My father was very close to his grandfather. He would tell me stories about him when my father was growing up. Great Grandpa lived with my grandparents after his wife died. He was getting old and gradually loosing his sight so my dad would do things for him to help him to get around. Great grandpa told dad that his father died before he was born and that his mother died when he was a crawling baby. He said he was raised by a man named Joshua Beasley in Johnston county North Carolina. He also told dad that "they tell me I had a brother but I don't know anything about him". He said that he had been 'bound' to Mr. Beasley and that when he became twenty one years of age he was supposed to get a horse, a saddle and a bridle but he didn't get anything. He also told dad stories about being in the war. He had kept his Civil War uniform in a trunk and my dad remembered looking at it when he was young.
I told you all that to tell you what I discovered when I first started researching my family history. Since I didn't know any names of my gg grandparents I started with the man that raised g grandpa. Joshua Beasley. I found that not only did he raise my g grandpa he also raised his brother! In the 1850 census under Joshua Beasley's house lived two boys Jesse Edwards age 5, my g grandfather and Nicholas Edwards age 7. They were also there in the 1860 census. Not only that but they both signed up and went into the 50th Regiment D company Confederate Army on the same day and they got out the same day when the war was over. To further complicate things my G grandpa Jesse married Judith Beasley, the grandaughter of Joshua Beasley, which makes Joshua Beasley my ggg grandpa. From what little information I have found is that my gg grandfather was named William but I have not found any record of birth for either one of the two brothers and what is really puzzling is what happened to make my g grandpa disown his brother when records show they lived only 5 miles apart in different counties. When I told that to my aunt (my dad's sister) she said "well I bet that is why Aunt Nancy used to call that man Uncle Nick. I wondered why she called him that but, you know, I never asked her". Wow, can you imagine that!
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