The Deed

Thru-lines, on ancestry.com, had me related to a host of supposed descendants, even from a couple of possible children I'd not heard of.

I tested the theory of one of those names in my Thru-lines, George C. Morton, who had migrated to Webster County, Missouri, and determined that the reason I share DNA with his descendants, whose family had left this area prior to the Civil War, was that I was actually related to them through the other side of my family, from a different Morton ancestor, Samuel Parsons Morton, who I believe was an older brother of George.

But there was another confused line, a daughter, some had merged into one person, while it now appears to me was two separate people.

The reason is because of a deed, in the Stanly County Register of Deeds, an old deed that had been brought forward and refiled with the current county government of Stanly County, after it had originally been drawn up several years before Stanly County was born, in Montgomery County, North Carolina.

If Ezekiel Morton had a Will, it must have went up in flames in one of the many Courthouse fires Montgomery had been subject to, by arsons attempting to erase public record of their sins or debts, a possibly a few natural disasters thrown in.

The Deed can be found in Book 17, Page 280, at the Stanly County Register of Deeds.

The Deed reads;

This deed named all of the living children of Ezekiel Morton above the age of majority. It excluded his younger children, the oldest being Nancy, 16, followed by Sussanah, Ezekiel John, Levi C. and Green Allen. 

People had merged Hannah and Rebecca "Becky" Morton into one person. In fact, I've discovered that Hannah Morton Fowlkes was not the daughter of Ezekiel Morton at all. More on that in another post.

But Rebecca Morton Whitley was, and actually was his eldest daughter. Becky, as she was called, was born on October 23, 1810. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1832 or 1833, probably, she married John Needham Whitley. He's found interchangeably as John or Needham. John N. Whitley was the son of Needham and Sarah Sides Whitley, part of that generation when the English and German settlers started mingling.

John Needham Whitley circa 1890. He was married several times and died in Texas.

Becky lived her life in the western part of Stanly County and died young, on October 14, 1858, just one week shy of her 48th birthday.

She and her husband were the parents of a dozen children, several of whom married cousins of various degrees of relation.

A) 1834 Thomas

B) 1836 Green

C) 1837 Emmaline

D) 1839 Sarah

E) 1849 Rebecca J.

F) 1842 Martha

G) 1844 Mary

H) 1846 Needham

I)   1848 Telitha

J)  1850 Sylvia

K)  1853 Presley

L)   1855 John

Photo of Old Wiggins Cemetery, taken by Brittany and Clay Cotter, 2012.