Finding Your Folks

By JUDY FOWLER KILGORE
jkilgore@thecitizennews.

I’m going to make a confession. I am actually off work this week and was at a loss for a topic for my column. Knee surgery last Friday took me temporarily out of commission for a few days and I took the opportunity to finish my stories for the Meriwether Heritage Book since Linda Dobbs graciously gave me an extension.

Two months ago, my knee gave way and, as I was going down, I sprained my ankle and broke my foot in two places. It hasn’t been fun hobbling around in a “boot,” trying to maintain a normal pace when everything I did took twice as much effort. With a three-level house (bathrooms upstairs, kitchen downstairs and laundry in the basement) I had some real challenges.

After about a week, I became a whiz with the walker and figured out new ways to do things. But the worst thing was not being able to complete my research at the courthouse on my Meriwether ancestors. So I took my own advice and wrote them using what information I had.

Being a little more mobile later this week enabled me to gather up my stories and drive to Greenville to drop them off. And, here’s the good news: Linda will be taking stories for a few more weeks.

I completed seven stories and will be submitting three or four more. If you can get your act together pretty quickly, you can still get your stories published. Just drop Linda an e-mail at Ldobbs2@aol.com and check first. Judging by the number of stories stacked in boxes around her dining room, it’s going to be a pretty hefty book.

Also, I found out that Linda still has a few copies of “Historical Account of Meriwether County 1827-1974” by Regina Pinkston. I purchased one and was rewarded right away by finding my elusive great-great-grandfather, Martin Owen, in the 1840 census listed in the book. After verifying the content of the book with the actual census page (what would I do without Ancestry.com,?), I discovered two reasons why I had missed him. One, he was listed as Martin “Orem,” and, two, he was on the very last page of the census. The census taker had started doing his totals several pages before the last page and I didn’t bother to go any farther when I saw the tallies starting. Therefore, I never made it to the last page. Dumb me.

But there he was, living among my Boyds, right where he was supposed to be and I found a bonus ... another child, a daughter, who must have died before the 1850 census. So, now my Owens family is reasonably complete and I am ecstatic. This is the family I found after tracking another Owens family for nearly two years. I finally realized it was the wrong family.

Another thing I wanted to touch on was the land lotteries. I mentioned in the previous column that sometimes people didn’t claim their land, for whatever reason, and it just sat there.

By 1842, the state had had enough, and the Georgia Legislature passed an act that nullified any claims to lots not claimed in the lotteries of 1805, 1807 and 1820, and set a deadline of July 1, 1843, for filing claims to lots won in 1821, 1827 and 1832. Orphans were exempt from the deadline and had until their 21st birthdays to file.

Needless to say, people scrambled to claim their land.

There is a wonderful book available at the Coweta Genealogy Library that contains abstracts of loose papers found in the surveyor general’s office showing these late claims. It’s called, “The Georgia Land Lottery Papers 1805-1914,” and it was compiled by Robert S. Davis Jr. and the Rev. Silas Emmett Lucas Jr. This book contains much genealogical information since the persons who filed claims often were not the fortunate drawers themselves, but their heirs. You can find whole families in this book. It also contains names of people who bought the land from the original owner (who failed to file a claim). It is a gold mine of information.

Here are some examples:

“Coweta County: Lot 284-4-2 Cherokee. Personally appeared Briggs W. Hopson to claim lot 284-4-2 he purchased from James Merrill’s orphans of Monroe County. Signed: Briggs W. Hopson before Peter Herren, J.P., 11 Oct. 1848.”

“Fayette County: Lot 244-10-4 Cherokee. Pers. came Jeptha Landrum, legatee of Eda Fowler, dec’d., to claim lot 244-10-4. Signed: Jeptha Landrum bef. Edward Conner, J.I.C. 23 June 1843.”

“Coweta County: Lot 163-4-4- Cherokee. Pers. appd. Elizabeth Corley to claim lot 163-4-4 and lot 210-11-2 drawn by her late husband Davenport Corley. Includes app’t. of Hillsberry R. Harrison as att’y. Signed: Elizabeth (by mark) Corley before Jeremiah Corley & William B. Brown, J.P. 7 June 1843.”

“Campbell County: Lot 148-7 Lee. Pers. app’d. Reubin C. Beavers, agent for Sarah Beavers (one of the children and lawful heirs of John Fluker, dec’d.) to claim lot 148-7-Lee Co. Includes app’t. of John Carlton as att’y. Signed: R.C. Beavers and Sarah Beavers before R.A. Beavers and A.K. Richardson, J.P. 27 may 1843.”

Although those are just a few, there are hundreds of claims in this book and mountains of genealogical information. There also are many references to the land lotteries online. Just do a search for "Georgia Land Lottery" and they will all pop up.

Next week I promise we’ll get back to southside families (and hopefully I’ll be rid of my “boot”).

I’m still looking for your genealogy stories about south metro Atlanta area families. Send them to The Citizen, Drawer 1719, Fayetteville, GA 30214; E-mail jkilgore@thecitizennews.com or jodiek444@aol.com.

Until next week, happy hunting!

(Judy regrets that time does not permit her to do personal research for others.)

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