I'm still hoping to find some information on my great grandfather, Shields
Saunders Carter. He is a descendant of Captain Thomas Carter, through
Thomas II, III, IV and V, then James Sr and Samuel Ross Carter, of Chatham,
Pittsylvania County, Virginia.
He grew up in Chatham, VA, and by about 1897 was living in NYC. He married
Marie Louise Rice (1876-1945) -- (no, Miller was wrong here!), and had
children in 1900 and 1907. He left Louise, as she was known, while she was
pregnant with the second child, moving from their home in East Orange, NJ,
to Brooklyn, and then disappeared. He also had some roots in Richmond, Va,
through his mother's side of the family (Lucke).
Family lore has it that he died in 1914, and my sense is that he is
believed to have headed west somewhere.
The little bit I know of him, oddly, results from the fact that after my
grandmother's death in 1963, my grandfather remarried, to a long-time
friend of theirs whom they'd met in New Jersey in the 1930's. Her father
also came from Chatham, VA, and as a young man had known my great
grandfather much better than my grandfather had! And their mothers had
been fast friends from childhood.
Has anyone seen any trace of Shields Saunders Carter? Could he have had a
second family?