With the passing of time, I keep hoping for new clues to turn up about Hepsabeth L. Davidson, who married William Alexander Williams on 9 October 1828, per a family Bible record, probably in Marion County, Tennessee, which is a severely burned county, having lost its records in 1922.

A couple of years earlier, the Williams clan moved there from Roane County, not too far north of Marion County.

The 1830 census is not much help. There are but two Davidson families in Marion County, but only one head of family is old enough to be Hepsabeth’s father- William Davidson, aged 40-49 years old, enumerated on page 47. There is also a female aged 40-49 and five children, the oldest of whom would be close to Hepsabeth in age.

The second Davidson is Samuel C., aged 20-29 with one female aged 20-29. They appear to be newlyweds with no other people in the home.

Unfortunately, because Marion County is burned, there are no land or probate records to search.

I have long suspected that William Davidson is her father, but have never found any primary documents to support that theory.

By 1840, both Samuel C. and William Davidson are gone, but there is a young John Davidson, aged 20-29, wife a female also 20-29 and a young child under 5 at home on page 45. William A. Williams and family appear just two pages later, on page 47.

Unfortunately, by 1850, the Williams family had removed to Lafayette County, Arkansas and there isn’t even one Davidson enumerated there at the same time.

At one point, I had Hepsabeth’s death date as between 1876-1880, but I had no document to show the source of the information (which I believe I obtained from someone else) so I updated my database to reflect that she died after 1870, which is her last census enumeration.

Full-text search has helped with that 1876 date. On 6 March 1876, Hepsabeth (X) L. Davidson sold her land to her son, James H. Williams of Hempstead County, Arkansas.

Her deed is on the right side of the page. I’m not going to transcribe it because there is nothing remarkable about it except for providing proof that she was living on 6 March 1876.

The Davidson Surname DNA Project hasn’t helped, nor have autosomal DNA matches for my husband. The problem seems to be the gaping hole in those county records.

Still, I have hope that someday. . . . .