What I Learned Wednesday: 23 March 2011

(A new feature - and I hope a regular one - for posting weekly updates on my research.)

This week some of the “slow and steady” transliteration and analysis has paid off.

Last week I started transcribing the probate packet materials for the estate of Bud Mathis Moore (B. M. Moore), the brother of my great-great grandfather William Spencer Moore. The main body of materials date to 1888, but there are some letters to heirs that date to 1896.

Some of the materials consisted of letters from to and from the descendants of Elizabeth Moore Bain, B. M. Moore’s oldest child and his only child by his first wife, Elizabeth Brashier. The descendants in question were James D. Fields and Mary E. Fields, the children of Martha A. “Mattie” Bain, the daughter of Elizabeth Moore and James Bain, and William Fields. Mary is first referred to as “Mollie Fields” and then as Mrs. J. M. Davis.

Mattie Bain Fields did not appear with her family on the 1870 census for Etowah County, Alabama, so I looked for a Martha or Mattie Fields of the right age in 1870. I found her with her husband William and children “Jas. S.” and “Mary E.” in Hunt County Texas; also living with the family was her brother Richard Bain.

By 1880 James and Mary are living with their grandmother - Elizabeth Griffin - and they are all back in Etowah County, Alabama. This Elizabeth Griffin is the right age to be Elizabeth Moore Bain, and in fact, when I flipped ahead in the B. M. Moore probate materials, I saw an “E. F. Griffin” listed as one of the recipients of items from the estate, so one question which would have arisen was already taken care of. Moreover, her marital status was described as “Married - husband gone.” So there appears to be a story here that I may want to look into later. I cannot find this Elizabeth Griffin on the 1900 census.

Using Mary Fields Davis’ age from previous censuses and the information that her husband must have been a J. M. Davis, I found her with her husband John Davis on the 1900 census in Fort Wort, Texas (though the names are common, I knew it was the right couple because both the letters and the census gave Magnolia Street in Fort Worth as the address for the family) with their children Martha, John, Jennie, and James.

The letters addressed to James were sent to Blountsville, Alabama, and I found James D. Fields with wife Ella and children Thomas, Guss, and William on the 1900 and 1910 censuses. I may have found James’ family on the 1920 census in Marion County, Alabama, but I’m not sure. It is the family of William J. Daily and his wife Ellen J. Daily, who is the same age as Ella J. Fields, and her sons Guss Fields (two years older than the Guss Fields on the 1910 census) and Bethell Fields, who is the right age to be the William Fields of the 1910 census.

So here is what the descendant report looks like for Elizabeth Moore and James Bain so far:

James Bain
 b. ca 1818, South Carolina
& Elizabeth W. Moore
 b. 12 Dec 1824
|      Mary Emma Bain
|       b. 1845, South Carolina
|      Martha A. “Mattie” Bain
|        b. 1846, South Carolina
|      & William Fields
|       b. 1848, Alabama
|      |      James D. Fields
|      |        b. Apr 1867, Alabama
|      |      & Ella J.
|      |        b. May 1876, Alabama
|      |      |      Thomas V. Fields
|      |      |        b. Jan 1898, Alabama
|      |      |      Guss Fields
|      |      |       b. 1902, Alabama
|      |      |      William Fields
|      |      |        b. 1909, Alabama
|      |      Mary E. Fields
|      |       b. Oct 1870, Texas
|      |      & John M. Davis
|      |       b. Nov 1866, Kentucky
|      |      |      Martha Davis
|      |      |       b. Nov 1889, Texas
|      |      |      John E. Davis
|      |      |       b. Dec 1894, Texas
|      |      |      Jennie Davis
|      |      |       b. Jan 1898, Texas
|      |      |      James Davis
|      |      |        b. Jan 1900, Texas
|      William Manning Bain
|        b. 1848, South Carolina
|      Richard H. Bain
|       b. 1851, South Carolina
|      George B. Bain
|       b. 1854, South Carolina


I do not know what happened to any of the other children of Elizabeth Moore and James Bain after 1870; none of them or their descendants is mentioned in the B. M. Moore probate materials. Whether this is because they died or because they had lost all contact with the family in Greenville or for other reasons, I do not know. But since this is the branch of the Bud Mathis Moore family that moved away from South Carolina quite early and about which the least is known, I would like to find out what happened to all of these people.