Greetings Early County Georgia... The family lore has our family as residents of Early County around 1800-1830. Im looking for any information at all from anyone who knows anything about any Merritt in Early County.. These folks moved on into South Alabama, and eventually (in the 1960s) to California. For information on the Merritt's check Robert Gipson's WEB page, http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~rgibson/Merritt/ Thanks in advance. Dennis Merritt

> I'm looking for any information at all from anyone who knows anything > about > any Merritt in Early County.. Well, one characteristic of my Merritt family line is crooked pinky fingers. They've come down at least four generations. Other than that, the 1900 Early County census lists my Merritt family. The head of the household was James A.Merritt, born in 1852, who was living at 510 River Road. He was the ferryman across the Chattahoochee River. His oldest daughter, and my grandmother, Lillian Merritt (Gurr), who was born in Miller County in 1877, was back living at home with her parents and siblings after a brief failed marriage to Samuel Gurr. James' father, David Thornton Merritt, was born in 1823 in Sampson County, NC, but it is thought that his mother, Sarah, and her husband, Gabriel Merritt, lived in southwest GA in the early 1800's and then moved back to NC where Gabriel Merritt died? Sarah returned to GA with five Merritt sons and a couple of daughters who settled in the southern GA/AL area. They managed to leave many descendants in spite of the fact that four? were killed as a result of the War Between the States. (I'm not looking up all these facts as I write, but I'm close...grin.) Jo Webb writes about this family in her book, Linkage. She is the granddaughter of James Merritt's brother, Robert Alger. James A. Merritt was married to (Harriet) Jane Tipton whose father, Benjamin Tipton, was a Freewill Baptist minister who "roamed" around in GA, AL and FL. He and his wife, Elizabeth Bostick Tipton, died in Early County in the late 1870's. He was on the Early County census in 1850 and 1870. I have seen an online list of Early County marriages, but I can't find it now?? I recall that besides Lillian Merritt and Samuel Gurr, there was a record of the marriage of James Merritt's daughter, Ellen, and his brother, Robert Alger Merritt. There was also another Merritt marriage with a name I didn't know. Can anyone tell me how to locate that list? I'd like to share information with anyone who has my Early County surnames or crooked pinky fingers. <G> Best of Regards, Mitzi (Lillian) Clark Bateman who removed to northern CA in the 1970's, but gets mighty homesick for the good ole South (that's not Southern CA, you CA folks!)