My research for James Madison Bruce and Jane Jenkins

This has been an interesting situation. I'm not good at researching. I never completed a research paper in school. It was too difficult and confusing for me. Now that I'm 65 years old, I'm having to learn research techniques I would know if I had just done my homework. But working on this puzzle is keeping my brain active.

I started this in the early 1990s when no one I saw researching this line on the Internet even knew the last name of James' wife. I interviewed my aunt in 1994 and my cousin Susie let me copy the notes Auntie Do had made on a brown paper bag. Auntie Do opened a large grocery bag and wrote all of her memories of the family genealogy on the inside of the bag. That is my first source, Auntie Do's brown paper bag.

There, as plain as day, was Jane's last name, Jenkins, on the bag as James Madison Bruce's wife. I posted that online. I wonder if I might have been the first one to discover her last name. Anyway, that is all I've found for sure.

I have found her living next door to a Shepherd Jenkins in the 1850 US Census. So I think she has some relationship to that family. And I have noticed that Shepherd Jenkins is found near other Bruce's in previous Census'. I am tempted to decide that Shepherd is her father, but there is only a relationship suggested at this point.

Some people online have listed a Lewis Jenkins as her father. This Lewis Jenkins moved from Georgia to Alabama at some point. He did have a daughter named Jane, but she died in Alabama. My Jane died in Missouri. I have a pretty good source for that. I have her obituary, stating that she died in Prosperity Missouri and was buried in Cherryvale Kansas. Several of her children were named, so I think this is a pretty good source. If Lewis is her father, there is some mistake about where their Jane is buried. I'll have to look into that.

Then there is James Madison Bruce, Jane's husband. I can't seem to find original sources for his father and mother. There are several ideas about who his father is on various family history sites. But so far, I have not seen any sources. Now that I took that class on research, I'm crazy for sources.

I would prefer that other people do this research and just give me the information, but no! No one has sources just now. So, here I am doing actual research. I hate it. However, it is pretty satisfying to find a relative in an original source. And I'm becoming less stressed with the difficulty. At first when I went to the LDS Family History Library I had to take chocolate and my Ipod and could only spend a little time there. Well, It's huge and imposing and who knows which book/film my family names are in. Certainly they are not in the books/films I have looked in so far!

I have a new approach. After 5 visits, looking in loads of books and a few films, I have determined that I need to narrow my research and look in the actual place where they were possibly born. Who would have thought of that! So, I have a list which I have organized using the FHL card catalogue, which may be film of original records for the Old Pendleton District of South Carolina, which is where they seem, by other sources, to be from. We shall see. I'm planning on going down there on Saturday. Merlin is going with me. He is always a big help.

Merlin is the one who found all the graves when we went to Missouri on a family history hunt a few years ago. We went to the Webb City Genealogy Library and found cemetaries listed with my names in them, so we'd go to a cemetary and begin to walk around, looking for my ancestors. We would walk for a few minutes, seperating so that we could cover more territory, when he would call out that he had found my ancestor's grave. He always was the one to find them! He felt pretty smug.

Anyway, that is where I am now with my James Madison Bruce and Jane Jenkins. Come Saturday, I'm hoping that I have something great to report.

James and Janes move to IL

Becki, my grandaughter, helped one day at the FHL downtown.  We found some land records which have helped place James and Jane in a geographical area.  And then Jana and I recorded some collateral information that has proved helpful in tracing the movements of the Bruces and Jenkins in SC and Georgia.  We three found some land lotteries from 1832 in Cherokee Georgia that helped find census sources for James and Jane Bruce. 

Then I was reminded of the story my Grandmother told.  She was daughter of Mary Elizabeth Bruce Radley and William Radley.  Mary Elizabeth Bruce is daughter of James and Jane Bruce. Here is the story.
James Madison Bruce and Jane Jenkins married in 1839 in Lumpkin CO, GA. By the 1850 Census they had $250 of real property in Cherokee CO GA. And they were living next door to Shepherd Jenkins, a possible relative to Jane. By the 1860 Census in GA, Cherokee, Cross Roads, they had $2000 of real property and $1930 of personal property (possibly some of that in slaves?).


Then we see them again in the 1870 Census, 600 miles away in Neoga, IL with only $100 in real property.

So why the move to IL and why did they end up with much less property and wealth?

My Grandma Byler, Mary Elizabeth Bruce Radley's daughter, told the story of how her parents, the James Madison Bruce family, had their cotton picked in one night, in the dark, with only lanterns for light, worried someone would find out what they were doing. They had it loaded on the train and they all got on the train  and moved 600 miles away to Neoga IL. They left the land and the slaves. (I'm still trying to sort that out with land and probate records. So far nothing.)

This makes some sense when we understand that in 1863 Sherman's march from Chattanooga TN to the Georgia coast went right through Atlanta (Remember Gone With The Wind?) Sherman and his army burned, pillaged and ruined the country-side in a 50-90 mile wide swathe, with his 90-100 thousand man army.
So, I'm thinking that since our Bruce's were just south east of Atlanta, they probably heard of Sherman's army coming in 1863, and packed up and left for IL.   
 
It appears form records of the Civil War soldiers, that James Madison Bruce and his brother, Hugh Callaway Bruce,  may have been in the Confederate Army from Georgia. 
 
As far as I know, the land was lost to James Madison Bruce and family.  There is some indication that he gave some inheritance to another Bruce family which remained in Georgia.  More research needs to be done on this.   
I am thankful for all the help on this family.  Anitra