John McClendon (c.1800 – after 1870) and Nancy (1800 – after 1870), maiden name unknown, were my 4th-great-grandparents, being the parents of Dennis McClendon. They were both born in North Carolina and moved to Rhea County, Tennessee before 1840. Many large family trees of the McClendon family have been published, but I have been unable to verify any claims about John’s parents, nor any direct connection to the larger McClendon family. No birth or death record, nor burial, has been found for either.
One common claim is that John is the son of Jesse McClendon and Elizabeth Ball. Another has him the son of Dennis McClendon and Delilah Beasley. John is sometimes given a middle name of Jesse. There may be proof for some of these claims, but I have not seen it.
There are false claims about Nancy’s maiden name online, generally due to confusion with people with the same names. Look out for Tyson and Brashear, both surnames of a different Nancy who married a different McClendon.
The variant McLendon is sometimes found; spellings were in the past often variable.
See McClendon origins for the deeper history of the family including DNA evidence.
We have to rely on census records to approximate their dates of birth (all records with birthplaces show both born in North Carolina):
| Year | Location | John age | Inferred birth | Nancy age | Inferred birth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1840ref | Rhea Co., TN | 30s | 1800–1810 | 40s | 1790–1800 |
| 1850ref | Rhea Co., TN | 39 | 1811- | 49 | 1801- |
| 1860ref | Cumberland Co., TN | 61 | 1799- | 60 | 1800- |
| 1870ref | Rhea Co., TN | 71 | 1799- | 70 | 1800- |
There is no record after 1870, so it is likely they died before 1880.
John’s age in 1850 is presumably an error; it differs wildly from others, and he had a son probably in 1825 at the latest. John’s young age range in 1840 is odd, but maybe he was born in 1800 and was only 39, or whoever answered the census taker was off by a year. Nancy’s birth year could be 1800 and fit all the above ranges.
The 1840 census breaks down by age range and sex, and so can be used to compare to the child list below:
| Counts | Inferred births |
|---|---|
| 1 ♂ <5, 2 ♂ 5–9, 1 ♂ 10–14, 1 ♂ 15–19, 1 ♂ 30s, 2 ♀ <5, 1 ♀ 5–9, 1 ♀ 10–14, 1 ♀ 40s | 1790–1800 ♀ 1800–1810 ♂ 1820–1825 ♂ 1825–1830 ♂♀ 1830–1835 ♂♂♀ 1835–1840 ♂♀♀ |
A segment of my X chromosome has been plausibly traced to Nancy, but that same segment has similarly been connected to Rebecca, wife of Arthur Monday. It is possible one (or both) of these are red herrings, so that they come from the same ancestor in a way I haven’t found, but a very realistic possibility is that Nancy and Rebecca are closely related. For example, they could be niece and aunt. Since neither’s maiden name is known, let alone their parents or siblings, I have no documentary way to determine what this possible relationship is.
I have found 11 children for them, although I have done limited research on their lives:
The older children are notated born in NC, with Edmund being the first born in TN.
The correspondence to the 1840 census is pretty close, although there seems to be one missing young girl, who though would be hard to fit in chronologically. Reported ages may have been off, there could’ve been a twin, and/or one child could’ve died young.