While all records agree that 22Charlie was born sometime in the early to mid-1890's, the particular dates/estimates vary bizarrely, even for records created around the same time. The following table shows these dates/estimates in chronological order of the records' creation.

Despite the numerous glaring discrepancies and contradictory dates, I'm reasonably confident that all of the above-cited records do indeed pertain to our 22Charlie Black:

Since all these records seem to pertain to our 22Charlie, why, then, do they have such bizarrely different birthdates? Perhaps 22Charlie didn't know his real birthdate?

The evidence contradicts again on 22Charlie's place of birth. His Social Security application, which he signed and probably filled out by his own hand, states that he was born in Johnson County;6 this claim is loosely corroborated by the 1900 census, which shows him in Johnson County a few years after his birth.1 However, his death certificate and obituary state that he was born in Laurens County,8,9 and his draft card states Montgomery County.3

Paper-Trail Evidence

Extending from the above discussion, even though 22Charlie signed an official document claiming that his father is 90Burton Black,6 earlier evidence doesn't support that claim and indeed directly contradicts it: The 1900 census explicitly describes 22Charlie as 90Burton's grandson, not son.1 As with his mother's maiden name, embarrassment may have led 22Charlie to report a knowingly false father, or perhaps he genuinely didn't know his father's identity and simply chose his maternal grandfather to fill in the blank on the application.

Who, then, could have been 22Charlie's real father? As noted above, I suspect an illegitimate birth. Johnson County does have a bastardy bonds book for the years 1884-1915, but most of the pages are lost, and 22Charlie and 45Julia aren't mentioned on the surviving pages. The Georgia Archives does not have contemporary bastardy bonds for either Laurens or Montgomery counties.

With nowhere else to turn, I next looked for DNA evidence.

Lack of Y-DNA

A Y-DNA test from a male-line descendant of 22Charlie might help to identify his father. So far, however, I've been unable to find any such descendant but have not made an exhaustive search. Charlie did have a son Marvin,5,9 who in turn had six sons, described in 2000 as "Phillip Black, Okeechobee, Fla., Ronald Gene Black, Homerville, Gary Black, Eddie Black, Kenny Black and Daryl Black, Stuart, Fla." 14

I'm offering a financial reward for Y-DNA results from a patrilineal descendant of 22Charlie.

Autosomal DNA: MyHeritage.com

In February 2025 I attempted to organize my father's autosomal DNA matches on MyHeritage.com to identify the matches most likely to share ancestry with 22Charlie's unknown father. A "short list" of those matches is below; I describe how I derived the list in a footnote near the end of this page.* I ruled out as many irrelevant matches as possible, but due to a limited selection of suitable comparator matches, I was unable to rule out all such matches, and no doubt at least some of the matches below do not have DNA reflective of 22Charlie's father.

Upon further inspection of these matches, I found only one instance of a common ancestor: Both Jean Hooks and Daniel Edenfield allegedly descend from Frederick Tyson (ca. 1754 - ca. 1833) and his wife Bridget Justice (ca. 1754 - ca. 1796). Their alleged lineages are:

Continuing on, I found other, lower-cM matches on MyHeritage with other descendants of Frederick Tyson and Bridget Justice:

Since lower-cM matches sometimes reflect remote MRCA's or general endogamy rather than more recent, genealogically relevant MRCA's, to help address this concern I compared the above-named, lower-cM subjects to five other, well-identified comparator subjects who collectively bear DNA from the vast majority of my father's somewhat recent ancestors other than his 22Charlie Black branch. (Further details about these five comparator subjects are in the footnote below.*) Of these, Jerri Rush, John Foskey, and DWH had no matches >15 cM with any of the five comparators. Paul Wright, however, shares 21.5 cM with comparator Austin Davis and 17.3 cM with comparator Betty Jo Black, and I was unable to find common ancestors to otherwise explain those matches, so Paul's usefulness as a match for my research question is somewhat weakened.

Autosomal DNA: Ancestry.com

Using a very similar method, I next searched for relevant matches on Ancestry.com. Because Ancestry had closer, more suitable comparator matches, I could rule out irrelevant matches more reliably, and therefore the matches listed below should reflect 22Charlie's unidentified father fairly well. (I describe how I derived the list in a footnote near the end of this page.†) To help affirm my selection, notice that Ancestry.com user shawnslg4012, who is my father's first cousin once removed and likewise a descendant of 11Mary Clyde Black (i.e., 22Charlie's daughter) and 10Curtis Geiger, shares many of the same matches, just as one would expect.

Further analysis of these matches† revealed two notable match clusters: (1) a cluster that I've named "Cluster 1" consisting of Eric Hudson, Garry Morgan, hudsonrobert80, mataylor64, Roberta Mondelli, Shelley Miller, Timothy Hall, and Virginia Lee Hall-Cliver; and (2) a cluster that I've named "Cluster 2" consisting of April Stillwagner, Bailey Chalmers-Vuorensyrja, Janice EVANS, Jesse Hamilton, JILL MASTERS, pawebb0422, rabunj34, V.H. managed by hallrkcj, and wmatt_snellgrove.

For Cluster 1, unfortunately five of the eight members had little or no genealogical information available about themselves. I've messaged these five, requesting further assistance, but I haven't received a reply. Of the three remaining subjects, two subjects—hudsonrobert80 and Virginia Lee Hall-Cliver—had a clear alleged MRCA couple: Francis Marion Silas and his wife Martha Elizabeth Blankenship. I couldn't identify a relationship between these two subjects and the third subject, Garry Morgan, with much certainty, but Garry does have an alleged ancestor with the surname Nichols, and Francis Marion Silas' maternal grandmother was Lettie Nichols, so perhaps the MRCA is another generation or so back. The relevant alleged lineages are summarized below.

For Cluster 2, Bailey Chalmers-Vuorensyrja, April Stillwagner, Jesse Hamilton, and wmatt_snellgrove all share a MRCA couple: Calvin Green Powell and his wife Maryann Serena Derriso. Jesse Hamilton also descends from Frederick Tyson and his wife Bridget Justice, discussed earlier for the MyHeritage matches. rabunj34 shares several MRCA's with my father (i.e., 170Renson Rabun, 171Elizabeth Martin, 326John C. Everett, and 327Elizabeth Ellis), so he should be removed from consideration. I was unable to identify a MRCA for JILL MASTERS and pawebb0422, and Janice EVANS and V.H. managed by hallrkcj had insufficient genealogical information available.

Conclusion

Although I'm still unable to identify 22Charlie's father, it's likely that he descends from some or all of the abovementioned MRCA couples (or close relatives thereof), viz: Calvin Green Powell and Maryann Serena Derriso; Frederick Tyson and Bridget Justice; and Francis Marion Silas and Martha Elizabeth Blankenship. A Y-DNA sample may be necessary to help narrow the field further.