Rena Mae's parents were James Madison Brown, born March 1858 in Georgia, and Mary Arkansas Elizabeth Henderson, born April 17, 1870 in Leliaton, Coffee (now Atkinson) county, Georgia. James and Mary were married December 24, 1886, in Westonia, Georgia. (If the birthdate and marriage date are correct, Mary Henderson was only sixteen years old.) Here is a copy of the marriage license entered into the Coffee county records.
James and Mary had four children over the next fifteen years, while living in Leliaton, in Coffee county, Georgia. Sometime after the 1900 census, James died or was killed. There is a gravestone for a James M. Brown in the Antioch Baptist Church cemetery in Kirkland, Georgia, in Coffee (now Atkinson) county. The date of death is listed as May 2, 1902, but the date of birth is March 2, 1865, rather than the 1858 year that was listed on a census record. The Find A Grave website does list this James Madison Brown as the first husband of Mary Elizabeth Henderson, but I have not been able to contact the contributor and it is possible that this is not our James Brown.
The only census record that can be definitively ascribed to James Brown is the 1900 census for Willacoochee, Georgia, Coffee county, where the following names are recorded:
James M. Brown, 42, head of household
Mary A. E. Brown, 30
Henry E. Brown, 11
Reva [sic] M. Brown, 5
Son, 2
All list Georgia as the place of birth. James listed his occupation as blacksmith.
The two-year-old son listed in the 1900 census was Harry James Brown, born in 1898 and died in 1922. Oral family history says that he died as a result of complications from one of the poisonous gasses used in World War I. A story that has only recently come to light is that he married a German girl and had a baby. Apparently this wife wrote a letter, in German, to Harry's family, but since they didn't know how to translate it, it was thrown away. I continue to hope that his family in Germany might know his name and will someday contact us, as, without names, I don't know any way of contacting them.
We know from oral history that James Brown died shortly after the birth of Etta Goldie Brown in 1900 (she was not listed in the 1900 census). Mary Brown remarried Alex Wilson and had a child with him by 1908.
Unfortunately I have not been able to find any information on who James Madison Brown's parents might have been. There are at least about a dozen James M. Brown's born in Georgia during the approximate time that our ancestor was born, and until we get more information I'm not sure we will ever be able to connect him to his family of origin. This particular dead end has been bugging me for thirty years. If anyone has any information, even if it doesn't seem important, I sure would appreciate an email or a comment here.
I have a very promising lead for the ancestry of James Madison Brown. In the same cemetery at Antioch Baptist Church in Kirkland is a John Tyler "Jack" Brown (1862-1908) and his wife Belinda Henderson Brown (1866-1955). There is also a Martha A. Brown buried near James M. Brown. We will recognize the names John Tyler and Belinda from Mary A. E. Henderson's father and paternal grandmother. She had a sister named Belinda who was born in 1866. What if this Belinda married a brother of our James Madison Brown?
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Millholland and Stuart family tree at Ancestry, this Belinda was Mary A. E. Henderson's sister, and the dates match up.
When we look at the same tree for the siblings of John Tyler "Jack" Brown, we find a James M. Brown born in Georgia in 1865. I believe this is our ancestor. He would have known the Henderson family, as his brother married a Henderson, and they lived in the same area. John Tyler Brown and Belinda were married in the same courthouse in Coffee county in 1883 where our Mary Henderson and James M. Brown were married in 1886.
According to this tree, the parents of John Tyler and James Madison Brown were James M. Brown (1822-1906) and Martha A. Crawford (1839-1880). The only discrepancy is that Martha's gravestone shows a death date of 1903/04 (illegible) and the aforementioned family tree shows a date of death of 1880.
I'll be digging to see if I can find something more solid to show that the James M. Brown in the Millholland tree is our ancestor. I'm going to put the parents in my Ulery Family Tree at Ancestry to see if I can generate more hints and more information, but we need to keep in mind that, although this looks extremely compelling, we can't prove that this is our ancestor.
Another interesting note about this Brown family. Many, if not all, of the boys were given middle names of presidents. Our ancestor James Madison Brown had brothers named John Franklin and John Tyler. Their father was James Monroe Brown.
ReplyDeleteThere is further confusion as to whether James Monroe Brown married Martha A. Crawford or Rebecca Hodo.
I sure would like to conclusively connect our ancestor to this Brown family. Maybe the DNA tests will help.
The DNA result turned up a match for Martha A. Crawford, BUT this could also be because of the shared DNA from Belinda Henderson (Mary A.E. Henderson's sister), who the person in question descended from and the source of the info that John Tyler Brown's mother was Martha A. Crawford. In other words, because we're related to Belinda, we can't know if the DNA match is because of her or her husband, who I believe is James Madison Brown's brother. And all Ancestry does is find a common ancestor in your submitted trees. Since I don't know how that person found Martha Crawford, we can't know for sure. But I like it.
ReplyDeleteThe answer lies in the 1870 census for Pulaski county, Georgia.
ReplyDeleteJames M, age 48, planter
Martha A, age 31, lunatic
Sallie J, age 9
Jonathan, age 7
James M, age 5
William R, age 2
Now compare that info with the info at the Antioch Baptist Church cemetery in Atkinson county, Georgia. We know we have family here because Harry James Brown (the one who died from WWI gas poisoning) is buried here.
James Madison Brown, b. Mar. 2, 1865 d. May 2, 1902
John Tyler "Jack" Brown, b. Aug. 25, 1862 d. Mar. 8, 1908
Martha A. Brown, b. Nov. 28, 1838 d. Sep. 26, 1904
William A. Brown, b. 1867 d. 1923
If John Tyler is the Jonathan of the 1870 census, these ages and dates match up perfectly. I believe we can say with reasonable certainty that the five year old James M Brown in the 1870 census is our ancestor; therefore his parents were James M Brown and Martha A Brown. Nothing definitive can be said going back any further than these two at present.