52 Ancestors - Week 5 - Martha Mary Fussell

I keep hoping that as I travel back in time, someone else will be related to me. This time frame is murky and I am not really sure how accurate my facts are.

Martha Mary Fussell was born in 1825 in Washington Par, Louisiana. The year is based on 1850 census and she was living in Mississippi. That fact seems to be correct as the family went from Mississippi to Texas. I haven't found any birth records so am taking the date from the 1850 census although the 1880 census shows it as 1830. That's a five year difference. I do have a marriage record with John Finley (again without the "D" in Findley) to Martha Fussell in 1845 in Mississippi. On the 1880 census, it shows another child that I had not seen before. On the census, it says the child was adopted and has a different last name. Something else to research.

I don't have a death record for Martha either but I know she died in Texas. After spending two years researching the other side of my family, I find this frustrating. What I write today will change as I get more clues but I want the information now. Even the in-depth research on the Rhea side still changes frequently as little tidbits pop up out of nowhere and change what I know.

Still, as of today, this is what I know about my 2nd great grandmother and I think that it's correct with the information I currently have so I am going back another generation to Mary B "Polly" Morris.

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52 Ancestors -Week 4 - Nancy Elizabeth Findley

Nancy Elizabeth Findley was born in January 1849 in Rankin, Mississippi and died on December 27, 1907 when my grandmother was 20. I don’t know anything about this family. My mom talked a lot about her parents but not her grandparents. They were gone before she was born and we don’t know when my great grandfather died. I know the information is out there somewhere but I haven’t been researching this side of the family long enough to have scratched the surface.

My goal now is to track the family back to the Mayflower. There are some gaps in the research which may mean that I have incorrect information and the trail to 1620 will go cold. Still, it is worth the effort. 

The major problem that I see in the near future is to decide what the correct last name is for Nancy Elizabeth Findley. While I’m at it, I also need to track down the correct birth and death dates. Nothing here seems to match.

Is it Findley, Finley, or Finlay? My mom’s research indicates that Findley is correct because she was very careful with her records and some of it comes from documents she collected. However, the census for two separate decades shows it as Finley. For one census, I might buy the difference but the two of them concern me.  I am waiting for someone to find the graveyard and see if there is a headstone. It’s on the request list for Find-A-Grave but it’s been awhile. It may have to wait until next summer when we make our annual trip to visit family in Texas to find the graveyard myself.

Still, I went into Ancestry.com and changed all the names from Finley to Findley and guess what? Little hints started to pop up on all the family members. All the death certificates for the children used the name Findley. Now I believe that the census takers were way off base and guessed at the spelling but didn't ask. All members of the family could read and write so there shouldn't have been an issue. 

Making a judgment call, I am going to call Nancy Elizabeth Findley as correct and move back one generation to Martha Mary Fussell. She was my 2^nd great grandmother and her name is spelled wrong too.