….if not with a banjo on my knee, then at least with a new set of possible ancestors to research. When I arrived in Birmingham last Sunday for the Institute of Genealogy and Historic Research, we had one possible connection to Alabama.
According to the 1860 U.S. census for Hempstead County, Arkansas, Alabama was the birthplace of Jesse G. Williams, our 3rd great grandfather of Mom’s paternal line.(1) (Family legend has it that Jesse was killed in 1864 in the Battle of Little Blue River in Missouri; 1860 is the last census in which he appears.) As it turns out, that single piece of evidence directly conflicts with the prior census. The research is far from complete but, using a more formal (and scholarly!) narrative style to report, here’s why I think South Carolina is the more likely birthplace.
[Note: I made several big leaps on the Alabama front last week, during breaks from the Military Records class. More will be written about both, but, in the meantime, a big thank you to the staff of the Special Collection section of the Samford University Library, particularly Liz Wells and Mark “sorry-I-didn’t-get-your-last-name.”]
Family Epic 