Who was Sally Keaton? Determining Unique Identifiers for a Research Objective

Uniquely identifying a person who is only mentioned in three records can be challenging. The creation of a research objective requires that you identify the person uniquely in time and place. How then, do you define the research project?  I encountered this challenge when beginning a project to study Sally Keaton. The only records I have for her include a court order printed in a newspaper and two documents in William Keaton’s estate packet. The first is Archibald Keaton making an oath that several of his siblings resided outside of South Carolina. The second is a notice to absent heirs to appear for the division of William Keaton’s real estate.

Research Question

For this month’s 14-day Research Like a Pro (RLP) challenge, I wanted to work on the family of my fourth-great-grandmother, Lucinda Keaton. For day 1 of the challenge, I reviewed the Keaton family’s information and brainstormed possible research questions.

In one of my early RLP projects, I discovered Lucinda’s father, William Keaton. At the time, I also discovered that he had thirteen children who were heirs to his estate. Over the last several years, I’ve learned more and more about Lucinda’s siblings. The only child I haven’t been able to find anything about is Sally.

Sally and her husband were listed in William Keaton’s estate packet, but Sally’s husband’s surname is a bit difficult to decipher.  It looks like Ruvy.¹

A court order printed in The Pendleton Messenger lists the couples’ names as “Wm Rives & Sally his wife.”² So until now, I’ve just gone with Rives as their surname. The FamilySearch Family Tree and Ancestry Public Member trees have no further sources or information about Sarah and William Rives. One tree has her birth as “about 1801” in Anderson County, South Carolina, and her death in 1840, but no sources for this information.

So, my research question is – what happened to Sally Keaton and William? I want to know William’s surname, where they lived in 1830, since it was not South Carolina, and if they had children. I’d like to follow them both forward and backward in time, but I’d be happy with any identifying information putting them in a place and time beyond what I have in the newspaper and estate packet.

William’s Surname

For day 2 of the Research Like a Pro challenge, I needed to figure out better identifying information for Sally Keaton. I decided to start with determining her husband’s real surname.

When I acquired the images of William Keaton’s estate packet several years ago, I transcribed the entire thing. I quickly went through the pages that didn’t mention my ancestor, Lucinda, and used a lot of brackets indicating illegible words I didn’t feel like figuring out. Two of the images in the packet mention Sally. Both pages are in a messy hand and were challenging to transcribe. I had seen the newspaper article first, so when I got to Sally and her husband’s name, I didn’t take the time to figure out what the name actually said. I just transcribed the surname as Rives.

To help me form my unique identifiers for Sally, I studied the handwriting on one of the pages to help me get a better idea of William’s surname. Below is the page I studied – Archibald Keaton’s oath that some of William Keaton’s heirs lived outside of South Carolina, including Sally and her husband.

Anderson District, South Carolina, estate packets, no. 362, William Keaton, Proof that some defendants are absent, 2 August 1830, image 20; image online, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-V38V-JLYS : accessed 23 Jan 2024) digital film 8702522, image 238 of 802; citing Anderson County, South Carolina, estate papers packets, FHL microfilm 1572233.

In Kip Sperry’s book, Reading Early American Handwriting, he says that one of the most important principles in reading old handwriting is to compare.³

After briefly studying the penmanship, I thought the surname could be Rury rather than Rives. However, I looked even more carefully at the writer’s style, comparing various letters with the letters in the surname, and noticed that the writer added a short descender to his lowercase “s,” even in the middle of a word. At the top of the document, you can see this in the words Anderson, District, and Personally. The way he wrote the lowercase “s” makes it seem like these words are split into two words.

There are also instances of an “s” appearing at the end of a word, as in “makes” and James.” Each of these instances of the letter “s” helped me determine that the last letter of William’s surname is probably an “s” instead of a “y.”

It’s also possible that the last letter is a “y.” However, the other instances of a lowercase “y” on the page have a longer descender or tail with a slight thickening or possibly small loop at the end, as in “personally” and “Sally.”

In order to continue comparing letters in the surname with letters in other words, I needed to fix up my hurried transcription.

Fixing the Transcription

My original transcription skipped over some of the challenging words in this page from William’s estate. Here is my first transcription of image from William Keaton’s estate packet.

State of South Carolina}   Personally appeared
Anderson District}             Archibald Keaton
and makes oath that Abner Keaton-
Jesse Keaton  Reuben Keaton  James Keaton
Reuben Hannah, Ephraim Keaton  Andrew
Keaton  & Wm [Rives?] and Sally his wife reside
without the [hi?nity?] of this state all of whom are
entitled to a [diy?] [herecteor?] share of the [real?] estate
of Wm Keaton decd
Sworn & Subscribed
before me this 2nd August Archibald Keaton
1830 J.E. Reese, Not Pub
& J.U.I

After studying the first word that needed to be fixed, [hi?nity?], I realized it said “vicinity.” Next, I revisited the line “entitled to a [diy?] [herecteor?] share of the [real?] estate” and realized that the two words I couldn’t understand were actually one longer word with the writer’s odd way of forming “s” in the middle – “distributive.” The line should read: “entitled to a distributive share of the [real?] estate of Wm Keaton decd.”

The words vicinity and distributive are important. They are the only words on the page with a the letter “v.” Comparing these instances of the letter “v” with third to last letter in William’s surname leads me to believe it is also a “v.”

The uppercase “V” in “Vicinity” clearly comes to a point at the bottom. But the lowercase “v” in distributive had more of a curve at the bottom. The upstroke on the right side ascends a bit higher than the left side, and connects to the next letter at the top of the upstroke instead of exiting the letter by stroking down halfway, as shown in this letter v:

Lastly, I compared the strokes after the R to other words on the page. I noticed a distinct similarity between the notary’s signature and William’s surname. They both appear to have begun with “Ree.” The notary’s surname was Reese. And now that I’ve reviewed the handwriting carefully, I believe William’s surname is Reeves!

Lack of Identifying Dates

Now that I have Sally’s married name, I need an estimate for her birth date and place. I don’t have any dates for William or Sally – no birth, marriage, or death dates – also, no residence location except that in 1830, they did not reside in South Carolina. I can say that they were married before 1830, when the estate papers named them as “Wm Reeves and Sally his wife.” But what else do I have? I reviewed my documentation for William Keaton. He appeared on every census from 1790-1820 in Pendleton District, South Carolina.

I reviewed the birth years and tick marks on the censuses. The 1790 census shows that William had 5 males under 10.⁴ It wasn’t until the 1800 census that any daughters were listed – two females under age 10.⁵ The 1810 census shows two females under 10 and two females 10-15.⁶ All four of his daughters were born between 1790-1810.

From my other records, I knew that Lucinda Keaton was born in 1805. Mariah was born in 1801, and Mary “Polly” Keaton was born in 1797. That left Sally to be one of the older daughters, born between 1795-1800.

In William Keaton’s estate file, only one page mentions all of William Keaton’s heirs – a notice to the the heirs to appear in court for distribution of William Keaton’s estate. The order of the heirs listed could be a clue to the order of their birth.

Anderson District, South Carolina, estate packets, no. 362, William Keaton, Notice to absent defendants to appear, 8 September 1830, image 22; image online, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-J38V-JLT6 : accessed 23 Jan 2024) digital film 8702522, image 240 of 802; citing Anderson County, South Carolina, estate papers packets, FHL microfilm 1572233.

The order listed corresponds somewhat to the birth years others have for the children in their family trees, or in other records, though many of the sons’ birthdates are not known and have been estimated by other researchers. It does seem that Abner was the eldest, and William was the youngest of the boys. And, the girls are in order, with Polly being the eldest, and Mariah and Lucinda being the youngest.

Abner Keaton b. 1775
Archibald Keaton b. 1793
Jesse Keaton b. 1786
John Keaton b. 1788
Reuben Keaton b. 1787
Ephraim Keaton b. 1789
Andrew Keaton b. 1782
James Keaton b. 1786
William Keaton b. 1803
Reuben Hannah & Polly his wife b. 1797
William Reeves & Sally his wife b. 17??
Wm Saddler & Mariah his wife b. 1801
George Welch & Lucindrilla b. 1805

With Sally being listed after Polly, it seems likely that she was born after Polly, probably around 1799.

As for Sally’s birthplace, I’m going to assume that she was born in Pendleton District, South Carolina, since that’s where her father resided from 1790-1820.

Objective

Now that I have some better identifying information for Sally Keaton, I’m ready to write a research objective for the short project I’m doing for the 14-day challenge.

My final objective is: Identify the 1830 residence of Sally (Keaton) Reeves, who was born about 1799 in Pendleton District, South Carolina, to William Keaton and Katy Gresham, and married William Reeves before 1830. Sally and William lived outside of South Carolina in 1830 when William Keaton’s estate was distributed.

This is a very specific and focused question. If I’m able to answer it quickly, I might continue to search more information to answer my overarching research question – what happened to Sally Keaton? I’d eventually like to trace her forward and find out if she had children, and learn when she died.

Further Reading

Would you like to take our 14-day Research Like a Pro challenge? You can do so on your own with our workbook here: https://familylocket.com/product-tag/workbook/

To purchase a copy of Kip Sperry’s book, follow this affiliate link to Amazon: Reading Early American Handwriting.

1. Anderson District, South Carolina, estate packets, no. 362, William Keaton, Proof that some defendants are absent, 2 August 1830, image 20; image online, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-V38V-JLYS : accessed 23 Jan 2024) digital film 8702522, image 238 of 802; citing Anderson County, South Carolina, estate papers packets, FHL microfilm 1572233.
2. “South Carolina, Anderson District: Archibald Keaton applicant, vs. Abner Keaton et al. defendants,” Pendleton (South Carolina) Messenger, 24 Nov 1830, p. 3, col. 5; database with images, Genealogy Bank (https://www.genealogybank.com/nbshare/AC01160923184419084311706037237 : accessed 1 May 2018).
3. Kip Sperry, Reading Early American Handwriting (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co. Inc, 1998), 7.
4. 1790 U.S. census, Pendleton District, South Carolina, population schedule, p. 13, William Keetan; database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/391599:5058 : accessed 23 January 2024); citing NARA microfilm publication M637, roll 11.
5. 1800 U.S. census, Pendleton District, South Carolina, population schedule, p. 154, William Keaton; database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/496380:7590 : accessed 23 January 2024); citing NARA microfilm publication M32, roll 50.
6. 1810 U.S. census, Pendleton District, South Carolina, population schedule, p. 247, Wm Keyton; database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/590300:7613 : accessed 23 January 2024); citing NARA microfilm publication M252, roll 61.