FAMILY RECORD (BIBLE FORMAT) OF THE POYTHRESS & PRESTON FAMILIES

transcription by Barbara Ellen Poythress Neal

The record below is transcribed from a February 1995 examination of an original handwritten transcription done on 9 August 1938 by Ben Edward Poythress, Jr.  The second and third pages listed below (front and back of one sheet) are the family record of James Edward Poythress and his wife Catherine Speed Preston who married in Brunswick County, Virginia on 26 February 1828 and who moved from Mecklenburg County, Virginia in 1853 to Sumter County, Alabama with their eight children.  The first page, dated at the bottom of the sheet as 6 February 1828 (just prior to their marriage), was apparently from a copy which the couple had made (or which they were given) of the family record of the Joshua Preston family into which Catherine had been born in 1800.

As stated at the end of the 3-page document, Ben Edward Poythress, Jr. made his original handwritten transcription 9 August 1938 and he intended to sign it the following day on his 18th birthday, 10 August 1938, perhaps with witnesses since he left three lines under “Signed by.”  When making that handwritten transcription, Poythress used a quill pen (with green ink) and attempted to duplicate both the handwriting and the format in which the original record was written.  The middle names which here are typed above the middle initials on the James E. Poythress record are written in the same handwriting and with the same green ink and quill pen but are written smaller, squeezed above the middle initial of the names originally written; thus the middle names are the most difficult names to now read.  Where letters/numerals are underlined below, Poythress in his original 1938 transcription had traced over a few portions with a black fountainpen to clarify what he could then see by using a magnifying glass to examine the original record.  Where a smaller font is used below, Poythress has in 1994 added information with a black ballpoint pen in an effort to clarify his 1938 transcription.  Each 8.5″ x 14″ page was ruled down the center with the green ink, and single/double lines were drawn across the page with green ink where single/double lines are here indicated.   Ben Edward Poythress, Jr. died 8 Feb 1998 in Petersburg, Virginia.  The original quill and ink transcription he made in 1938 is maintained in his family, as of 2002.
When Poythress made his 1938 transcription, the original family record he was copying was then held by his uncle, Nathan Hamet Poythress, who was born to Algernon Edward Poythress and Ellen B. McKinley 30 July 1878 in Sumter County, Alabama, and who died 18 March 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama.  As stated at the bottom of Poythress’ transcription, that original family record was represented to him as having been written/transcribed by Algernon Edward Poythress; that family record by A. E. Poythress has unfortunately not been located by his descendants since N. H. Poythress’ death.