Thanks for the information. Yes I saw the family tree information and it contained the same information as I had (he married into our family- had at least two young daughters by 1860) but I didn't have a record of his death. Ashville is less than 10 miles from his hometown, so this M D Truss may be him...the D and J written on older documents can sometimes be confused. I'll also post on the AL website. Thanks again!