#52Ancestors-Week 40-Ten: William Adamson's 10 Children

The theme for this week is Ten.  I thought about who might have had ten children and came up with the following:

William Adamson was my great-great-great grandfather.  He was born around 1789 in North Carolina.  It is believed that he married Mary "Polly" Wilson in 1806 in Lebanon County, Tennessee. William and Mary had ten known children:

Aaron W.      born around 1808  (my great-great grandfather)
Allen            born around 1809
William A.   born in 1812
Robert          born in 1818
Mary            born around 1819
Michael       born around 1823
female         born between 1825 to 1830
Nancy         born around 1829
James          born around 1830
John W.       born in 1832

As you can see, I only know exact years of birth for three of the ten children. That is frustrating, but I can only work with the records that I can find! The child listed as "female" has only been found in the 1840 Census records.  So she had either died or was married by the 1850 Census. The first eight children were born in Tennessee, and the last two were born in Kentucky. All of the children married (exception with the "female" who I don't know about her status). From these ten children were thirty-nine known grandchildren.

#52Ancestors-Week 42-Conflict: Sam Gray

Sam Gray died in 1953.  He left only one of his sons surviving him, along with his second wife. But his will had been written in 1935 and stated the following:

“I give, bequeath and devise to my wife, Etta Gray and to my children, Lotta N. Adamson, Fred W. Gray and Bertha M. McQueen, all my property of any kind or nature whatsoever. Share and share alike.”

Lotta and Bertha died before their father Sam did, so when the estate was being settled Lotta's children and Bertha's daughter, along with Sam's son Fred were left as his heirs.  As was his second wife, Etta.  And that's where the conflict began.  Between Sam's children and grandchildren and the second wife.  It got ugly.  "Share and share alike" did not happen!

#52Ancestors-Week 41-Sports: Arthur Logan Adamson

This week the topic is Sports.  Nothing really jumped out to me to write about, except that my paternal grandfather was the quarterback for his college.  The special thing about this is that he attended Westfield College and graduated in 1906 "after three years of hard work and summer school".  How many people have grandfathers who attended college in the very early 1900's.  Seems pretty unusual to me! (although my grandmother also graduated from Westfield College-it may be even more unusual that a woman graduated from college back then).