Country music legend “Kitty Wells” was born Ellen Muriel Deason. A Nashville native, Kitty’s paternal lineage goes back to the Deasons who landed in Maryland and then migrated south into North Carolina and Tennessee around 1800.
My 4th great grandfather, John R. Deason, was born about 1809 in North Carolina. He married Lydia Ann Turbeville in the early 1830s, most likely in Bedford County, Tennessee according to another researcher. (Bedford County was home to a plethora of Deasons about this time.) John and Lydia moved the family to Weakley County, Tennessee sometime before 1850. The identities of John’s parents are unknown to me currently but I am pretty confident Kitty’s “Deason” ancestors and John are related. “Deason”, after all, isn’t a common last name and they were all living in the same area. So, it’s a matter of connecting the dots. But, whether I’m able to connect those dots or not, I have Deason DNA-matched cousins “telling” me that Kitty’s “Deason” ancestors and mine are most likely the same people.
There’s more work to be done here, for sure!
Kenfolk: Tranthams
Relation: Not quite certain… yet!
Common ancestors: Most likely the Deasons who settled in Maryland circa 1700