CORRECTION: CHOTANKERS
(THE BOOK)

IS WRONG!

Getting the record right isn't easy but very important

In Chotankers: A Family History (1982), the relationship of the descendants of George Foote -- to be referred to as George Foote, Sr. -- who first married Margaret Kincheloe and second married Nancy Williams, were presented as accurately as possible. Plus, I attempted to give a comprehensive list of primary and secondary sources to assist later researchers in confirming the information.

Since the publication of Chotankers, several correspondents have contributed details which require manuscript revisions in a second edition, currently being considered. Most of these corrections are for allied families and as yet no substantial problems in the Foote line itself have been discovered by other investigators.

However, as my own research continued during the past 13 years, I became aware of one place where descendants have been attributed to the wrong son of George Foote, Sr. of Chester District, South Carolina. I am reporting this mistake to assure that others don't repeat the same problem in their own documentation.

George Washington Foote, who married Elizabeth Scaife, and John W. Foote, who married Elizabeth Hancock, are sons of George Foote--to be referred to as George Foote, Jr.--who in 1784 married Lucretia Nance in Caswell County, North Carolina where the Footes lived before moving to Chester District. These two are no longer represented as sons of John Foote of Fairfield County, S.C. His children were all daughters by Isabella Means Foote and are listed in Chotankers, p. 144.

Before this correction, only two sons of George Foote, Jr. had been identified and traced successfully. They are William Foote and Kincheloe Foote--both originally moved with their parents to Harrison County, Indiana, but Kincheloe later lived in Henry County, Kentucky. Their only known sister, Martha Foote, who became the wife of Craven Lynn, also lived in Indiana. In both the 1850 and 1860 Indiana Census Records, Martha Foote Lynn proclaims South Carolina her state of birth, reporting her ages as 56 and 65.

Martha Foote Lynn's South Carolina birth, circa 1795, places her father's family in the state where her grandfather settled; previously, the only certain locales of George Foote, Jr. family's residency were North Carolina and Indiana, although a recently located, 1888 sketch of a grandson states that George, Jr. moved to Kentucky before settling in Harrison County, Indiana.

In that 1888 sketch of George Kincheloe Foote of Jackson, Tennessee, William Speer traced the family back to North Carolina and wrote that Judge Foote's father William had three brothers: Kincheloe, George, and John (Sketches_of Prominent_Tennesseans, Nashville, pp. 236-37, reprinted by Southern Historical Press, 1978). Since only the whereabouts of William and Kincheloe where previously known, it left the locations and movements of George and John still to be traced.

George Washington Foote and John W. Foote came to Chester County and settled near their grandfather, George Foote, Sr., their uncles--Newton, John, Gilson, William, James, Henry, Richard and Berryman and their aunts--Mary Foote Hart and Frances Foote Lyles. Later they moved their families to Alabama. George Washington Foote returned briefly from Alabama to Chester County to testify in a trial, and then moved his family to Georgia. John W. Foote later moved his family from Alabama to Texas. The movements of these two brothers were recounted in Chotankers.

Two sources contributed to the earlier incorrect conclusions which are now being finally straightened out. In a 1920's letter from Mrs. Elizabeth Foote Petree to William Angus Foote of Chester, she identified John Andrew Foote, her great grandfather, and George [Washington] Foote, her grandfather. The clue that her great grandfather was actually George Foote, Jr. (not John Foote which her family tradition says) comes from her description of her great grandfather's service in the Revolution. Of the sons of George Foote, Sr., George, Jr. is the only one credited with service in the Revolution and the documentation on this service is quite extensive, giving many family details (Chotankers, 1982, p. 126). Therefore, if her great grandfather served in the Revolution as she states, of the sons of George, Sr., he must be George Foote, Jr.

Also contributing to the error in Chotankers is the 1951 Kincheloe family history (L.D. McPherson, Kincheloe, McPherson and Related Families:Genealogies and Biographies, published by the author, p. 387). The author names one son of George Foote, Jr. as "George Kincheloe Foote". The inaccurate combining of two different brothers names prevented your researcher from fitting George Washington Foote correctly into the George Foote, Jr. family line. Probably, the Kincheloe family history error came about because--as mentioned above--a grandson of George Foote, Jr. did bear the name "George Kincheloe Foote". But, we are concerned with the generation before him--with his uncles.

Although I don't expect it to be the case, even if someone later proves that both men were named George--one George Washington Foote and the other George Kincheloe Foote--my conclusions should still be valid. Genealogists have found other families where two sons share at least one given name. While most often the practice involved giving a child the name of one deceased earlier, documented cases of living sons sharing one given name are in the literature.

Published in THE BULLETIN, Chester District Genealogical Society, P. O. Box 336, Richburg, SC 29729, (September, 1995) pp. 118-19.

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Read comments to T.S. Stribling's Pulitzer Prize and its effects on Florence, Alabama by Chotankers' author and Chotank.com producer, Stribling Birthday Celebration, Richards Educational Center, Florence, Alabama, 2002. Stribling is a Kincheloe descendant whose family moved to Tennessee from Union County, South Carolina. Union County Court records reveal that the Striblings and Footes knew each other well in the Carolinas.