It seems that some of my ancestors’ brothers and sister just disappeared. Earlier this year I wondered What Happened to Melissa A. Petty? and was Looking for Lula Lanier. I’m still no closer to finding either of them but there are others I’d like to feature so I’m going to start writing about these “missing” siblings on a monthly basis. This month it’s the Bennetts.
A marriage record hasn’t been located for my 2nd great-grandparents, John T. Bennett and Martha Lucinda Gamble but they probably married in 1850 or 1851 in either Heard or Troup County, Georgia. Of their nine children, five haven’t been found beyond the last census when they lived with them.
Records place John and Martha in Heard County, Georgia in 1860 and in Randolph County, Alabama in 1860, 1870 and 1880. Martha died before 1900. John lived in Chambers County, Alabama in 1900 and Morgan County, Alabama in 1907 and 1910. He probably died in Morgan County in 1911. 
Based on census records from 1860, 1870 and 1880, John and Martha’s nine children were:
- Nancy Jane (born in 1852)
- Justian E. “Joe” (born abt. 1854)
- Thomas (born abt. 1856)
- Sarah Ann “Sallie” (born abt. 1858)
- Teresa (born abt. 1860)
- Mary “Mollie” (born in 1863)
- Martha “Mattie” (born in 1863) (Mollie and Mattie were twins.)
- John “Jack” (born abt. 1866)
- Robert (born in 1869)
Nancy Jane (my great-grandmother) married Joseph Smith Lanier, had 12 children and died in 1926 in Atlanta at the age of 74. Mollie married Warren Hester, had three children and died in 1933 in Morgan County, Alabama at age 70. Mattie never married, lived with her twin Mollie and her family or Nancy Jane most her life. She died in 1952 in Morgan County, Alabama at age 88. I believe Robert married Ida Arrington and died in 1949 in Morgan County, Alabama. (That isn’t proven but you can judge the possibility for yourself.)
Joe and Teresa last appear with their parents in the 1870 census in Rock Mills, Randolph County, Alabama; Thomas, Sallie and Jack last appear in 1880 in Bursons, Randolph County, Alabama.
Granted I haven’t looked everywhere but I’ve been to Randolph and Chambers County and there are no marriage or other records there for these five Bennett siblings. They don’t show up in later census records — at least not in a location where you could think it’s them. I haven’t even found an online tree with any information about them beyond what’s in the census records with their parents.
