Winnie Watson

I'm trying to sort out our Winnie Watsons. First, a background review.

The Covingtons were raised in eastern Tennessee, in Rhea county, in the early to mid 1800s. After their parents passed away in the 1840s, most of the family moved west, to eastern Arkansas. One of these was "Mat", sixth of the fourteen children. His first marriage was to Martha, with whom he had five children: Betsy, Sarah, Nancy, John and James Madison. Soon after Martha's death in the 1860s, Mat married Winnie and they, too, had five children: Mary, Richard, William, Bell Lona and Thomas, though there may have been an adoption or two in there. Many years later, Richard's death certificate (in 1946) and Bell Lona's (in 1959) both stated their mother's name was Winnie Watson.

I recently discovered that Mat's youngest son with Martha, his first wife, James Madison, married three times. His first wife was Cora Belle Autry, whom he married in 1882 in Texas, and with whom he had seven children. It turns out that Cora Belle's mother's name was Winny Watson. My first reaction was that it's very unlikely that both James Madison Covington's stepmother and his mother-in-law had the same name. But the sources of these names are pretty solid documents. So for now I'm going to assume that they did have the same name, possibly because they are related.

James Madison, Jr., was only about six when his father remarried in about 1866, so he was mostly raised by Winnie. "Step-Winnie" was born in about 1845 in Tennessee. She was probably living in Arkansas when they married. The family moved to Texas in the 1870s where James, Jr. married Cora Belle in 1882. Her mother, whom I'll call "Winny-in-Law", was born in 1824 in Tennessee. So the two Winnies/Winnys are a generation apart. Perhaps an aunt and a niece? Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find much of Winny-in-Law's family.

Winny Watson Autry was living in Carrol county, Tennessee in 1850. From that record, I know that Winny's mother was Cyntha Watson, born about 1799 in North Carolina, and that she probably had a younger brother name Samuel, born about 1831 in Tennessee. Cyntha is named in the 1840 census in Carroll county, so was probably a widow by then, with two more sons and a daughter, in addition to Cora Belle and Samuel. And that's pretty much all I know. There were two Watson families in Carroll county in the 1830 census: Samuel and John. It's likely that one of these is Winny-in-Law's family.

My goal is to identify Winny-in-Law's brothers and sisters and to see if any of her brothers had a daughter named Winnie born in about 1845. Since Samuel was a single 19 year old in 1850, it was not he.