#52 Ancestors Challenge - Week 1

This week's theme is "I'd Like to Meet." Most of us have an ancestor who we'd like to meet (even if it's to ask, "What are your parents' names?") This week, write about that ancestor or why you'd want to meet him or her. Feel free to be creative!

So many to choose from but I keep coming back to William Fain Rountree. William was born in 1865 in Georgia and was a railroad engineer for GS&F. He has been a brick wall of mine since I started on my genealogy journey in 2005. I am pretty confident I have his mother figured out but can not prove their relationship. As unoriginal as it is to say I'd ask him who his parents were I'd also get the chance to tell him my son is named after him! What we do know is that William had a brother Cornelius who stay in Effingham County and that in Cornelius will he references "land that belonged to my mother". There were no death certificates in Georgia at the time Cornelius died, but there was one for William. On it, it lists William Rountree as father and mother unknown. It has been a challenge because in Georgia there are many burned courthouses and other record losses.

Here is my theory: There was a William Rountree that married a Belison Bevill in Chatham County in 1848. I believe Belison's middle name is Catherine. In 1849 they had a son named William and these 3 were together on the 1850 census. in 1851 the Rountree's added a daughter Mary Ann. The next year the toddler William died in Screven County followed a year later by his toddler sister. There are old grave markers at the Old North Newington Cemetery. This must have broken the older Rountree hearts but in 1854 they had another daughter Louisana followed by Cornelius in 1856, another daughter in 1858, and a son Francis M born in 1861, and finally William F in 1865.

By 1870 Father William is not with the family in the census. During this time period, there is a Belison Bevill listed in the church minutes for Newington Baptist - the church where the two littles are buried. She is listed in the church minutes as deceased by 1874. What is interesting is she is listed as Belison Bevill, not Rountree.