Can someone help this researcher? (reply to him, not to me, please) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Subj: RE: oops Date: 10/23/01 9:28:52 AM Central Standard Time From: alexco@mindspring.com (John Alexander) Tim Barker was kind enough to send me some info related to my quest. It included a reference to your web page. It is very impressive and once your re-working is completed, I'm sure I'll refer to it often. From your site I clicked on the link to the marriage and census records of Rabun Co GA in 1850 but "page could not be found." We have quite a mystery on our hands. I am looking for information on a woman who lived from as early as 1820 to as late as 1930s. We have what we believe are two photos of her (one as a young woman and another with a man whom we believe may be her 2nd husband) She is the mother of these men: William (Robins) Robbins b. 1852 Rabun Co GA (we believe) Joseph (Robins) Robbins or Barker b. 1859 Macon Co/Buncombe Co NC Henry Barker 1864 Macon Co/Buncombe Co NC and possibly, Carrie (a sister or half-sister to the above men-no dates known) She may have been Indian, and that may be why her early life is so obscured. Based on the birth date William used, we calculate she could have been born between 1820-1840--stretching the window to its' fullest. If she was Indian, her family would have been in hiding or at least maintaining a low profile during most of that period. Our best opportunity to solve this puzzle is to try and identify the Barker who became her 2nd husband and to try to find a Robins/Robbins who may have been her first husband. It is also unusual, given the time period, that she would have produced only three, possibly four, children from two husbands. (Some family members speculate that Mary may have been her first name, although there is no proof nor enough oral tradition to make this a strong theory). It is family tradition that her son William Robbins was born in Rabun Co GA in 1852. It is also family tradition that his brother or half-brother Joseph Elijah Robbins was born in Macon Co NC 1859, and Solomon Henry Barker was born in Macon Co NC in 1864. There is a family tradition among some that the woman was a Barker by birth who married a Robbins and later married another Barker. Her life, to this point, has been quite a mystery. We have no marriage dates nor death dates. We don't know the fate of Mr. Robbins (ran off? murdered? Civil War Casualty?) Nor do we have a first name for Mr. Barker. William and Joseph left the Buncombe Co NC area and moved into Blount/Loudon Co TN in the 1880s, but Mrs. Barker and her husband remained in the Macon/Buncombe NC area. William & Joseph (Bill & Joe) remained close to their brother/half-brother Henry, however. So far, after exploring Macon Co Barkers in the 1840s....Edmund, Calvin, Jason, Warren and a Patsey Barker, female between 20-30, raising a little boy under 5 and a little girl between 5-10 years of age listed on the Macon Co NC Census of 1830. She doesn't appear on the 1840 Macon Co NC Census, however. There's is nothing that jumps out at us, although I'm still searching for info on Patsey's children and what became of them. I'm going into so much detail with you because your counties of expertise overlap those we believe the Mystery woman and her children may have been born, married or done business in---Rabun Co GA, Macon Co NC, and other nearby counties including Buncombe Co NC from the 1820s-1870s (at least). We can't even be sure there was a marriage between the mystery woman and a Robins/Robbins. All we know is that my great-grandfather William Robbins used that name, and so did his brother/half-brother Joe. There is one family tradition that the young men were stone cutters in the Buncombe Co Area and got into a fight (barroom brawl?) with another man and (possibly) Joe thought he killed the man. They fled into Tennessee with Joe Barker changing his name to Robbins. However, at least one direct descendent of Joe says she never heard of the name-change, but it could have been kept from her. There was a James L. Robins, Captain Co H 16th Regiment NC Infantry, CSA listed among Macon Co NC Civil War soldiers, but we have no further information on him. The attached two photos have been in the family for a long time, but no one living knows who these people are. However, by carefully examining a photo of "Henry" and his two half-brothers Joseph Elijah Robbins (1859) and William M Robbins (1852)taken when they were elderly (circa 1929) has caused some of us to believe the oval photo is of the mother of the three boys and the father of "Henry." The resemblance of Henry in old age to the man in the oval photo is striking. All three boys/men have the deep set brows of the woman. The single photo is made from a glass plate and is believed to be of the woman at a much younger age. "Henry" married Mary Hester Reeves (whose family sold some of their land to Vanderbilt for the Biltmore estate). He lost a portion of one of his arms in a sawmill accident when he was in his late 40s-early 50s, and his two half-brothers came over and helped move "Henry" and his family to east Tennessee where they now lived and had built a house for him. Have you seen these photos before? Do you have any information on this branch of the Barker family? Do you know of other Barker researchers who may be searching this line, in these counties, and could you share their e-mail/snail mail addresses? Any help will be greatly appreciated. [end of e-mail number one; beginning of e-mail number two] We have the death certificates of the 3 men, but information provided on them is sketchy and from their children based on what they may remember or recall. On one of them, the adult child provided Macon GA as the birthplace of the deceased. That is extremely unlikely, and no family traditions even point that direction as all other family traditions center around Rabun Co GA and Macon Co NC....you know the dilemma we face :-) I have found a Capt. James Robins (not Robbins, but spellings change) who enlisted in Co H 16th Regiment NC Infantry CSA during Civil War, so I've sent off to NC Archives a request for his service record. I'm trying to widely distribute the two photos among all who research Barkers, clinging to a slim thread that someone may recognize them.