The tree begins with Wright Barnes and his wife Sarah. Wright was born in 1794 in North Carolina and died in Arkansas in 1857.
From Wright and Sarah there descended six generations, four of which are shown on the tree, which covers two hundred years of the family’s history.
The Barnes family were pioneers and settlers, people prepared to face challenges and risks in pursuit of their dream of a better life and better land.
Wright seems to have suffered from wanderlust and an unwillingness to settle in one place but many of his son Roderick’s descendants have remained settled, living and farming in Tennessee, in the bordering counties of Hardeman, McNairy and Chester.
The earliest ancestor of Clarence Monroe Barnes that we can trace with certainty is Wright Barnes.
He was born c1794, in North Carolina. He was an early settler, a farmer.
By 1830 he and his family were in Lawrence County, Alabama and by 1837 he owned land in Hardin County, Tennessee.
Although Roderick married Amanda Keith in Lincoln, Tennessee in 1846, at the time of the 1850 census he and his family were living in Tippah, Mississippi.
By 1860 they had moved to Hardeman County, Tennessee.
Clarence’s mother, Martha, first appears on the 1920 census, confirming that she was the wife of WC Hensen and that Clarence was his stepson.
We know from Clarence’s birth record that his father was William Alexander Barnes. What can we discover about William and Martha?
The rule in family history research is that you start with somebody you know and work backwards to discover their parents, grandparents and family groups.
And so we are starting with Clarence Monroe Barnes. How much we find will depend on how many of the state primary records have been digitized and are available online.
