Last week, I posted what I know about Jackie Patterson from his birth about 1794 in South Carolina up until his marriage to Jane Chapman in 1828 in Hall County, Georgia.  This is part of my attempt to pull everything together and make sense of all the bits of information that I’ve found so far.

1830 Census, Hall County, Georgia

1830 is the first year that Jackie Patterson appeared as head of household.  He is the only John Patterson enumerated in Hall County and the composition of the household perfectly matches his known family. (A John Patterson appeared in nearby Habersham County, but the ages of the family members aren’t even close; moreover, Habersham County John had 8 slaves, whereas my John never appeared with slaves, nor did his parents or any of his siblings).

John "Jackie" Patterson - 1830 Census

1834 State Census, Lumpkin County, Georgia

I found several references and transcriptions online of the 1834 Georgia State Census, which show John Patterson living in Lumpkin County with a total of four free whites.  This matches the make-up of his family at the time, with the four likely being himself, wife Jane (Chapman), daughter Nancy, and son Jerry.  Jackie’s brothers, William and Hiram Patterson, his sister Elizabeth (Patterson) Cantrell, and at least one Chapman cousin also appear on the 1834 census in Lumpkin County.  Lumpkin was formed in 1832 from parts of Hall, Habersham and Cherokee counties, so Jackie and his family either lived in the part of Hall County that became Lumpkin or they moved between 1830 and 1834.  (The 1834 Georgia State Census is available on microfilm from the Family History Library, so ordering a copy of the film is on my to-do list.)

North Georgia Map - 1846

1840 Census, Gilmer County, Georgia

By 1840, several of the Patterson/Chapman clan had moved to adjacent Gilmer County.  Jackie (enumerated as “John”), his brother Hiram Patterson, Jane’s brother Fields Chapman, and mother Christina Chapman, all appeared on the same census page.

Since we have one person employed in agriculture, it is reasonable to assume that John was a farmer.

1850 Census, Gilmer County, Georgia

Finally, an every-name census!  Jackie and Jane (enumerated as Jinny) were still in Gilmer County in 1850 with five of their children at home.  John Patterson (56) appeared as head of household.  He was a farmer who owned $1,000 in real estate (the neighborhood average was $244).  His birthplace was reported as South Carolina.  The household included Jinny (36), Jeremiah (17, a farmer)*, Malinda (14), Louisa (9), Henson (7), John (4), and Gallatin (4/12).  The children were all born in Georgia.

*Jeremiah “Jerry” was my third great-grandfather.

1851 Residence

Two of Jackie and Jane’s grandsons filed Eastern Cherokee applications; both stated that their grandparents resided in Gilmer County in 1851.

Jackie’s Death in the 1850’s

I have secondary information from two researchers that states Jackie died on April 18, 1854 in Fannin County, Georgia.  Fannin County was created in 1854 from parts of Gilmer and Union counties, so it is possible that Jackie and Jane lived in the part of Gilmer County that became Fannin.  However, I think Fannin County is unlikely, since Jane continued to appear in Gilmer County on the next three censuses.  I don’t have any primary information regarding Jackie’s death date, but he certainly died before 1860, as Jane appeared that year as head of household.

Next Research Steps:

• Probate records are the next logical step.  They will narrow the date of his death, as well as potentially providing other information.
• The 1850 census tells us that he owned real estate in Gilmer County, so deed records should be search there and in Fannin County, in case he did live in the portion of Gilmer that became Fannin.
• I also need to obtain the 1831 Hall County deed which names Nancy Patterson and her children.

I’ve been working on my Patterson line recently, in hopes of locating a common ancestor with a DNA match.  I haven’t found the common ancestor yet, but I have found lots of information on my known Pattersons.  I want to capture what I’ve learned in narrative format, starting with Jackie Patterson, my fourth great-grandfather.

Connecting John to his parents

John “Jackie” Patterson was born about 1794, likely in Pendleton District, South Carolina, and probably the second son of John “Hense” Patterson and Nancy Chapman.  I currently have two pieces of evidence connecting him to John “Hense” Patterson and Nancy Chapman 1) a deed transcription  found online that names John  Patterson, his siblings and mother Nancy Patterson, as well as his grandfather Joseph Chapman (obtaining a copy of the original deed is on my to-do list), and 2) a notation in an old county history book.

1800 Census, Pendleton District, South Carolina

Jackie was at home with his parents for the 1800 census.  His father, John Patterson was head of household.  (Three John Pattersons appeared in Pendleton District in 1800, but this one best-matches the pattern of the known children.)

John "Hense" Patterson - 1800 Census

Jackie’s father died between 1808 and 1810, with his mother appearing as head of household on the next decennial census.

1810 Census

The 1810 census is problematic and Jackie can’t be located with any certainty.  His mother, Nancy (Chapman) Patterson appeared as head of household with three boys in Jackie’s age range (10-15); however, Nancy had four sons in that age group, all of whom lived to be adults.  Jackie could have been one of the three boys at home with his mother or he could have been living in someone else’s household.  Since I think he was the second-oldest son, I think is more likely that he was living elsewhere and that his younger brothers were still at home.  The only certainty is that he does not appear as head of his own household, nor does he appear with his older brother, Joseph.

1820 Census

Jackie can’t be located on the 1820 census either.  He does not appear with his mother or his brother.  He would have been about 26 years old.  A search for “John Patterson born about 1794” in the 1820 census on Ancestry.com yields several of that name.  However, there are no households headed by John Patterson in South Carolina or Georgia that seem likely to be this John.  Since he didn’t get married until 1828, he was probably living in someone else’s household, but whose has not been determined.

A Move to a Georgia and a Wedding

Jackie, his mother, and his siblings all moved to Hall County, Georgia during the 1820s.

On 28 October 1828, Jackie married Jane Chapman in Hall County.  Jackie and Jane were first cousins, with her father being John Chapman, brother to Jackie’s mother, Nancy.

Check back next week for “John Patterson – the Later Years.”

Click on links above to see more information, including source citations.

July was another exceptionally productive month.  I really feel like I accomplished a LOT.

Research

• Continue working on the Patterson/Chapman lines from last month.  I hit the jackpot on research clues with this line.  Last month, I had found a website that presented an extensive three-generation research report on the descendants of John Patterson and Nancy Chapman.  I’ve been going through, verifying the evidence and validating the analysis.   While there have been a few items I have not been able to verify, most of the data is valid and I’ve been able to expand on quite a bit of it.  Then, this month, I re-visited an Eastern Cherokee Application that I had ordered a couple of years ago for a descendant in this line (this was before they were available on Footnote.com).  One page in the app referenced 43 other applications based on the same ancestor.  All these applications were rejected, but they are still the mother lode of genealogical information on this family.  Names, dates, direct evidence of family relationships. . .it will take me a long time to work through all 43 apps, but it will be worth it.
• Use research log – I did much better with this.  As long as I remember to open the file on my desktop, then I usually remember to make an entry.  The trick is remembering to open the file.

Organization

• Do some database cleanup work.  I cleaned up the repository list, so check.
• Work on adding back photos and documents to TNG.  Part of this is putting copyright notices on the images.  Shoot for 10 a week.  Well. . .I think I did about 6 total.
• Desktop cleanup – I didn’t write this down as a goal this month, but I took advantage of my lack of internet on Saturday to do some major filing work.

Education

• Finish Lesson 7 on the NGS Home Study Course.  I ran into a kink with the microfilm I needed, so this is a holdover. . .again.  I did start working on Lesson 8 in the meantime.
• Watch one of the webinars that I got at Jamboree.  I watched Sharing Genealogy Electronically.  You can read my review here.

Writing

• Write 10 blog posts.  I did 17.  Woo hoo!

Other

• I’m also working on refreshing the website design and I should have that ready to unveil sometime this month.  This (of course) took way more time than I had allotted, but I really wanted to get it done and I rolled out the new design mid-month.  I’m still tweaking a few things and fixing some stuff that didn’t make it through the transition as cleanly as one would have hoped.
• I also launched the “31 Weeks to a Better Genealogy Blog” challenge this month and, I have to say, it is going very well.  Thanks to everyone who is participating!
• I also started working on another new project that I hope to announce soon.

So, lots of genealogy in July. . .how was your month?

I was in the neighboring county a couple of weeks ago when I realized I had about thirty minutes to kill, so I sped over to the library. Normally I would not have done this, because I didn’t have any genealogy information with me and I would have thought I didn’t have enough time to accomplish anything.  But I did have a few “to-do” items in my head based on some recent internet research on my Patterson line, so I decided to give it a shot.

I’m fairly familiar with this library, so I headed straight to the Genealogy Room and to the corner where I thought that land records were shelved. Fortune was with me and I quickly found three books that matched up with what I had in mind.

1. 1832 Georgia Gold Lottery – I had seen a reference online that Nancy (Chapman) Patterson was a fortunate drawer in the 1832 Cherokee Land Lottery, but I hadn’t been able to corroborate that. I wanted to see if the library had a book on the 1832 Gold Lottery to see if she drew land in it instead.  They did, and while I didn’t find Nancy listed, I did find three of her children, including John, my 4th great-grandfather.
2. 1834 and 1838 Georgia Census Records for Lumpkin County – following along a similar theme, I had found some of the Pattersons in Lumpkin County in 1840 and had seen online references that some were there in 1834 and some in 1838. The library did not have the 1834 Georgia census, but they did have a book that included 1827 Taliaferro County, 1838 Lumpkin County, and 1845 Chatham County. A quick look revealed William Patterson (my 4th great-grandfather’s brother) in 1838 in Lumpkin County.
3. A Random Book – The same section had a book called Indexes to seven State census reports for counties in Georgia, 1838-1845. That seemed promising so I took a look at the table of contents. It included Forsyth County, 1845. I had already found the above William Patterson in Forsyth County in 1850, but he did not appear there in 1845, so now I know that he moved between 1845 and 1850.

Three records in thirty minutes. Not bad, huh?

Have you had any luck researching in short “found” blocks of time?  Tell me about it in the comments.

I made an interesting discovery while working on census records for some of the Pattersons/Chapmans.  I was looking at the 1840 record for my fourth great-grand uncle, Joseph Patterson (born 1790/1794).  The 1840 census is two pages wide, so make sure you always look at that second page.  I almost missed this find, myself, and I’m not sure I would have caught it if I weren’t referring to the index, as well as the actual document.

The index indicated that one member of the household was employed as a miner. At first, I assumed it was a transcription error (I had found one on Joseph’s 1830 census index), so I flipped over to the original and sure enough, mining was checked.  I’m so used to my ancestors having been farmers, that I hadn’t noticed that the check was not in the agriculture column, but was mining.

Then it dawned on me.  Joseph lived in Lumpkin County, Georgia.   The Gold Rush.  Joseph must have been a gold-miner.  I looked back at the census and almost every household on the page had at least one person who was employed in mining.

The Georgia Gold Rush was the second in the United States, after the Gold Rush in Cabarrus County, North Carolina.  Gold was discovered in Georgia in 1828, near Dahlonega in what is now Lumpkin County, although Native Americans had told the European explorers that there was gold in the North Georgia mountains centuries earlier.  Word spread quickly and the Gold Rush began in earnest in 1829.  Gold was found in numerous North Georgia counties, and in fact, the Georgia Gold Belt begins in Alabama and extends to Rabun County, which is the northeastern-most county in the state.  Georgia’s gold was almost 24 karat and was easy to collect.   Congress established a branch of the United States Mint in Dahlonega, which operated from 1838 until it was closed by the Confederate government in 1861.

Various pieces of evidence indicate that Joseph, his mother, and most of his siblings came to Georgia in or before 1828. I never knew why they left South Carolina, but gold could be the reason.

Births

• Anna Barbara (Albright) Powell was born  in 1754 (my 6th great-grandmother).
• Margaret E. (Dellinger) Whitener was born in 1807.
• Elizabeth Patterson was born in 1808.
• Lee B. Stroud was born in 1898 in Texas.

Deaths

• John Wilfong died in 1838 in Newton, North Carolina.
• Robert Elliott Morrison died in 1867 in Chatsworth, Georgia.

Marriages

• Julia Bowers and Walter Thomas Hemphill were married in 1933 in Murray County, Georgia.

Click on any link above to see more information about these individuals, including source citations.

Births

• Robert Ross Patterson was born in 1903 in Monroe County, Tennessee.

Deaths

• William F. Ward died in 1945.

Marriages

• Naomi Beamer and Loranza Dow Roberts were married in 1875 in Murray County, Georgia.

Births

• Ruth Bertha (Hemphill) Whiteside was born in 1794 in Burke County, North Carolina.
• Joseph M. Tucker was born in 1833.
• Mary Louise (Burgin) Goforth was born in 1848 in Burke County, North Carolina.

Deaths

• Captain Thomas Hemphill died in 1826 in Morganton, North Carolina (my 4th, 5th, and 6th great-grandfather).
• Joseph M. Tucker died in 1833.
• Rebecca Susana Forrester died in 1858.
• William M. West died in 1928 in Cisco, Georgia (my 2nd great-grandfather).
• Claude Lee Patterson died in 1956 in Chatsworth, Georgia.

Marriages

• Anna Margaretha (MNU) and Hans Andreas Dellinger were married in 1697.
• Ruth Bertha Hemphill and John Underwood Whiteside were married in 1819 in Burke County, North Carolina.

Births

• Hannah Garrett was born in 1674 in England.
• Sarah Garrett was born in 1676 in England.
• Johannes Rottenhauser was born in 1697.
• William Henson Patterson was born in 1859 in Gilmer County, Georgia.
• Luke Hemphill Butler was born in 1916 in Quanah, Texas.

Deaths

• Thomas Young Hemphill McEntire died in 1813 in Old Fort, North Carolina (my 4th & 5th great-grandfather).

Deaths

• John Patterson died in 1854 in Fannin County, Georgia (my 4th great-grandfather).
• Doshia Amanda (Townsend) Roberts died in 1940.