William B Allen GA/ALA c 1825 - c 1860+ and family
I'm searching for any possible information on my Allen ancestry.
The first reliable record I have located is the marriage in 1847, followed by mentions in the 1850 and 1860 census.
Here is what I know:
William B Allen born c 1822/26 married Penelope Caroline Commins (Cummins?) born March 1835 +/- , marriage date 1/20/1847 in Barbour County, Alabama. Her dob varies, in 1850 it indicates 1832 and by 1860 indicates 1834, but the possibility exists that they fudged a bit to hide her age, given her 1847 marriage where they might have told the county she was older than she was. In 1900 she said she was born in 1835 - was she only 12 when married? or maybe she was just a woman fibbing about her age, because by the time she died her gravestone said she was born in 1846, which is not a possibility whatsoever.
Both reportedly were born in GA (per census). No idea about the parentage of William who apparently died in the 1860s; Penelope Caroline (she used the names alternately on the various censuses) said her father was born Scotland and her mother born South Carolina.
Their children were born in Barbour Co, Alabama. The ones I know of are:
Susan C 1848
William Caspar 1850
Mildred Josephine 1852
Henry Preston 1854
George S 1859
John 1861
I find them in the Barbour Co ALA census in 1860, then in 1880 in Drew Co ARK I find the mom, all the boys, and the younger daughter. Don't know what happened to the dad (presumably died after 1860, nothing to say it was war-related but who knows) or the older sister (presumably married by 1880, but no idea to whom), and haven't found any records between 1860 and 1880 to indicate where they went or what may have happened.
(I do know the dates/places on what happened to them after 1880, though stories and family records/pictures after that point are very much desired.)
If you recognize these people and know anything, any information would be appreciated on the years between 1880 and 1860, and also on the ancestry of the parents. (My guess is the Allens may have been from Scotland or South Carolina like the Commins/Cummins family, but that is nothing more than a stab in the dark.)