There Really were TWO Andrew McDowells

I found there were two Andrew McDowells in the 1820 census. One of them is 45 and over and he lives very close to Levi Bozarth, George Allen, and a variety of other men in White County. Levi Bozarth and George Allen were oldtimers, born 20 years or more before 1800. (Actually, the older Andrew is listed as a McDole and the younger Andrew is a McDowell.) There are two young women in the house with this older Andrew and one boy. I don't know who the older Andrew is.

I like to think he is an uncle of Andrew's. Maybe even his grandfather. Andrew the younger was born about 1799, but his sister Elizabeth was born in 1795 in South Carolina; so an uncle could have been born about 1770 and a grandfather about 1740/1750. The darn thing about this census is that we have no clue if a man is 47, 62, or 80 years old. He's just 45 or older. I would love to find older Andrew in an earlier census, but the Tennessee census from 1810 has been lost. Then, last night, I found the 1800 census has been lost for most of Tennessee! This will be very tough, unless I can find some proof of where this family lived in SC or NC in 1800 or 1810. There are so many McDowells by 1800.

The younger Andrew is over 16 and under 25 in 1820. He is joined by a woman the same age and two young boys that fit well with the ages of their sons John and Smith. This week I decided to figure out if young Andrew remained in the same place in 1820, 1830, and 1840 by studying his neighbors. This answer is he did not remain in the same place. The neighbors are different every time, so I decided to double check by locating his "old" neighbors in the "new" census. Sure enough, they were far apart. For example, Seibert Odom; James and Joseph Allison; and Richard and William Herron had all been close to Andrew in 1820, but in 1830 they are listed on page 97 of the census, while Andrew is on page 63. So, it looks like Andrew moved.

I am curious to find out what part of White County Andrew was in during 1820 and 1830. It doesn't really matter until 1840, since Andrew and his son, John, died between 1840 and 1850. I would like to know where they were, so I can locate a couple of local cemeteries, and go leave some flowers to show my respects.