I don't think that anything I'm going to say here will help anybody, least of all me... but there are some "common issues" in the discussion so I thought I would add my "2 cents" worth. First, so far as I'm concerned, our Autry ancestors could saved us all a lot of trouble if they had named all of their children (male & female), wives, horses, mules & chickens "John", then we would know it was totally useless to try to distinguish them. As it is, there is always this deceptive glimmer of false hope... <G> I think I have mentioned before that my John English Autry's father was John Autry of Sumter County, GA... who was supposed, as far as I know, to have been son of Captain John Autry, the Georgia militia captain in the American Revolution. If the genealogy is right, John Autry son of Captain John had not one but two sons named John, by different wives. Further, his second wife was Barbara ("Bubby") Rebecca McMillian, widow of James Murphy, who had a son by James Murphy named John Murphy who was presumably a part of the household while my 2-great grandfather John English Autry was growing up. If my 3-great grandmother had called out the name John either everyone would have ignored her or half of the men in the house would have had to respond. I know that within the family my 2-great grandfather was known as English, and I suspect that others had various familiar names. Maybe now in this age of more and more computerization bringing records into easier access, if I weren't such a cheapskate, I could find them... but so far I have not found my 2-great grandfather John English Autry & family in the 1860 census. In 1863 he ended up in the same Confederate Army unit as several of his brothers and was presumably in Sumter County or nearby then. But I guess he could have been almost anywhere in 1860 and could have "come home" because of the war. And there was a story my grandmother told, about an ancestor going to Texas as a young boy... walking much of the way; and the family not liking it in Texas and "coming back". This would have been, as best I can tell, in the 1830s, probably before the Texas Revolution... and Texas would have been part of Mexico. What comes next is hard to explain... Grandma (whose mother was a daughter of John English Autry) told the story with no names. When I asked her for names she looked shell-shocked, almost lost her false teeth, hemmed and hawed, and finally said she wasn't sure but thought it was an Autry. It took me 20 years to find my way out of a bunch of misleading she did to me in a very few minutes right then. She acted pretty vague about her Haire (father's) ancestors and didn't seem to want to tell me anything specific about them. She talked around in circles, assured me that they were somewhere in Georgia but she didn't know where, and said her father went to Florida (from Georgia) in 1912 and brought the family down (by boat, there were no reliable roads to South Florida then) in 1913. Well... that was a CROCK! Great grandpa Haire was BORN in FLORIDA, his father and mother were BORN in FLORIDA, and his mother's mother was BORN in FLORIDA before it was under U.S. control. I had started the whole inquiry by asking about my grandfather's Indian ancestors. All grandpa needed was some feathers and he would have looked like any Indian you ever saw. But according to grandma, she had no idea what I was talking about and she assured me that there were *no* Indians in grandpa's family! <G> Grandma had eternally white skin & red hair. I had no idea that she could possibly have any Indian ancestors. I didn't ask her about any. But she knew what I was looking for and I believe that she was trying to make sure I never found any. There was a Creek/Seminole Indian subchief called John Yellow Hair whose Band was removed from the Apalachicola River in Florida to Texas (then Mexico) in 1834. The history of Yellow Hair, who was quite a scoundrel in some ways, is only partly known... but it is known that he didn't like it in Texas and came back... not to Georgia, but to FLORIDA! I think that my 2-great grandfather John Hair(e) (who lived close to the Apalachicola River all of his life) may have been the son or nephew of John Yellow Hair aka Nokus Yaholla. But I can't prove it and to this day I don't know for sure if it was a Haire or an Autry who went to Texas... just that according to grandma, one or the other did. So if anybody finds any stray John Autrys running around in Texas or anywhere else in the known universe in 1860, I'm always interested in hearing about them. I would like even more to know about Chief Yellow Hair. Richard White Tallahassee, Florida Andrea Autrey Marshall wrote: >Do you mean the John who is 11 in this census, or the John who is 47 ? If >it is the 47 year old John, then he seems a little old to gone back to >Indiana and have a second son named John. On the other hand, if it's the 11 >year old John, he would have been 17 in 1865 - a little young (but not >impossible). I've heard stories about my John Autrey running off to texas, >but didn't know if that was before or after he had the family that I descend >from. It's all very confusing. According to Paul Davis on rootsweb boards, >Cynthia is shown as a widow in 1880. I don't know if this means that John >died, or that he ran off and is simply not mentioned in the 1880 census. > > > >>John Autry age 47 b. NC occ. Farmer >>Sarah age 50 b. Tn. [mnu] >>Moriah age 18 b. Ind. >>Jams. K. P. age 16 b. Ind. [James K. Polk] >>Sarah age 13 b. Ind. [Sarah Emeline] [g grandmother of G.R. >>Wallace] >>John age 11 b. Ind. [John T.] >>Mary J. age 08 b. Texas [Mary Jane] >>Albert F. age 02 b. Texas [Albert Franklin] >>[not with fam. in TX. in 1860---William Arthur Autry b. 1838 Ind.]** >>[Ellis Autry b. aft. cen.- 1860-1861 TX.]*** >>********* >>House # 274 [son of the above John Autry H# 272] >> >>Jacob C. Autry age 20 b. Ind. occ. Farmer >>Eliza age 18 b. Mo. >>*********** >>Andrea, perhaps this is your John Autrey who returned to Ind. & mar. C. >> >> >Davis > > >>in 1865? He is not with his Texas family in 1870--mother, Sarah & some of >>the children are living with William A. & his wife & new son >>Any help or thoughts appreciated. G. R. & Mary Wallace >>