Kerley's...

I'm working on the Kerley line once more because I feel drawn to them right now. That is just how it is with genealogy -- being pulled one direction or another.

I'm so frustrated though. I started this journey with so little information and I've had to comb through piles of census records, spend hours and hours digging and shuffling through microfilm and microfiche, straining my eyes as I try to decipher if something is an E or an I or an L or a T. I am very grateful for those who have gone before me and indexed records, who have kept track of their sources, and who are willing to share their transcriptions of courthouse records, especially for places that are across the country from where I live. It's a long way from Maricopa County Arizona to Wayne County, Tennessee! (or Randolph County, Arkansas, or Ripley County, Missouri, etc)

Here is my frustration. My line is not thoroughly researched and because I live 1500+ miles away from the Kerley's starting point, I cannot simply go to the courthouse and sift through records myself. Ancestry.com, while a wonderful tool, does not have all of the in-depth records that I need. And if they had the records, they would not be indexed correctly for me. So many other names come up for Kerley or its misspellings: Kirley, Kirby, Curly, Curby, so on and so forth.

Some of the Kerley's who are distantly in my line would like to connect us to the Henry Kerley and Sallie Garrett line. I just cannot get my information to match up neatly to what I've found online about that line and so I will not do it. I think that William Garrett Kerley (b. 1835), the son of James Willis Kerley (and brother to my ancestor, Henry L. Kerley b. 1827) and Elizabeth Ann Roric, knew his parents' names and his ancestry better than I do and if he says his grandfathers both were in the Revolutionary War, then doggone it, I believe it! If he says his father's parents were Daniel and Ann Kerley of Albemarle, Virginia, then that is exactly who they were and where they were from. He would know better than I would, 100 years after his interview was given.
This is what I am pretty sure of:
James Willis Kerley and his wife and children were in Wayne County, Tennessee as of 1835, but not before 1830. James was born in North Carolina, his wife was born in Virginia. They are listed on the 1840 Census of Wayne County, Tennessee as James Kinley/Kirley/Kirby, depending on who is transcribing the census. The ages all match for their children. The only age that is off is James - as he is listed as being 50-60 years of age, but in the 1850 census he lists his age as 51. Either he was mis-marked in the 1840 census or the 1850 census. For me, it does not matter.
It puts to rest the notion that somehow my line is the same line that ended up in Macon County, Tennessee. I felt sure that my James and his family did not go to Macon County, so I looked at a map. Wayne County is in the lower, middle section of Tennessee, on the path that many of my other Northeast Arkansas/Southeast Missouri ancestors took from Tennessee. Why would they go all the way up and east to Macon county which borders Kentucky? It did not make any sense. One cannot automatically assume that a Daniel Kerley or a James Kerley who is of a similar age as my James IS my James. How could be be enumerated in the 1850 census twice, in totally different counties, with different children, etc. It's because they are not the same person.

I probably sound really grumpy about this. I guess I am, a little! LOL Even though these Kerley ancestors are generations removed from me, they are still mine. I think about them, about their lives, about how these great-great-grandparents met, what songs they sang, how they lived, what they believed, and I have no tangible link to them. I only have 2 photographs of my great-grandmother Lillie Kerley. I have only 1 letter that she wrote. Each census record, each tax record, each mention of MY line of Kerley's makes them more real to me, reminds me that they were living, breathing people who loved each other, who had children, who made sacrifices, who were ALIVE. Connecting my line to another line just for the sake of having a neat little pedigree chart is not acceptable to me. I will keep working on the Kerley family tree until there is nothing left to find... and believe me, there is always something left to find. I hope that there will be a clear connection to an established line, but even if there is not, I am not worried about it. I know that Lillie and her parents, her grandparents, great-grandparents, and back to James Willis Kerley and Elizabeth Ann Roric, and even the elusive Daniel and Ann Kerley of Albemarle, Virginia will be remembered.

And if any of them are reading this blog post from Heaven, I sure would appreciate a little nudge in the right direction to find the documentation for Daughters of the American Revolution... LOL

Dece