Stephen Middleton, Abbeville, SC to Franklin County, MS

According to the U. S. Census of 1790, Stephen Middleton was a resident of Abbeville, South Carolina, part of the "Old Ninety-Six" District.  The census shows the Middleton household consisted of seven individuals, including five free white males under the age of 16, one free white male over the age of 16, and one free white female. It is interesting to note here that one cannot determine by this record alone if the "one free white female" is Stephen's wife, daughter, or another female. The Middleton family, along with many others, were likely part of the "Great Migration" to the Mississippi Territory, since the next time that Stephen Middleton appeared on a U. S. Census was in 1810, when he was enumerated as the head of a household in Franklin County, Mississippi.  Since Mississippi had not yet attained statehood, Franklin County, with slightly less than 2,000 inhabitants, was still part of the Mississippi Territory.  According to the census recorded in 1810, Middleton's family had increased from seven members in 1790 to nine.  Also, Middleton's enumeration showed that he owned 24 slaves.  Other Franklin County heads of households appearing on the U. S. Census of 1810 whose surnames were Middleton were identified as Mary, John, and Samuel.


Next:  The Middleton-Porter Connection

Middleton Family of SC and Mississippi

Yesterday, I made a decision to begin tracing yet another of my early family lines, the Middleton family of South Carolina.  Armed with information that I have known for some time, the facts that my paternal fourth great-grandparents, Mary Middleton and Samuel Porter, were born in South Carolina and were married on May 17, 1825, in Franklin County, Mississippi, I began in earnest to search the Middleton family's origins. Since members of the Porter and the Middleton families were enumerated in an early census of the Mississippi Territory, recorded in 1810, I began my search by reviewing a list of Mississippi Territory pioneers on an invaluable MsGenWeb site about the early southwest Mississippi Territory. On that site, I quickly found the name Stephen Middleton. Could Stephen Middleton be the father of my Mary Middleton?  Although several of his children's names appeared in the detail beside Stephen Middleton's name, the name Mary was not listed.  The information did state that names of other Middleton children were missing, so my next effort will be to search for those missing names.  Since the only names that appeared on census records before 1850 were names of the heads of households, finding the children's names may be a difficult process.  Wish me luck, and watch here for more Middleton research results.

Source:
Ancestry.com.  Mississippi Marriages to 1825 [database on-line.] Provo, UT, USA:  Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 1997.  Original data:  Dodd.  Jordan R. et al.  Early American Marriages: Mississippi to 1825, Bountiful, UT, USA.