This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: OLDHAM, OLDUM, PETERSON, TARPLEY Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/Vm3.2ACEB/430.4.1 Message Board Post: Okay, here is some more wild speculation: The 1820 Census for Stewart County does list a Charlotte OLDUM as head of household. There are, in fact, no other OLDHAM households in Stewart County, but probably there are some in Montgomery County. This ought to be the Charlotte who is the mother of my Henrietta "Ritter". There are more children, and some of them younger, living in this household than what I have for Charlotte and George. Might this have been the scenario? Charlotte PETERSON married first George OLDHAM, having children Ritter, Isaac, Moses, Polly and Betsey, prior to 1804. Then my George dies, perhaps? (The death date of "abt 1850" seems to be attached to the one who married Henrietta STACEY.) At this point, Moses, Jr., marries his brother's widow, and they have Nancy in 1805, plus Ebenezer and John. Since there is a Charlotte still living and heading a household in 1820, perhaps Moses, Jr., did not get along all that well with said widow, so they divorced, and he married Christiana TARPLEY in 1816. Those two go off eventually to Texas, and in any event he is not heading a Stewart County household in 1820 (still in Montgomery, perhaps?). Well, when looking for needles in haystacks, you have to have a hunch about which haystacks to look in. Or was that a woodpile we were searching?