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Baileys and Owens in Coweta, Carroll By JUDY FOWLER KILGORE This genealogy stuff is so much fun. Oh sure, you get frustrated every now and then, but the surprises that come along lift your spirits so much you forget how frustrated you were. Doing the Meriwether stories for the past several weeks reminded me that I still have not found information on some of the siblings of my great-grandmother, Lucinda Caroline Owens Fowler, who was born in Meriwether County. I had put queries out with the information I had accumulated, but I could only go so far. Now all I could do was wait and hope that someone out there had the families I was missing. When I discovered a very likely link for her brother, Robert Martin Owens, thought to have married Julia Bailey in Coweta County, I also put a query on him on the Owens, Carroll and Coweta County Roots-L lists, but received no response. Drat! I did hear immediately from Valerie Freeman who invited me to join the MyFamily.com site on the Baileys of Coweta County. If you are not familiar with these sites, they are private sites on Ancestry.com which are administrated by a paid member of that commercial site. You do not have to be a member of Ancestry to become a member of the site, but you do have to be “invited,” and use a password and a user name. The site is only accessible to those who have joined and is not available to everybody on the Internet. Thus, information on living people is more readily available and you can talk more freely without fearing your identity will be “stolen.” There also are places on the site to share photos and family trees, and you can browse the member list to see who has signed up. You are notified daily by e-mail when new messages are posted to the sites and you have to use your password and user name to read the message. I belong to about 15 of these sites for my various surnames and a couple of regions, such as Alabama research, and counties around the Atlanta area. I put my information about Robert Martin Owens and Julia Bailey on the Bailey site, being careful to note that I was not 100 percent sure of the connection but that the circumstantial evidence was really encouraging. Robert was single in 1870, found in Campbell County living with his sister, Martha Amanda, and the marriage to Julia was shown as occurring in 1876. A perfect fit, both in timing and location. Last Sunday morning I was dumping the mail out of my mailbox (no, I do not want to refinance my home or car, nor do I want to receive uppers, downers, pain pills or Viagra in the mail), and noticed that a new message had been posted to the MyFamily site on the Baileys of Coweta. When I accessed the site, I almost fell off my chair when I read Gloria Todd’s message. She had given the genealogy of a Robert M. Owens and Julia Bailey, and her husband was connected to that family. I almost had a cow. It appears that Robert, who last appeared in the 1880 census of Carroll County, had moved to Texas and died there in 1890. Well, no wonder I couldn’t find him ... if, indeed, this was my Robert Owens. But Gloria did not appear to have any background on the Owens family at all. I responded immediately with my Owens research information gathered over the past few months from Meriwether and Fayette court records (Robert was the son of Martin and Martha Owens of Upson and Meriwether) and told Gloria they had made their way from Meriwether to Fayette to Campbell to Cleburne County, Alabama. Gloria responded right away and it appears we may have a connection. Made me feel good to know my hunches were right. She is checking with her Owens people in Cleburne to get more details before we can be 100 percent sure. The Owens genealogy appeared in a previous column, but Julia Bailey was the daughter of Alston Bailey and Jane Nichols who are buried at Bethel United Methodist Church cemetery on Luther Bailey Road near Senoia. Alston and Jane Nichols Bailey were both born in South Carolina but were married in Coweta in 1839. Their children as listed in the 1860 Coweta census, First District, were Sarah F., Dicy, William F., John H., Mary E., Matilda J., Julia, Martha, Luther C., James and Nancy. Julia Bailey and Robert Owens had five children, all born in Georgia: Robert Lee Owens b. 22 April 1878, William Alston Owens b. 8 May 1880, Annie Lizzie Owens b. 25 Aug 1881, Hattie Owens b. 1 Feb. 1883, and Julius Owens b. 1 May 1884. Julius Owens, the ancestor of Gloria’s husband, married Berti Poteat, daughter of Joseph Poteat and Mary Buttram of Cleburne County, Ala. Julius and Berti’s children were Harvey Linville Owens, Robert Fred Owens and Mary Lee Owens, all born in Alabama. Needless to say, I was thrilled to find another branch on my family tree. I had noticed there were many Owens families in Cleburne County but had never been able to connect to any of them. I’m really looking forward to learning more about this family. If any of you have knowledge of these families of Coweta, Carroll and Cleburne, I’d love to hear from you. 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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