The Name's Wrong, The Identity's Right: Overcoming Record Errors

Yesterday, I received a notice from FamilySearch that they might have found my great-grandmother in a record.

The record on which my Great-grandmother Fannie Hale Acuff was listed was the 2nd marriage of her daughter Oven Acuff to Owen Sharp.  I'd had the date of her marriage but never entered it. She didn't have children with Owen so that was not a priority for me.  Her name on their marriage record is wrong on two counts. She is listed as Lovena Hammonds.  She should have been listed as Ovena Damrel.  She had been married to Ben Damrel who had died about four years prior. At Ancestry, the record was buried in the hints for Ovena where it was indexed as it was written on the record and probably was only picked up as a hint because of the mention of her parents.

I'm used to names being indexed wrong but this was a case of it being wrong(on two counts) on the record.  I submitted a correction on Ancestry and the record is attached correctly to Ovena at FamilySearch.  I knew she was likely born in either White or Van Buren Co TN because her family lived there until just before the 1920 census when they moved to Madison Co AL for work in the cotton mills.  If I can believe this record gives her place of birth as Doyle TN which is just over the Van Buren County line in White County. 

Source:  
"Alabama County Marriages, 1809-1950", FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939V-Z7LC-P : accessed 16 September 2024), Marriage Record Entry for Owen Sharp and Ovena Damrel(listed incorrectly as Lovena Dammonds), 24 Aug 1936.

More Records of the Johnson Co IL Hights

Robert Doak Hight--Johnson Co IL Deeds at FamilySearch

Wm R Whiteside & wife Rachel To Robert D Hight 8 Oct 1845

Robert D Hight Quit Claims to Pleasant Grissom 4th Oct 1849

John J Jones to R D Hight 27 May 1859

Joseph and Mary McCorkle to Robert Doak Hight 13 Aug 1859

Isaac Worley and Wife Nancy to R D Hight 28 Oct 1859

Landowners Map of the Hights in Johnson Co. Illinois 
Generated via HistoryGeo

These Hights were from Maury & Bedford Counties of Tennessee.

Robert D Hight was the son of Sion H Hight

Sion H Hight to Rachel Rieter
18 acres 76 poles x 38 poles
Christmas Creek in Rutherford Co TN
15 Dec 1819 [This is the same land description of the 15 acres in Rutherford Co TN(76p x 38p) that was on record to Sion on 9 Oct 1818 and Recorded 24 May 1819 which was a part of a larger grant from NC based on the military service of Robert Whitlock.]

Sion Hight purchased 8 Geese at the Estate Sale of Archibald Hight Maury Co TN 1822

Cook & Putman descendants share atDNA with Sion Hight's descendants.  The largest amounts seem to be with the descendants of his grandson James Franklin Hight's descendants.

Smith, George Washington. 1912. A History of Southern Illinois Vol. 2, Chicago, IL: Lewis Publishing Company, p 758, James Franklin Hight Biography; digital image  HathiTrust (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/umn.31951001959853m?urlappend=%3Bseq=234%3Bownerid=114607231-268 : accessed 18 August 2024)

Two Land Records--Wm Harrison--Alexander Creek Bedford Co. TN

These two plats of Wm Harrison's land may be the ones where he and family are living in the 1830 Census of Bedford County Tennessee.  It mentions a neighboring entry for Elijah West.  There was a Jefferson West living near Wm Harrison and family in that census(1830)

Wm Harrison 5 acres No 5126
Scale 20 poles per inch
State of Tennessee Second district by virtue of Entry No 6989
dated October 21st 1814 founded on Certificate No 1051 for
93 acres issued to Mark Mitchell by the register of West
Tennessee on the 10th June 1812 I have surveyed for William
Harrison a tract of land containing five acres situate
in Bedford County on the waters of Alexander Creek of
Duck River Beginning at a dogwood the southeast corner of a fifteen acre
Entry in the name of James Smith Running from thence north thirty poles
to the south west corner of one hundred acre entry in the name of Elijah West
to an Elm and post oak running from thence east tweeny six poles and
seven tenths of a pole to a locust and hackberry thence south thirty
poles to an Elm and hickory thence west twenty six poles and seven 

tenths to the beginning surveyed the ninth day of December 1814 by

William Harrison
John Harrison S.C.C.                            Joseph Neal D. L.
Transmited?   Augt 24th 1818 by Wm Harrison

Wm Harrison 15 acres No. 5127
Scale 40 Poles per Inch
State of Tennessee Second district by virtue of Entry No 6988
dated October 21st 1814 founded on Certificate No 1051 for 93
acres issued to Mark Mitchell by the Register of West Tennessee
on the 10th June 1812 I have surveyed for William Harrison
assignee of John B Hogg fifteen acres of land situate in Bedford
County on the waters of Alexanders Creek of Duck River Beginning at Hickory
the North West Coverner of a thirty acres entry made in the name of John
Cockrell running from thence thirty four and one half poles to two elms
and a cedar thence south sixty nine poles to two cedars and an Elm
Thence east thirty four and one half poles to two Elms and a dogwood in the
west boundary line of P. Cockrill thence North Sixty nine poles to the
Beginning surveyed the ninth day of December 1814 by
William Harrison
John Harrison S.C.C.                          Joseph Neal D. L.
Transmited? Augt 24th 1818 by Wm Harrison

Source 

Ancestry, Tennessee, U.S., Early Land Registers, 1778-1927

 (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/4323:3658 : accessed 12 September 2024)

That collection contains the images which are the TN Land Books digitized by TN State Library and Archives.  Those records are part of Record Group 50

Series 3, Book 30, Plats And Surveys 
2nd Surveyor's District 1814-1815
No. 4374 To 5533

p. 346 & 347

Plat No 5125 & No 5126 of William Harrison lands On Alexander Creek, Bedford Co. TN,