Recapping our story, Robert H. Boyd, son of Hugh and Jennett Boyd, grew up in Newberry County, S.C. and married Chloeretta D. Gray, probably in Abbeville, in 1815, as that's where Chloeretta's father moved his family after his second marriage. Robert and Chloeretta are found in the 1820 and 1830 Abbeville Dist., S.C., census in the same neighborhood as Chloeretta's father, Fredrick Gray, and some of her brothers.

I debated a long time before I came up with this topic and it may take more than one column to do it justice. It has many facets and it is tied into the two previous topics. The research involves stumbling over a marriage contract hidden within a deed. It also involves a dispute in probate and changing the reporting of annual returns from one county (Meriwether) to another (Pike) simply because the administrator lived in Pike and it was easier for her to settle the estate there. There are missing children, mystery wives, and an unknown burial site - all kinds of questions surrounding this family. Perhaps that is why it is so fascinating and why I can't let it go.

A few months ago, someone asked me to do a column about estates and appraisals since she " ... just didn't understand it at all." No problem. No one really understands it until they have experienced it first hand. Since this sort of ties in with last week's column on treasures in the court books, I thought it appropriate to continue on the same subject.

I can't praise strongly enough the benefits of researching directly in the old books in the courthouse. The first time I touched a book whose writings were done in the very early 1800s I was awestruck. I thought about the clerk who had sat for hours carefully penning what would later become history books for the counties and the courts. I ran my fingers gently over the now-faded-to-brown words, almost afraid they would fade more and disappear before my very eyes. Even the phrasing and grammar tended to make you feel you were in another place and time.

There haven't been any outstanding new developments on the situation with possibly bringing Haywood Thornton, a Confederate soldier, home to Georgia from Illinois, but I have received two e-mails representing opinions from three people.

I wanted to follow up on the situation of bringing Haywood Thornton home from the Rock Island Cemetery in Illinois and give you another contact in case you are a descendant and want to get involved. The wheels are definitely turning on this project but they are turning very slowly. It may be a year or more before it is completed.

We’re going to leave the Byrams and Tidwells temporarily and move southeast from Fairburn into northern Fayette County. Heading toward Fayetteville on what is now Ga. Highway 92, we find the Hopeful Community and the home of the Thornton family of the early 1800s.

This little gal has really had me stumped for a long time. With John Byram’s book, “Byrams in America” open beside my computer night and day, I have been sitting here looking at her name at the top of his list of children for weeks and weeks, wondering where in the world she fit in and if, indeed, she was a child of James and Hannah Byram. After all, John also listed Turner Byram as a child of James and Hannah and I’m certain he was not. I have some interesting observations about Turner Byram and his Coweta connections which I will save for another day.

The Westmoreland ancestry question last week drew a response from one of my main contributors on that family — Robert E. (Bob) Johnston of California.

I received an interesting e-mail last week from David Hancock ([email protected]), a Westmoreland researcher who questioned some of the information included in Ettie Tidwell McCall’s book, “McCall, Tidwell and Allied Families,” written in 1931. Mrs. McCall’s book has been the basis for many of my columns published during the last year on the Westmorelands, Tidwells and Moodys (and many other allied families) who settled in our area of Fayette, Coweta, Campbell, Spalding, Pike, and Meriwether counties.

Except for tying up a loose end on a Tidwell family member, I’m going to forego a specific family story this time and tell you about two upcoming events in our area which some may be interested in attending (including me).

When I first got into genealogy, it took me a while before I was able to get excited over land records but when it hit me — boy! I learned very quickly that you can really get a lot of information from them.

I had such great plans for this Byram family. Since many of them stayed in Coweta County and I have access to all kinds of records just a few miles from my home, I was going to get the final disposition of all who stayed here and their children — wills, estates, etc. — but, alas, my plans were thwarted. I drove to the courthouse last week and discovered that it is being remodeled. The clerks in the probate office have been moved to a teeny room in another area and the vault where the records are kept is off limits. I was told this may go on until after the first of the year, so if you are planning to do probate research in Newnan, hold off for a while.

Once again we can thank Jackie Lambert of Palmetto for bringing us out of the darkness and shedding some light on this Robinson situation. This family happens to be her line.

I’m still trying to juggle these Byram kids around and figure out when they were born so I can get them in some semblance of birth order. It’s very difficult when you’re working that far back in time (James and Hannah were married in 1808) and there are no census records to give you specific ages. All you get before 1850 is a “range” of years when the children might have been born.

This will probably turn into another series since there is much on this family to be learned. I was disappointed to find that although many people have this family in their tree, few have any documentation or sources. The family is fairly well documented in Coweta County and I thought I’d dig into some of that documentation.

I received sort of an odd lot of responses from last week’s column, as you can see by the title above. And, since I have already started on the Byrams, I would like to continue their story in future columns. Many of them remained and are buried in Coweta County. Others headed for Carroll County and points west ... very west!

When I am lucky enough to be able to get away and do some hands-on research in the courthouses around here, I always try to share what I find. Original court records are scarce on the Internet and you never know when someone from California or Texas might be able to use the court documents you have.

As I struggled and plowed my way through these many Tidwell families over the past months, I took some comfort in a message Phil Tidwell left on one of the Internet message boards. Phil is probably one of the best and most thorough Tidwell researchers I know. He has been doing this for many, many years and said something to the effect that these south Atlanta area Tidwells had such large families, named their children similar names and lived so close together, that it was difficult even for their descendants to get them straight.

Byram and Tidwell family members might want to pay particular attention to this week’s story. It concerns an error in their family lineage which has been propagated over and over on the Internet and in some print resources.

I couldn’t stand it. After finishing the column last week and still having so many unanswered questions, I trotted down to the Coweta County Courthouse last Friday to see if I could find anything that would throw some light on our Mary E. Tidwell situation.

I hate to tell you this, but we’ve got some refiguring to do on statements made in last week’s column about Mary E. Tidwell, identified as the daughter of Benjamin Tidwell and Martha Moody. It appears there are several Mary E. Tidwells and two families are laying claim to the same one.

I had a delightful conversation Wednesday with Lurline Dickinson of Union City about her Tidwell ancestors. Lurline is descended from Benjamin Tidwell and Martha Moody through their daughter, Luraney Tidwell who married Daniel G. Gilbert. Benjamin was the son of William Tidwell and Mary Amelia Jones. We had mentioned him a couple of weeks ago and questioned whether he was married once or twice. I think we have our answer.

I have just been on the second worst wild goose chase of my genealogy “career” trying to track a child of Mark and Frances Boyd Tidwell. The worst was several years ago when I tracked an Owens family for two years before I found out it was the wrong one.

For those who may be curious, my mystery caller did call back and I pointed her to the Old Campbell County Historical Society’s research room. She was thrilled to learn about it.

William Tidwell and Mary Amelia Jones, our current family of interest, had nine children, as previously stated. Seven were born in Putnam County and the last two were born in the Coweta-Meriwether area, according to Ettie Tidwell McCall, author of McCall, Tidwell and Allied Families, written in 1931. This book has been the basis for much of the information in this series on the Tidwells. These nine children were:

Well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? And I really appreciate your patience as I recuperated from open heart surgery and had to drop the ball here, at least temporarily. I am doing much better, thank you, and am going to attempt to get these columns going once again, picking up where we left off with the family of William Tidwell and Mary Amelia Jones.

To all my fellow genealogy enthusiasts and readers: My deepest apologies for the recent temporary interruption in the columns. Believe me, it was totally out of my control.