David Dinsmore, Ulster-Scots Loyalist in South Carolina and Nova Scotia Exile: Every Life Worth a Novel (8)

Hants County, Nova Scotia, Deed Bk. 4, p, 508

Or, Subtitled: New Documents Casting New Light on Old Mysteries

And now another addendum to a series of postings from the past — these tracking the life of my ancestor David Dinsmore, who was born in Ulster in 1750, arrived from Belfast with his wife Margaret aboard the Earl of Donegal in Charleston, South Carolina, on 10 December 1767, and received a grant from the colony of 150 acres on the Tyger River in Craven County (later Ninety Six District, then Spartanburg County) on 27 February 1768. When the American Revolution broke out, David took the British side, in 1775 and ended up in Nova Scotia, with his wife Margaret and their five children remaining behind on their farm on Jamey’s Creek of the Tyger River in South Carolina. I told David’s story and the story of his family in a seven-part series (citing documentation you’ll find as you read this series) that began in February 2018 with this posting.

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.

Children of Mary Brooks (1745/1750 – aft. 15 May 1815) and Jacob Hollingsworth (1742 – 1822) — Mary Hollingsworth (1770/5 – 1830/1840) and Husband Benjamin J. Wofford

William Tatum Wofford, grandson of Mary Hollingsworth and Benjamin J. Wofford, from Library of Congress, Prints and Photographic Division

Or, Subtitled: Further Connections of the Hollingsworth and Wofford Families in Burke County, North Carolina, and Franklin County, Georgia

As noted previously, Jacob Hollingsworth and Mary Brooks’s daughter Mary appears to have been born between 1770 and 1775. Sadie Greening Sparks assigns 1773 as her year of birth.[1] A tombstone marking the grave of her husband Benjamin J. Wofford in Bartow County, Georgia, which was apparently placed there some years following his death, gives his year of birth as 1767.[2] Sadie Greening Sparks indicates that there’s a marriage bond in Randolph County, North Carolina, showing Mary’s intent to marry Daniel Brown, but the couple did not marry and Mary’s sister Hannah married Daniel Brown instead.[3] Mary Hollingsworth and Benjamin J. Wofford had married by 1790, it seems, since he appears on the 1790 federal census in Burke County, North Carolina, next to Jacob Hollingsworth, with a male over 16 in his household and one female.[4] Both Jacob and Benjamin are near Benjamin J. Wofford’s father William Wofford on this census.

Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock (1774-1837): Kentucky Years, 1798-1836

Thomas Brooks’s affidavit, 10 March 1804, Wayne County, Kentucky, in Whitlock v. Whitlock, Commonwealth of Virginia Chancery District Court, Staunton, box 10, file 38

Or, Subtitled: “A Rough Hardy Race of Men, Very Large & Stout, & Altogether an Excellent Population, for a New Country”

Thomas and Sarah Brooks Establish Their Young Family in Kentucky (1798-9)

In the previous posting about Thomas Brooks (1775-1838), I track him up to 1798, when he moved with wife Sarah Whitlock and infant daughter Jane from Wythe County, Virginia, to Pulaski (soon to be Wayne) County, Kentucky. As that posting notes, when the Brooks family made that move, Thomas and Sarah were a young couple, he 23 and she 24. You may have noticed that the previous postings discussing the Virginia beginnings of this Brooks family cited no records for Thomas in Wythe County other than tax records — with the exception of the record in his family bible stating that Thomas and Sarah married 14 February 1796.

Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock (1774-1837): Virginia Beginnings, 1775-1798

“Brooks Bible,” Itawamba [Mississippi] Settlers 8,3 (September, 1988), pp. 151-2

Or, Subtitled: A Virginia ➤ Kentucky ➤ Alabama Migration Pattern

Introduction: Now the Brooks Family Line

At the end of April 2021, I completed a lengthy series of postings that I began in November 2019. This series shared my information about my Lindsey immigrant ancestor, Dennis Linchey, who arrived in Richmond County, Virginia, aboard the ship Expectation some time before 1 June 1718 as an indentured servant from Ireland, and about his descendants. The series of postings that runs from November 2019 to April 2021 provides all the information I have about the descendants of Dennis Linchey, whose surname shifted to Lindsey before his death in August 1762 in Granville County, North Carolina — though my series does not follow family lines down to the last generations in each line.

The Conundrum of Sorting John Lindseys, Spartanburg County, South Carolina, Latter Half of 1700s and Early 1800s

South Carolina Colonial Plat Bk. 9, p. 1

Or, Subtitled: “’Curiouser and curiouser!’ Cried Alice”

These notes about the challenge of sorting men named John Lindsey in records of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, in the latter part of the 1700s and early part of the 1800s begin with the conundrum of a 20 March 1817 deed of William Lindsey to Spencer Bobo, both of Spartanburg County.[1] I discussed this deed in detail in a previous posting. As that posting notes, William Lindsey deeded to Spencer Bobo 200 acres on which William was then living, stating that he was selling “all the plantation and tract of Land where I now live supposed 200 acres more or less with every appurtenance thereunto belonging N. adjoining said Bobo’s land, E. joining Brewton, S. joining John Lindsey, and W. joining John Crocker.” The witnesses to this deed were John Lindsey and James Brewton/Bruton.

Children of Dennis Lindsey (1812 – 1879) by Wives Louisa F. Styles and Mary S. Roman (Cunningham)

Photo of William Thomas Gordon from 18 April 1921 passport application, NARA, U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925, vol. 1578, certificates 23250-23625, 22 April 1921-23 April 1921; certificate 23487
Photo of Mary Belle Gordon from 6 February 1919 passport application, NARA, U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925, vol. 707, certificates 65000-65249, 19 February 1919-21 February 1919; certificate 65132

Or, Subtitled: A Branch of a Spartanburg County, South Carolina, Lindsey Family Establishes Itself in Atlanta Area by 1900

This posting is a continuation of a previous posting in which I discuss what I know about Dennis Lindsey (1812-1879), son of William Lindsey and Rachel Earnest of Spartanburg County, South Carolina. As that posting shows, by 1842, Dennis had settled in Hamburg, which was then in Edgefield District, South Carolina, where he spent his life up to the final year or two working as a cotton merchant. On 5 March 1843, he married Louisa F. Styles, daughter of Gabriel B. Styles and Rebecca Wood Farrow of Spartanburg County. 

Children of William Lindsey (1760/1770 – 1840) and Rachel Earnest — Dennis Lindsey (1812 – 1879)

Tombstone of Dennis and Mary S. Roman Lindsey, Magnolia Cemetery, Augusta, Richmond County, Georgia, from his Find a Grave memorial page, created by M Long; photo by M Long

Or, Subtitled: “A Man of Affairs, Very Outstanding in Hamburg”

This posting is one in a series discussing the family of William Lindsey and Rachel Earnest of Spartanburg County, South Carolina. The series first discusses William and Rachel, then tracks their children. It begins with this linked posting, and can be followed from that posting down to the current one, if you click on each subsequent posting after you read the posting I have just linked. Dennis Lindsey was the last of the nine children of William and Rachel Lindsey. His tombstone in Magnolia Cemetery in Augusta, Richmond County, Georgia, where he’s buried with his second wife Mary S. Roman Lindsey, says that he was born in 1812 and died in 1879.[1]

Children of William Lindsey (1760/1770 – 1840) and Rachel Earnest — Rachel Lindsey and Second Husband William Halbert

William Halbert to Thomas M. Young, 9 March 1843, Laurens County, South Carolina, Deed Bk. O, p. 183
Relinquishment of dower by Rachel Lindsey Halbert for sale to Thomas M. Young, April 1843, Laurens County, South Carolina, Deed Bk. O, p. 187

Or, Subtitled: “Being Unfortunate in His Business He Moved”

This posting continues a discussion of records documenting the life of Rachel Lindsey (1800/1810 – 1845), daughter of William Lindsey and Rachel Earnest of Spartanburg County, South Carolina. In two previous postings about Rachel (here and here), I discussed her first husband Jacob Cooper, whom Rachel appears to have married between 1820-1828, and her family by Jacob. As the previous posting (the second link in the preceding sentence) notes, following Jacob’s death in Spartanburg County sometime before 15 November 1829, Rachel then remarried between 28 January and 26 April 1830 to William Anson Halbert of Laurens County. Rachel appears in the estate sale documents of Jacob Cooper on 28 January as Rachel Cooper, but on 26 April 1830, William Halbert applied to Spartanburg County court to be made administrator of Jacob Cooper’s estate, noting that he had married Rachel, Jacob’s widow. It’s likely this marriage occurred on or near to 26 April 1830.[1]