This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.
Surnames: Carswell, Williamson, Nowland, Ruthven, Bone, Campbell, McDaniel, Adair, Browne,
Gordon, Clark
Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/BmH.2ACIB/160.1
Message Board Post:
Alexander Carswell III, born 1791 in Lousville, GA., died February 10, 1847, at the home
of his daughter, Mary Jane Hollinshead, Fort Valley, Houston County, GA (now Peach
County). He married June 25, 1816, to Elizabeth Williams Ashley, born March 17, 1798, in
South Carolina, died 1853 in Twiggs County, GA., daughter of Nathanial and Jane Williams
Ashley, who had moved from Anson County, N.C., to South Carolina and then to Georgia,
first to Washington County, later to Camden County. Alexander and Elizabeth lived in
Telfair County from about 1817 to 1836 and then moved to Wilkinson County, GA. Perhaps
their plantation overlapped the line between Wilkinson ahd Twiggs, for the 1840 Census
lists trhem in Wilkinson, but a Deed of Gift, virtually a will, executed by Alexander in
Houston County in 1845, lists his residence as Twiggs, and the 1850 Census shows Elizabeth
living in Twiggs as head of household including her son, Mathew L., and her daughter,
Penelope.
According to family records, Alexander III died in 1853 in Twiggs County, GA., and
Elizabeth Ashley died on February 10, 1847, at her daughter's home in Fort Valley; but
the U.S. Census records show that Elizabeth Ashley Carswell was still living in 1850 in
Twiggs County, GA. and that Alexander presumably was not. Since family records are
athentic and have been carefully preserved, the most reasonable explanation is that at
some point in the process of record keeping and copying, the dates of Alexander's
death and his wife's were accidentally interchanged. This information is from the
book, "Alexander Carswell and Isobella Browne, their ancestors and descendants"
by Mildred and George Bond, and my personal knowledge of the material from my Twiggs
County, GA greataunt, Kathleen Jones Carswell.