Thomas Coates of Laurens SC

I have been obsessing about finding the parents of Mary Margaret Coates,wife of Joel Cooper Blackwell. So far I can find circumstantial evidence in the 1830-1880 census placing Thomas and his wife Frances close to various kinfolk and at one time close to 2 households from Joel and Mary. Thomas Coates lived in the Simpson's Mill/ Ekom area or Waterloo District of Laurens County. November 18 1837, He and John Gary donated land to Union Baptist Church but cannot find his burial or other information.

census writing, Blackwell - Coates stuff

Part of the 'fun' of researching census forms is the sloppy handwriting and tendency to abbreviate names. Its hard enough deciphering the Victorian styles of writing. many times the name-surname search of Ancestry.com fails because of this and then you try many various spellings. If this fails then you try to hope they didn't move from the last census. Then you try to narrow down the the district and eventually search page by page with an eagle eye.
Eventually I found Tho's Coats (Thomas Coates) and his wife F's " (Frances ") in the Laurens County 1860 census.
At least this census proved a connection between Thomas Coates and Joel Blackwell. According to a post in ROOTSWEB , Joel Blackwell married Mary Margaret Coates. I could not find anything on her and decided to look for her parents. Eventually I settled on Thomas Coates but needed more.
In the 1860 census I found Thomas Coates and Joel Blackwell only 3 households apart. Very good circumstantial evidence. More research will be done but I feel more comfortable with my research.