Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Charles Brooks (1800/1 – 1861), Itawamba County, Mississippi, Years

Photo of Deniah Cornelius Brooks uploaded by JudyKay1234 to her “Hendrick, Lindsey, Sullivan, Brooks” family tree at Ancestry

Or, Subtitled: Migration of Families from Lawrence-Morgan Counties, Alabama, to Itawamba County, Mississippi, Following Depression of 1837

This posting is a continuation of a previous posting discussing the life of Charles Brooks (1800/1-1861), son of Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and wife Sarah Whitlock. The previous posting tracks Charles in Lawrence County, Alabama, where he married Deniah Cornelius, daughter of Rowland Cornelius and Eleanor Watkins, on 27 January 1823, and where Charles and Deniah and their children lived until 1840, when the family moved to Itawamba County, Mississippi. As the posting I just linked also indicates, Charles appears in the estate records of his father Thomas Brooks, who died in Morgan County, Alabama, on 25 October 1838 with a will naming Charles, his oldest son, as his executor.

Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Jane (1797 – 1852) and Charles Brooks (1800/1 – 1861)

Bond of Charles Brooks and John Stewart, 24 January 1823, for Charles’s marriage to Deniah Cornelius, see Lawrence County, Alabama, Marriage Bonds and Licenses 1820, available digitally at FamilySearch

Or, Subtitled: Wherein I Confess That I’ve Made a Whopper of a Mistake, about Which I Need to Tell Readers of This Blog

I need to start this posting with a confession. I make mistakes. I know that will shock you profoundly[!]. In working on this posting, I discovered I have made a colossal one, one that reverberates through previous postings about my Brooks family. Finding that I have gone wrong about one key piece of information will now require me to backtrack through previous postings and correct multiple erroneous statements based on one big wrong turn.

The Children of Mark Lindsey (1774-1848) and Mary Jane Dinsmore: Dennis Lindsey (1794 – 1836) (4)

Dennis Lindsey Estate Inventory, from Jane Lindsey v. John W. Lindsey and James B. Speake (1)
21 October 1836 inventory of estate of Dennis Lindsey, from case file, Jane Lindsey v. John W. Lindsey and James B. Speake as administrators, Lawrence County, Alabama, loose court case files 247, box 171, folder 6 (1)

Dennis Lindsey Estate Inventory, from Jane Lindsey v. John W. Lindsey and James B. Speake (2)
21 October 1836 inventory of estate of Dennis Lindsey, from case file, Jane Lindsey v. John W. Lindsey and James B. Speake as administrators, Lawrence County, Alabama, loose court case files 247, box 171, folder 6 (2)

Or, Subtitled: A North Alabama Example of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce

Dennis Lindsey’s Death

I have found no information about the cause of Dennis Lindsey’s death on 28 August 1836 at Oakville in Lawrence County, Alabama. Dennis was a young man not yet 42 years of age when he died. He left a young widow, Jane, who was 39, and eleven children, the first two of whom — John Wesley and Sarah Brooks Lindsey — were married. Several of Dennis and Jane’s children were very young when their father died: the last child, Dennis Edward, was not a year old, and the next four daughters — Margaret Tranquilla, Frances Rebecca, Martha Ann, and Mary Jane — were aged 2, 5, 7, and 10. As we’ll see from Dennis’s estate documents, though he had acquired a rather substantial estate, it was encumbered by debt, so in addition to having the responsibility to care for a large family of children when her husband died, Jane also had to face financial worries. Continue reading “The Children of Mark Lindsey (1774-1848) and Mary Jane Dinsmore: Dennis Lindsey (1794 – 1836) (4)”