Friday night, I reviewed previous genealogical findings that I had found back in about 2005 at the Library of Congress. I had been trying to decide what my next step should be in my Womble research. I thought about getting more land records, but I really wanted to find out more about what was going on in the lives of Catharine and her children before they left Edgecombe County, NC. I had already found out some information about their lives, but I really felt that I had only scratched the surface.
The only way that I see being able to find out more about these people's lives around the time when they left North Carolina, which was in 1836, is to search for more records that were created around that same time period.
I've never completely understood wills and probate records, but my rudimentary understanding is that if a person died without a will someone had to petition the court to settle the person's estate. I had done some minute research on Catharine's husband, John Womble where I had obtained his Revolutionary War pension records.
These records definitely showed a man who did not have a lot of wealth. My impression from reading his petition to the government was that he had risked his life fighting for this country. Probably, if he had had been more financially solvent, he wouldn't have applied to the government for financial assistance. I doubted that John Womble had even left a will when he died circa 1821 after reading his pension records.
Now after seeing Catharine receiving her dower from the Edgecombe County court, I believe that there's the possibility that the settling of John Womble's estate may have been done through the courts because he died intestate.
I checked out the records available at the Family History Library via FamilySearch.org. I considered searching court records from around 1835, but decided instead to look at the Estate Records index and Estate records from 1748-1917. Hopefully, there might be something in these microfilm rolls that will provide me with more information about this petition of Catharine Womble's.
Upon closer inspection of the abstract that I had found, I discovered that I had made copies of the title page of the book Records of Estates Edgecombe County, North Carolina 1761-1825 Volume I by David B. Gammon and the forward of this book as well. In the forward, it states "this volume contains abstracts of the loose estates papers for Edgecombe County which are currently held at the North Carolina State Archives in Raleigh. The careful researcher will note that, although the title of this volume is similar to several compiled and published by Joseph W. Watson, it contains additional information not found in the Account Books and Court Minutes which are the primary source for Mr. Watson's works. The original records consulted for this volume consist primarily of petitions, divisions and summons, many of which were never copied into the Account Books at all. However, there are records in the Account Books which are not included in the loose papers."
This makes me feel strongly that I'll most likely find Catharine's petition in Edgecombe County's estate records. I only hope that I'm right, but I realize that, as with life and genealogical research you never will know for sure about something unless you try.
