Jordan grandparents

OK, you must think I'm a sucker for punishment by now.

But I just keep on climbing out on more branches where there are hints and promises of blossoms (and of course thus there will be fruit by the summertime!)

So going along on another Basse tree, not sure why I stopped. There were the Reynolds, parents of Cicely Reynolds Jordan, wife of Capt. Samuel Silas Jordan, whose ships brought many a colonial settler to Jamestown and the Virginia Colony.

Her mother may have some confusion on her tree, and I'll work on her family in another post.

But Cicely's father was probably Thomas of Gravesend Reynolds, a Doctor and Surgeon. He was born in 1564 in London, England. He died on 14 July 1603, Clerkenwell, Middlesex, England.  

The Doctor's father was Christopher Tillman Reynolds (with various spellings) who was born 20 Jan, 1530 in Aylesford, Kent, England. Christopher's wife was Clarissa Elizabeth Huntington Reynolds, born in 1534 in Aylesford, Kent, England. She died 2 Feb 1681 in Kent, Dorset, England. Her husband, Christopher died about 1592 in London, Cheshire, England. His death had been listed as "abt. 1600," but I found some probate/will documents dated 1592, so would gather that date might be more appropriate.

Stretching back to the 13 times great grandparents...Christopher's father was Sir Robert Reynolds III, or Reynell. Robert was born 18 Dec. 1500 in East Bergholt, Babergh District, Suffolk, England. He died 19 Nov. 1580 in Gravesend, Kent, England. His wife was Agnes Hall Reynolds,  born Feb. 1505 in East Bergholt, Babergh District, Suffolk, England. She died Feb. 1570 and was buried 3 Feb 1570 in St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney, Tower Hamlets, Essex, England.

I am not listing all the other children these grandparents had, which included a few who merited being included in Burke's Peerage, the book of who was who in England. Agnes has one other Ancestry tree with some parents listed, but the father is considered a Reynolds rather than a Hall, which makes it hard to believe.

13 greats grandfather Sir Robert Reynolds III had Sir Robert Reynolds II as his father (of course!) who was born on 10 Jan 1475 in East Bergholt, Kent, England. He died on 11 Jan 1574 in East Bergholt, Suffolk, England. I find it very difficult to believe he was 99 years when he died, just as I wonder how East Bergholt moved from Kent to Suffolk.

My Grandmother times 14 greats was Lady Keziah Elizabeth Tyrell (Terrell) Reynolds, born on 7 Jan 1470 Olton, Suffolk, England. She died in 1569 in Aylesford, Kent, England...another 99 year old ancestor. Pardon me if I say "Bah Humbug."

And that's as far back as the Reynolds tree goes. But since Sir Robert Reynolds II is the furthest back, we must assume his father had had the same name. 

When the tree gets very shakey

 When the tree for ancestors seems to be shaking out names added to names...so that Cicely Jane Thickpenn/Phippen Reynolds Pierce was a 11 times great grandmother...that's when I stop.

It became even more convoluted (this tree of mine) when her father might have been James Church Thickpenn/Phippen, or maybe just plain James Church...who is listed on 3 other trees as married to Alyce Streetinge, but not the parents of Cicely. 

So I have to leave him there...sort of hanging between wherever someone at Ancestry knew that Thickpenn/Phippen had some connection to James Church. There was even a suggestion he was married, or perhaps his mother was Cicely Jordan. This is where I wish there were some original documents, but the one that does show up I can't read, and most of the "facts" don't have any documentation at all, but are just being passed between one Ancestry tree to another.

I also just keep getting a headache with this furthest branch of the family.

Cicely Jane married George Reynolds. We don't know his parents.

Cicely Jane Married Thomas Reynolds, Doctor, aka Christopher Thomas Reynolds, Rennolds, Reynell, doctor and surgeon. And then Cicely Jane married Capt. William Pierce.

No wonder a genealogist said there wasn't anything linking Cicely Reynolds who came to America and had the Baily child, then the  Jordans, then married Farrar at last. Incidentally, she may have also married Montague according to some trees. And someone said she was married 5 times, but I don't know who that fifth husband might have been.  Suffice it to say, this woman is one of the matriarchs of my family. I am going to stop there!

Next I'll look at some other people who might not have several identities.

The Williams went west (Richard 3gg, William 2gg, & Annie 1g)

(An edited repost from 2015)

Crab Orchard, KY was near the beginning of the Logan Trace of the Wilderness Road and was an early pioneer station. There are several mineral springs in the area and from 1827 until 1922 taverns and hotels were located at Crab Orchard Springs.

Richard Frederick Williams was born in Crab Orchard, Kentucky in 1782. (see map below)

Wilderness?
The Wilderness Road was the principal route used by settlers for more than fifty years to reach Kentucky from the East. In 1775, Daniel Boone "blazed" a trail for the Transylvania Company from Fort Chiswell in Virginia through the Cumberland Gap into central Kentucky. It was later lengthened, following Native American trails, to reach the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville. The Wilderness Road was steep, rough, narrow, and it could only be traversed on foot or horseback. Despite the adverse conditions, thousands of people used it.

In 1792, the new Kentucky legislature provided money to upgrade the road. In 1796, an improved all-weather road was opened for wagon and carriage travel. The road was abandoned around 1840, although modern highways follow much of its route.

The Logan Trace was a wilderness trail through central Kentucky, a branch of Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road. It was named after its originator, Colonel Benjamin Logan. Logan came over the mountains with Boone in 1775, but went west toward Buffalo Spring instead of north. Its terminus was northwest of present-day Stanford, Kentucky, where Logan built a fort known as Logan's Station or St. Asaph. Stanford eventually emerged from Logan's original settlement.

Richard Williams' son William T. Williams, Sr.  was born Dec. 16, 1824 in Pulaski County, KY  (I posted here last year a bit about his life)

William Sr. moved to Missouri probably in 1832 and with various siblings, and uncles and aunts settled there, and began farming.  William T. Williams, Sr. at 38 joined the US army for part of the Civil War, and then moved much of his family to Texas by 1877, when his daughter Annie Elizabeth (born in 1862) married Leary (L. F.) Francis Webb, my great grandfather. There was a son of William T. Williams by the same name, which is why I've added the "Sr." to the father's name. The son, William Jr. remained in Missouri.

These people kept on moving, and I keep feeling amazed at their spirit of exploration.  Texas was pretty wild still in the 1870s, though the Wild West was still to become glamorized in fictionalized paper back books. 

The Webbs had been in Texas for a while, since Leary (L. F.) was born (1857) in Clinton County, to parents from Maryland and New York.  He married and settled in DeWitt County Texas, where they raised their 8 children (losing one as a child).  The family prospered by running a feed and general store.

But by 1910 the family was living in the metropolis of San Antonio.  Here was a city environment, where L. F. lived out his years, dying in 1921.  His wife Annie lived until 1942.  But my grandfather Bud Webb who died young was buried in the Masonic Cemetery in 1919.

I can only explain my desire to move about the country as the same urge that probably spurred these ancestors to travel to new horizons.  But it sure is a lot easier for me to do so than it was for them.

The Williams came from Missouri to Texas, and had already come from Kentucky to Missouri

"Liberty Williams" was one of the elder brothers to William T. Williams, my great grandmom's dad.  Great times 3 Uncle Liberty.  Liberty and William T were born in Pulaski County, Kentucky.

And their parents were born in the same area as well, both Richard Frederick Williams and his wife Nancy Hansford Williams.  Richard Frederick Williams was born in 1792 in Crab Orchard, Lincoln County, Kentucky,

Richard's father, Frederick Williams probably came from South Carolina, while his mother Cassandra Elizabeth, "Cassiah" Tate Williams came from North Carolina.  They were the pioneers who moved to Kentucky by 1792 when Richard was born.  Their first child had been born in South Carolina in 1787.

And the Frederick and Cassiah Williams family may have moved to Kentucky for a while, but they died in Tennessee, while Richard F. as well as Liberty Williams (and other Williams) moved to Missouri.  And then sometime between the time William T. was 38 and 56 (by 1863) he moved from Missouri to Texas, leaving Liberty in Missouri with all his family!

Farmers all.  They had such a job ahead of them when moving to new territory.

It wasn't just go look at the land, put up a cabin, and sew some seeds right away.  Clear timber.  Find fresh water nearby.  Plow the land.  Bring along some livestock as well, and maybe take a few trips back to sources of seeds, nails, the rest of needed livestock, and hope that everyone stays healthy while each of the people help build whatever buildings were first needed.  Put in a garden, or at least go pick those berries and nuts.  And while waiting for any kind of food to grow, what do you eat?  The hunters were out getting deer, squirrel, rabbits, birds and whatever could be shot or trapped for food.  Mum would have been taking these carcases and skinning them, or plucking, and cooking over a campfire.

Campfires were not much different than cooking in a fireplace.  Hauling some iron pots and pans were very important in order to make meals.  Someone was bringing water from a creek or river...every night!  And someone was chopping some logs while the littlest someones just picked up sticks for kindling.

Yes a life that was out in nature.  Sounds idyllic, right?  Not when you think of snakes, cold, rain and many bugs and even heat at other times.

It must have made these very hardy folks, cause William T. lived to be 72.  And his wife, Dorcas White Williams, mother of 8, (6 of whom lived to adulthood) lived to 74 years of age.

I'm so glad I was born when I was.  I get the benefit of medical care and social security rather than an adult child who will care for me in my old age.  AND I get the internet.  I don't know how many of the people in the 1800's could read and write, and certainly it was far fewer in the 1700s.  Those folks were too busy killing their food and cooking it, or growing it and eating and sleeping to bother to write anything, let alone teach the kids how.  Schools were obviously a real boon when towns were formed.  But that's a topic for another day.

Sharing this with Sepia Saturday this week! The prompt theme has a young man cooking outdoors. I've been talking about many women (mainly) who cooked on the trails as the families relocated. 

This post belongs to the Barbara Booth Rogers Family Tree. Photo shows Mataley Mozelle Rogers, and her mother Mozelle Booth Miller, and my sister Mary Beth Rogers.

PS.  Traces of Texas on Facebook:

More Williams families...(unknown if they are related to my Williams family)

"TOT reader Al McAnespy graciously shared this portrait of his ancestors. It was taken in 1889 in Oakalla, TX. Bothers and sister, all Texas born, these are the five youngest of the nine children of Jonathan "Jack" and Narcissus Williams, who settled in the Burnet area soon after statehood in 1845. Al's Great Great Grandfather, Jonathan "Babe" Williams, is seated on the left:

"Look at the boots and the hats and the mustaches! And I'm probably projecting a bit but don't these look like hard, tough people? I mean, can't you just SEE life in little 'ol 1800s Oakalla, Texas ----- which has never had a population of more than about 250 people ----- written on their faces and in their postures?

Seated:

— Jonathan "Babe" Williams (1867-1956)

— Susan Tabitha Williams (1859-1918)

— William "Billie" Williams (1856-1943)

Standing:

— Joseph "Joe" Williams (1864-1932)

— James David "Dick" Williams (1861-1948)

Joe was well-known throughout the area as a photographer, working from the late 1800s to early 1900s.

Following the hints at Ancestry

 I have a new ambition.

I can spend an hour each evening (or whenever I have some time available) to click on all those little hint leaves on my various family trees.

This evening was fun going into trees that go back to Italy and Germany.

I really didn't find any documents from those countries, but I found a few arrival dates for immigrants to our family.

It was gratifying work. And I think I may have made just a few boo-boos. Usually in spelling names.

So if anything comes up that looks interesting, I'll include it here...because it will represent new information about some ancestors!

None for today though.

Making new trees

A friend came over for dinner last night, with the promise that we'd look into her family history. I'm no professional genealogist, but enjoy delving into the documents that are available on Ancestry sites.

So we plugged in her data about her parents, knowing where and when they were born and died.  And then the little "hint leaves" started appearing.  That meant that Ancestry had found their data from some available data source.  The best information came from census reports.

Early census data just counted how many people were what age ranges

We saw such wonderful detail of family members that had lived in the early 20th century.  The census reports are available up until 1940. We wondered when 1950 would be available...is this a limitation from the federal government? Well, for now, the 1920 and 30 census data was great.

And just in case you didn't know, the data is not just a list of who lived in a household.  We got to see the actual census reports, hand written by the census takers on the date listed on the form.  It was like reading the interview with these ancestors.

My friend's family data from 1920 is somewhere on this census!

We learned how long they had been married, where they were born, what language they spoke, where their parents were born and the languages they spoke, and what their occupation was, and perhaps who they worked for.  And we learned about a person living in the household who was listed as a lodger, but turned out to be really the grandparent of the wife...but since she wasn't head of household, the census taker didn't have that category to use.  Thus this grandfather had an age given, which gave us his birthyear within a 2 year possibility based on whether he'd had his birthday for that year at the time of the census.

And then we got to see the actual draft registration cards for several of the men for WW I and WW II.  These told us how tall they were, their physical attributes like bald, color of hair and eyes, and general shape (slight, medium or stout).

So it was much better than looking at old scrapbooks.  In an hour we had looked at original documents that verified where her ancestors lived. We also were able to screen out people with same names and birth years who came from the wrong area of the country, or married the wrong name person.  That was the advantage of having my friend sitting there with me. If she hadn't been, I could have added a lot of data that was misleading.  She did have a few relatives with unusual names, and then one with a more common one.

So that was an entertaining evening, and I have her family tree started for her. It was like meeting Uncle Joseph and Aunt something-or-another at a family reunion, but we didn't have to smile and balance a plate of cake with a cup of coffee at the same time we shook hands!

Who says genealogy can't be fun!

Big change in my tree!

Another descendant of what I thought to be my ancestors, wrote a note saying that he knew nothing about the Cannon family, but knew a lot about the Kennon family. And he (I'm not sure if it is a he actually) stressed that my ancestor was not a child of the Kennons who decided to change the spelling.

That will change my genealogy quite a bit.  So for now I'll leave the rest of the tree as it stands...and wait to see if there are any "hints" from ancestry which fill in the new blanks.

John Cannon of South Carolina and Tennessee apparently was not a Kennon of Virginia.

So among all the other things I'm engaged in this summer, I'll have this on the back burner, waiting for my attention!

Just the lineage in a list

Our lineage simplified:
King Edward I Plantagenet (1239-1307) m. (1250) Eleanor de Castile Capet (Leonora (1240-1290)
Their daughter Joan of Acre (1272-1307) m.Gilbert de Clare (1243-1295)
Their daughter, Elizabeth de Clare (1295-1360) m. (1315/16) Sir Theobald de Verdun (1278-1316)
Their daughter  Isabel de Verdun (1315-1349) m.Henry de Ferrers (1302-1343
Their son Sir William de Ferrers (1332-1371) m.Margaret de Ufford de Ferrers (1330-aft.1355)
Their son Sir Henry Ferrers (1355-1388) m.Joan de Poynings Ferrers (1356-1394)
Their son William Ferrers (1371-1445) m. Pilippa Clifford Ferrers (1374-1405)
Their son Sir Thomas de Ferrers, Baron of Groby) m.(between 1414-1437) Lady Elisabeth de Freville Baroness of Tamworth (1393-1468)
Their son Sir Lord Thomas II Ferrers, 2^nd Lord of Tamworth, 7^th Baron Ferrers of Groby (b. between 1420-1438 – 1499) m Lady Anne Hastings, Lady of Kirby Castle, 2^nd Baroness of Tamworth, Baroness Ferrers of Groby (1423-1479)
Their daughter Anne de Ferrers, Lady of Tamworth Castle, Baroness Gresley of Chartley (1438-1499) m.Sir Lord Thomas Gresley, Knight of Colton, Sheriff of Staffordshire, Baron Gresley of Charatley (1435-1502)
Their daughter Dame Edith Elizabeth Gresley (1462-1523) m. (2^nd) John Bower Sr (1460-1479)
Their son John Bower Jr (1478-1498) m. Joan Bridmore Bower (1451-1588)
Their son Robert Bower (1493-1517) m. Agnes Weston Bower (1490-1535)
Their son Edmond L. Bower, Gent, (1513-1570) m. 1558 Joan Moggeridge Bowers (1509-1565)
Their son Thomas Bowers (1555- abt. 1620) m.1590 Elizabeth Iwerner Minster Bowers (1570-1630)
Their son George Bowers (Immigrant) (1590-1656) m 1614 Barbara (Barbarie) Smyth (Smithe) Bowers (1596-1644)
Their son Benanuel Bowers (1627-1698) m. 1653 Elizabeth (Marie) Dunster (1632-1693)
Their son Jonathan Bowers Capt. (1673-1750) m. 1695 Ann Sylvester Bowers (1669-1745)
Their daughter Mary Bowers Swasey (1719-aft.1823) m.1744 Joseph Swasey (1714-1801)
Their son, Lt. Jerathmel Bowers Swasey (1752-1826) m. 1775 Sarah Hellon Swasey (1757-1836)
Their son Alexander G. Swasey Sr, Capt, (1784-1861) m. 1807 Ruth Woodward (1788-1842
Their son Alexander G. Swasey Jr, Capt. Blockade Runner (1812-1866) m. Anna J. (Fanny Tylstra) Zylstra Swasey (1815-?)
Their son Alexander John Swasey (2853-1913) m. 1882 Zulieka Granger Phillips Swasey (1858-1935)
Their daughter Ada Phillips Swasey Rogers (1996-1964) m. 1905 George Elmore Rogers Sr. (1877-1960)
Their son George Elmore Rogers Jr. (1914-1985) m. 1936 Mataley Mozelle Webb Munhall Rogers (1917-2003)
These were my parents

More Welborns, Wilbournes or Wilborns related to me

To continue looking at where the children of my fourth great grandparents ended up, all born in Union District, SC to Maj. Elijah Wilbourne and Mary Molly Roundtree Wilbourne. (Yes there are spelling variations...and some first names confusion as well.
Yesterday we looked briefly at :

1. Martha Patsy Wilbourne Hayes (1791-1875)
2. Sabra Ann Wilbourne Gibbs (1792-1864)
3. Dorcas Lucinda Wilbourne Nance (1793-1875)
4. William Rountree Wilburn (1796-1878)5.  Nancy Wilbourne Nance (1800 - between 1860-70),
6. Mildred Roundtree Wilbourne Pruet (1801-1874)
7. James Rogers Wilbourn (1804-?)

The remaining children on my list are:

8. William Sanford Wilbourn (1803-1874) d. Panola MS or Huntsville, Walker, TX  - First, would a family name another son William with just a different middle name? Second, when I look at the hints on Ancestry, some of them are for Sanford, who lived and died in Texas. And some of them are for William who lived in MS.  So now to sort through them, and perhaps remove the William on this Sanford's name. That's my first thought.  But it won't be my first action!  I'm wondering if the "William" of MS stuff off of my Ancestry tree should be just Sanford's name.  Argh!

Oh goodie goodie, the other Ancestry trees are about evenly divided as to whether he died in TX or MS.  There is a grave and a wife's grave in MS.  That makes a good case for Sanford Wilbourn.  Now I'll look for some documents that give him William as well.  The only document that MIGHT be him, is a 1860 Census of Panola MS, Pleasant Mount post office. where he is S. Wilbourne age 56 (thus a birth in 1804, and has listed names of his family, Nancy 46, Ada 22, J.T. 19, Sidus 16, Lamar 14, Alice 11 and Sanford Wilbourne 4 (probably Jr.)  He's a farmer in that census, with a personal estate valued at $69,000.  There are a lot of other docs for Sanford, including a probate record in MS.  There's even a picture of him (no William in the name). I think I'll keep William in parentheses with a question mark for now.

Now let's see if any documents exist for the Sandford Wilbourne (spelled in any way) in Huntsville TX (besides having same birth and death dates according to all those trees!)  Nope, the same records of his 3 censuses in MS, and a Georgia Marriage doc, and then Find a Grave in MS with the date and description missing as to place, but it's the Web: Mississippi Index.  So I think it was not likely he died in Huntsville TX.

OK, I'm sorry to have bothered your time, going through all this.  I'm sorry I had to take my time doing it also.

9. Elijah Wilbourn (1810-1878 ) d. Panola Mississippi. He's also buried in the same Fredonia Methodist Church cemetery which has a seven page list of graves where 27 Wilbourns are listed who are buried there!  Here's a photo of Elijah and his wife.

 

Written on back: Major Elijah Wilbourn, Jr. 10th child, 4th son of Major Elijah Wilbourn and his wife Mary Roundtree Wilbourn.  Elijah Jr. was born in Union County, South Carolina. He married Eliza Duggan.
And Elijah had a son named William Sanford Wilbourn, 1853-1935! But on my list of children, I only had him as the 9th child, so perhaps there's another daughter that I've missed, according to the notation on the back of the photo saying 10th child.

10. Jane Wilburn Bishop 1811-@1890. d. Panola MS  She also married in Newton GA where one of her siblings also had nuptials. She may have died before 1890, as her grave marker has no dates, but her husband died in 1880. She was buried in Rose Hill Cemetery, Sardis, Panola County, MS where her husband had his grave. Her name is engraved on the stone, but no dates.  Several Ancestry trees say she died in 1890, and others say she was alive as of 1850...I'm going to the 1890 guess.

11. Elizabeth Wilborn Robinson, 1812-1888, buried at Putnam Baptist Ch Cemetery, Buffalo, Union County, SC.

The conclusion is how many remained in SC? 3
Mississippi?  4
Alabama? 1 (possibly) 1 certain
Georgia? 1
Texas? 1

And remember Elijah Sr. stayed in SC while his wife moved to MS (perhaps after he died)

More wandering great uncles and aunts - The Wilbournes

My Wilbourne relations...
I've skipped over Sabra Ann Wilbourne Gibbs, and yet she, and her family are just as much my relatives as those Gibbs that I've been talking about in SC.

So there were 11 brothers and sisters?
They were all born in Union Dist. SC, and then they may have stayed there, or moved to other states.
Let's see:

My 4th great grandparents were Maj. Elijah Wilbourne (1763-1819) and
his wife: Mary Molly Rountree Wilbourne (1772-1851)

Incidentally, Elijah's father Thomas Welbourn was a member of the Regulator movement in North Carolina before the Revolutionary War. (Source: Find a Grave site for Mildred Roundtree Welborn Pruet.)  I'll have to post about that another time.

Children :
1. Martha Patsy Wilbourne Hayes (1791-1875) d. in Pendleton, Anderson Cty, SC

2. Sabra Ann Wilbourne Gibbs (1792-1864) d. in Walker Cty, TX

3. Dorcas Lucinda Wilbourne Nance (1793-1875) d. in Pendleton, Anderson Cty, SC

4. William Rountree Wilburn (1796-1878) d. Panola County, MS in,Fredonia cemetery, Como MS married according to his grave inscription "In memory of my husband." but no other records of his wife.

Wilbourn plot at Fredonia Ch, Como MS more details below

5.  Nancy Wilbourne Nance (1800 - between 1860-70), d. Muskogee County GA

6. Mildred Roundtree Wilbourne Pruet (1801-1874) d. Clay Co, Alabama

7. James Rogers Wilbourn (1804-?) d. Y, Somme, Picardy, France (I don't understand this place, as several other siblings including females have this suggested as place of death on SOME Ancestry trees.) He lived in Newtown GA in 1840 with a household of 7, but there's no listing of wife or children (yet). He also is listed in 1860 in an Agricultural census, in So. Division, Talladega, Alabama.  I think I'll change his place of death to Alabama after 1860.  It's my tree. And there's nothing to support his dying in France on an unknown date.  It wasn't until 1917 or so that the Somme was a dying place for many young men.  I wish I know who the Rogers was that his middle name reflects.

(0)  Martha Patsy Wilbourn, (1801-?) this is a duplicate listing, with a wrong date, so now it is merged with the one above.

I'll continue this family's post tomorrow...dividing it up seems like a good idea, first because I've taken way too much time on it already, and second, because I need to give these great aunts and uncles good attention and not rush through.

Where the winds took them - the Gibbs odessey

Where the Gibbs family moved in the 1840s-50s.

Census 1840: my great times three grandfather, Hiram Gibbs (1785-1844) had been in Union County SC with a family of 6, including 1 slave.  The household was 1 white male age 20-29, 2 white females under 5, 1 white female 15-19, 1 white female 20-29, and 1 male slave 10-23.

But the age of the male is too young in the 1840 census as Hiram would have been 55 years old by then.  His youngest son (8) Hiram Jr. was born in 1829, so he also would not have been between 20-29 years old as a head of household. I very much doubt that that household belonged to Hiram Gibbs...and I wonder whose it was.

Here are the family dates:
wife Sabra Ann Wilbourn Gibbs 1792-1864
1. Dr. Jasper Gibbs 1810-1877
2. Thomas Gibbs 1812-1872
3. Mary Ann Gibbs Canfield 1814- 1864
4. William Wilbourn Gibbs 1816-1844
5. Lucinda B.Gibbs Rogers (Luci) 1818-1884
6. Sandford St. Johns Gibbs 1819- 1896
7. Angelina Gibbs 1822-1846
8. Hiram Gibbs Jr. 1829-1869

Hiram had older sons, who may have been between 20-29 in 1840.  Not his oldest, (1) Jaspar, who turned 30 in 1840, and though he had married in 1838, they only had their first child...nor the next one down, (2) Thomas, who didn't marry until 1848.  The next brother, (3) William, was 24, no info on his wife who buried him,  (4) Sandford St. John Gibbs was just 21, and he didn't marry until he was in his 40s.

So perhaps Hiram wasn't really part of the nose-count in 1840, though the house was still in his name.  But it seems as though a male and a female in the 20-29 age bracket would speak to a married couple with 2 little girls, and a teenage girl as perhaps a servant/nanny, and the one slave who could have been anywhere from 10-23 years old.

Could any of the daughters used his name as a head of their own household, if their husband was absent? Not the way I look at their ages and marriages. So I really don't know who this 20-29 year old couple with "Hiram Gibbs" as head of household, and 2 daughters under 5, could have been. There were no grandchildren born yet either. What a quandary!

Wait, let's look at Hiram's brothers and sisters, and his wife's family...I'm looking under every stone to figure out who was in that census in 1840!

There's a John Gibbs, Esq. on the same Union County SC census page as Hiram Gibbs in 1840.  But Hiram's older brother John had moved to KY before then.  Hiram's older brother Zachariah had a son John who didn't marry, but was born in 1810 so he would have been the right age.

OK, I'm not going to get an answer to that 1840 census...not tonight anyway.

Then in Jan 1841, Hiram is listed in Panola County MS as head of a household made up of 3 males and 4 females.   Another male has joined the household, but this census didn't have ages listed, nor slaves.

I do have a record that his son (4)William was living there in MS with him, because that's where he died in 1844.  And that's also where Hiram died the same year.

None of the rest of the family who I have any records about was in MS.

Oldest son, (1) Dr. Jasper Gibbs, moved to Gibsland, Bienville Parish, LA...and I spoke about him here.  I wish my cousin, Denton Culpepper,  had sent me a photo of the Gibbs house which he wrote in 2016 that he currently owned.

(2) Thomas Gibbs married Nancy Theressa Rogers from Sevierville, TN by 1848, but where isn't noted in Ancestry.  They lost their first two babies when they were born shortly after that, in TX where they had relocated with many other Gibbs family members.  Nancy died in 1856, and Thomas remarried about 1859 and later moved to Arkansas while raising more children.

(3) Mary Ann Gibbs Canfield moved first to Mount Lebanon, Bienville Parish, LA,  where her only child was born, then was living in Freestone, TX by the time she died, but she was buried in Bienville Parish LA.

(5) Lucinda (Luci) Gibbs Rogers moved first to Bienville Parish LA, then to Huntsville, Walker County TX, with her husband George Washington Rogers (my great great grandparents).  (Past posts Here, and HERE,  and Here.)

(6) Sandford married and had his first daughter born in TX in 1857, but then his wife and baby both died in 1863. He remarried in 1866 and had 7 more children, all in Huntsville, TX.

(7) Angelina didn't marry and died in LA.

(8) Hiram Gibbs Jr (son of Hiram my great times 3 grandfather) married and died in Mount Lebanon, LA.  There was another Hiram Gibbs Jr. by that time, so knowing who the father was makes a difference.

What of Hiram's wife, Sabra Ann Wilbourn Gibbs?  She moved to the Huntsville, Walker County TX  homestead before she died at age 74.  But apparently her mother died in the same place in MS that Hiram had, Panola County, in 1851.  And Sabra had 11 brothers and sisters all from Union County SC.  I haven't checked yet but I'll bet some moved to LA and some to MS.

Union County just didn't have enough room for all those people in the 1850s and land out west was cheap.

So where they went summary:
father Hiram - MS
Mother Sabra -TX

 children...
Jaspar - LA
Thomas - TX then AK
Mary Ann - LA
William - MS
Luci - TX
Sandford - TX
Angelina = LA
Hiram - LA

Today's quote;

WORD FOR THE DAY I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being!

Hafiz