Tombstone Tuesday - Joseph Hill - Newberry Co., South Carolina

Headstone of Joseph Hill in Lower Duncan Creek Cemetery in Whitmore, Newberry Co., SC. [1]

Transcription:

HERE

Lies the Body of

JOSEPH HILL

Husband of Ruth Hill

who died 

Oct 5th 1839

in the 68th year

of his age.

According to his headstone, Joseph Hill would have been born about 1771. He was my 5th great-grandfather. He was married to Ruth Fowler, daughter of Richard and Ruth Fowler. Ruth is also buried in this cemetery. 

• His son Elijah Hill [2] married Rachel Watson, daughter of Nancy Jeans and John Watson. 
• Their son Joseph Watson Hill married Josephine F Cox [3], daughter of Robert Cox and Basheba McCoy [4].
• Their son Nathaniel "Gus" Hill [5] married Jessie Inez Barton, daughter of James Silas Barton and Sarah Alice Tinsley. 
• Their daughter Blanche Kathryne Hill was my great-grandmother. She married John Brooks Binns, son of John Milton Binns and Perthinia Eula Brooks. I was fortunate to have grown up with most of my great-grandparents. 
• Their daughter Barbara Binns is my grandmother. She has taken the Family Finder autosomal DNA test. 

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SOURCES: 

   [1] Photograph taken by Donna Brummett and added to Joseph Hill's Find-A-Grave memorial on 4 December 2008. Photo used with permission by owner. 

   [2] Newberry County, South Carolina, Wills Book, 1825-1840, Vol N, p. 170-171, Joseph Hill, 9 October 1939 (probated); Office of Probate Judge, Newberry; digital images, "South Carolina Probate Records, Bound Volumes 1671-1977," FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org : accessed 3 December 2013).  Mentioned as Elijah Hill in his father Joseph Hill's will (w. 30 Sept 1839, Newberry District, SC); and also named as Executor and granted letters testamentary.

   [3] Sharon J Doliante, Maryland and Virginia Colonials: Genealogies of Some Colonial Families, Volume I (1991; reprint, Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc, 1998), p. 560, Odell Family; digial images, Ancestry.com, Ancestry.com (http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=48206 : downloaded 26 November 2013).

   [4] Greenville County, South Carolina, Wills Book, 1840-1852, Vol. C, p. 429-430, Bersheba Cox, 15 July 1852 (proved);  digital images, "South Carolina Probate Records, Bound Volumes 1671-1977," FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org : accessed 28 July 2011).

   [5] I have not found the will of Gus' father, John Watson Hill. I do intend to order the death certificate of Gus Hill, though, which should have the name of his parents listed. 

It must be in the Genes!

In my last post I mentioned the importance of building out your tree with the hopes of finding a set of ancestors in common with your DNA matches. This has been working especially well for me, not to mention it has gotten me “back in the saddle again.” One of the recent matches to my grandmother has a set of WATSON ancestors from South Carolina. It is a long shot, but there is a remote possibility that his WATSONS were connected to my WATSONS of Laurens County, South Carolina. All I know is that his ancestor was Leroy WATSON. Leroy WATSON was born 1795 in South Carolina and he died 1872 in Jonesville, Florida. His descendants lived in Georgia and Florida.

My oldest known WATSON was John WATSON who was born 1788 in South Carolina. He married Nancy JEANS and their daughter Rachel WATSON married Elijah HILL prior to moving to Arkansas. 

Most of this information I got from the online trees posted to Rootsweb.com, now Ancestry.com, back in 2005. These trees were created from GEDCOMS that individuals made from their genealogy software and uploaded to the site. I went back and reviewed the notes and sources attached to these trees and found the JEANS family mentioned in a book Maryland and Virginia Colonials: Genealogies of Some Colonial Families, Volume I, by Sharon Doliante, on pages 560-561. 

Here are the digital images of pages 561-561 that mention the JEANS, WATSON, and HILL families: 

 Maryland and Virginia Colonials: Genealogies of Some Colonial Families, Volume I 

by Sharon Doliante, p. 560; digital images downloaded from Ancestry.com, 26 November 2013

Maryland and Virginia Colonials: Genealogies of Some Colonial Families, Volume I 

by Sharon Doliante, p. 561; digital images downloaded from Ancestry.com, 26 November 2013

Here is some transcription from pages 560-561: 

viii. Martha Odell, mentioned in Distn. of Estate papers of her deceased father in 1779 as "Martha Jeans." Her husband was Joseph "Joe" Jeans. (This surname sometimes given as Janes/Jones, but Jeans or Jeanes was apparently the correct spelling. He d. testate bet. dates of July 21, 1826 & Sept 7, 1826 (dates of the writing & proving of his will), but the Laurens Co., will is listed as that of "Joseph Jones." Issue:
i. Joseph Jeans
ii. John Jeans
iii. daughter Jeans, m. _____ Duncan. Issue:
    A. Leander Duncan
iv. Ann "Nancy" Jeans, m. John Watson, Issue:
  A. Thomas Watson
  B. Rachel Watson, m. Elijah Hill. Issue:
    (A) Thomas Hill, m. Jane Edward of Ashley Co., AR
    (B) Joseph W Hill, m. Miss J. F. Cox of Greenville Dist., SC, dau of Robert Cox. He seems to have been the compiler of the "Hill Notes," c1885, presently owned by Mr. Otis Duncan, of SC. These are a compilation of genealogical notes on misc. upper SC families.
    (C) Martha E Hill
    (D) John L Hill
    (E) Elliot E Hill, m. ____ Scott of Hardeman Co., Tenn
    (F). Levi Hill
    (G) Nathan E Hill
  C. Joseph Watson m. Betsy Ferguson
  D. Harrison Watson
  E. John Watson, Jr
  F. Elisha Watson, m. Martha Jeans
  G. Milton Watson
  H. Martha Watson

This book has a LOT of in-text references to deed books, will books, estate and court records. However, there are no footnotes or a list of sources at the end of the book. There is enough source information given, though, for the reader to locate primary records to support the information provided.

For example, the four names of the children of Martha Odell and Joseph Jeans were pulled by the author directly from the will of Joseph Jeans. Although she did not include a transcription of the will itself, it wasn’t too hard to find. In the transcription above, the author mentioned his name – Joseph “Jones,” the dates his will was written and probated in 1826, and the county – Laurens. I logged in to the FamilySearch.org site, clicked on the Search link, then clicked on the United States browsable collections link, then clicked on the South Carolina link.

There are two sets of probate record collections for South Carolina that are browsable on the FamilySearch.org website. There are the bound volumes and the loose papers. I found the will of Joseph “Jones” in the bound volume collection in the “Estate Records, 1826-1834, Volume F” bound volume.

Here is a digital image of the microfilmed copy of the will as it appears in the Bound Estate Record Volume F, page 43:

Laurens Co., SC, Estate Records, 1826-1834, Volume F: 43, Joseph Jones, 7 September 1826 (probated); digital image, "South Carolina Probate Records, Bound Volumes 1671-1977," downloaded from FamilySearch.org 26 November 2013).

In the name of God Amen
I Josheph Jones of Laurens District and State of South Carolina being of sound and disposing [?] mind and memory but weakd in body and caulling to mind the unsertenty of life and being Desirous to dispose of all such worley Estate as it saith pleaseth God to bless me with do make and ordain this my last will and manner following that is to say ---
I give to Nancy and John Watson one Negro woman named Renae to them and thare assigns for ever and my said Negro Max James to make his choyce of my children who the said James will serve and to be appraised and assised to them their heirs and assigns for ever.
To my son Joseph Jones, I give my Negro woman Molly and her increase to him his heirs and assigns for ever and my waggon and hind geer to my son Joseph and my crop on hand who I give to my son Joseph.
I give to my grandson Leander Dunkin my Plantation to be sold and the money to be put to in trust untill Leander Dunken shall come to lawfull age to receive thanse.
I give to my son John Jones one Dollar the ballance of my Property to be sold and pay for just debts and funderal espenses to be paid and the ballance to be equally divided between the rest of my children and if the said Leander Duncan shall die without heirs, the sale of my land to be equally paid between John Watson Children ---

And lastly I do constitute and appoint my said son Joseph Jones and John Watson executors of this my last will and testament hereby revoking other and former testaments by me hioeafter made for testimoney whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my seal this 21 day of July 1826 and in the fifty first year of the Independence of the United states of America.
Signed, Sealed, published and declared As my Last Will and Testament of the above Names Joseph Jones in the presence of Us:
Benj. Duckett Esq
William Duckett
George Smith
Signed Joseph X (his mark) Jones

Joseph Jones' will was proved in the Laurens County Court of Ordinary on September 1st, 1826 by Benjamin Duckett, one of the subscribing witnesses. Joseph Jones and John Watson were also qualified as executors of the estate.

Here are some of the things I learned from the will of Joseph Jones:

• He wrote his will 21 July 1826 and it was proved 1 September 1826, therefore he died between these two dates
• He asked that money be set aside for funeral expenses, therefore I believe he had a funeral, probably at a church and was buried in a church cemetery (versus being buried on the family farm)
• His wife Martha Jeans was not mentioned, therefore she had probably died prior to him writing his will
• Joseph had two known sons named Joseph and John and a daughter named Nancy who married John Watson
• Joseph had another daughter who had married a Duncan and had a child named Leander Duncan; this daughter was probably deceased and could not receive her share which was then passed on to her son Leander
• Joseph's grandson Leander Duncan was still a minor and could not inherit his share until he came of age

Although I did not answer the direct question of whether or not my grandmother's match's ancestor, Leroy Watson is related to my Watson line, I was able to go back one more generation in my tree with the discovery of the Joseph Jones/Jeans will and family and added two additional surnames - JEANS and ODELL! Even though I found this family information originally in a book whose digital images were uploaded to Ancestry.com, I did not assume this information was correct. Instead I obtained additional evidence supporting the information published in the book and made my own conclusions about the information provided within. 

Future Research: 

For the next step in this process, I will look for the will of my ancestor John Watson. This has been on my "To-Do" list for quite a while now anyways. With the digital images being uploaded to FamilySearch.org all the time now, I am able to find these documents faster and cheaper. 

Because my match's ancestor was born in 1795, he would more likely have been a brother of my ancestor John Watson who was born probably in the 1780s-1790s. In this case, I would need to look for men living in the Laurens County district around this time who might have been picked up by the 1790 census, just got married and started having children. I would then have to comb the wills of all of the Watson men to see if I could find one who had a son named John and/or Leroy. But first I would need more information on this Leroy Watson - where did he live and when? What county in SC was he from? When did he move to FL and GA? Who went with him? As you can see though, I'm learning just as much stuff about my own family as I am about his! 

Distribution of Property of David McCoy of Greenville, SC

My great-grandmother, Blanche Kathryne Hill, was the granddaughter of Josephine F Cox and Joseph Watson Hill of Greenville, South Carolina. Josephine and Joseph Hill moved from Greenville, South Carolina to Center Point, Howard County, Arkansas in 1869.

Josephine had been left an orphan at a young age. Her father, Robert Cox, died when she was just 8 years old and her mother, Basheba McCoy Cox, followed a couple of years later in 1852.  Josephine's mother, Basheba McCoy, had also been left without a father at a young age. Her father, David McCoy, had died when Basheba was only 16 years of age. However Basheba and her sisters were already married off with husbands by the time their father passed away.

The following distribution of property from David McCoy's estate file provides a list of names of his 4 daughters - Louisa, Teeley, Shaloma and Basheba in addition to their husbands' names:


Amount of Property Advanced in the lifetime of David McCoy late deceased:

Ezekial Spriggs Husband of his 1st Daughter Louisa
4 Negros $975
and other property to the amount of $55 -- total $1030

Benjamin McKenzie Husband of his 2nd Daughter Teeley
2 Negroes & other property $553 - 2 = $551
deduct $2 for bedsted

Robert Cox Husband of his 3 Daughter Barsheba
2 Negroes & other property to the amt $774

Asa May Husband of his 4 Daughter Shaloma
2 Negroes and other property to the amount $755

Estimated by us this 29th of November 1822

Geo Salmon
Joseph Cobbs
Thos Blyth

David McCoy died around 1822 in Greenville County, South Carolina. No will was found for him in Greenville County. He preceded his wife Susan McCoy in Death (last name unknown). 

His estate was managed by his administrator, Robert Cox (husband of his daughter, Basheba McCoy Cox). David McCoy's estate files were downloaded from the FamilySearch.org website, "South Carolina Probate Records, Files and Loose Papers, 1732-1964." These records were microfilmed by FamilySearch at the Greenville County Probate Court. David McCoy's estate papers were contained in File no. 339. 

From this page, we learned the following: 

Basheba McCoy married Robert Cox

Louisa McCoy married Ezekial Spriggs

Teeley McCoy married Benjamin McKenzie

Shaloma McCoy married Asa May

I have several Family Finder DNA matches to people with the Cox surname in their family trees. I also am a match to a couple of McKenzies. This might be the connection to them.

Here is my line to my Great-Grandmother Blanche (father's side):
Me
Dad (Tim Smith)
Grandmother (Barbara Binns)
Great-Grandmother (Blanche Hill)

Determining a genealogical connection using Ancestry.com online family trees - Part 2

In my last post, I talked about how to find an Ancestry.com online family tree using a Google search. So now I have identified my match, I have found her online family tree, where do I go from here?

How do I find a connection between us?

I will start by looking at her online family tree in pedigree view. I will assume that my match is the home person in this tree marked as "private." This view illustrates my match's ancestry from her to all 16 of her 2nd great-grandparents.

I don’t recognize any of the people listed in the first page of this pedigree. So I start by clicking through each of the arrows one by one to expand the tree. I start at the top with Leroy Beauchamp. Clicking on the arrow beside his name brings up the expanded trees for the Beauchamp-Martin family. This view shows her ancestry back to her 6th great-grandparents.

The Family Finder test says it can find matches up to the 5th cousin level. 5th cousins share the same 4th great-grandparents. So I should be able to find a connection to my match without going any further back in her tree. I don't see any familiar surnames in the Beauchamp-Martin family tree, so I’m ready to move down to her 2nd great-grandmother, Nancy Ellen Layman. To return to the original view of her 2nd great-grandparents, I simply click on the minus button beside Leroy Beauchamp's name. This will bring the original pedigree chart back into view. Next I click on the arrow beside Nancy Ellen Layman. Again, I go through the surnames, but I do not see any in common. I click the minus sign beside her name to collapse the tree and do the same for the remaining 14 of her 2nd great-grandparents (except for Thomas W. Dyer who does not have any ancestors listed).

When I expand the ancestors of Thomas Daniel Dendy, I see a familiar surname - TINSLEY. I wrote about them last week in my Follow-up Friday post. My match's 6th great-grandmother is Rachel Tinsley. This is what it looks like in expanded view:

I hover my mouse over the name of Rachel Tinsley and I see that she died in Newberry County, South Carolina. My Tinsleys were from Laurens County, South Carolina. My curiosity piqued, I then expand the tree further to show me the Tinsley family by clicking on the arrow beside Rachel Tinsley's name.

The expanded tree includes Thomas Tinsley I and II as the father and grandfather of Rachel Tinsley. BINGO! That’s it! Thomas Tinsley I was the 9th great-grandfather of my match and the 10th great-grandfather of me, making us 9th cousins 1x removed. Our common ancestor is Thomas Tinsley II and his wife Sarah Jackson.

Just for kicks and giggles, I kept going, looking through my match's pedigree. I got down to the very bottom and expanded the tree for Nancy E. Minter, another one of my  match’s 2nd great-grandmothers. Doing so pulled up two Hill ancestors. Hill is another common name that comes up a lot when doing the Family Finder test. I didn't recognize the Abner Hill or Tibitha Hill that showed up in this view, so I expanded their trees further. As it turns out, both Abner and Tilitha Hill turned out to be children of Robert Hill and Tabitha Green. And as it turns out, their grandchildren intermarried with each other (see Abner Hill Minter and Charity Chapman in the red box).

To my surprise, I am also connected via Robert Hill and Tabitha Green's daughter Ann Hill who married John Steed in Brunswick County, Virginia. Robert Hill was my 9th great-grandfather. He was my match's 7th great-grandfather, making us 8th cousins, 2x removed (in addition to being 9^th cousins, 1x removed on the Tinsley line).

Finding a 2nd connection was the "surprise" I mentioned in my last post. I am not really surprised to find a connection so far back as 8^th or 9^th cousins. The test is validated or guaranteed or whatever terminology Family Tree DNA uses in their FAQs to go back to 5^th cousins with a good amount of surety. After that, the DNA gets diluted. In fact, on their FAQs page, they say that the chance of finding a match to a 6^th cousin or more distant is “remote or typically less than 2%.” I have 7 confirmed matches so far and of those 7, 2 are 3^rd cousins, 1 is a 4^th cousin, 1 is a 5^th cousin 3x removed, which can be rounded up to a 6^th cousin; 1 is an 8^th and 1 is a 9^th; and 1 I have not figured out yet.

The reason I'm highlighting this methodology as a post is because when I first started trying to connect with my matches there was a lot of family tree exchanging, especially on Ancestry.com. And the problem I was running into was that I was constantly getting lost in all the profiles of each individual and then losing sight of exactly how my match was connected to the profile I was looking at. In my genealogy software, all of my direct ancestors are color-coded red. So when I look at the index of names, I know immediately who my direct ancestor is. But in Ancestry.com's family trees, especially in the profile view, there are no color coded ancestors.

This is what the list of descendants look like in the profile view. From this view, there is no indication of from whom or how my match is related to Robert Hill. 

I finally figured out that the success to finding a connection to a match is to find the COMMON ANCESTOR and he or she WILL show up in the PEDIGREE VIEW of their tree. I do not have to look at all of the children of everyone in their tree to find my ancestor. I only have to look for the common ancestor. At least this is what has finally started working. So give it a try and let me know if this works for you or not.

Looking for *Estates* in all the Right Places...

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how the North and South Carolina wills and probate record images have been scanned and placed online for users to browse on the FamilySearch.org website.

Today I was trying to find the probate record for Susan McCoy in Greenville County, SC (1847-1850) and grew increasingly frustrated when I realized that the index (if one existed) was not posted to the FamilySearch.org site. Without an index, I could not figure out what "apartment," "file," or "no." her probate records were filed in. I looked through a bunch of the images to see if I could determine if they were filed by date or by surname, but they were not. I simply needed an index.

On a whim, I went to the Greenville Co., SC USGenWeb site thinking they MUST have an index posted somewhere. Although I didn't find an index I did find a link to the Greenville County Governement Online - with a page dedicated to historical records and there I found an Index to Estate Papers, 1787-1976. I clicked on the "M" link for "McCoy" and it brought up the browsable image index for all the "Ms." This is what I found:

McCoy, David - Apartment No. 5, File No. 339, Year filed 1822, Robert Cox, Admr.
McCoy, Susan - Apartment No. 11, File No. 74, Year filed 1847, Robert Cox, Exor.

Here's what the scanned image looks like:

This is exactly what I was looking for!

Now I have TWO - actually THREE Options: 1) I can go back to FamilySearch.org and look for these probate records in the browsable images 2) I can stay on this site and look for these records or 3) I can do BOTH!

Option #1: 
Searching for Estate Records at FamilySearch.org:

Now I can go back to the browsable images posted on the FamilySearch.org website:

South Carolina Probate Records, Files and Loose Papers, 1732-1964

Click on the link for Greenville, click the "Probate Court, Probate Records" link, the "1787-1868" date range.

A list of file numbers come up. Since I am looking for file no. 5, I click the link for "Files 04-06, Nos. 215-420."  (Although the link has been included here, I cannot guarantee it will continue to work longterm, so please follow my description of how I found the files.) 


This is the hard part. This set of images only contains file nos. 4, 5, and 6. I have to find file no. 5 in there somehow. I know no. 5 is in the middle somewhere. At the top, it says I am on image 1 of 730. So there are 730 images in this set. That means the middle is probably about image no. 375. I can type in 375 into the Image No. box and press enter to go directly to that image.  This gives me the estate record for Jesse Moody. Going back one page brings up the first page of his estate record which says it is file no. 338. So all I need to do is fast forward until the end and that should take me to David McCoy's file no. 339.

I only had to go 2 more pages to get to David McCoy's file. The first page was missing, however, so I might want to order the entire record from the South Carolina State Archives if I feel as if it is not complete.

**OR**

Option #2: 

Stay on the Greenville County Government Site and Searching for Estate Records:

Click on the Estate Records link. 

Click on the Apt 0004 File 265 - Apt 0006 File 366 Link

Start going through images as above. This is system is much slower and the images are of poorer quality. 

HOWEVER, I retrieved only 9 images from the FamilySearch.org site and I retrieved 22 images from the Greenville County Government site!!! 

So my recommendation is... 

Option #3:

DO BOTH!!! - This just goes to show you that even in the realm of genealogy, things really are changing relatively quickly. Sometimes we have to check several places before we give up and then check them again because new things are being added all the time. 

A word of caution: **If** you do pull records from both, please make sure you cite them properly. If you found one loose piece of paper listing all of the children of the deceased off of one site, but that same piece of paper is NOT uploaded to the other site, then it is YOUR responsibility to note that. 

Now if you have ancestors from Greenville, South Carolina, be sure to check out the Greenville County, SC Government Online Historical Records page !!!