Re: Isham/Isom Gartrell Wilkes Co, GA

Linda, A few trips to the National Archives should help clear up your ancestry. I just checked the 1880 census on the Internet and see that Isham Gartrell, born about 1835 in Georgia, is married to Susan, who was born about 1845. Both Isham's father and mother were also born in Georgia. In 1880 Isham and Susan have six children: Jesse (1851), Laura (1862), George (1865), Isham (1868), Frank (1870), and Clara (1875). Isham is a farm laborer living in Military District 177 in Wilkes County, so before the war he was almost certainly a slave on the plantation of Joseph Gartrell Jr. You can find plenty of information about this latter family on this forum and elsewhere. You can trace the descendants of Isham and Susan by going to the National Archives and looking up the various Gartrell families in Wilkes County in all the censuses after the war starting with the 1870 census (1870, 1880, (there is no 1890 census), 1900, 1910, etc.). I suggest that you buy some genealogy software if you don't already have it; it's really the only way to keep all these people straight! By the way, there is a Flora Gartrell who has posted several messages on this forum and elsewhere on the net who would seem to be related to you. She wrote "My husband's name is Joseph Gartrell. His father's name was William Gartrell, born in Washington, Wilkes Co., and his father's name was Isom Gartrell." All of Flora's messages seem to date from 1999-2001, but her last known email address in July 2001 was 3england@bellsouth.net. Hope this helps a little, Bob Cummings in Seattle.