Death comes quickly

Lucretia Stokes was born in North Carolina and lived a long life. She was 72 yrs, 9 mos, and 11 days old when she died in 1814 in Lincoln County Georgia.

The last couple of those years must have been difficult. Her daughter, two sons and husband all died in less than two years.

Daughter Jane Stokes Ware, wife of Robert Ware died May 19, 1808. Husband William Stokes died December 12, 1810. Sons Richard Henry Stokes died June 03, 1812 and Thomas Stokes died on May 21, 1813.

They were all buried in the Stokes Family Cemetery off Jones Chapel Rd in rural Lincoln County.

I came across Jane Stokes doing research on my Green family. She was married to Robert Ware who later moved to Montgomery County AL. After Jane died he married Judith Anthony, the widow of William Green. I have matched a couple of her descendants on dna testing.

A nice find

I was researching the Charles D. Jones family from Cortez, Florida recently and found they are related in a couple ways. Capt. Charles D Jones who was born in 1856 in Carteret County NC was married to Alice Adele Bishop who was the daughter of my 3rd cousin Asa Bishop from Alabama.

Charles Jone's brother, David Reid Jones was married to Sophronia Pigott Fulford who was the half sister of my great grandfather William Thomas Fulford.

Both of those finds were interesting but one that was better was finding a photo of James Gilbert Jones, the son of Charles and Alice taken in 1919.

Ancestry.com just put old passport applications online and one that James completed as a new Merchant Marine in 1919 was there. It included his application and statements from his parents and grandmother, Martha Ann Andress Bishop to document where and when he was born. On the back of the application was this photo. I doubt there are many if any photos of him from this period.

I don't know much about him. He was listed as a Merchant Marine on the 1930 census and a Cook on the Florida 1945 census. He died in 1976 and as far as I know he never married or had children. So this photo, from 90 years ago, may be the only one of him still around.

Cypress Lawn

I have written several times about Captain William Hawkins Fulford, a distant cousin who settled what is now North Miami Beach, Florida just before the end of the 19th Century. I had researched him and his family for several years before proving the family connection. After Capt. Fulford died his wife moved to California to live with their son but she soon died herself.

Their only son was a glass salesman and as far as I know never had any children. He was married in 1888 to Mina Louise Norman in New York, NY but I don't know what happened to his wife. She disappeared after the 1910 census in California.

William Gilbert Fulford died on May 5, 1919 in San Francisco, CA just a couple years after his parents. I suspect he was interested in family history himself since he joined the Sons of the American Revolution.

I located the record of his death several years ago but only recently found a funeral home record that was put online as part of the collection at the Mormon Church web page Family Search.

According to the Halsted Funeral Home record he died of a heart attack in route to Harbor Hospital and was buried at Cypress Lawn Cemetery, in what is now San Mateo County CA. I wanted to close the loop on this family and also find out if his wife was buried next to him so I asked a Findagrave volunteer to take a photo of the grave marker. Unfortunately they couldn't find it.


The cemetery can't find a record of his burial and they say he was cremated and returned to the funeral home. The funeral home said he was buried in the cemetery. At that time, if his wife had already died and he had no children or relatives in the area then being cremated would make sense. If she was still alive then I would think he would have been buried. Of course, maybe he just wanted his ashes scattered in the Ocean. He grew up around the water and his family for several generations made their living on it.

John Green, where are you?

My great great grandfather was named John Green. He was born about 1820 in South Carolina or was it North Carolina? The only record I have found of him was the 1860 census in Taylor County Florida.

It said he was born in South Carolina but his children on occasion said he was born in North. He didn't appear on the 1870 census and his wife, Sarah Strickland Green was shown as a widow.

He lived for a while in Georgia as his two older children were born there, but since the births were between the 1850-60 census I don't know if he was there in 1850 or not. I haven't found any John Green on the 1850 census that matched him.

Since he died between 1860 and 70 you would suspect it was connected to that widow maker we call the War Between the States. I found several John Greens who enlisted in either the CSA or Union Army from Florida but have slowly ruled them out.

The latest was one John Green who enlisted in the 2nd Florida Calvary of the Union Army. Several Taylor County men enlisted in the 2nd, including one of my other ancestors.

The record showed this John Green enlisted on April 16, 1864 at Fort Myers, Florida but died of disease on June 6, 1865. There was a record of a pension being claimed by his children but none of the records I found listed their names.


I hate having to pay for genealogy research. Some of my family would say it is because I am cheap. I would say it is because I hate to pay to obtain my history. If it is ours, I think we should have access.

In any event, after wondering about this for several years I decided to pay the money for a copy of the pension file. The National Archives charges a flat $25 for the basic file, which is just the application. The fee is higher for the complete correspondence file.

I requested this one online several months ago and just received it. It shows that John Green died of "chronic diarrhea" at the Cedar Keys, Florida hospital on June 6th. That would have to be a terrible death but probably no more than most of the other diseases that took many of the casualties of this war.

The pension application listed the name of his daughter, Florida Green and her date of birth as January 1, 1860. Her mother's maiden name is shown as Jane Houston. This is not my family but at least it answered the question and I can look elsewhere.

I looked for Jane and Florida Green on subsequent census records but didn't find them. I've put copies of the pension application here in case it helps someone else.