Re: Smith Foote married Elizabeth Shiflet
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In reply to:
Re: Smith Foote married Elizabeth Shiflet
Donna Drury 10/01/13
Came across this series of messages when surfing around and hope Donna Drury can answer as she is the most recent poster.We descend from Mary Jane Foote, daughter of Smith Foote and wife Eliza Shifflet (It is "Eliza" - amazingly enough she has a sister named Elizabeth who married a Bazil Baker).I have long wondered about Indian blood in this family and think that if there is any, it may be from "Mary Smith", wife of John Foote and mother to Smith Foote. There are multiple Smith families in Rowan, NC; so she may simply be from one of them, but nobody seems to ever claim her.Your family history is very interesting.Which Shifflet do your parents descend from? I think Eliza and Smith had 8 children.Three of them are nameless as they died between 1840-1850 about the same time as Eliza.I think they all died of cholera as epidemics of that were especially bad in KY around 1850. By the time Mary Jane was 25 years old in 1855, she was taking care of 9 children - five of her own and four of her younger siblings. She goes on to have 9 more children!According to court records, her sister Josephine was sickly and never walked.Josie is alive in the mid-1850s and the courts are paying for dr. visits, but she has died by 1860.