No. 2 Who was Jacob M. Oakes?

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Who was Jacob M. Oakes?

Family tradition holds that Jacob was bound out to be raised by another family when he was young.  Elmer Oakes (his son) thought that this family may have been Hodges.  There are Hodges in this area at the time.  Tradition was that there were other siblings that were bound out as well.  Elmer Oakes thought that the parents had moved west for some reason and left the children.  The 1860 Jefferson County, TN Census shows Jacob Oaks, age 7, born in TN, attending school and living with Joseph McCuiston, age 85, a farmer born in NC and his wife, R. McCuiston (I believe this to be Rachel) age 75, born in TN.  (Census entry 1647).  (Could these folks be related to Jacob?)  The McCuiston family came from Guilford County, NC.  .  I've researched the McCuistion family but find no relationship.  Joseph and Rachel died in 1862 and 1866 respectfully.  Apparently Jacob Oakes was passed on to another family to be raised. Possibly it is at this time that he went to live with a Hodges family.   The 1850 Census for Jefferson Co. shows a 12 year old Gideon Oaks, birth place unknown.  Could this be a relative? He is living with a Counts family (Henry and Mary; in their early 50's).

The 1870 Jefferson Co. Census indicates that Jacob Oakes was a farm laborer with A. J. Mountcastle and his family.  Mountcastle held real estate worth $28,800, a large amount compared to his neighbors.  Jacob is listed as being 19 years old in the census.   The Census record shows that Jacob lived in the area of the Mapy (probably Mossy) Creek Post Office. Mossy Creek is now Jefferson City.  

The 1860 Jefferson Co., TN Census also shows that Thomas Hodges lived next door to Lafayette Coile (Jacob's father-in-law) at the time that Matilda Elizabeth Coile (Jacob's wife) was 1 year old.  This could be the Hodges Family that took Jacob Oakes in?  The same Census record shows that a 12-year old girl named M. J. Oaks was living with the family of S. A. Hall. He was a Saddler, born in Kentucky.  Their next door neighbors were Samuel S. McCuistion (age 42) who is listed as the Circuit Court Clerk.  Also living in the McCuistion household is William D. McCuistion, laborer. and Jo McCuistion.  It appears that these are single men.   Could M. J. Oaks be Jacob's sister?  The fact that she lives next door to McCuistions, the family name that took Jacob in when he was small leads me to believe that she is his sister.

I find no Oaks/Oakes in the 1830 or 1840 Census for Jefferson Co., TN.  This leads me to speculate that Jacob's parents arrived there after 1840.

Let's get started with a Jacob M. Oakes update

Hello everyone,

 

I hope that you are interested in a little touch of family history. I’ve collected a lot of information over the years and have decided that one of the ways I can refresh my own memory of what I’ve found and stored away is by developing this blog. I’m intentionally going to be brief in my blogging. Too much information too quickly might be burdensome for some of us. I want to capture your interest and share information about your family tree. You have probably already received an invitation to join up as a “follower” of this blog. By so doing I believe Blogger will automatically update you when a new post comes out. Let’s get started.

 

I want to start with an update on the research on Jacob M. Oakes. In order to give you a reference, here is where Jacob fits in the family tree. The symbol > points to a child in the next generation.

 

Jacob M. Oakes >Elmer B. Oakes > Margaret G. Oakes King > Steve King….

 

Research update: I’ve been stumped on Jacob Oakes (born April 1852 and died November 6, 1908) for years. Grandpa (Elmer) told me before he passed away that his father had been bound out as an orphan and that we don’t know who his parents are. Over the years I’ve been grouping Oakes and Oaks family genealogy and migration information. I found three main groupings of Oakes/Oaks but can’t connect our family with any of these. Then two months ago I was talking with a fellow missionary friend with whom we served in Argentina. Randy Whittall has been a good friend for years. He started talking about his Oakes family as though I would remember a previous conversation. We had talked about this common family surname 15 years back. I just forgot. Randy’s Oakes family settled in Oklahoma. He told me he knew a website that gave the genealogy so we took a look. That resulted in the best lead I’ve had in years. I have nothing conclusive but I found two potential connections that call for further research.

1. Randy’s Oakes family came through Guilford County, NC
2. Randy’s Oakes family in Virginia and Guilford County, NC related to a McCuiston family.

 This is significant to me as our Jacob Oakes was being raised by Joseph and Rachael McCuiston in Jefferson County, Tennessee according to the 1860 Census. He was seven years old then.  Joseph and Rachael were in their 80’s at the time. Ten years later he was living with a different family as they had passed away. What is interesting is that Joseph and Rachael moved to Jefferson County, TN from Guilford County, NC. I am continuing to work on this and welcome anyone else who is interested in researching the McCuiston-Oakes connection to do so. It seems unlikely that these two connections are a coincident. If we can connect the dots we may have found out who are our Oakes ancestors. It is too early to tell but I am encouraged that Randy may be a distant cousin of ours and that we may be able to trace our Oakes roots back several generations more through North Carolina and into Virginia. If you are interested in helping out with Internet research drop me a line and we can chat.

Website to visit:  http://genforum.genealogy.com/mccuiston/messages/93.html