The Family › Temple–Catchings › Madden
Anastasia Madden
–c. 1807
✦ direct ancestor — Owen's 5×-great-grandmother · Catchings line
✦ A story has been written about this person: Her Mark: The Will of Anastasia Catching, 1807 — A widow with three surnames among her children, dictating the family record the county never kept — signed with her mark.
Life
- Died
- between 6 Mar 1807 and 6 Apr 1807 · Wilkes County, Georgia, USA
Parents
Marriage & children
Spouse(spouse unknown)
Records behind this page
Ancestry.com, The Catchings and Holliday Families: and Various Related Families in Virginia, Georgia, and Mississippi (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005)
will sworn 6 Apr 1807; Ordinary's certification 5 Apr 1912
read the transcript
Wilkes County, Georgia wills index 1794-1819 (records on Roll RHS-370), row 53: "Catching, Unesstacy | will | 1807" (georgiagenealogy.org/wilkes-county/wilkes-county-wills-index-1794-1819.htm, re-verified live 3 Aug 2026). Certified transcription by the Ordinary of Wilkes County printed in The Catchings and Holliday Families (1921): "The will of Anastasia Catching was sworn to in open court, April 6, 1807. Her children were Meredith, Isaac Wilkes, Nancy Murphey, Richard Madden, Kate Fletcher. Grandsons, Richard Trale and Davis Madden. 'The records in my office show that the names of Anis Catching is spelled in several ways, viz. Anastara, Anastacy. In the clerk's office it is spelled Annis Statia. (Stacy Fletcher is mentioned in the will of Anastasia Catching.) Sam D. Fanning, Ordinary Washington, Ga., Apr. 5, 1912.'" Also, same book: "deed from Meredith Catching and Annis S. Catching to James Stringer, dated December 5, 1791." Supports: death before 6 Apr 1807, Wilkes Co.; her children incl. son Meredith. PROVENANCE: printed 1912 certification of the county record, in a 1921 compiled volume (archive.org catchingshollida00catc, cached at ancestry/sources/catchings-holliday-1921.txt) — an informant about the will, not the will image. Image upgrade: GA Virtual Vault, Roll RHS-370.
Wilkes County, Georgia, loose court records — Georgia Archives Virtual Vault (original images)
wccr 16800
read the transcript
The ORIGINAL will, Wilkes County, Georgia loose court records, imaged free at Georgia Archives Virtual Vault (collection wccr, id 16800; images saved ancestry/sources/ga-vault-wccr-16800-*.jpg, read personally 3 Aug 2026): "i anestacy Catching of the County of Wilks ... my Loving son Mereidith Catchings ... my son isack Wilkey ... my Loving Daughter nancy mulkhey ... my grand son Richard trale ... my son Richard madden ... stacy fletcher ... my Daughter Katy fletcher ... thy 6th Day of march 1807. her unestacy Catchings mark," witnesses John and Hetty Pelot; executors Meredith Catchings and William Lumsford; recorded Book G f.132, 18 Jan 1808; sworn in open court 6 Apr 1807. Plus two loose estate files (admin bond c.t.a. to Meredith 6 Jul 1807; appraisement $1,030.50 naming enslaved Mose and Jess; sale bill; legatee receipts) at ancestry/sources/ga-vault-estate-*. Death: between 6 Mar 1807 (her mark) and 6 Apr 1807 (sworn) — basis of the date correction written with this citation. CONFLICT recorded, not resolved: will reads "nancy mulkhey" where the 1921 book printed "Murphey".
Estate of Dennis Madden, Wilkes Co., Ga. - estate return sworn in open court 25 Feb 1801 (Georgia Archives Virtual Vault item 26796, image 26791)
read the transcript
Dr. The Estate of Dennis Madden dec[ease]d in Acc[oun]t. with Richard Madden Adm[in]s[trato]r. Cr. / To p[ai]d Ann Trail her Legacy estimated at $334.06 / To p[ai]d David Madden do do $334.06 / To p[ai]d Isaac Wilkins do do $334.06 / To p[ai]d Meredith Catching do do $334.06 / To Richard Maddin adm[r] part $334.06 / [Sub-total] $1670.30 / By am[ount] of appr[aisement] $2007.06 / The above return duly Sworn in Open Court by the Oath of Richard Maddin adm[in]st[rato]r Feb. 25th 1801 - Richard Madden, D. Terrell C.C.[O.] -- transcribed from the image 22 Sep 2026; brackets are uncertain readings. K782.
Estate of Dennis Madden, Wilkes Co., Ga. - the four-scrap distributee receipt page (Georgia Archives Virtual Vault item 26796, image 26793)
read the transcript
[top-left, 25 Feb 1801] Feby 25th 1801. Then Rec[eive]d of Richard Maddin Administrator of Dennis Maddin Deces[e]d my Distributive Sheer of said estate to say Rec'd by me - Anastacy Catchings [and, below, with mark] Meridith Catchings [his] mark. Test: Sn. Branham || [bottom-left, 1 Dec 1799] Rec'd of Richard Maddin adm[r] my full distributive share of my Father's Estate, Dennis Maddin dec'd, for which I acknowledge myself fully satisfied. Dec[ember] 1st 1799. David Maddin. Test: D. Terrell || [top-right, 23 Feb 1801] Then Rec[eive]d of Richard Maddin Administrator of Dennis Maddin Deceast my Distributive Sheer of s[ai]d estate to say Rec'd by me - Meredith Catching[s], Attorney for Isaac Wilkins. Test: Sn. Branham || [bottom-right, 15 Aug 1801 or 1802] wet-damaged, two signatories, not fully legible -- transcribed from the image 22 Sep 2026. K782.
Research notes
Working notes from the research, kept verbatim — what was read, what it proved, what stays open. Many open with a line grading the parentage; what the grades mean.
Research note · 22 Sep 2026
PROOF CLASS: FATHER = ARGUMENT (Owen, 22 Sep 2026) - Dennis Madden of Wilkes Co., Ga., who died intestate before 28 Dec 1798; she signed for a full distributive share of his estate, 25 Feb 1801. Registers K782 K783 K785.
AUDITED 22 Sep 2026 - HER FATHER IS NAMED. Anastasia ("Anestacy") Catching was born a Madden, daughter of Dennis Madden - spelled "Maddin" in the Georgia Archives vault index and "Madden" in the manuscript itself - who died intestate in Wilkes County, Georgia, before 28 December 1798, the date of the earliest receipt on his estate.
THE ARGUMENT. (1) On 25 February 1801 Anastasia personally signed - not by mark - a receipt on Dennis Madden's estate: "Then Rec[eive]d of Richard Maddin Administrator of Dennis Maddin Deces[e]d my Distributive Sheer of said estate to say Rec'd by me - Anastacy Catchings". (2) On 1 December 1799 David Maddin signed a receipt for a share of the same value on the same estate, describing it as "my full distributive share of my Father's Estate, Dennis Maddin dec'd" - so the equal shares paid on this estate are children's shares. (3) The estate return sworn in open court 25 February 1801 enters five legacies of $334.06 each against an appraisement of $2,007.06, leaving $336.76 - a sixth share, matched by Jeremiah Fletcher's August 1801 receipt. Six equal shares, six children. Under Georgia's turn-of-the-century intestate law the equal-share distributees are the children; grandchildren take by representation of a predeceased parent. Georgia Archives Virtual Vault, Wilkes County Estate Records item 26796, 12 loose pages read on the image 22 Sep 2026 (register K782; the Fletcher receipt via the GAGenWeb "Original Papers M-S" abstract, K783).
THE COMPETING READING, AND WHAT EXCLUDES IT. The widow of a predeceased SON of Dennis would also receipt one equal share, by representation - so the AMOUNT alone does not decide between daughter and daughter-in-law. What decides it is who was PAID. The return enters this share "To p[ai]d Meredith Catching" - Anastasia's husband. A married daughter's legacy is paid to her husband under coverture, whereas a deceased son's share descends to that son's own children and not to his widow's second husband. She took as a daughter.
WHY SHE HAS A MADDEN SON, WHICH IS THE OBVIOUS OBJECTION. Her own 1807 will leaves a bed to "son Richard Madden" and a bed to "grandson Dennis Madden" (GAGenWeb abstract of the Wilkes will book 1792-1819, page 131 - register K784). This tree already carries Richard Madden [860] as her child by an UNKNOWN father, family F897 - exactly the shape a son born to an unmarried Anastasia Madden would take, since he would carry her own surname. Her grandson Dennis is then named for her father. The tree's existing structure is explained by this identification, not strained by it.
WHAT THIS DOES NOT SETTLE. Dennis's wife is unnamed and was predeceased - no widow's third is claimed anywhere in the estate file - so Anastasia's mother and her maternal grandparents are not derivable from this record set, and the mother slot in the new parent family is deliberately left empty. Isaac Wilkins, who took an equal share and whom her 1807 will calls "my son Isaac Wilkey", is genuinely unresolved. Dennis's asserted Frederick County, Maryland origin rests on a single Rootsweb query paraphrase and is not written here as a fact.
SUPERSEDES the 25 Jul 2026 statement about her birth surname. "Condon" was, and remains, unattested; it is dropped from her name rows in this same write.
Audited 25 Jul 2026 - Junction #4: the documented wife of Meredith Catching Sr (1791 deed; 1807 will). See ancestry/catchings-branch-research.md.
Elsewhere
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