Megan came to me believing that her great-grandfather, Green Church, was put up for adoption when he was young and she spent years trying to learn the identity of his biological parents.
But as it turns out, Megan was searching in the wrong place.
In the 1900 census for North Carolina, we found Green as a five-year-old boy living on a farm.
However, he wasn't living with an adoptive family.
He was in the home of his grandparents, as well as a number of other close relatives, including a brother named Rufus Church.
Okay.
Okay.
Did you have any idea that he had any siblings?
Like, my aunts had told me that his mom had remarried or something, remarried and had a son named Rufus.
Oh.
But I never knew that they lived together at all.
And so, like, I knew that he probably had a brother named, like a half brother, Uh-huh.
but I didn't know that they ever knew each other or lived together or anything like this.
Wow.
That's amazing.
Green and Rufus seem to have had an unusual childhood.
Records show that in 1900, the same year that they were living with their grandparents, they also spent time in the home of a couple named Caroline and Solomon Moxley.
Caroline's maiden name was Church, which suggests that she and Solomon were Green's parents.
We wondered if perhaps the boys were simply being raised by both their parents and their grandparents.
If so, that arrangement didn't last.
Within a decade, Caroline and Solomon were living in another state with another group of children.
"T.S.
Moxley, head, age 46, married, occupation, farmer.
Caroline, wife, age 37, married.
Children born, five.
Children alive, five.
Dora, age eight; Bertie, age five; Minnie, age four; Loyd, age two; Frank, age two months."
I've never heard any of those names.
Right.
Five children.
Five children.
By 1910, Solomon and Caroline had moved out of North Carolina and settled in Virginia.
And as you could see, neither your great-grandfather, Green, nor his brother, Rufus, are living with them, Yeah.
but five other children are.
So what that means is that sometime around 1906, Solomon and Caroline left your great-grandfather, Green, and his brother, Rufus, in the care of their maternal grandparents in North Carolina, packed up, headed off to build a new life They moved.
in Virginia.
We found no evidence that Caroline and Green ever reconnected or that she ever reconnected with Rufus.
It seems she just left the boys behind forever.
Yeah.
Megan Moxley.
That doesn't sound right.
No, I like it!
I think it's got a nice ring.
Megan Moxley.
Megan Moxley.
I don't know about that.
You think your father would like being a Moxley?
No, I don't think so.
Ok, alright.
This story was about to take a twist.
Trying to learn more about the Moxleys, we uncovered their marriage register and it contains a curious piece of information.
The couple married in February of 1898, but Green was born in 1895.
So that marriage took place when Green was about three years old.
Okay.
What do you make of that?
And- So he was three, and Rufus... And Rufus was six.
Was six?
Yep.
Wow.
Okay.
So they had two children together and then got married.
Well, either they had two children together, Or she had children!
or she had two children, She had children.
and then they got married.
And then they got married.
It had to be one or the other.
Because we don't know when they met.
Right.
She might have had two children when they met.
So this got us to wondering, was Solomon Moxley, in fact, Green's father?
I'm guessing no.
I'm guessing that she had two children and met him and got married Mm-hmm, and then, in 1898. part of the deal was she was gonna leave the kids fathered by Yeah.
the other guy behind.
Okay.
That's your theory?
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense to me.
