Ida Thurman Davis

Working on Genealogy is some what like working a GIANT puzzle with missing pieces and maybe a few pieces that belong with another puzzle. Where do you start! You keep looking through the pieces over and over til something looks like it goes together. Lately my Genealogy research has been at the looking at pieces over and over stage. In June I received a True Treasure, Newby family pictures. I've been scanning them and studying them to figure out who they all are. Some have names and I know the names but other names I don't know, are they family or friends, still other pictures have no name at all.

I've been going back over old information my Aunt gave me years ago. She had a list of names with dates of death. I didn't know who they were and she told me (I'm glad I got to ask her this, she died in Jan. 07) they were her Grandfather Newby's brothers and sisters. Don't know where she got the information. There was no notation of where they lived when they died. I went back to Census records and websites I had looked at before.

Finally Monday morning with just a few minutes to work, things started to come together! One sister was Bettie Thurman and she died Sept. 25, 1906 since I didn't know anything about this sister I decided to start with the Obituary Database from the Chattanooga Library. Well there were quite a few Thurman names, I didn't find Bettie but just happened on a name that rang bells. Ida Thurman Davis, I've found pictures of a Davis family and another of two little girls named Nettie and Clara Davis and another of a baby which says Ida's baby on back. The Database also had her husband's name, Minor Davis.

My next step was to go to the Census records for 1910. BINGO! Minor and Ida and children Nettie and Clara Davis were living in Hamilton County, Tn. There was also a Stella Thurman, age 10, living with them. Stella would have only been 6 when her mother, Bettie Thurman, died.

The 1920 Census again shows the Davis family living in Hamilton County, Tn. children Nettie, Clara and Delores but no Stella. Taking a chance that Stella would still be single at 20 years old, I checked for Stella Thurman. Stella was living with Robert and Ethel Miller and Stella is a sister-in-law.

At this point I went backwards, to the 1900 Census and found a Bettie and John Thurman living in Polk County, Tn with children Ida, Ethel, Harry,Thomas and Stella.

I checked the Hamilton County Clerk Anytime Online Services for marriage records for Bettie and John Thurman and found that they married in Hamilton County Feb. 3, 1888. This information hopefully will help since this places the Newby family in Hamilton County or at least near in 1888. We are pretty sure that Bettie, Mattie, David and Tom's father died in 1889, we just don't know where.

I also found that Ida and Minor Davis married in Hamilton County, Tn Dec. 16, 1905 less that a year before her mother died. Ida would have been 15. Ida died in 1947. I plan to get the obituary for Ida Thurman Davis maybe there will be more information there.

Now I am wondering if the picture of Tom Newby with a lady and two girls could be Bettie Thurman and her two of her daughters. I've never found any record that Tom Newby ever married.
Still looking at the pieces!!