Tombstone Tuesday: Margaret Jane (Denyer) Van Every

My maternal great grandmother, Margaret Jane McAlpin Monteroy Denyer Van Every was born on September 1, 1868 in Kyle, Texas. The two middle names are both provided in her biographical entry from A Brief History of John and Christian Fretz and a Complete Genealogical Family Register With Biographies of their Descendants from the Earliest Available Records to the Present Time – by Rev A.J. Fretz of Milton N.J. copyright 1890. She is listed as McAlpin Denyer in the 1870 census, and as Margaret in the 1880 census.

Does this mean I may have Scottish roots? Yes. I may. I may have Chinese roots. I have seen no evidence of that, but it's a possibility. (If one were to compute the odds, there is likely a greater chance of Scottish ancestry.) Margaret's father, Ebenezer, served in the Confederate army, and could well have named his daughter after a fellow soldier he met during his service. Or the name could have come from any number of other sources.

She died in 1923 at the young age of 55. She is buried in San Marcos, Texas, in the same cemetery as her brother, Samuel Denyer, and her father-in-law, Samuel Van Every.

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