John Washington Christian and Lucy Anne Moore

I tell you what, this Georgia research is difficult. At least I have some headstones this time.

John Washington Christian was born on March 13, 1841 (according to his headstone) to Benjamin Franklin Christian and Francis A. Moon. John appears in the 1850 census and the 1860 census in Elbert County, Georgia, with his parents and siblings.

Lucy Anne Moore was born on August 27, 1846 (according to her headstone) to Calvin Jonathan Moore and Nancy/Mary Elizabeth Colvard. She appears in the 1850 census with her parents and siblings in Elbert County, Georgia. She appears in the 1860 census with her mother, who has remarried, and her siblings in Elbert County, Georgia.

You'll see on John's headstone that he was a military man. I was lucky enough to find this excellent website that has details about the men in the 38th Georgia Volunteer Infantry, including John and two of his brothers. That website led me to Roster of the Confederate Soldiers of Georgia, by Lillian Henderson, which is available for free. According to the Roster and his pension records discussed below, John enlisted in the army on October 15, 1861. He was wounded at Antietam on September 17, 1862, and one of his fingers was amputated. The Roster states that on November 6, 1864, he was absent with leave, presumably due to his injury.

John and Lucy were married on April 14, 1863, in Elbert County, Georgia, according to this marriage record. This would have been when John was on leave from the army.

According to the Roster, John was captured and paroled on May 19, 1865. I assume this is because he never returned from leave, but I don't know a lot about how that kind of thing worked during the Civil War.

John, Lucy, and their children Calvin, Sarepta, and John are in the 1870 census in Elbert County, Georgia, in the household of a Mary Porham. I haven't been able to figure out who this Mary is.

The family (John, Lucy, Benjamin/Calvin, Sarepta, John, Charles, Sarah, and Tinsley) appears in the 1880 census in Goshen, Elbert, Georgia.

At this point, my information said that John had died. Someone must have assumed this because Lucy is listed as widowed in the censuses after 1880. However, I found Civil War pension records for John (for his wounded hand) from 1889-1893. His headstone gives his date of death as February 5, 1909. But I haven't been able to find him in the 1900 census, and I don't have a divorce record for John and Lucy. So I don't know for sure what happened to John between the 1880 census and his death in 1909, aside from his filing massive amounts of paperwork for his pension.

Lucy appears in the 1900 census with her daughters, Nancy and Dexter, and two grandchildren, Lillie and Snowy, in Goshen, Elbert, Georgia. They are living next door to another of Lucy's daughters, Sarepta, and her family.

John Washington Christian died on February 5, 1909, according to his headstone. He is buried at Mill Shoal Baptist Church in Madison County, Georgia. You can view the application for his military headstone on Ancestry.

Lucy appears in the 1910 census living with her daughter, Dexter Human, and her family in Harrison, Madison, Georgia.

Lucy Anne Moore Christian died on September 5, 1910, according to her headstone. She is buried at Mill Shoal Baptist Church in Madison County, Georgia.

John and Lucy are also named in the death certificates of their daughter, Sarepta, and their son, Tinsley.