In writing this book on John Patterson of Jenkins Branch, I've been doing a lot of census verification and other census lookups and updating my documentation on many families. In the process of doing so, there have been numerous families from the mid to late 1800's that went through terrible heartache in the number of children they lost at young ages. One family in particular I'd like to highlight here.
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| William Jefferson Kincaid (1843-1909) |
William Jefferson Kincaid was born 01 Aug 1843 in Union Co, GA and died 15 Dec 1909 in Cherokee Co, GA. He was the son of James (Jim) Kincaid and Martha Denton Chastain. William was also the grandson of William D. Kincaid and Amy Jane Patterson (daughter of John Patterson and Margaret Black). William was also the grandson of Benjamin Franklin Chastain and Rebecca S. Denton. Both of those grandparents were children of Rev. War Patriots, John Chastain and Samuel Denton, respectively.
William himself was a veteran of the Civil War. He served in the CSA, 2nd Regiment, GA Infantry, Co E. He and so many other relatives and neighbors were swept up in that major conflict. Following the war, he married Mary Adeline Ragsdale Robinson in 1866. She was born in Jan 1845 in GA and died after 1900.
The 1900 census is a unique census in that it documented the number of children a woman had given birth to in her lifetime, and then how many of her children were still living. In her case, she had given birth to 12 children, but only four were still living in 1900.
I know that four of their children lived to adulthood. And I know that many died as infants. But to realize that eight children died as young children or infants, is staggering to me. I cannot begin to image what that was like to deal with.
Make me more grateful for my life of ease, relatively speaking.
Wes
