The Dallas Journal, Volume 49, 2003 Page: 12

Lindley/Heisel Bible Library Research Project

* Rutha/Ruth Lindley born 18 August 1836
* Elizabeth F. Lindley born 30 August 1838 and died 30 July 1858 in Newton County
* Elizer Louisa Lindley born 23 January 1841 and died 18 October 1919 in Dallas County, Texas
* Elmira Georgia Lindley born 17 December 1843 and died 3 May 1917 in Dallas, Texas
William B. Lindley and his family were enumerated in 1840 in Newton County, Georgia."7 Sadly William
Lindley was only 34 years old when he died 13 July 1845. The widowed Louisa Lindley moved her family to Cobb
County, Georgia where we found several other Lindley households. In 1850 Louisa Lindley was listed as "Eliza"
Lindley by the enumerator."8 We knew that Louisa Jane (Smith) Lindley died 21 July 1855, so the search
continued for the Lindley daughters in 1860. And what a search it was!
Generation No. 3
We knew that Nancy Jane Lindley had married William A. Scott 10 August 1852, but we were
unsuccessful in locating them on the 1860 census. We did however locate Nancy Jane Scott as a widow on the
enumeration taken on 25 July 1870 in Tallapoosa County, Alabama.119 After much searching we did not find Nancy
Lindley Scott on the 1880 U.S. census enumeration even after utilizing the Family History Library's 1880 census
CD-ROM collection with its advanced search capabilities. It is possible that she could have died, or she could have
remarried.
Remembering that Georgia Lindley Heisel had copied an obituary for a Mrs. Charity Clements and placed
it in her family Bible, we looked for Charity Clements and her husband, W. A. Clements thinking that there must
have been a close tie between the two women. We found William and Charity Clements in Stewart County,
Georgia.'20 We then located Ruth Lindley enumerated with her sister, Georgia Lindley, and both were living in
the next household to the Clements family.'2' We never learned the connection between Charity Clements and
Georgia Lindley Heisel. Charity Clements may have been a Lindley (possibly the sister of William B. Lindley)
before her two marriages, but we did not discover her maiden name in our research.
We had now located Ruth and Georgia Lindley in 1860, but what happened to Louisa Lindley? After the
death of their mother, the Lindley sisters were separated. We soon located Louisa Lindley working as a domestic
servant in the H. H. Gough household in Walton County, Georgia when the family was counted on 25 July 1860. 122
It took a great deal of searching to find Ruth, Georgia and Louisa Lindley on the 1870 census. We did not
actually confirm that we had the "right" family for Ruth Lindley until we worked a clue supplied in Georgia
Lindley Heisel's obituary - that she left a niece named Mrs. William Barnes. That clue will be discussed below, but
suffice it to say, we eventually found Louisa and Georgia Lindley enumerated in the household of Jonathon S. [sic-
should be Jackson] Finerty and his wife Ruth in Eufaula, Alabama on 29 June 1870. The search for Louisa and
Georgia Lindley had taken longer than usual because they had been enumerated with the surname of "Linda." 123
By 1880 Georgia Lindley had married Adam Heisel and moved to Dallas. Ruth Lindley Finerty and her
sister Louisa ("Lizzie") were still in Eufaula, Alabama and were enumerated on 23 June 1880.124
By the early I1890s both Louisa Lindley and the Jackson Finerty family had moved to Dallas. "Lida"
Lindley is listed in the 1894 city directory living with Adam Heisel. However, she did not appear on the federal
census enumerations for 1900 or 1910 for Dallas. Louisa Lindley died in Hutchins, Texas on 18 October 1919 at
the County Farm. Cause of death was cancer of the face and throat. The farm superintendent listed Louisa Lindley's
father as Wm. Lindley, but he did not know her mother's name. Her birth date was shown as 25 January 1843, and
her age at death was 76 years, 8 months and 23 days.125 Louisa Lindley was buried at Oakland Cemetery in Section
2, Lot 103, South /2 with her sister, Georgia Lindley Heisel and Adam Heisel. We did not find an obituary or death
notice for Louisa Lindley in either Dallas newspaper.
Jackson Finerty was listed in the 1891 city directory as a screen manufacturer with his residence at 458 Elm
Street. However we did not find Jackson Finerty and his family in 1900 in Dallas, and he only appeared in the
Dallas city directories in 1891. We did not find a death for either Jackson Finerty or his wife Ruth Lindley Finerty
when Texas began recording deaths in 1903 so we do not know exactly where they lived after 1891.
Generation No. 4
To complicate matters even further, Jackson and Ruth Lindley Finerty had a daughter named Ruth Finerty
who was born in 1871 (according to her death certificate) but she does not appear on the 1880 census with the

12 The Dallas Genealogical Society