Surname Saturday - Finding the Parents of John P. Gibson

It's been over 10 years since I began searching for the parents of my third great-grandfather, John P. Gibson, and each time I post the surnames I am researching, his name always appears at the top of the list. Without a doubt, John's ancestors have been the most challenging to find, but I am certainly not ready to call off the search.  I do have some pretty useful information about John, including the year and place of his birth (1799 in SC), a copy of his marriage record to Margaret J. Williams in Aberdeen, Monroe County, MS on January 3, 1843, and a copy of the marriage bond posted by Joseph Gibson, whose relationship is unknown.  Thanks to the U. S. Census recorded in 1860, I also know that John P. Gibson and Margaret Gibson were living in the Cherry Hill area of Calhoun County, Mississippi, where he worked as a blacksmith.  According to that census information, John and Margaret Gibson had seven children whose names were Elvira, Malverda (my great-great-grandmother), Francis, Asberry, Sarah, Mary, and Martha. I also found Calhoun County land records showing that John sold his land there and moved to Carroll County, Mississippi, where he and his family were enumerated on the U. S. Census of 1870. Although John most certainly died before the next federal census was recorded, I have been unable to locate either his burial place or where Margaret is buried. As I write this post, I am hoping that another Gibson researcher will read it and have information he or she is willing to share. But until then, I will do what I have done for so long - continue the search for information about John P. Gibson's parents.

Surname Saturday: Gibson

One of the blogs that I read each week is We Tree, written by Amy Lenertz Coffin. In her post published today, Amy mentions that some bloggers are writing posts on Saturdays about surnames they are researching. This idea falls in line with other regular topics posted by some bloggers, who, like me, are members of the group known as Geneabloggers. For instance, there are suggested topics for particular days of the week, including Monday Madness, Tombstone Tuesday, Wordless Wednesday, and Treasure Box Thursday. You may have seen one of these posts on this blog or on Mississippi Memories's sister blog, Cemeteries of Dancing Rabbit Creek.

Now you know the background of my post here today about the surname "Gibson." For almost 50 years, I had never knew that I had ancestors named Gibson. Nor did my father. When I asked him if he knew his maternal great-great-grandparents' names, he answered that he had only heard them referred to in conversations with his mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, all who were still living when he was growing up, as "Grandma" and "Grandpa." Of course, he never asked for more information. And I never asked my grandmother, his mother, about her ancestors while she was alive. At that point in my young life, I did not realize the importance of family history. Although my grandmother never mentioned the Gibson name when she talked to me about her family, which she often did, I am certain that she would have told me what she knew about her great-grandparents, if I had ever asked.

I did have one piece of information that was commonly known throughout my father's family: his great-grandmother's given name was Melvertie. I knew this because my great-aunt, Vertie Porter, had been named for her. It was an unusual name, but without a surname, further searching was impossible.

Over ten years ago now, with everyone already deceased who might know the name of my father's great-great-grandparents, I began my own personal quest for the information. Since my great-grandmother was born in 1874 and had never worked under Social Security, she had never requested nor been assigned a number. But since she was still living when Medicare was passed and became eligible for coverage, she was required to apply for a Social Security number.

The fact that my great-grandmother had completed an SS-5 was a very lucky break for me. I knew that the application for a Social Security number would contain her mother's maiden name, so I requested a copy. I made the request online, it cost around ten dollars (fairly inexpensive compared to the cost in 2009), and I received a copy of the document in less than three weeks.

The result was invaluable. This small investment of time and money provided me with a name that I would never have found otherwise, Melvertie Gibson, the full name of my paternal great-great-grandmother. Beginning with this one name, one that included a rather uncommon given name, I searched U. S. Census records for Mississippi. I began with the U. S. Census of 1850, but I found nothing. But when I searched the census record for 1860, I found the names of an entire Gibson family in Calhoun County, Mississippi that included a young female named "Malverda." Because the name "Melvertie" and "Malverda" are so similar, I knew instantly that I had found the right family, a family headed by John P. Gibson and his wife, Margaret J. Gibson. That was the day I broke down a brick wall and danced the so-called "happy dance."

According to the census, John P. Gibson was born about 1799 in South Carolina, and his occupation was that of "blacksmith." I continued to search and found the family again on the U. S. Census of 1870, recorded for Calhoun County. In 1880, I found nothing. Nor did I find a record for Melvertie, who had already met my great-great-grandfather, William Jefferson ("Will") Merriweather and had given birth to my great-grandmother, Margaret Susanna Merriweather.

Later, I discovered a record of John P. Gibson's marriage to Margaret J. Williams on January 3, 1843, in Monroe County, Mississippi, but I have been unable to find the names of John P. Gibson's parents, or the names of Margaret's parents. According to the marriage record, Joseph P. Gibson posted a $500 marriage bond before John married Margaret.

But Joseph's relationship to John is still a mystery. Although I have read Joseph P. Gibson's extensive and long-contested will that is on file in the Monroe County courthouse in Aberdeen, Mississippi, I did not find John's name included in any of the documents.

Based on the provisions of the will, Joseph and John were not father and son, nor were they brothers. Were they perhaps cousins? And why was such a large bond required before John and Margaret could marry? Since John was 44 years old when he married Margaret, it is likely that he had been married at least once before. What was his first wife's name, and did they have children? The questions are endless, and all are still unanswered.

But my search has not ended, and someday I will break down yet another brick wall....just wait and see.

Chasing the Meriwethers

Several weeks ago, I wrote a post on my Cemeteries of Dancing Rabbit Creek blog about Colonel James Drane, whose house and grave marker can be seen at French Camp, Mississippi, a small historical town on the Natchez Trace. The next day, I received an email from a reader who told me that Colonel Drane's actual grave is located somewhere else in the state. The reader offered to provide me with photographs of the grave that actually contains the remains of Colonel Drane, and I accepted the offer. I hope to write a followup post as soon as I receive the photos. In her email, the reader asked me if my family is descended from Colonel Drane, and I responded that I have no knowledge of such a familial connection.

But her question actually raised another for me, one that involves the Drane family and my own Merriweather family. Here is the question and the story behind it. Over ten years ago, I decided to research my great-grandmother's family. I had always known that her maiden name was "Merriweather." This old surname, with its origins in England and Wales, traditionally has been spelled "Meriwether." Alternate spellings include "Merriweather," the one used by my great-grandmother, along with "Meriweather," "Merryweather," "Merriwether," and "Merryweathers." If you are interested in researching the Meriwether Family in the United States, I highly recommend The Meriwether Society and its publications as a great place to start.

I began my research with little knowledge about how much genealogical grief the spelling of my great-grandmother's name would cause for me. Initially, I searched for information about a known event, something that I only needed to substantiate: a record of Margaret Susanna (Maggie) Merriweather's marriage to John J. Porter, in either Attala County or Carroll County. After several failed attempts, searching under all the variations of the name listed in this post, I ultimately found the marriage record. It was just a stroke of luck, however, that I found it at all, since Maggie's last name was not spelled like any of the known spellings: it was phonetically spelled "Morsiweathers." I was elated to find the record, but it was difficult for me to believe that it had even been possible, considering the spelling.

My next foray into Merriweather research was the first time I encountered the Drane name. But first, I must provide some additional background. My grandmother, Maggie's daughter, told me the story about how Maggie's father, Wilds Merriweather, had deserted his family which included Maggie's mother, Malverda Gibson Merriweather, Maggie, and her younger brother, Lewis Merriweather, sometime around 1880, after Malverda had given birth to a stillborn child. The child's death is documented in the Mississippi Mortality Index published for the mid-late 1800's, but the actual story about the desertion remains unsubstantiated. One thing for certain is that Meriwether family members living in Mississippi did return to their native Shelbyville, Kentucky, near Louisville.

Malverda Gibson Merriweather eventually remarried when Maggie was about 12 years old. With this knowledge, I searched for a record of her marriage to Newell Autry Felts that would have occurred in the late 1880s, and I found the document in the records of Yalobusha County. According to the document, "Jim Drane" posted a marriage bond for Malverda Merriweather's marriage to Mr. Felts. It is very likely this individual was actually "James Drane" who lived in nearby French Camp.

My family research has not found anything to indicate that Jim Drane was a relative by blood or by marriage. Maybe he was a friend, neighbor, or perhaps Newell Autry Felts worked for him. Apparently, he knew my great-great-grandmother and her intended husband well enough to post a surety bond attesting to their legal abilities to marry each other. But I still don't know why a surety bond was needed for this particular marriage, since others during this time frame were being performed without such a bond. One possibility is that it had something to do with the fact that Malverda's husband had deserted her when he moved with his family back to Kentucky. Since I have been unable to locate a record of their marriage, maybe Malverda and Will were never legally married at all. And perhaps Jim Drane was aware of the situation and attested to this knowledge by posting a surety bond.

The actual story surrounding the relationship between my great-great-grandparents, Malverda Gibson and Wilds Merriweather, remains one of my family's unsolved mysteries, one that I hope one day to solve. But as those of us who love family history know for certain, genealogy research is never complete.