Wilkes County, Georgia, created in the year 1777, is the parent of Elbert, Oglethorpe, and Lincoln counties and parts of the counties of Greene, Hart, Madison, Taliaferro, and Warren. It comprised one-third of the population of the state in 1790. The records in this excellent little book are supplementary to Mrs. Grace G. Davidson's "Early Records of Georgia: Wilkes County" (1932, 1933) and are designed to assist the researcher in making a detailed survey of the oldest records in the Ordinary's office, once known as the Inferior Court office. The records--principally wills and settlements of estates, but also deeds of gift, inheritances, and marriage bonds--have more than ordinary genealogical significance, as they name not only principals but also beneficiaries (showing relationships), as well as witnesses and executors. The material is mostly of the period dating from the late 18th to the early 19th centuries and identifies nearly 5,000 early Georgians.

Robert Toombs of Georgia stands as one of the most fiery and influential politicians of the nineteenth century. Sarcastic, charming, egotistical, and gracious, he rose quickly from state office to congressman to senator in the decades before the Civil War. Though he sought sectional reconciliation throughout the 1840s and 1850s, he eventually became one of the South's most ardent secessionists. This thorough biography chronicles his days as a student and young lawyer in Georgia, his boisterous political career, his appointment as the Confederacy's first Secretary of State, his unsuccessful stint as a Confederate general, and his role as a proud, unreconstructed rebel after the war. An exploration of Toombs' career reveals the political forces and missteps that drove him--and people like him--to want to secede from the United States.

Thomas Nelms and his wife, Ruth, had two sons, born in Virginia, ca. 1763-1765, and five daughters. The family lived in Bute County, North Carolina (later Franklin County), from 1776 to 1788. They moved to Wilkes County, Georgia, in 1788. He died in 1796 in Oglethorpe County, Georgia. Descendants lived in Georgia, Alabama, Texas, and elsewhere.