Hi Jan,

I hope all is well with you and your family. My response is coming a couple of years late. Ancestry.com actually has a picture of James Samuel Tidwell and Minty Ann Bennefield (I believe that is how it is spelled on the site..could be wrong though...search James Samuel Tidwell). The Bennefield family has done quite extensive research. I have been doing some more research to put to rest the rumor regarding the story of William Baxter Tidwell and the Trail of Tears, the dates of his birth and the movement west do not reconcile. The movement was complete by mid 1839, he was born in Blount County Alabama in 1840. I have found nothing that supports any of it. William Baxter Tidwell was retired Union Army out of Missouri before he moved to Oklahoma, Indian Territory.....a bit of a mystery. He is on the Union pension rolls and one poster thinks he has found the parents of William Baxter Tidwell.

Keep in touch,

Denise