DNA  and  LOOKING FOR LOUISA HAYWOOD

I didn’t know I was looking for Louisa until I found her.  Louise Catherine HAYWOOD was my great aunt, the sister of my grandfather, Thomas Melton HAYWOOD.  They were the children of Josiah HAYWOOD who never returned from the civil war, and his wife Margaret ALEXANDER.  There were five children in that family – four boys and one girl.  I was able to follow the four boys, I knew where they lived, what they did, and where they were buried.  Males are usually pretty easy to follow.

But Girls!  Oh My, Girls!  If you don’t have a family full of documents, wills, land records, newspaper articles, or family stories, you will lose the girls when they become 16 to 20 years old, get married, go away from home.  As I have mentioned before, the HAYWOODs were not story tellers.  Since she lost Josiah in the war, Margaret had to raise the 5 children on her own, on the farm.  Thomas Melton was 2 years old when Josiah left, and Louisa was 4 years old.  They never knew their father.  It was probably a hard life.  There was not a lot of documentation except for the census records.  I never expected to hear about Louisa (she was called that on the 1860, 1870, 1910 and 1920 censuses) again.  The only thing I had was the census records as follows:

1860 census – Union County:  

                        Source Citation: Year: 1860; Census Place: Union,North Carolina roll 653_915,
                              Page: 417; Image: 233; Family History Library Film: 803915

 1870 census – Union County:

From two separate pages

Source Citation: Year: 1870; Census Place: Goose Creek, Union, North Carolina; Roll: M593_1161; Page: 517B; Image: 555; Family History Library Film: 552660.

Louisa was 2 years old in 1860, and 12 years old in 1870.  Of course by 1880 she would have been 22 years old and, I assumed, probably married.  There was no record I could find of her or her husband after that.  They did not appear on the 1880 census.  She was lost in time.

Now “beam” forward to today with all the unbelievable electronic marvels, the instant documentation, the endless sources we have to explore.  Our whole history is evidently stored in huge  “filing cabinets” out there in space somewhere!   {:-D

I recently decided to check out my DNA through Ancestry.com – their autosomal method.  It doesn’t go back to ancient ancestors like the Y DNA testing does, it compares more current family connections,  (6 - 7 generations) both male and female.  Since I cannot do the Y (male) testing, I decided to start with this and perhaps do the mtDNA (female) testing later.  I discovered all kinds of interesting things with this test, such as my genetic background.

It answered questions like YES I have mostly English, Irish, and German (Europe West,) in my background.  Well . . that little bit of Scandinavian probably came from the Viking invasions of England  . . . right?  Anyway I am not spread out all over the world

But . . . back to Louisa.  Along with the above information, they send you a long, long .  .  . l  o  o  o n g  list of people you might be related to.  It starts off with second cousins and goes on from there, finally just listing people who have the same names in their trees as you do, even if they are NOT the same people.    So you have to sift through it, look at everything they offer and decide if it belongs to you or not.  A LOT OF WORK!!  I have found some cousins I knew about, some I even actually knew, and some I did not know, but they were mine!  I have contacted a few of them, and a few of them have already contacted me.  They provide both sides with email contact information.

But . . . back to Louisa! (again)  On the list, down a couple of pages, I was checking out each one as they came, here was a tree in a name that I could see no connection with.  I quickly scanned the main “characters” – the headliners – (you can see a small pedigree chart) and didn’t see any name I knew.  I’m thinking at that point “why did they send me this tree!!!”  Then down at the bottom of their charts, they list all the names in that tree that match names in your tree.  (All this comes from Ancestry.com of course, so they are working with the trees they have on record.)  I discovered the name HAYWOOD!  So I had to go back and delve deep into all the minor characters, the unimportant people, dead-end wives, etc.  There, as the wife of a man who was also not a “main” character, (he was a great great grandfather to the mother-in-law of the home person) was the name LOUISE CATHERINE HAYWOOD!  I said, “O. K.  looks interesting.”  But I had her as Louisa A. (1860 census) and this had a “Catherine.”  BUT Catherine was the name of my Louisa’s grandmother (Catherine WENTZ, married to Benton HAYWOOD.)  So I thought, “I’ll just look into it, but it probably won’t be the right one.”  So I went to Ancestry and found the real tree that all this was based on.  I saw that the owner remarkably had a Death Certificate for his Louise Catherine HAYWOOD.  So I said, “I’ll check that out and it will prove that this is not my Louisa!”  I pulled up the South Carolina certificate.  Father’s name:  Joe HAYWOOD!  Mother’s name:  Margaret ALEXANDER!  Birth place and date correct.  She was MY Louisa!                (Josiah was often listed as Jo or Joe.)

I had not looked into South Carolina records much, as all my HAYWOODs were always in North Carolina – NEVER ASSUME!  Now that I knew her married name, I began to pull together everything I could find on Louisa.  She had married CALVIN PRESSLEY (his second wife) sometime around 1876.  She was about 18 years old.  He was also from Union County, but by the time their first child arrived in 1879, they were living in Clover, York County, SC, just below the North Carolina line.  They appear in the 1900 census and the 1910 census for York Co, always living in Clover.  Calvin worked for Duke Power Company, the local electric company.  The census for 1900 states that Louisa had 12 children, but only 10 were living.  I could only find 9 of them. ¹

Everything on this certificate seems to be correct.  The informant was “B. W. Pressley.”  That would have been the youngest son, Britton Wise Pressley (1898 – 1986.)  But what is VERY strange is that no cause of death is listed.  It says, scrawled across it, “No Doctor Charge – Dropped Dead!”  It states that at 8:00 pm on November 11, 1922 she just dropped dead in her home, age 64yrs 4mos.  No mention of from what.  I have never seen a certificate like that!  It states that she is buried in Kings Mountain Chapel Cemetery (United Methodist Church) in Filbert (right next door to Clover.) Historic Kings Mountain, NC is just a short distance from there, and the S. C. township of Kings Mountain evidently goes as far down as Clover.  Directions to this cemetery are on the  ANNOUNCEMENTS/INFO  Page.  (Tab at top.)

All this was such a shock to me.  This was my grandfather’s sister, my father’s aunt.  Of course she had moved from Union county before he was born.  But I wonder if he knew she was living right below Charlotte.  She died in 1922, (he would have been 29 years old,) and he had just returned from the war, decided not to go back to the farm in Union County, and was living and working in Charlotte. 

Louisa had married Calvin “Cap” PRESSLEY (does this name sound familiar?  Look below!²)  Calvin died three years after Louisa in 1925 and is also buried in this cemetery, right beside her.  These are the only two PRESSLEYs here.  How do I know? 

Well Clover is just 20 minutes down HIWY321 from where I live!  I go there about once a month year round, to a farmer’s market, a flower nursery, and other destinations.  I have been going for 6 years, ever since I moved here.  And I never knew Louisa was there.  A lone HAYWOOD up here far from all the others buried in Union County.  I had to go see her.

A friend and I went last Saturday.  The Church and cemetery are only 5 or 6 blocks from the vegetable stand!  I was always that close and I never knew!  Here are the pictures.  But it only brought up another mystery  (isn’t that always the case?)

Notice Louisa’s stone.  It should read LOUISE HAYWOOD PRESSLEY but it reads LOUIS HAYWARD PRESSLEY.  This is entirely wrong, but the dates are correct and the stones are side by side.  I have gone back to the home person of the tree where I found Louisa, to ask if any family member knows why such a mistake was made, and why no correction was ever done.  But the connection was his mother-in-law and she has recently passed away.  So I don’t know if we will ever discover the truth.   It seems very sad to me to lie there under a stone with the wrong name on it.

Because of this error, this grave does not come up in Find a Grave when searching for Louise.  I found it by getting to the cemetery on Calvin's name, then clicking on “Find all the Pressleys in this cemetery.”  But, at any rate, and despite all odds, Louisa has been found.

^1.              (for a list of  Louisa’s children that I found, go to my tree on Ancestry.com –
                  Haywood, House, Yandle, Wentz  / Parker, Arant, Nelson, McCain)

^2.    But I always like to end on a lighter note.  I mentioned above about the PRESSLEY name.  If you go back in Calvin’s tree 10 generations, you will come to:

Sir George Jacob Presslar/Bressler

Birth:   1590 in Obercrintz, Zwickau, Sachsen, Germany

Death:   1650 in Germany  He seemed a prominent man in his community, owning huge vineyards and a well-known winery.
(Germans didn’t differentiate much bet. Bs and Ps) 

Along Calvin’s line of ancestors 5 generations back, you find

ANDREAS DAVID PRESLAR

Birth:   2 Jun 1701 in          Hochstadt, Sudliche Weinstrasse, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

Death: 2 Jun 1759 in          Anson County, North Carolina, USA

Along with other children, he had two sons -  two brothers:

THOMAS PRESLEY Sr   (Calvin's line)

Birth:   27 Aug 1730 in       St Stephens Parish, Cecil, Maryland, USA

Death:  7 July 1808 in        Anson County, North Carolina, USA

ANDREW PRESLEY Jr   (Elvis' line)

Birth:   2 Jun 1732 in          St Stephens, Cecil, Maryland, United States

Death: 2 Jun 1790 in          Fayette, Anson County, North Carolina, USA

Yes, Calvin was a distant cousin of Elvis Pressley! 3

3.  Go to my tree, find (search) ANDREW PRESLEY Jr, and you can trace his line 
      down to Elvis.  The main line is always in CAPs

                   Never Give Up and Never Assume

 I have given the announcements and info their own special page. 
Always check out what is happening there.

See Tab at top.