Introduction
Only a handful of references exist concerning the Nathaniel Gentry who lived in Spartanburg District in South Carolina in the years before 1800 and who seems to be the same Nathaniel Gentry as appeared in the 1810 census in Pulaski County, Kentucky. Yet enough information can be inferred from the record that we can surmise that he was one of the patriarchs of the third generation of Gentrys. The purpose of this article to present a series of speculations, that taken together, will present a cohesive and logical picture of Nathaniel and his family. We can liken this to a long-neglected tapestry hanging on the wall, speckled throughout with moth holes. At close range, if one were to try to make out the details of the pattern, there are far too many holes to perceive them. At a distance, looking at a much broader view of the entire tapestry, one may be able to discern the pattern in spite of all of the holes.

Records Relating to Nathaniel Gentry
The first record of a Nathaniel Gentry is in the 1782 tax list of Surry County, North Carolina. In that year, Nathaniel and four other Gentrys later associated with South Carolina, were listed in Capt. Martin's district. Nathaniel and three of these other Gentrys, Hezekiah and Hezekiah's sons Robert and "Runnel" (a spelling variation of "Reynolds"), were taxed only for the horses they owned, and possessed neither land nor cows for which other Gentrys in the district were taxed. The fourth Gentry, besides Nathaniel Gentry, with a South Carolina connection, was Samuel Gentry, owner of 400 acres of land as well as horses and cows. Samuel eventually went to South Carolina where he died in around 1800, but he is known to have lived in Surry County until shortly before 1790. He was a permanent resident of Surry County at the time of the tax listing as opposed to the apparently transient presence of Nathaniel, Hezekiah, and Hezekiah's sons. Hezekiah had also appeared briefly in the 1768 tax list for Rowan County, North Carolina, shortly before Surry County was formed from this county. There are no other references in any North Carolina records to these individuals before or after 1782. It seems apparent that the four men were visiting North Carolina in that year, perhaps prospecting for possible new land holdings, and living with Gentry relatives during their stay.

The next series of records concerning Nathaniel were in Spartanburg County/District, South Carolina. [Note. South Carolina changed from "county" sub-divisions to "districts" in 1800 and retained this practice until 1868. We shall use the title "district" for records subsequent to 1799 or for non-specific use, otherwise use the title "county". ] Nathaniel was listed in an index of land holdings in 1786 as having title to 170 acres on the Tyger River. In 1789, he was called for jury duty in the county court in Spartanburg County. He was next listed in the 1790 federal census for Spartanburg County (the census was actually conducted in South Carolina in 1791 rather than 1790). In this census his household included one male older than 16 in addition to himself, three males younger than 16, and three females (one of whom is presumed to have been his wife). In 1791, a "Nansey Gentry" (assumed to be a misspelling or misreading of "Nathaniel"), was a witness to a sale of land on the middle branch of the Tyger River in Spartanburg County. A year later, Nathaniel entered into a deed of bondage [a mortgage] for 100 acres of land on the South fork of the Tyger River. A sixth reference to Nathaniel in South Carolina was in another index of land holdings in which he was listed in 1793 as having title to 534 acres of land on the Pacolet River in Greenville County, South Carolina. We have no knowledge as to whether this last piece of land replaced his earlier land holdings or was in addition to it. A parallel index to land plats in "Ninety-Six District" (the precursor and designation of the larger section of South Carolina from which Spartanburg County was formed in 1786) indicates that Nathaniel had 2 land plats in the district in 1785 and 1792, but with no detail as to the acreage or more specific location. All further references to a Nathaniel Gentry in Spartanburg District are to an obviously younger man who is assumed to have been a grandson of the older Nathaniel.

Fig 1. Counties of Ninety-Six District, South Carolina
and neighboring Georgia, 1790
(Shaded areas with recorded Gentrys in that year)

There is only one other reference to a Nathaniel Gentry that could logically be for the Nathaniel who lived in South Carolina. This is in the 1810 census for Pulaski County, Kentucky in which the household listed for Nathaniel contained a man and wife born before 1765 along with twelve other individuals. We will have more to say about these individuals later. For the moment, it is enough to assert:

• Nathaniel, as the head of house, was the man who was over 45 years of age at the time.
• We will assume that at least the majority of the other members of the household were children, spouses, and grandchildren of Nathaniel.
• The lack of any further reference to this family in the 1820 census in Kentucky or any of the surrounding states, suggests that Nathaniel probably died between 1810 and 1820, and that his family scattered to locations other than Pulaski County.

Records of Possible Members of Nathaniel's Family in South Carolina
In addition to Nathaniel there were four other Gentrys households listed in the 1790 Spartanburg census. It is reasonable to suppose that one or more of these may have included Gentrys closely related to Nathaniel. One of these was listed with Samuel "Gentry" (as opposed to another household with the name "Sam'l Jentry") as the head of house. His household included in addition to Samuel, two males older than 16, two males younger than 16, and five females, one of whom is assumed to have been Samuel's spouse, Frances. To differentiate him from the other Samuel, we shall refer to this individual as "Samuel Gentry the Younger", and refer to "Samuel Jentry" as "Samuel Gentry the Elder". He appeared again in the 1800 Spartanburg District census with a date of birth before 1755. With two sons born before 1774 (as shown in the 1790 census), we can estimate a birth date for this Samuel as roughly 1750 or shortly before.

Let us now consider two other Gentrys in the 1790 census. One of these was Samuel "Jentry" (Samuel Gentry the Elder) mentioned above, along with an "Allen Jentry". Samuel's household was listed with one male older than 16 in addition to himself, two males younger than 16, and one female, presumably his spouse. Allen's household included his wife and a presumed daughter -- apparently a young man, recently married. In the 1800 census, Samuel was missing and in his place were families Allen Gentry, and for Nicholas Gentry and Jeremiah Gentry, two of the sons living with Samuel in 1790. The third son, Samuel Jr., is thought to have left South Carolina for Kentucky by 1800. The identity and composition of this family are established beyond question by a deed recorded in Surry County, North Carolina, in 1801, in which 400 acres of land owned by "Samuel Gentry of South Carolina, deceased", were sold by Samuel's heirs, identified in the deed as Allen, Nicholas, Jeremiah and Samuel Gentry. Samuel the Elder was the same Samuel found in the tax and land records for Surry County whom we have mentioned earlier. Census, land and other records continued in Spartanburg District for this family for many years afterwards.

One other Gentry was recorded in the 1790 Spartanburg census. This was Tyre (also spelled Tyree) Gentry, with his spouse, one young son and one young daughter. All published printings and indexes to this census, have Tyre's name spelled as "Tigak". A close examination of the name on the original hand-written copy of the census, shows it to be smeared and over-written. The evidence of later references elsewhere to Tyre indicates the proper identification of this census entry. [For further details relating to this identification, and for more information about Tyre's family, readers are referred to an article by Tom J. Gentry in a previous issue of the Gentry Journal (JGG, vol. 2, issue #11, Nov 2002) which can be found in the "Back Issues" section of this website. Be advised that some of Tom's conclusions as to the parentage of Tyre have been revised since the time of that article and are no longer relevant.] As discussed in that article, family records for Tyre indicate that he was born about 1766, his wife's name was Delilah, and he had a son William born in 1788 and a daughter Mildred born in 1791 (because of the late canvassing for the census, Mildred had been born by the time the census was taken).

The remaining 1790 census returns in South Carolina involving Gentrys were from Edgefield and Pendleton Counties. All of these involved the family of David-III Gentry, oldest son of Samuel-II Gentry. Sons of David in the census included "Hez'h Jentrey" (Hezekiah), "John Jentrey", "Simon Jentrey", and "Cane Gentrey" (Allen Cain, listed in most printed transcriptions of the census and in indices as "Jane Gentrey") in Edgefield County, and David Gentry Jr. in Pendleton County. Two sons of Hezekiah, Robert and Reynolds and one son of Cain, ("Jon' Gentry") were also listed in Edgefield County. Across the Savannah River in Wilkes County, Georgia, tax lists for 1790 add the names of two other sons of David Sr. living there, namely Elisha and Elijah. This accounts for seven of the eight sons of David. The missing son was Nicholas who moved from South Carolina to Tennessee where he was killed by Indians in the Fort Nashboro area in 1782. Though these Gentrys were closely related to Nathaniel presumably as nephews or cousins, they could not have been part of the immediate direct family of Nathaniel.

To complete the count of South Carolina Gentrys before deciding how they might be related to Nathaniel, there are two other individuals to consider. In Spartanburg County records there is a brief reference to a Matthew Gentry who was a defendant in the county court in 1796. His name appeared twice in relation to that case, confirming the name of the individual involved. He was nowhere mentioned again. It is probable that he was one of the males in Nathaniel's household, older than 16, in the 1790 census. Certainly, later Spartanburg District records indicate that he was not a part of Samuel the Younger's household. A final individual was Richard Gentry, a Revolutionary War veteran who testified in court in 1832 in Tennessee in connection with an application for a veteran's pension, that when he had enlisted in the South Carolina militia he was living near the Tyger River in Union County. Richard did not give a specific date for this enlistment but comparing it with his subsequent military service history, it must have been in 1780. This is the same Tyger River which flows into Spartanburg County and on which Nathaniel and Samuel the Younger owned land. Richard testified further that he was born 27 Dec 1755 in Lunenburg County, Virginia. (See map in Figure 2)

Assembling Nathaniel Gentry's family
We have established that there were four Gentrys other than Nathaniel living in or associated in some way with Spartanburg County, namely Samuel the Younger, Tyre, Richard and Matthew. The fact that they were living near each other in the Spartanburg area or had lived near there, suggests a probable relationship. Samuel's year of birth was estimated above as approximately 1750 or shortly before and Richard's was 1755. We have no independent estimate of Nathaniel's age other than the fact that in 1810, he was listed as having been born before 1765. When we consider all of the second and third generation Gentrys, it is difficult to conceive of Nathaniel and Samuel, or Nathaniel and Richard as being brothers with some unknown third generation Gentry as a father. Both Samuel and Richard were too old to have been sons of any of the other South Carolina Gentrys except Samuel the Elder and we have no reason to believe that they were sons of any of the Gentrys in North Carolina. It seems to be safe to assert that Nathaniel was the father and that Samuel and Richard were sons. Tyre's year of birth is believed to have been about 1766. Tyre's age is such that he could also have been a son of David (of Pendleton County, born about 1739) or John Gentry (of Edgefield County, born about 1741), the second and third oldest sons of David-III. Since Tyre was living in Spartanburg District and was intermediate in age between the older and younger sons of Nathaniel, there is more logic to place him with that family rather than as a grandson of David-III.

We shall argue later that Matthew Gentry's year of birth was probably about 1770, which is consistent with the oldest of the sons of Nathaniel living with him in 1790. We shall also argue that two of the younger males living with Nathaniel at that time were also males, born after 1774. By far the most satisfactory option is to accept the hypothesis that Samuel, Richard, Tyre, Matthew and two other sons were children of Nathaniel. Using our metaphor of a moth-eaten tapestry, looking at this proposed relationship at close range, there are no direct connections tying these individuals together. Looking at the broad picture from a distance, this assumption about Nathaniel's family is logical and makes good sense. We will now outline his entire hypothetical family. Then we can suggest the further details that can be inferred about Nathaniel himself, and about further children of his, and the reasoning behind our set of assumptions.

Nathaniel Gentry Family (Hypothetical)
-- Born in Hanover County, Virginia, in about 1728 to 1730, a son of Samuel-II Gentry and Ann (Allen) Gentry.
-- Died probably in Pulaski County, Kentucky, shortly after 1810.
-- Identity of spouse(s) unknown. Probably married more than once.
	Children of Nathaniel (and a first wife?)
	i	Samuel Gentry (the Younger), born about 1750 in Louisa County, Virginia; died 1818, Spartanburg District, South Carolina. Married Frances --?--.
	ii	David Gentry, born about 1753, probably in Louisa County, Virginia; died 16/19 Jul 1846/47 in Overton County, Tennessee. Married (1) Elizabeth Smith (?); married (2), Feb or May 1807, Sarah (Roberts) Johnson. [Testimony by Sarah Gentry in old age about her maiden name, about David's year of death, and the date of their marriage was confused and not consistent.]
	iii	Richard Gentry, born 27 Dec 1755 in Lunenburg County, Virginia; died 13 Feb 1836 in RockCastle County, Kentucky. Married 1793, Surry County, North Carolina, to Gestin (or Justina) Hudspeth (also spelled Hedgepeth).
	Children of Nathaniel (and a second wife?)
	iv	Tyre (or Tyree) Gentry, born 20 Apr 1766, probably in Lunenburg County, Virginia; died 5 Aug 1845 in Arkansas. Married Delilah Clark(?).
	v	Matthew Gentry, born about 1770-2.
	vi	Isham (/Isom) Gentry, born about 1775-1780. Married 12 Sep 1803, Lincoln County, Kentucky, to Elizabeth Lunsford.
	vii	John Gentry, born about 1785-1790 in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. Married 16 Jan 1809, Lincoln County, Kentucky to Rebecca Richards.

[Names or dates shown in italics are assertions by others which are reasonable but which this author cannot confirm.]

Additional Hypotheses Concerning Nathaniel Gentry
We assume that Nathaniel was at least fifty years old in 1782 when he was taxed for possession of a horse in Surry County, North Carolina. Where was he before that time? His presence with the other Gentrys in 1782 and his presence in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, as a neighbor of Samuel Gentry the Elder ties him closely to the sons of Samuel-II Gentry who moved to North and South Carolina. The birthplace of his proposed son, Richard Gentry, in Lunenburg County, Virginia, also ties him closely to the family of Samuel-II, for there are no known Gentrys of the other branches of the descendants of Nicholas Gentry the Immigrant who lived in that county. This leaves little question that Nathaniel must have been a part of this family. His age requires that he must have been a son rather than a grandson. It is probable that he was named for Samuel's grandfather, Nathaniel Gentry of Kelvedon, Essex County, England. Samuel's family has been discussed at some length in the Journal of Gentry Genealogy. We refer the reader expecially to a two-issue summary in JGG, vol 1, issues 7 and 8 (Jul and Aug 2001) where a brief summary of each of Samuel's sons is included, along with reference citations which will not be repeated here.

It will be helpful to briefly summarize the known references to Samuel and his children and their movements. Samuel was born in Hanover County, Virginia (it was a part of New Kent County at the time) at his father's home along Totopotomoy Creek. He moved to the western end of Hanover County in about 1712. He moved again in 1842 to Louisa County where he received a grant for 700 acres on Dirty Swamp. He sold portions of this land over a fifteen year period, from 1747 to 1762. He may have spent his last years with his son, Allen in Caswell County, North Carolina, dying some time after 1779.

Samuel's two oldest sons, David and Nicholas and his daughter, Ann, were the only children included in early Louisa County deeds during the time that Samuel was living there. Sons Joseph, Simon and Richard appeared in a single Louisa County record in 1762 when they witnessed the sale of the last portion of Samuel's land.

The entire family, one by one, moved from Louisa County to Lunenburg County, Virginia, beginning in 1747 with the purchase of land there by Nicholas. The next purchases of land were by Joseph (in 1752), Allen (in 1755), and David (in 1757). French Haggard, the husband of Samuel's daughter, Ann, sold land in Louisa County and bought land in Lunenburg County in 1757. There were other records during this period of time, however, showing the presence of Gentrys during the early years. David Gentry in particular was present as early as 1749 even though he did not buy land on his own account until much later. Most of this time he was probably living on property owned by his father-in-law, Richard Brooks. Lunenburg County tax lists between 1748 and 1752 included Nicholas, David and William. [Unfortunately, a publication by Landon G. Bell in which he compiled and transcribed the earliest tax records for Lunenburg County included only that five year span then skipped to 1762. Additional records that may have existed have been lost.] These four sons of Samuel, daughter Ann, and David's son, Hezekiah, appeared in a variety of other records that included court records, witnessing of deeds, and references to holding adjoining land in deeds.

The career of a fifth son, Simon Gentry, was quite different from the rest of his brothers. He appeared in half a dozen references in Lunenburg County between 1755 and 1757 with jury and other court appearances and with assignments for road maintenance along with David, Joseph and Nicholas. He then moved back north to Cumberland County, Virginia where he was married in 1760, and where he eventually died in 1790. Simon never held title to any land in Lunenburg County and it is assumed that he lived with either Joseph or Nicholas during his brief stay there. Simon's place in Nicholas' household appears to have been taken eventually by Richard Gentry.

A sixth son, Richard, seems to have remained in Louisa County after his older brothers one by one moved south, and probably continued to work or supervise his father's plantation. Indeed his parents and his younger brother, Samuel-III, may have continued to live there as well until shortly before 1762 when the plantation was finally sold. Richard appeared in a number of Lunenburg County references beginning in 1759, including assignment of road maintenance responsibilities with Joseph and Nicholas in continuation of the same duty to which Simon had earlier been assigned. Richard's final reference was as a witness for the final sale of the land owned by Nicholas along the Meherrin River in Lunenburg County. Nicholas and Richard along with their brothers, Joseph and William, moved from Lunenburg County some time after 1765 to Surry County, North Carolina where they started appearing in records of that county in 1771. (Nicholas, Joseph and their nephew, Hezekiah, are also found in the tax lists for 1768 in Rowan County, North Carolina, from which Surry County was formed in 1770.)

Another son of Samuel, John Gentry, appears to have had an untimely death in 1761 when his orphan son, Joseph, was placed in bondage to Samuel Gentry by the church wardens of Cumberland Parish (which included all of Lunenburg County). (Whether Joseph's guardian was his grandfather Samuel-II or his uncle Samuel-III is not known. Joseph apparently died very young and was never heard from thereafter.) John was living in Lunenburg County in 1754 when he made a court appearance for settlement of a debt, and in 1759 he witnessed a sale of land in Johnston County, North Carolina, during a period of time when David Gentry and Samuel-III were temporarily living there. Whether John died in Virginia or North Carolina is not known, but at least his family connections were all back in Virginia.

The final member of the family of Samuel-II Gentry, other than Nathaniel, was Samuel-III. There are no records existing for him in Lunenburg County if you omit the possibility of being granted guardianship over John's orphan son. In 1761 and 1762, while his brother David was living in Johnston County, North Carolina, Samuel served as a chainbearer for a surveyor's team. Then in 1767, Samuel witnessed a deed for the purchase by William Allen of land which originally had been part of Lunenburg County then had been split off in 1764 to form Mecklenburg County. This was adjoining an area where the same William Allen had acquired land in 1759, which transaction had been witnessed by Samuel's brother David and by David's son, Hezekiah. In the following years Samuel may have lived with his brother Allen in Caswell County, North Carolina (where two references in 1777 and 1779 may have referred either to this Samuel or to his father, Samuel-II). Eventually he joined his other brothers in Surry County, North Carolina. There he applied for a land grant and started appearing in tax lists beginning in 1781. Finally he moved to Spartanburg County, South Carolina. This is the Samuel whom we have discussed earlier as Samuel the Elder.

We have said earlier that four of the Gentry brothers moved from Lunenburg County to Surry County some time after 1765. Simon moved north to Cumberland County and John died, probably in Lunenburg County. The movements of Samuel-II's only daughter, Ann, are not known, but she and her husband, French Haggard, seem to have left Lunenburg County at about the same time as Ann's brothers. David Gentry moved to Johnston County, North Carolina, from Lunenburg County in about 1759, probably looking for a possible new home but seems to have remained there for only about three years. He returned to Lunenburg County where he appeared in frequent court cases involving debts he apparently owed until his death in that county. In 1766, David's widow, Sarah, moved to Colleton County, South Carolina, where she was granted 450 acres of land along the Saluda River, an area that later became part of Edgefield County. Her grant was based upon 100 acres granted on her own account plus an additional 50 acres for each member of her family, namely seven sons. Sarah's oldest son, Hezekiah, joined her in Edgefield County later. We have referred to the other members of this family earlier in discussing the Gentrys present in South Carolina and Georgia in 1790.

The one remaining member of Samuel-II's family, Allen Gentry, took an independent course like Simon. He stayed on in Lunenburg County until apparently 1771 when he sold land that he owned along with his brother, Joseph. His movements thereafter are not clearly defined. He briefly visited his brothers in Surry County in 1772, but then returned to Caswell County, North Carolina, where his name and two of his children, Shadrack and Abednego, appeared in a few of the infrequent tax records. A third son, Meshack, served in the Revolutionary War, enlisting from North Carolina, but lived north of the North Carolina border in Halifax County from about 1787 to 1793. There are no other records for Shadrack or Abednego during this time except for a marriage by the former in Halifax County in 1792.

This leaves us with Nathaniel Gentry, who as we have already indicated, never did appear in any Virginia records. It is difficult to place him any place else than as a part of the family of Samuel-II despite this lack of records when one considers his association with this family in North Carolina and South Carolina and considering the birthplace of his son Richard. During the earlier years of the Gentrys time in Lunenburg County, it is probable that Nathaniel was with the portion of the family that seems to have remained in Louisa County. He must have moved to Lunenburg County by 1755, however, for that is when and where his son, Richard, was born. The presence of this same son living along the Tyger River in South Carolina in 1780 certainly suggests that Nathaniel must have moved to that region some years previous to that. In between, Nathaniel went his own way, separate from others of the family. This is not unlike the behaviour of David Gentry's son, Nicholas, who left South Carolina for Tennessee, completely separately from the rest of the family. In the case of Nicholas, friends and his wife's family had much to do with his actions. It is probable that the same may have been true of Nathaniel.

The scarcity of records for Allen's family and the fragmentary records for John Gentry and Samuel-III Gentry suggest that it was quite possible to operate "under the radar" in colonial and early post-war Virginia and North Carolina without attracting much notice. This fact, and the always present possibility of the loss of early records, can account for the lack of records for Nathaniel. This leaves us with an impossible task if we try to pinpoint Nathaniel's movements from 1755 to 1780. There is a gap of close to twenty-five years for which we have no accounting. It is pure guesswork to speculate where he was during that time -- still in southern Virginia, in North Carolina, or in South Carolina. Most of these areas have lost early records over the years or did not generate many records to begin with. All we can say here, is that while there is nothing in the records regarding Nathaniel that positively link him with the family of Samuel-II Gentry, there is nothing in the record that contradicts this possibility.

Hypotheses Relating to David Gentry as a son of Nathaniel
We will leave Nathaniel Gentry at this point and continue the discussion of his possible children. We have already talked about Samuel the Younger, Richard, and Tyre as being possible children. We will next consider the case of David Gentry, the Revolutionary War veteran and pensioner. David's early years are very much a mystery and he is constantly being confused with the David Gentry who was a son of Nicholas-III Gentry of Louisa County, Virginia, son of Nicholas-II Gentry. This is in large measure due to his mis-identification by Richard Gentry, compiler of "The Gentry Family in America". As a consequence David is frequently listed with multiple wives and with multiple places and dates of death. Both Davids were born in about the same year, thereafter the details vary. Nathaniel's David, whose military history is given in his application for a Revolutionary War pension, is largely undocumented as to his early life. He married Sarah (Roberts) Johnson in 1807, spent all of the later years of his life in Tennessee, and died in 1846 or 1847 (dates vary) in Overton County, Tennessee. His counterpart David married Elizabeth Whitlock in Louisa County, Virginia, in about 1777, lived most of his life in Caroline County, Virginia, and died in Buncombe County, North Carolina.

The suggestion that the first David was a son of Nathaniel is primarily on the basis of (1) the fact that David testified that he enlisted in the militia in Bedford County, Virginia, in about 1780; and (2) his age which was appropriate for a prospective son of Nathaniel. David testified that he was eighty years old in February 1834 in Jackson County Court, in Tennessee, when he applied for a veteran's pension, which suggests that he was probably born some time in 1753. (The age of 97 given in the 1840 Overton County, Tennessee, census is surely wrong -- by a matter of ten years or so.) Another link to south-central Virginia is a record of a David Gentry who witnessed a deed of sale for land along the northern border of Lunenburg County in 1781. At the period of time when David was serving in the militia, the borders for Lunenburg County and Bedford County, Virginia are shown in Figure 2. (In 1755 when Richard Gentry was born, Lunenburg included Charlotte and Mecklenburg Counties in its boundaries).

Fig. 2 North Carolina and Virginia Counties in 1780

We have not been able to tie this David Gentry to any of the early Gentry families living in Hanover, Louisa and Albemarle Counties. His closest link is with Nathaniel. We have already raised the possibility that Nathaniel may have remained in the Lunenburg - Halifax - Caswell counties area between 1770 and 1780. Considering the geographical proximity of Bedford County to these counties, Nathaniel himself may have lived there for a while. If not, David may have ventured alone into Bedford County and remained there when Nathaniel moved south to South Carolina with other members of his family. David's connection with Bedford County appears to have been only a transitory one and did not continue for any length of time after his military service. David was discharged from military service at Shallowford on the Yadkin River in Surry County, North Carolina. It is likely that he returned to Bedford County, then in all probability, married and moved west along the natural route of pioneer migration to the Holston River valley of Tennessee. Aside from David's testimony, no records of any Gentrys in the early history of Bedford County have been found with the exception of the brief presence of Benajah Gentry there twenty years later in 1800.

It has been said that David's first wife was an Elizabeth Smith whom he married in Virginia. Further, Elizabeth, has been said to have been born in Louisa County, Virginia, and to have married David there in 1776/7. There is no confirmation of this marriage place or date, and it is probably part of the confusion between the two David Gentrys, linking this Elizabeth and the Elizabeth Whitlock who married the other David at that same time in Louisa County. The story should be considered with great caution. Our David's marriage might have taken place either before or after David's military service. It is more likely that he was not married until after the end of the Revolutionary War for the children attributed to that marriage were all born in the period roughly from 1790 to 1800. We have no suggestion as to where that marriage took place.

If we assume that David was indeed a son of Nathaniel, It is uncertain as to whether or not he spent any time in South Carolina during the early years of his first marriage. A proposed daughter, Lucinda Gentry, married Francis Davidson in 1808, supposedly in South Carolina. Lucinda, is alleged to have been born in 1792 in South Carolina, but the 1860 census for Fentress County, Tennessee, shows her as being born in Kentucky (her family is missing from the 1850 census). Later 1880 census records for children of Lucinda gave Tennessee as the birthplace of both of their parents. This may be wrong, but leaves us with no assurance of Lucinda's correct birthplace. The author has recently learned that testimony by a grandson of Lucinda claimed that Lucinda's mother was a Cherokee Indian by the name of Sally Weatherford. If true, Lucinda's father was much more likely to have been the David Gentry who lived with the Cherokee Indians and was killed in Indian wars in 1828. The weight of the small amount of evidence available suggests that Lucinda was not a daughter of David of Overton and Jackson County, Tennessee..

David is believed to have had at least three sons by his first wife. The evidence for this is given in a previous issue of the Gentry Journal to which the reader is referred (JGG, vol.2, issue #4, April 2002). These sons were Jesse, born probably not long before 1790 (reportedly in North Carolina which at that time included all of Tennessee), John, born probably between 1790 and 1793 in Tennessee, and Thomas, born probably about 1796 in Tennessee. John is thought to have died about 1819 or 1820 and a son was probably the James Gentry who lived with Thomas thereafter. The records of these sons suggest that after his war service, David Gentry moved to northeastern Tennessee (Jesse was married in Grainger County in 1807), then moved westward to Jackson County. His first wife is thought to have died there.

David married a second time in 1807. The records for this marriage are very confusing for they are drawn from the testimony of his wife, Sarah, who appeared in Jackson County court in 1853 and in 1855 to apply for bounty land due survivors of Revolutionary War soldiers. Her testimony included:

• Sarah was 80 at the time of the first court appearance, She gave the date of David's death as 16 Jul 1847, the date of their marriage as 12 May 1807 in Bedford County, North Carolina, and her maiden name as Sarah Johnson.
• In 1855, she testified that David had died 19 Jul 1846, that they were married in about February 1807 in Anson County, North Carolina, and that her maiden name was Sarah Roberts.
• It is obvious that her memory was faulty, undoubtedly due to old age. Aside from the discrepancy of dates and maiden names, there was not and is not a Bedford County, North Carolina, and whether she was referring to the county by that name in Virginia or in Tennessee is a question.
• We have chosen to think that her maiden name was Roberts, that she married once before her marriage to David, and her name at the time of that marriage was Sarah Johnson.
• As to the place of marriage, since David was living at the time of marriage in Tennessee, and Bedford County, Virginia, and Anson County, North Carolina were both a considerable distance away with no logical reason for David to go there at that time of his life, a marriage location in Bedford County, Tennessee makes more sense. On the other hand, Sarah may have simply confused her husband's earlier residence with the marriage location and it actually took place somewhere else, perhaps in Jackson County.

More details are given about this marriage, David and Sarah's children, and David's later life in the same journal article reference above.

Further Hypotheses Relating to Richard Gentry as a son of Nathaniel
Nathaniel's Richard Gentry was also a Revolutionary War veteran and our knowledge of his early life is drawn from testimony given by him in RockCastle County Court, Kentucky, in 1832 applying for pension benefits. Further testimony was given by his widow, Gestin in 1839 and 1842. Richard testified to his birth on 17 Dec 1755 in Lunenburg County, Virginia, (which we have noted in connection with the map in Figure 2, at that time included the later counties of Charlotte and Mecklenburg also within its boundaries). Richard had volunteered for service in the South Carolina militia from Union District, South Carolina, where he was living near the Tyger River. From further evidence we can deduce that this was sometime during the year 1780. The two pieces of testimony, one relating him to the Gentrys of Lunenburg County, and the second placing him along the Tyger River in 1780 are the two specific pieces of evidence leading us to propose a relationship of Richard to Nathaniel.

This suggestion of Richard being a son of Nathaniel has been controversial for there are Gentry family historians who have insisted that Richard was a son of Richard-III Gentry of Surry County, North Carolina (whose record in Lunenburg County, Virginia, we have already discussed). This is because the younger Richard married his wife, Gestin Hudspeth in Surry County in 1792, and because there are tax and census records for a Richard Gentry Jr. in Surry County in the years shortly before 1800. Both of these facts are true, but the great preponderance of evidence is that

Richard Jr. was a son of Richard Sr., separate from the Richard who married Gestin Hudspeth. Richard Jr. is believed to have been the same Richard Gentry who eventually appeared in Pulaski County, Kentucky, in the 1810 census records along with Nathaniel. Again we will not given all of the arguments or reference citations for this here, but refer the reader to a previous Gentry Journal article (JGG, vol. 3, issue #3, March 2003). It is interesting in connection with Nathaniel and Richard Jr.'s late appearance in Pulaski County, Kentucky, that Nathaniel's Richard testified that after leaving Surry County (in about 1800), he spent three years in Lincoln County, Kentucky, then moved to RockCastle County, Kentucky. Both of these counties bordered Pulaski County on the north and east.

Previously Unrecognized Sons of Nathaniel
The records of Lincoln County, Kentucky contain references to an Isham (or Isom) Gentry and a John Gentry whose identify have never been confirmed. These begin in 1803 with a record of a marriage bond for the marriage of Isham Gentry to Elizabeth Lunsford, followed by the marriage in 1809 of John Gentry to Rebecca Richards. In between, tax lists for Lincoln County show Isham as a land holder in 1805, 1806, 1807, and 1808. In 1809, he is further described as owning 350 acres on Dicks River as well as two other 50-acre tracts on the same river.

The 1810 census for Lincoln County has entries for both Isham and for John, the former with three daughters and the latter newly-married. John's year of birth was listed as between 1784 and 1794, while Isham's was given as before 1784. Isham's family appeared again in the 1820 Lincoln County census, but there was no entry for John. Instead, an adult male was living with Isham whom this writer believes was probably John, presumably after an untimely death of the latter's wife. Both men were listed as being born between 1775 and 1794.

Subsequent entries in the marriage records for Lincoln County show the marriage in 1824 of Polly Gentry to David McCullum and in 1825 of Casandra Gentry to George McAfee. Both marriages list as bondsman, a "J. Sam" Gentry as father. This surely is someone's misreading of the name "Isom" Gentry. In addition, in 1835, John B. Gentry married Sally B. King with Sally's father serving as a bondsman. This is probably the son of Isham/Isom who was present in the 1820 census rather than a second marriage of Isham's brother, John.

We have found no further records for Isham's two daughters or for either brother John or son John. Isham was not in any 1830 census, but he is apparently the Isom Gentry listed in 1840 in Platte County, Missouri. A presumed son, Isom Jr. was in the 1850 Platte County census with spouse and children of a marriage in about 1841 or 1842. Isom Jr.'s age was appropriate for him to be one of the children of Isom Sr. present in the 1840 census. In that year, in addition to Isom's family, there is an adult male who may have been Isom's brother John, still living with the family. Isom Jr. moved on to Kansas from Missouri and was known as "I. B." rather than Isom.

What leads us to consider these two men, Isham/Isom and John, as possible sons of Nathaniel? First, they are of the proper age to have been two of the unidentified males in Nathaniel's family in the 1790 census. In that year, besides himself, there were one male over 16 years of age and three less than 16. We believe that the oldest son was Matthew who accompanied Nathaniel to Pulaski County, Kentucky. Then the next two were Isham and John. The youngest male we believe to be the oldest son of Matthew, a grandson of Nathaniel. Neither Isham nor John were with Nathaniel in 1810 when he was in Pulaski County. The presence of these two individuals in Lincoln County, Kentucky, is very consistent with Nathaniel's move to Pulaski County, and with the temporary move by Richard Gentry to Lincoln County before settling in RockCastle County.

Later Movements of Nathaniel
We have no information as to when Nathaniel left South Carolina to go to Kentucky, but he was missing from the 1800 census. The last record of his family in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, was in 1796 when Matthew appeared in court. Some time within the next few years it is probable that the family moved north. Nathaniel stopped in Pulaski County, on the southern border of Kentucky. Lincoln County, where Isham and John settled in 1803 was the next county north. Perhaps coincidentally, Richard's cousin, Richard Jr (son of Richard-III of Surry County), left Surry County at about the same time as Nathaniel's Richard, and was present in Pulaski County at the same time in 1810 as Nathaniel. It appears as if this was a concerted or sequential move in which the two Richards and Nathaniel decided to find new land in Kentucky, with Isham and John striking out from Nathaniel's family into Lincoln County along with the South Carolina Richard (briefly) while the rest of Nathaniel's family and the North Carolina Richard found homes in Pulaski County.

Hypotheses Relating to Matthew Gentry
This leads us finally to Matthew as a son of Nathaniel. The only evidence we have as to his name is the record of two court appearances by him in the Spartanburg County Court in 1796. We have only surmised that he was the son of Nathaniel who was with the latter in Pulaski County in 1810, as the father of a sizeable family. We will discuss possible members of that family in just a moment, but have found no other evidence for Matthew himself or his wife. There were no members of Nathaniel's family present in Pulaski County in 1820, and there are no land records, marriages, court records or the like for any Gentrys in that period of time. There is a possibility, mostly based on name and age alone, that Matthew appeared in the Vermillion County, Indiana census in 1830, but this is very much of a wild guess.

As an extension of our speculations concerning Matthew, we will consider the case of four Gentrys who appeared in the 1830 census for St. Clair County, Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, namely Joseph, Ba[r]tlet, Yimri and Levi, all living in close proximity to each other. Ten years earlier, in neighboring Washington County, Illinois, a Zimriah Gentry was listed in the 1820 Illinois state census, but was not in the federal census. Moving forward ten years, Zimri had moved to Greene County, Illinois, where he was listed in the 1840 census, and Levi had moved to Wayne County, Missouri. In 1850, this same Levi Gentry was again listed in Wayne County with an age of 44, born in South Carolina, and with a son named Zimri. Such a correspondence of unusual names certainly suggest that the later Zimri and Levi must have been the same individuals as in the 1830 census, and also suggests that all four of the 1830 men may have come from South Carolina.

In addition to the four heads of household in the 1830 census, both Joseph and Bartlet appear to have had a younger brother living with them. The one living with Joseph, we will designate simply as "X" and was born between 1800 and 1810. The one living with Bartlet, we will designate as "Y" and was born between 1810 and 1815. The oldest of these six appears to have been Zimri (or Yimri or Zimriah), born between 1790 and 1800, while the youngest was "Y".

It was unusual for any residents of South Carolina to move north to Illinois, let alone six of them. If we look at the 1810 South Carolina census records for Gentry families with five sons under the age of 20, three of them under the age of 10 (we exclude "Y" from this group), there is only one family, that of John Gentry of Abbeville District with that many sons. These sons are accounted for in the records of Hall County, Georgia, in 1820 and do not include any that might have gone to Illinois. If we look in the 1800 census for families with two sons age 10 or under, there naturally are more possibilities, but all of these were families whose sons could be accounted for in other ways.

If we look at the composition of the family of Matthew Gentry, both as it might have been in the 1790 Spartanburg, South Carolina census and in the 1810 Pulaski County, Kentucky census, we are able to match sexes and ages of most of his children rather well with the Illinois Gentrys. The major discrepancy is that Levi's age in 1850 was given as 44, born in South Carolina. This equates to his birth there in 1805 or 1806. This date is after the time that Matthew is believed to have left South Carolina, but Levi's age may have been reported wrong, or Matthew's wife may have been in South Carolina for some reason at the time of Levi's birth. A diagrammatic representation of this family's record of birth-year ranges is shown below.

The composition shown here of the family of this proposed Matthew that was living with Nathaniel in 1790 and in 1810 is rather strongly supported. Whether the children of Matthew correspond to the individuals living later in St. Clair County, Illinois, is much more of a guess. We have added in italics above, two other census listings that are much more doubtful than those for St. Clair County, Illinois. The questionable records are found in the 1830 Vermillion County, Indiana census, with a listing for a Matthew Gentry who was born 1770-1780, and a Samuel Gentry born 1780-1790. Both families had younger children than were present in 1810 which might well be expected, especially if Matthew had fairly recently married a second, younger wife. In addition the age of Matthew's spouse in 1830 does not correspond to his second wife in the table above (which may have indicated a third wife). There is no other record of what might have happened to Matthew so this Indiana reference may indeed have been to the same individual. We include it here only to provide a more complete potential record, not because we are convinced that the Indiana families came from Kentucky.

Conclusion
We have presented here in considerable detail (probably far more than the reader may want) our efforts to piece together many disparate facts concerning a number of Gentry families that we believe fit together to make a logical whole. We once again emphasize that the proposals for the family of Nathaniel Gentry represent a combination of many hypotheses, very few of which can be supported by solid documentary evidence. On the other hand, there is no conflicting evidence for these speculations. We believe the sum total of these hypotheses form a logical tapestry of probabilities that future research may show to be in error in a few details, but overall represent a plausible picture of that early pioneer, Nathaniel Gentry.

References
We have referred on a number of occasions in this article to previous articles in the Journal of Gentry Genealogy which covered individual Gentrys in more detail. In the interests of keeping the length of this article reasonable, reference citations in those articles which apply also to this article are not repeated here. They may be found by the reader wishing to see them in more detail by accessing those articles in the Back Issues section of this website. We do, however, include here a series of census listings which have not previously been published in connection with Nathaniel's family that apply particularly to the chart above.

Federal Census for 1810, 1820, 1830, and 1840
1810 Federal Census		Born-> Sex	1800- 1810	1794- 1800	1784- 1794	1765- 1784	Bef 1765
Lincoln County, Kentucky
Page 117	Isham Gentry (son of Nathaniel?)	M F	0 3	0 0	0 1	1 0	0 0
Page 117	John Gentry (son of Nathaniel?)	M F	0 0	0 0	1 1	0 0	0 0
Pulaski County, Kentucky
Page 146	Nathaniel Gentry	M F	4 1	2 0	3 1	1 0	1 1
1820 Federal Census		Born-> Sex	1810- 1820	1804- 1810	1802- 1804	1794- 1804	1775- 1794	Bef. 1775
Lincoln County, Kentucky
Page 77	Isham Gentry	M F	1 2	0 1	0	0 1	2 1	0 0

1830 Federal Census		Born-> /Sex	1825- 1830	1820- 1825	1815- 1820	1810- 1815	1800- 1810	1790- 1800	1780- 1790	Older
St. Clair County, Illinois
Page 126	Levi Gentry (son of Matthew?)	M F	0 0	0 0	0 0	0 0	1 0	0 0	0 0	0 50-60
Page 126	Yimri Gentry (son of Matthew?)	M F	0 3	0 1	0 1	0 0	0 0	1 1	0 0	0 0
Page 131	Joseph Gentry (son of Matthew?)	M F	0 0	0 0	0 0	0 0	1 0	1 1	0 0	0 0
Page 131	Ba[r]tlet Gentry (son of Matthew?)	M F	1 0	1 0	0 0	1 0	1 1	0 0	0 0	0 0
Vermillion County, Indiana
Page 212	Matthew Gentry (son of Nathaniel?)	M F	0 0	0 1	0 1	1 0	1 0	0 0	0 1	50-60 50-60
Page 220	Samuel Gentry (son of Matthew?)	M F	0 0	0 0	0 0	0 4	0 1	0 0	1 0	0 50-60
1840 Federal Census		Born-> Sex	1835- 1840	1830- 1835	1825- 1830	1820- 1825	1810- 1820	1800- 1810	1790- 1800	bef. 1790
Greene County, Illinois
Page 95	Zimry Gentry	M F	1 2	1 2	1 2	0 2	1 0	0 1	1 0	0 0
Platte County, Missouri
Page 143	Isom Gentry	M F	0 0	0 1	1 0	2 0	0 1	0 0	1 0	50-60 50-60
Wayne County, Missouri
Page 224	Levi H. Gentry	M F	1 2	1 0	0 0	0 0	0 1	1 0	0 0	0 0

10/6/06

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