The Mad Genealogist

This letter was sent by one of my removed ancestors, Mrs, Ben Starling (Josephine Handley’s Mother) to Lillian Nichols McKeown, telling about her family’s experiences during the Civil War. This is more than likely a common story to most southern families during this time.

The treachery of war is horrible, and left scars untold. The years of 1861 to 1864 was not erased when I was born in 1870, and after I was old enopugh to remember, the privations told of to me, or where I could hear. I remember hearing father tell how it hurt him when he came home after the surrender of Civil War and his baby boy did not know him and was afraid of him, when he wanted to take him in his arms and embrace him.

As you well know my big genealogy brick wall was with my Henry Nichols (Family Page and PDF Lineage). The earliest I found him was in Effingham County Georgia in the 1805 Georgia land lottery. Effingham County is not a burn county and has most of its early records. Well there is nothing on my Henry even though he lived there, met his wife and fathered 3 children there. NO RECORDS! he did not purchase land, did not pay tax, did not get married there. The only way I can place him there was from 2 Georgia land lotteries from 1805 and 1807 and from the Georgia Passport he was granted to move through Indian land on his way to Mississippi in 1810.