I am interested in obtaining documentable information concerning the
parentage of Thomas C. Dixon, Jr., born 8-6-1816 at James Island, SC;
married 1-29-1840 in St. John's Lutheran Church, Archdale St.,
Charleston, SC;  died 1-21-1852; buried (I believe) on James Island,
but do not know where. His wife was Eliza Jane Erhard (Erhardt), born
2-4-1816, died 9-29-1892.  Although I am interested in both of Thomas'
parents, I am primarily interested in his mother's maiden name and
also her parents.  I have searched family records, miscellaneous
genealogy sites, some church records and cemetery records to no avail.

---

Clarification of Question by walt15-ga on 30 Jun 2003 11:54 PDT

Keith
Are you talking about the siblings of Thomas Jr. or the children of
Thomas Jr.?
I don't have anything on his siblings although I was told he was the
youngest of about 10 children. I do have some info on Thomas Jr. and
Eliza's children.
In case that's what you meant, they were:
 1. Thomas Edward Dixon, Born 12/22/1840, Died 6/29/1892
 2. Clara Amelia Erhard Dixon, Born 2/12/1843, Died 1/1919, Married   
11/16/1862  to my grandfather (William D. Fischer)
 3. William Augustus Dixon, Born 10/22/1846, Died 10/8/1848.
 
All of the Dixons (Dixsons) named above were born, raised and died in
Charleston, S.C. or James Island, S.C., which is a suburb of
Charleston and are buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston. I am not
certain where Thomas' parents were born but think it was James Island.
Walt15

6-28-2003

If you have information about the names and dates of birth of their
children and city/state where they lived, please provide that
information as it will help with the genealogical tracing.  Thank you.

SINCERELY,
4keith

Hi,

You may already have this, but I did find eliza Jane dixon and her son
thomas living in the household of william fisher (census spelling) and
his wife clara a. in the 1880 census for charleston, south carolina.
eliza is shown as being a widow

Saabster
Yes, I had that, But thanks a lot for your interest
Walt

I also found a thomas dixon born in 1720 at st James Island.  He was
married to an elizabeth Hyrne smith who had been born in 1745.  Is it
possible this could be a grandfather of your thomas c dixon?  My
research in genealogy has taught me that when I run into a brick wall,
then perhaps I should just take what I find and begin a process of
elimination.  You might want to see if you can prove these people are
not related to your family.

good luck!

I have found the family for the thomas dixon(b 1720 -1769 and
elizabeth hyrne smith (b1722-d1756) they had 5 children, thomas,
rebecca, mary smith, elizabeth and mary Hyrne. Interestingly I found a
birth record for their child, thomas which shows his name to be THOMAS
JUNIOR DIXON (written in just this way) and  this same birth record
shows his father's name to be THOMAS CAPTAIN DIXON. Could this be an
earlier thomas c dixon in your family? could these records had been
misprinted and perhaps should have read Captain Thomas Dixon and
Thomas Dixon, Jr?

Have you seen these records ?-it provides family and pedigree for both
thomas c and his wife elizabeth

because all of the dixons you have listed thus far were born, lived
and died in st james island (charleston) sc- it only make sense to
suppose that tradition continued. therefore, I went online to
www.familysearch.com (where I first found eliza and tom in 1880
census-living with her daughter clara and her daughters  husband. I
think decided to do a general search for all the thomas dixons living
in sc -to do this you must only fill out given and surname, country
and state- that list gave me thomas captain dixon and elizabeth hyrne
smith and their family pedigree(no name for his parents)including
their children which demonstrates another thomas dixon born in
1754-the effort now is to track this thomas dixon to the one born in
1816 and make a link- i did find
another thomas dixon born in 1770 and married to a sarah smith in
1792-which means he would have been about 46 years old when he
fathered your thomas dixon-
However, I am not sure this is the right connection-but first, you
would have to find evidence to verify the 1720 connection is on point.

my interest stems from a book I am writing related to genealogical
research. actually going thru the process of using online sources to
attempt to find individuals helps me develop a sense of authenticity
about how one goes about a particular search for a family or
individual.  Hope some of this information proves helpful in our
search!

Hi Saabster,
I can see you've given my search a lot of attention and I really
appreciate it.
I have seen just about everthing except the record showing "Thomas
Captain Dixon".I don't know if I have access to the site where you
found that. Everything I've seen shows "Capt. Thomas Dixon". It's
possible that's where the middle "C" initial came from. I really
haven't concentrated a lot on my Thomas' paternal ancestry yet. I
guess I'd better try that path and work backwards. Identifying his
Mother has been my main objective . If I could do that,it would open
up a whole new area of research opportunity. Right now I'm up against
that proverbial "Brick Wall".
Again, thank you very much for your effort.
Walt15

I found the thomas captain dixon on the same familysearch.com site.
The process was to isolate every thomas dixon (dickson) born in south
carolina (on this sites database) then qiven the dates and names you
have mention look first at every dixon with the dates
1720,1769,1745-where the record indicates a listing of family and or
pedigree-I click into that information and note everything that is
provided and check it against every other listing. what you begin to
establish is a consistency that allows you some certainty about what
you believe to be true. I then attempt to pull up information on
elizabeth hyrne smith using a variety of names -her maiden name, and
her married name. the site provides to searching thru a number of
records-because of the birth and death dates, I rarely use the census
(though I did to find eliza jane and her son, thomas) For everyone
else, I click on the all resources search. There are clearly critical
info matches that estabished for me that I was on the right trail and
I do think all the info is there its just matching the clues.

 I swear I think the answer to your question is on this site.  I think
the son of tom and elizabeth hyrne smith son, thomas(b 1754), also had
a son named thomas (b. 1770)and I believe he may be the father
ofthomas dixon born in 1816- I found a marriage between a thomas dixon
and sarah smith (who i believe is the daughter of elizabeth hyrne's
brother benjamin smith. A record shows sarah marrying a thomas dixon
in 1792- he was born in 1770 and she was born in 1772. Now here is
where the confusion ensues. I found a several records for sarah's
marriage to thomas dixon in 1792 that shows a year later(1793) she had
another spouse named william Norton and a record also indicates she
died in 1815. well of course this would eliminate her and her first
husband, thomas dixon, as the parents of the thomas dixon born in
1816. I have not been able to find any death record for her husband
and whether they had any children. I mentioned earlier that I had
found that this sarah smith was the niece of elizabeth hyrne
smith, because she was the daughter of a benjamin smith who has the
same parents as elizabeth. what I have not been able to find is any
records other than birth for thomas dixon born in 1756-the question of
who he married and any children from that marriage is the current
brick wall- I do believe one of his children is the thomas dixon who
married sarah smith-the next brick wall -but you mentioned that you
heard that thomas dixon(1816)was the youngest of ten siblings. Which
means sarah couldn't have married another. but because her death date
is so close to thomas dixon's birth date- my tendency is to believe
that those dates are confused and quite possibly she died in child
birth -but the question is understanding this odd situation of her
marrying thomas in 1792 and then marrying william norton in
1793-instinct tells me this maybe the case of two separate records
being mixed up???  what i can tell you is that what has kept me
believing I am on the right track is that both the dixon and smith
family records show the same locations for births, marriages and
deaths. which means they lived in close proximity and the fact that
both elizabeth and benjamin gave several of their children the exact
same names.

I probably haven't explained this as clearly as I would have wished. I
do get mixed up about which thomas dixon I am talking about on
occasion.  familysearch is a free site and if you are comfortable with
searching you can pull out much of the info yourself. I have copied
the records of all of these individuals just to keep me on focus and
you can do the same thing-I think you will be begin to see the
connection- good luck-its been fascinating

I forgot to mention that on several of the records there are details
about who submitted the particular record. One of the persons was from
utah and one was from austin, tx-these may be people who can provide
some clarification re the records

Have you or someone else in your family established any relationship
between your dixon family members and Lt. Henry dixon of North
carolina, one of the heroes of the revolutionary war?  If not, I may
have stumbled on something

walt,
i have not had a definitive find on the parents- i have found lots of
other info that may or may not lead you to what you're looking for-one
the other hand it may all be totally redundant as you may have already
found and discounted it as useful. My speculation about sarah smith
and thomas dixon possibly being the parents of your thomas dixon is
quite probably not true. the birth and death dates simply do not work
at this point.

Hi Saabster,
I am very impressed with the extent of your research. It may take me a
while to digest it and try to make a connection.
Of all the research I've done on Dixons (Dixson,Dickson) I have not
seen a reference to Lt. Henry Dixon of North Carolina.
Walt

Hi,

I am going to give you my bits and pieces on the dixon family that I
have found online over the last several days.  There are a number of
families with other surnames who are looking for thomas dixon, st
james island,sc because he has turned up in their family tree. i
wouldn't be surprised if some of them may not have the answer to your
question-particularly anyone who was related to elizabeth hyrne
smith-dixon might have info on what happened to her son thomas born in
1754 as I believe he is the link through which you will find the
parents of the 1816 thomas dixon and from there his wifes maiden name
and her parents.

here are the bits and pieces I found that may prove helpful

1)I found that the rather famous revolutionary war hero Lt col Henry
dixon was from nc but died in south carolina-henry's father's name was
thomas dixon and he had a brother named thomas dixon-henry was born in
1723 - I saw a family tree and henry's brother thomas was the only
sibling for which there was no information-based on henry's birthdate-
i am speculating that captain thomas dixon may well have been henry's
brother who left north carolina for south carolina
according to henry's family website-henry's body was never recovered
or they don't know if he was buried in nc or sc/i find the closeness
of the birthdate of henry and that of captain thomas dixon born in
1720 a possible connection between the two

2) on rootsweb.com's worldconnect project-global search (message
boards for dixon) i found about six inquiries for thomas dixon, st
james island, sc - what was interesting is there was an inquiry from
an anne fisher-who seems to be the same person who is listed as a
submitter of information about thomas dixon on the familysearch
website. there were five other inquiries and they all have email
addresses which might allow you to contact them. they may have the
information you are seeking.

3)I looked up every record I could find for thomas dixon using every
date I could find that would make a connect with a thomas dixon born,
married or died at st james island- berkeley co - goose creek,-ashley
river- ashley retreat-dorchester- charleston, (all located in south
carolina) and I found several other interesting things
   the record for 'thomas dixon capt' indicates there was a dixon
cemetery on st james island -that same record indicates that thomas
and elizabeth were married at the 'ashley river baptist church', goose
creek, berkeley, south carolina-that church is still around today with
records-anne fisher provided this info-another record indicates that
elizabeth was buried in st john's parish in berkeley, sc
    one record listed thomas dixon as 'rev' does that mean he was a
minister?

there are several other items, but explaining gets a bit convoluted
because they are just remnants of pieces of information that make
sense to me,but would be difficult to explain to you.

this anne fisher also mentioned a book entitled "our family circle" by
annie elizabeth miller in which she says there is a history of the
dixon family.

I hope some of this has been helpful-i am off to do my own work-though
i have found this fascinating

good luck!

7-23-2003

If you have not made progress with your quest for information at this
point, I think you should seriously consider posting your query again
at the website www.rootsweb.com (click on the MESSAGE BOARDS link,
then enter the phrase "CHARLESTON COUNTY" in the "FIND A MESSAGE
BOARD" box, then hit enter and the page of results that comes up will
look something like:  "BOARDS--LOCALITIES--US--CHARLESTON
COUNTY---SOUTH CAROLINA" in blue letters.  Click on those blue letters
and then post your query.  Since Charleston is considered as being
located in 3 counties, CHARLESTON, BERKELEY, and DORCHESTER, you may
want to post your query in 1 or more counties.

A local genealogist in the area can probably know what databases and
sources to check to find the information you seek.  I do know that
there are many other databases available with South Carolina
information in them that are paid databases that cost about $100
yearly or more to subscribe to--you can subscribe to them if you want
to but it is much easier and less expensive if a genealogist who
already subscribes to these databases reads your query and offers to
assist you for a greatly reduced fee since they already have access.

The information you want IS out there, so don't give up--it will just
take a little bit of digging by someone who is knowledgeable enough to
know where to look!!!

SINCERELY,

KEITH (I'm NOT a GOOGLE Researcher)

Thank you very much, Keith
Walt15 ga