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Continued: William Blackwood’s origins remain somewhat controversial due to the fact that several sources (including the unpublished manuscript ISAAC BLACKWOOD’S FAMILY by James Blackwood, and the book THE BLACKWOOD TRACE by C. Julian Blackwood) fail to list him as a son of Isaac Blackwood and Mary Jones of Blount County, Alabama at all, while our two most reliable and knowledgeable sources, Patsy Clayton and Patrick Craig Conway, clearly place William as one of Isaac and Mary’s elder sons.
After much consideration, my family has come to feel about 99% certain that William is indeed one of Isaac and Mary’s sons, and we base this on the most parsimonious of explanations--that of ‘out of site, out of mind.’ What we mean by this is that we know that something happened to William around 1861/1862, at the outset of the Civil War, and that his family had relocated to Wright County, Missouri by the mid 1860’s. What we suspect is that, as the only branch of the family to move away from Alabama, William’s descendants gradually lost touch with their Alabama kin over a period of years and then were simply forgotten about, i.e. ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ There could certainly be other, more complex explanations that would account for what took place, but this one seems the most logical and likely to us. Any and all thoughts on the subject are welcomed.
(Exactly WHY William’s family was the only one to move away from Alabama during the war remains a tantalizing mystery, however.)
There are other clues that suggest William was a son of Isaac’s as well. For example, the pattern of family names: William named one of his sons ‘Isaac,’ presumably after his father. He names another of his sons ‘John,’ the name of his oldest brother. And then he names his youngest son ‘William Robert,’ Robert being his next oldest brother. While the use of family names is common among the Blackwoods, this seems like far too much of a coincidence. Furthermore, William named one of his daughters ‘Nancy,’ which is also the name of one of his younger sisters.
In addition, there is the fact that two of Isaac and Mary’s daughters married two of the sons of Aaron Amos Cornelius and Ellender Fortner, while William married one of their daughters, Tabitha Cornelius. Again, this seems unlikely to be just a coincidence.
Also, a good argument can be made by proximity alone. William first officially appears with his own household on the 1840 Blount Co., AL Federal Census on the same census page that includes Isaac and Mary’s household. And there is his 1840 Blount Co. marriage bond to Tabitha Cornelius as well. Once more, it seems unlikely that being in such close proximity to one another would be the result of mere coincidence.
And lastly, William's birth year of 1822 fits in perfectly with the birth order of Isaac and Mary’s other children.
Taken all together, my family has decided to work on the assumption that William is indeed Isaac Blackwood’s son, until or unless new evidence comes along to suggest otherwise.
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