HEARDS & NOLENS AND THEIR MILLER/MUELLER KIN -- UPDATED MARCH 15, 2021

HEARDS & NOLENS AND THEIR MILLER/MUELLER KIN

UPDATE 3/15/2021

I have more Miller/Mueller relations among my DNA matches than any other Surname.  There seem to be three reasons: 1. I have multiple Miller/Mueller lines; 2. They have big families who have big families; 3. They do genealogy; 4. They do DNA Tests.  At least one of my Miller/Mueller lines has strong connections with the Church of the Latter Day Saints, and have a long-time involvement with the genealogy programs offered through the Temple.  

Three Miller connections have long puzzled me, and I described these in the original post which follow this update.  I have since positively confirmed the relationship between the ancestors of my great, great grandmother Abidia Obedience Wise Nolen  (daughter of Amelia,Permelia "Milly" Miller Wise and the ancestors of Samuel Nathanial Miller (who married Emma Frances Heard, my great Aunt).   Both families are descended from Joseph Medford Miller (1755-1826) and his wife Ada Gilbert Miller  (1765-1830).  Thus, the children of my great Aunt Sarah Deliah Nolen (1885-1023) are descendants of Joseph Medford Miller and Ada Gilbert, but they are also the descendants of her husband William Curtis Miller.  William Curtis Miller is descended from a totally different group of Miller's/Mueller's.  If the two families are related, the relationship traces back to 16th or 17th century Germany.

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The 12 children of Clora Frances Nolen Heard and James Addison Heard had two sets of first cousins with the MILLER surname.  Their paternal Aunt Emma Frances Heard married Samuel Nathanial Miller (Miller cousins - Maurice, Cecil, Floyd, Frank, Ray, Sam, Helen, and Jay),  Their maternal Aunt, Sarah Delilah Nolen married William Curtis Miller (Miller cousins — Nolen, Herman, Cecil, Robert, and Frankie Laverne). My Uncle Meredith Heard had a Believe-It-Or-Not in which he wrote, “I have two first cousins named Cecil Miller, who are not related to each other.”

Well, as it turns out, the Heard children’s Miller Cousins may actually be related to each other, and what’s more the 12 HEARD-NOLEN children may be doubly related to their MILLER COUSINS.  This possibility has recently been evoked by DNA test results showing connections between the Miller families as well as our Heards.

Here is the connection.  Clora Frances Nolen’s father was ABSLOM SMEON NOLEN.  His mother was ABIDIA OBEDIENCE WISE.  Her mother was AMELIA PERMELIA “Milly” MILLER.  Great, great, grandmother Milly Miller Wise was born in 1794 in South Carolina and died in 1869 in Colquitt, Claiborne Parish, Louisiana,  It now appears that both Sam Miller and Bill Miller (Uncles of the 12 Heard children) were also related to Milly Miller Wise.

I have not traced the Sam or Bill MILLER lines, but I have tried to establish Milly’s Ancestry.  Milly was the daughter of JOSEPH MEDFORD MILLER, who was born in York County, South Carolina in 1755 and died there in 1830.  He fought in the Revolutionary War and married ADA GILBERT in 1785 when he was 30.  

Joseph was the son of JACOB MILLER/MUELLER, JR.  Jacob, Jr. who was born June 1, 1736, in Bertie, North Carolina, was of the first generation to use the English form of his name, MILLER instead of the German, MUELLER.   On June 1, 1768, Jacob married ANNA CIVILLS FRANVK, the daughter of JOHN MARTIN FRANCK  and his wife CIVILLA MILLER/MUELLER.  

Civilla was the daughter of JOHN (JOHANNES) JACOB MUELLER, JR. (ah yes, you caught that).  Jacob Miller/Mueller, Jr. married his cousin (the daughter of his Aunt CIVILA MILLER/MUELLER).  The marriage of cousins was fairly common in that era, especially in frontier settlements.  

The mutual grandfather of Jacob, Jr. and his wife  Ana Civilla was JOHN (JOHANNAS) JACOB MUELLER, JR. He was  born in  1667 in Rheinland-Palatinate, Germany, and died in 1732 in New Bern, South Carolina..  in 1688, ha married CATHERINE ELAINE LETHER.  Their daughter Civilla was born in 1698, in Alentine, Palatinate Germany.  Their son, JACOB Mueller, Sr., was born 1702 in Bavaria, Germany. By 1719-20 records show the MUELLER Family (John, Jr., Catherine Elaine, Jacob, Sr. and Civilla) living in Craven, North Carolina.

In my family tree on Ancestry, I have two generations of MUELLERS before John, Jr. And his wife, Catherine Elaine LETHER, but I am not fully confident of the information.  After John Jr., Catherine Elaine and their children Jacob, Sr. and Civilla arrived in the Carolinas, I have more confidence in my research.  

During the 17th and early 18th Centuries, Germany was a bloody battleground over which Protestant and Catholic forces warred.  Many German Protestant refugees fled to the British colonies while some of their Catholic neighbors immigrated to Louisiana. 

JACOB MILLER/MUELLER, SR. married MARY CATHERINE ISLER.  Conflicting records say they were married in either North Carolina or Germany about 1720.  Their son JACOB MILLER, JR. was born in Bertie, North Carolina, but not until 1736. They may have had other children in the intervening 16 years.  Research into the place of their marriage and these years is needed. 

As noted earlier, Jacob, Jr. married his cousin Anna Civilla Franck.  Anna Franck was the grand daughter of AUGUST HERMANN FRANCK, a scholar and clergyman, often called the father of German public education.  We have little direct information about the social, economic, or educational status of the Mueller family, but their close association with the Franck family would suggest that they were educated and Protestant.

Our Miller/Mueller ancestors arrived in the Carolinas in the first quarter of the 18th Century, and remained there until after the Revolutionary War.  Between 1821 and 1823,  AMELIA PERMELIA “Milly” MILLER WISE with her husband JAMES GIDEON GILES EUGENE WISE and the living  6 of their 7 oldest children (Joseph Ford, Archie, John James, Adah Sarah, Ambrose Jilly, and Evan “Ivan”) moved to Copiah, Mississippi.  Nine additional children were born to them in Mississippi (Gilbert Mays, Levi “Lee,” Giles James “Doc,” Abidia Obedience “Beedie,” Celia Ann “Sealy,” John Warren, Delilah Aretha, David Nathan, and Gideon W.).  Then, between 1837 and 1840, the family moved to Claiborne Parish in Louisiana, where they appear on the 1840 census,  There, James G.G. E, passed away in 1858.  Milly survived another decade, dying in 1869.