James Larkin Hendricks will

Oconee County, Georgia, Wills 1875-1966, p 193, available online at familysearch.org.  James was the brother of Warren David Hendricks and the son of George Washington Hendricks and Jane Keith.  He died of cancer on 11 June 1921.

Georgia, Oconee County}}  Last Will and Testament of Jas. L. Hendrix

I Jas L Hendrix of said state and county, being of sound and disposing mind and memory, do make this my last will and testament, hereby revoking and annulling all others, by me heretofore by me made.

Item 1st) I desire and direct that my body be buried in a decent and Christianlike manner suitable to my circumstances and condition in life.

Item 2)  I desire and direct that all my just debts be paid as soon as practicable by my executor hereinafter named and appointed.

Item 3)  I give, bequeath, and devise to my beloved wife, Elizabeth Hendrix, for and during her natural life, my tract of land in Statham Barrow County Georgia containing twenty nine and three tenths acres (29.3) the same being the same tract of land which was deeded to me and Pool W. Hendrix jointly and later Pool Hendrix deeded his one half undivided interest to me, said tract bounded on north by Day, East by a public road, South by Thrasher, West by ?Afrin? and being about one half mile west of present site of S. A. L. Ry depot in said town of Statham.   At her death said land is to go to and be divided between my estate and my son Oscar Hendrix upon said Oscar paying over to my estate the sum of three hundred ($300) Dollars before coming into his half interest in said land. The half coming into my estate as well as the three hundred dollars to be paid by Oscar to be disposed of as hereinafter directed.

Item 4)  I have delivered to my sons Pool W. Hendrix and Carl W. Hendrix possession and controll of my place near Eastville, Ga Oconee County together with certain personal property for running said farm and they have agreed to assume an indebtedness against said land, and it is my will and it is my will and desire and I hereby give, bequeath and devise to my said sons Pool W. and Carl W. Hendrix my said tract of land in Oconee County, about one mile north of the town of Eastville, eighty two (82) acres more or less, bounded on north by Breedlove, East by Thomas, South by R. L. Malcom, and west by a public road leading from said town of Eastville, and lands of Hardy Breedlove. This land to go to and become the property of my said sons Pool W. and Carl W. Hendrix upon their paying of the loan which is on the property or whatever part thereof remains unpaid at my death and upon their paying over [[end of page]]

[[start of page 2, reads like clerk may have left out a few words]] and grandchildren the sum of three hundred ($300.00) dollars each.  My Grand Children are to receive the share that would have been coming to their father or mother if in life,  in other words my children Arvie Jane Graham, Fulton Hendrix, Vercy Hendrix, Candie Hendrix are to receive the sum of three hundred dollars each, or their children if I should survive them shall receive the respective share of their father or mother, and the children of my deceased son Warren Hendrix, to wit Fred, Carrie, Dottie, Willie and David Hendrix are to receive their father's part or the sum of three hundred ($300) dollars to be equally divided between them .

The payments of said sums being a charge upon my estate and upon the land.

Item 5) I give and bequeath to my son Oscar Hendrix one mule to be selected by him after my death.

Item 6) I give and bequeath to my wife Elizabeth Hendrix one milk cow to be selected by her after my death.

Item 7) I give and bequeath to daughter Mrs. Georgia Ann Palmer five ($5.00) dollars and no more, she having heretofore received from me her share of my property real and personal.

Item 8)  My son Archie Hendrix who enlisted in the U.S Navy during the war with Germany and who was on board a U.S. steamship Cyclops which disappeared and was never heard from is supposed to be dead but in case he is in life and shows up at any time he is to receive the sum of three hundred ($300) dollars to be paid as the other items in item fourth of this will, except, however this item shall not be a charge upon the lands.  

Item 9)  All the rest of my property real and personal shall shall [sic] be sold by my executor hereinafter named and appointed, at public or private sale, with or without advertisement and without any order of court.  And the proceeds thereof shall be applied to the payment of debts which I owe and the obligations outstanding which are a charge or lien upon the lands herein described if there is a residue after the legacies hereinbefore specified are satisfied, the remainder if any shall be equally divided between my children, share and share alike, except Grand Children shall receive the share of their parent to be equally divided between them.

Item 10) I hereby constitute and appoint my wife Elizabeth Hendrix sole executrix of this my last will and testament and expressly confer upon her power, as such, to administer my estate, excusing her [[end of page]]

[[start of page 3]] from giving any bonds or making any returns to the ordinary, and I expressly confer upon her full authority and power to sell any part of my estate which is not hereinbefore specifically devised, at public or private sale, with or without notice, as she may deem best, and without any order of court, making good and sufficient conveyances to the purchases and holding the proceeds of said sale to the same uses and trusts as hereinbefore declared in the several items of this will
And I further expressly confer upon her full power and authority and power to borrow money for the use of my estate, in any instance where she may deem necessary and proper, and to secure the same by lien, security deed, trust deed, or other form of security to or on any part of my estate not herein specifically devised, all this she may do without any order of court and without making any returns to the Court of Ordinary.  This the 21st day of May 1921.
  [[ss]] J. L. Hendrix

Signed, sealed, declared, and published by Jas L Hendrix as his last will and testament, in the presence of us, the undersigned who subscribe our names hereto, in the presence of said testator, after he had signed his name thereto, and at his special instance and request, and in the presence of each other.  This the 21st day of May 1921.

 [[ss]] F. S. Dooley
 [[ss]] John F. Ridgeway
 [[ss]] F. A. Gillen

Probated Jan 2, 1922
Recorded Feb 10 1922

David Murphy Griswold - 1,2, or 3? Or someone else?

In 1911, Fulton Jasper Hendrix married a widow (maybe) Emma Pearl Holliday Griswold and took into his household her children Thomas Murphy Griswold (known as Murphy), Gilbert G. Griswold, and Jackson F. (Jack) Griswold.   All of them are living together in Oconee county, Georgia in 1920.  Emma had apparently died by 1924, when Fulton married Nancy Ollen Roberts (known as Ollen) in Mississippi.  Fulton and Ollen settled in Louisiana where they lived the remainder of their lives.  I'm presuming Emma died because I can't find her in the census and because Fulton is listed as Murphy's stepfather in Murphy's obituary.  Mom's ex-husband would have been less likely to be remembered as such.

Thomas Murphy Griswold was born in Rebecca, Turner County, GA and died in Baton Rouge, LA.  His obituary lists his survivors as his wife Margaret, two stepsons, his stepfather and stepmother Mr and Mrs. F.J. Hendrix, 4 unnamed stepbrothers and 4 unnamed stepsisters.   This links Thomas M. Griswold to the Murphy Griswold in the 1910 household.  His SS-5 lists his parents as David Murphy Griswold and Emma Pearl Holliday.

Gilbert M. Griswold was also born in Rebecca and died in Galveston, TX.   He was survived by his widow Mrs. "Joseph" Griswold (from other records, probably Josephine),  and his two brothers.  His death certificate also gives David Murphy Griswold and Emma Pearl Holliday as his parents.

Jackson Franklin Griswold was born in Shubuta, Clarke County, Mississippi in September 1908.  He died in Galveston, TX in 1986, survived by his two sisters-in-law, and cousins Lelia Grobman of Texas and John Smith of New Orleans.  Lelia's obituary indicated that she was a Smit (not Smith) by birth and the census confirmed a brother John.  Further investigation indicated that their mother was Maggie Holliday, Emma Pearl's older sister.   Of interest was that the Smit children were all born in Mississippi, possibly an indication of why Emma went there. 


Murphy's social security application and Gilbert's death certificate both list their parents as David Murphy Griswold and Emma Pearl Holliday.   Emma has been relatively easy to trace (other than her death) but David has become one of those mysteries that bug me.  It's not important, none of the boys seems to have had children, it's just a mystery.

In 1910, Emma is listed as widowed and the 3 boys all show their father as born in Connecticut, their mother in Georgia.   This info presumably came from Emma. She is running a boarding house in Rebecca, GA, with Fulton Hendrix as one of her boarders.  In 1920, their father is from "Georgia", but since the boys names are badly mangled and they are all listed as Hendrix in this census, I think most of this information can be ignored.  By 1930, Murphy is living near his stepfather in New Orleans, while Gilbert and Jack (and Gilbert's wife) are in Alabama.  For Gilbert and Jack, the father's birthplace is Michigan, but Thomas still has Georgia.  There's no way of knowing who provided the information in either case.

Online records and family trees show three David Murphy Griswolds of an appropriate age to be these children's father.

  One:  born to Stephen and Sarah Purdom Griswold in 1848 in Tennessee.  He had a twin brother George Gilbert.   However, he married Missouri and they appear in every census through 1900, with him reportedly dying in 1908 in either Russell County, AL or Colquitt County, GA in 1908.   They lived most of their married life in Russell County, on the Georgia border.

   Father:  Pro - His name and his son Gilbert's name and his date of death, which matches well with a son born in 1908 but wife widowed in 1910.   He was a salesman and may have died in Colquitt county which gets him at least closer to Turner county, where at least the two oldest children were born.  Emma's family was in Lee County in 1900 and her father Thomas was a merchant.  His death in February 1908, when Emma was newly pregnant with Jack might have spurred her to go to her sister's in Mississippi.

   Con - He was married to someone else and there are no specific records connecting him with Emma or Turner county.  While a salesman might have covered a large area, it could also just mean someone who works behind the counter at a store.  He would have been about 53 when beginning a relationship with Emma.   He would not have been able to marry Emma and she does use the Griswold name and call herself widowed in 1910.

Two:  The son of George Gilbert and Martha Bennett Griswold, born in 1884 in Grundy County, TN.  The nephew of option 1.   He married Anna Bell Dykes in Grundy County in 1904, where they were still living in 1910,  They then moved to Arkansas where they remained.

Father: Pro - only the name and the connection to the name "Gilbert".

 Con - There is nothing that connects him to Georgia.  If he had not married in 1904, his age would have made him a good candidate, but a marriage to one woman in 1901 (and a continuing relationship) as well as a second marriage three years later and two states away, would have been a bit hard to pursue at the time.  Had he severed ties with Emma after the marriage to Bell, then it would have been more likely.

Three:  Born about 1872 in Tennessee to Anderson and Martha Warren Griswold,  died in Alabama in 1951.  Anderson was another brother to David Griswold one.  This David married Mary Brawley in 1894 in Grundy  County, TN.  They moved to Alabama about 1901, to the Birmingham area, where they lived until at least 1940.  He died in Tuscaloosa, AL.

Pro:  Same as option 2, his name and the family association with the name Gilbert, although somewhat more distant for him.   He's closer to Georgia than option 2, but still somewhat distant to be raising two families.

Con:  Like with option 2, this would require someone who is actively raising two separate families in two rather distant locations.

So, is one of these my David Murphy Griswold?  Of these three I like option one the best, especially since his death coincides so neatly with the given timeline.  On the other hand, with this family's apparent propensity for using the same names, it is possible another son from that family had the name.  I'm a little more skeptical about a completely unrelated candidate, just because of the combination of the two names, Gilbert and David Murphy.  Both names (Murphy and Gilbert) were in relatively common use, but not so common that they would normally be found repeatedly together. The combination David Murphy is even rarer.  There is also the problem of where the boys' father was born, since none of the options given includes Tennessee and in fact, all the reasonable options (not counting the Georgia) would have him from some place up north.  This could have been a lie told to Emma, or one told by Emma, or just a confusion in the family.  

Ahnentafel #10 Warren David Hendricks and #11 Lucinda Jane Gooch

According to his own account, Warren David Hendricks was born 8 Sep 1854 to George Washington Hendricks and Jane (Jenny) Keith, in Pickens County, SC.  His mother died a few years later after the birth of his younger brother James and his life became rather peripatetic at that point. The family lived in Alabama as well as various places in Georgia, before finally reaching Lumpkin County, which is where he married Lucinda Jane Gooch.

Lucinda Jane Gooch was born 19 Mar 1857 in Lumpkin County, Georgia to James Gooch and  Elvira Grizzle.   They had moved to Union County by the time she was 13 and she married Warren when she was 16, on 27 March 1873.  The ceremony was performed by Warren's cousin (by marriage) George Whitmore, who was a J.P. 

The young couple almost immediately settled in the Gaddistown area of Union County, where they raised a very large family.  Warren was primarily a farmer, Jane was a midwife, mother, and homemaker.   For the first 20 years of their marriage, Warren's brother James lived next door to them, before moving down to Madison County.  James was married to Jane's sister Eliza.   The brothers must have been close, since they named their first sons after each other. They also lived quite close to Jane's parents as well as her brothers William and Madison. Tax records indicate that they owned 260 acres of land.

In 1880 Warren and Jane first appear in the census as a family, with their two oldest children Lucy Ann and John James.  Also in the household was a 14-year old orphan Elizabeth Rider.  Her relationship to the family is not known but Warren and Jane did later take in at least one other orphaned child whom they raised. 

In March 1890 Warren was arrested for making whiskey, although he was not charged with selling it.  He was released when one of the witnesses (who worked for him) changed his testimony.   Family tradition maintains that he did in fact make whiskey.  A few months later, the Atlanta Constitution wrote a short piece about him in their section "Dahlonega Nuggets":  'Mr. Warren Hendricks, One of Union County's most prosperous farmers, was in Dahlonega some days ago.  Mr. Hendricks is worth about two thousand dollars and made it by hard licks.  He never wore a store coat or store pants in his life, but wears clothing manufactured by the "folks at home."  Instead of furnishing his little boys with a bicycle and ((unreadable)) pair of shoes, he gives them a long pair of home-made pants, suspenders knit by his girls, tenders them a hoe and puts them in the cornfield barefooted, with instructions to cut the weeds so as to let the corn grow, is why he prospers.'

By the 1900 census, Jane and Warren's two oldest children were married, with 7 more still at home, the youngest being 4.   An additional 4 children had not survived.   Her daughter Mattie always claimed that Jane was an excellent midwife, but that she had great difficulty with her own pregnancies and was often bedridden for them.

In 1903, Warren was appointed as the road commissioner for the Gaddistown district, along with two other men.  About the same time, he was also made a jury commissioner, a position he remained in until his death.

By 1910, several more of the children had married and left home, but 5 were still living with Warren and Jane as they ran the farm.  About 1915 they fostered Evelyn Ingle from Copper Hill, Tennessee.  She was about 4 at the time.  To date, we have not discovered why she was sent to a family in Union County, Georgia.  Her father had died and her 4 brothers were also fostered, separately.  She was apparently very fond of Warren and Jane, naming two of her children after them, including her first son.

In 1920, Warren and Jane show daughters Mattie, Maude and Evelyn still at home.  Mattie and Maude were both teachers.  This census entry is not totally accurate since Mattie was also listed on the census in Emanuel county, where she was working. Since the census was taken in January, its possible that she was still home for the holidays when the census taker came by.   Maude was at home but left to marry a few months later.   The fact that Mattie and Maude were both teachers is a reflection of the importance that the family apparently attributed to education.  At least 3 of the daughters (Viana, Mattie and Maude) and one of their sons (Luther) had attended North Georgia Agricultural college in Dahlonega.

In 1930, Warren is still apparently farming, despite now being 76.  Foster daughter Evelyn is still with them, as well as their daughter-in-law Ellen Jones Hendrix Seabolt.  Ellen's first husband was their son Joseph.  In 1920, he had been serving as the mayor of McCaysville, GA when he intervened in an incident with a drunken man, who shot him in the head.   Ellen later married James Seabolt but by 1930 was listed as widowed again.

In 1940, Jane and Warren are living at the same place but he is no longer listed as a farmer.  All the children are now gone, but they do have a 15-year old maid in the house.  Both Jane and Warren are listed as having done 4 years of school.  Warren died on 28 August 1940 and Jane followed him on 25 May 1942.  Both of them are buried at Mount Pleasant #2 (the Hill Church) in Suches.

Jane and Warren had the following known children:

     -- Mary LucyAnne Hendrix, born 29 September 1875, died 29 April 1956.  She married Anderson Asberry McDougald and lived her entire life in Union County.
     -- James John Washington Hendrix, born12 Dec 1877, died 17 Mar 1954.  He was named after Warren's father Washington and his two brothers James and John.  He married Vinnie Gurley and eventually settled in Morgan County, GA.
    --  Joseph Benjamin Hendrix, born 18 Mar 1881, died 25 April 1920 while serving as mayor of McCaysville, GA.  Married Ellen Jones.
    -- Allen Luther Hendrix, born 16 Feb 1884, died 11 Mar 1959 in Gwinnett County, GA.  He became a preacher, and met and married his wife Cora Blanche Clyde while serving in Holt County, Nebraska. 
   --  Vianna Hendrix, born 22 May 1885, died 19 Sep 1947.   She married William Carl Gurley.
   --  Elvira Hendrix, born 23 Sep 1889, died 20 Aug 1968 in Monroe County, GA.  She married John Richard Bearden.
   -- William Arthur, born 20 Jan 1891, died February 1976 in Hall County, GA.  He lived much of his working life in Franklin County, Ohio, but returned to Georgia after his wife died.  He married Gilla May Sparks of Fannin County.
   -- Mattie Irene Hendrix, 13 June 1893 - 12 April 1975, Married Charles Gordon Garner
   --  Maude June Hendrix, born 21 Oct 1895, died 4 Aug 1967 in Atlanta.  She married Edward Lee Floyd, who had been one of the instructors at NGC when she and Mattie were there.
   --Alice Evelyn Ingle, born 7 Oct 1911, died 24 Dec 2007 in Haywood County, NC.  Married James Thomason and then Dennis Ammons.

Warren and Jane with their descendents, taken about 1938.

Ahnentafel - #5 Mattie Irene Hendrix

My grandmother Mattie Irene Hendrix was born on 13 June 1897 to Warren David Hendricks and Lucinda Jane Gooch in Gaddistown, Union County, Georgia, near modern-day Suches.  Mattie was the next-to-youngest of 9 surviving children and in fact, her oldest sister married the same year she was born. She and her sister Maude always claimed that they were not given middle names at birth, with the expectation that when they married they would use Hendrix as their middle name.  Both of them chose to adopt a middle name anyway. The spelling of the family name was definitely in flux at this time, which is really obvious when you look at their college yearbooks, and see it spelled differently on the same page. 

Very little is known about her early years.  Her father ran a farm and took pride in being a somewhat stern taskmaster.  There was no high school in the area, but there was apparently a small country school that the children used to get the basics. Certainly Mattie and her siblings could all read and write, which was not a given for the area.   As they got older, several of the children, including Allen Luther, Vianna, Mattie and Maude, went to North Georgia Agricultural College (later North Georgia College, then North Georgia College State University, now University of North Georgia).   The college had a preparatory program specifically designed for local students who did not have other access to secondary education.  Mattie did the full preparatory program, then went on to get her domestic science certificate, which qualified her as a graduating senior in 1914.   All three of the girls played basketball while at the school.  According to the yearbook, Mattie "plays for all it's worth at guard's position.  Her speed is a feature in every game, and she plays the ball splendidly.." Mattie later used to tell her grandchildren that she was one of the first women in Georgia to play basketball in shorts (bloomers) rather than a skirt, something she was proud of.

Shortly after graduating, Mattie began working as a teacher in Emanuel County, Georgia, possibly as a home demonstration agent.  In newspaper reports, she is just noted as a teacher, while the census

has her as a U.S. vocational teacher.  Her photo of her first car, shown here, was labeled as "home demonstration agent".  She was the 1921 Attendance officer for education in Emanuel County and  heavily involved in literacy programs for the county, as well as demonstrating at the county fair and joining the Camp Fire girls on a camping trip.   She was also active with the county Georgia University alumnae association, attending their meetings.

Mattie married Charles Gordon Garner on 10 December 1921 in Swainsboro.  Apparently at the time this meant that she could not continue in her job, so this was the end of her professional career.  She and Gordon lived first in Lyons, Toombs County, where their first two sons Charles Gordon,Jr and Warren Hendrix were born.  About 1931 they moved to
Athens, where James Arthur and Robert Edward joined the family.   After her father died in 1940, Mattie and Gordon purchased his property in Gaddistown, Georgia. In the late 40s, she moved back there with Jim and Bobby.  Gordon joined them after his retirement.

Left a widow in 1955, Mattie continued to run the farm for many years, until finally selling the property in the late 60s.  She lived for some time after that with her sons in Kansas, Georgia and Oklahoma.  She died in 1975 in Oklahoma City, having been living at the time with her son Warren in Cordell, Oklahoma. She and Gordon are both buried at Mt Pleasant Church #2 (the Hill Church) cemetery in Suches, GA.

Sports Center Saturday - The Hendrix sisters and Women's Basketball

North Georgia Agricultural College Women's basketball team (and coach) about 1914.  The two women in front are sisters Mattie Hendrix (later Garner) and Maude Hendrix (later Floyd).  The coach was Maude's future husband, and professor at the college, Ed Floyd.  I particularly love this picture because it validates my grandmother's stories of having played basketball in college and of doing so in bloomers. 

Military Monday - Vicksburg, Gettysburg and others

150 years ago today, the battle of Gettysburg began and the siege of Vicksburg was in progress.  This seemed like a good time to document my ancestral connections to those and other Civil War battles.

Vicksburg - Pvt Washington W. B. Horne, 57th GA Infantry was wounded during the siege of Vicksburg, losing an arm, and was part of the army that surrendered there on 4 July 1863.  He was paroled and returned to his home in Crawford County, GA.  His brother-in-law James W. Morris served in the same unit and was killed in 1862.  His uncles Thomas and Jeremiah Lewis served in the 45th GA infantry and were killed in 1862 and 1863 respectively. 

Gettysburg - Pvt Moses Thomas Wade served in the 12th NC Infantry at Gettysburg, where he was wounded.  As the army retreated back toward Virginia, he and many others of the wounded were left behind and captured at Williamsport, MD on 14 July 1863.  After a year at the Point Lookout prison camp, he spent the remainder of the war at the Elmyra prison camp in New York. 


Petersburg - Pvt George Washington Hendricks, served in the 64th GA Infantry, company A.  He was listed as absent without leave a few months after the battle.  This was presumably not out of lack of enthusiasm for the cause, since he later named his youngest son John Robert E. Lee Hendricks.

Petersburg - James Gooch, 64th GA Infantry, Company K.  He was captured in July 1864, listed as "a deserter from the enemy."  As such, he took the loyalty oath (to the Union) and was sent to Philadelphia.  A James M. Gooch enlisted in the 11th GA Cavalry in the fall of that year, but it has not been determined if it was the same man or not.  Some family records indicate that he had returned to GA and rejoined the army but this is not verified.

Petersburg and Chancellorsville - Cpl Thomas Franklin Mathews served in the 6th GA Infantry.  He was captured in NC on 8 March 1865 and sent to Pt Lookout MD, where he was released on 29 June 1865.

Family Gathering - Warren Hendricks

This photograph will have been taken about 1924, based on the apparent ages of Charlie Garner and Ed Floyd.   Not everyone has been conclusively identified.  The elderly couple in the middle are Warren David Hendricks and his wife Lucinda Jane Gooch Hendricks.  To the left of Warren is his daughter Maude Hendricks Floyd, holding her baby Edward Lee Floyd Jr born in 1924.  Ed Floyd Sr is to her left.  The woman to the right of Jane Hendricks is their daughter Mattie Hendrix Garner,  holding her son Charles Gordon Garner Jr, born in late 1922.  Her husband is probably the photographer.   The other people are more speculative.  The man on the porch, holding the young boy, is probably Arthur Hendrix, based on the fact that he was the only son with boys about the ages of the three there.  If he is Arthur, then the boys are probably William (b 1917), Frank (1918) and Kermit (1922).  The final man is almost certainly one of the other sons.  Joseph had been killed in 1920 which is definitely before this picture was taken.  His son would have been too young for this man.  Luther and his wife were living out west at the time but could have been home for a family visit.  However, he would have had a young daughter, born in 1920, who would have presumably been included in the picture.  Therefore, I think the most likely candidate for this last one is John, with his wife Vinnie next to him.  Their son Roy was grown which would account for him being absent.  Finally, the biggest mystery of the picture is the girl on the right.  She is definitely not one of the daughters (Maude was the youngest).  She might be the foster daughter listed in the 1920 census, Evelyn Anglund, who would have been about 12 when this was taken.

The photo was taken in front of the Warren Hendricks house, in Gaddistown, Union County, Georgia.

Editted to add:  I have since been given photos of John and Vinnie Hendricks and this is clearly not them in the photo.  My next guess would be one of the other daughters and her husband, but I need to look for more photos for comparison. The young girl has been confirmed as Evelyn Anglund by her granddaughter. 

Second edit:  It was recently pointed out to me that I had Paul's birthdate wrong and looking at my records I see that I had reversed his age and that of Kermit.  Therefore the child being held by Arthur would be Kermit.  I have corrected it in the main text above.  

serendipity

Well, moving definitely throws me off balance when it comes to posting. Let's see if I can't make this more regular.

My sister and I have spent the last several years looking for the marriage date and place for our grandparents Charles Gordon Garner and Mattie Hendrix. At first we thought it would be an easy effort, just check out the records in the county where they lived when they got married (Toombs County, GA). Well, there was no record there, so we checked the county where she was from (Union County) and the neighboring counties since transport sometimes made it easier to get to a different courthouse (Lumpkin, White, Fannin). No luck. A cousin thought they got married in Athens, so checked out Clarke county. Then, since we were in the area, checked out the counties where he grew up (Washington and Hancock). We tried the county where they honeymooned (Chatham), where he had lived a couple of years before (Stephens), where his closest sibling lived (Fulton) and then a couple of counties because we were in the area - Crawford, Peach, and Houston. We had actually printed out the Georgia map on the GAGenWeb site and marked off counties as we went.

The only "known" facts we had were that their engagement was announced in November 1920 in the Atlanta Constitution, with no date given for the wedding but a statement that it would be "soon". And in the 1920 census, both of them were shown with their parents, in Union and Hancock counties respectively.

At that point, we had just about reached the point of just working out from all those counties until we had got lucky or eliminated the entire state. However, at that point a little bit of luck hit in. As I had done many times before, I did a news search on her name (genealogybank.com) and had a social news hit - Miss Mattie Hendrix of Swainsboro visited her sister Mrs. Floyd in Atlanta. I knew my grandmother had a sister Maude Floyd, so even though we had no knowledge of any connection to Swainsboro, we checked it out and there it was! Embarrassing moment of high-fives in the courthouse, but the staff just wrote us off as crazy genealogists.

So why Swainsboro - it turns out Mattie was a teacher there at the time. Once I knew that this was my Mattie, I did more research and found out that she was also on the 1920 census down there (something I would have dismissed before since I knew I had her with her parents. Didn't think to check the dates). This also explained the long-term question of how they met - she was running literacy programs from Statesboro, he was doing extension agency outreach in Lyons, putting them actually in fairly close proximity to each other and in fields where their missions might have overlapped.

And the moral of this story - check and recheck every possible source of information. I had checked her name in genealogybank and ancestry many times, but genbank had added more source newspapers and I was not being careful on the census or I would have caught the duplicate entry for her.