In the census of 1860 for the Forks of Pigeon township of Haywood County, NC, Louisa Jane's age was listed as 4, for a birth year of about 1856.[1] See the image.
At the time of the 1870 Census (listed on 27 July), Louisa Jane resided with her parents at the Forks of Pigeon in Haywood County. Her age was listed as 15, for a birth year of about 1855. The family dwelling was #111. [2]
In the same township, at dwelling #98, was the family of Henry and Mary Deaver Franklin, including their son Joseph, age 11. This family was listed on 26 July.[3]
On 15 April 1876 or 1878, Lucinda gave birth to daughter Bertha Elizabeth who, according to DNA tests reviewed in March 2018, was fathered by Joseph Columbus Franklin. (Franklin-7964) These tests corroborate the account of Francis David Childers (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Childers-491), about his mother's parentage, in a 1976 interview recorded by nephew Dwight Childers.
Thus far we have not found documentary evidence of a formal marriage.
In 1884 Louisa Jane married Andrew J. Lambert, who would die tragically and apparently wrongfully in a public execution for the murder of another man, in 1886.
On 19 April 1890, at the time of Louisa Jane Reese Lambert's marriage to J. Samuel Edwards, her age was recorded as 27, giving her a birth year of about 1863.[4]
In the 1900 census, J. S. and Louisa Jane Edwards were listed #11 at the house before #12, the Thomas and Bertha Childers family. Her age was recorded as 39, giving her a birth year of about 1861.
In old age, Louisa Jane (Reece) Edwards moved to Laurens County, SC, near (or with?) her son Wilson Cornelius Edwards and his family.
She was buried in Rosemont Cemetery, Clinton, SC. Her grave marker is inscribed . . . .
US Federal Census, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890 via Ancestry.com;
Buncombe County NC Marriage Register, 1884;
DNA tests, taken in late 2017 and early 2018, by three Childers descendants of Bertha Elizabeth Franklin, which match those of two different Franklin descendants.
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Louisa is 26 degrees from Herbert Adair, 22 degrees from Richard Adams, 19 degrees from Mel Blanc, 25 degrees from Dick Bruna, 19 degrees from Bunny DeBarge, 32 degrees from Peter Dinklage, 17 degrees from Sam Edwards, 15 degrees from Ginnifer Goodwin, 18 degrees from Marty Krofft, 14 degrees from Junius Matthews, 17 degrees from Rachel Mellon and 17 degrees from Harold Warstler on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.
"Now this grandmother on my mother’s side was a Reece before she married anybody. She was a great woman of her time, Buddy. I saw her, I was with her. I went there to see her. I’d rather go there as anywhere in the world. Well, she was a Reece. Homer Reece up here, that got burned up a while back, was pretty close akin to her. But I went there to have a dance one night, and he told me all about it, how much akin he was, who was, all about it.
"She was about six feet tall nearly. Same size as our mother almost. Jane, Jane Reece. Now she married Jack Lambert, the first one. He was hung, innocent. He never done the crime. Later years, after he was hung – that’s giving you a little idea of our United States judgement – they didn’ get the truth. They just hung him because he was in the crowd, they accuse’ him.
"Whisky and women. Well, they was out that night . . . . that’s all I know about it. I don’t know where he come from, or where it was out. He was that kind. He run with ‘em. He was there, and this man got killed. And they accused him of it. Later, eight years after he was killed, I think it was, I remember it, the man come in and surrendered, and said he was the man ‘t killed the man. Jack Lambert did not kill him. . . . .
"Oh, she was a goer. Yeah, I went there many times when I was small. A nice woman. [She lived] . . . on Mingus’s Creek. A little log hut. It was the same life that we lived. They was diggin’ holes in the ground where it was too rough to plow a bull. That’s all we had them days, bulls.
"My mother and Claude Lambert now was from Jack Lambert. My mother was from Franklin. She married this Edwards, Sam Edwards, and they had four from him."
NOTE the equivocation in that last paragraph. Unfortunately, at the time of the interview I did not have the presence of mind to ask him to clarify that statement.