Genealogical bread crumbs

I'm trying to see if DNA can chip away my brick walls. I was a little disappointed that I wasn't able to come up with anything new after the inspirational conference I had attended. So today I decided to concentrate on my Cotten family mysteries.

To recap, my great grandfather is Napoleon Cotten. His mother is Winnie Deer. It took me years to find them on the 1870 census mainly because I was looking for Cottens. Then on one of my searches I used only the first names and the state, Mississippi. Heritage Quest rewarded me with success. I found the whole family in 1870 in Amite County. The reason I couldn't find them before was because I wasn't looking for Andersons, the surname they were using in 1870.

I then tried to find them on various Amite county farms owned by Andersons. Moses Gordon Anderson became a person of interest in my mystery. He lived near Winnie in 1870. In 1860, he owned 40 slaves including a 100 year old woman named Sophia. On the slave schedule, following the tip I learned at the conference, I noticed a family group that corresponded to the ages of Winnie's family. There were discrepancies. There was a one year old male. On Winnie's tombstone and on the 1900 census, she is recorded with only three sons and a daughter. If this is Winnie, she is recorded on this slave schedule with four sons. Also the ages of the sons were a little off except for Napoleon's.

I then looked at the 1850 slave schedule. M. G. Anderson owns 23 slaves.  They are separated into two groups. On the smaller group, there is a 15 year old female, the right age for Winnie,  and possibly her oldest son Hiram at one year old.

I went back to 1840 and found Anderson with a new wife and seven slaves. I checked out his bride. Her name was Cynthia Carolyn Causey, daughter of Capt. William Causey and Susanna Jackson. The Captain had died in 1828 and left a will. He had sired many children. He also possessed many slaves. He willed only one, "negro girl named Mary" to his daughter Cynthia. Now I know Mary is a very common name and it means very little but it still gave me a glimmer of hope that this was Winnie's mother, Mary. And when I checked the 1840 census, Anderson owned only two female slaves-a child under 10 and a woman between 24 and 35 years old. Could this be Mary and Winnie?

I continued searching family trees for the Causeys on ancestry.com. I came across a familiar name. The woman who owned one of the Causey family trees was also a match to me through DNA!!!

I still have much to do to determine who was the shared ancestor. Her family tree had a surname that was also on my family tree-- Cain. We may be connected that way. Cynthia  Causey's brother had married Lucretia Cain, a daughter of Isaiah Cain and sister to Mary Cain Cotten. These same surnames keep coming up. That is why I am holding out hope that this bread crumb trail will finally lead me to the ancestors of Winnie and Napoleon and knock down that brick wall.

Q & A from the grave

I'm back from a road trip to Mississippi. Although I didn't get a chance to get to the courthouses, the cemeteries had much to tell me. And visiting with relatives that I only knew through social media offered an insight into my paternal grandparents' life that dusty courthouses could not.

My greatest find was the tombstone of my great great grandmother. It gave a short family tree!

It reads "Winney Dear Born to Mary Cotten Dec. 10, 1824 Mother of Hiram and Richard Cain, Poley and Elizabeth Cotten Died July 10. 1903." 

I never knew my great great great grandmother's name. It gave me the date of Winney's birth and death, and it also let me know which surname Hiram used most of his life.

As is the case in genealogy, when one question is answered, another question appears. I am now trying to pinpoint Mary Cotten on the censuses. I believe Hiram Cain lived in Franklin County. I still don't know why the different surnames.  

I wish I had found my great grandfather's tombstone. It was probably there but many of the markers were undecipherable. I will return to Mississippi, probably next year, God willing. This time I will head to the courthouses and try my luck there.

Six degrees of separation

Another day of trolling the internet for data and I'm coming up with more and more coincidences. Coincidences -- "the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection." These following things do have a connection but are they pertinent?

Oscar Dears, Winnie Anderson and family are living a couple of lines down from Lucretia Dears on the 1870 Amite County, MS census. Lucretia Dears was married to William Carraway before marrying William Dears. William Carraway's brother was Bruce A. Carraway who was married to Lucretia (may be Letitia) Cotten. Lucretia was sister to Joseph R. Cotten. When the Carraways died young, Thomas L. Cotten was appointed guardian to their children for a short time. One of those children, Bruce M. Carraway, married Huldah Cain. The only surname I'm missing is Anderson. Could that be why my ancestors changed their name from Anderson?

It feels like I'm playing six degrees of separation here. Time and research will tell if it is only a game of coincidences or if it is a realconnection.

On the trail again

It has been two weeks since the International Black Genealogy Summit ended. I came back with renewed fervor. Then I went back to my job. But I am endeavoring not to let all that good information and zeal go to waste.

Working on a tip written in my previous blog, I looked up H.S. Anderson on the 1850 slave census for Franklin County in Mississippi. The "H" stands for Henry. I was pleasantly pleased to find that Henry was living next to Joseph R. Cotten in 1850. This is the same Cotten that I once thought was Winney's slave owner. There is a female slave and male slave listed under both Joseph's and Henry's name that correspond with the ages of Winney and her oldest son Hiram.

I googled Henry's name and found some minutes for Mt. Zion Baptist Church, Franklin County, Mississippi. Henry, Joseph and a few Cain's were members of the church in 1852. Now I'm getting excited.

Could this be the smoking gun for my ancestors? Of course, I don't know the answer to that yet. I have looked up several Andersons that I thought may be the slave owners. However, the coincidence of Joseph and Henry being neighbors is making me think this may be the right trail to follow.

Mysteries to Solve

I haven't been able to make much headway into finding my great-great-great-grandma Amy. I've been rereading a lot of material that I inherited from my aunt. I found something I missed from my first perusal. According to the oral legend, she was supposed to be a full-blooded Cherokee.

I don't know why I feel she abandoned her family. She could have died right after the Civil War. It's the absence of stories about her that makes me think she decided not to stay with Solomon.

I am also trying to find out more about my Cotten line. I want to know why they changed their name from Anderson to Cotten. Knowing why will make it easier to trace the family. I now have a new theory to disprove.

My great-grandfather Napoleon Cotten had a brother who chose the surname Cain. After googling the name Cain in the Mississippi archive, I came up with several families in Amite County, the same county where my family lived in 1870. Here's an excerpt from Cain, a book by Mildred and Margaret Ezell which I found interesting.

"Descendants of Isaiah and Polly (Butler) Cain: 1) Mary B. Cain, b 21 Nov. 1822 Amit. Co., d 8 Sep 1843, bur Zion Hill Cem., Amite Co.; m 5 Mar 1840 (Amite 3-81 by T W Pound J.P., George W. Carmack bondsman) Joseph Robertson Cotten, b 7 July 1818, d 17 Mch 1885, bur Cotten Cem., Fr. Co. MS (S32 T5 R5)."

Joseph and Mary had one daughter. Mary died young and Joseph remarried. Isaiah and Polly (sometimes called Mary too) raised Mary's daughter Mary Cotten, not Joseph. Joseph is also the father of Thomas Cotten by his second wife. This is the very same Thomas that lived next door to Ammon Cotten, Napoleon's son, on the 1900 Pike County census. Both Thomas and Ammon listed their profession as merchants. I found that too much of a coincidence. That was why I first thought Joseph was the slave owner of Winnie and her children. There had to be contact between the two families because of Mary Cotten.

In addition, I found a white Hiram Cain and a white Elizabeth Cain and a white Napoleon Whittington, a Cain cousin all in that family group in Amite County. These were my family's names too. I know that doesn't mean much by itself. These names could have been very popular during this time. But it has made me think about checking in a whole new direction.

What if my gr-gr-gr-grandmother Winnie and her children were originally on the Cain plantation? What if Winnie married someone named Anderson and he was not the father of her children? What if they were befriended by the Cottens after the Civil War? I know these are a lot of "what ifs." Hopefully, by following these "ifs" I will run across more family members and the answers to some of the mysteries.