Mystery Monday: Is This When Solomon Scott Passed Away?

Sometimes in my random pokings around in the genealogical corners of the internet, I get lucky. I wander along random paths, checking out new - or new-to-me - record sets, typing in a name here or there just for kicks, and then, voila! I find something interesting.

That’s how I ended up in the Georgia, County Voter Registrations, 1856-1909 record set on FamilySearch.org. And that’s how I may have discovered when my 4x Great-Grandfather Solomon Scott (Scoatney’s father) passed away. 

The state of Georgia and its counties did not start regularly registering deaths until 1919. Some of the larger cities started before then, but for the most part, if you are looking for confirmation of a death, you have to look at other sources. Perhaps there’s something in a newspaper, estate or probate records at the county courthouse, a headstone in a cemetery, or an entry in a family bible. Maybe something else. Point is, you really have to look. Especially when you’re researching the formerly enslaved, especially when they are still living in the rural 19^th century South. And when you’re doing it from many states and hundreds of miles away, it’s even more of a challenge! So, while my heart chooses to believe that anything is possible, I knew – and know – that history means it will be much harder to find my people in those circumstances.  

Here’s what I knew about Solomon Scott:

• Per the 1870 and 1880 censuses, he was born about 1820, in Georgia. 
• In 1870, he, his first(?) wife Cherry, and their kids are living in Sparta, Hancock County, GA. 
• In 1872, he marries Nellie Little in Putnam County, GA. 
• From 1874-1878, he and oldest son Fed are both paying taxes in Militia District 114, Hancock County, GA. 
• From 1879-1886, he and Fed are both paying taxes in Washington County, the next county down from Hancock. And in 1880, he, wife Nellie, and their combined children are listed there in the census. 
• In 1900 (the year of the next fully extant federal census), his wife Nellie is listed as a widow and is living with their son John and Solomon’s son Fed in Militia District 114, Hancock County, GA.

Now, it’s not unheard of for couples to separate and for the woman to refer to herself as widowed rather than separated or divorced, or as someone whose husband has left her. But I can’t find Solomon – who at this point would be 80 years old – living on his own anywhere nearby or in the households of any of his children whose locations I know of in 1900. Borden is at Atlanta Baptist College, Lula is at Spelman Seminary, Scoatney is married and in Burke County, and Masonia is married and in the next household down from Nellie, Fed, and John on the census.  

Which brings me back to poking around in the genealogical corners of the internet, and that Georgia, County Voter Registrations, 1856-1909 record set on FamilySearch.org.

The database is an artificially created one, where FamilySearch combined a variety of voter registrations records from a variety of different localities into one record set. And within it are voters lists from the Hancock County, GA Court of the Ordinary from 1895-1898, and 1900. I didn’t know any of that, though – I just typed Fed Scott’s name into the search box and clicked “enter.” To my excitement, five hits came up! And when I began clicking them, I saw – to my even greater excitement – that in addition to this Fed Scott living in a place local to my Fed Scott (Militia District 114, Hancock County), and being around the right age (my Fed Scott was born between 1846 and 1852 and this one was 50 years old in the late 1890s), directly above or below him each time was a man named Solomon Scott!

Until, very quickly, he wasn’t.  And then, I saw the explanation:

Scott, Solomon. Colored. 70. 114^th District. Dead.

Fed, at the bottom of the previous page, is very much alive.

In fact, here’s what happens if you put the records in order.

	Fed	Solomon
October 1895	Listed	Listed
October 1896	Listed	Listed
October 1896	Listed	Dead
November 1896	Listed	Not Listed
December 1896	Listed	Not Listed
September 1897	Not Listed	Not Listed
September 1897	Not Listed	Not Listed

Note that the two October lists are both dated the 6th of the month. Likewise, the September 1897 lists are both dated the 6th of the month. However, these are not accidental duplicate scans of the original documents - they are different creations from the same dates.

So, if you’re like me, you have two sets of questions: 

1. What exactly are these voter lists? And why were they created?
2. Why are there two lists for October 1896? And why does only one list Solomon as dead?

My best answers are as follows: 

1. What exactly are these voter lists? And why were they created?

According to The Code of the State of Georgia, Adopted December 15, 1895, in preparation for upcoming elections, the local tax collector was to keep a book in which to allow potential voters to take an oath and register themselves to vote. Meanwhile, the tax collector, along with the ordinary and the clerk of the local superior court, also created a list of people who were disqualified for a variety of reasons. Both lists were then provided to three “upright and intelligent citizens” of the county who served as county registrars, and these three individuals reconciled the two lists to create a final list of registered voters. That’s what these books appear to be.

 

2. Why are there two lists for October 1896? And why does only one list Solomon as dead?

 

According to the same Code, the registrars were to give one or more copies of the lists to the elections managers for each voting precinct, meaning multiple copies might be made. (These copies would all later be returned to the office of the ordinary.) As for why only one lists Solomon as dead? Frankly, I don’t know. That notation is written in the same hand as the rest of the info on the page, so I don’t think it was written by an election manager, unless the election manager was the registrar (or registrar’s clerk) who compiled the list of registered voters.

Wouldn’t it be nice if I just had a certificate of death?

And here’s a complicating factor: In 1927, when James Solomon Scott – Solomon’s son - passes away, his obituary states the following: “He leaves to mourn their loss a wife, Sarah, and two children, a father, two brothers and three sisters.”

The Advocate (Portland, OR), 14 May 1927, P4. Historic Oregon Newspapers, courtesy of University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR.

What?! His father, our Solomon Scott, would be about 107 years old. Not impossible, but definitely getting towards the outer limits of probable. And I’ve come across no other evidence of Solomon being alive – not in the 1910 census, nor the 1920. So who submitted this information for the obituary? Was it just an error? Or is there something to this?

That’s one reason why I’m still keeping this in my mystery file. I’ll mark his date of death as likely between October 1895 and October 1896. But I’ll be keeping an eye out for conflicting information - I haven't turned over every stone yet - and I will update my info accordingly if or when I find it.  

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Do you know anything about Solomon Scott’s date of death? (Or circumstances, cause, location, etc.?) I am all ears! Know more about those voter registration books? I’m ready to learn! Drop your comments below!