This is a continuation post from Susie (Fowler) Miller's entry. Please read it for the background on why I'm interested in this couple.

T.M. Fowler married J.I. Peace on 8 January 1874 in Bartow County, Georgia. You can see a picture of the recorded license and return at the Bartow County GenWeb site. (I know I wanted to make sure it really said "J.I." for the bride's given name).

Here's the short version of what I THINK is the situation here. This is a hypothesis and I present it here in case others have information that could help with my research goal (see the post about Susie Miller).

I suspect J.I. Peace is Jemima Peace, daughter of William G. Peace and Hessie Rountree. I haven't been able to prove this but I also haven't had a chance to do any serious research on the matter.

There are a number of factors in favor of this and a few factors against it. Mainly, there's a lack of research to support it.

Factors in favor of J.I. Peace being the daughter of William G. Peace.:

• The Peace family lived in Bartow County in 1870.
• In 1880 a Thomas Fowler, wife Jemima, and daughter Martha are living in Etowah County, Alabama. Jemima is the appropriate age to be Jemima Peace. Martha is age 5 (remember that marriage was 1874 and Martha was born about 1875). Note: Jemima's relationship to Thomas isn't clear on the census, looking carefully you can see "wife" is written over "[illegible] law."
• Two families later in 1880 is J.T. Piece and wife Sarah. I believe this is Joshua Thomas Pece, a son of William G. Peace and Hessie Rountree.
• Enumerated after J.T. Piece is William S. Allen with wife Susannah and son Lewis. I believe this is actually William Pickett Allen and wife Susan Peace, daughter of William G. Peace and Hessie Rountree.
• Also living in Etowah County, Alabama in 1880 is R. [Rabe] B. Peace, son of William and Hessie.
• I've yet to find any information on Jemima once she disappears from William G. Peace's household. No one seems to descend from her or know what happened to her.

Conflicting information:

• The woman married was "J.I." and William G. Peace's daughter appears to be Jemima B. I have no explanation other than the common name errors you see (I don't know what the "B" or "I" stand for).
• I have found people with the daughter Martha in their family tree. So far I have not seen a connection to the Peace family from that direction but I'm also not positive that Martha is the same as the girl in the 1880 census (that's the problem with all those little hints that pop-up, people take them and then "everyone" shows the same information).

Points related to the 1880 family (and the Fowler-Peace marriage) being the parents of my Susie (Fowler) Miller.

• The 1880 Alabama residence agrees with the circa 1880 birth of Susie in Alabama.
• There is no daughter that could be my Susie in 1880. However, I've seen her birth range from 1879 to 1881 so that's not a deal breaker. She was supposedly an orphan so did she really know her birth date/year?
• Susie was supposedly an orphan and this couple disappears after 1880 (remember, I haven't done a lot of research so that really just means they aren't found in the 1900 census). Susie married in 1897 so that agrees.
• Susie was allegedly raised by her sister and there's the older "sister" Martha. However, the names I heard were Clara or Betty.

So there are the pros and cons of fitting my great-aunt's Peace DNA matches in with what I know of Susie (Fowler) Miller and this one Fowler-Peace marriage.

Finally, I didn't just find this marriage and try to make things fit. My (paternal) great-aunt's test started with just a few Peace matches (coincidentally, my mother's family had Peaces so I noticed the surname and then they really were all related to each other).

Most of the matches are through AncestryDNA so there isn't a lot to work with (I've contacted some matches but at this point, it's so many, I just haven't had time to contact them all, email me if you're one of those matches! dna-matches at jpgenealogy dot com). 

With what I had, I determined the closest matches mainly descended from William G. Peace with some descending from John N. Peace, both are sons of Major Peace. As I got more matches, more close matches descended from William and the more distant from John. 

I now have also found some matches that are supposedly from Hessie's Rountree family (i.e. they aren't just "Rountrees" they claim to descend from her father or grandfather's family).

This is still a work in progress but so far nothing has upset the apple cart of my theory that my Susie (Fowler) Miller is the daughter of Jemima Peace, daughter of William G. Peace and Hessie Rountree. Feel free to burst my bubble. I only like identifying my ancestors, not the ancestors of someone of the same name.

Fowler, Emily Susan c. 1880-1943 AL>GA

Susie Fowler is my great-great-grandmother and the first of a long line of female brick walls in my Miller line. Every wife of a Miller in my line is a brick wall!

She married Thomas R. Miller 7 Sep 1897 in Gordon County, Georgia. Census records show she was born in Alabama but that is all I know about her prior to her marriage.

According to her daughter, she was an orphan and was raised by her sister. Unfortunately, this daughter wasn't able to give very clear details.

From two different conversations with her I was told the sister was named Clara and I was told the sister was named Betty.

My great-aunt thinks the sister never married but I have been unable to identify a potential sister in census records. UPDATE: Turns out my great-aunt had assumed her grandfather's sister was her grandmother's sister---she didn't actually have any information about her great-aunt.

Also, my great-great-aunt (the daughter of Susie) said her oldest brother was named for her grandfather Fowler. Her oldest brother was Wilburn Auburn. Once again, I haven't been able to identify a clear candidate in the census (there is only one potential Wilburn in the 1880 census but his family is not a clear match).

So far I have not been able to identify Susie's death certificate in available indexes. Unfortunatley, Susie supposedly died in Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta so it's not very practical to walk into the local courthouse and ask for a careful search.

The funeral home (Kenemer & Combs) in charge of Susie's burial is no longer in operation, either. I have been working on tracking down possible companies that might have their records, though. If you know where these records are, please let me know.

The obituary above comes from a newspaper clipping index card file found at the Calhoun-Gordon Co. Library in Calhoun, Georgia. UPDATE: These are now available online for free, http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/gordonobits/pdfs/gco-lm-00003838.pdf. The above obituary is attributed to the County News, there was also an obit in the Calhoun Times, the information was essentially the same, this one is more specific about her death.

UPDATE: I've been using my great-aunt's autosomal DNA for every family problem I can. There are no clear Fowler leads (there are some vague Fowler leads) but something interesting has happened. My great-aunt has dozens of matches to one Peace family. It appears these matches belong to her maternal side (the Miller-Fowler side).

With so many matches, I've been able to estimate that the Peace ancestor could be Susie's mother or a grandparent. To keep this entry from becoming confusing, read about possible parents for Susie in this post.

If you have any information about Susie please post a comment.

Godfrey, William c.1817-1880 SC>GA

Only recently did I find a clue to William's parents. William came to Gilmer Co./Pickens Co., GA from Emanuel Co., GA. It appears from this he is not related to the other Godfreys in Pickens Co., GA. William arrived in Pickens Co., GA about 1842. He can be found in deed and tax records for Emanuel Co., GA in 1840 and 1841.

He does not appear in the 1840 census in Emanuel Co., GA. There is a Martha Godfrey in Emanuel Co., GA with a man in the household of the correct age to be William and she (the only female and only other person in the household) is of an age to be his mother. Prior census records show an Enoch Godfrey that could be William's father and Martha's husband.

This information is all new to me and is all that indicates William could be the son of Enoch and Martha. So far there has not been time for further research. A quick search online showed other Enoch Godfreys in the same part of GA but nothing that could tie anyone to William.

William Godfrey
b. SC c. 1817
m. Gilmer Co., GA 1850
d. Pickens Co., GA 1880