Rufus Vanarsdale of Attala County, Mississippi

Since the first of the year, I have received emails from a number of readers searching for ancestors who lived in Mississippi.  One of these inquiries concerned an earlier blog post that included a photo of Mary Vanarsdale's gravestone in Attala County, Mississippi. The reader is attempting to trace her ancestry through Rufus Vanarsdale, a resident of Beat 4, Attala County in 1870, where he lived with his wife, Sarah, and a 16 year old son named Drurry.  According to my contact, Vanarsdale may have had another name before he was sold to either Lucas or William Vanarsdale, likely brothers, of "Low Dutch" ethnicity of Kentucky.  The U. S. Census of 1870 shows that Rufus Vanarsdale was born in North Carolina about 1820, but my contact's belief is that Rufus was born to another family and was likely sold with land purchased by the Vanarsdale brothers in 1841 around Mercer, Henry, or Shelby Counties in Kentucky. 


Maybe someone else who reads this blog has additional information about Rufus Vanarsdale and his ancestry.  If so, please email me and I will provide contact information for the reader who made this inquiry.