James Daniel Bowles

James Daniel Bowles

Confirmed

about 1830–1889

Born

about 1830–31

Died

in 1889

Married

Lydia Williams

Children

Emily Bowles

Sources

8

Images

17

Research status

Research status: CONFIRMED as the father of William Anderson Bowles Confirmed. Earl’s 3rd-great-grandfather. The link is written on the Owsley County birth register for 1858, read from the image: child Wm. A. Bowles, born 9 April, father Jas. Bowles, maiden name of mother Lydia Williams S160. The 1860 census, also read from the image, has William, 2, in the house of James and Lydia Bowls in the same county S171, and the 1870 sheet has William, 12 S157. Open points: the 1856 marriage register gives the groom’s age as 20 and the 1860 sheet gives 25, about five years younger than his ages in 1850, 1863 and 1870, so his birth year is not settled, and whether the James, 19, of the 1850 household is this man rests on that; his birth day is on no record read; his death date rests on the family tree and Find a Grave S22 and no death record has been read. His own parents are graded separately and are Probable. Know more? Use “Add to this record”.

Life in the order the records give it

Birth1830

Born about 1830–31, Kentucky, on three of the five ages recorded for him; the year is not settled. He is 19 in 1850 S155, 32 in 1863 S156 and 39 in 1870 S157, which agree on a birth between mid-1830 and mid-1831. The 1856 marriage register gives the groom’s age as 20 S143 and the 1860 sheet gives 25 S171, which agree with each other on a birth about 1835. No record read gives a day.

Census1860

In June 1860 he was at Travellers Rest, Owsley County, with $500 in real estate, Lydia, 27, Emily, 4, and William, 2 S171.

Census1863

In June 1863 he was enrolled for the draft in the 12th Sub-District of Jackson County, Kentucky, as James Bowls, 32, a married farmer born in Kentucky S156. Enrolment was liability for the draft, not service; the former-service column is blank.

Death1889

Died in 1889 by the family tree and Find a Grave S22; no death record has been read. The 1920 Arizona death certificate indexed under his name is his daughter Lucinda’s, where he appears only as her father S158.

Birth2026

History of this card. 13 Oct 2026

the birth note, which gave three ages, now gives all five recorded ages, adding 20 in 1856 (S143) and 25 in 1860 (S171); no record was newly read. 13 Oct 2026 — card written from the records already cited on the Bowles, Williams and Brock line page, where this ancestor had stood as a chain entry only; no new record was read and no grade was changed. 13 Oct 2026 — status raised from Probable to Confirmed as the father of William Anderson Bowles, re-derived from the records already on the card (S160, with S171 and S157); no new record was read. The 1860 age of 25 (S171) was added to the open point on his birth year. His documents were attached to the card the same day.

Family parents, marriages, children, siblings

Marriage1856

Husband of Lydia Williams. The Owsley County, Kentucky marriage register has them on one line in March 1856: James Bowles, 20, single, born Estill County, Kentucky, and Lydia Williams, 20, single, born Hawkins County, Tennessee S143. The day is clipped at the gutter of the image; 6 March comes from Ancestry’s index.

Children1870

On 30 June 1870 he was a farmer in Travellers Rest Precinct, Owsley County, with a personal estate of $150 and no real estate, with Lydia, 35, and eight children: Emily 13, William 12, James D. 10, Nancy 8, Sarah 6, Joanna 5, Martha E. 2 and Lucinda, four months S157.

Children1936

His son’s 1936 Texas death certificate writes the father as J. D. Bowles, the first record read to carry the middle initial; the registers and census sheets say plain James.

Children1870

Father of Emily Bowles, William Anderson Bowles and Lucinda Bowles, and of James D., Nancy, Sarah, Joanna and Martha E. of the 1870 household S157.

Open questions what is probable, weak or missing — confirm or correct it

Probable

Probable son of William A. Bowles and Lucy Bowles: he is James, 19, in their Owsley County household in 1850 S155. A census household states no relationship.

Photos & documents 7 portraits · 0 photos · 10 documents

Portraits (7)

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Documents (10)

Documents · 10 page images all documents

Each image names its source in its own entry. Each thumbnail opens the full image, which can also be downloaded.

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James Daniel Bowles and Lydia Williams (Earl's 3rd great-grandparents)

Marriage record ·

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James Daniel Bowles household (Earl's 3rd great-grandfather) — 1880 US Census, Hilton Twp, Madison Co., Arkansas, p.1

Census · 16 Jun 1880

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Ancestry coll. 8054 (1850 United States Federal Census), record 17453547, image 4192506_00402; County of Owsley, State of Kentucky, enumerated 10 September 1850; dwelling/family 367, lines 9-16 · full resolution 3550 x 4514 px, 63/63 DeepZoom tiles — page dwelling 367, lines 9-16

Federal census schedule · 10 September 1850

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Kentucky, U.S., Marriage Records, 1852-1914 — Owsley County register, James Bowles and Lydia Williams, March 1856 (Ancestry coll. 1117, record 47500; image KYVR_994052-0124) · full resolution 3536 × 3264 px, DeepZoom level 12, 49/49 tiles — page register p. 124

County marriage register · 1856-03

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1860 United States Federal Census — SCHEDULE 1.—Free Inhabitants ... in the County of Owsley, State of Kentucky, enumerated by me, on the 27th day of June 1860. J. E. Gibson, Ass't Marshal. Post Office: Travellers Rest, page 25, stamped 321, dwelling/family 165/165, lines 24-27 (Ancestry coll. 7667, record 39791435, image 4231202_00321) · full resolution 4655 x 6478 px — page census page

Federal census schedule · 27 June 1860

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Ancestry coll. 1666 (U.S., Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863-1865), record 405876, image 32178_645874_0017-00042; Schedule I consolidated list No. 29, Class I, 8th Congressional District of Kentucky (Laurel, Jackson and others), enumerated June 1863 under Provost Marshal Robert Hays, certified 1 February 1864 · full resolution 3289 x 2193 px, 35/35 DeepZoom tiles — page list No. 29, line 8

Federal draft enrolment list · 1 July 1863

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Ancestry coll. 7163 (1870 United States Federal Census), record 22213199, image 4269354_00106, page No. 34, Post Office Travellers Rest, enumerated 30 June 1870 by A. J. Herd, Ass't Marshal; dwelling 224 / family 220, lines 1-10 · full resolution 3372 x 4348 px, 63/63 DeepZoom tiles — page p. 34, dwelling 224, lines 1-10

Federal census schedule · 30 June 1870

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James Daniel Bowles household (Earl's 3rd great-grandfather) — 1880 US Census, p.2

Census · 1880

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Ancestry — Kentucky Marriage Records 1852–1914 — page KYVR_994052-0124

Marriage register · 6 Mar 1856

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"Grandfather Bowles's Family" — James Daniel Bowles & Lydia Williams (G5)

Family record · undated

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In the record Generation 6 — Earl's 3rd-great-grandparents

1. S22FindAGrave memorial 63936320, William Anderson Bowles (1858–1936), Potosi Cemetery — findagrave.com/memorial/63936320.
2. S143Owsley County, Kentucky marriage register, March 1856 — James Bowles and Lydia Williams. Ancestry collection 1117 (Kentucky, U.S., Marriage Records, 1852–1914), record 47500, image KYVR_994052-0124. Read from the image at full resolution — 3536 × 3264 px, 49/49 DeepZoom tiles, 21 September 2026. The ruled register carries GROOM and BRIDE halves with the printed headings Date of Marriage · Name · Residence · Age · Condition · Place of Birth. Their line reads: March 1856 · James Bowles, residence Owsley Co., Ky., age 20, Single, born Estill County, Kentucky — and Lydia Williams, residence Owsley Co., Ky., age 20, Single, born Hawkins County, Tennessee. A primary record behind this couple, where the FindAGrave parent links [S22] are derivative. A county clerk puts the two of them on one line in the same county whose birth register settled their son William Anderson Bowles. Lydia’s birthplace has a source: the bride column gives Hawkins County, Tennessee, the place the tree carried uncited. Her age 20 at a March 1856 marriage puts her birth between about March 1835 and March 1836, which contains the tree's 30 May 1835 without proving it. Both are recorded Single — a first marriage for each — and both were already resident in Owsley County. ⚠ The day is clipped at the gutter: the image carries March 1856, and the 6 March on the card is Ancestry's index of this register, not a date read off the page. ⚠ The groom's age contradicts the birth year this site carries. Age 20 in March 1856 puts this James Bowles's birth about 1835–1836, against the 1830–31 the site gives James Daniel Bowles from three age columns (S155, S156, S157). The register gives no middle name; it reads simply James Bowles. Either the 1830–31 is wrong or this is a different man. Recorded, not resolved — the couple stays Probable. ⚠ Estill County, Kentucky as his birthplace is on this register alone, and a Kentucky register of this period carries no parentage columns, so it says nothing about the generation above.
3. S1551850 U.S. Federal Census — Wm. A. Bowles household, County of Owsley, State of Kentucky. Ancestry collection 8054, record 17453547. SCHEDULE I.—Free Inhabitants, enumerated 10 September 1850 by Luther Br---- , Ass't Marshal; dwelling and family 367, lines 9–16. Read from the image at full resolution — 3550 × 4514 px, 22 September 2026. Wm A Bowles, 63, M, Farmer, real estate $1,200, born Virginia; Lucy Bowles, 45, F, born Virginia; then Thomas 23, Hugh[s] 21, James, William 14, Sarah 8, Margaret 5, all born Kentucky. 🔑 This sheet is the reason a sixth generation now stands on the Bowles line. It is the earliest document that places James Daniel Bowles in a household, and the household has a head and a wife born in Virginia — the only Virginia birth anywhere on this line. ⚠ It is published as PROBABLE, and the reason is on the page itself: a census household list states no relationship. The columns give name, age, sex, occupation, estate and birthplace, and nothing else. No document read in this research yet uses the word "son" for James against Wm A. and Lucy. What carries the identification is arithmetic on a second page: the three older boys of this house reappear on three consecutive lines of the 1863 draft list for the neighbouring county S156 at exactly the right ages — Hugh 21 → Hughs 34, William 14 → W. A. 27, James → 32. ⚠ James's own age digit is genuinely ambiguous: at native resolution it reads 11 as readily as 19, two plain strokes. The index says 19; the 1863 page is what fixes it at 19, not the digits. ⚠ Wm A Bowles here, 63 and born in Virginia, is NOT William Anderson Bowles (b. 1858), James's son. Two men, the same initials, two generations apart. ⚠ No occupation is entered for any son, and only the head holds real estate. ⚠ Jackson County was cut out of Owsley, Clay and Estill in 1858, which is why the 1863 residence is a different county and not a move.
4. S156U.S. Civil War Draft Registrations, 1863–1865 — James Bowls, 12th Sub-District, Jackson County, Kentucky. Ancestry collection 1666, record 405876. CONSOLIDATED LIST of all persons of Class I, 8th Congressional District of Kentucky, enumerated during June 1863 under Robert Hays, Provost Marshal; page No. 29, certified to Provost Marshal General James B. Fry at Washington on 1 February 1864. Read from the image at full resolution, 22 September 2026. Line 8: Bowls, James — age on 1 July 1863 32 — White — Farmer — Mard — born Kentucky; no former military service, no remark. 🔑 Three Bowles brothers stand on three consecutive lines. Line 6 Bowles W. A., 27, single, farmer, Kentucky; line 7 Bowls Hughs, 34, single, farmer, Kentucky; line 8 our man. The three ages carry the 1850 Owsley household forward exactly S155, and that agreement — not any one line — is what identifies both sheets. 🔑 It adds an occupation the index omits — Farmer, dittoed down the column — and a dated wartime residence in a decade where this man had none: nothing stood between the 1856 Owsley marriage S143 and the 1870 Owsley census S157. ⚠ Enrolment is liability for the draft, not service. He is listed in Class I (men 20–35, and unmarried men to 45); the former military service column is blank and there is no remark. Nothing here says he served. ⚠ Its age column disagrees with the tree by a week. A man born 9 July 1831 is 31 on 1 July 1863, not 32. This is the second of three schedules leaning the same way; with S155 and S157 it is why the tree and this site give 1830–31. ⚠ The clerk's spelling is Bowls, surname first; that is the register's hand, not a new name.
5. 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 and this site give 1830–31; 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. 🔑 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.
6. S158Arizona Certificate of Death, 1920 — LUCINDA CARPENTER, daughter of James Daniel Bowles, Phoenix, Maricopa County. Ancestry collection 60420, record 600216827. Arizona State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, County Registered No. 9718, Local Registrar's No. 2439. Read from the image at full resolution, 22 September 2026. Lucinda Carpenter, F, White, married; date of birth Feb 27 1870, age 50, occupation Housewife, birthplace Kentucky; NAME OF FATHER: James Bowles; MAIDEN NAME OF MOTHER: Williams; informant R. N. Carpenter; died 28 September 1920, 3:30 p.m., of shock following operation at the Deaconess Hospital, attended from 12 August; buried Greenwood, 30 September 1920; usual residence California, about two years in Arizona. 🔴 THIS IS NOT JAMES DANIEL BOWLES'S DEATH RECORD, AND ANCESTRY'S INDEX MAKES IT LOOK LIKE ONE. The index surfaces the record under Name: James Bowles. On the image he appears in one box only — Name of Father. It must never be cited as his death record; he died in 1889 in Texas. 🔴 A second index error on the same card: "Spouse: Williams Bowles" is not a person. Williams is the maiden-name-of-mother box, a surname with no given name, read by the indexer as a man. 🔑 What the certificate does settle is a daughter, fully. 27 February 1870, born Kentucky locks to the month against Lucinda, 4/12, born within the year — Feb on line 10 of the 1870 Owsley schedule S157. 🔑 And it corroborates Lydia's maiden surname from another state entirely — Arizona, fifty years and two thousand miles from Owsley County, from a family informant. Williams now rests on three independent documents: the 1856 marriage register S143, the 1858 birth register S160 and this. ⚠ WHAT IS REJECTED HERE, AND WHY. The certificate gives Virginia for both of her parents' birthplaces. Both are rejected. James was born in Estill County, Kentucky on his own marriage register S143 and Kentucky on three schedules; Lydia was born in Tennessee on two. The informant was a son-in-law reporting in 1920 on a father-in-law thirty years dead. The likely source of the slip is recoverable and is worth stating: James's OWN parents, Wm A. and Lucy Bowles, WERE born in Virginia S155 — the informant was one generation out, not simply wrong. A death certificate is primary for the death and hearsay for the parents. 🔑 Both parents' Virginia birthplaces were checked against the other records. Lydia's is wrong too. Three contemporaneous records give her Tennessee — the 1850 Owsley schedule while she was living at home [S173], the 1856 bride's column [S143], and the 1860 Travellers Rest sheet [S171] — and her son's 1936 Texas certificate gives a third answer, Kentucky. Two informants, two different wrong answers, sixty and eighty years on. Tennessee stands; the pattern is the finding. The Virginia is weak sideways corroboration of the Virginia-born generation in [S155] and worthless for either James's or Lydia's own birthplace.
7. S160Owsley County, Kentucky BIRTH REGISTER, returns for 1858 — Wm. A. Bowles, born 9 April 1858, with both parents named on the row. Ancestry collection 1213 (Kentucky, U.S., Birth Records, 1847–1911), record 150077533, image KYVR_994052-0056; the leaf is tabbed BIRTH and flagged Faded Page. Read from the image at full resolution — 3736 × 3264 px, 56/56 DeepZoom tiles, 22 September 2026. The register runs as one table across the opening. Row 5: Date of Birth April 9th (the year 1858 stands at the head of the column and is carried down by ditto); Name of Child Wm. A. Bowles; Male; Alive; Place of Birth Owsley Co., Ky; Name of Father: Jas. Bowles; Maiden name of Mother: Lydia Williams; White; Residence of Parents Owsley Co., Ky. 🔑 9 APRIL 1858 RESTS ON A COUNTY REGISTER, NOT ON FIND A GRAVE. The date is the one Find a Grave gives; here it is written by a county clerk, at the time, in a statutory register, where Find a Grave offers only parent links S22. Weigh primary over derivative: this outranks S22 and is cited ahead of it. 🔑 It is also the FIRST DOCUMENTARY STATEMENT OF THE PARENT–CHILD LINK IN WORDS. Elsewhere James Daniel Bowles and Lydia Williams are tied to William Anderson Bowles by Find a Grave and by inference from the 1870 household S157 — a son William, 12, exactly the right age. This register states it outright, at the birth, naming the father and the mother's maiden name on the child's own line. 🔑 A third independent document for the maiden surname Williams, and the second written in Kentucky at the time S143. Note the column heading: it is "Maiden name of Mother", not spouse — Ancestry's index renders it as Spouse: Lydia Williams, the same fact with worse provenance. 🔑 Ancestry's index carries NO DATE AT ALL. The date exists only on the image. ⚠ Only one Bowles appears anywhere in the father column of this page — it is otherwise Davis, Abner, Warner, Young, Prewit, Wells, McGuire, Kincaid, Beatty, Williams, Boothe, Bryant, Sizemore, Creech and others — so there is no second candidate on the leaf. ⚠ The 1856 date on his Texas death certificate is the outlier; it is outvoted by a birth register, the 1900 Texas census S140 and the 1870 Kentucky census S157.
8. 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. The sheet names him plain James, and the search for his farm follows that name. He is 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"; that schedule has not been read. 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, is the eldest child on the sheet. 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.