When my research into Lucy and Richard Gregory began, we initially focused on Richard. Who was he and where did he come from? There were Gregory families in the Holmes County, Mississippi (and Carroll and Attala), area, where Lucy and Richard died, but none could be found to lead to this Richard.
Other researchers had led to a Richard Gregory from McMinn County, Tennessee, but that didn’t make any sense considering the death and burial records documenting his residence in Holmes County, Mississippi. And, there was an “ID card” (the sort of card included with a wallet purchase in the early 20th century) found in the bible passed to her grandson by Pearl Gregory, that indicated an address in Whaley, Mississippi. However, there were not — and to date, still have not — been located any census records that can definitively be attributed to Lucy or Richard in the 1880 or 1900 US Federal census records.
A Tennessee search for Richard, however, finally uncovered the family of Richard Gregory and Rebecca Jane Martin in Bell’s Depot, Haywood County, Tennessee. This area was on the border of what would become Crockett, Tennessee. The connection with the Mississippi Richard was confirmed by newspaper accounts of Richard’s sister, Carrie, visiting from California; as well as Richard’s daughter, Jessie, who went to California and apparently did her nurses training there while residing with Richard’s brother Amzi Paul. The usage of Richard’s siblings’ names for his own children was also quite evident: John Edward, (Margaret) Jane, Carrie, Paul and Amzi combined to Paul Amzi.
Richard’s family was very interesting to trace, full of lore and movement and tragedy. They were enslavers in Tennessee and Virginia, to whom DNA matches can yet be attributed (particularly his grandfather, Edward Gregory, 1777-1842). Additionally, it appears Richard the elder fathered at least one child outside of his marriage in the Crockett County area, involving the widowed America Nancy Bryan, in about 1863. The study of that match will be a different story stream.
But, how and why did young Richard remove from Tennessee to Mississippi? As his Tennessee and Mississippi residences were on railroad lines, it is supposed that he left (third son in a family of a dozen or so children) to make his own way following the death of the elder Richard by March of 1877.
It is frustrating, yet, that he cannot be located in the 1880 census, nor the 1900 census, although we have newspaper accounts (in addition to the wallet card) of his residence in the northwest corner of Carroll County, along the border with Leflore County, during the early 1900s, where he farmed the Delta.
By about 1920, the Lucy and Richard Gregory family had removed from Whaley to Durant, in Holmes County, Mississippi, where they also farmed, and there they resided until their deaths: Richard in 1934, and Lucy in 1940.
At least early documentation can be located to connect the younger Richard to his family: he is listed with them in the 1860 and 1870 censuses; he is referred to by name in property transactions of his mother’s following the elder Richard’s death. Years later, this family was also confirmed to be the younger Richard’s through autosomal DNA testing with descendants of his siblings.
For Lucy, however, there is nothing. She is our Topsy, who, when asked in Uncle Tom’s Cabin who made her or where she came from, simply replies, “I ‘spect I grow’d.” Lucy just “growed” into a married woman, and resident of Carroll County, Mississippi, in the 1910 census, pictured below, which is the earliest documentary evidence of Lucy’s existence we have been able to locate:
Source Citation: Year: 1910; Census Place: Beat 2, Carroll, Mississippi; Roll: T624_734; Page: 8A; Enumeration District: 0029; FHL microfilm: 1374747
In 2013, Lucy’s death certificate was located and a certified copy obtained, hoping it contained clues as to her family of origin and birth. Sadly, however, the informant (her daughter, Ida Gregory Baird), offered no such information. It was especially troubling to find Lucy did not carry even her own name into death; the certificate had been filed under “Mrs Richard Gregory.”
So, in 2016, we turned to the newly-popular and financially available autosomal DNA testing to assist in our search for Lucy. At the time of this writing (August 2026), the quest continues.
The original results
At the time descendant DNA results were received, Ancestry still had “Circles” and “New Ancestor Discoveries.” Lucy’s great-grandson had circles related to an “Abner Beach” of Attala County, Mississippi, ca. 1866, as well as the Daniel Downs and Mary Melissa Gaddy couple, also of Attala County, Mississippi, who appeared in “New Ancestor Discoveries.”
The only clues we had regarding Lucy to-date were (1) the birthplace of Vaiden, Mississippi (located in southeastern Carroll County, very near the Carroll/Attala county line); (2) the off-hand comment from a granddaughter, since deceased, that, “Grandmother was adopted. We’ll never know her family;” and (3) references by children and grandchildren, that Lucy was a Hart (on daughters’ death certificates/Social Security applications), or Bell(e), or Love (oral recollections by granddaughters), when she married Richard Gregory.
Since there was was no known connection to the maternal great-grandfather’s family from the unknowns circled in the New Ancestors Discoveries revealed, this is where our initial research began.
“Quick and dirty” research notes from 2016 indicated:
- Mary Melissa Gaddy, 1834-1899, was the daughter of Mary Sellers (1789-1892) and Thos. Gaddy (1789-1850). She was born in Georgia, and died in Attala County, Mississippi. Her gravemarker at Poplar Springs Cemetery in Carrollton, Carroll County, Mississippi, is titled “Mary J Downs” on a conjoined monument with,
- Daniel D Downs, whose marker provides 17 Dec 1827-7 Feb 1898. In 1850, Daniel is found with family #29 in the Shallowford District of Dekalb County, Georgia, which is headed by “James Deas,” 67, and Rachel [Deas], 51.1 A marriage record between Daniel and Mary Melissa was found in Dekalb County, Georgia, indicating they were married in 1 Jan 1851.
- Josiah Downs was often confused with Shelly Downs, who was likely a cousin, and naming conventions often included “Chenola” or “Shenola.” Josiah lived from approximately 1792-1830 in Georgia. I noted at the time, “f/o [father of] Daniel?”
- Rachel Willis lived 1799-1850, in Georgia. She had been married to a Downs, and may be the mother of Daniel.
I began creating trees for the Daniel Downs/Mary Melissa Gaddy family revealed in the New Ancestor Discoveries. Indeed, the evidence pointed to Rachel Willis being Daniel’s mother: in 1850, it is she, under the name Rachel Deas [Dees] with younger Dees children and Daniel Downs, reported in the census record.
By 1860, Rachel is widowed again, and residing with her youngest child, David Dees, her daughter Cynthia, and Cynthia’s husband Benjamin Latimer, along with their infant daughter Rachel, in Milton County, Georgia, enumerated on 17 July 1860 as household nine. Their immediate neighbors include the George Steen (age 65) family at household eight, and the Philip S Gaddy (35) family at household seven.2 The post office designation on these pages is difficult to interpret, but is likely Roswell. To further cement the connection, young David Dees remains in Georgia after the death of Rachel as evidenced in the 1870 census, but by the birth of his child Sarah Annie, he and his family have relocated to Attala County, Mississippi, where their neighbors include the Steen families they knew in Georgia.
All the searching through indexed databases, and manually searching the digitized census images for Attala County during the pertinent period, disclose no Lucy among these families, nor many females at all who can’t be traced forward and assigned elsewhere.
So, I searched “Lucy” in Attala and Carroll counties. I found a “Lucy Love” for whom there is no designation or hint of being adopted, but who also disappears from records about the time we expect Richard and Lucy got together. I gathered the information I could, created notes and a tree, and set off to learn if we could find where this Lucy was ca. 1897, when “our” Lucy had her first child with Richard Gregory.
By June 2016, between the Downs, Steen, and Fee families — and the multitudinous shared DNA test results I can assign to their descendants — I’m armed with nearly 100 pages of tree diagramming, and we head to Mississippi on a courthouse and cemetery search.
It was not very successful.
We met with an attorney in Attala who relayed stories about the Samuel Hart who was his ancestor, but was unaware of any relative named Lucy. Armed with our own research (and a willingness to drive all the roads in the Delta!), we learned the young Miss Hart had died in 1893. While her father’s headstone photo had been shared on Find-a-Grave, there were no photos of the sides of the small obelisk we located in the middle of a field near Itta Bena, Mississippi. On the south side of the obelisk was Lucy’s memorial: born 22 Dec 1870 and died 8 Jan 1893.
Several other (15) young-lady-Hart monuments were also documented, eliminating all our initial list from combing through the Attala and Carroll county censuses. Hart records in Carroll County were of no assistance, though we did learn a lot (and have created a Hart tree available on Ancestry), about D L Hart of Carroll County.
Searches at the Attala county courthouse for adoption, guardian, or any sort of probate, chancery, or deed records that might help us trace Lucy were also fruitless, due in part, at least, to three courthouse fires.
- July 28, 1858: The first and most destructive fire completely burned down the courthouse. Nearly all early county records prior to this date were lost.
- July 1860: A second fire struck the replacement building, though historical accounts note that no major county records were lost during this incident.
- July 26, 1896: A third devastating fire destroyed the structure that had survived the Civil War. This blaze resulted in the loss of additional records, including specific county marriage records.
We drove the roads through northeast Attala County – Rocky Point, Hesterville, Zilpha, Mitchells Mills, Shady Grove, Pilgrims Rest, and Liberty Chapel. We viewed the lands in T 16 N, R 7 E, attributed to Daniel Downs and relations; and, drove by the lands in R 8 E owned, at his death, by Abner Beach. We visited and paid our respect at the graves of George Steen and William Steen, who were murdered on their return to their home in Attala from the courthouse at Vaiden, Carroll County.
It is likely debatable whether William and George were, indeed, “peaceable and inoffensive men.” There is evidence in the diary of Attala Judge Jason Niles that Bill Steen had been involved with bushwhackers; and, family lore regarding the murders relates an ongoing issue between the young George and his wife (Mary E Gaston) and neighboring Madison Teat. Madison Teat and his brother-in-law Andrew Scott were the murder suspects. Scott was reportedly killed during apprehension, and while Teat was swiftly convicted in Montgomery County and scheduled for hanging, his continued appeals resulted in a pardon by the Governor in February 1882 with alleged support from members of the community so that he could care for his widowed mother and sister-in-law. Madison was dead by the 1900 census.
More neighbor connections
Why would we stop at the burial place of William Steen? The widow of William Steen was Mary Jane Downs, a sister of Daniel.
Footnotes
- Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.
Original data: Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M432, 1009 rolls); Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29; National Archives, Washington, D.C. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8054/images/4193236-00345?pId=18602169 last accessed 6 Aug 2026. ↩︎ - Ancestry.com. 1860 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.
Original data: 1860 U.S. census, population schedule. NARA microfilm publication M653, 1,438 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7667/images/4212562_00096?pId=11463909, et seq. last accessed 6 Aug 2026. ↩︎