- Blalock Resources at Rootsweb
- GenForum Blaylock Board
- GenForum Blalock Board
- Cyndi's List - Tennessee
- Rootsweb Tennessee Resources
- Ferman's Blalock Genealogy Site
Blaylocks of Middle Tennessee
Hello. My name is Jessie Blalock. I used to maintain a website which attempted to comprehensively cover all of the Blalocks, Blaylocks, and Blailocks in the USA. However, it soon became an overwhelming task, and I got "burnt-out" on Blalocks. Now I have passed the "online Blalock research" mantle on to cousin Ferman out in California, who is doing a fine job with his own Blalock website. Be sure to pay him a visit at his "mini-tour" site.
Blalock is a very old Southern American name; most of us are descended from the man named Thomas Blacklock who came to live in Accomac Co., Virginia about 1623, a few years after the Jamestown settlement began. Thomas' offspring followed the "classic" Southern migration patterns, living in Virginia and North Carolina during Colonial times, and then moving further south and west after the American Revolution.
There is no "correct" spelling of this name. I do not use the "y", but some of my ancestors did use it. The family originated in Cumberland County, England, and most contemporary Englishmen are predominately Blaylocks. In the USA, the usage is split about 50/50, and is largely dependent on regional preferences. For example, almost all Blalocks in North Carolina (which is the state with the largest population according to the Social Security Death Index database) do NOT use the "y". However, several other states, such as Texas and Arkansas, overwhelmingly use the "y". In Tennessee, the Sevier Co and Hardeman Co. branches do not use the "y", but the middle Tennessee branches do use it.
I am descended from the Tennessee Blaylocks. There were three main settlements of Blalocks in Tennessee: In the East, the Sevier/Knox County branches are descended from Jeremiah Blalock and Nancy Maples. In the West live the descendants of Jesse Blalock and Rosanna Lee, in and around Hardeman County. And in the middle part of the state there are three sub-branches.
Three men came to Middle Tennesse from North Carolina between 1820 and 1840, and they are the ancestors of the many Blaylocks and Blalocks who now populate the Cumberland region and the Sequatchie Valley, which includes Bledsoe, Putnam, Sequatchie, Rhea and White Counties. Two of those men, McLean Blalock and Hubbard Blaylock, are my great-great-great grandfathers. They and the third man, William Stewart Blaylock, may have been brothers or first cousins. Regardless, they were undoubtedly related to each other in some manner.
Hubbard Blaylock was in Bledsoe Co. by the time of the 1830 census; in 1840 he was living next door to William Blaylock, and by the 1850 census Mclean had also arrived, living at that time in the household of William. In the 1860 census Hubbard and William's son Anderson were living in the part of Bledsoe County that had become part of the newly-created Cumberland County, while Mclean and his offspring remained in Bledsoe County proper.
The 1880 census for Cumberland County listed six different Bla(y)lock households including Tempy, the widow of Hubbard, living with her stepdaughter Parthenia; her son Michael and his wife and children, plus two of Michael's sons, Giles and Thomas with their wives and children. Anderson was still there with a large household, and his son William had just started his own family
Bledsoe County in 1880 included the households of Mclean's two sons Jesse and Thomas F., plus that of Hubbard's son Richard, and Hubbard's grandson William. Over in Putnam County
we find a John Blaylock, son of William and brother of Anderson.
By the time of the 1900 census there were numerous Bla(y)lock households in the region: 7 in Bledsoe County, 5 in Cumberland County, 8 in Putnam County, 2 in Sequatchie County, and 4 in White County. Almost all of them were descendants of the three original settlers in the region.
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