Gloria's family: the Wrights and the Laceys

Gloria's parents. Arthur went by Arthur or "Artie": his draft card has "ARTIE" printed over a struck-out middle name, and the 1930 census calls him "Arlie." Maude's first name appears as Tide, Tidie, Tidy and Lidy in different records; she went by Maude or Maudie.

Arthur was the eldest of ten children. Maude was one of fourteen.

How we know: Bob Wright's 2010 obituary ("son of the late Arthur and Maude Lacey Wright," with Gloria among the survivors); Arthur's 1992 obituary (Gloria listed as his daughter); the 1940 and 1950 censuses; Arthur's draft card.

Arthur's parents. Rannie was an iron miner, a tenant farmer near Cedartown, a hosiery-mill hand in Rome, and a preacher: his death certificate says "Minister," and his gravestone says "Rev." He died of tuberculosis at 127 McGee Street in Rome after a year's illness and is buried at Sanders Cemetery near Cedartown.

Mary Louise was born in Alabama about 1885. In 1900, at 14, she was in school in the Hampton district of Polk County, living with her mother and stepfather, William Sargent. She died in 1967 and is buried beside Rannie.

Names differ: Find a Grave calls him "Rev. Rayford Mitchell Wright," his gravestone gives 1884, and his death certificate says "Rannie Mitchell Wright," born 1885.

How we know: The 1910 and 1920 censuses list Arthur as their son; Rannie's 1938 death certificate and WWI draft card; Arthur's obituary ("son of the late Rainey and Mary Morgan Wright"). Her maiden name Morgan: two of her children's Social Security records and Arthur's obituary.

Maude's parents. Charles farmed at Lake Creek and Antioch in Polk County, then brought the family to Rome by 1930, where he worked as a laborer at a stove foundry. They raised fourteen children. In their last years they lived at 600 Pennington Avenue in South Rome. Both are buried at Pleasant Hope Cemetery in Rome.

Georgia's middle name is "Clifton" on Find a Grave and her husband's draft card, and "Tifton" in one county register.

How we know: Their 1895 marriage record; the 1920 and 1930 censuses list Maude as their daughter; Maude's obituary ("daughter of the late Charles Wesley Lacey and Georgia Brown Lacey"); several of their children's death certificates and Social Security records.

Rannie's parents. In June 1880 the young couple, W. H. Wright, 20, and Mary, 19, lived in Bradley County, Tennessee, with their baby Martha, right next door to Mary's parents. The family moved to Polk County, Georgia, by 1883, where Thomas and Rannie were born.

Will disappears from the records between about 1885 and 1892; whether he died or left isn't known. In 1892 Mary married Samuel Pierce in Cherokee County, Alabama, and had more children. She died in Rome on Christmas Day 1928 and was buried at Cave Spring.

How we know: The 1879 Bradley County marriage and the 1880 census (same couple, same county, baby born nine months after the wedding); Rannie's 1938 death certificate names "Will Wright" and "Mary Hubbard"; in 1900 Rannie is Samuel Pierce's stepson; Mary's 1928 death certificate names her father George Hubbard. Will's own parents are not yet found.

Mary Louise Morgan's parents. In 1880 George, 20, farmed in the Hampton district of Polk County with Katie, 18, and their first child, Lizzie. Sons and daughters followed, Mary Louise in 1884, but George died young, about 1885, and is buried at Sanders Cemetery near Cedartown.

In 1889 Katie married William Sargent, an iron-ore miner, and had six more children. In 1900 she, her husband and children, and George's children John and Mary Louise all lived with Lizzie and her husband Oscar Lochridge. Katie died in Polk County in 1935.

How we know: Their 1878 marriage, the 1880 census (George W. and wife Johanna C. with baby Lizzie), Katie's 1889 remarriage as "Catharine Morgan", and the 1900 census, where Lizzie, John J. and Mary L. Morgan appear as the children of Katie's household.

Charles Wesley Lacey's parents. Joshua was raised by Zack and Martha McGuire, a farming and milling family. In 1860 he is "Joshua P. Lacy", 8, in their home in Randolph County, Alabama; by 1870 the census taker simply wrote him down as a McGuire, which is why earlier searches couldn't find him. He became a millwright and lived next door to the McGuires in Floyd County.

In 1880 Joshua and "Didamy" had four children: Ledora, Florence, Charles ("Chares W.", 4) and Ezra. Diademma died between 1880 and 1900, and Joshua married again; his second wife, Clara, was living with Charles in 1900. Why Joshua grew up with the McGuires, and who his Lacy parents were, is not yet known.

How we know: The 1871 marriage; Charles's Social Security record names "Joshua P Lacy" and "Diademy Smith"; Ledorha's death certificate names "Joshua Lacey" and "Diademmie Smith"; the 1880 census household (Joshua P., Didamy D., and Charles at 4) matches all of it.

Georgia Brown Lacey's parents. Nancy, born in Henry County in 1849, had first married J. T. Brown in 1875, so she married Solomon as "Bettie Brown". Georgia was born nine months after the wedding. Solomon, born in Tennessee about 1850, worked as a laborer and then in the Lindale cotton mill; in 1900 the family lived on Grove Street, Lindale, and three of the children worked in the mill.

Solomon died before 1920. Nancy, mother of ten, died in 1923 at Rock Run, Alabama, where her eldest son lived.

How we know: Their 1879 marriage and the 1880 and 1900 censuses (baby Georgia C. in 1880). Nancy's own death record names her father Hiram Landers and her husband Solomon Brown. No single record names both as Georgia's parents, so that link stays likely; Georgia's 1960 death certificate would settle it.

Mary Hubbard's parents and Gloria's great-great-grandparents. In 1860 George, 24, and "Clarasa J.", 23, lived near Sweetwater, Tennessee, with baby Mary. In 1880 they lived next door to Mary and Will Wright in Bradley County, with sons Calvin, Joseph, John and Luke. Two of the sons later followed Mary to Polk County, Georgia.

George gave his birthplace as Tennessee in 1850 and 1860 but North Carolina in 1880, when he said his father was born in Germany and his mother in Virginia.

How we know: Mary's 1928 death certificate names her father George Hubbard; the 1860 household with baby Mary; the 1880 census next door to Mary. Clarissa as Mary's mother is likely (she is George's wife in both censuses, but no record names Mary's mother).

George W. Morgan's parents. In June 1860 Asa, 24, farmed in Haralson County, Georgia, with Mary Ann, 22, and two sons: John C., 3, and George W., one month old. By 1870 Asa was gone, and Mary Ann was farming on her own with John, George and William and an older woman, Jane, 74.

How we know: Their marriage and the 1860 and 1870 Haralson County censuses, which follow John C. and George W. as children; John C. Morgan's 1924 death record names his mother as Mary Ann Newberry. No record names George's parents directly, so this is likely. Earlier generations (a David and Loicy Morgan of Cobb County; William and Elizabeth Newberry of Gilmer County) are only possible.

Katie Brown's parents. They farmed in Calhoun and Cleburne counties, Alabama, where Katie was born in 1862 and married in 1878, then moved to the Hampton district of Polk County, Georgia. In the June 1880 census their family is listed just two pages before Katie and her new husband.

How we know: Their marriage; the 1860, 1870 ("Catherine", 8) and 1880 censuses. The 1870 census names no relationships, so this is likely, not proven. Katie's 1935 Georgia death certificate would settle it.

E. J. Brown's parents and the furthest back on this line: Gloria's great-great-great-great-grandparents. Both were born in South Carolina about 1805-09. In 1850 E. J., 19, lived with them in Benton County, Alabama; the families were neighbors in 1860 and again in Polk County, Georgia, in 1880, when Larkin was 75.

How we know: The 1850 census (E. J. in their household) and the 1860 and 1880 censuses (neighbors). No record states "son", so this is likely.

Diademma's parents. William, born in North Carolina about 1811, was "employed by the State" in Cobb County, Georgia, in 1850 (perhaps on the state-owned Western & Atlantic Railroad), and from about 1860 farmed land lot 89 near Cedartown, Polk County, a few houses from the McGuires, the family that raised Joshua. He died about November 7, 1880, without a will.

In 1881 his children went to court over the farm. His son Marshal's answer names the heirs of "my father W. S. Smith", and among them is "Dedama McGuire": Diademma, still recorded under the McGuire name her husband was counted by.

How we know: William as Diademma's father: proven by the 1881 court record naming her as his heir, with her in his household in 1850, 1860 and 1870. Louisanna as her mother: very likely (William's wife throughout). Louisanna's maiden name Strickland: proven by her father's will.

Louisanna's father, born in North Carolina about 1797: Gloria's great-great-great-great-grandfather and the furthest back on her mother's father's side. He farmed land lot 95 on the Floyd-Polk county line, near the Smiths. His will, signed in 1870 when he was "advanced in years and feeble in body", leaves five dollars to each of his children, naming "Leozana G Smith" first, and his farm to a grandson who was to care for his widow, Sarah.

How we know: His will, read on the Floyd County will book pages: the rare name Leozana/Louisanna, the middle initial G and the married name Smith all match Diademma's mother. Whether his wife Sarah was Louisanna's mother is not known.

The couple who raised Joshua P. Lacy. Zack, born in Georgia about 1817 to a Virginia-born father, farmed and kept a mill in Randolph County, Alabama, then in Polk and Floyd counties, Georgia. They had no children of their own at home in 1850, when Martha's mother, Lucy Williams, lived with them. How Joshua came to them (as a grandson, nephew or orphan) is not recorded.

How we know: The 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880 censuses, read on the pages, and their 1837 marriage. They are proven as Joshua's household, not as his parents.

Nancy Landers Brown's parents. Hiram, born in South Carolina about 1817, was a blacksmith in Henry County and later around Cartersville and Stilesboro in Bartow County. In 1836, at 19, he marched with the Henry County Volunteers (49th Georgia Militia) to the Creek and Florida war; it later earned him two bounty-land warrants and, in 1886, a pension application. Margaret, born in South Carolina about 1823, died in the 1850s; Hiram remarried.

Their son Francis, Nancy's brother, died as a private in the 18th Georgia in 1862, and Hiram signed for the pay owed him as "Hiram B. Landers, Father".

How we know: Nancy's own death record names her father Hiram Landers, and the 1850, 1860 and 1870 censuses show her growing up in his house. Margaret is likely her mother (Hiram's wife in 1850 with baby Nancy).

Very likely Hiram's parents: Gloria's great-great-great-great-grandparents. In 1830 their household in Franklin County, Georgia, had two boys aged 10 to 15, and Hiram was born about 1817. They moved to Henry County by 1833, where Hiram enlisted three years later, and were in DeKalb County by 1850. John is listed as a "soldier" in the 1827 Georgia land lottery. Anna died in the early 1850s; Hiram named sons John Henry and J. K.

How we know: The 1830 and 1850 censuses, the moves that match Hiram's, and the family names. No record yet calls Hiram their son; a War of 1812 file or John K.'s estate papers (after 1860) could.

Very likely Margaret's parents: Gloria's great-great-great-great-grandparents. They were the only Widener family in Henry County, Georgia, in 1830, 1840 and 1850. In 1830 they had two daughters aged 5 to 10 (Margaret was born about 1823); by 1840, after Margaret's 1837 marriage to Hiram Landers, no daughter her age was left at home. Henry and Hiram sat on the same 1844 jury list, a Landers witnessed Henry's 1843 deed, and Hiram and Margaret named a daughter Nancy.

How we know: The 1830, 1840 and 1850 censuses and Henry County court and deed records. No record names Margaret as their daughter; Henry's estate papers (Carroll County, after 1861) could settle it.

Possibly George Hubbard's mother. In 1850 Polly Quiet, 40, lived in Blount County, Tennessee, with her husband James Quiet, 80, and two young Hubbards, Absolom (21) and George (15), plus two little Quiets. She had married James Quiet as "Mary Hubbard" in 1842.

How we know: The 1850 census and the 1842 marriage license, both read on the page. The census names no relationships, and in 1880 George gave his mother's birthplace as Virginia, so this is only a possibility.

Very likely, though only weakly proven, the parents of Clarissa J. Taylor, Mary Hubbard's mother: Gloria's great-great-great-great-grandparents. They farmed in Blount County's 1st Civil District. In 1850 their household included a daughter written "Theressa J.", 14: the age and initial of Clarissa J., who married George Hubbard in 1858 and is gone from the 1860 household.

Several things point the same way: the 1858 marriage bond was signed by Joseph Gray, a 1st District neighbor, and the wedding performed by James M. Tulloch, a Taylor neighbor; George Hubbard paid his poll tax in District No. 1 in 1867; and George and Clarissa named sons John C. and Joseph, the names of John C. Taylor and his father, Joseph S. Taylor (died before 1856).

How we know: An identity inference, not a stated relationship: the 1850 census, the 1858 marriage bond, the 1867 tax list and the children's names. Against it: the 1850 name is written "Theressa", and Clarissa's father's birthplace (Tennessee) differs from John C.'s in 1880 (North Carolina). A division of John C. Taylor's land after his 1890 death naming "Clarissa Hubbard" would prove it.