Nancy Barnes’ Death Record – Source: ancestry.com. Database: North Carolina Deaths 1906 – 1930, image hosted by Family Search; record accessed 9 April 2016.
Today I’m looking at the death record for Nancy Ann Musgrave Barnes on Ancestry.com. This Nancy Barnes was my husband’s great-great-grandmother, and she was married to Jacob H. Barnes. Her parents were Tobias and Apsilla Whitley Musgrave, and she was born in Wayne County, North Carolina. Although the death record shows Nancy Ann’s birth as January 1838, I’ve seen other documents putting it at 1837.
The informant was listed as D. C. Cogdell, and he was Nancy’s granddaughter Alice’s husband – Dallas Claude Cogdell (1875-1968). Nancy Ann and Jacob had three children: Emma, Alice, and Thomas Whitley Barnes. Emma Barnes (1855-1880) married Amariah A. Grantham, but sadly she died very young, leaving two young children – Claude Marshal and Alice Grantham. Baby Alice was under one year old when her mother died.
After Emma Barnes Grantham died, Alice married her sister’s husband, Amariah A. Grantham, on 26 November 1882, in Grantham Township, Wayne County, NC. Nancy’s daughter, Alice, helped raise the two children. This sequence of events baffled me for quite a while until I did more research on our Barnes family!
This is what I had found when I started, so of course I had thought Alice Grantham Cogdell was the daughter of Alice Barnes Grantham, but I was wrong.
Willow Dale Cemetery in Goldsboro, NC. First Section West of the office:
Nancy Musgrave, wife of Jacob H. Barnes, 1837-1921
Alice Barnes, wife of A. A. Grantham, 1858-1932
D. C. Cogdell, 10-18-1880; 3-10-1968
Alice Grantham, wife of D.C. Cogdell, 1879-1965
N .W. Musgrave, 6-25-1842; 8-2-1926
M. Yelverton, 11-17-1849; 2-23-1917.Source: Wayne County, NC – Cemeteries, From the book, “Gravestone Inscriptions“.
N. W. Musgrave was Nancy Ann’s brother, Needham Whitley Musgrave. John Musgrave (1667-1746) arrived in Pennsylvania from Northern Ireland in 1682. His son, Caleb, moved to Wayne County, North Carolina with other Quaker families in the late 1700s. Caleb Musgrave was N. W. Musgrave and Nancy Musgrave Barnes’ great-grandfather.
Source: ancestry.com; Needham Whitley Musgrave’s Death Record; North Carolina Deaths, 1906-1930; image hosted by Family Search; Record accessed 9 April 2016
Lots of family trees contain errors, and it is always good to check and re-check facts that you find. Quite often I still see the death date for Jacob H. Barnes as 1869, when he really had died in 1863 while a Confederate POW, after being wounded and captured at the Battle of Gettysburg. I think the source of that confusion is that his widow, Nancy, had applied for her Dower Rights in Johnston County, North Carolina in 1869.
In the Johnston County Loose Estate Records 1771-1962, abstracted by Elizabeth E. Ross, Jacob Barnes was listed under the year 1869, and his widow, Nancy A Barnes, had applied for her dower rights. Number of documents were 10+. In 2007, I sent to the Archives in Raleigh, NC, and received back 22 pages. In 2015 Ancestry.com added the database, North Carolina, Wills and Probate Records 1665-1998, and it is included under Jacob H. Barnes, and is now very accessible to read through all the pages [Johnston County, North Carolina Estate Records; Author: North Carolina. Superior Court (Johnston County); Probate Place: Johnston, North Carolina].
It is possible that this photograph saved by her daughter-in-law, Sarah Ophelia Rose Barnes, was Nancy, but at this time our family isn’t sure. She doesn’t look like Ophelia or her siblings, so perhaps she was Nancy Ann, and not Ophelia’s mother, Nancy Brent Rose.
Photograph from Betsy Coleman.
Nancy Ann had five grandchildren: Claude and Alice Grantham and also Ernest, George Herbert, and Bessie Pauline Barnes. George Herbert and his wife Sadie Barnes, named their only child, Nancy Rose Barnes, most likely in honor of his grandmothers.
Results from my husband’s DNA test at Family Tree DNA, shows that he is indeed related to the Barnes, Musgrave, Brent, and Rose families of Wayne and Johnston counties, North Carolina.
Copyright 2016 by Maryann Barnes.
Barnes Family History 