Mystery Monday: Who Are the Parents of (James) Steven Evans and Laura Ann Scruggs?

Many months ago – perhaps midway through the year - one of my Alabama cousins reached out to ask if I had learned anything about the parents of our great-great- grandparents, (James) Steven Evans* and Laura Ann Scruggs. Unfortunately, my answer at the time was “No.” When I’d been focusing on that branch, I’d really been focusing on their children, including her great-grandmother Jannie Mae and my great-grandfather Steve/Theodore. I was tracing across and down, rather than up. And if you’ve been hanging around the blog for a bit, you know that for the past few years, I’ve really been focused on my maternal line, rather than my paternal – I thought I was working on a quick research project, lol.

But, well, you know what happened next…

For a couple of months straight, every evening and weekend that my brain was able to handle it – and a few PTO days for good measure – I dug into this question. Somewhat obsessively, truth be told. Neither my cousin, her mom, nor I had any oral history on our 3^rd great-grandparents, nor any family documents that named them. I did have a copy of their marriage certificate and marriage license application and return, but neither of these included the names of their parents. So this really has been a “let the research lead” situation.

But, I should say, I wasn’t starting from scratch. We did know where (James) Steven and Laura Ann (Scruggs) Evans were living with their family in 1910: Dooley (aka Beat 8), Montgomery County, a rural area just southeast of the city of Montgomery.

The household of (James) Steven Evans in the 1910 Census.

This gave me a good starting point both to look for other households that shared their surnames in 1910 and also to see if I could find the two of them in households with their parents a decade earlier in 1900, or even earlier. And it’s not particularly hard to find both an Evans-ish household that has an age-appropriate Steve in it and a Scruggs-adjacent household that has an age-appropriate Laura in it.

Here's a "Scriggs" family in the 1900 Federal Census for Dooley, Alabama that includes a 17-year-old named Laura, who is single. The age is a near-match to the Laura in the 1910 Census above - only 2 years apart. For a time when births still weren't necessarily well documented, this isn't unusual for census records for the same person. So, promising...

She's the daughter of a woman named Eliza Scriggs. It's not Scruggs, but, close. And, if you look just a few households down the page, you'll see a household headed by a Danial and Jannette Evans. Yep, promising...

And here's a household in Dooley, Alabama in the 1880 Federal Census, featuring a 2-year-old Steve "Ivins". That age puts him well-within the range of the man I know to be my 2x-great-grandfather.

 

He's the son of the head of household, but you can't see who that is, because the household is split over two pages. Here's the rest of that household, from the previous page:

Who are the parents in this family? That's right: Daniel and Genett Ivins. Sound familiar?

But, absent any supporting evidence, could I be sure these were the right people? The search for more info was on!

So, coming up are (at least) three additional posts:

• one – or more – on my research into  (James) Steven Evans’ parentage,
• at least one on the same for Laura Ann,
• and - just for kicks, because it may seem like I am very confidently typing “Scruggs” as Laura Ann’s maiden name, but let me tell you, with the records I initially had, I was not entirely certain – I think I’ll do one just on the many ways her name has appeared across the records!

*And I should probably also mention why I am writing my 2x great-grandfather’s name as (James) Steven Evans. My cousin’s mother, who I have had the great (and fun) privilege of hanging out with a couple of times in Alabama, was raised by her grandmother, one of the daughters of (James) Steven and Laura Ann. She recalls that he actually went by the name “James.” However, none of the documents I’ve found for him use this name – only some version of Steve/Steven. Was James a first name he never used on official documents? Was it his middle name? Was it a nickname? I don’t know! And, honestly, two of his sons – William Marshall Evans and James Henry Evans - switched between their first and middle names over the course of their lives. So, maybe he set the precedent and it just can’t be traced through documents. Who knows? There’s always mysteries inside mysteries.

That’s where I’ll end this Mystery Monday post, but stay tuned for a few connected ones, hopefully with a nice clean summary tying them up with a bow at the end. A girl can hope, right?

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Do you know something about the parents of (James) Steven Evans and Laura Ann Scruggs? Drop me a note in the comments below!