52 Ancestors #12: John Young Houston (Jr)

Roxie Jane Lindsey Houston,
date unknown

This will be kind of a continuation of the week before last week's post, mainly because this week, I managed to locate the marriage record of my father's maternal great grandparents, John Young Houston (Jr) & Roxie Jane Lindsey. Finding that has left me with a question. My paternal great uncle Hubert Houston's basic research on the Houston line has been the basis of my understanding & research of this line. His research stated that John Young Houston was born on 9 May 1849 in AL (I figured out he was the son of John Young Houston (Sr) & Ann Bailey Tegner by finding him on the 1850 census & calling the Milam County, Texas county clerk & nicely asking her who is parents were shown as on his death certificate. Usually, doing that doesn't work because you can get some crabby people out there, but when I explained I was calling long distance, she was nice enough & kind enough to give me this information over the phone) & died on 28 Oct 1918 in Buck-holtz, Milam Co., TX, USA. Uncle Hubert recorded that he married Roxie Jane Lindsey on 15 May 1877 in Rockford, Coosa County, AL, which is where a question now comes up.

This week, I was on familysearch.org looking through their databases of image files for family marriages in AL. I knew that the Houstons had lived in Shelby County, AL for a long time. FamilySearch has been making more & more images of the actual documents available for awhile now & I have just finally clued in on the best way to locate the actual images of supporting documentation by looking for the folder number in the index & then going to the county database of images & looking for that particular folder number & then the image number, etc that references that particular document. FamilySearch had my great great grandparents John Y. Houston (Jr) & R. J. Lindsey listed as married in Shelby Co., AL on the date that Uncle Hubert had recorded which leads me to the question of where did they actually get married. In Coosa Co., AL where Roxie's family lived as Uncle Hubert claimed (he used to claim we were related to General Sam Houston but never provided any evidence to support it, nor have I ever found any, although (at least to me any way), I see a bit of resemblance between photos of him & my great uncle Sam B. Houston) or did they get married in Shelby Co., AL where John's family lived?

Shelby Co., AL marriage record of John Y. Houston & R. J. Lindsey

In the Great State of Texas where I was born & raised, the law states that you can apply for a marriage license in any one of Texas' 254 counties as long as the two parties on the license get married anywhere within the time period specified (90 days) that the license is valid. An example of this is: my parents picked up their marriage license in Bell Co., Texas where my paternal grandmother lived because my father was considered under age (under 21 years of age) at the time my parents got married (although he was somehow considered more than old enough to fight for his country) & he had to have her sign in consent for him (there's a family story that goes along with this). My parents lived up in Dallas, Texas which is in Dallas County four or five hours from Temple, Texas where Dad's mother lived. They had their wedding in Dallas, not Temple. This leaves me wondering if Alabama marriage law is not unlike Texas' marriage laws in this regard or if Uncle Hubert made a mistake when he recorded their having been married in Coosa County, AL. I've heard it said that sometimes a couple got married in the bride's county rather than the groom's, although I'm not sure of the reason for this (maybe it has to do with her family being the ones who are supposed to pay for the wedding back then).

In the Lindsey Book of Remembrance Vol 1, it is recorded that Roxy & John lived near her parents for awhile after they were married in Coosa Co., AL; however, the 1880 census shows them as Shelby Co., AL residents. I think the reason for this is that John's mother & sisters lived nearby. They left AL in the early 1880's for Texas. I think John's mother had probably passed away by then as I cannot see him leaving AL with her still living there. John & Roxie farmed & raised nine children together: Will, Della, James, Walton, Minnie, my great grandfather Luther aka "Duke", Viola aka "Ola", Sam & Charley. They were known to be good upstanding God fearing people & good neighbors. Although the official cause listed on his death certificate was leakage of heart, John died in the Great Influenza Epidemic of 1918 that took three other members of his family & so many others around the country with it. He is buried along side his wife Roxie (who died twelve years later) in the North Elm Cemetery in Cameron, Milam County, Texas. I was fortunate to recently find his obituary on page 12 in the Halloween 1918 edition of The Cameron Herald. There's still more to come on this family!

Obituary of John Young Houston (Jr).

Sources:
"Texas, Deaths, 1890-1976," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/K3ZB-XZC : accessed 29 Mar 2014), J L Houston, 28 Oct 1918; citing certificate number 43862, State Registrar Office, Austin; FHL microfilm 2073349.
"Alabama, Marriages, 1816-1957," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FQ65-69N : accessed 29 Mar 2014), John Y. Houston and R. G. Lindsey, 15 Mar 1877; citing reference ; FHL microfilm 1571845.

"United States Census, 1880," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M4V6-VSZ : accessed 29 Mar 2014), John Houston, Tylers, Helena And Elliottsville, Shelby, Alabama, United States; citing sheet 245D, NARA microfilm publication T9.

52 Ancestors #10 John Young Houston

I had a hard time this week trying to decide who to write on. In fact, I still hadn't really totally made up my mind even as time was running out to come up with a new post. I've spent this week mostly doing research on different lines, mainly my father's maternal Houston line, so I guess I'm going to write a little bit about them. The line originally starts with John Young Houston who was one of four sons born before 1800 to Scotch-Irish immigrants to South Carolina. Family lore has it his parents were John & Mary Young Houston of County Down, Ireland, although little is known about them. I don't know alot about him. He doesn't appear in the historical record for very long. At some point in his young life, John

Marriage record of John Young Houston
& Elizabeth "Betsey" Rodgers

migrated from South Carolina to MorganCo., GA where he met & married Elizabeth "Betsy" Rodgers (daughter of James & Sarah - Rodgers) on 25 Nov 1809. Before that, he was supposed to have been married to a Miss Bradford with whom he had a son Alfred & a daughter Patsy, but it is believed that they all three died & he moved on.

He should have appeared in the 1830 & 1840 census, but to be honest, I don't usually research the pre-1850 censuses because, especially with very common names, there is no sure way to determine whether or not you have the right person since they are by head of household only & don't list anyone by name & only give general ages for the members of the household (most times, they don't even give a general age for the head of the household themselves). The first & only census John Young Houston appears in is the 1850 census in Dallas Co., AL, but a great deal happened to John in the years after he married Betsey & the time he appears in Dallas Co.

Between, 1810 & 1818, John & Betsey had & raised seven children (the first two of whom are believed to have died young). They had four sons: John Young Jr (who died), William (who also died), Ruben Rodgers & James Russell. They also had three daughters: Caroline, Lucy Ann & Clementine. Nothing is known about where or when Betsey was born, but by 1841, she had died, although it is not known exactly when or where. The children were mostly grown & married off by then. On 2 Feb 1841, we find John marrying Ann Tegner (nee Bailey) in Lowndes Co., AL.

Marriage record of John Young Houston
with third wife Ann Bailey Tegner

Ann was the widow of Lewis Charles Tegner Sr who died before 1840 (Ann is listed as head of household in Lowndes Co., AL on the 1840 census). She is known to have had two sons, Lewis Charles (Jr) & William F., as well as one daughter, Nancy, who never married. Together, John & Ann had six more children: Mary Ann, Elizabeth "Betty", Martha, Margaret (who never married), my 2nd great grandfather John Young (Jr), & Sarah. In 1850, the only child not shown in their household is Sarah who had not been born yet. John Jr, my father's maternal great grandfather, is only a year old. Ann's older daughter Nancy is shown living with them, while her sons are grown & out living on their own in Lowndes County, AL in the Maria Campbell household.

John is believed to have died in 1854 in Prattville, Autauga Co., AL. It is not known where either he or Ann are buried. Ann continued on raising her children after his death. The family was skipped on the census in 1860 as far as can be told, but in 1866, we find Ann having moved & living in Shelby Co., AL where she would live for the rest of her life (presumably, as evidenced by the fact she is still living there in 1870 & 1880). Her sons & all but two of her daughters married & started their own families. The 1890 census was destroyed by fire & by 1900, all traces of this particular branch of the Houston family in AL are gone. It is thought that Ann died by the mid 1880's because her son, John Young Houston (Jr) moved to Milam County, Texas around that time. And that is a story for another time.


Sources:
"Georgia, County Marriages, 1785-1950," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/KXJC-HHK : accessed 15 Mar 2014), John Hughston and Betsey Rodgers, 25 Nov 1809; citing Morgan, Georgia, United States; FHL microfilm 158906.
"Alabama, Marriages, 1816-1957," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FQXH-3TG : accessed 15 Mar 2014), John Haston and Ann Peegner, 02 Feb 1841; citing reference ; FHL microfilm 1293892.

"United States Census, 1850," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MHPB-1L4 : accessed 15 Mar 2014), John Houston, Dallas county, Dallas, Alabama, United States; citing family 160, NARA microfilm publication M432.