Today we are going to finish up with the Silas Blackshear family, which means we will be pulling together everything we've found so far and filling it all into the family data sheet. We will also look at a few new things that will hopefully answer some lingering questions or tie down some dates on the timeline.
Okay. Let's start with the family data sheet. Obviously, we have Silas as the head of the household. When I first added him to my Ancestry tree, everyone had him listed as Silas Malone Blackshear, so I of course put him down as the same. Well, now that I've spent a considerable amount of time researching him, I don't know if we can say for certain that Malone was his middle name. We do know for certain that his middle initial was "M," since that is how he is named in every single document I've come across, and is also how he signed his name each time we see his signature. He did have a son named Harrison Malone (so this might be where people got the Malone from), but he also had a son named Simeon Marshall, so maybe that is what the "M" actually stood for. His daughter, Amelia Virginia, named one of her sons Calvin Malone, which may have been in honor of her father, or it could have just been in honor of her brother Harrison, who was living near her when his nephew was born. Of course, one of the trees that uses Malone belongs to someone in the line of Silas' son Simeon. Maybe, like so much of the information written down in my grandmother's family history compilation, her family passed that tidbit down through the generations. Maybe I should consider the fact that we know for certain that his middle initial was an "M" should confirm that the use of Malone is actually correct. Unfortunately, since I really don't know at this point how reliable that "fact" is, I am going to play it safe and just use his middle initial with a footnote explaining that it might in fact stand for Malone.
So we've got the name. Now for his birth date and place. The Blacksheariana tells us that he was born in either 1811 or 1814, both dates being based on census records. Either date can be considered consistent with three of the four records we have. I say can, because both the 1850 and 1860 records point to an 1813/1814 date (although the 1860 implies an 1813 date, it could be 1814 depending on the understanding of the census directions and month of birth). Unfortunately, the 1830 and 1840 records give an age range, so the 1830 could support anywhere from 1811 to 1814. The 1840 census, however, points to a birth year of 1810 or earlier. I suppose it is possible that the census taker accidentally stuck his tally mark in the wrong column - I think maybe we might want to consider this, because that would make everything nice and tidy, and tidy is definitely good.
It occurs to me that maybe checking how old he would have been when he was married might help pin down the correct date. Either one works, so that was not helpful. It also occurs to me that checking his mother's age and death year might help us choose a birth date for Silas. (Hmmmm. Maybe it's not the best idea to be tracing these ancestor from the most recent backwards. I haven't really researched his mother yet, so I will have to rely on what people are posting on Ancestry. Sigh!) Okay, people are saying that his mother, assuming she is even the correct person, was born between 1766 and 1768. Using both ends of this range along with 1811 and 1814 gives us an age between 46 and 48 for his mother at the time of his birth, so both could be possible. As for the mother's date of death, I have simply seen people using "after 18--" depending on which year they chose for Silas' birth.
None of that was really helpful, was it? Another bit of evidence we could consider is the fact that in 1860 Silas told the courts that he was "old and infirm", which would probably make us want to go with the earlier birth date, but since the two dates are only three years apart and, really, what is the difference between being old and infirm at age 46 compared to age 49? One is no more believable than the other. (Yes, I can personally attest that my arthritis is worse now than it was three years ago, but it was already present and bothering me by the age of 42 so . . . .)
Okay. So how about this idea: under Georgia law at the time, a person was not considered an adult until they were 21 years old. That means that a man would not be listed on the tax rolls or be called for a jury until they were 21 years old. Maybe a search through those two types of records could help answer the question! If Silas had been born in 1811, he would have been 21 years old in 1832. If he had been born in 1814, he would have been 21 years old sometime in 1835, which means he might not show up on the tax rolls until the following year.
Okay, well, the tax rolls are absolutely no help. According to the census, Silas' father (and thus Silas as well) lived in Houston County in 1830. The Houston tax digests are online for all of the odd years between 1829 and 1839, but Jacob only appears on the 1829 roll, and Silas appears on none of them. We don't see either of them again until Stewart County in 1841 (the only year available before 1864).
(Okay, folks, this next bit is going to be kind of tricky - we are going to try to figure out Silas' age, but at the same time we are going to try to figure out where he was living. We need to do this for two reasons: first, so I know where to look for him in the records, and second, we are going to be filling in his timeline pretty soon, so we are going to need to talk about this anyway and it just makes sense to do it all together.)
Maybe Silas' father wasn't on the tax rolls for Houston County because they moved to Stewart County some time after the census was taken in 1830. Or . . .
The Blacksheariana offers this bit of information in the entry about Jacob Blackshear:
Well, I don't know why he didn't show up in Houston County in 1831 if he was there in 1832. (His son, Enoch, is on the rolls for 1831, though.)
So, maybe they went to Paulding County before Stewart County. 1832 was during the height of the Georgia gold rush, which took place in those northern counties that had been Cherokee lands. Unfortunately, there are no tax digests for Paulding, and no court records until after the middle of the 1800's. Blah. Well, maybe they didn't go there at all, but sold the lot to a prospector or something.
The Blacksheariana also tell us this:
So, maybe they moved to Lowndes County following the 1832 lottery and moved to Stewart County later. Well, Silas' older brothers John and Lewis were both on the Lowndes County tax lists for 1830, 1834, and 1835.
Oi! Guess what just occurred to me? All free white males age 21 and older paid a poll (head) tax, but men over the age of 60 did not. Most trees out there give Silas' father a birth year of 1767. But if 1829 is the last year he shows up on any of the tax rolls, maybe that's because he was actually born in 1768/9, and he was too old to be taxed by 1830! (Is anybody else's head starting to hurt?)
Okay, so that means that we potentially wouldn't find Silas and his father in the tax rolls or on the jury lists in the years 1830 through 1835. Which would explain why Jacob Blackshear wasn't on the tax rolls in Houston County in 1831. Which also means that they very well could have been over there with John and Lewis in Lowndes County as early as 1833, even though he never shows up on the tax records.
So let's see if looking for jury lists can help pin them down.
First, I looked at the Houston County Superior Court Minutes for 1822 - 1837. Silas' father showed up on a jury list three times:
Houston County, Georgia
Superior Court Minutes, May 1824
Jacob Blackshear
Houston County, Georgia
Superior Court Minutes, Oct. 1825
Jacob Blackshear
Houston County, Georgia
Superior Court Minutes, Apr. 1826
Jacob Blackshear
So, he only appears in the years before he would have turned 60.
Incidentally, Silas' brother, Enoch, was called for jury duty in the Houston County Inferior Court in 1825, and in the Superior Court in 1832, 1833, 1834, and 1835. (Don't know why he wasn't on the tax rolls for 1829, then. Grrrr. He sold four different lots of land during the beginning of 1836, which might mean he moved, which would explain why he wasn't called for jury duty there during 1836.) Since Enoch was living in Houston County during the same years that his brothers were living in Lowndes County, I think it is equally likely that Silas and his father could have been in either county during that time. Whichever county they were actually living in, though, it would make sense that Silas never appeared on the jury lists, since his brothers only show up in either place through 1835, and, assuming he was born in 1814, he would have still been too young to be on the rolls until the following year.
Let's see when Silas shows up on the Stewart County jury lists, then, since we know that he was living there by the 1840 census.
Stewart County, Georgia
Inferior Court Minutes, Dec. 1837
Silas M. Blackshear
The records/minutes for the Inferior Court were divided into four sections: 1827 - 1835 (neither Jacob nor Silas were ever called), 1827 - 1837 (Silas was called the one time, in 1837, but didn't actually serve), 1829 - 1836 (no juries were listed in this book), and 1827 - 1849 (also no juries listed).
My first thought was that this pointed to the fact that they didn't move to Stewart County until some time around 1836. Of course, back in the day, juries weren't always called by random draw - respectable trustworthy men were often chosen from the tax rolls, so maybe other, older men were called more often. Also, as the population in the county increased, there would be more names on the tax rolls and so each man would probably be called less often. So I guess he could have been there earlier. But, then I realized that if Silas wasn't old enough to vote, he wouldn't have been on the lists anyway! I guess, then, that the fact that he shows up for the first time in 1837 could support either of my hypotheses regarding birth years or residence!
I also looked through the Stewart County Superior Court microfilms, and found Silas' name three times. The first section was dated 1829 - 1834, and neither Silas nor Jacob were called for jury duty. (That also fits with both my theories, that they were the wrong ages and/or lived in a different place during those years.) The second section covered 1835 - 1839, and Silas appeared twice:
Stewart County, Georgia
Superior Court Minutes, Feb. 1839
Silas M. Blackshear
Silas was called in February to serve during the August term. The Superior Court books show which of those men actually served:
Stewart County, Georgia
Superior Court Minutes, Aug. 1839
Silas M. Blackshear
You'll notice that there is a little "xc" symbol to the left of Silas' name - by looking at the whole page, it can be seen that that is a sloppy version of the shorthand they used for "excused." So Silas didn't actually serve. The records from 1840 to 1852 show that Silas was only called for jury duty one more time:
Stewart County, Georgia
Superior Court Minutes, Apr. 1847
Silas M. Blackshear
It doesn't appear that Silas actually served on a jury in this year either. (You might find it interesting, however, that the types of cases he would have sat on included murder, assault and battery, mayhem, malicious mischief, false swearing, debt, assumpsit a.k.a. breach of contract, larceny, and even furnishing a slave with spirits & liquor for his own use.)
We saw several months ago that Silas sold his land in Stewart County in January of 1848. If they moved from Georgia at that time, it would explain why we don't find him on any later jury lists.
So, what does all this tell us about Silas' age? I think it points us to the likelihood that he was born in 1814, and not in 1811. If he had been born in 1811 and was living in only Houston County, we should have found him on the 1835 tax roll, on a jury list between 1833 and 1836, and in the marriage records (all of which are available to view today). If he had been born in 1811 and was living in Stewart County, we should have found him on a jury list before 1837. If he had been born in 1811 and spent some years in Lowndes County (where the court records are not available), we should have found him on the 1834 and 1835 tax rolls along with his brothers. Not only that, but three of the four census records point to that birth year as well.
Whew. Don't you just love research?
Okay, now for Silas' birth place. This is another one that took a bit of research. After looking at the records that I found for his father, I've come to the conclusion that he was most likely born in Twiggs County, Georgia. The Blacksheariana says Houston County, Georgia, but as we discussed many posts ago, that county was created next to Twiggs in 1821, at least seven years after he was born.
Now for the parents. Everyone says that Jacob
Blackshear was Silas' father and that Judith Moore was his mother. There
are Ancestral Files and Millenium Files and Family Data Collection records
floating around all over the place that give this information. Of course,
I don't know where any of that information actually came from, because nobody
cites a source like a family Bible or anything like that. The Blacksheariana,
however, also lists Jacob and Judith as the parents of Silas, and on pages 26 and
394 (the entries for Jacob and Silas) it cites the source of this information
as a family chart made in 1865 by James Appleton Blackshear. The chart was made after he interviewed his
grandfather Enoch, who just so happened to be Jacob’s son and Silas’ brother.
Elsewhere in the book the author mentions personally receiving information from
other grandchildren of Enoch. In
addition, the book cites an unpublished manuscript by Dr. Thomas Hart Raines, a
Blackshear descendent from Georgia, who researched and wrote up a family history around the
year 1900; his manuscript and all of his notes and related correspondence are now
held by the Virginia Historical Society.
All of the research collected by Perry L. Blackshear (also a descendant
of Enoch) while writing his Blacksheariana during the 1950's – including the family chart
and information gleaned from the Raines manuscript – are now in the Georgia Department
of Archives. Presumably, one should be
able to make an appointment to view both sets of documents, should one want to
travel to Georgia or Virginia in order to do so.
So, should we trust this claim, given that it comes to us third-hand without even the second-hand family chart to view ourselves? Well, I think that, since the chart was made back in the mid 1800’s,
and was based on information given by Silas’ own brother, and was supposedly not only in the hands of Perry Blackshear and Dr. Raines but apparently also widely circulated among the Alabama Blackshears, this is about as
reliable as it is going to get without a smoking gun family Bible. Besides, we find Jacob and Silas in the same Georgia counties, not the counties in which other alternative potential Blackshear parents and siblings of Silas were located, plus no other Blackshear line has claimed Silas as their own. So, I think we should feel comfortable
putting that relationship on the data sheet, and maybe someday I'll make it over to one of those archives and get a copy of the family chart and other related documents myself so I can share it with you and we can all feel that much better about the veracity of the information.
- Most records closer to her time of death spell her name as Sophama, or actually have a write-over which could be interpreted as being corrected to Sophama.
- The only court records listing a middle initial for her also spell her name as Sophama.
- Her daughter Louisa is consistently named in the court records as Sophama Louisa.
- Her son, Seaborn Quincy, had a daughter whose name was listed on her death certificate as Martha Sopama. (Coincidence? I think not.)
Okay, so we have a first name. But what was her maiden name? Since there is no surviving marriage record for her and Silas, and since nobody seems to have any of those ancestral files or anything on her family, we don't really have much to go on. Most people are giving her the maiden name of Garrett, but, once again, they are not listing any sources, and the very few people who actually try to trace her line backwards don't get any farther than her father (with no siblings listed). The Anderson County, Texas court records do show her as "Sophama G.", but whether the G refers to her maiden name or a middle name, well, who knows? I even saw a couple of trees on Ancestry giving her the maiden name of Marshall, which was her son Simeon's middle name, but since there is no source given for that interpretation I don't think we can call it reliable either. There were some Garretts in Anderson County with our Blackshears, and there were some Garretts in Stewart County, Georgia with them too, but tracing those people would take waaaaay more time than I will probably ever have.
I think I am going to have to just call her "Sophama G." with an asterisk and explanation!
As far as where and when Silas and Sophama were married, well, we now know for certain that their oldest child was born in August of 1834. (The Blacksheariana obviously didn't look into the civil court records because it has Samantha listed as their oldest child instead of Frances Angelina.) That means that they must have been married by the end of 1833. But where?
Someplace in Georgia, obviously, but we have so many gaps in the records that it is really hard to say.
Our investigation earlier in this post points to three likely places where Silas might have been living in 1833: Houston County, Stewart County, or Lowndes County.
The Blacksheariana says they were "probably" married in Houston County. I found the Houston County marriage records online. The microfilm says it covers the years 1832 - 1852, but I read through the whole thing and it actually has the marriage licenses and records for the years 1825 - 1851. Their marriage wasn't in those records, folks. We know they lived in Stewart County some time after Houston County, so I checked those records too. Those were kind of a mess. They supposedly covered the years 1828 - 1865. There was an index made in modern times, but the actual records were not in a bound book; they were a collection of loose files that had been put in alphabetical order. I didn't find a marriage record for them in the loose files, so I thought, well maybe it had gotten lost. The problem is, I didn't find their names on the index, either!
After discovering that there was a chance they had lived in Lowndes County, I tried to check those records, but all of the early records - court minutes and marriage records - were lost when their courthouse burned down in 1858. (Of course they were!)
Since I didn't find them in any county in which I had evidence they might have lived, I tried to come up with any other way to pin down a marriage place. I figured it might not be out of the question to suppose that, when Silas met Sophama, she was actually living across the border of a neighboring county, and so they were married in or near her home, instead of where they lived after the wedding. I decided to check the available records for every county that bordered Houston, Stewart, or Lowndes counties. Only five - Pulaski, Sumter, Thomas, Irwin, and Bibb had records online going back to the year they were probably married, and I didn't find a record for them in any of them. (Of course, Irwin was a collection of loose licenses and certificates and barely legible records scribbled on sheets of paper or torn out of a crumbling book, and the collection preface warned that there were probably many missing records . . . .) I don't think we can say with any degree of certainty where Silas and Sophama were married. The fact that they weren't in the Houston County marriage records, which are online in their original form, makes me lean away from that place as the location of their marriage.
(Since I didn't really pin down Silas' residence for the years 1830 through 1835, this also makes me lean towards the idea that he and his father were living in Lowndes County during that time. There is really nothing that specifically rules out Stewart County, but likewise, nothing that specifically points to them being there before 1836 either. I think I will still put all three probable locations on the timeline, though.)
Speaking of the timeline, here is what we established for the Georgia portion way back in September (Yikes! I've been doing the Blackshears for ages!):
Silas
Malone Blackshear
Timeline
(1st
draft)
Well, I can see that a whole lot of changes are in order! Here is it is again with corrections made: (I apologize for the slightly blurry images. I originally just inserted the tables, but after Blogger updated in 2021 the formatting was messed up and I needed a quick fix so I just stuck screenshots up here!)
Silas M. Malone Blackshear
Timeline
(1st draft w/corrections)
You'll notice I added a whole bunch of dates with residences - the ones that don't say "c." are the years we have concrete evidence for where they lived. I'm not sure if I'll leave it like this or not. I feel like doing it this way helps us to better see the movements we are sure of. For example, for Twiggs County we only have the 1818 tax roll (and no court records), and Jacob was there in that year. Land lottery records show he still lived in Twiggs in 1820, however. The jury lists show that he was in Houston County by 1824, which leaves a four-year gap. However, Houston County records began in 1822, and Jacob was called pretty much once a year, so I'm going to say that they probably arrived in Houston County in about 1823, because he was called for jury duty in 1824 and if they called jurors based on the tax lists, he would have to have been there by January 1st of 1824, so, yeah, probably by 1823. Does that make sense?
Also, you'll see that there are four additional source citations, which are the Blacksheariana and the Georgia record collections we have looked at today.
Finally, I've made changes to some of the names.
Okay, so now for what I had on the rest of the timeline, with the corrections:
I apparently didn't get any farther on the timeline than this when I put up my first version! We now know a bit more about the final years of Silas' life, which lets us add the following:
Now all we have left is the information specific to the children. We are going to need those facts for the family data sheet as well. If you remember way, way, way back in my first Blackshear post, I shared this nifty chart showing the information from my grandmother's family history (black), the Blacksheariana (green), and the 'black binder' of research from a Cheatham cousin (red). (I just found this in my notes and it obviously needs a lot of changes - I added those in blue!)
Husband:
|
Silas M. BLACKSHEAR
| |
born
married
died
|
1811 or 1814 in Houston County, Georgia (1814) (1814)
| |
c. 1836 (c. 1835, probably in Houston Co., Georgia) (1835 in GA) (c. 1833)
| ||
c. 1860 ( in Anderson Co., TX) (Aft. 1860 in Anderson Co., TX) (1864, Coryell Co., TX)
| ||
Father: Jacob BLACKSHEAR
|
Mother: Judith MOORE
| |
Wife:
|
Sophena (Sophenia GARRETT) Sophama G. (Garrett)
| |
born
died
|
c. 1817 (in GA) (1816 in GA) (1816/17 in GA)
| |
1856 (Bef. 1858 in Anderson Co., TX) (1857 in Anderson Co., TX)
| ||
Father: James GARRETT
|
Mother: Tabitha TARVER
| |
Children:
| ||
(Frances Angeline)
|
(b. Feb. 1835 in Georgia, d. 1859 in Hood Co., TX)
| |
Samantha
|
b. 1837 in GA (1836, d.1865 in TX)
| |
Melvina (Tabitha Melvina)
|
b. 1839 in GA (11 May 1839, d.12 Nov 1909 in TX)
| |
Louisa
|
b. 1840 in GA (1841)
| |
(Coburn)
|
(b. 1842 in GA)
| |
Seaborn Quincy
|
b. 1842 in GA (20 Mar 1843, d.27 Sep 1927 in Hill Co., TX)
| |
James M.
|
b. 1845 in GA (d. Bet. 1851-1856 in TX)
| |
Amelia Virginia
|
b. 1849 in AR (1851, d. 8 Jan 1886 in Buffalo Gap, TX)
| |
Simeon Marshall
|
b. 23 Jan 1853, d.12 Jun 1939 in TX (d. in Bailey Co., TX)
| |
Harrison (Harrison Malone)
|
b. 1856 in TX (d. 1898 in Coleman Co., TX)
| |
Time-out folks! I haven't looked at this in months, and I just noticed that Sophama's parents are listed as James Garrett and Tabitha Tarver. I know for certain there was a James Garrett in Stewart County, Georgia. And Tabitha is the name of one of Silas' and Sophama's daughters. Hmmmm. That sounds pretty convincing, doesn't it? Let me go check some stuff out . . . Okay. There were actually several James Garretts on the tax rolls in various Georgia counties during the early 1800's, and tons of James Garretts in the marriage records there too. Some family trees show a James Kelly Garrett married to Tabitha Tarver (m. 1808 in Morgan, Georgia), and there is an actual marriage record for them, so that's good. They supposedly had a daughter named Sophany (our Sophama, but of course nobody has any actual proof) and a son named Billington Malone Garrett. So there is that Malone name again, although if this is the right family, it would suggest that Silas' son Harrison got his middle name from his mother's side, which would suggest that Silas' middle name was not actually Malone, since that doesn't seem to be a very common name in the records I've seen and it would just be weird to be on both sides of the family. Anyway, this is some intriguing stuff, but apparently there is a lot of disagreement out there about the man (two men, actually, who might be being confused for each other) who might be her father, and I think it would take a whole lot of research to verify if it is accurate or not. I think I will put those names on my chart inside parentheses, meaning that they are a definite possibility.
Now, on to the children!
The oldest child was Frances Angelina, whose relationship to the family has been positively confirmed by the copy we have of her marriage record and the Scarborough & Wife vs S. M. Blackshear et al court case. A Scarborough family record document gives her birth date, marriage date, and the names of husband and children. The court records give us the names of her husband and children, as well as her approximate death date. Now, the death date and place gets a little tricky - all of the trees on Ancestry.com show that she died in February 1860 in Johnson County, Texas. The source citation everyone is using, though, is the 1850 U. S. Census Federal Mortality Schedule. Did you see that? 1850. The source that everyone is citing says that she died in 1850. See?
| Surname: | Frances A. Scarbrough |
|---|---|
| Year: | 1850 |
| County: | Johnson CO. |
| State: | TX |
| Age: | 25 |
| Gender: | F (Female) |
| Month of Death: | Feb |
| State of Birth: | GA |
| ID#: | 197_290660 |
| Occupation: | NONE LISTED |
| Cause of Death: | PNEUMONIA |
Let's take a moment to do another a day in the life of a researcher, shall we?
I haven't been able to find an original of this record, only the index, so there is no way for me to check if the year was just mis-assigned like that supposed Plenitude 1850 agricultural schedule which turned out to actually be from 1860. Assuming this document actually was from 1850, this cannot be the same person, because our Frances Angelina was barely getting married in 1850, in Arkansas, no less, and was only about 16 years old. The funny thing about this record is that our Frances Angelina would have been 25 years old when she died in 1860, and she was born in Georgia, and according to the court records, she did die in the early spring in Texas. Well that's a bit of a coincidence, isn't it? But let's look at the death location . . .
This is her information in the Scarborough family record. It shows that her last child was born in Hood County at the end of 1859. The court records first report her death in the spring term of 1860, so she could have died in childbirth or within a month or two afterward. The 1860 census, which was recorded at the beginning of July 1860, shows that her widower and children were living in Johnson County, which is right next to Hood County. In fact, her widower is shown twice on the same page, once as the head of household with the four younger children, and once as living with his parents. Maybe, after Frances Angelina died, he moved to the next county over so that his mother could help care for the baby and other young children. And in fact, I saw on a message board at some point that she is on the Hood County mortality schedule for 1860 (which I of course could not find a copy of either). (Of course, the birth year and place is incorrect for the first child listed, who, as it turns out based on her marriage date and court records, wasn't even her child! So I suppose it is possible that the Hood County location could also be wrong, but if Frances Angelina really was on the mortality schedule for Hood County . . . ) Many hours later . . . while trying to pin down when the Scarboroughs left Arkansas and moved to Texas, I came across a church history from Hood County. It turns out that Hood County was created from Johnson County in 1866, so there is no way that Frances Angelina's son could have been born in Hood County. There is also no way she could have died there! (The child must have been born in a town that was later part of Hood County, and that is why, by the time he died, everyone assumed he was born in that county!) Also, Johnson County didn't even exist until 1854, so there is no way that the mortality schedule above could have been from Johnson County in 1850. It has to be the 1860 mortality schedule with a typo.
Do you see why most people just leave the actual research to somebody else?!?! I am having a V8 moment here, because I have had an interactive map showing the formation of new counties in Georgia open on my computer for a week now, but it didn't occur to me to check the Texas map while investigating this most recent bit of conflicting information! Uuugghhh! I am going to put the location of her death as Johnson County, then, and the date as February 1860.
The second child was Samantha, who curiously is the only one who never had a middle name or initial recorded. The census records are inconsistent as far as her birth year goes - the 1850 census implies she was born in 1836/37 and the 1860 implies 1834/35. I will probably put "c. 1836" since that age was reported by her mother and is closer to the age given on the next census. As far as I can tell, Samantha never had any children of her own, as the ages of the children listed on the census for her household indicate that they must have been born to her husband's first wife. (We have her marriage record and the children were born before that date.) Court records show that her death was reported in the spring term of 1866, but her sister married her widower in January of 1865, which means that Samantha must have died by the end of 1864.
The next child was Tabitha Melvina. Not only do all of the census records agree on her birth year, but she lived a long life and we actually have a picture of her headstone, so we have exact birth and death dates. The only problem we have with her is the birth date of her oldest child - as mentioned above, her marriage took place on January 30, 1865, but her son was supposedly born in February of the same year. For a brief minute I thought that maybe she had been married and was pregnant when her husband died, and so, after her sister Samantha died, her widower married Tabitha Melvina, who was a widow herself. But then I realized that the marriage records calls her "Miss Tabitha M. Blackshear" so that can't be right. I think her son had just gotten his birth year wrong by the time he was an old man!
The next child is one that nobody but me has seemed to include up until this point. The 1840 census records a male child in the household who was under the age of five, but the 1850 census shows no such child. I think the most logical explanation of this is that the child was Silas and Sophama's son. I mean, isn't that a more logical explanation than that he was somebody else's son who just so happened to be living in their household? The child could have been born in between the three oldest girls, or he could have even been one of their twins. He would have died before the middle of 1849, because I checked and there was no child born in Georgia on the 1850 mortality schedule for Union County, Arkansas (the names were very hard to read, but ages and birth places were fairly legible). I think that since he is reported on a census we should include him, even though we don't know what his name was.
The fifth child in the family is shown on the census records as Louisa, but the court records make it clear that her name was actually Sophama Louisa. If you take the three census records together, she could have been born between 1839 and 1841, but if you look at the 1840 census, it shows one daughter between the age of 5 and 9 (Frances Angelina) and three daughters under the age of 5 (Samantha, Tabitha Melvina, and Sophama Louisa) so she must have been born before 1841. Since Tabitha had barely been born in May of 1839, that means Louisa must have been born in 1840. We have no idea whether she was ever married nor when she died, since she can't be found in any records after the court records of 1862.
Seaborn Quincy was the next child born in the family. He also lived a long life and has all kinds of records floating around on the internet. The funny thing is, both early census records indicate a birth year of 1841/42, but on the 1900 census he reported that he was born in 1843. I just have to throw in one more comment for him - he served in the Civil War, and the records show his rank as "musician." I don't know about you all, but I always learned that most of the Civil War musicians were boys. Seaborn would have been 18 years old when he enlisted. I thought that was a bit strange - I mean, why didn't he just enlist as a soldier? Well, I came across this website with an article about Civil War musicians serving as battlefield medics. Who knew? The article was super interesting, and you can read it here.
The following child, James M., was born in 1844/45 and only lived a short life. He was not listed as an heir of Sophama in the 1858 probate records, which means he died some time after the 1850 census but before he turned fifteen years old.
The next child was Amelia Virginia. I just talked about her in detail in my last post, so if you haven't read it for some reason, well, you should!
After Amelia Virginia came Simeon Marshall. He also lived a long life and has a lot of records available, so we can put down his information with confidence.
The last child in the family was Harrison Malone. He died when he was only in his forties, but we have a picture of his gravestone so we can be pretty confident in his dates as well. And, I found something just this afternoon that I'd like to share:
The Taylor County News
(Taylor County, TX)
8 Jan 1886
This announces Harrison's marriage to a young woman who lived in Coleman County, and confirms that he was actually living in Taylor County, in the same exact town as Amelia Virginia, at the time. So this clears up the confusion presented in one of my earlier posts. But what I really wanted to point out was the date - this announcement, congratulating him on the happy occasion, appeared in the newspaper on the very morning that Amelia Virginia died. Oh, how sad!
Well. When I started the Blackshears seven months ago, I had no idea I would be able to come up with so much information for their entire line, much less for Silas and his wife and children! (Hopefully I didn't draw any conclusions that don't actually make sense!)
I've gotten a fair amount of the documents we've looked at so far on the Blackshear primary documents page already, so if you didn't downloaded any of them while reading the posts and want to do so now, you can find the link over there on the left sidebar.
As I continue researching further back in the Blackshear line of our family, I'm planning to do the posts a bit differently - I'll tell you all about it next time!
- Therese
P. S. Now that I've finished my research on Amelia Virginia's mother, I've had to go back and change the family data sheet for William Calvin Cheatham (I know, I know!) I've replaced the old one on his documents page, so if you downloaded it before, you should head over there and get the newest version! ( I also added the Robertson County tax rolls a couple of week ago if you'd like those copies as well.)
P. S. S. (Nov. 2025) I've just discovered another Georgia lottery record - this time for Silas Blackshear! Instead of writing about it in a new post, I decided to just write an addendum to this one. It will be up any day now, so check back for the link.
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