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Response from Bruce Howard:To: Delma Holcombe = djholcom@gower.net

Delma: The mystery surrounding your family is not unusual, but is certainly interesting, as most mysteries are. I am going to add to your mystery. Several years ago I received a letter from Miss Alice Lee, then historian of our Pace Society of America. She had received a letter from a lady in Florida asking for help on the background of her grandfather. Miss Lee could not help her for a variety of reasons so sent the letter to me and asked if I could help. This was in 1990.

I am going to paraphrase the content of the letter. It was from a Miss Alice Flood. Address: 518 Greentree Cir., Greenbrier - Lake Wales, Florida 33853. She wrote that her grandfather was Rev. George Washington Sellers; that he was born George Albert Pace at Cottondale, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, on March 10, 1865; that his father was a soldier in the war and died a few weeks before George was born while in the army; that his mother, name also unknown , died when George was about three weeks old from "milk leg." He was then adopted by a childless couple named James 'Jim' R. Sellers and wife Susan (Armstrong) who lived at Blue Creek, Jefferson County, Alabama, near present Bessemer. She then went on to say that George had to have been more than three weeks old "because he could lift up his arms as if to say 'take me, please'. At adoption, Jim Sellers picked him up at Guthite, a little mining community in Tuscaloosa County, and brought him via mule back to their home up the mountain at Blue Creek."

She then explained, "My Grandfather changed his name from George Albert to George Washington as every Albert he knew was mean and dishonest. At about 11 years old he ran away from home and ended up at McAdory Training School -- he wanted an education. His adopted parents were Baptist and he changed his religion to Methodist." She then went into his comings and goings as a preacher and said that he died November 25, 1952 at Brandon, Hillsborough County, Florida (now a bedroom community for Tampa, Florida)."

Now, after I received and read this letter I waited until I needed to make a trip over to Tuscaloosa on business and while there worked over the courthouse records and found nothing but the marriage you mentioned in your query, but it didn't connect to the information she gave. I then went over to Centerville, Bibb County, and could find nothing in the records there either. So, I was no help to the lady nor Miss Lee on this problem.

I would suggest that you might try contacting her to see if anything new has developed. I would also suggest, and this is going to be a long gamble as well, that you contact the State Archives in Montgomery and request if they can give you the Confederate companies organized in Tuscaloosa County during the war. They have that information available. If they can send you that information and you will send it along I will check the roll for all Pace men who served in any of those companies and maybe one of them will pan out. It's a gamble but worth a try. There is always the possibility that the father was not a Pace but the mother was and the child was given her last name.

Also check 1880 Jefferson County, Ala. census, ED: 76, page 6, Family 44.

Good luck. Bruce

Important links:

I wrote a beautiful song for the 50th wedding anniversary of my in-laws 20 years ago. It is now available on CD and I havae set up several Internet sites to sell it. Go to any of the following:

Golden Love site at http://goldenlove.att.net
Golden Love site on SchnakeNet http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~schnake/goldenlove.htm
Golden Love site on Pace Network http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~pace/goldenlove.htm
Golden Love on FortuneCity http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/cern/1343/  or http://www.nav.to/compu-tutor1

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Rick's main site

at "http://www.historyinink.com"
Mirror site on Schnakenet at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~schnake/HistoryInInk.htm
Mirror site on Pace Network http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~pace/HistoryInInk.htm