The Proeger Family · Generation 5 — Earl's great-great-grandparents and their siblings

Emily Bowles

Daughter of James Daniel Bowles · born about 1857

Emily Bowles

Probable

Daughter of James Daniel Bowles · born about 1857

Born
about 1857
Parents
William Anderson Bowles & Lucinda Bowles Carpenter
Married
Edward Hawkins
Children
James Daniel Hawkins
Sources
11

Research status

Research status: PROBABLE — added 24 September 2026 and entered in the family tree the same day, labelled probable there too; the 1870 census of Travellers Rest, Owsley County, Kentucky (dwelling 224/220) lists Emily, 13, born Kentucky, third in James Bowles's household after James 39 and Lydia 35 S157; the Bowles family-record typescript S72 lists Emily Bowles, married Ed. Hawkins, with a typed birth of 19 January 1851 and death of 12 March 1881 — the 1851 year cannot be right, because her mother was born about 1835, so neither typed date is used

Evidence: The 1870 Owsley County census (Emily, 13, in James Bowles's home), the Bowles family typescript, and her son James Daniel Hawkins's 1967 death certificate naming her as Emily Bowles. Weak or missing: The census states no relationships, and the typescript's dates cannot be right. Not yet confirmed. Know more? Confirm or correct this →

Life in the order the records give it

Birth1857
Born about 1857, Kentucky; Emily, 4, in the 1860 Travellers Rest household S171; married Ed. Hawkins (typescript)
Census1880
🆕 In 1880 she was Emily Hawkins, 24, wife of Edward Hawkins, 40, born Georgia, in Hilburn Township, Madison County, Arkansas, with Ellen 6, Harry 4, Allie 3, Elizabeth 3 months, and a stepson William, 16. She gave her mother's birthplace as Tennessee. Matilda Brock's household was in the same township that year S457S166. added 25 September 2026.
Census1870
🆕 In 1870, before the marriage, Edward Hawkins was 32 and living alone in Valley Township, Madison County, Arkansas. Next door were William, 7, and Eliza, 4, both born in Alabama; William is the stepson of the 1880 household S703S457. added 26 September 2026.
Census1910
🆕 In 1910 Edward Hawkins, 72, widowed, born in Georgia, lived with his son Harvey, 34, a farmer born in Arkansas, and Harvey's sons Edgar, 15, and Evert, 13, in Big Springs Township, Benton County, Arkansas S724. Harvey is the Harry, 4, of the 1880 household S584. added 26 September 2026.
Census1850
🆕 Edward Hawkins's parents were probably Nathaniel Hawkins and Charlotte Hawkins Probable confirm or correct →: the 1850 census of District 10, Campbell County, Georgia, read from the image, lists Edward, 11, after Nathaniel Hawkins, 43, a farmer, Charlotte, 43, and Joseph, Syntha C., Permelia A. and Sarah A. Hawkins S881; his age and Georgia birth fit the Edward, 40, of the 1880 household. A Fayette County, Georgia, marriage index has Charlotte Cox marrying Nathan Hawkins on 23 September 1827 S882. What is weak: the 1850 census states no relationships; nothing read ties the boy to Emily's husband beyond name, age and state; the Cox marriage has not been read on the image; and the birth and death dates offered for both parents are unsourced. Accepted by Earl on 28 September 2026 pending more evidence. added 28 September 2026.

Family parents, marriages, children, siblings

Parents
Daughter of James Daniel Bowles and Lydia Williams; eldest sister of William Anderson Bowles and Lucinda Bowles Carpenter
Children1882
🆕 Her son James Daniel Hawkins was born on 12 March 1882 in Crawford County, Arkansas, and died on 31 August 1967 at Huntsville. His death certificate names his parents as Edward Hawkins and Emily Bowles S584. That is a second record of the marriage, and she was alive at his birth in March 1882, after the typescript's 1881 death date. added 25 September 2026.
Marriage1861
🆕 Edward Hawkins probably had a first wife, Missouri C. Buice: an Edward Hawkins married her in St. Clair County, Alabama, on 5 September 1861 S709 Probable confirm or correct →. It would explain the Alabama-born William, 7, and Eliza, 4, next door to Edward in 1870 S703. What is weak: the licence gives no ages or birthplaces, nothing on it ties this Edward to Arkansas, and the 1880 census calls William a stepson, not a son S457. added 26 September 2026.

Emily Bowles · Sources

Citations

Sources cited on this card

11 of the record's sources are cited here. The numbering is the record's own; the full list, with where else each is cited, is at Sources.

  1. S72Coffman and Bowles family record — typescript, undated. Four typed sheets compiled within the family and kept by Robert William Coffman (1906–1990), Earl's grandfather; passed to his son David and photographed 16 September 2026. Covers David Emily "Dee" Coffman & Mary Jane Wright, William Anderson Bowles & Iona Belle Brock and their eighteen children, and James Daniel Bowles & Lydia Williams and their ten. Family testimony, not a vital record — weighed as such. It agrees with the registers on Lydia Mae Bowles's birth to the day and on Iona Belle Brock's dates exactly, and it supplies two marriage dates and twenty-two names that no record here had. It also contradicts itself on William Anderson Bowles's birth year (1858 on one sheet, 1859 on another) and gives Mary Jane Wright's death as 1934 against 1935 elsewhere. Those conflicts are recorded, not resolved.
  2. S1571870 U.S. Federal Census — James Bowles household, Travellers Rest Precinct, Owsley County, Kentucky. Ancestry collection 7163, record 22213199. Enumerated 30 June 1870 by A. J. Herd, Ass't Marshal; post office Travellers Rest, page No. 34, dwelling 224 / family 220, lines 1–10. Read from the image at full resolution, 22 September 2026. Bowles, James, 39, M, W, Farmer, personal estate $150 and the real-estate column empty, born Kentucky; Lydia, 35, keeping house, born TENNESSEE; then Emily 13, William 12 (farm labour), James D 10, Nancy 8, Sarah 6, Joanna 5, Martha E 2, and Lucinda, 4/12, born within the year — month FEB. 🔑 The whole family stands in one frame — the couple the 1856 Owsley register created S143, with eight children, fourteen years on. 🔑 Lydia's Tennessee birth is now in a second clerk's hand, corroborating the Hawkins County, Tennessee of the marriage register. 🔑 William, 12, is William Anderson Bowles to the month — a boy born 9 April 1858 is exactly 12 on the 1 June 1870 census day S160. 🔑 Lucinda at four months is the link to Arizona. The "born within the year" column gives Feb, and her own 1920 death certificate, filed in Phoenix by her husband, gives 27 February 1870 S158. 🔑 He owned no land in 1870. The real-estate column is empty — a fact an index cannot show, and a plain one beside his father's $1,200 twenty years earlier S155. ⚠ Its age column is the third to exclude 9 July 1831. Age 39 on 1 June 1870 requires a birth between 2 June 1830 and 1 June 1831. With 1850 (19) and 1863 (32), three independent enumerations agree with each other and disagree with the tree, whose date carries no primary citation. The tree is now corrected to 1830–31 (22 September 2026) — none of the three states a day. ⚠ Emily, William and James D are all marked cannot read, cannot write; only James D attended school within the year. ⚠ No other Bowles household appears on the page. 🔑 SUPPLEMENT, 22 September 2026 — the empty real-estate column is a LOSS, not a constant. The 1860 Travellers Rest sheet [S171] gives James Bowls $500 in real estate; here the column is empty and personal estate has fallen from $200 to $150. He held land in 1860 and held none in 1870, and that is a fact about the decade, not a transcription constant. S157's transcription otherwise holds in every particular. ⚠ The page gives no reason for the loss.
  3. S1661880 U.S. Federal Census — Matilda Brock household, Hilburn Township, County of Madison, State of Arkansas. Ancestry collection 6742, record 5406340, image 4239811-00834. SCHEDULE 1.—Inhabitants, enumerated the Eighteenth day of June, 1880 by Aaron L. Thompson, Enumerator; page 27, S.D. 2, E.D. 104, stamped 554; dwelling and family 228/234, lines 11–17. Read from the image at full resolution — 3888 × 4560 px, 22 September 2026. Brock, Matilda, 33, head, MARRIED, Keeping House, born Kentucky, both parents Ky; Iona B. 14 (Ky), Mary E. 11 (Ky), Ellen 9 (Arkansas), Ida C. 7 (Ark), John B. 6 (Ark), James B. 3 (Ark). 🔑 Age 33 is the fourth age column to exclude 9 January 1848. Reference day 1 June 1880; 33 puts her birth between 2 June 1846 and 1 June 1847. With 1860 (13) [S165], 1870 (23) [S153] and 1900 (Jan 1847, age 53) [S138], four independent schedules close the year on 1847 and the day remains unattested by any document. 🔑 She heads her own household and the tick is in the MARRIED column, not Widowed — while Solomon heads a separate household at Eureka Springs, Carroll County, sixty miles north, fourteen days earlier [S168]. These two sheets must be read as a pair. ⚠ This is NOT early widowhood: the pension index dates his death to on or before 23 May 1904 [S152]. 🔑 The Kentucky-to-Arkansas move narrows to 1869 × July 1870. Mary E., 11, was born in Kentucky; Ellen, 9, in Arkansas, and the 12 July 1870 sheet already has the family in Madison County with both then-living daughters Kentucky-born [S153]. The wider December 1865 × December 1874 bracket closes to a little over a year. 🔑 It settles S153's one open reading. The eldest daughter here is Iona B., 14, born Kentucky; four in July 1870 and fourteen in June 1880 is the same child, so the 1870 line-28 given name is Iona B. and Sara B., Jane B. and Ancestry's Imma M. can be retired. 🔑 A sixth child, James B., 3, born Arkansas — Ancestry's index truncates its household list at "John B. Br" and he is not in the tree. ⚠ No month, no day. ⚠ The page gives no reason for the split household, and no separation, desertion or estrangement should be inferred from it.
  4. S1711860 U.S. Federal Census — James Bowls household, post office Travellers Rest, County of Owsley, State of Kentucky. Ancestry collection 7667, record 39791435, image 4231202_00321. SCHEDULE 1.—Free Inhabitants, enumerated on the 27th day of June 1860 by J. E. Gibson, Ass't Marshal; page 25, stamped 321, dwelling and family 165/165, lines 24–27. Read from the image at full resolution — 4655 × 6478 px, 22 September 2026. James Bowls, 25, real estate $500, occupation column blank; Lydia, 27, born Tenn, cannot read or write; Emily, 4; William, 2. 🔑 This is the sheet the batch-AB review queue asked for by name, and the answer redirects the row rather than closing it. Our man is plain James, never Daniel; no Daniel G. Bowls is anywhere on the page; and because he holds $500 in real estate an agricultural-schedule entry is likely. The farm to pursue on the 1860 agricultural schedule is "James M. Bowls" — the queue row is redirected, not closed. 🔑 William Anderson Bowles at 2 — his earliest census appearance, exactly as the Owsley County birth register's 9 April 1858 predicts [S160], and an independent corroboration of it. 🔑 Lydia born Tenn, matching Hawkins County on the 1856 bride's column [S143]. 🔑 James Bowles held land in 1860 and had none in 1870. Read against the 1870 sheet [S157], where the real-estate column is empty and personal estate falls $200 to $150, the empty 1870 column is a LOSS, not a constant. 🔑 Emily, 4, the eldest, is new. ⚠ Lydia could not read or write (col. 13). ⚠ James's occupation column is blank where every other head on the page reads Farmer — an enumerator's omission, not a statement that he had no trade. ⚠ It unsettles the couple's relative ages. Both 20 in 1856 [S143]; here Lydia 27 to James 25, which no other record supports; James 39 to Lydia 35 in 1870 [S157]. Three records, three answers — recorded, not resolved.
  5. S4571880 U.S. Federal Census — Edward Hawkins household, Hilburn Township, Madison County, Arkansas (ED 104). Ancestry record 5406246. Image examined, read 25 September 2026. Confirmed Emily Hawkins, 24, born Kentucky, father born Kentucky, mother born Tennessee, wife of Edward Hawkins, 40, born Georgia; Ellen 6, Harry 4, Allie 3, Elizabeth 3 months; stepson William 16. It matches the family typescript's “m. Ed. Hawkins”. Hilburn Township is where Matilda Brock's household was in 1880 (S166).
  6. S584Arkansas certificate of death no. 013254, 1967 — James Daniel Hawkins. Ancestry record 75859142. Image examined, read 25 September 2026. Confirmed James Daniel Hawkins, born 12 March 1882 in Crawford County, Arkansas, died 31 August 1967 at Huntsville; father Edward Hawkins, mother Emily Bowles; informant Alfred Hawkins of Combs; buried Riverside Cemetery, St. Paul.
  7. S7031870 U.S. census, Valley Township, Madison County, Arkansas. Ancestry record 12363131. Image examined, read 26 September 2026. Confirmed Edward Hawkins, 32, born Georgia, living alone; in the next household, William Hawkins, 7, and Eliza, 4, both born Alabama. A James Hawkins, 48, born Georgia, carpenter, lives three doors away.
  8. S709St. Clair County, Alabama, marriage book, 1861, p. 344. Ancestry record 1485426. Image examined, read 26 September 2026. Probable Edward Hawkins and Missouri C. Buice, of St. Clair County, licensed and married 5 September 1861 by G. D. Johnson, M.G. The licence gives no ages or birthplaces; the link to Emily Bowles's husband is circumstantial.
  9. S7241910 U.S. census, Big Springs Township, Benton County, Arkansas, ED 13, sheet 6A. Ancestry record 166710426. Image examined, read 26 September 2026. Confirmed Harvey Hawkins, 34, farmer, born Arkansas, owns his farm; sons Edgar, 15, and Evert, 13; and his father Edward, 72, widowed, born Georgia.
  10. S8811850 U.S. Federal Census — Nathaniel Hawkins household, District 10, Campbell County, Georgia (dwelling/family 287, lines 36–42). Ancestry record 18509281 (image 4193086-00413). Image examined, read 28 September 2026. Confirmed Nathaniel Hawkins, 43, farmer; Charlotte, 43; Joseph, 21, farmer; Syntha C., 18; Permelia A., 17; Sarah A., 14; Edward, 11. The 1850 census has no relationship column. Edward is the last line of the page, so the household may continue overleaf.
  11. S882Georgia, marriage records from select counties — Fayette County, 23 September 1827: Charlotte Cox to Nathan Hawkins. Ancestry index entry (image 40660_303185-00043, not read). Read from the index, read 28 September 2026. Probable Charlotte Cox married Nathan Hawkins, 23 September 1827, Fayette County. Index only; the register image has not been read.

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