52 Ancestors - Week 18 - Lydia Grubbs 1816 - 1881

Lydia Grubbs is the mother of James Madison Yeakley. I don't know much about her yet but two people have contacted me. One of them is a 2nd cousin on my Dad's side of the family. She wrote to me to share some letters and then informed me that we are related on my mom's side, specifically Lydia Grubbs. I am trying to figure out the relationship. Another person just contacted me and said we had Lydia Grubbs in common and is in the process of sending some info that she has.

It is probably not a stretch to see how we might be related on both sides. The Yeakley family was from Rheatown, Greene County, Tennessee. They migrated to Oklahoma and then to Texas. My dad's side of the family is Rhea and the story (still questionable) is that John Rhea founded the town. The problem is that almost all of the men were named John. None of my dad's family lived in Rheatown but it wasn't that far from Hancock County. Tennessee not only had a Rheatown in Greene County but a Rhea County. Rhea County was made famous by the Scopes Trial.

Lydia was born in Rheatown, Tennessee on May 31, 1816. She married George O Yeakley in 1832 and had six children. She died on November 18, 1881 in Gainesville, Texas at the age of 65. Find a Grave has a write-up on her life and death. Her grave wasn't found until 2010 and then they discovered her daughter-in-law, Margaret Shearer is buried next to her.

52 Ancestors - Week 15 - Margaret Ann Shearer 1847-1893

Margaret Ann Shearer was the daughter of Solomon Shearer and Mary Eller Price. That is open to discussion because no one can agree on the true name of Mary Eller Price. It could be Mary Ellen Price and several people think her name is just Mary Eller. The marriage bond has both names so it is still up in the air. However, I digress.

Margaret Ann with the middle child of seven. Born in Kentucy in 1847, she was 20 when she married James Madison Yeakley in Texas. I don't know when the family came to Texas but it was before 1867.

She was a mother of five children, the youngest one being my grandfather, Ernest Marvin Yeakley. I suspect that Margaret Ann had very strong religious beliefs as my grandfather was a minister and lived it every day of his life, passing it on to his children. 

There is a DNA match with lgsM63. I have written to her requesting additional information and hope to hear something back soon, In the meantime, on my Ancestry tree, I only have Margaret Ann. LgsM63 has a sibling I didn't know about so it gives me another place to search for clues. Unfortunately, it makes more questions than it provides answers but I will get to the truth. 

52 Ancestors - Week 13 - James Madison Yeakley

Now that I doing the Yeakley side, I am finding that there are errors in the tree. These are not errors others have made, these were created by me when I first started years ago and blindly copied information from other trees. The Rhea side of the family is correct but it took two years to finally get it right although I still find surprises there too.

I do know James Madison Yeakley was my great grandfather. He was born on August 10, 1843 in Washington, Missouri and was one of six children. This is where I had to stop because some of my information didn't add up.

One of the things I chucked at was the names of the boys in his family. There was Jacob but apparently he died as an infant. There were two girls, Caroline and Margaret. Then the came the three remaining children: Martin VanBuren Yeakley, James Madison Yeakley, and George Washington Yeakley. I wish I knew why they named the children after presidents. It is probably an interesting story. 

The back of this photo reads: "J. M. Yeakley father of 1) Marvin Yeakley, 2) Morgan Melendez Yeakley, 3) Mrs. Jenny (Yeakley) Riley, 4) Nolie (Yeakley) King. J.M. Yeakley moved from Denton County, MO to Denton County, TX, spent the night in Bonham, Texas the night Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated president of the United States." 

He moved to Texas on March 4, 1861, according to the writing on the picture posted on Ancestry.com. I'm betting that's right since the person who posted it has contacted me on several occasions and has the original photo. 

Records do indicate that he was born in Missouri. He was a blacksmith by trade and the 1900 Census shows him still working as a blacksmith.

James married Margaret Ann Shearer in 1867. They lived in Texas and had five children. One of them was my grandfather Ernest Marvin Yeakley. She died on August 13, 1893 at the age of 46.

Margaret Ann Shearer

On October 10, 1901 he married again. This time to Minerva Adaline (Briley) McGinnis. As my mother would have said, "She was a widow woman" with five children of her own. 

Both Minerva and James Madison died in 1928. James died at the age of 84 on March 6 and Minerva at the age of 72 on November 25.