The Wheat Brothers: Myths and Legends, Part III

In "The Wheat Brothers, Part I," I profiled Samuel Wheat, who is my 3rd great-grandfather. Brothers Benjamin and Josiah were the subjects of Part II. In this post I'll talk about William, who is also my 3rd great-grandfather, and tell you what I know about John, the fifth brother. 

Wheat Genealogy has this to say about William:

WILLIAM -- born c. 1785; married Hester Whitley and lived in Alabama, in Tennessee, and in 1833 went to Texas

If William actually was born in 1785, that would make him the second oldest of the brothers for whom we have birth dates. Josiah was born in 1779, and Samuel was born in 1787. It is also interesting that the 1850 census gives William's birth place as Kentucky. While I think I have eliminated Loudoun County as the origin for the brothers, both Josiah and Samuel consistently gave their birth place as Virginia. 

William married Esther Stephenson in Madison County, Alabama, on 15 September 1813. Esther and Samuel's wife, Cynthia, were daughters of Robert Stephenson and Elizabeth Whitley. Another sister, Susannah, who married Thomas N. Ming, is also my 3rd great-grandmother. Thomas and Susannah's son, William F. Ming, married his first cousin, Susanna Wheat, daughter of Samuel and Cynthia. Just to give you some perspective, out of my mother's 8 great-great-grandparents on her paternal line, 5 of them are either Wheat brothers or Stephenson sisters. 

The Stephenson sisters were granddaughters of William and Esther Whitley, notable pioneers of Kentucky. It's no wonder that the author of Wheat Genealogy misnamed William's wife as Hester Whitley. 

I have not corroborated the statement that William lived in Tennessee. In 1810 a William Wheat, living in Mississippi Territory east of the Pearl River in what would become Alabama, was involved with a petition to Congress for the division of the territory; the petitioners felt themselves too far removed from their territorial representatives. (It was 1817 before Mississippi was admitted as a state and the eastern half of the territory was designated Alabama Territory.) In 1815 he appeared on the tax list for Madison County AL. On 1816 he appeared on the Mississippi Territory census. He may have served in the Mississippi militia in the War of 1812; a William Wheat served in Lt. Col. Neilsen's detachment formed in Amite County, Mississippi. However, Amite County MS is in the Gulf area bordering with Louisiana, which seems too far from William's home in Madison Co. AL for this to be the same William. In 1830 William's family (1 m 40-49; 1 f 40-49; 1 m 10-14; 1 m 5-9; 2 m under 5; 1 f under 5) is living in Limestone AL. There doesn't seem to be much time for William to have lived in Tennessee, unless it was before 1810 or after 1830; however, Tennessee was a staging area for settlers waiting to move legally to Alabama, so William might have lived there briefly before 1810.

The Biard Family, a family history compiled and written by Maud Biard Smith in 1929, states that Robert S. Wheat, William's son and future brother-in-law to the Biards, came to Texas in December of 1832 with his parents. (He would have been 13, so he undoubtedly did not come alone.) According to Smith, the Wheats were living in Red River County near Clarksville when two Biard brothers came there from Alabama in 1836. So we have at least some hearsay evidence that William Wheat was in Texas in 1833, but we know he was there in 1838, as you will see below.

The Biards--mother Rebecca (Stone) Biard, sons William Washington, Andrew Jackson, and John Gaines, and daughter Minerva Jane Biard Stephenson--came to Lamar County, Texas, in 1846. (Lamar was formed from Red River County in 1840.) Smith wondered why they came to Lamar County. She thought it was because "the Wheat boys, three of one set and three of another, cousins to the first" were already there.

I wish she had spelled out which "Wheat boys" she was referring to. Because she mentions him by name, it appears that one of them was Robert S. Wheat, and by her statement I conclude she means that one set consisted of Robert and his two brothers, Samuel and Henry. But who are the other three brothers, cousins to Robert and his brothers? It's unlikely she could be talking about Samuel's sons, as they were living in Arkansas in the 1830's, or Josiah's sons who were living much farther south in Tyler County. I think she's talking about Benjamin's sons, James, John, and William. I haven't found documentation that proves they were in Texas in the 1830's, but we know they were in Lamar County in the 1840's and 50's. 

The connection to the Biards is an interesting one. Apparently, Robert S. Wheat returned to Limestone County, Alabama, sometime before October 1845 when he married Elizabeth Finn there. She was the daughter of Edward Wilson Finn and his wife, Martha Mullins. Elizabeth's sister, Delila, had married Andrew Jackson Biard in 1833, and another sister, Amanda Menifee Finn, had married William Washington Biard in 1840. So the Biard brothers were now Robert's brothers-in-law. Robert was also related by marriage to the Biards' sister, Minerva Jane. Her husband was William Stephenson, son of Logan Stephenson and his wife (and cousin), Mary "Polly" Stephenson. Polly was another of the Stephenson sisters, so Robert's aunt; William Stephenson was his cousin.

In October of 1950 Maud Biard Smith was asked to tell about the history of Biardstown in the column, "Backward Glances," in The Paris News (Paris, TX). In the first installment, published 3 October 1950, she wrote that 

"The first person to own the land on which Biardstown is located was Robert S. Wheat, a native of northern Alabama, who had come to Texas with his parents in December, 1832, and had fought in the battles for Texas independence. As a reward for his military service for the Republic of Texas [I've found no record of what that was, but bounty warrants for military service began at 320 acres for 3 months service; for Robert to get 1,000 acres he must have served nearly a year] he was granted a tract of land, a First Class Headright, numbered 242, containing five labors and...1,000 acres of land. The patent for this land was signed in Austin by President [of the Republic of Texas] Anson Jones, November 7, 1845."

She goes on to describe how the two Biard brothers, William Washington and Andrew Jackson, both unmarried, had come to Clarksville in 1836, where they stayed for two years. After returning to Alabama, they married the Finn sisters. "When Robert Wheat came back to Alabama and married their sister-in-law he told such wonderful stories about the Republic of Texas that the Biard brothers and all their families decided they wanted to live in Texas."

In the next installment of the story, published in the paper on 4 October 1950, Mrs. Smith told the story of how the Biards made the trip to Texas. It sounds harrowing. Keep in mind, this is almost 15 years after the Wheats came, so their journey was probably even worse. Their remembrances of the journey were just never written down.

In The Biard Family, Maud Smith estimated, to the best of her knowledge, the date that the Biards left Alabama for Texas. She wrote, "The nearest I can come to fixing the date of the trip to Texas is this: A. J. Biard buried a child in Alabama, Feb. 24 1846, and S. H. [Sam Houston Biard, son of W.W. and Amanda] Biard was born at Clarksville, Aug. 27, 1846. So they came between those dates."

Here is how she described the trip:

"They procured two flatboats, fastened them together and loaded them with all their possessions, including chickens, cows, at least one pony, and a wagon. They stayed close to the river, and helped the boat along with long poles, and at times with the pony. At night lanterns were lighted on the boat to guard against collisions.

They were four months making the journey. Coming from Limestone County in north Alabama, down the Tennessee River to the Ohio; down the Ohio River to the Mississippi; down the Mississippi to Red River [In The Biard Family she recounts the story of one of the Biard children, Matilda, who fell off the boat into the Red River and was rescued by her brother James]; then up Red River to the mouth of Mill Creek near Clarksville. 

There they ran onto a sandbar and stayed three weeks. They sent word to Robert Wheat, who had come back to Texas and was living in Clarksville, of their arrival. He came with wagons and carried the movers and their possessions to Clarksville where they stopped long enough to make a crop in 1847."

Not long after their arrival in Texas in October of 1846, the two Biard brothers, William Wheat ("a cousin of Robert Wheat"; this has to be Benjamin's son) and a fourth man, William Cheatham, bought Robert's 1,000 acres at $2 an acre. In the summer of 1847 the four men built log cabins on their land. Washington Baird later gave this first house to the Christian Church for their meeting place and built a second house, "the first house built in the present village of Biardstown, which was built on his land and named for him." 

I have not been able to find Robert's father William on the 1840 census, but I think I know where he was: what later became Wheatville in Morris County. Wheatville, which no longer exists, was in the area of present-day Naples in Morris County. The area has gone through many county changes. According to the Handbook of Texas, the area that is now Morris County was part of Red River County when it was established by the Republic of Texas in 1836. In 1846 the state of Texas established Titus County which included all of what is now Morris County; finally Morris County itself was established in 1875. So when the Wheats were said to have lived in Red River, Lamar, Titus, and Morris counties, they're really talking about what was Red River County in 1836.

Texas counties where the Wheats lived

I've known about Wheatville for a long time, but for years I didn't know exactly how the town was connected to my branch of the Wheats. A little over a year ago I got an email from a man who wanted to share some information about Confederate papers that had belonged to Robert S. Wheat. (I never did figure out how he found me.) The email spurred me to do some research on Robert and led me to discover his 2nd wife and their children, which I wrote about in the blog post, "Cousin Communication." In researching Wheatville, I found this website with information about Wheatville prepared by Glenda Brown Scarborough. She wrote:

"Wheatville was indeed the true beginning of present-day Naples, Texas. It received its name from the William Wheat family sometime before 1852. William Wheat received a Land Grant for 20 labors of land by the Board of Land Commissioners for Red River County on the 27th of April, 1838. By using the classification of land grants and references to the locations of homes, it is felt that William Wheat was living in the Morris County area as early as 1836."

William was definitely in Red River County, Texas, in 1846, because he appears on the Texas Census for that year. William was in Red River County on the 1850 federal census with wife Esther and sons Samuel and Henry, both age 27. Since I couldn't find William on the 1860 census, I have assumed he died sometime in the 1850's; however, Esther, age 84, was living with son Samuel on the 1870 census, so maybe William was alive in 1860 and the census record is just missing.

In 1830 William and Esther Wheat had five children, but as far as I know, only Robert, Samuel, and Henry lived to adulthood. 

Robert S. -- I have already said quite a lot about Robert S., but here is just a thumbnail sketch of his life. First, I have no idea what the S. stands for. His name is consistently given as Robert S. Wheat, but nobody ever spells out his middle name. Wouldn't it be amazing if it was Stephenson? It is not unlikely, as his grandfather, Esther's father, was Robert Stephenson.

He was born 23 February 1819 in Madison County, Alabama. Conflicting marriage data has him marrying Elizabeth Finn in Limestone County AL on either 10 October or 14 October 1845. On the 1850 census he and Elizabeth are living in Tyler County with son William E. and daughter Harriet Gordon. In 1860 they are in Titus County with additional children, Lawrence W., Charles L., Louis N. B., and Samuel Henry. 

On 1 May 1863 at the age of 44 Robert enlisted in the 33rd Regiment, Texas Cavalry, in the Civil War. His unit was mostly occupied with patrolling the Rio Grande and later escorted prisoners who were captured in a raid into Indian Territory to Camp Ford in Tyler, Texas. Robert's discharge from the C.S.A. in June of 1864, shown below, was "by reason of Surgeon's Certificate of Disability."  

Contributed to Ancestry.com by ddscott2008

Apparently, some time in the 1860's Elizabeth died. By the 1870 census Robert had married Mary E. (Corprew) Sheppard, widow of Williamson B. Sheppard, and they were living in Grayson County. On the census the Wheats' blended family included five of Robert and Elizabeth's children; Mary's daughter by her first marriage, Mary; and Robert and Mary's son, James. Still in Grayson County in 1880, Robert and Mary had had two more children. 

After such an interesting life, Robert S. Wheat had a sad end. On the 1900 census he is age 81, living in the North Texas Hospital for the Insane, possibly suffering from senile dementia. He died in 1901 and is buried in the Hall Cemetery, Howe, Grayson County, Texas.

Samuel -- As I mentioned above, on the 1850 census of Red River, Samuel and his brother Henry, both born 1823, are living with their parents. I'm still not sure whether they were twins. Later censuses consistently show Samuel's birth year as 1821, but then Henry's headstone says he was born 18 October 1821. Nothing I have found proves or disproves that they were twins.

Samuel married Rebecka (Beckie) Box on 13 June 1852 in Red River County. Samuel and Rebecka appear on the 1860 census of Cass County with their three daughters, Mary J., Margaret, and Esther. On the 1870 census they are in Grayson County with four more children, two boys and two girls. As I mentioned above, on that census Samuel's mother, Esther, age 84, is living with them. Samuel's brother Robert is living next door.

Samuel and Beckie are living in Parker County on the 1880 census. Four teen-aged children are still living at home, and two more daughters have been added to the family. Samuel, age 79, and Rebecka, age 65, are living in Eastland County on the 1900 census. They have been married almost 50 years. Two adult children are living with them.  

It appears that the end of Samuel's life was rather sad, as well. On the 1910 census of Nolan County, Samuel, age 88, widowed, is living as a "Lodger" with the family of W. J. Edwards. I have tried to find some family connection, but it appears that "Lodger" is the correct word for what Samuel was to this family. It's possible that this is not our Samuel, since there are no family members to compare, but he fits the parameters of birth date, birth place, father's birth place, and mother's birth place.

This timeline of Samuel's life leaves me with questions. Why was his family in a new county every 10 years? These were not adjacent counties, or a situation where the family remained in the same home but the county name changed. It looks like the family hopped a couple of counties west every time they moved, and finally Samuel ends up alone in Nolan County. Where are all those children he raised, and why are they not taking care of their father in his old age? There has to be a story there.

Henry Clay -- I've written about Henry Clay Wheat before in the post, "The Mystery of J. Wheat." After doing some intensive research in Grayson and Collin counties in Texas for all the Wheats that lived there at about the time my great-grandfather, J. (Joseph) Wheat married my great-grandmother, Cynthia Ming, I determined that Henry Clay Wheat was the best bet to be my 2nd great-grandfather. 

Henry's headstone at the Cottage Hill Cemetery in Celina, Collin County TX, says that he was born 18 October 1821. The 1850 census of Red River County is the first time he appears on a document, along with his parents and brother Samuel. Weirdly enough, he is the same age, 27, on the 1860 Titus County census in which he appears with wife and children. (He had married Caroline Farris in about 1855.) On 1 March 1862 he enlisted in Company K, 23rd Texas Cavalry, C.S.A., which is also acknowledged on a military headstone at his gravesite.

On the 1870 Davis County census he catches up those ten years, as he is enumerated at age 47 with wife Caroline, and five children, including Joseph, age 13. He appears on the 1880 census in Grayson County as a widower with daughters Lucy, Mollie (Henrietta), and Emma. (Daughter Elizabeth, "Lizzie," married John Alexander Cooper in 1882.) I have been able to trace all of his daughters as they married and had children, but son Joseph just disappears after the 1870 census unless . . . he is the J. Wheat who married my great-grandmother Cynthia Ming, his 2nd cousin, in 1877 and appears with the Ming family on the 1880 Collin County census. 

 

There were a couple of details that didn't quite match, the biggest being that the J. Wheat on the 1880 census with Cynthia gives his father's birthplace as Arkansas and his mother's as Mississippi. Caroline was born in Mississippi, which I thought was a good sign I was on the right track, but Henry was born in Alabama, not Arkansas. 

Now I am beginning to wonder if my Joseph is the son of James or John, Samuel's sons who were born in Arkansas in the 1830's. Either of them would be just the right age to be Joseph's father; but speaking of disappearing, James and John just vanish after the 1850 census in Milam County (Salado). If either of them really is Joseph's father, it makes my family tree even more gnarly. Cynthia Ming's mother was Susanna, the sister of James and John, so if Cynthia married a son of one of those men, her uncles, she would have married her 1st cousin.

Henry Wheat, who may or may not be my 2nd great-grandfather, died on the 4th of July, 1893.

And finally--

JOHN -- "went to Kentucky"

There are John Wheats all over Kentucky in the early 1800's, but how do you connect one of them with the other Wheat brothers if they have all moved to Mississippi Territory? 

The 1800 federal census shows a John Wheat in Prince George's County, Maryland. A John and a Zachariah are on the tax list of Bourbon County KY in 1800. Called the "Second Census of Kentucky," this is a compiled list of 32,000 taxpayers based on original tax lists on file at the Kentucky Historical Society. Hard to tell anything from this, except that John and Zachariah would have been heads of household in 1800.

1810 is the first federal census in which I found Wheats in Kentucky. A John and a James are in Adair County. Hezekiah, Joseph, and Zachariah are in Bourbon County. Hezekiah and Joseph are possibly the sons of Charles Wheat from Montgomery County, Maryland, according to Wheat Genealogy. A Samuel and his wife, both younger than 25, with no children, are in Lewis County. A John with young children is in Green County, and a Bazel, also with a young family, is in Madison County. 

In 1820 two men named John are enumerated in Kentucky--one in Adair County and one in Green County, probably the same men that appeared on the 1810 censuses in those counties. Assuming that each of them would be the oldest male in the family, they both fall in the 26-44 column, which would be about right for the John I'm looking for. 

Three John Wheats appear on the 1830 census for Kentucky--John K., 30-39 in Bourbon, possibly the son of Zachariah who was in Bourbon County in 1810. Again, that family appears in Wheat Genealogy with documented parents and children. The John in Green County is 50-59, so is his wife, and they have six children that vary in age from 5-9 through 15-19. The John in Russell County is 50-59, with a wife 40-49, and possibly a married son or daughter, 20-29, with his or her spouse, as well as 3 teenagers and a son 5-9, which could be a child or grandchild. By age, which is really all I have to go by, either the John in Green County or the John in Russell County (or neither) could be the fifth Wheat brother.

Both the John in Green and the John in Russell are still living in 1840, both 60-69. The John Wheat in Green County wrote a will, probated 3 November 1845, mentioning wife Sarah (possibly Hudson), sons James, Booker, and William, and daughters Mary, Nancy, and Elizabeth. Some trees on Ancestry show John Wheat and Susannah "Sukie" Gatton as parents of John of Green County. The same trees give conflicting information about the origins of this Wheat family in Prince George's County MD and Loudoun and Bedford VA. 

John in Green County could still be our fifth Wheat brother--lots of trees have the wrong parents--but John in Russell County seemed more likely to me. It appears that John of Russell also passed away between 1840 and 1850 (he was 60-69 in 1840), leaving a wife named Martha. (Some trees show her as Martha Rosson, probably because the researcher found a John Wheat who married a Martha Rosson in Albemarle Co. VA in 1843; it seems unlikely that John would leave Russell Co. to marry someone in Virginia, or that she could be the mother of his children when they were all born by 1830. Do people not do the math?) Martha was living with daughter Parthena Bibee (husband Allen) in 1850 and with son Samuel in 1860. 

This John's children include Samuel (usually shown as Samuel Baker Wheat although I've not seen that on any document), Drury, Parthena, John R., Alfred, and Blatchley Calvin Wesley. Some trees also include another son named John Wesley. The two children that are of most interest to the question of the identity of our John Wheat are Samuel and Alfred. 

Alfred married Amanda Eastland, and they moved first to Georgia in 1850 (where Drury was living with his family), and then to Van Zandt County, Texas in 1860. Van Zandt is not a county that any of the five brothers ever lived in, but it is in that same northeastern quadrant of Texas where most of the brothers lived.  

The other connection to Texas comes from three children of Samuel (Baker) Wheat, the oldest son of John of Russell. They are Doctor H., Valentine, and Samuel. Doctor (yes, that's his given name) and Valentine were twins. 

Doctor married Nancy Margaret Paul in Russell County in 1866; sometime between 1866 and 1870 they moved to Collin County, TX. I had seen Doctor's name before. When I was trying to find the father of my great-grandfather, J. (Joseph) Wheat, who was in Collin Co. in 1880, I did research on every other Wheat family in Collin Co. I saw Doctor's name but finally eliminated him as having any connection to my Wheats. (That was before I started looking for the fifth brother, John.) Valentine moved to Texas between 1870 and 1880.

This was just about the time last night when I thought, "It would be nice if I could find Doctor or Valentine living next door to one of our known Texas Wheats. Then I would know that they knew they had cousins from Kentucky living in Texas, and maybe we could theorize that they had maintained contact with John and knew that Doctor and Valentine were his grandsons."

Be careful (or happy) what you wish for! About this time I located Valentine on the 1880 census of Bell County, Texas, and everything fell into place. Remember back in Part I when I told the story of the first of the five brothers, Samuel, and how he was one of the first settlers in what became Bell County? I was about to find just the evidence I was looking for to prove that John Wheat of Russell County, Kentucky, was the fifth Wheat brother.

I searched for Valentine on the 1880 census and found him living in Bell County, Texas. I looked just below him on the actual census record and saw a Sam Wheat. I clicked back a page on the census and found more Wheats. Finally, I just searched the 1880 Bell County census for anybody named Wheat and found seven families. I had to make a chart--because what was really exciting is that I recognized some of these names, and they weren't all John's children; some of them were Samuel's grandchildren, and one of them was a grandson of Josiah! So the other Wheat families in Texas did know that John's grandchildren were in Texas; they were living next-door to them. And John Wheat of Russell County was the fifth Wheat brother!

Wheats on the 1880 Bell County, Texas census:

• Dwelling #62: Doctor, born 1841 in Kentucky, son of Samuel (Baker) Wheat, grandson of John Wheat
• Dwelling #109: Samuel DeWitt, born 1840 in Texas, son of Joseph Wheat, grandson of Samuel Wheat
• Dwelling #113: Joe, born 1855 in Texas, son of Joseph Wheat, grandson of Samuel Wheat
• Dwelling #121: William Jasper, born 1842 in Arkansas, son of Joseph Wheat, grandson of Samuel Wheat
• Dwelling #123: Valentine, born 1847 in Kentucky, son of Samuel (Baker) Wheat, grandson of John Wheat
• Dwelling #124: Sam, born 1851 in Kentucky, son of Samuel (Baker) Wheat, grandson of John Wheat
• Dwelling #407: Cordilleras, born 1852 in Texas, son of Brice M. Wheat, grandson of Josiah Wheat

1880 Bell County TX census, showing
Dwelling Nos. 121, 123, 124

Unlike their Confederate cousins, Doctor and Valentine fought for the Union in the Civil War. Both of the brothers enlisted in Co. B, 13th Kentucky Infantry. They both enlisted at Camp Hobson KY on 5 October 1861. According to records for Valentine, he mustered out on 12 January 1865, having served for most of the war. (The 13th KY Infantry was at Shiloh, among other battles and campaigns.) After being in the hospital in Indiana for six months for "chronic diarrhea with incipient tuberculosis," Doctor was discharged in November of 1862. It makes me wonder if there was any lingering animosity between the Kentucky cousins and the Texas cousins. I would love to think not.

Twins Doctor H. and Valentine C. Wheat
Contributed to Ancestry.com by Dora Coffey

 

At one point yesterday when I was working on this post, I thought I wouldn't be able to come to any kind of conclusion about the fifth brother, John. It just goes to show that sometimes you have to go forward to go back. If I hadn't worked the second generation of descendants for all of the brothers, I wouldn't have found the proof I was looking for in Bell County, Texas. It was not anything I expected at all. First, I thought that probably all of John's descendants had stayed in Kentucky. Second, I honestly didn't think any of Samuel's grandchildren were still in Bell County. Familiarizing myself with the first four brothers and their descendants helped me find the fifth one.

I also might mention here at the end that in looking at family trees for John of Russell County, I found some that named his parents as John Wheat and Susannah Gatton, the same parents that others gave for John of Green County. A very few named John's father as Zachariah Wheat. With so little information available, researchers have used what there is to come to many incorrect conclusions, in my opinion. However, when asked by the census taker where their parents were born, many of John's children said their father was born in Maryland. Maybe we will never be able to conclusively identify the father of the five brothers, but maybe we should expand our search to include names other than Zachariah and places other than Virginia.

The Wheat Brothers: Myths and Legends, Part I

My cousin, Paul Ming, with whom I share Wheat ancestors, recently emailed me to ask whether I knew the name of the wife of Zachariah Wheat, our oldest Wheat ancestor. Conflicting trees showed her name as Priscilla Reynolds or Priscilla Ridgeway. This was a question I had had myself, and Paul had decided to leave her out of his family history because he couldn't find evidence to support either name. The answer to this question ended up contradicting everything I thought I knew about the origins of my Wheat family and sent me on a quest to discover what happened to the five sons of Zachariah Wheat.

For the record--it is documented that Priscilla Reynolds married Zachariah Wheat in Prince George's County, Maryland, on 4 February 1782. Rowena Hearn Randle, author of Genealogy of the Patterson, Wheat, and Hearn Families, published in 1926, showed the wife of Zachariah Wheat as Priscilla Flagg Ridgeway. She apparently made this mistake by confusing the maiden names of a couple of Priscillas that became Wheat wives; her error has been duplicated in multiple family trees. However, as it turns out, finding the right Priscilla didn't help me or Paul because we had the wrong Zachariah--at least, according to Wheat Genealogy: A History of the Wheat Family in America, a book first published in 1903 and then updated in 1960.

Silas Carmi Wheat, the author of the first edition of Wheat Genealogy, was mostly concerned with his family, descendants of Moses Wheat of Concord, Massachusetts. In 1960 Helen Love Scranton updated the original book with the addition of S. C. Wheat's unpublished material and the descendants of another Wheat family, that of Francis Wheat of Maryland. Many trees that include my Wheats show their descent from Francis Wheat of Maryland, but according to Wheat Genealogy, this is not correct. In fact, my Wheats are included in the chapter titled "Unplaced Families." How had I not seen this before?

Included in the "Unplaced Families" are four fathers named Zachariah: Zachariah Wheat of Prince George's County, Maryland, born in England in the 1750's, died 1792. This has to be the Zachariah who married Priscilla Reynolds. They only had two sons, Jonathan and Thomas. Jonathan had no children, and as far as I can tell, all of Thomas's descendants went to New York and Indiana. Not our Wheats. Zachariah of New Geneva, Pennsylvania (the only Zachariah I can find on the 1790 census), born 1768, had two sons whose names are unknown and Jesse, who ended up in Ohio. Not our Wheats. Zachariah of Kentucky married Betsy Kennedy in 1791; their children, many of whom lived in Adair and Bourbon counties in Kentucky, are documented. Again, not our Wheats.

Then we have Zachariah of Virginia, born about 1750. Of him Scranton says "had sons:

• SAMUEL, 'living in the Indian Nation'
• BENJAMIN of Kentucky
• JOSIAH of Tiler [Tyler] Co., Texas
• WILLIAM, born c. 1785; married Hester Whitley [actually Esther Stephenson, daughter of Elizabeth Whitley Stephenson] and lived in Alabama, in Tennessee, and in 1833 went to Texas
• JOHN, 'went to Kentucky'"

Finally, these are our Wheats. It's just that their father Zachariah doesn't exist. Or at least I can't find him. He should be on the 1790 census because that is just about the time his sons were born; he's not. Not that he's just not in Virginia; he's not anywhere. As I mentioned above, the only Zachariah Wheat on paper in 1790 is in Pennsylvania, and his family is documented. Loudoun County, Virginia, is given as the birthplace of some of the Wheat brothers, but I can find no evidence the family came from there. Paul's daughter, who lives in Maryland, did hands-on research in Loudoun County and never found our Zachariah either. I thought for a time I had found him in Bedford County, Virginia, but that is yet another Zachariah with a documented family.

As Scranton says in her introduction to the chapter in which Zachariah appears: "Among the Unplaced Families in the South, the almost complete lack of dates makes it difficult or impossible to place the members with any degree of confidence." No kidding. Not to mention the numerous Wheat families with the same given names. 

She also makes mention of one of the legends surrounding this branch of the Wheats--"it has been reported that he [Zachariah] was one of 5 brothers who came from Ireland before the Revolution, a statement that was doubted by Mr. S. C. Wheat." So apparently Silas Wheat could find no evidence for this legend; I have looked in his book for a mention of it but have decided it must be recorded in the unpublished material that his family gave to Helen Love Scranton. If true, which it probably isn't, it could tie together some of those "unplaced" families, although evidence to verify it probably doesn't exist. It's also good to keep in mind that Silas wrote his book in 1903. For a time he didn't believe that there were any other Wheat families except his own.

So, let's put Zachariah aside for a moment. He may or may not exist. He may or may not have a connection to Francis Wheat of Maryland, especially since Loudoun County, Virginia, is only about 60 miles from St. George's County, Maryland. However, we do know what happened to the Wheat brothers, at least most of them, who are supposed to be his sons, and that is the subject of the rest of this post.

SAMUEL--"living in the Indian Nation"

We begin with my 3rd great-grandfather, Samuel Wheat. Paul and I both recognized right away that "Indian Nation" does not refer to Oklahoma, but probably to Mississippi Territory or Arkansas. It is true that Samuel Wheat lived in both places.

These are the facts we do know about Samuel. His birthdate is derived from his headstone, which records that he was 79 years and 1 day old when he died on 23 November 1866; therefore, his birthdate would be 22 November 1787. Again, many Wheat researchers say he was born in Loudoun, Virginia, although I have not found evidence for this. (Paul's daughter also looked for Samuel in Loudoun County but found no mention of him.) On the 1850 census, which is the first census to ask for place of birth, Samuel reported that he was born in Virginia.

The first mention of him in records that I have been able to find is his marriage on 13 November 1814 in Madison County, Mississippi Territory, to Cynthia Stephenson. Samuel and Cynthia are my 3rd great-grandparents.

Marriage license of Samuel Wheat and Cynthia Stephenson

(I intended to give a history of Mississippi Territory and Madison County AL here, but the history of Madison County is so extensive and important that I decided it needs its own post. Stay tuned for some posts about Ancestral Places--and Sources--for some of the locations that have contributed to my family's history.) 

It's not clear when the Wheats and Stephensons came to Madison County, but it's possible that Cynthia Stephenson's father, Robert, was there before 1809, when a "Squatters' Census" was taken in preparation for opening the area for legal settlement. Governor Robert Williams had proclaimed Madison a new county on 13 December 1808. The illegal inhabitants who registered with government surveyor, Thomas Freeman, were able to remain on the lands they were already occupying in Madison until land sales took place in Nashville in August 1809. A Robert Stinson appears on the 1809 Squatters' Census with 320 acres at Indian Creek (R 2W, T 3, Section 21). He also appears as head of household on the 1809 Madison County census with 1 female over 21, 3 males under 21, and 5 females under 21. This tallies almost exactly with the ages of his family members as we believe them to be in 1809. The Wheats do not appear on either of these lists, so it is probable that Samuel came to Alabama after the lands were open to legal settlement. Of course, we know that he was there by 1814 when he married Cynthia Stephenson. He appears on the 1815 Tax List for Madison County. 

Sometime before 1819 Samuel and Cynthia moved to the next county to the west of Madison, Limestone, which had been established on February 6, 1818. It is possible that this is where Samuel Wheat got his start as a Primitive Baptist preacher. (See my post, "Gimme That Old Time Religion" for more information about the Primitive Baptists.) I am indebted to an Ancestry member with the username "downtownripley" who posted the following comment to a biographical sketch of Samuel Wheat: " Samuel Wheat in Limestone Co. Al: Samuel Wheat joined Round Island Baptist Church by letter in March 1819. He was licensed to preach Sept. 1821. Round Island decided to move to a more distant location and he along with others asked for and was given letters of dismissal August 10, 1822. They were constituted a Church Oct. 5, 1822. He and others withdrew from this Church and were constituted a Church as Baptist Church of Christ known by the name of Poplar Creek. This Church and Round Island are still functioning." 

The Stephensons also moved to Limestone County, as Robert's widow Elizabeth appeared in court there on 25 August 1825 asking for permission to sell his estate and divide his assets among his heirs. Cynthia is mentioned in the petition as an heir who was living out of state, because...she and Samuel had moved again--possibly to Tennessee where daughter Mary Elizabeth was born in 1826 (Elizabeth consistently gives her place of birth as Tennessee) or to Arkansas, where they appear on the 1830 census of Washington County, Arkansas Territory. This is the first census I have found for Samuel; his household consists of 1 male 40-49; 1 female 30-39; 1 male 10-14; 2 males 5-9; 1 female 15-19; and 2 females under 5. 

Samuel Wheat, 1830 census, Washington Co., Arkansas Territory

On the 1840 census the family is living in War Eagle, Madison County, Arkansas, and the household consists of: 1 male 40-49 (Samuel is really more like 53 at this point); 1 female 40-49; 1 male 15-19; 2 males 5-9; 1 male under 5; 1 female 15-19; 1 female 10-14; and 1 female under 5. According to a contribution to Ancestry by user tali7311, "In August 1840 [Samuel] helped organized Shiloh Church of Primitive Baptists, Springdale, Arkansas. Lived at War Eagle until about 1844."

With the exception of the youngest son, George, who was born in 1840, Samuel and Cynthia's family is complete at this point, so I'll list their names here, since they are not all listed on the 1850 census. They are: 

• Joseph, born 1815, who married Malitta (Morgan? Reeves?). His household appears on the 1840 census in War Eagle, Madison County, Arkansas, and on the 1850 census in Milam and Williamson, Texas. Joseph must have died before 2 June 1860, when Malitta appears as head of household on the 1860 census of Bell County, TX. Their last child, Joseph, was born in 1853.
• Sarah Elizabeth, born 1817, who married William Jackson. They married in Arkansas and followed the family to Texas, having 12 or 13 children along the way. This does not surprise me, as I have a million DNA matches to their descendants. If I see the name Jackson in a list of matches, it's almost always a descendant of William and Sarah.
• William Whitley, given the middle name Whitley for his great-grandfather, William Chapman Whitley, born 16 March 1820 in Madison County AL, married Cynthia Maynard. He has his own historical marker at the Hall Cemetery in Howe, Grayson County, TX. It reads: William Whitley Wheat (1820-1890) was born in Alabama to Samuel and Cynthia (Stinson) Wheat. He married Cynthia Ann Maynard, and the couple came to Texas in 1842 to Peters Colony. They moved three years later to what is now Grayson County, settling and raising ten children near Farmington. Wheat was an early cattle drover to northern markets, and he became a respected and successful farmer. He served for many years as Grayson County Commissioner in the 1870s and 1880s and was first presiding present of the Old Settlers Association of North Texas. As such, he worked to ease local tensions in the post-Civil War years. He died 26 November 1890.

• Mary Elizabeth, born 8 February 1826 in Tennessee, married George Washington Cloer Jr. They follow basically the same migration path as Mary Elizabeth's parents. G. W. Cloer died in the Civil War in 1863; most researchers think he was the G. W. Clore who enlisted in the 18th Texas Cavalry in Bell Co. TX in 1862. His youngest son and namesake was born after his death. Samuel Wheat, age 72, is living with George and Elizabeth on the 1860 Bell Co. TX census.
• Martha Jane, born 8 December 1827 in Madison County AL, married Andrew Jackson Edwards in Arkansas. Her husband died in 1878 and is buried in Keller, Tarrant County, TX; Martha died in 1916 and is buried in Garner, Parker County, TX.
• James, born 1830 in Arkansas, appears at age 20 with the family in Milam County TX. I can't find him after that. Ancestry user MarkSheppard67 contributed a Grayson Co. (Pilot Grove) land map from 1853 that shows a tract owned by a James Wheat.
• John, born 1832 in Arkansas, appears at age 18 with the family in Milam County TX. Also can't be located after 1850. Also appears on the Grayson Co. Land Map from 1853.
• Susanna, born 1835 in Arkansas, married William Frederick Ming; they are my 2nd great-grandparents. You can read more about William F. and Susanna in my post, "The Ming Dynasty."
• Samuel, born 1838, appears on the 1850 Milam Co. census with his parents, Samuel and Cynthia. Every reference and hint on Ancestry is for Samuel Dewitt Wheat, his nephew, son of Joseph and Malitta, also born about 1838. Samuel D. appears on the 1850 Milam Co. census with Joseph and Malitta. That would indicate to me that they are two separate people, but I can find no reference to Samuel, son of Samuel and Cynthia, after 1850.
• George, born 1840, appears at age 10 with parents Samuel and Cynthia on the 1850 Milam County census. He can't be the George Lewis Wheat, born 1825, killed by Apaches, or the George C. Wheat, born 1832, living in Arkansas in 1850. Again, I can't find the right George after 1850; numerous trees on Ancestry show Samuel and Cynthia as the parents of George L., George C., or a combination of the two. 

As seen above, Samuel, Cynthia, and family were living in War Eagle, Madison County, Arkansas, in 1840 and in Milam and Williamson District, Milam County, Texas in 1850. However, they must have made a stop along the way in Pilot Grove, Grayson County, Texas, because Samuel helped start a church there in 1847. 

I have known for decades that Samuel and Cynthia were living in Milam and Williamson District, Milam County, Texas in 1850. The problem is--I didn't really know where that was until just a couple of weeks ago. I was searching Ancestry and any other source I could find for Samuel in preparation for this blog post, when I googled his name and found a book online entitled Salado: Frontier College Town by Charles A. Turnbo. That really caught my eye, because I was just in Salado last year. 

Now Salado is a little town--even though it has a college and a reputation as the "Athens of Texas"--and I would probably have never even known about it if it hadn't been for my friend Cecilia. She is familiar with the Temple area because her son once lived there, so when we were planning a trip to Texas, she said she knew a quaint little town with antique and gift shops called Salado, and did I want to go there? Salado is now in Bell County, so I never even had a clue we were in what was once Milam and Williamson District, Milam County.

Without the book catching my eye because I had been in Salado, I would never have discovered that Samuel and Cynthia were some of the very first settlers there. Even when I read the opening page of Chapter 3, "The Settlement of Salado," I still didn't believe the author was talking about my Samuel. Turnbo names Archibald Willingham, who bought 320 acres on Salado Creek in late 1848, as the first white settler in Salado. In addition to Willingham and his family, Turnbo lists these other early heads of household in Salado: Andrew Wilkie, William Bailey, Ira E. Chalk, James M. Cross, Robert S. Elliott, Edward N. Goode, William K. Karnes (and single laborer James Hash), Cornelius B. Roberts, and Samuel Wheat. Still not convinced, I pulled up the 1850 Milam Co. census on Ancestry to the page on which Samuel Wheat's family is the first entry, shown as Family #599. At #601 was Archibald Willingham and his family; #602 was Andrew Wilkie and family; #604 was Ira E. Chalk and family; #605 was William K. Karnes and family and laborer, James Hash; and finishing out the page at #606 was Robert S. Elliott and family. 

I'm still not sure why the census called this Milam County, as Bell County was established in the year of 1850, and the census was taken in October. Bell County, named after the third Texas governor, Peter Hansborough Bell, consisted of 1,000 square miles and 700,000 acres, according to Turnbo. Only 8 miles north of Salado was Nolanville, later to become Belton, county seat of Bell County. I just wish I had known all this before I visited Salado. 

As I mentioned above, Samuel, age 72, widower, is still in Bell Co. in 1860, living with his daughter Elizabeth Cloer and her family. Samuel's occupation is given as "Baptist clergyman." It is apparent that they are living in a ranching area, although it's possible they were living in the town of Belton, listed on the census as nearest post office. I say that because of the variety of cattle-related occupations listed for the neighbors: Stock raiser, Stock trader, Blacksmith, Wagon maker, etc. 

The only other Wheats in Bell Co. in 1860 are Joseph's widow, Malitta, and her children. By 1860 Susanna had married her first cousin, William F. Ming, and is living back in Grayson County (Pilot Grove), as are several of Samuel's other children. It has long been supposed by Wheat researchers that Cynthia is buried somewhere in Milam County, as she died sometime between 1850 and 1860. Now I wonder: is she buried somewhere in Salado?

Samuel died in 1866 and is buried in Hall Cemetery in Howe, Grayson County. He apparently was living in Grayson County at the time of his death, as you will see from his tombstone inscription. Thank goodness the inscription was recorded, as the stone facade of the tombstone has slidden right off. It says:

In memory of Elder Samuel Wheat, who departed this life 23 Nov 1866, aged 79 years and 1 day. Elder Wheat had been an old-school Baptist from his youth and a Minister of the Cross for 50 years. Standing firm amidst the siftings and schisms among the Churches, the fearless advocate of Virginia immigrated to Alabama, then to Tennessee, then to Arkansas, then to Texas in 1847, making his first discourse to Pilot Grove Church in Grayson County to which he made his last a few days before his death.

 

Contributed to Ancestry by ditz929, 
who gives credit for the photo to
George and Lynn Pollack

 

All you genealogists out there: Don't you wish everybody's tombstone had this much information on it? 

It's ironic that the Primitive Baptists don't believe in missionaries because Samuel lived the life of a missionary, moving from place to place, state to state, preaching his version of the Gospel to some far-flung places where pioneers were just beginning to settle. His DNA has been passed down to hundreds of descendants; I have a slew of matches with whom I share Samuel and Cynthia as common ancestors. 

Well, I intended to move on to the other Wheat brothers, but this post has been so long that I think I'll start working on "The Wheat Brothers, Part II." Stay tuned for the lives of Benjamin, Josiah, William, and John.

New Ancestors from Ancestry?

Yesterday one of my favorite genealogy bloggers, Roberta Estes (www.dna-explained.com), wrote a post about Ancestry's New Ancestor Discoveries. If you have had your DNA tested by Ancestry, you may have noticed that you have had a lot of new NAD's recently. Last week I had 26; as of this morning, I have 11. Roberta and other bloggers have been informed by Ancestry that their new way of determining matches had led to an increase in the number of New Ancestor Discoveries, so they have refined their way of determining NAD's, leading to the decrease in number.

I have been intending for a while to talk about my New Ancestor Discoveries and see if any of Ancestry's ancestor suggestions could help me fill gaps in my tree. I'm glad now that I waited--so I don't have to talk about 26 "ancestors," but only 11! You may have noticed the quotation marks around the word ancestors. Even though Ancestry calls them by that name, I have noticed and so has Roberta, that they could just as easily be relatives from collateral lines.

For example, two of my earliest NAD's were Sarah Wheat and her husband William Jackson. Sarah, daughter of Samuel and Cynthia (Stephenson) Wheat, was a sister to my direct line ancestor, Susanna Wheat Ming. Once I had added Sarah and William to my tree, Ancestry made them DNA Circles. Now, maybe because of Ancestry's new way to calculate DNA matches, they have disappeared from my DNA Circles as well--which is fine with me, since they are not my direct line ancestors. 

So, have any of the 11 remaining NAD's been helpful in finding new ancestors? Two of the 11 are Hannah Elizabeth Embry and her husband Christopher Columbus Snodgrass. In my last post, "DNA Circle: Delilah Embry," I talked about how I have found a connection to the Embry family of Butler County KY and Jackson County TN. Delilah Embry is more than likely my 4th great-grandmother and is definitely connected to Hannah Embry--I'm just not sure how. Getting Hannah as a New Ancestor Discovery was a clue that I was on the right track, although I still don't know exactly how she fits in my tree. As she is not a direct line ancestor, her husband, Christopher Columbus Snodgrass, is just a relative by marriage.

Two more NAD's are Elizabeth Tully and her husband, Benjamin F. Burden. I match 16 of 40 members of the Elizabeth Tully DNA Circle. I think I know why she is showing up as a New Ancestor, even though, again, I don't believe she belongs in my tree. Looking at the trees of the 16 members of her DNA Circle, I can see that we have a lot of common relatives with the surname Embry or Pharris. Here's what I think is happening. I have DNA matches with each of these 16 Ancestry members, but our connection is not Elizabeth Tully or Benjamin F. Burden. The connection in each case is some common ancestor who is an Embry or a Pharris. Again, it's a clue that suggests I have a connection with the Embry and Pharris families, but not, I'm pretty sure, with Tully or Burden ancestors. It's just a coincidence that these 16 Embry or Pharris descendants also have Elizabeth Tully as an ancestor.

George Washington Oller and his wife Emily Pamela Gillham are two more suggested "ancestors." I match the same 3 members in George's and Emily's DNA Circles in amounts from 8 to 18 cM's. I don't see any common ancestors. I recognize a couple of surnames that seem to have a vague connection to some of my Kentucky people. George lived in Kentucky, Arkansas, and Oklahoma; Emily in Arkansas and Oklahoma--but not in any of the counties where I have ancestors. A mystery for now. 

William Aden Tillett and his wife Francis Irene Fullbright lived in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Hughes County, Oklahoma. My mother's family was from Hughes Co., and it's not a big or highly populated place. However, I don't see any names that connect me with William and Francis. This one would bear some further research.

Peter Terrell Fite was married to Elizabeth Matthews, and they are two more of my suggested ancestors. I have four matches in each of their DNA Circles. Of the four matches, one has a common ancestor of mine, Samuel Wheat, and another has a common unrelated ancestor, Robert Patrick. This may be another one that is just coincidence.

The last NAD is Benjamin "Norris" Finley/Fenley. I match 8 of 14 members of his DNA Circle, one of them with 35 cM's. He lived in Alabama and Texas, but not in areas where my known ancestors lived. A couple of common surnames crop up in the trees of members of his DNA Circle, but I can't make a connection to them. There is just enough here to make me think that this one needs more research. 

Are the New Ancestor Discoveries helpful? Not really, not yet, for me. I know Ancestry's point of view about DNA matching. Instead of just providing the matching segment information like other testing companies, they think that they are doing the work for us with DNA Circles and New Ancestor Discoveries. However, as you can see above, it's not that easy. It's just hard work, no matter how you go about it. Anybody that thinks that testing his or her DNA will answer all the questions is in for a surprise.

New Ming Cousins

One of the first blog posts I wrote was called "The Wheats in Texas." In that post I talked about my surprise when I found a gravestone with the name "Susanna Wheat Ming" in the little Carson Cemetery outside of Dustin in Hughes County, Oklahoma. It was a clue that led me to connections between the Ming and Wheat families that I didn't know existed. I found out last Sunday that that post also led me to new Ming connections with cousins I didn't know I had. 

In those early years of genealogical research, I assumed that my Wheat-Ming great-grandparents' marriage was the first combination of those two families. I knew that a Ming (Cynthia, my great-grandmother) had married a Wheat, but I didn't know that a Wheat (Susanna) had married a Ming. Then on the 1880 census I found my grandfather J.W. Wheat, age 8 months, living with his parents J. Wheat and Cynthia, who in turn were living with Cynthia's parents, William F. Ming and wife Susanna. I discovered that William F. (Fred) Ming and Susanna were first cousins. William's mother was Susanna Stephenson, and his wife Susanna's mother was Cynthia Stephenson, who had married Samuel Wheat. So Susanna Ming was originally a Wheat and now the gravestone "Susanna Wheat Ming" made perfect sense. Until recently, though, I still didn't know how she had come to be buried in Carson Cemetery.

The Mings have always been fun to research because the name is fairly unusual. Back in the day, surname message boards were a great place to connect with relatives and share genealogical discoveries. For years I saw the name "Paul Ming" on Ming family message boards. I noticed that he lived in Oklahoma, although not close to me, and it was fun to know that I had a Ming cousin nearby, even though we had never met.

And then last November, out of the blue, I got an email from Paul Ming:

"Hi Becky, my name is Paul Ming and this is a picture of my great grandmother Susanna Wheat Ming with her daughter Martha and grandchildren. Grandma and Martha are both buried in Dustin, OK. I would like to hear from you. I have several years of research on the Ming lineage. Also I can always use another cousin. I live in Texas but raised an Okie. One of my daughters lives in Owasso. Looking forward to hearing from you."

Thus began a several-month correspondence by email and snail mail. Paul sent me one packet of information about the Mings and Wheats and another with much of his research on the Whitley family and the Whitley House. In the Ming/Wheat packet was a gift beyond measure--the only picture I have of my grandfather, John William Wheat, in which he is identified. (The only other photo I had was of a group of oil workers, and I still don't know which of them is my grandfather.)

We had planned to get together at Christmas when Paul and his wife were visiting their daughter, but he came down with the flu. We kept corresponding, and finally, Paul was going to be here this past weekend for his daughter's birthday. My brother was free Sunday afternoon and picked me up for the short drive to Traci's house. What I was delighted to find was that not only was I going to get to meet Paul and his wife but all four of their daughters, my new cousins.

Traci, Bobbie, Paul, Ruthie, Toni, Kathryn

Me, Paul, and Tim

We spent almost two hours looking at family photos and all of Paul's research into the Mings and related families. Paul's wife Bobbie added so much to the conversation that it was obvious that she knows just as much about the Mings as Paul does. In fact, it was Bobbie who shared the story of how Paul had found me, and it all goes back to his great-grandmother and my 2nd great-grandmother, Susanna Wheat Ming.

Buried in the little Carson Cemetery outside Dustin, Oklahoma, is my grandfather, John William Wheat; his wife, Cora Lee Bell Wheat Altstatt; and his grandmother, Susanna Wheat Ming. Down the same row, right at the front of the cemetery, are Frank Bell (Cora Bell's uncle); his wife, Martha E. (Ming) Bell (Susanna Wheat Ming's daughter); and Frank and Mattie's daughter, May Eaunice, who died at the age of 16. I knew that Susanna was living with her daughter Martha "Mattie" Bell when she died. What I didn't understand was why her husband, William F. Ming, was living 200 miles away in Granite, Oklahoma, with his daughter Helen from his first marriage.

Paul had the answer to that little mystery, thanks to our cousin Benton Bell, another of Frank and Mattie's children. Apparently, after Fred and Susanna Ming grew older, Fred's daughter Helen asked them both to move to Granite and live with her family. Since most of Susanna's children lived in south central Oklahoma or north Texas, she preferred to stay closer to them and chose to remain in Hughes County. I always wondered at the couple's separation, and I'm glad to know that Susanna was welcome in the home of her step-daughter.

We never know what little ripples our actions cause. It turns out that Paul was responsible for the gravestone marked "Susanna Wheat Ming" in the Carson Cemetery. In 1993 he had found out from Benton Bell where Susanna's grave was, compared to the other markers, and he placed a concrete headstone there, inscribed with her name and birth and death years. I saw the marker, and it started me on a decade of research into the histories of the Ming and Wheat families. That marker became an important part of that early blog post, "The Wheats in Texas." Then last fall Paul was playing with his new Samsung tablet, a gift from one of his daughters, and was so surprised and happy to see the gravestone he had placed in my blog post. As Bobbie explained, that led to his email to me and to a happy family get-together this past weekend.

I found out that I have a cousin, Traci, who lives fewer than 5 miles from me. I could have passed her at the Owasso Wal-Mart and never known that she was my cousin. Paul says we will continue to get together when he and Bobbie are up this way. Paul says he doesn't have many cousins, and he doesn't plan on losing me now!

DNA Circles: Thomas N. Ming and Susannah Stephenson

The Ancestors

According to his headstone, Thomas N. Ming, my 3^rd great-grandfather, was born 14 February 1796 and died 20 June 1887. He was born in North Carolina and is buried in Burnet County, Texas. I can’t find Thomas Ming on the 1880 census, but more than likely, at the age of 84, he was living with one of his children. In fact, I believe that he probably was living in Burnet County with his son, Alexander Columbus Ming, when he died in 1887. According to Findagrave.com, there is only one other Ming buried in Fairland Cemetery in Marble Falls where Thomas Ming is buried, and that is Sarah F. Ming, the 6-year-old daughter of A.C. Ming, who died there in 1883. (In 1880 Alexander Columbus Ming and family were living in Hamilton Co., TX, so they must have moved to Burnet Co. between 1880 and 1883.)

There are two entries for Thomas Ming in the 1870 census, and they are a little confusing. They would make perfect sense if the dates were reversed, but as they are, they create a little puzzle. On 30 September 1870 T.N. Ming (age 66, born in Alabama) and his wife Susanna are enumerated in Grayson County, TX, living with their son William F. Ming. A different enumerator found Thomas (age 70, born in N.C.) on 1 September 1870, living with daughter Emily J. (Ming) Herst/Hurst, also in Grayson County. If the dates were just reversed, we would have a possible death date and place for Susanna, but as it stands, all we have is the question of where she was on 1 September 1870.

On the 1850 census the occupation of Thomas Ming is listed as “house carpenter”; both the 1860 census and the 1870 census (the one in which he is living with the Hersts) list his occupation as “carpenter.” A widely distributed likeness of Thomas Ming shows him holding a hammer and a carpenter’s square, the tools of his trade.

Thomas Ming married Susannah Stephenson around 1823, based on the date of birth of their first child, William Frederick Ming. Susannah was the daughter of Robert and Elizabeth (Whitley) Stephenson and the granddaughter of Col. William C. Whitley, and his wife Esther Gill Fullen. Susannah was born about 1802 in Limestone County, Alabama, and probably died around 1880 in Grayson Co., Texas.

Thanks to my cousin Paul Ming, a long-time Ming researcher, I also have a likeness of Susanna Stephenson. The origin for my photograph was a display at the Whitley House, but the original was donated to the house by Paul, who is a careful recorder of his sources. He got his copy from a Ming cousin who got it from her grandmother who was a daughter of William F. Ming.

Paul also gave me some background on the above-mentioned picture of Thomas Ming. He got it originally from a cousin who was a great-granddaughter of Thomas through his son, Alexander Columbus. This photograph is probably the origin of the middle name that many researchers have shown for Thomas because the back of the photograph is inscribed “Thomas Norton Ming.”

Children of Thomas N. and Susannah (Stephenson) Ming

Known children of Thomas and Susanna Ming were:

William Frederick Ming, known as Fred, was born in 1824 in Alabama. By 1829 Thomas and Susana had moved to Callaway County, Missouri, and William grew up there with his five younger brothers and sisters. (See my post, “The Ming Dynasty.”) In 1848 Fred joined the Peters Colony and moved to northeastern Texas. The 1850 census shows him married to Frances J. They had a daughter, Helen Ann, born about 1853/54, before Frances died, perhaps in childbirth. Fred took his daughter and moved to Grayson County, Texas, where his aunt Cynthia (his mother’s sister) and his uncle Samuel Wheat were living. There Fred married his first cousin, Susana, daughter of Samuel and Cynthia Wheat. They had their first child, Thomas Samuel Ming, in 1857, followed by Cynthia Frances (1859), Jefferson Davis (1862), George Alexander (1863), William Olive (1867), John (1869), James (1872), Martha (1879), and Josephine (1880). Two other children, Edney and Mary, died as infants.

(Thanks to my cousin Paul Ming for generously sharing his research into the lives of our Ming ancestors. He and I both descend from the William F. Ming family, Paul through son George Alexander, and myself through daughter Cynthia Frances. After many years of seeing each other’s names in Ming message boards, Paul contacted me just a few months ago. We have carried on a frequent email and snail mail correspondence and hope to finally meet each other this spring.)

The second son of Thomas and Susanna Ming was Whitley F. Ming, born about 1830 in Missouri. On the 1860, 1870, and 1880 censuses Whitley is found in Grayson Co. with wife Margaret and children: George J., Alice E., William W., Carrie L., Cora, and E.M. (Eugene.)

Frances Ming was born in 1835 in Missouri. Her story is told in my blog post, “Serendipity.” She is the grandmother of one of my largest DNA matches, Herbert Archie Miller.

Emily Jane Ming was born 14 November 1838, consistently giving Missouri as her place of birth on several censuses. At the time of the 1850 census she was living with her parents and siblings, Frances, Alexander, and Margaret, in Van Buren, Crawford County, Arkansas. She married Bradford C. Hurst, and their first child, Thomas Jefferson, was born about 1855 in Texas, although by the 1860 census the Hursts were living in Otoe, Kansas Territory. Four more children were born to the Hursts: Mary Frances, Franklin Pierce, Margaret E., and Bradford Lee. Emily’s husband died in 1870, and in 1871 she remarried to Rev. James Bedford, a Primitive Baptist preacher who was 30 years her senior. Remarkably, they had a child, Cynthia Ellen, who was born in 1876 in Parker County, Texas, when her father was 66 years old. Rev. Bedford died in 1892 at the age of 82. Emily went on to marry one more time to William Harvey Martin on 18 April 1895. Emily died in 1905 and is buried in Hood County, Texas. The economical headstone in the Martin Cemetery in Hood Co. includes the names of Wm. H. Martin who died in 1925, his first wife Sallie who died in 1893, and his second wife, Emily J. (Ming Hurst Bedford Martin.)

Alexander (sometimes spelled Elexander) Columbus Ming was born 18 November 1841, according to his death certificate, probably in Callaway County, Missouri. He married Margaret Lucinda Ferguson on 29 May 1865 in Grayson County, Texas, according to her application for Civil War widow’s benefits. Their children were William Alfred, Susie Catherine, Nancy Elizabeth, Margaret Emily, Sarah F., and Jane Irene. Alexander C. Ming died on 29 February 1928 in Bertram, Burnet Co., TX. According to his death certificate, he was a blacksmith and died of influenza with the contributing factor of old age. His parents are listed as Tom and Susan Ming.

Margaret Metilda Ming was born 22 Nov 1844 in Callaway County, MO. While documentation is sketchy, it appears that she married first to a Frank Baskett about 1860/61 and had two children with him: Frances Mary (Fannie) and Charles Columbus. She then married Oliver Peyton/Paten Mallow about 1872; it was a second marriage for both. They appear on the 1880 census in Collin County, Texas, with four children from his first marriage, her children by Frank Baskett, and their children, which include: W.O., born 1874; George F., born 1875; Wesley P., born 1876; Franklin Pierce, born 1879; and Grace, born 1884. Margaret Metilda died 14 July 1930 and is buried at the Orenduff Cemetery in Collin Co.

Descendants of Thomas N. Ming and Susannah Stephenson in DNA Circles

Counting myself, there are 4 members of the Thomas Ming DNA Circle. The Susannah Stephenson DNA Circle has the same 4 members. I am a DNA match to all of the other circle members. Two of the members are descended from Alexander Columbus Ming through his daughter, Susie Catherine. One member is descended from William Frederick Ming through his son Thomas Samuel; I am descended through William’s daughter, Cynthia Frances.

In the absence of a Chromosome Browser, I can’t tell if my DNA matches are on the Ming or the Stephenson side, or both. I’m not sure if Ancestry DNA differentiates its results in that way.