52 Ancestors - DNA: Quandry

 

This past week a blog was highlighted in our 52 Ancestors group on Facebook. The writer had used a clue from her DNA test to break down a brick wall. Oh, how I envy her. My dad’s DNA test results just created trouble, and now I don’t know how to feel about it.

It turns out that a non-paternal event means that he carried Calhoun DNA rather than Slade. Correspondence with two men who match my dad’s DNA exactly helped me trace the Calhoun lineage. While I think I know at which generation the event occurred, I cannot be absolutely sure. I feel obligated to care, but I don’t. I am much more interested in the Slades – my father, my grandfather, HIS father – the Slades from Georgia and Florida, the ones who raised the Stephen Slade whose wife and son left Florida and came to Virginia. Those are MY people, not the Calhouns no matter what DNA they carried with them.

Therefore, I continue to search for the father of my oldest known Slade, my 3X great-grandfather Stephen Slade who was born around 1815 in Georgia and then died in Florida after 1870.

Every census for the oldest Stephen is consistent with his birth details. In looking for a potential father for him, I noticed that the Slade name did not even appear in Georgia until the 1820 census. Prior to that, the Slades were either in North Carolina or in the New England states. The best candidate for Stephen’s father is William Slade who first appeared in the 1820 Telfair County, Georgia census.

This William was between 26 and 45 as was one female, most likely his wife. There were three children under the age of 10 – 2 boys and 1 girl. One boy would have been Stephen. Since the children were so young, I will estimate the ages for William and his wife at 30 and 25.

In 1830, there was no William Slade in Telfair, but there was one in nearby Dooley with a family that resembles that of 1820. William was 50-59, a woman was 40-49, and the boys were 15-19. There was no daughter, but perhaps she had married. Or maybe it’s not the same family at all.

In the late 1820s and early 1830s, there was a William Slade who purchased land in Gadsden County, Florida, near Tallahassee in the panhandle. 

Just one of eight patents 

A study of the Georgia and Florida maps shows that Dooley and Telfair counties are in the southern half of present-day Georgia, almost in a direct line to Gadsden, Florida. Of course, that is no proof that the purchaser of 8 patents is the father of Stephen Slade.

Dooley is yellow; Telfair is olive green
both are in the south-central area

Florida Panhandle

The geography makes sense though. Madison County where Stephen made his census debut is just two counties away, east of Gadsden County. Lafayette County borders Madison on the south.

When William purchased land in Florida, did he ever actually move to what was to become the Sunshine State? In 1840, there were two William Slades – spelled Slaid – still in Dooley, Georgia and one in Washington County, Georgia, but none in Florida.

From 1850 on, it becomes rather cumbersome to track the William Slades because Georgia and Florida were both overrun with men named William Slade.

I fear that my Slade genealogy will come to a screeching halt right here. No probate records have been found for any of my presumed Slades in Florida. This is where DNA could be helpful, but without a male Slade to test, I am out of luck. The Slade men that I know all have Calhoun DNA.

Amy Johnson Crow continues to challenge genealogy bloggers and non-bloggers alike to think about our ancestors and share a story or photo about them. The challenge is “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.”

Wendy

© 2021, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.