Though cousins Ray and John Dove grew up in neighboring counties, they didn’t know of each other’s existence until a mutual interest in genealogy caused them to cross paths.
Ray grew up in Madison County, John in neighboring Elbert County. Though they had already corresponded by phone, the pair met face-to-face Oct. 22, 2009, when they and other relatives reunited at Cannady Dove Hill Cemetery in the Shiloh Community of Madison County to honor the memory of their ancestors, including another John Dove and his wife, Elizabeth Saylors Dove. That day was also the bicentennial of John’s birth.
Since then, the two have worked together and with other family members to trace their ancestors back to their Scots – Irish roots, which remains a work in progress.
Ray said there are at least six Dove family members working on the family’s genealogy.
Recently, he and John collaborated on a biography of their ancestor John Dove, who moved to Madison County from Anderson, S.C., in 1845 and who is a great-grandfather to them both.
“It is really fascinating how much of his life you can reconstruct from documents,” John said.
Ray’s work on his great-grandfather began with his interest in the Civil War. In 1987, he became interested in joining the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and to do this he needed to trace his ancestry to someone who had served in the War Between the States. Through talking with cousins and other research, he found that his great-grandfather, John Dove, joined the Confederate Army in 1864, while in his fifties.
For John, his interest was piqued in 2009 when his aunt Beth showed him information in an old family Bible.
He began to do research of his own, starting with an uncle’s genealogy file.
Eventually, John contacted Ray and introduced himself, and the rest, as they say, is “history.”
According to their biography of their great-grandfather, he was born on May 6, 1810, in a community now known as Saylors Crossroads, located near the Abbeville County line. He was the oldest son of David and Elizabeth Finch Dove. Around 1835 he married neighbor Elizabeth Saylors, a daughter of Leonard and Sara Johnson Saylors.
At least five of John Dove’s siblings also married into the Saylors family, and in 1845, John and several of those siblings moved their families to Madison County. Among them were John’s brother, George Washington Dove, who married Sarah Saylors, and John’s sister, Martha Dove, who married Nimrod Saylors.
The first of John’s children born in Madison County was a daughter, Martha Jane Dove, on May 10, 1847. John and Elizabeth already had four children who were born in South Carolina, and there were four more children born after Martha in Madison County.
Ray and John speculate that their great-grandfather moved his family to Georgia in part due to the growing tensions that led to the Civil War, and the fact that cheap land was available through land lotteries to distribute land “acquired” from the Creek and Cherokee Indians.
Eventually all of John’s siblings made the move to Georgia, the biography notes. John’s sister, Betsy Dove Fowler and her family moved to Madison County in 1852, shortly after the death of their father, David Dove. John’s brother, Robert Henderson Dove, moved from Anderson County to Hart County around 1885 when he was 58 years old.
“The counties of Northeast Georgia, including Madison, Franklin, Hart and Elbert would become the ‘Dove’s Nest,’ so to speak,” the biography states, as the area became home to David Dove’s children and their descendants.
And, the Doves and the Saylors didn’t make the move from South Carolina to Georgia alone, as numerous families from Saylors Crossroads eventually found their way to Madison County in the years between 1840 and1860. According to a story Rob Fortson told Crawford Dove in the mid 1960s, the Doves and Fortsons came to Madison County together from South Carolina. According to Paul Tabor’s book, The History of Madison County, the two main tributaries of “Big Bluestone Creek,” now known as Mason Mill Creek, are called Dove Branch and Fortson Branch.
“Now, knowing that John Dove owned land along Big Bluestone Creek, and knowing that the two feeder streams are Dove Branch and Fortson Branch, it is probable that the two families did come over together as told by Mr. Fortson,” according to the biography.
John Dove lost his two oldest sons when they were both around 20 years old.
His oldest son, James, married Catherine Manley in Franklin County on Aug. 26, 1855. James is believed to have died in a house fire shortly after the birth of his daughter, Elizabeth Candice Dove, on July 21, 1856.
John lost his second son, Benjamin Franklin Dove shortly after he enlisted in Confederate service on March 4, 1862 in Company K, 52nd GA Regiment. He died from disease three months later on June 1 in Knoxville, TN.
The death of Benjamin was the first of the family to be lost in the War, and no doubt it sent shock waves through the family, according to the biography.
Records show that John signed for his son’s wages due for his Confederate service on July 21 at nearby Carnesville. In 1863, two of Benjamin Franklin Dove’s uncles, Wesley Shepard Dove and James Pinkney Dove, named sons after him. In 1867, his brother, John Thomas Dove, named his first son Benjamin Franklin Dove to honor his fallen brother.
The Georgia Militia Act of 1863 required all able-bodied men in the state from ages 17 to 50 to join a militia to defend their state. In 1864, John, who was 51 at the time, along with his brothers, David Dove Jr. and James Pinkney Dove, registered with the Franklin County militia. The biography speculates that John’s militia may have been dispatched for the defense of Atlanta when Sherman started his advance toward the city in May 1864. After the war, John, along with other men from his militia, took the Oath of Allegiance to the Constitution of the United States on Sept. 27, 1865. The document lists John’s physical appearance as fair complexion, light hair, blue eyes and 5 feet 5 inches tall. His occupation was listed as a farmer.
John was also a prominent landowner in Madison County, owning hundreds of acres of land along Big Bluestone Creek, according to the biography. In 1875, he donated land for the Norcross School in the Shiloh Community, which is where Evangelical Methodist Church now stands.
After 50 years of marriage, John’s wife Elizabeth passed away on October 24, 1886 at the age of 73. Approximately three years later, on July 21, 1889, at the age of 79, John married Nancy Saylors, widow of Nimrod Saylors.
“This marriage lasted 12 years before he entered into heavenly rest on July 6, 1901, at the age of 91,” the biography states. He had spent 45 years of his life in the Mill District of Madison County.
John is buried with his first wife in Cannady Dove Hill Cemetery located in the Shiloh Community near the intersection of Hwy. 174 and Faye Carey Road. The epitaph on John and Elizabeth’s stone reads: “The Dead in Christ are Sweetly Blessed for They Partake of His Heavenly Rest”.
The families of John Dove and his brother, George Washington Dove, were charter members of nearby Shiloh Baptist Church and several of their descendents are buried in the church cemetery.
Ray says there are at least 11 of John Dove’s descendants who still reside in the county today.
