Dear Spinkses, Brames, Lloyds, etc.;
First, let me refresh your memory:
I am Albert H. Spinks (II), my father was Albert G. Spinks, and his father was Albert H. Spinks (I). The mother of Albert H. Spinks (I) was Mary Elizabeth Lloyd and her mother was Olive Spinks. (We are kin to Spinkses in two ways). Our connection to Olive Spinks has been known for years. However, my mother and father’s generation, for a long while, knew nothing about Olive’s parents.
Back in the 1950’s and 60’s my mother and her genealogy friends make a gallant effort to determine who Olive Spinks’s parents and grandparents were. Leader in that task was one Reverend Hiram Kennedy Douglass of Alabama who published a book in the 1960’s. In that book he documents that Olive’s parents were Raleigh Spinks and his wife Mary Pierce. Raleigh was son of Enoch Spinks who, back in the 1700’s came to the Deep River section of what is now Randolph County, NC.
I have recently re-read the Spinks section of Rev. Douglass’s book. It appears that he based his connection with Raleigh on two documents. One was the will of one Windsor Pierce, written in 1823 in Randolph Co., NC. In his will Windsor Pierce left money to daughter, "Marey Spinks." Absolutely nothing was said as to the identity of Mary’s husband. The second document was a Clarke Co., AL, court paper for the estate of one Alexander Spinks filed in 1823 by the administrator, Raleigh Spinks. At the bottom of the clerk’s copy in the courthouse are listed the brothers and sisters of Alexander and our Olive Spinks is included. Rev. Douglass reasoned that the administrator Raleigh was Alexander’s father and thus Olive’s father. I have seen items among Mother’s papers that she bought into this rationale. However, it was a big leap in reasoning based primarily on default rather that clear, pure, connection. Let’s not criticize our parents however; we are making similar genealogical decisions today, simply because there is no other obvious alternative.
So--several months ago I received e-mail from a Spinks descendant in Texas, Doris Barfield Sanders, who descended from Mississippi/Clarke Co., AL, Spinkses. Her line came thru John, brother of our Olive. Doris debates convincingly that Olive’s father was Lewis Spinks, brother of Raleigh, and that Mary Pierce married Lewis, not Raleigh. How about that? It revolutionary. It is almost like someone being told by his mother that his father was not who he had thought all the many years of his life
But Doris Sanders, and the rest of us, now have access to a document that was not known to Mother, Rev. Douglass, and their friends back in the 50’s and 60’s. Let’s re-visit Windsor Pierce’s estate. Windsor left the bulk of his estate, primarily land, to two spinster daughters. In 1859, after those two spinster daughters had passed away, their nieces and nephews, wanted to distribute the spinster sisters’ property. A suit was filed in Randolph County in which it was stated, "Molly [Mary] Pierce who intermarried with one Lewis Spinks, both of whom are dead." So the document states in ‘black and white’ that Mary married Lewis and not Raleigh, but it doesn’t prove that Olive was daughter of Lewis and Mary.
Let’s now go back to the Alexander Spinks estate in Clarke Co., AL. Doris Sanders believes that the administrator of the estate, Raleigh Spinks, was Alexander Spinks’s brother, not his fathers, and that the mother and father are Lewis and Mary (not mentioned in the estate papers). It admittedly is a big leap to change Olive’s father’s name based on what I have said so far. But the evidence doesn’t stop there.
In the early 1800’s Lewis Spinks was ever present in the records of Clarke Co., AL. It seems that he dedicated his life to God and was pastor and founder of many churches in the area. In addition some of the children listed in the Alexander Spinks papers have Pierce names. This give credence to Alexander’s mother as being a Pierce and the 1858 Randolph Co., NC, papers state that she is Mary Pierce wife of Lewis Spinks. Get the rationale?? We don’t find the same kind of information about Raleigh in Clark Co. What we do find can be attributed to Raleigh, son of Lewis.
In addition, Doris Sanders, has communicated in person and in mail with a number of Spinks and Pierce descendants who have family histories that tie the siblings of our Olive to Lewis Spinks. When considered as a whole it is quite convincing.
Consider the following except of a letter Doris received from a man living out from Seagrove, NC.
"Lewis Spinks married Mary (Molly) Pearse daughter of Windsor and Mary (Searcy) Pearce, and left the state.---In William Searcy, Sr, will he names daughter Mary Pearce and Granddaughter Mary (Molly) Pearce. I do not know who is coming up with the half truths but it needs checking. Rolly was well off in land and it seems that all the ones people want to be kin to."
And following is an except from a booklet written by one Marvin Spinks in 1962 titled ‘Descendants of Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Spinks, Cottonwood Community, Knox County, Texas.’
"This Enoch Spinks died in 1734. He had a son, Enoch Spinks, whose will is still on record in Randolph County, N. C. This one died 1772. He had a son, Lewis Spinks, who in the early 1800s moved from N. C. to Clarke County, Alabama. He had three sons, Enoch, Winsor, and JOHN SPINKS, my grandfather, who was a gunsmith at Thomasville, Alabama. We do not know the maiden name of his first wife, but to that union were born three daughters, and we have the name of only one, Anne, who was father’s half-sister."
We know all about the above Enoch, Windsor, and John. They are in the Alexander Spinks court records, along with Olive, etc. They are people that, in my old records, I have fathered by Raleigh.
The important point about the above two communications is that there is family history out there that bears out that Olive’s father was Lewis.
So-what happened to Raleigh, son of Enoch and brother of Lewis. It is now believed that he is Raleigh of Jones Co., GA. That Raleigh was known in Mother’s day but was rejected for some reason--he was ‘too young’ or something. It is now shaping up that Raleigh of Jones was son of Enoch and Amy, but not father of Olive.
In conclusion, I have accepted that Doris Sanders is correct in that Olive’s father is Lewis. But I am still looking for more evidence. One thing that would help would be to find both Mary’s and Lewis’s signatures on a deed record in Clarke Co., AL. It would prove that Lewis of Clarke married a Mary but that, in itself, would not likely prove that she was a Pierce. But it would help add to the evidence.
I am going to distribute this to anyone that I think might be interested and have an input to the subject. If you know of such a person, please forward it on to that person.
Al Spinks
June 27, 2004
3129 Sutton Place
Burlington, NC 27215
336-584-8134
aspinks3@triad.rr.com