Mary Elizabeth (Stricklin) Keaton - Clarifying her relationships & info

You can predict what I'm going to ask here... :)

What's the source for the name being taken from a school headmaster, and for the marriage being incorrect? The marriage record exists, so the extraordinary claim of the marriage not existing requires extraordinary evidence.

We also have Dempsey's War of 1812 pension file, which states that his wife, who was previously Mary Keaton, died 1884 in Tattnall County. It defies all logic to think this marriage didn't happen, or that there were multiple women named Mary Strickland who were born in South Carolina c. 1806/1807, who married men named Kader Keaton, and then died in Tattnall County, Georgia in 1884. She's one person who simply married twice -- first to Kader Keaton, then to Dempsey Griffin.

This is one of those things where I'm probably not going to wait very long before making the changes. It's too obviously incorrect.

The Q-M3 connection to these particular Stricklands has been disproved. They were M haplogroup descendants of Matthew Strickland of Isle of Wight.

The record you had uploaded to Mary Strickland's mother was for the wrong woman -- it was for an Elizabeth Newman of Guilford, North Carolina. I've removed the tag.

We are left with the reality that this Mary Strickland is not Indigenous and was not part of an Indigenous community. She was a white woman, she had two husbands and a boatload of children, and she spent almost her entire life in Tattnall County, Georgia. She's not who you're looking for.

I have to get back to actual work for a bit, but I'll try to repair this this afternoon. As a heads-up, we're going to have to do her first husband (Kader Keaton) next, so if we're also going to say that he was Indigenous, now is the time to start showing and triple-checking that evidence.

Private, there's nothing in that project showing that Gadi Strickland was a Q. Gadi is a genetic a descendant of Matthew Strickland of Isle of Wight, who was an M.

It's William Riley Strickin who was a Q. But he is not Gadi Strickland's son. Gadi's son was William Gadi Strickland. Different names, different dates, different places.

"is a genetic descendant"

"Stricklin"

(Sorry, typing on phone!)

Private, can you link me to whatever you're reading that's giving you this info?

Also, where are you finding a Q Gadi? Because the Strickland DNA Project does not have one. A Q Gadi is an idea that seems to only exist on Geni.

I've removed this from Mary's "About" until we have citations for it:

Eldest son part of Transfer Leadership Legacy Community - Mother of Benjamin Warren Keaton who left by federal passport of then Indian Agent, Choctaw Bill Williams to Bush, La in 1810. Ancestor, Capt Keder Keaton was a voting member of the 1768 formation of Old Cheraw's District, in SC for those receiving land grants with "Chief of Churrah" Thomas Parker's communals who had been helping Col Eaton at Tabb's Creek in a long diaspora.

I'm now going to set about trying to cite all of her children, but would appreciate help, especially as we prepare to tackle Kader Keaton next.

Benjamin Warren Keaton, of Bush, La has been removed as Mary Strickland's son -- she was 1-2 years old when he was born. So the above paragraph that I removed is less relevant now anyway.

Lydia (Keaton) Griffin Hall was actually Kader's child, not Dempsey's. That's been sorted.

I'm cutting away Lydia Poppell because I cannot, at this point, find any info on Lydia remarrying to a Poppell, so this might be someone totally different.

Per our profile, both Lydia (Keaton) Griffin Hall and her husband died in 1865...would be good to confirm that.

I can cite one child so far for Kader Keaton and Mary Strickland, even though Huxford says there were three...could use help finding the other two:

1. Lydia (Keaton) Griffin Hall

I cannot cite the rest, and I think part of the problem is that we've mixed up a few generations of Kader Keatons. "Ours" (William Kader Keaton, III, of Churrah Creek, Burke's Co.) is showing on Geni as dying in 1890, when the consensus of other researchers seems to be that he died in 1834. That sure would make a lot more sense -- his daughter Lydia was born that year, and his wife Mary remarried in 1835, with Lydia taking her stepfather's surname.

Also, remember that the addition of "Griffin" to these children's names when searching is likely a red herring -- we now know that the idea of the middle name tribute to a teacher is wrong, and that Mary's Griffin children were so named because their father was Dempsey Griffin. Her children with Kader likely did not have "Griffin" in their names.

So for us to figure out Mary's children, we're going to have to get Kader in order and go from there. Pioneers of Wiregrass Georgia (Vol. 10, 1998) says they had three total, so we have several we need to eliminate. I've put the "candidates" in a list on Mary's overview.

David, I may not be communicating this strongly enough, so to be clear -- Mary was not part of any Indigenous community. Neither was Gadi. They weren't part of the group you're trying to track.

That tradition of using the name "Griffin" might exist in the group you're tracking, but this family is not part of that group. We need to accept what the evidence says about that.

I've now disconnected Catherine J. McDonald from Kader and Mary. People who want to pursue finding out who Catherine actually belongs to can do so using this thread. Some basic details on her husband are on FindAGrave.

Oh, fascinating -- I finally found where the confusion is coming in.

On the 1850 U.S. Federal Census for Sumter County, Georgia, there's a Dempsey Griffin and Mary Griffin with children named Dempsey, Caleb, Thomas, Edna, Catherine, and John. All of those children, except for John, were born in North Carolina, as were the parents.

But in 1850, "our" Dempsey and Mary were living in Tattnall County, Georgia, with their children Lydia (actually the biological daughter of Kader), Francis Dempsey, Martha, and William Jackson.

That's where this whole mess began -- two different Dempsey Griffins. Somehow, some researcher assigned the children of the North Carolina Dempsey Griffin to Kader Keaton, when they were actually Kader's widow Mary's children with the Georgia Dempsey Griffin. And then that same researcher decided neither Dempsey Griffin existed, and decided the Griffin name was a middle name in honor of a schoolteacher no one in the family ever knew. Phew.

Much to fix.

As a reminder, Pioneers of Wiregrass Georgia (Vol. 10, 1998) is very clear that there were only three children between Kader Keaton and Mary Strickland. We also know that he died in 1834.

We know that two of the three were:

1. Kader Lawson Keaton - b. c. 1827 in Liberty County, Georgia; d. 4 May 1902; m. Martha
2. Lydia (Keaton) Griffin Hall - b. c. 1834 in Tattnall County, Georgia; m. Thomas Hall; had assumed her stepfather's surname, Griffin, by 1850

We don't have agreement on the third child...and any help finding that out is appreciated.

Mary has now sprouted more uncited children:

1. Rev William H Keaton - b. 1827 in Tattnall County
2. Jesse Franklin Keeton - b. 1830 in Liberty County
3. Mary Keaton - b. in Virginia
4. Isham Keaton - b. in Virginia
5. Zachariah Keaton
6. Jacob A. Keaton

None of these profiles are cited, so I don't know where the info is coming from. But we can safely assume that the two born in Virginia are not the children of Kader and Mary, so I'm going to cut those now.

It's also highly unlikely that Mary named two surviving sons William -- we know that Rev. William Jackson Griffin, CSA was her son with her second husband.

If we can't get any of these cited, I'm going to cut them; they can be re-added if we establish a connection.

One source of confusion fixed:

Mary did indeed have a son named William who was a minister -- but it was her son Rev. William Jackson Griffin, CSA with Dempsey Griffin, not a separate son with Kader Keaton. The dates for Rev William H Keaton don't match Mary's William, so I've cut him away.

So now we have Jesse, Zachariah, and Jacob to figure out.

Crossing Zachariah and Jacob off the list -- they keep tracing back to bad Ancestry trees, where they're shown as being born before their parents.

And crossing off Jesse as well. Per the 1850 Census, he belongs to the Kader and Mary Keaton of Carroll County. Remember: Mary Strickland's Kader died in 1834, and Mary remarried and became a Griffin in 1835.

So our final tree contenders for the missing third child of Kader and Mary are back to what we already had in the profile:

1. John Keaton
2. Thomas Keaton

Anyone want to make a case for or against any of those three? I've already spent two hours of a Saturday on this, so someone else can have at it. :)