July 30, 2008-Timeline-Thomas Manning, Jr.

Thomas Manning, Jr. 1802-1889

Thomas Manning, Jr. was born in 1802 in York County, South Carolina. He was the son of Thomas Manning, Sr. (1775-1840) and Elizabeth Beck. Thomas Manning, Jr. married Jane Jinsey Stewart in 1828. Jane was the daughter of John Stewart (1772-1852) and Sarah Mullinax (1774-1852). Thomas and his family lived in South Carolina from the time he was born until around 1835 when he moved to Walker County, Georgia.

While still living in South Carolina, Thomas and Jane had two sons.

John S. Manning 1830

Thomas Jefferson Manning 1832

After moving to Walker County, Georgia, the rest of their children were born.

Sarah A. Manning 1835
Elizabeth C. Manning 1837

Migamin (Margaman) Manning 1840

Mary Jane Manning 1842

James P. Manning 1844

Louisa Manning 1846

Lewis C. Manning 1851

1840

Thomas Manning, Jr. was noted on the 1840 census in Walker County, Georgia to have a household consisting of himself, wife, two sons and two daughters.

1850

Thomas Manning, Jr. was noted on the census to be a farmer. In 1850, the family was in Walker County, Georgia, household #375, owning real estate valued at $1800. The household included Thomas, James. John, Thomas Jefferson, Sarah, Elizabeth, Margaman, Mary J., James P. and Louisa. On the 1850 Walker County Slave Schedule, Thomas was shown to have three slaves ages 35, 24 and 7. John, the oldest son was noted to be a teacher and Thomas Jefferson, a farmer.

1857

Son, Thomas Jefferson Manning had completed medical school and moved to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) to work as a physician for the Indian Agent. In 1857, Thomas Jefferson Manning married Matilda LeFlore.

1859

Son, Margaman Manning married Harriet Thornton.

1860

On the 1860 census in Walker County, they were household #699 which included Thomas, Jane, Louisa and Lewis. Thomas was indicated to be a farmer and his real estate was valued at $6000 and his personal estate at $6000. On the 1860 Slave Schedule, Thomas owned six slaves ages 40, 33, 18, 18, 9 and 3.

His son John S. was not on this census. He died in 1860 with a lung hemorrage, according to the U.S. Mortality Index. On the same census page in 1860, his son Margaman Manning and his wife Harriet are house are household #698, he was 20 and she was 18. Their property was valued at $375 and he was a farmer.

Daughter Elizabeth C. and her husband H.G. R. Williams are household #703 on the 1860 Walker County census. Mr. Williams was noted to be a teacher with real estate valued at $1000 and personal estate at $400.

1862

Daughter Mary J. Manning Thornton died at age 20, leaving her husband Augustus and two children Clarinda and James B. Thornton.

1864

Son in law, Augustus Thornton died. He was killed in a Civil War battle. His children Clarinda and James B. were living with Thomas and Jane Manning in 1870.

1865

Son, Margaman Manning died while a Prisoner of War at Camp Douglas, Illinois. He was survived by his wife Harriet and daughter Julia Elizabeth who was born March 16, 1861 in Dalton, Whitfield, Georgia.

1866

Daughter, Louisa married Hamilton G. Moore and their first child Effa Lillian Moore was born July 8, 1866.

1870

On the Walker County census of 1870, Thomas is household #193 with his wife Jane and children Lewis C., and grandchildren Catherine J. and James B. Thornton. They were the children of their daughter Mary Jane Manning Thornton. Thomas was noted to be a farmer with real estate valued at $6000 and a personal estate of $6000.

1876

Daughter, Louisa Manning Moore died at age 30 and was survived by her husband, Hamilton G. Moore and children Effa Lillian, Emma J., Thomas H., Minnie S. and Artemissa B. In 1876, Hamilton Moore remarried to Margaret Lawrence.

1880

On the 1880 census of Walker County, Thomas lived with his wife Jane and granddaughter Effa.

Jane Stewart Manning died in 1885 and Thomas Manning died in 1889. Thomas and Jane are buried next to their son, John, at the Young Family Cemetery near Lafayette, Walker, Georgia.

July 26, 2008-Thomas Manning, Jr./Young Cemetery

Thomas Manning, Jr. 1802-1889, my great-great -great paternal grandfather is buried in the Young Family Cemetery in Walker County, Ga. With the experience I had at the Woods Cemetery in Fannin County, TX and Liberty Bell Cemetery in Dill City, OK, I expected I would solve the mystery of the Young Family Cemetery very quickly. I haven't yet and its been over a month since I located Thomas Manning's place of burial.

The Young family included James 1775-1858, wife Sarah Ann 1782-1857, Capt. F. M. 1823-1895, Martha (wife of F.M.) 1835-1870, their daughter Sarah Ann 1859-1883, and son George T. 1853-1884. In addition to the Youngs are the Littles and the McWilliams.

William Little 1801-1882, his wife (no name) 1815-1884, son J. R. 1847-1919, his wife M.W. 1853-1826. The McWilliams family includes Capt. William 1836-1919, his second wife Nancy Neal 1844-1922, his first wife Sarah 1842-1862, a son R. P. McWilliams 1881-1907.
Then there are the Mannings, Thomas 1802-1889, his wife Jane 1807-1885, son John 1830-1860. And the last two graves are those of Robert Patterson who died 1864 and Bettie Jackson 1849-1877. There are only 19 graves located there.

I have learned with the two previous cemeteries I researched that almost everyone who was in those two cemeteries were related. But how were these families related? I don't know for sure, but this is what I know at this time.

Except for Mr. Patterson and Mrs. Jackson, all the families were originally from York County, S.C.
All were farmers owning large amounts of land and they were slave owners.
They all lived near each other in East Armuchee, Walker County, GA.
William Little married Elizabeth Young and then married Norah Jackson.
None of the children of Thomas and Jane Manning married a Young, Little or McWilliams.
The Youngs were a prominent family in Walker County.

That's really all I know for now. I can make some assumptions. Perhaps they knew each other in SC and moved to GA at about the same time and located in the same area. Beyond that, it's a mystery waiting to be solved.

July 25, 2008-Liberty Bell Cemetery-Dill City, Oklahoma

After the visit to Woods Cemetery in Fannin County, Texas and all the time spent in researching the relationships of the ancestors buried there, I thought I knew how I would proceed in visiting other small cemeteries. I would go fully informed about the ancestors who were buried there, or I would pay very close attention to gravemarkers and be thorough in looking around.

In April 2008 while on a trip to Oklahoma, we went to Liberty Bell Cemetery in Dill City, Oklahoma. It is a small cemetery with probably less than 80 graves. I thought we were well informed about who in the family was buried there. There would be Browns, Bookouts, Parkers and Rouses. We knew where they were located and took some nice photos. We found the Browns and Rouses and Parkers we had expected. There was a row of 5 Bookout graves with two Jackson markers right in the middle of the row. The Jackson markers were much older. It seemed a bit confusing, but we made notes and included pictures of the Jackson markers. At that time, we were not aware of any relationship to Jacksons since we had only been doing genealogy for about 8 months.

The Jackson markers read, Mahala Jackson, wife of S.N. Jackson, June 26, 1904 and Mary R. Jackson, died Feb. 9, 1906, aged 63 years. In order to identify these two Jacksons I had to go back over the genealogy of the Bookout family, which took a while. As it turned out Mahala Moore Bookout was married to Calvin Bookout. Calvin Bookout died in 1877. Mahala was left a widow with seven children. Two of her children, Amaziah Bookout and Molly Bookout Rouse are buried at Liberty Bell. In 1881, Mahala remarried to Stephen Nelson Jackson. That made it clear that it was Mahala Jackson, the wife of S.N. Jackson, who was the mother of Amaziah and Molly Bookout. Stephen N. Jackson's mother was Mary R. Jackson. The age on Mary R. Jackson's marker does not match what her age would have been in 1906. Instead of 73 years old, the marker showed 63 years. Just a mistake.

I was not surprised to learn that Stephen N. Jackson is also buried at Liberty Bell. I don't know exactly where, but next time I will locate his grave. Stephen N. Jackson and Mahala married when the oldest of Mahala's children was 15 and the youngest only 4. He raised the children of Cecil Bookout.

Thinking I had identified all the ancestors at Liberty Bell, I was surprised when we discovered that one of the daughters of the Rouses is also buried there. Bertha Rouse married Mr. Dean and Bertha Dean is also at Liberty Bell. I now have no reason to believe we won't find more ancestors there as the research continues. I am becoming better prepared as time goes by.

July 25, 2008-Just Getting Started

This is the first day for my new blog. I hope that each entry will provide some new information and also record some family history. Being very new at genealogy, I have made some mistakes that have cost a lot of time and lost effort. I started on this quest to understand the family history in July 2007.

I had a very thorough genealogy of my family done by an Uncle in 1989, but I really wanted to see things for myself and look at sources and records that he probably had already seen. I knew I would remember it all much better and put the pieces together in my own mind. At the same time, I wanted to help develop the Brown family genealogy with my husband. Putting aside the Harris, Bonner family for a while I went to work on the Brown's. It was very difficult because the original Brown (1750) was named James, each of his sons had sons named James and so did each of his grandsons. Each son of James Brown (1750) also named their children the same name as their siblings. Really confusing. Decided to focus more on the more recent Brown's.

Starting with Jesse Wilson Brown (1826), we identified his migration from North Carolina, through Alabama and to Fannin County, Texas. In the late summer of 2007, we were going to be in Oklahoma and decided to drive to Fannin County to visit the cemetery where the Brown's were buried. This cemetery visit was the beginning of a very lengthy, time consuming effort to understand how everyone in this small cemetery, Woods Cemetery, might or might not be related.

While there, we looked at all the gravemarkers, took some pictures of ones named Brown and some of Olivers because we knew how they were related and wrote down a few other names. After returning home, we found a good transcription of the names and dates of those buried at Woods Cemetery on the Fannin County Genealogy site. Comparing the Fannin transcription with the names we saw, we thought maybe 15 people were Brown family. There were a total of 82 names listed in the transcription.

Well, how was it, these Brown's came to be buried in a cemetery noted as the Woods Family Cemetery? This was the beginning of an effort that was very time consuming. That is, who were the others? Why were they all in the same small cemetery? After about 3 months of researching census records and re-reading the Woods Cemetery transcription, I had made some progress. Finally, I had identified 67 of the 82 to be related to the Brown's by descendency or marriage. Only 15 people have appeared to be unrelated.

Although, this research and verification of Brown family members took a long time, I have learned not to ignore the names on other gravemarkers in small family cemeteries where your ancestors are buried. In visiting other small cemeteries, I now look around, write down related information and names. But, I haven't been thorough enough. Next time I'll tell you about Liberty Bell Cemetery.