Will The Real David Shelton Terrell Please Stand Up?

David Shelton Terrell was born in Louisa County, Virginia in 1781 to Thomas Terrell and Sarah Shelton. He lived in Wilkes County, Georgia and Greene County, Georgia with his parents and his unmarried siblings. He died on November 3rd, 1868 in Morgan County, Georgia.

Typically when I research European-ancestored Americans, it’s a breeze in the park because there’s a myriad of information already collected about them. David Shelton Terrell was no different, but unfortunately most of the information previously collected about him was erroneous, copied over and over again by people that did not look at the primary sources. David Shelton Terrell enslaved my ancestor Polly Terrell, sold my ancestor Albert Terrell, and impregnated my cousin Arian Terrell in Greene County, Georgia.

Because he is most likely the biological father of my relative Sarah ‘Sallie’ Terrell Smith, I have several Black relatives with this man in their tree, but with incorrect parents and life years. This is because there were three different men named David Terrell that lived in Greene County, Georgia in the early 1800s. The youngest lived from 1801 until 1847, dying in Crawford County, 100 miles away from Greene County. My cousins used this man's life years, which I understand considering that Sallie was born around 1835, but this man had already moved to Crawford County by 1830. Meanwhile in Greene County, there's a David S. Terrell enumerated in every federal census from 1820 to 1860. David Shelton Terrell did not die in 1847, and he is always recorded with his middle name or initial.

David Shelton Terrell was enumerated on line 17 of this page of the 1860 United States Federal Census in Greene County, GA. He was 79 years old, and his sisters Rebecca and Sarah lived on the same plantation in the next house.

The Terrells are a very historic family with several published genealogies that also contain the wrong life years for David Shelton Terrell. There is a 338-page book that gives his birth date as August 19th, 1781 and his death date as March 3rd, 1818. The birth date seems consistent with his age reported on the census records, but clearly the death date is incorrect. I could not find a single family tree with a reasonable death date for this man, so I took matters into my own hands. This man was a very respected judge who enslaved dozens of people. There had to be a primary source record for his death. I checked the newspapers and found obituaries for him all across the country from 1868.

David Shelton Terrell’s obituary from the Greensboro Herald.

The incorrect 1818 date came from a treasured family bible, but I have not found an image of it. Since the correct date is 1868, it makes sense that the year and month were transcribed incorrectly or very hard to read. The ‘6’ in 1868 must have looked like a ‘1’ to the transcriber. No one in the family made the correction because he was never married and never had any (white) descendants to notice the error. 

The obituary also gives information verifying David Shelton Terrell’s parents. My family members had the parents of the youngest Greene County David Terrell (1801-1847) falsely listed as their ancestors. His father was the oldest David Terrell who lived from 1769 until 1833 and his mother was Mary Mounger. Neither of those Davids were recorded with a middle name. David Shelton Terrell’s 1868 obituary mentions his brother Elihu Terrell. Their true father was Thomas Terrell, brother of the oldest Greene County David Terrell (1769-1833), and their mother was Sarah Shelton, the source of the Shelton middle name. Thomas died in 1822, and his will clearly lists his sons David and Elihu.

David Shelton Terrell’s true parentage is very well documented, but takes more than a simple Ancestry.com search to find the records. Upon more investigation, I found tax lists from 1827 and 1828 where David Shelton Terrell is listed as the Executor for the Estate of Thomas Terrell, and the Agent for his younger siblings Elihu, Elizabeth, and Rebecca. I also found newspaper ads for the sales of his father’s enslaved people, estate records for his family members that died without children and left their estates to the Terrell siblings, and a newspaper ad from 1873 in which his property is still being referred to as the ‘Estate lands of Thomas Terrell’.

To recap, here are the three Greene County Davids:

1: David Terrell, Sr. (1769-1833), son of William Terrell and Frances Wingfield

2: David Shelton Terrell (1781-1868), son of Thomas Terrell and Sarah Shelton

3: David Terrell, Jr. (1801-1847), son of David Terrell and Mary Mounger

Three different people within the same family, and only one of them legally owned my ancestors. However, I did find a court case, in which David Terrell, Sr. was sued for not paying David Shelton Terrell after renting one of his enslaved laborers! But that story is for a different blogpost…