moved on to Shelby County, Illinois.

Two theories about the father/parents of Samuel Rankin (Sr.) still have proponents on the internet. Both of them have been conclusively disproved by Y-DNA testing, see the article at this link. I have found no evidence in colonial records regarding the identity of Samuel’s parents. He is probably the original Rankin immigrant in his line.

Robert and Rebecca Rankin of Guilford Co., NC (“R&R”)

This family arrived in the colonies in 1750 from Letterkenny Parish, Donegal County, Ireland, where their children were probably born. [1] They were in Pennsylvania for only a short while. Robert Sr. and his son George Rankin (or perhaps Robert Jr. and his brother George) were included on the 1753 tax list for West Nottingham Township in Chester County. R&R then came to Guilford County in 1755 as part of the Nottingham Colony, a group of Scots-Irish members of Nottingham Presbyterian Church, now located in Maryland (it was then in Pennsylvania). Here is a map of Chester County in 1712 showing the Nottingham lots, located in disputed territory that wound up in Maryland.

R&R had at least two proved sons who died in Guilford County: George (died in 1760), whose wife was Lydia Steele, and Robert (died in 1795), whose wife’s identity is a matter of controversy among Rankin researchers. Some Rankin family trees and at least one compiled Rankin history conflate the Robert who died in 1795 with his father Robert (husband of Rebecca), who died about 1770-73. The article at this link addresses that issue.

According to Rev. S. M. Rankin, R&R also had a son John who proved to be a research dead end for me, although the Guilford records suggest that is possible. R&R also had a daughter Ann, whose husband was the William Denny who died in Guilford in 1770. R&R probably had other children as well, including two daughters who might be deemed only likely: Margaret (Rankin) Braly or Brawley, widow of Thomas Braly/Brawley, and Rebecca (Rankin) Boyd, widow of John Boyd. Evidence concerning those daughters is discussed in this articl e.

All of the above is conventional wisdom so far as I know, except for (1) the identity of the wife of R&R’s son Robert Rankin who died in 1795 (see discussion under David Rankin of Iredell, below), (2) Ann as a daughter of R&R, (3) the two likely daughters Margaret and Rebecca, and (4) the death date of George Rankin, son of R&R. Rev. Rankin said George died in 1761, but that was probably a typo. George actually died in 1760, when his will was both written and probated.

David Rankin of Iredell Co., NC (d. 1789), wife Margaret LNU (“Iredell David”)

David Rankin’s 1789 Iredell will and other records establish a wife Margaret and three children: Robert, James (not explicitly named in the will), and Elizabeth (ditto). Both James and Elizabeth are established by the will, even though it doesn’t provide their given names, and other records.

Iredell David’s son Robert may be and probably is the same man as the “Mystery Robert” who applied for a Revolutionary War Pension from Gibson County, Tennessee in 1832. I made that argument in this article, although my opinion should be deemed somewhat speculative. The identity of Robert’s wife is also a matter of controversy. Some researchers believe his wife was a Jean Denny (1755-1779) from Guilford County. Some Jean Denny definitely married some Robert Rankin in Guilford County in 1775. Other researchers believe that Jean Denny of Guilford married Robert, the son of R&R who died in Guilford in 1795. I disagree, because I believe that Robert (son of R&R) of Guilford was Jean Denny’s uncle. This question requires a fairly lengthy argument which I will save for another day.

In any event, Robert and his wife Jean had two sons: (1) Denny, who married Sarah McMinn, and (2) James, who married Elizabeth McMinn, Sarah’s sister. Both families remained in Iredell. Two of Denny’s sons moved to Gibson County, TN (home of “Mystery Robert”) and then to Shelby Co., TN, where they both died. Many of James and Elizabeth’s descendants remained in Iredell; some are still there today. They are nice folks.

Iredell David’s son James died in the Battle of Ramsour’s Mill in Lincoln Co. in June 1780. His wife was a Miss Alexander (probably Susannah), and they had four children who are proved by Lincoln County guardian records: (1) David Rankin, born by 1781, Lincoln; (2) Margaret (“Peggy”) Rankin who married Thomas Witherspoon in Lincoln, 6 Jul 1801; (3) William Rankin who married. Mary Lourance/Lawrence, 17 Jan 1810; and (4) Jane/Jean Rankin m. William Crays.

Iredell deed records suggest that Iredell David’s daughter was probably Elizabeth, wife of Samuel McCrary (or McCreary).

For a lengthy chart (including supporting records) on the line of David of Iredell, see the article at this link.

Robert Rankin of Rutherford County, NC (b. 1748-49, d. 1816, Caldwell County, KY), m#1 Mary Withrow, m#2 Leah LNU (“Rutherford Robert”)

Francis Gill did the definitive research on Rutherford Robert and published a book about him and others. I cannot find a copy of his book available for either purchase or loan, or I would buy it.

Rutherford Robert married Mary Withrow in Tryon County, North Carolina in 1769. He owned land on Second Broad River in what ultimately became Rutherford County. He and his future Withrow in-laws may have been listed on the tax list for Aston Township, Chester Co., PA in 1768, before going to NC. Rutherford Robert and Mary Withrow divorced, and he married as his second wife Leah LNU. They wound up in Caldwell County, Kentucky, where Robert applied for tax relief in a document establishing his birth year as 1748-49. He left a will naming his children Margaret, James, John, Rachel and David (children of Mary Withrow) and Elizabeth, Jennet, Jesse and Elias (children of his second wife Leah). The children evidently scattered to the four winds. At least one of them, Jesse, wound up in Gibson County, Tennessee, see this article about him.

Whew! This article became longer than I expected. Hope this helps a bit in keeping these families straight. One final note: a couple of people who have read my articles say they never look at the footnotes, which just make them too long. I have started omitting them, for the most part. However, if anyone wants a citation to a source for anything in this or any other article, please let me know and I will be happy to provide it.

See you on down the road.

Robin

[1] See the article at https://digupdeadrelatives.com/2018/12/28/reprise-scots-irish-anyway/

[1] John Rankin, a Shaker preacher and grandson of R&R, hand-wrote his autobiography at age 88. These details about the migration of R&R are from that autobiography. See “Auto-biography of John Rankin, Sen.” (South Union, Ky., 1845), transcribed in Harvey L. Eads, ed., History of the South Union Shaker Colony from 1804 to 1836 (South Union, Ky., 1870), Shaker Museum at South Union, Auburn, Kentucky (SMSU), 29-30. For a typescript of Eads’s history, see Shaker Record A at the Special Collections Library, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky (WKU). The above citation can be found at this link.

James and Ann Alexander of Anson – Rowan County, NC: someone please knock down this brick wall!

One of the things that surprised me about family history research is that I started liking some of my ancestors. Amazingly, one can learn a great deal about people who lived a couple of centuries ago, including their fundamental character and even specific personality traits. A fertile imagination helps, but is not essential.

Even ostensibly dry county records are often revealing, and the occasional personal record can be a fabulous find. I love my great-great uncles Napoleon Bonaparte Rankin (“Pole,” a house painter) and Washington Marion Rankin (“Wash,” a “clever engineer”), who wrote each other letters in the 1880s. Their correspondence revealed a shared wicked sense of humor and considerable affection.

Other relatives are not so appealing. E.g., William Rankin, eldest son of Samuel and Eleanor Alexander Rankin.[1]

Fortunately, likeable ancestors abound. My ancestors James and Ann Alexander of Rowan County are among them for two main reasons. First, they executed sweet gift deeds to five of their six children. Second, Ann Alexander bested William, their eldest son, on at least one legal issue. Eighteenth century women rarely appeared in county records, making it difficult to learn much about them. Courtroom victories by females were even less common. Ann, who appeared in several records, clearly had some mettle. I admire her grit, and imagine that having an adverse relationship with her son was not easy.

Meanwhile, this article contains: (1) links to some websites that provide a great deal of information about Alexanders; (2) a brief description of some major unknowns about James and Ann Alexander’s family; and (3) what the records do reveal about them.

Let’s start with the links, including two for the Alexander DNA project.

The first link summarizes Alexander family lineages for all Y-DNA participants in the Alexander DNA Project. The line of James and Ann Alexander is designated the “Spartanburg Confused Family,” or “SpartCons” for short.[2]Find the SpartCons here.

The next link tabulates the Alexander Y-DNA project results. project results. It also refers to the line of James and Ann as “Spartanburg Confused.”

Finally, here is the website of my friend, distant cousin, and fellow SpartCon John F. Alexander. It has a wealth of information about the line of James and Ann. John asks me to add that it is a work in progress and readers are welcome to send him comments, corrections and additions that are supported by evidence.

As for the major unknowns about James and Ann, I hope that someone can fill in some of these blanks. The Alexanders qualify for me as what genealogists call a “brick wall,” meaning that my efforts to identify their parents have been unsuccessful. I don’t even know where or when James Alexander was born, much less who his parents were. Ditto for his wife Ann. They are both undoubtedly Scots-Irish, but … were they the original immigrants, or were they born here, and their parents were immigrants? I don’t know the answers to any of those questions.

I think I know where James and Ann came from before they arrived in Anson/Rowan County. That was almost certainly Amelia County, Virginia in the 1740s. The clue regarding a prior Virginia location in the North Carolina records was that James had some Virginia currency among the assets of his estate.[3] That’s pretty thin circumstantial evidence, but better than none.

Some James and Ann Alexander lived in Amelia County from about 1742 through 1749.[4] The timing is perfect, since that is just before James and Ann appeared in Anson County, NC some time before 1752. James and Ann were the only Alexanders who appeared in the Amelia records during that time period, except for a William Alexander who witnessed one deed and who may have been their eldest son.[5] The absence of other Alexanders raises the inference that James and Ann migrated with Ann’s family of origin rather than James’s.

James and Ann lived near several other Scots-Irish families in Amelia, including Ewings, Wallaces, Gillespies, and Cunninghams, and appeared in records with several of them.[6] James Ewing, one of their Scots-Irish neighbors, came from Cecil County, MD, where he owned land.[7] James and Ann undoubtedly also came to Amelia from the area around Philadelphia/Wilmington, where many Scots-Irish arrived from Ulster during the eighteenth century. Their families most likely first lived in Chester or Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Cecil County, Maryland, or New Castle County, Delaware. I have no evidence, although there are a great many Alexanders, Gillespies, Ewings and other Scots-Irish in the records of those counties in the 1700s.

The last entry for James and Ann in the Amelia County records was in September 1749, when they sold their tract on Fort Creek adjacent the Gillespies and Ewings.[8] In 1750, James first appeared in the records of Anson County, North Carolina, in a land grant and a survey there.[9] The family was clearly living in Anson County by 1752, when James received a Granville grant for the 640 acres on Kerr Creek (also known as James Cathey’s Mill Creek) that had been surveyed for him in 1750.[10] The deed referred to him as “James Alexander, Gent., of Anson County.”

In early 1753, James and Ann executed deeds giving land and livestock to five of their six children (all except William).[11] James may have been getting his affairs in order, since he died a few months later. All five deeds are dated January 7, 1753, and all of them recite love, goodwill and affection for each child as the consideration. Although there are similar recitations of consideration in many other colonial gift deeds from parent to child, it continues to strike me as a lovely thing to put in the permanent records. Also, Ann Alexander, although not named as a grantor in any of the deeds, signed at least four of them with her mark.[12] As a married woman, she had no legal existence of her own and consequently no legal right to convey that land. Adding her signature simply put her stamp of approval on both the conveyance itself and the love and affection recited as consideration.

Each of the first three deeds – gifts to James Jr., John and David – refers to the grantee as “planter.” This was a designation of one’s profession: e.g., planter, blacksmith, trader, or just “gentleman.” In January 1753, David (the youngest of the three) was probably just teetering on the brink of adulthood. He was definitely not more than eighteen, and probably a year or two younger than that. His parents may have been taking pains to treat David as an adult. Perhaps there was a twinkle in the parental eyes when they executed those deeds.

Eleanor, the only Alexander daughter, did not receive land, which isn’t unusual. A colonial female rarely owned a fee simple interest in land. If a woman owned any interest at all in real property, it was usually just a life estate in some or all of her deceased husband’s land. Instead of land, James and Ann gave Eleanor a “gray mair” [sic] and three “cow yearlings.” Her appearance in that deed is important for more than proof of her parents and siblings, because her name is a source of minor controversy among family history researchers. Most call her “Ellen,” which is the name on her tombstone and what she was probably called.[13] They may be right, but I will just say this: a court record identified her given name as Eleanor; [14] at least three deeds (one with her signature as “Elender”) do the same;[15] and she had a daughter and at least five granddaughters, all named Eleanor rather than Ellen.[16] Those facts surely establish that her given name was actually Eleanor. Her nickname was Ellen. She married Samuel Rankin about 1759 – early 1760.[17] Eleanor’s brother David (not her father, as the author of one Rankin family history incorrectly speculated) sold Samuel his 320-acre tract on James Cathy’s Mill Creek in 1760.[18]

Back to James and Ann. A deed from William Alexander to his brother Robert states that James died on June 15, 1753.[19] Ann was appointed guardian for David, Eleanor and Robert on October 22, 1755, proving they were underage on that date.[20] David and Eleanor were allowed to choose their own guardian, establishing that they were at least fourteen but not yet twenty-one. The court appointed Ann guardian for Robert, stating that he was then about age twelve.

The Rowan county deed and court records prove one more son, William. He wasn’t a grantee among the 1753 gift deeds, which may just mean that James and Ann had already provided for him in some fashion. In 1756, William executed confirmation deeds to his two minor brothers, David and Robert, for the land they had received as gifts.[21] As the eldest, William was James’s heir under the North Carolina law of intestate descent and distribution, and would have been entitled to inherit James’s land had he owned any when he died. James, however, had given it all to his other four sons. Ann paid William something more than the standard gift deed price of five shillings (although still substantially less than the land was worth) to obtain those confirmation deeds. The “conveyance” insured that her sons had good title and that William would not dispute it.[22] I have seen a number of similar confirmation deeds, and the consideration recited was always “love, goodwill and affection.” William apparently preferred cash.

The records leave no doubt about the state of Ann’s relationship with William. In 1755, she hauled him into court, asserting that he was withholding assets belonging to his father’s estate.[23] Ann’s attorney also charged (undoubtedly on her authority and behalf) that William was abusing an indentured servant. I don’t know how the claim regarding the estate assets turned out, but the court sided with Ann on the abuse issue and discharged the indentured servant.[24]

The records suggest that the six Alexander children were born on approximately the dates shown below. The birth dates are estimates, except with respect to David, Eleanor and Robert, whose birth years are reasonably supported by various records: [25]

– William, born by 1728

– James Jr., born about 1730

– John, born about 1732

– David, born about 1736

– Eleanor, born 1740

– Robert, born about 1743

I haven’t found any record of William Alexander’s family or his whereabouts after Rowan County. James Jr. lived in Spartanburg, SC; John Alexander married Rachel Davidson and went to Burke/Buncombe County, NC; David married Margaret Davidson in Rowan in 1762 and went to Pendleton District (now Anderson Co.), SC; and Robert remained in Lincoln County, where he was a justice in the county court.[26]

I have not tracked any of James’s and Ann’s children except for Eleanor Alexander, wife of Samuel Rankin. Samuel and Eleanor are my ancestors, according to Y-DNA and autosomal matches. Without DNA evidence, I can prove Samuel and Eleanor as ancestors only through a family legend and very strong circumstantial evidence. The moral? Get tested!

See you on down the road.

Robin

[1] See the article titled “More on the Line of Samuel and Eleanor Alexander Rankin: Richard’s Son Samuel” here.

[2] The name “Spartanburg Confused,” or SpartCon, was assigned long ago, before discovering that James Jr., John, David and Robert were all sons of James and Ann. There are now so many references to SpartCons that changing the designation would be difficult, even though the family is not exclusively from Spartanburg (and the confusion has abated!).

[3] Jo White Linn, Abstracts of the Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, Rowan County, North Carolina, 1753-1762 (Salisbury, NC: 1977), Order Book 2: 92, entry of 25 Oct 1755, inventory of the estate of James Alexander, dec’d, included £52.11.2 Virginia money.

[4] Gibson J. McConnaughey, Court Order Book 1, Amelia County, Virginia, 1735-1746 (Amelia, VA: Mid-South Publishing Co., 1985), abstract of Order Book 1: 281A, entry of 19 Aug 1742, James Alexander paid for attending court to testify in a lawsuit; Gibson J. McConnaughey, Deed Book 3 and Deed Book 4, Amelia County, Virginia Deeds 1747-1753(Amelia, VA: Mid-South Publishing Co., 1988), abstract of Deed Book 3: 531, 30 Sep 1749 deed from James Alexander and wife Ann conveying a tract on Fort Creek.

[5] McConnaughey, abstract of Deed Book 3: 278, 19 Jul 1749 deed witnessed by William Alexander. If the witness was William, the eldest son of James and Ann, then he had probably arrived at legal age and was born by 1728.

[6] FHL Film #1,902,616, tax lists for 1744 through 1749 for the upper part of Amelia from Namozine Cr. to Cellar Cr. included James Alexander, several Cunninghams, Samuel Wallace, Samuel Ewing and Gillespies; 1744 deed to Robert Gillespie for land on Fort Creek adjacent to James Alexander (I have lost the deed book citation for that deed); McConnaughey, abstract of Amelia Co., VA Deed Book 2: 315, 1746 deed from James Alexander to James Ewing, land on Fort Creek. Grantor’s wife Ann relinquished dower.

[7] McConnaughey, abstract of Amelia Co., VA Deed Book 3: 371, power of attorney from James Ewing of Amelia to Joshua Ewing to sell a tract of land in Cecil Co., MD.

[8] Id., abstract of Amelia Co.., VA Deed Book 3: 351, deed of 30 Sep 1749 from James Alexander to John Reed, 300 acres on the north side Fort Creek adjacent Robert Galaspye [sic, Gillespie], James Ewing, Samuel Ewing and James Parks, with all houses, etc., witnessed by John Cunningham et al.

[9] NC Land Grants Vol. 4: 1040, grant dated 7 Apr 1750 to James Alexander, two tracts on both sides Rocky River; Patent Book 11: 1, survey dated 12 Nov 1750, 640 acres in Anson adjacent Andrew Kerr.

[10] Jo White Linn, Rowan County North Carolina Deed Abstracts Vol. I 1753 – 1762, Abstracts of Books 1 – 4(Salisbury, NC), Deed Book 3: 547, Granville grant dated 25 Mar 1752 to James Alexander of Anson Co., Gent., 640 acres adjacent Andrew Kerr. Witnesses included William Alexander. Notation in the margin: “to his widow.” This tract was on Kerr/James Cathey’s Mill Creek.

[11] Anson County, NC Deed Book B: 314, deed from James Alexander (also signed by Ann) to James Jr., 320 acres on Cadle (sic, Coddle) Cr. and 250 acres on the Catawba River; id. at pp. 314-315, deed from James (also signed Ann) to son John, the other half of the two tracts given to James Jr.; id. at 315, James Sr. to son David, half of the tract where I live (the tract on James Cathey’s Mill Cr.) and livestock; id., deeds from James to daughter Elener and son Robert (the other half of the tract on James Cathey’s Mill Cr.). An abstract of Anson County deeds omits the second deed, a gift of land and livestock to John Alexander. See Brent Holcomb, Anson County, N. C. Deed Abstracts Volume 1: 1749-1757 (Clinton, SC: 1974). I have copies from the deed books, however, so am confident that John is a proved son of James and Ann Alexander.

[12] The deed from James Alexander to their daughter “Elener” doesn’t mention Ann’s mark, although these deeds have been transcribed from the original deed books and are now typed.

[13] Microfilm at Clayton Genealogical library titled “North Carolina Tombstone Records, Vols. 1, 2 and 3,” compiled by the Alexander Martin and J. S. Wellborn chapters of the DAR; transcribed lists filmed 1935 by the Genealogical Society of Utah. Tombstone of Ellen Rankin, b. 16 April 1740, d. 26 Jan 1802. Other researchers give the birth date on her tombstone as 1743, although that is not consistent with the court allowing her to choose her own guardian in 1755. That required her to be at least fourteen.

[14] Linn, Abstracts of the Minutes, Order Book 2: 90, entry of 22 Oct 1755, David and Elinor Alexander (spelling per abstractor) came into court and chose their mother Ann Alexander as their guardian.

[15] Rowan County DB B: 315, gift deed from James Alexander to his daughter Elener; Linn, Rowan County Abstracts, Deed Book 6: 225, deed dated 31 Aug 1765 from Samuel Rankin and wife Eleanor (spelling per the abstractor) to John McNeeley, 320 acres on James Cathey’s Mill Creek; original of Lincoln Co. Deed Book 1: 703 (viewed at the courthouse), deed of 26 Jan 1773 from Samuel Rankin of Tryon to Philip Alston, 150 acres on Kuykendall Creek signed by Samuel Rankin and Elender Rankin. Two other deeds the same day, see DB 1: 702 et seq. were not signed by “Elender,” although she is identified in both as “Elen,” a grantor.

[16] At least five of Samuel and Eleanor Rankin’s children named a daughter “Eleanor” rather than “Ellen,” including Samuel Rankin Jr., Jean Rankin Heartgrove, Robert Rankin, David Rankin, and Eleanor Rankin Dickson. See, e.g., the tombstone of Eleanor, wife of Joseph Dickson, Ellis Cemetery, Shelby Co., Ill., here.

[17] Virgil D. White, Genealogical Abstracts of Revolutionary War Pension Files, Volume III: N-Z (Waynesboro, TN: The National Historical Publishing Co., 1992). Abstract of the pension application of William Rankin, the eldest son of Samuel and Eleanor Alexander Rankin, states that he was born January 1761 in Rowan County.

[18] Jo White Linn, Rowan County North Carolina Deed Abstracts Vol. II. 1762 – 1772 Abstracts of Books 5, 6, 7 (Salisbury, NC: 1972), Deed Book 5: 272, 14 July 1760 deed from David Alexander to Samuel Rankin, for £29 NC currency, 320 acres on both sides of James Cathey’s Mill Creek.

[19] Jo White Linn, Rowan County North Carolina Deed Abstracts Vol. I 1753 – 1762, Abstracts of Books 1 – 4(Salisbury, NC), abstract of Deed Book 3: 495, deed of 10 Jun 1756 from William Alexander, described as the eldest son and heir of James Alexander, to his brother Robert Alexander, reciting that James died intestate on 15 June 1753.

[20] Id., abstract of Rowan Co., NC Order Book 2: 90, David and Elener Alexander chose their mother Ann as guardian and the court appointed Ann the guardian of Robert, about age 12.

[21] Linn, abstract of Rowan Deed Book 3: 495, deed dated 10 Jun 1756 from William Alexander, eldest son and heir of James Alexander, to Robert Alexander, orphan of James, under 21 and brother of James, for 75 shillings paid by the widow Anne Alexander, mother of Robert and William, 320 acres on both sides James Cathey’s Mill Cr.; Deed Book 3: 498, William Alexander to David Alexander, orphan of James Alexander, under 21 and brother of William, by Anne Alexander, for 7 shillings sterling, 320 acres both sides James Cathey’s Mill Cr.

[22] I don’t know why similar confirmation deeds were apparently not needed for the gifts to James Jr. and John, who were of legal age at the time of the 1753 gift deeds. Other Rowan County records establish that Ann Alexander had an attorney, see note 23, and it seems likely that she would have obtained advice about the ability of an heir to challenge a conveyance of land via deeds of gift.

[23] Linn, abstract of Rowan Order Book 2: 77, entry of 16 Jul 1755, ordered on motion of Edward Underhill, Esq. (Ann Alexander’s attorney) that citation issue against William Alexander returnable immediately to give an account on oath what estate he has in his hands or had which were of James Alexander, dec’d, and account with Ann Alexander, administratrix for same.

[24] Id., abstract of Rowan Order Book 2: 78, ordered on motion of Edward Underhill, Esq., that James Nicholas be discharged of his indenture to William Alexander due to ill usage. Discharged. The next day, the court ordered William to produce James Nicholas in court or else to “stand committed.” Order Book 2: 81. I don’t know what “stand committed” means, but imagine it means held in contempt of court and committed to jail.

[25] See note 13 (tombstone showing Eleanor’s birth year as 1740), note 20 (in 1755, Ann Alexander chosen as guardian by Eleanor and David and appointed as guardian of Robert, about age 12) and note 21 (1756 deeds reciting that David and Robert Alexanders were still minors).

[26] This website has lineages for those members of the “Spartanburg Confused Family” who trace their line back to James and Ann.

John Allen Rankin & Amanda Lindsey: Another Family Legend

My ancestor John Allen Rankin and his wife Amanda Lindsey have a good story. From one vantage point, it is a war story. It is also a love story. The love story and war story intersect in both my family’s legend and the verifiable facts.

My father’s “how to” genealogy book advised to begin compiling one’s family history by interviewing family members. All oral family histories have errors, but even the misinformation can provide clues, says the book.

My father promptly took that “how to” advice when he was “bitten by the genealogy bug.” He and his sister, Louise Theo Rankin Jordan, set out to talk to their north Louisiana kin. Here is what he wrote to me in a 1969 letter telling me the latest he had learned:

“Dearest Robin Baby:

….Cousin Norene Sale Robinson at Homer told us that Grandma [Amanda Lindsey] was living in Monticello, Arkansas in 1863 when she met John Allen [Rankin]. He came to their door one night looking for a sister who lived there in town. Grandma said that she went to the door and ‘there stood the most handsomest soldier that she had ever seen and that she fell in love with him right there.’ They were married some time after that.”

There is a wealth of information in that legend. Its chief virtue is that the essential objective elements – location, dates, a soldier’s uniform, the people involved – are readily subject to verification. The legend also comes from an unimpeachable source, because Cousin Norene had lived with Amanda for some time and knew her as an adult. Norene had actually heard that story straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. It was not subject to the vagaries of multiple oral retellings.

I set about trying to confirm the facts in the legend.

First, Amanda’s father, Edward B. Lindsey, was living in Monticello, Drew County, Arkansas in 1860.[1]During the war, he was a member of the Monticello “Home Guard,” so he was still in Monticello 1863. So far, so good – Amanda’s family was right where the legend says they would be in 1863.

However, John Allen did not have a sister who was old enough to be married or living on her own when he was knocking on Monticello doors in (according to the legend) 1863.[2] John Allen did have a married older brother, William Henderson Rankin, living in Drew County.[3] According to the 1860 census for Monticello, William was listed just a few dwellings down from Amanda’s father Edward B. Lindsey.[4] However, William was still off fighting in the War in 1863.[5] Thus, John Allen was almost certainly looking for his sister–in-law rather than a sister. As legends go, that’s close.

It is also certain that John Allen was a soldier. My father’s 1969 letter continued with the war part of the family legend.

“Cousin Norene said that [John Allen’s] war record was never discussed by the family. It does seem funny that he was out of it in 1863. I have always thought that he was wounded in the war and that was one reason he died at a fairly young age. It seems that was what we were told. So there could be a body hidden in the closet. Anyway we will find out for I am going to send off for his war record tomorrow, and if he did desert we will keep that out of the record.”

I couldn’t find the war records among my father’s materials, so I started sending off for my own copies. Amanda’s Confederate pension application, a certifiable heartbreaker, arrived by mail first. She filed it from Haynesville, Claiborne Parish, Louisiana in April 1910.[6] She was living with her daughter, Anna Belle Rankin Sale (Cousin Norene’s mother), as of 1900.[7] Amanda signed the application in the quavery handwriting of an old person although she was only sixty-five, which doesn’t seem all that old to me. The rest of it, though, is filled out in a strong feminine hand.

Amanda swore in her application that she had no source of income whatsoever, no real property, and no personal property worth a spit. That is all unquestionably true: that didn’t change until my father’s generation of Rankins. Amanda stated further that John Allen volunteered for the Confederate Army in Pine Bluff, Arkansas on March 14, 1862. Captain Henry was his company commander, and he was in the 9th Arkansas Infantry. She also swore that John Allen was honorably discharged on April 10, 1865, which just happens to be one day after Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House.

Here we have an apparent disconnect between the legend and the pension application. The legend says that John Allen and Amanda met in 1863. Amanda swore that he was discharged two years later.

The Office of the Board of Pension Commissioners of the State of Louisiana sent Amanda’s application off to the War Department in Washington, D.C. The War Department had this to say in response.

“The records show that John A. Rankin, private, Captain Phillip G. Henry’s Company C, 9th Arkansas Infantry, Confederate States Army, enlisted July 25 (also shown August 9) 1861. On the muster roll covering the period from November 1 to December 31, 1863 (the last on which his name is borne), he is reported absent in arrest in Canton, Mississippi by order of the Provost Marshal. No later record of him has been found.”

With that information in hand, the Louisiana Pension Board Commissioners rejected Amanda’s application. “Absent in arrest” means “AWOL.”

I cannot decide whether Amanda was surprised by the denial of her application. Did she think she was telling the truth about that honorable discharge? I wonder who came up with a discharge date one day after Appomattox? In my imagination, which badly wants to give the destitute Amanda the benefit of the doubt, some nice female clerk was helping Amanda fill out the application (it is, I surmise, the clerk’s handwriting on the forms). The clerk asked when John Allen was discharged, to which Amanda responded truthfully that she did not know. The clerk, who thought she knew her history, said, “well, everyone was discharged by April 10, 1865, so why don’t we just use that date?”[8] Fine, said Amanda. The clerk naturally assumed that John Allen received an honorable discharge, or why else would Amanda even bother to apply?

John Allen’s entire military record arrived next.[9] Amanda did recite some of the facts correctly. He did enlist in the Confederate army at Pine Bluff, Arkansas – near where his family farmed, in Jefferson (now Cleveland) County. He was a private, and served in both C and K companies of the 9th Arkansas Infantry. He enlisted for a one-year term on July 25, 1861.

At the beginning of the Vicksburg Campaign, the brigade of which the 9th Arkansas Infantry was a part was located at Port Hudson, Louisiana. It was ordered to Tullahoma, Tennessee on or about 15 April 1863, but was recalled on 18 April 1863 and sent to participate in the Battle of Champion’s Hill in Mississippi on 16 May 1863.

The Confederates were out-generaled at Champion’s Hill. The Confederate in charge, General Stephen Lee (no relation to Robert E.) marched his soldiers piecemeal into Grant’s entrenched position. You don’t need to be a military genius to sense this was a dumb idea. About 4,300 Confederate soldiers and 2,500 Union soldiers were casualties. It was considered a Union victory and a decisive battle in the Vicksburg campaign.

On our way home from a trip to Nashville, Gary and I drove around the area of the battle. It is a backwoods area just east of Vicksburg, almost entirely forgotten by history. There is no park and no historical markers, except a stone monument where Confederate Brigadier General Leonard Tilghman died.

On 19 May 1863, whatever was left of John Allen’s division after Champion’s Hill arrived at Jackson, Mississippi. He was in the 1st Mississippi CSA Hospital in Jackson from May 31 to June 13, 1863. The diagnosis: “diarrhea, acute.” That was near the end of the second year of his one-year enlistment.

On September 1, 1863, now in Selma, Alabama, the army issued John Allen a new pair of pants, a jacket and a shirt, all valued on the voucher at $31.00. Good wool and cotton stuff, presumably. Probably the best suit of clothes John Allen ever owned.

On October 14, 1863, the Confederate States of America paid John Allen $44 for the pay period from May 1 through August 31, 1863.

And that was the last the CSA ever heard of my great-grandfather John Allen Rankin, who probably just walked away. By November 1, 1863, he was listed as absent on the muster roll for his unit. They finally quit carrying his name on the muster roll after December 1863.

It probably wasn’t too long after John Allen was paid in Selma in October 1863 that he was talking to his future wife at the front door of Edward B. Lindsey’s home in Monticello, Arkansas. That had to have been about the middle of November 1863, assuming he covered twenty miles per day on the 400-mile trek from Selma to Monticello.

On that note, the legend takes a decided turn for the better. He was wearing an almost brand-spanking new uniform, he was the most handsome soldier Amanda had ever seen, and she fell in love on the spot.

As noted, the last record in John Allen’s file says he was “absent in arrest in Canton by order of Provost Marshall.” By the time that AWOL arrest order was issued, he was already in Monticello, Drew County, Arkansas, making Amanda Addieanna Lindsey swoon. And that is the end of the war story.

By 1870, John and Amanda were living in Homer, Claiborne Parish, with their two eldest children, Anna Belle Rankin and Samuel Edward Rankin. The couple listed $400 in real property and $350 in personal property in the census enumeration. John Allen identified himself as a farmer. They apparently owned some land, although I cannot find a deed of purchase or a land grant to John Allen. However, he and Amanda sold nine acres in Claiborne Parish for $33 in August 1870.[10]

The sale of land is perhaps a clue that farming did not work out well. By 1880, the Rankin family was living in Webster Parish.[11] John Allen, age 36, was Deputy Sheriff. He and Amanda had six children, with one more child yet to come.

The deputy sheriff job was short-lived. A letter saved by the family of John Allen’s brother Elisha Rankin reports that John Allen and family went through Homer in October 1882 on their way to Blanchard Springs to run a barber shop.[12] I don’t know what happened to the barber shop, but the Rankins wound up back in Claiborne Parish for the rest of their lives.

The next thing you know, John Allen was six feet under. According to Amanda’s pension application, John Allen died of “congestion of the brain,” an obsolete medical term. It most likely means that John Allen had a stroke. He was only forty-five years old. There were five children age fifteen and under still at home.

Amanda must not have had an easy time thereafter. Her anguish is palpable in a letter she wrote to one of John Allen’s brothers, Elisha (nickname “Lish”) and his wife Martha. Amanda wrote the letter three months after John Allen died on Sunday, October 13, 1888. She was forty-four years old. Here is a transcription, with spelling and punctuation (or lack thereof) exactly as transcribed, and question marks where the language is uncertain or totally illegible.[13]

“Dear Brother and Sister, it is with pleasure tho a sad heart that I try to answer your kind letter I received some time ago Would have written sooner but I was in so much trouble I could not write soon We had to move Dear brother you have no idea how glad I was to get a letter from you I feel like one forsaken My happiness on earth is for ever gone of course I know you grieve for the Dear (?) house (?) but oh what is the grief to be compared to misery when a woman loses her husband. How sad I feel today for the dear one was a corpse on sunday. how long seems the days and nights to me.

“Brother Lish you wanted to know how we are getting along We are in det over one hundred dollars and no hom. I have moved to Mr. Weeks to work on ????? Jimmy Burton my Nephew is going to ??? after the little boys and show them how to manage this year. Eddie [Amanda’s son, Samuel Edward] is at Harrisville [Haynesville?]. I could not depend on him to ?????? He is not settled yet. I will ???? ???? me and the children a longe time to pay our det. It was the oldest children that caused me to be so bad in det. If I was young and able to work I would feel like maybe in two or three years we wold get out of det. I will do all I can to help the boys make a crop. Joe [Amanda’s son, Joseph D. Rankin] is 16 but he don’t now how to work much. I have got a few hogs and cowes all I have got. Annie and Lula [her daughters Anna Belle and Lula, both of whom married men named Sale] married brothers. They have got good homes. They live 3 miles from me. They live in site of each other.

“Brother Lish be sure to write as soon as you get this it does me so much good to get a letter from any of you how proud I was to think you thought enough of me to inquire after my welfare tho it is quite different to what you thought it was some times I all most give up and not try to work then I think of the poor little children and no father to provide for them I try to pick up courage to work all I can for there was ????? she is no longer a pet we sent her to school last year teach come to see me about the pay I told him I could not pay it. He said he would wait untill next fall or the next year untill I could pay it ?? ??? ??? ???? ?? ???? ?? ????with me for it if she had a ??? and out of det maybe we could make a living but in det and no home ???? and little childern no father oh lord father give me

“Brother Lish I am a fraid you cant read this. It has been so long since I wrote a letter. Give Mother my love [presumably, “mother” refers to Mary Estes Rankin, the mother of John Allen and Lish] and tell her to pray for me that I ???? ???? my children ???? I will have to be Father and Mother both. Give my love to all the connection and tell them to write. My love to Martha and the children write soon and often I remain ever ?????? ???? Sister.

Amanda Rankin”

May you rest in peace, Amanda and John Allen. Both are buried in the Haynesville Cemetery in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana.

See you on down the road.

Robin Rankin Willis

* * * * * * * *

^[1] See “Edward Buxton Lindsey: One of My Family Legends” here.

^[2] John Allen had two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth (“Lizzie”) Rankin. 1860 census for Jefferson Co., AR, dwl. 549, listing for Samuel Rankin included Mary Rankin, age 10; 1870 census, Jefferson Co., AR, dwl. 17, listing for Mary F. Rankin (Sam’s widow) included Elizabeth Rankin, 8. The elder daughter, Mary, would only have been about thirteen in 1863.

^[3] Jennie Belle Lyle, Marriage Record Book B, Drew Co., Arkansas (Little Rock: Democrat Printing & Lithography Co., 1966), William H. Rankin, 20, married Eliza Jane Law, 21, July 1, 1858.

^[4] 1860 federal census, Drew Co., AR, dwelling 155, listing for William Rankin and dwelling 167, E. B. Lindsey.

^[5] William H. Rankin’s service record at the National Archives indicates that he enlisted from Monticello in the Confederate Army on 8 Feb 1862 for three years or the duration of the war. He was listed as present on his company’s muster roll through Oct. 31, 1864.

^[6] Louisiana State Archives, “Widow’s Application for Pension” of Amanda A. Rankin, widow of John A. Rankin, P.O. Haynesville, LA, filed 4 Apr 1910.

^[7] 1900 federal census, Haynesville, Claiborne Parish, LA, household of A. C. sale with mother-in-law Amanda Rankin, wife Annie Sale, and children.

^[8] That’s not quite accurate. Some fighting continued after Lee’s surrender on April 9.

^[9] National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C., Civil War record for Rankin, John A., Companies C and K, Arkansas Infantry, Private.

^[10] FHL Film # 265,980, Claiborne Parish Deed Book J: 226.

^[11] 1870 census, Webster Parish, LA, dwl 255, J. A. Rankin, wife Amanda Rankin, and children Anna Belle, Edward, Lulu, Joseph, Marvin, and Melvin.

^[12] Letter from Washington Marion Rankin (“Wash”), who lived in Homer, to his brother Napoleon Bonaparte (“Pole”) Rankin dated October 1882. See Note 13.

^[13] I do not own, and have never seen, the original of the family letters. I obtained a transcription from Megan Franks, a descendant of Elisha Rankin, John Allen’s brother. Another distant cousin reportedly owns the original of Amanda’s letter, as well as several other Rankin letters from the 1880s. I called and wrote to him (he lives in Houston) but he did not respond.

The Rankins of Guilford County, NC: the Mistaken Identity of Robert Rankin Who Died in 1795

A professional genealogist once told me that most trees on the internet aren’t worth the paper it would take to print them. She said the most serious mistake a rookie can make is to use information from someone else’s tree without confirming it. Her advice was too late for me: I had already learned that lesson the hard way.

When I was a still a beginning family history researcher, I sent a chart for one of my lines to the administrator of the Graves Family Association website at his request.[1] The chart included information I had obtained from other researchers on the identity of my early Graves ancestors. Unfortunately, I had not confirmed the information with my own research.

I wish I had remembered that before I forwarded the chart. Ken Graves, the website administrator, replied with a blistering email excoriating me for perpetuating a fiction that serious researchers had long ago discarded. My screen and my red face were both too hot to touch after I read that email.[2]

We all make mistakes, even if we don’t naïvely adopt someone else’s data. Original records are incomplete or the courthouse burned down entirely. The handwriting in films of original records is faded, blurred, or indecipherable. Our ancestors recycled the same given names ad nauseam, producing a frequent error called “same name confusion.” Other mistakes are probably caused by the occasionally unwarranted aura of accuracy enjoyed by books and journals. Some mistakes are just plain ol’ carelessness.

Here’s an example: Robert Rankin who died in 1795 in Guilford Co., NC

An error about one of the early Rankins in Guilford County, North Carolina combines same name confusion and carelessness. It may have originated in a Rankin compiled history which wrongly interpreted the 1795 will of Robert Rankin as being the will of the “patriarch” – the eldest immigrant – of his Guilford family line.[3] The ease of importing data from online trees probably guarantees the error’s immortality.

Robert Rankin the patriarch (let’s call him “Old Robert”) had a wife named Rebecca, maiden name unproved.[4] Old Robert and Rebecca had a son named George.[5] The 1795 will identified the testator as “Robert Rankin Senior” of Guilford County.[6] The will devised land to a son named George. It did not name a wife, who evidently predeceased him. In short, identifying the testator in the 1795 will as Old Robert seems reasonable at first glance. On second glance, not so much.

The problem is that Old Robert and Rebecca’s son George died in 1760 – thirty-five years before some Robert Rankin wrote that 1795 will.[7] Presumably, Robert the testator intended to devise land to a flesh-and-blood son George rather than someone who had been dead for several decades.

Guilford County is admittedly tough on Rankin researchers. There are a dizzying number of country records referencing, e.g., Robert Rankin, Robert Rankin Sr., and/or Robert Rankin Jr. One state grant mentions all three![8]As was common, the line of Old Robert and Rebecca recycled the same names ad infinitum, so that every generation had at least one Robert.

Guilford is also rough sledding because there were three Rankin “patriarchs” in Guilford: (1) John Rankin (1736-1814) who married Hannah Carson and is a proved son of Joseph and Rebecca Rankin of Delaware;[9] (2) John’s brother William Rankin (1744-1804), who married Jane Chambers; and (3) Old Robert Rankin and his wife Rebecca, who came to Pennsylvania from Letterkenny Parish, County Donegal, Ireland about 1750 and moved a few years later to the part of Rowan County that became Guilford.[10]

The facts in brief

Two facts prove that the Robert Rankin who wrote a will and died in 1795 in Guilford County – call him “Robert died in 1795” – was not Old Robert. First, a book about the Buffalo Presbyterian Church of Guilford establishes that Old Robert died well before 1795.[11] Second, the George Rankin issue: Old Robert’s son George, who died in 1760, was obviously not the same man as George, a devisee in the 1795 will. In fact, Guilford records establish that George the devisee was alive and well after 1795.

When did Old Robert with wife Rebecca die? Answer: circa 1770, definitely by 1773

Rev. Samuel Meek Rankin provides information about Old Robert Rankin in his book History of Buffalo Presbyterian Church and Her People. Rev. Rankin identified Old Robert as having belonged to Nottingham Presbyterian Church in Pennsylvania.[12] Old Robert and his family (or some of them) migrated to North Carolina in the early 1750s.[13] The family acquired land in that part of Rowan County that later became Guilford.[14] Rev. Rankin identified Old Robert’s wife as Rebecca, whose name is confirmed in a 1755 gift deed of land by the couple to their son George.[15] According to Rev. Rankin, Old Robert and Rebecca had children “George, Robert, Rebecca, John and others.”[16]

For purposes of this article, we are only concerned with Old Robert and Rebecca, their sons George and Robert, and a grandson named – I’m sure you can guess this – Robert. A few facts about them are in order. Rev. Rankin says that George died in 1761, although his will was actually written and proved in 1760.[17] George’s will named his widow Lydia (Steele) and two minor sons, John and Robert. The latter is the grandson we have in mind.

George and Lydia’s son John – the future Shaker Reverend John – inherited the 480-acre tract on Brushy Fork that Old Robert and Rebecca had given to George. John sold it and left Guilford before 1800.[18] George and Lydia’s other son Robert, grandson of Old Robert, fought in the Revolutionary War and applied for a pension in 1833.[19]Bless his heart, because the application provides useful information. Let’s call him “Rev War Robert,” with “Rev” short for “Revolutionary,” not “Reverend.” His application establishes that Rev War Robert was born in Guilford County in May 1759 and that he moved to McNairy County, Tennessee in 1830. It is important for this narrative that Rev War Robert lived into the nineteenth century: hold that thought.

Meanwhile, Reverend Samuel Meek Rankin had this to say about Old Robert, who was (according to oral tradition) one of the first elders in Buffalo Church:

Robert Rankin is another whom Rev. J. C. Alexander said tradition listed as one of the first elders. He settled here in 1753 … he died before the first date in the minute book.”[20]

Reverend Rankin said there were no records for Buffalo Church “from the organization in 1756 to 1773.” Consequently, Old Robert Rankin, husband of Rebecca, must have died by 1773. Rev. Rankin states elsewhere that Old Robert died about 1770, although there is no extant tombstone for him in the Buffalo Church cemetery.[21]

What about the George named in the will of Robert Rankin d. 1795?

Let’s look closely at Robert Rankin’s 1795 will, which names the following devisees and beneficiaries:[22]

- his son George.
- his three grandsons William Rankin Wilson, Andrew Wilson and Maxwell Wilson, sons of his deceased daughter Mary Rankin and her husband Andrew Wilson. Robert devised land on Buffalo Creek to George and the three Wilson grandsons.
- his daughter Isobel.
- and (5) two unnamed living daughters, each of whom was to receive one-fifth of Robert’s personal estate.

Subsequent Guilford County records establish that George Rankin was still alive in 1795, when his father wrote his will. About three years after Robert died, George surveyed the land he and his Wilson nephews inherited. Robert’s will prescribed a detailed metes and bounds description for how his land on Buffalo Creek was to “be divided.” The document filed in the real property records expressly recites that the survey of the tract was required by the will of Robert Rankin, deceased, and by his executor.[23] Some two decades later, George Rankin made a gift of a portion of that tract to his own son – named Robert, of course.[24]

So … who the heck was the Robert who died in 1795?

Naturally, there were several Robert Rankins living in Guilford County in the late 18^th century. We can eliminate anyone from the lines of John Rankin and Hannah Carson or William Rankin and Jean Chambers. Their sons named Robert (each couple had one) lived well past 1795.[25] The testator in 1795 was not Rev War Robert, son of George and Lydia Steele Rankin, because his pension file proves that he survived to the 19^th century, dying in 1833. The only Robert Rankin in Guilford in 1795 who was old enough to have three grandsons, and who did notlive into the nineteenth century, was Robert Rankin, son of Old Robert and Rebecca.

And that is enough about one of the many Robert Rankins of Guilford County, North Carolina.

* * * * * * * * * * *

[1] See http://www.gravesfa.org.

[2] Ken Graves subsequently sent me and my cousin Barbara Parker (who is also descended from John Graves of Halifax, VA) an email telling us Y-DNA research had proved that we are not descended from the famous Capt. John Graves of early 1600s Virginia. We are therefore not related to Ken. His email was positively gleeful. So was I. I have heard about him from other DNA project administrators.

[3] A. Gregg Moore and Forney A. Rankin, The Rankins of North Carolina (Marietta, GA: A. G. Moore, 1997).

[4] Rev. S. M. Rankin, History of Buffalo Presbyterian Church and Her People (Greensboro, NC: J. J. Stone & Co., Printers, 1934) at 27. See also the gift deed in Note 5 from Robert and Rebecca to their son George Rankin.

[5] Jo White Linn, Rowan County North Carolina Deed Abstracts Vol. 1, 1753 – 1762, Abstracts of Books 1 – 4(Salisbury, NC), abstract of Deed Book 2: 70, a gift deed dated 13 Apr 1755 from Robert and Rebecca Rankin to their son George for 5 shillings (the usual gift deed consideration), 480 acres on the south side of Brushy Fork. Robert paid 10 shillings for that tract, which was a Granville grant. Id., abstract of Deed Book 2: 102.

[6] Clayton Genealogical Library microfilm, “NC Guilford County Wills Books A-B 1771-1838,” File #312, will of Robert Rankin Sr. dated 30 May 1795 proved Nov 1795, devising land on the south side of Buffalo Creek to his son George Rankin and grandsons William Rankin Willson, Andrew Willson and Maxwell Willson. Robert also named his daughter Isobel and two other living daughters who weren’t identified by either a given name or a married surname.

[7] Id., “NC Rowan County Will Books A-B 1767-1793,” will of George Rankin of Rowan County dated 23 May 1760, proved Oct 1760. Witnesses to the will included Robert Rankin (either George’s father or his brother), William Denny (George’s brother-in-law, whose wife was George’s sister Ann Rankin Denny), and John Braley (another brother-in-law). See the article titled “Four Robert Rankins of Guilford County, NC” at this link.

[8] E.g., William D. Bennett, Guilford County Deed Book One (Raleigh, NC: Oaky Grove Press, 1990), abstract of Deed Book 1: 504, 16 Dec 1778 state grant to Moses McClain, 200 acres adjacent Jonas Touchstone, Robert McKnight, David Allison, Robert Rankin Jr.’s line, along Robert Rankin Sr.’s line, NC Grant Book No. 33: 83. There is one deed in my Lunenburg Co., VA Winn line in which the grantee and two witnesses to a deed were identified as John Winn, John Winn, and John Winn. No “Sr.” or “Jr.,” or “John Winn, carpenter,” or “John Winn of Amelia County.” Those three men obviously had a sense of whimsy. Lunenburg Deed Book 7: 231.

[9] FHL Film No. 6564, New Castle Co., DE Deed Book Y1: 499, deed dated Apr 1768 from grantors John Rankin of Orange Co., NC (a predecessor to Guilford County) and his wife Hannah, and William Rankin of New Castle Co., DE, to grantees Thomas Rankin and Joseph Rankin, both of New Castle, land devised to John and William by their father Joseph Rankin.

[10] Autobiography of George and Lydia Rankin’s son John Rankin, “Auto-biography of John Rankin, Sen.” (South Union, Ky., 1845), transcribed in Harvey L. Eads, ed., History of the South Union Shaker Colony from 1804 to 1836 (South Union, Ky., 1870), Shaker Museum at South Union, Auburn, Kentucky. A copy of the transcript can be obtained from the University of Western Kentucky. The autobiography establishes Robert and Rebecca’s migration dates and origin. See the article titled “Autobiography of Rev. John Rankin, Grandson of Robert and Rebecca” here.

[11] Rev. S. M. Rankin, History of Buffalo Presbyterian Church 22.

[12] Id. See also Futhey and Cope, History of Chester Co., PA (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881), reproduction facsimile by Chester County Historical Society (Mt. Vernon, IN: Windmill Publications, Inc. ,1996). The 1753 tax list for West Nottingham Township, Chester Co., PA included George Rankin and Robert Rankin.

[13] Rankin, History of Buffalo Presbyterian Church 22.

[14] E.g., Jo White Linn, Rowan County North Carolina Deed Abstracts Vol. 1, 1753 – 1762, Abstracts of Books 1 – 4(Salisbury, NC), Deed Book 4: 100, Granville grant dated 24 Jun 1758 to Robert Rankin, 640 acres on both sides of North Buffalo Creek. That creek flows roughly SW to NE into Buffalo Cr. The creek and the grant are located just south of Buffalo Presbyterian Church.

[15] See Note 5.

[16] Rankin, History of Buffalo Presbyterian Church 27. George and Robert are also proved as sons by deed records. There is only circumstantial evidence for a son John. Deed and probate records also prove a daughter Ann Rankin who married William Denny. Rowan County probate records also suggest daughters Rebecca Rankin Braley/Brawley and Margaret Rankin Boyd.

[17] Clayton Genealogical Library microfilm, “NC Rowan County Will Books A-B 1767-1793” 141, will of George Rankin of Rowan County, dated 23 May 1760 and proved Oct 1760. The 1761 date for George’s death appears in every family tree I have seen for Robert and Rebecca. Someone apparently read Rev. Rankin’s book and accepted the 1761 date without question, guaranteeing that it will multiply on the internet like Tribbles.

[18] Id. George devised to his son John the 480-acre tract on Brushy Fork or Brush Creek. John sold 200 acres in August 1784, Guilford Deed Book 3: 101, and the remaining 297 acres in Sep 1796, Deed Book 6: 182. John was listed in the 1790 census for Guilford County but not in 1800. He was an ordained Presbyterian minister. He struggled with what he saw as the abstract and impersonal nature of Presbyterian doctrine and became a Shaker minister. He went to Tennessee in the late 1790s and wound up in Logan County, KY in a place called “Shakertown.” See Note 10. In a Guilford County marriage record that makes Rankin researchers rip their hair out, Shaker Rev. John married Miss Rebecca Rankin. She was a daughter of John Rankin and Hannah Carson from the line of Joseph and Rebecca Rankin of Delaware.

[19] Virgil D. White, Abstracts of Revolutionary War Pension Files, Vol. III: N-Z (Waynesboro, TN: National Historical Publishing Co., 1992), abstract of the pension application of Robert Rankin, W5664. Robert was born 29 May 1759. Wife Mary. NC line. Soldier was born in Guilford and enlisted there. In 1830, he moved to McNairy Co., TN where he applied 20 May 1833. He died there 21 Dec 1840. Soldier had married Mary Moody 22 Nov 1803 in Guilford. Widow applied 12 Jun 1853 from McNairy at age 75. She died 11 Jul 1854.

[20] Rankin, History of Buffalo Presbyterian Church at 122.

[21] Raymond Dufau Donnell, Buffalo Presbyterian Church and Cemetery Greensboro, North Carolina (Greensboro, NC: The Guilford County Genealogical Society (1994), second printing March 1996), at p. ii, saying that the “earliest written records of the church date from 1773,” and stating that Robert Rankin Sr., “Pioneer … Ruling Elder” died circa 1770.

[22] Clayton Genealogical Library microfilm, “NC Guilford County Wills Books A-B 1771-1838,” File #312, will of Robert Rankin Sr. dated 30 May 1795 proved Nov 1795.

[23] Guilford Co. Deed Book 6: 346, 16 Feb 1798.

[24] Guilford Co., Deed Book 14: 11, 23 Mar 1819.

[25] Rev. S. M. Rankin, The Rankin and Wharton Families and Their Genealogy (Salem, MS: Higginson Book Company facsimile reprint of the 1931 original) 55 (John Rankin and Hannah Carson’s son Robert lived from 1780-1866) and 149 (William Rankin and Jane Chambers’ son Robert C. Rankin lived 1791-1853).