Surname Saturday # 6 ~ My Children's Paternal Line of Plowden & Allied Families*

Please note that the names above are listed with wife's maiden name first followed by the husband's name.

The surname of Plowden comes from my children's paternal grandmother, Ursula Floride Plowden Kitts. There are still many descendants from these families still living in South Carolina. From my research I have learned that many of these families came to South Carolina from England via the Caribbean Islands. There are several surnames that are also part of my children's French Huguenot history as well.

There are few Plowden men who served in the American Revolution and many more who served in the Civil War for the Confederacy.

If you are researching any of these fine families who came to South Carolina in the hope of starting new lives, please let me know and let's see how we are RELATED! 

How I Determine Marriages & Pregnancies for my Ancestors When Records Are Scarce

How do you, my fellow genealogists determine your female ancestors marriages and first pregnancies? I have tried several ways to do this depending on how much information I have and what information I am able to find using various resources. As a general rule of thumb I use the age of 45 years as a cut-off point however, that doesn't always work.

Putting my Evidence Together:

Let's take a look at the information I do have for my children's 3rd great paternal grandparents, Anna Catherine Haynsworth and Captain Edwin Ruthven Plowden and their first child, Dr. Haynsworth Dupree Plowden: 
 
In looking for the marriage date for E. Ruthven Plowden and Catherine Haynsworth I came across information on Ancestry in the form of, The South Carolina Magazine of Ancestral Research, which read, "Married on Thursday the 17th inst., by the Rev. A. E. Chandler, E. Ruthven Plowden to Catherine, daughter of the late Josiah Haynsworth. (Ibid.)".

Next, I decided to work with a Perpetual Calendar Calculator, one I prefer because it allows me to see the whole year if needed, the first link for the year 1851 is here (http://www.infoplease.com/calendar.php?year=1851&submit=Go&yview=1) and the second link is for the year 1852 when Haynsworth D. Plowden was born, (http://www.infoplease.com/calendar.php?year=1852&submit=Go&yview=1). You will find that when looking at the 1851 calendar there are only 2 months in which the 17th falls on a Thursday, April and July. You will also notice in February of 1852 there are 29 days indicating that 1852 was a leap year.

My next step was googling the phrase, "how to calculate pregnancies in the 17th and 18th centuries". What I found was a Wikipedia article entitled "Naegele's Rule".  Naegele's Rule is named after a German born obstetrician, Dr. Franz Karl Naegele (1778-1851). He created the rule as a standard way of calculating the due date for pregnancy. A method that is still used today! 

The method is this, "The rule estimates the expected date of delivery (EDD) (also called EDC, for estimated date of confinement) from the first day of the woman's last menstrual period (LMP) by adding one year, subtracting three months, and adding seven days to that date. The result is approximately 280 days (40 weeks) from the start of the last menstrual period." Now of course, in the 21st century there are other more effective ways and with the help of technology in determining ovulation, conception and due dates.

Naelgele's Rule does have at least one flaw though, for instance, his formula is based on every woman having a 28 day cycle, which we now know is not true. However, it was the best way for me to determine a couple of things. Since I know the birthday of the child in question I was able to work backwards to determine (1) what month that Ruthven and Catherine were married in and (2) going backwards from their son's birth I can estimate an approximate date of conception between the end of May 1851 and the middle of June 1851, give or take a few days. Dr. Haynsworth D. Plowden was born on March 20th, 1852.

Sources:

The South Carolina Magazine of Ancestral Research SCMAR, database, Ancestry, (https://www.ancestry.com : 1 August 2015) entry for E. Ruthven Plowden and Catherine Haynsworth, SCMAR, Vol. XIV, Winter 1986, Marriage and Death Notices form the Sumter Banner, No.1, p. 35; 

Wikipedia Contributors, Naegele's Rule, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naegele's_rule : 9 August 2015)

Calendar Year for 1851, Year by Year Calendar, The Infoplease Perpetual Calendar, (http://www.infoplease.com/calendar.php?year=1851&submit=Go&yview=1 : 9 August 2015).

Calendar Year for 1852, Year by Year Calendar, The Infoplease Perpetual Calendar, (http://www.infoplease.com/calendar.php?year=1852&submit=Go&yview=1 : 9 August 2015)

 

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Samuel Edgar and Agness DuPree Plowden

Photos are courtesy of Wade Chewning 2015

These are the tombstones of one set of my children's 4th great paternal grandparents, Samuel Nelson and Agness DuPree Plowden. Samuel and Agness were married in 1812 in South Carolina and they had 6 known children. Their son, Edwin Ruthven Plowden is my children's 3rd great grandfather. They are buried in the Nelson-Plowden-Haynsworth Cemetery in Clarendon County, South Carolina. At the bottom of Agness's stone are the initials "W. T. White", I am not sure if the quote is from him or if he was the stone mason. A search of Google and Bing yielded no results.

The inscription on Samuel's tombstone is: 

Sacred

To the Memory of 

Samuel Edgar Plowden

A Ruling Elder

In the Presbyterian Church

Who departed this life 

The 11th of July 1841

Aged 64 Years, 3 Months

And 20 Days

Having held fast the profession

Of his faith, without wavering,

He sweetly fell asleep in Jesus

Sustain'd and Cheer'd

By the gracious declaration

He is faithful, that promised 

The inscription on Agness's tombstone is:

In

Memory of 

Agness DuPree Plowden

Consort of

Samuel Edgar Plowden

Born 5th of April 1777

Died 24th of August 1851

She was a true friend

An affectionate wife

A tender Mother

And an humbled Christian

Far from this world of toil and _____

She's present with the Lord. 

"The labors from her mortal life

have met a rich reward."

W.T. White

Sources: 

Mr. Wade Chewning, photographs, ca. 2014, digital images, personal email correspondence

F. C. Wheeler, photograph, ca. 2015, digital image, Ancestry.com (http://mv.ancestry.com/viewer/2748c32d-741e-479d-bfd3-3b3a1f5ead58/77227586/42359935719 : accessed 4 August 2015), used for clarification purposes only on the inscription.