One of the members posted a link to Alabama Estate files. I knew that I had Alabama Roots so I decided to dig in and see what I could find.
As I was looking I realized that my Ancestors County(Mooresville, Limestone, County) was not listed, but I decided to look for their name in each County that was listed anyway. As I was going through the information, I realized that I didn't know who or what I was looking for, but my PEEBLES Ancestors spoke up and I listened. They took me in a whole different direction.
The name PEEBLES is such a rare name so looking for any information would be simple, right? Actually it was.
My Paternal Grandfather's name was Allen PEEBLES, so was his father AL PEEBLES but my Great Great Grandfather's name was Jim PEEBLES. I figured Jim was to be born maybe around 1850 or so which would of put him in his 20s in 1860. I decided to do a search on Ancestry.com in the 1870 census but was unable to locate the family. Then I thought how many PEEBLES Slaveowners could there be in the County.
I did a search of the 1860 Slave Schedule for PEEBLES in Limestone, County and 2 names came up:
R.B. PEEBLES - Owned about 7 or 8 Slaves
J.T. PEEBLES - Owned about 7 or 8 Slaves
With a little further research, those were the only PEEBLES that owned Slaves in the County in 1860. J.T. PEEBLES was the only one that owned a 23 year old male in 1860. Could this be Jim?!!! I would say more likely.
I did some further searching and found out that J.T. is for James Turner PEEBLES. Jim is short for James. I also found a possible descendant that saved all this information to his tree and has comments about the land that James owned.
When I started this journey I was looking for one thing and the Ancestors guided me somewhere else. This happens in our Research, the Ancestors wants their story told and you have to tell it.
I have always had pieces of information here and there on my Maternal Line about a possible Slaveowner, but never this definite amount of information. There is just a couple of things left for me to do and that is do some further research on James and the area that he lived and then I will be ready to contact that Descendant and see if he is willing to share.
So excited for you FeFe & your PEEBLES Ancestors! You're right, they own the story... we're just the mediums!:)
ReplyDeleteThat ALABAMA index posted by cousin James is getting lots of traction! So glad everyone's jumping in & sharing!
Keep us posted on the updates!
Luckie
Do you know much further back about your Peebles family line? I trace my own Peebles family line through the Deep South, but it began with a plantation in Virginia around 1650. The original Peebles came from lowland Scotland.
ReplyDeleteThere definitely was slave ownership in my family line. It made me curious about those slaves and their present-day descendants. I'm sure it is more than possible that I share ancestry with some of those slave-descended family lines.
I have a ton of info on the Peebles and so it would be nice to know some other people who have researched Peebles as well. I'm not sure how many Peebles families come from that particular Peebles ancestor, but they seem to have been a prolific family.