Bad Links?
Other glitches?
Notify Webmaster

Genealogy: Finding Your Folks

More on the Wade Lester family of Fayette

By Judy Fowler Kilgore

Well, I’ve certainly had fun researching the Lester family for the past week. Between what Clare told me and my own research, some interesting information has surfaced.

First, let me clear up the information in that little box to the right of this column (online) which states that I don’t do personal research for others. I don’t.

However, if the family is related to mine, or connects to mine, and I can add the information to my personal family tree, then I’m happy to help if I can, using what resources I have at home, or can obtain online.

This Lester family connects to mine through the Boyds and I’ve been gleefully adding people to my family tree all week. Research alone is interesting, but when you can connect the family to your own, it becomes even more so. While I am not “related” to the Lesters, I am “connected” through other family lines.

I was going to the Meriwether County courthouse last week anyway to look for more Boyd information and, while I was there, I looked up Wade Lester in the deed books since we had found him in Meriwether in 1830 and 1840.

Boy! Was I in for a surprise! The man owned land all over Meriwether! But the biggest surprise was finding his first entry where he was acting as attorney for James Heaton (Revolutionary Soldier) of DeKalb County and had been sent to Meriwether to claim James’ land he won in the 1827 lottery. The deed/power of attorney, dated Sept. 26, 1827 in DeKalb and signed by James Campbell, J.P., indicated that Wade also was from DeKalb and gave a valuable clue as to where he was before he came to Meriwether. I made a photocopy of this transaction and would be happy to share its full contents with any who are related to this family.

I had already found Wade in the 1830 and 1840 Meriwether census and set about tallying up the number of children, their sexes and birth years to compare them with the children I found living with Elizabeth Lester, presumably widowed, in Fayette County in 1850. They couldn’t have been a more perfect match.

Also, in the 1840 Meriwether census, an Isaac Lester appears, and both Isaac and a James Lester were involved in land transactions in Meriwether. Since these were two of the names Wade gave to his sons, it leads me to believe these two, Isaac and James, may have been his brothers or, at least, relatives.

In 1839, Wade was the administrator of the estate of a William Davis of Meriwether, but court documents gave no clues as to whether he was a family member or just a friend. Wade’s wife was said to be Elizabeth Davis but I have been unable to confirm this. William did not leave a will.

An online resource, Genforum, revealed an alarming message posted last summer by Debbie King about the Brown-Lester cemetery on Ga. Hwy. 74 at I-85 being moved to make way for development. Debbie posted the names of the people buried there and, lo and behold, both Wade and Elizabeth were there, along with several of their children and even a grandchild. Now I had some definite dates to go on.

According to the cemetery records, Wade died in May of 1845, along with one of his daughters. That sounds suspiciously like disease — maybe flu or typhoid fever. Wade’s grave also says “Dr.” Wade Lester in the Genforum message, so he may have been a physician. However, without seeing the grave itself, I can only speculate. The name “Doctor” was used often as a given name in those days and had nothing to do with a person’s profession. Wade is not listed among early physicians in the Meriwether County books, although a Dr. Lasseter is given as an early physician in the Luthersville area.

Using various resources, some proven and some not, this is what I have come up with so far on Wade and Elizabeth’s family.

Married sometime before 1824, Wade and Elizabeth Lester had 12 children:

(1) William H. Lester b. abt 1824; (2) May Lester b. abt 1826; (3) Sarah Lester b. abt 1828, m. William Simpler in Meriwether in 1841; (4) John Lester b. 30 May 1830, d. 10 Oct. 1914, m. Sarah Elizabeth Rivers in 1853 in Fayette, both buried at Bethany; (5) Rachel Lester b. abt 1831 (never married); (6) Martha Lester b. abt 1834 (never married), d. 1906 or 1908, buried in cemetery on Hwy. 74; (7) James Lester b. abt 1835; (8) Isaac Lester b. abt 1836, may have died in the Civil War (Fayette County CW records); (9) Elizabeth Lester b. 1839, d. May 1845, buried in cemetery on Hwy. 74; (10) Wade Lester b. abt 1840; (11) Frances Lester b. 18 Nov. 1843, d. 4 Aug. 1864, buried in cemetery on Hwy. 74, appears she never married; and (12) Susan Lester, b. abt 1846, married Joseph Simeon Hobbs and said to have moved to Texas.

Child No. 4 above, John Lester, was the father of Clare’s Robert Wade Lester who married Martha J. Ellington. Many of John’s descendants are buried at Bethany.

If you can help Clare with her Lester family information, you may e-mail her at chindman_1@msn.com. She’s still looking for cousins and personal Lester family stories.

I, too, am interested in any who are researching this family. There appears to have been a Hiram Lester in Fayette at the same time as our Lesters, but researchers of Hiram say he came from Henry County and was not related to the family of Wade and Elizabeth.

I welcome all letters and e-mails about genealogy and info on south metro Atlanta families. Send them to The Citizen, P.O. Drawer 1719, Fayetteville, GA 30214; e-mail jkilgore@thecitizennews.com or jodiek444@aol.com. Any letters and/or e-mails I receive are subject to being used in the column.

Until next week, happy hunting!