Robert James McCoy
Robert McCoy was a son of John McCoy of Butler County, Alabama, who was born in South Carolina about 1786. Family trees give Robert's birth as 1808 and add the middle name James. The records call him Robert only.
He married Patience Cheatham, the widow of a Cox, who already had a son, Odom. Robert and Patience had seven children, all born in Alabama between 1830 and 1840: John W., William Henry, Elizabeth, Julia Ann, Samuel A., Hillary Herbert and James R. The family were in Alabama by 1830, when John W. was born.
He died before the census of 1850, and before his father. That census found Patience heading the household as a widow, with all seven of their children and her son Odom, entered under the household's surname as Odum McCoy.
The Moriah Baptist church book records him at one remove, as "a brother of Joseph McCoy #78 and John McCoy #94," the numbers being their places on the membership roll.
His father died between 1850 and March 1856. When the estate was settled on 24 May 1858, the court counted Robert's family as one of twelve shares. John McCoy "left surviving him ten children of his own; and Robert McCoy and Joseph McCoy sons of said deceased having died previous to the death of their father the said John McCoy, and each of them left seven children surviving them, who inherit the shares of their deceased fathers." Each child's share was $328.51. Robert's seven divided his, about $46.93 apiece.
The same day Patience asked to be appointed guardian of the three youngest, Samuel A., Hillary Herbert and James R., "minor heirs of Robert McCoy decd." The court found "that said Patience McCoy is the mother of said minors" and took a bond of $300. One of her two sureties was their eldest brother, John W. McCoy.
His sons John W. and William Henry both died in 1863, during the war. His daughter Elizabeth married Daniel Sheppard and was living outside Alabama by 1858. Patience died in May 1860. His grandson William R. McCoy carried the family on to Louisiana.
Parents
Children
John W. McCoy (1830-1863)
Sources
If Robert James McCoy is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "Robert James McCoy (b. 1808)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/robert-james-mccoy-1808-4503f1.