My Most Recent Unknown Ancestors are the parents of my great great grandfather, William M. Saunders. He is number 20 on my pedigree chart and his parents would be numbers 40 and 41.
William Saunders married L. J. (Louisa J.) Scarborough on the 15 Dec 1859 in Anderson County, TX. The 1860 Anderson County, TX census shows William M. Sanders, age 18, born in Texas and L. J. Sanders, age 20, born in Arkansas. Louisa’s brother, John Scarborough, age 18, born in Arkansas, is living with them.
Louisa’s parents have already moved on to Johnson County, Texas by 1860. There are no other Saunders/Sanders families living in Anderson County that could be the parents of William. I have searched at the Anderson County courthouse for deeds for William and found none. More than likely, he did not own land there.
William and Louisa had two sons: William Henry Saunders (my great grandfather), born in Feb 1862 and John M., born in Sept 1863.
I believe that William and Louisa moved to Bosque County, Texas between 1860 and 1866. William Saunders died sometime before July 1866, as Louisa married David Henry Eddleman on 12 July 1866 in Bosque County, Texas.
The only reference to William's death is found in the Probate Minutes of Bosque County, Texas, Volume D1, page 619. It reads as follows:
Thursday, Nov. 1st 1866
#95 D. H. Eddleman Guardian of the minors William H. Sanders & John M. Sanders heirs at law.
This case coming to be heard and the court being satisfied Petition had been filed and notice given as the law requires It is therefore ordered by the Court that D. H. Eddleman be appointed guardian of the Person and Estate of the Minors William H & John M. Sanders and that letters of Guardianship do issue as soon as he shall have filed in this Court a sufficient Bond. Ordered this case be continued until the next regular Term.
There were no other minutes on this case. Either David Eddleman never filed the bond, or it is missing from the records.
I have searched for records of Civil War soldiers, thinking that William may have been killed in the war. I have searched for deeds, probates and a Will and have not found anything telling me about the life of William, nor found even a hint as to whom his parents were.
I searched the 1850 census in Texas looking for a William Saunders born around 1842. I found one family with a William M. Saunders, age 8, which fits my William’s age exactly, as does the middle initial. The father in that family was also named William and he and his wife had several young children in 1850. I cannot find this family in the 1860 census, nor can I find any trace of them in Anderson County or Bosque County; therefore, I don’t know if this is the right family or not.
I have also searched in Arkansas where Louisa’s Scarborough family was living. That did not produce any results, either.
What to do now? I would like to go back to Bosque County and do more searching just to make sure that I didn’t miss something the first time. I also need to check the deeds to see if perhaps Louisa (Scarborough) Eddleman disposed of any land that could have belonged to her and William. In the meantime, I will keep doing periodic searches on the internet and on Ancestry with the hopes of finding another relative who is researching this line.
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VERY nice post! You worked hard on that. Good job :)
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