Robert Scott was the father of Jesse M. Scott. He died in Calhoun County, Alabama in 1861. This probate notice was published on Thursday, 4 April 1861 in the Jacksonville Republican newspaper of Jacksonville, Calhoun County, Alabama.

On Monday, the first of April 1861, Jesse M. Scott appeared before a special term of the probate Court of Calhoun County to present the last will and testament of his father, Robert Scott. The will was dated Wednesday, 25 July 1860.

Check out the strange spelling of Jesse Scott’s name: “Jesssee M. Scott.”

This notice gives us Robert’s date and location of death, 26 February 1861 in Calhoun County. It was a Tuesday.

I’ve seen Robert’s death date erroneously reported in both Family Search and Ancestry family trees as 12 June 1860, which is actually the date of the last census to record Robert, the 1860 census for Calhoun County, Alabama. I saw one family tree that linked this Robert Scott to a tombstone photograph of a different Robert Scott buried in Canada who died on 11 April 1862. Terrible research is out there.

There are a number of heirs mentioned. They were Robert’s children: Thomas Scott; John Scott; the unnamed children of Fanny Grooms, née Scott; Robert Scott, Jr.; Sophia R. Jackson; and Jessee (one less S this time) M. Scott.

Judge A. Woods ordered probate of the will to take place on Monday, 13 May 1861.

Robert is one of those brick walls in my Scott line, so this probate notice is a nice find. Previously, I only had Sophia Jackson and Jesse Scott recorded as his children. Maybe I can now open up some new avenues of research and break through this wall.

I should also mention that once I added Robert and his children to my family tree on Ancestry.com, I got some DNA matches from descendants of Sophia and Robert Jr, which seems to confirm this is our Jesse’s father.

Bibliography

Newspapers.com – Jacksonville Republican – Page 3 (Jacksonville, Alabama, Jacksonville Republican, 1861-04-04), http://www.newspapers.com, Probate notice of Robert Scott. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73983843/probate-notice-of-robert-scott-jesse/?xid=637.