Arzela Golden
Arzela was born about 1825. The 1870 census says South Carolina and the 1880 census says Georgia, and her own parents were both South Carolinians. She married Nathaniel Greene Golden and bore at least eleven children between about 1846 and 1866, in South Carolina and then Tennessee.
By 1880 she was on her own. The census finds her at Caldwell in Fannin County, Georgia, fifty five, keeping house, entered as the head of her household and as married. Mary at twenty nine, Sarah at twenty seven, Martha at nineteen, Nathaniel at seventeen and John at fourteen are with her, and a grandson of one. Her husband was enumerated that same year in North Carolina with another wife and three more children.
She had come to the county her son Richard had married into. He was five miles over the line in Gilmer with Mary Ann Fain and their first three daughters.
She died on 2 November 1886. Where she lies is not known: the assumption in the family is Golden Cemetery in an unmarked grave, and some of them dispute it. Her maiden name is not known.
Her earliest record has her as ANDELLE. The 1850 census of Pickens District, taken under the spelling Goulding, puts her in dwelling 405 with Nathaniel and four children: Marcus at four, Frederick at three, Eliza at two and Mary at some months old. That puts the marriage at about 1845 and makes Marcus the eldest, where other accounts have Frederick and the year 1843.
It also takes ten years off her, or puts ten on. The enumerator wrote 35, which would mean 1815. The 1870 census says 1826 and the 1880 census says 1825. Her last child was born in 1866, and a woman does not usually bear a child at fifty one. Forty one she does. The two later returns win on arithmetic, and about 1825 stands.
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Cite: Heirology, "Arzela Golden (1825-1886)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/arzela-golden-1825-1886-6b1dbb.