Help with Green and Garrett brickwall in Georgia 1800s

+5 votes
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Dear amazing community,

Hello!  This is my first question to G2G.

I would love help with my brick wall 7th-generation matriline from Georgia.  I'm searching for the mother of Hetty Mae Green Coleman (Green-15714) b. 1817 Burke Co., GA. Her father Daniel R Green (Green-19212) left Hetty Mae an inheritance in his will.  He was married twice and there is a marriage record to Fanny Garrett (Garrett-10855) in 1808 but I can find no further information for her.  His second wife he married late in life and had only one child. I am looking to find more ancestors past Daniel and Fanny and source records for Fanny's full name and maiden name.  I have come across both names for Fanny of Sarah and Julia in other trees. Also Grimes and Greene in the place of Green.  Counties listed on associated records are Burke, Emanuel, Baldwin and McIntosh in Georgia.

Thank you for your help!  I've been sitting on this for 10 years with no luck.

Karen
WikiTree profile: Fanny Green
in Genealogy Help by Karen Shihadeh G2G1 (1.1k points)
I don't know if this will help or not, but in my own tree, "Fanny" has been the nickname for "Frances".  I haven't found any instance where it was a nickname for anything else, or where it was the actual given name.

Georgia is a big part of my family history, too. I will search my tree for Daniel R Green and for Hetty Mae Green Coleman. The Green and Coleman surnames are in both my maternal and paternal trees.

WikiTree says we're cousins, by the way. :)

Edited: I just searched both trees and didn't find Daniel or Hetty Green. I did find a Hetty Garrett, but she's in Virginia, not Georgia.
It looks to me like there are two marriage records for Fanny in the sources.  However, I notice that Daniel Green died after the marriage record for Fanny Green to William Bryant which is in Hall County -- a pretty good distance from Baldwin County.  I would immediately suspect that there are two Fanny Greens.  Additionally, neither of the marriage sources have images and were accessed in 2015.  I would try to find a marriage record on Family Search where you can see the actual image; try Georgia County Marriages.  Sometimes, the actual image will show that there was a marriage bond, giving other names, or that she was previously married which may or may not be indexed.

It is unlikely that Fanny was born in Baldwin County, Georgia (regardless of what online family trees state).  First, that land was part of the Creek nation until it was ceded in 1802 by treaty.  At the time Fanny was born, very little of the land in the state of Georgia had white settlers except in the coastal areas.

If I were you, I would remove all the unsourced information about her name -- keeping the information about the family of Bryants living near the Greens (if you think it's still relevant) and find a real source citation for the 1830 census of Daniel Green.  The Notes section contains information that is not related to this Fanny and should either be removed or if you are trying to establish that there were Garretts in the area, use the heading == Research Notes == and say something about that so that someone reading the profile knows why that information may be relevant.  

It is a good idea to list the children known (with whatever sourcing you have) since only there are only 4 profiles at the moment and the bio states there were 6 children.

It's really hard to "prove" parentage and get sources for women in the early 1800's in Georgia, especially since there might be no church records, and unless the women were widowed, there will be no census or tax entries for them.

None of this helps establish who her parents were, obviously.
Thank you so much for the tips Kathy.  Here is the actual application for marriage- https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/4766. From Baldwin County, "Daniel Green and Fanny Garrett of said county."  License from 12 Feb 1808 signed by Fred Freeman, clerk. Married by A.M. Devereaux J.F.C. on 14 Feb.  I also put in the link to the 1830 census.

I have made the most of the changes you suggested - except the name.  I am pretty certain Fanny is a nickname but WikiTree wont allow me to leave proper and preferred names blank.  

I will work today on putting the kids in properly to help with the research- these are ones listed in the will of Daniel Green- so I am certain they are his kids.  And I will look at the census's more closely in 1830 and 1840 to see if I can line up the family.  I believe you're right about a different Fanny that is Fanny Green Bryant which is why I've left it just in the notes so I wouldn't go down that track again.

What I find odd about researching the surname Garrett in Georgia is the dearth of Garretts in that area perhaps suggesting she was born in another state.

Thanks again.  This was super helpful!

Hello cousin Suzanne!  Thanks for your reply and for searching your tree and helping me.  I will look to see our connection- wonder if its through the Colemans.  I have only one Green ancestor, at Daniel Green (Green-19212) and the trail goes cold.  I have read that his father was also a Daniel Green.

Thank you so much with the Georgia county history information.  It seems essential to know this to understand these relations.

More questions arise as I look into Daniel Green (Green-19212), husband of Fanny. What would you think of 2 census' from 1830, one from Burke and one from Emanuel, both with a Daniel Green with a similar household in that they are large slaveholders?  The Daniel in Emanuel county lives near (same census sheet) as Samuel and Robert Green- all in separate households.  Could these be sons of Daniel in Emanuel?  Known children William Green, John W., Rachel Rebecca Daniel and Hettie Mae Coleman are listed in the will of Jonathan Green but I have seen both Samuel and Robert also listed as sons in other trees.  

Also nearby in the Emanuel census from 1830 are Jonathan Coleman (father of Hettie Mae's husband) and Juneper Hall (father of future wife Mahala Hall).  Juneper Hall and Lyndsey Coleman (husband of Hettie Mae) are also listed in the 1840 census from Emanuel county on the same sheet as Daniel Green.  

In the Burke census there is a Daniel and Benjamin Green in separate yet similar households in that they are also large slaveowners.  Could these also be sons of Daniel in Emanuel?
Sent you a private message as this is getting far too long for a G2G post.
You're welcome, Cousin Karen.  :)  

Our connection, according to WikiTree appears to be through your father's mother and my mother's mother. I don't see the surname Coleman in either path.

The name Daniel Green is very familiar to me, so it is a puzzle to me why I can't find it in my tree. Maybe it was a name in a tree that I have worked on for someone else. I've done a zillion of those.  My memory isn't the best these days. :)

Have a blessed weekend.

2 Answers

+5 votes
 
Best answer

I think you'll find on your journey in WikiTree that laying out all the sources you can find will not only help you but allow others to collaborate. I know that my research has gotten better and better in the 5+ years I've been here. Another plus is that I now can write out research notes to explain/question discrepancies so others can see my path. I'm always hopeful that someone will be searching for my same ancestor and be able to add new information.

The profile for Fanny looks so much better already!  I would probably change her death date in the profile boxes to match the one in her biography, keeping the other date as an alternate, until proved otherwise.

Usually, I make a note (under the heading === Notes ===)

: Alternate death date of xxx (and then I'd put the source or say something like "unsourced" if I'd inherited the profile with that death date.)  Until I had "proved" what the death date was, I would mark the box as "uncertain" and keep the alternate date.  If I had a source, such as a gravestone (there won't be a death record from the state of Georgia this early), then I would remove all the alternate dates.  

I would explain under your research notes that "Fanny" may be a nickname.  It's better to have a first name in the search boxes than to worry that it's only a nickname.  It is after all the name given in the marriage record.

To help find Fanny's parents: You may be able to find something in the history about Baldwin County about where people came from to settle there.  Fanny and Daniel were married shortly after the county was formed.  Do you know where the children were born?  Did the family keep moving westward or did they stay put in the Baldwin County area (which was split shortly after it was formed) -- see WikiPedia Baldwin County.  Is there a Georgia tax record for Daniel in Baldwin or some of the surrounding counties?  Milledgeville was the state capital of Georgia at that time.  Families often travelled in groups, so some of the families that you can find near Daniel in the 1830 census might also be close on the 1840 census and also might be spouses/side-relatives for the children.  Don't forget to check the surrounding counties for census/tax records for Daniel if you can't find him in Baldwin County.

Good luck and welcome to WikiTree!

by Kathy Zipperer G2G6 Pilot (478k points)
selected by Susan Laursen
+4 votes
Hi, Karen, and welcome! I have Garretts in my tree as well, on the Breedlove side in Walton County (created 1818 from Creek lands), so will take a look for any possible connections. As Kathy said, they may well have come from elsewhere. My 3x great-grandparents came down from Virginia about 1798 and settled first in Oglethorpe Co., then took up land received in a state lottery, so you might want to check neighboring counties farther east as well.

I see Green often used as a first or middle name for sons in the area, too...probably used to preserve the mother's family name.

The Georgia Archives in Morrow also have an exhaustive list of marriage records:

https://vault.georgiaarchives.org/digital/collection/countyfilm

Good luck!

Donna
by D Armistead G2G6 Mach 8 (82.5k points)
Thank you Donna! And thanks for the great resource from Georgia.

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