Help! My family has passed this story for years....

Joined
Nov 6, 2015
I'm trying to track down my roots, but I'm having the worst time. My great grandmother always told us she was the granddaughter of Jefferson Davis, but I can't find any record of her. Her mother was Minnie Belle Davis. Minnie Belle married Horace Lindley(sp?) Wimp. Among their children was my great grandmother, Mary Francis Wimp. My great grandmother use to tell stories about growing up on the Davis plantation in what is now Ohio/Daviess county Kentucky. She remembered living in a slave house and that her grandfather (Jefferson Davis) had not been happy with her mother for loving a 'carpet bagger'. Can anyone help me find any information about this?
 
I'm trying to track down my roots, but I'm having the worst time. My great grandmother always told us she was the granddaughter of Jefferson Davis, but I can't find any record of her. Her mother was Minnie Belle Davis. Minnie Belle married Horace Lindley(sp?) Wimp. Among their children was my great grandmother, Mary Francis Wimp. My great grandmother use to tell stories about growing up on the Davis plantation in what is now Ohio/Daviess county Kentucky. She remembered living in a slave house and that her grandfather (Jefferson Davis) had not been happy with her mother for loving a 'carpet bagger'. Can anyone help me find any information about this?
Welcome. I moved your thread to the ancestry forum. Someone should be able to help you and there are tools that you can also use that are linked to the forum. Good luck.

Moderator JerseyBart
 
Welcome to the forum! Have you used Ancestry at all? With a quick search I did find a couple of possibilities for you to track down. Not knowing much about dates or birth locations, I did stumble upon the below from the Kansas census. While I know you said Minnie married a Horace Wimp, there's a J H Wimp with a wife named Lizzie living in Kansas in 1915. People back then had a very terrible habit of changing their name at will and census takers weren't always dependable about transcribing things just the way they heard them. I've had relations start out as William J Cash, become Jack Cash, then Jackson Cash, all the same guy. One of his sons start out as Charles E Cash and then went by Earl Cash the rest of his life. It's weird to us because with IDs and official documents its not so easy to change our names, but back then with inaccurate record keeping and not much in the way of ID people did this often.

It's possible John Horace Wimp who I believe the below entry relates to might be the ancestor you're looking for and Minnie Belle sounds like a nickname...just a theory since you're having difficulty verifying your family history.

Name: J H Wimp
Census Date: 1915
Residence County: Sumner
Residence State: Kansas
Locality: Creek
Birth Place: Kentucky
Family Number: 4
Gender: Male
Age: 55
Birth Year: abt 1860
Race: White
Household Member(s):
Name
Age
J H Wimp 55
Lizzie Wimp 49
R C Wimp 27
Warner Wimp 20
Pernie Wimp 17
Denzil Wimp 12
Ivyn Wimp 9
Lester Wimp 4

I also found a Minnie B Davis in the 1940 census born about 1862. She was listed as widowed and having been born in Missouri and living in Los Angeles, CA of all places. Thought was an odd coincidence having a similar, but somewhat unique name. Though I doubt as a widow she would've returned to her maiden name, but one never knows!

Edit - Found this link which might prove helpful - http://dgmweb.net/JeffDavisHome.html
It's a genealogy site specifically for ancestors of Jefferson Davis.
 
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There's an entry in the 1910 census that's surely her as an infant: Harris (sounds like Horace) Wimp, his wife Minnie, and their six month old daughter Mary F. They're on Old Hartford Rd., Ohio Co. Kentucky.

Working down from Jefferson Davis, though, I'm not seeing how Minnie or Horace could have been his son or daughter, to make Mary his granddaughter. Here's an old thread on the Davis children: http://civilwartalk.com/threads/children-of-jefferson-davis.21573/ None of the names come close to matching.
 
I'm trying to track down my roots, but I'm having the worst time. My great grandmother always told us she was the granddaughter of Jefferson Davis, but I can't find any record of her. Her mother was Minnie Belle Davis. Minnie Belle married Horace Lindley(sp?) Wimp. Among their children was my great grandmother, Mary Francis Wimp. My great grandmother use to tell stories about growing up on the Davis plantation in what is now Ohio/Daviess county Kentucky. She remembered living in a slave house and that her grandfather (Jefferson Davis) had not been happy with her mother for loving a 'carpet bagger'. Can anyone help me find any information about this?
Welcome to the forums, good luck with your search.
 
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