Anna Beard Bell
Birth 1764
Rockingham County, Virginia, USA
Death 1843 (aged 78–79)
Murray County, Georgia, USA
Burial Calvary Baptist Church Cemetery
Crandall, Murray County, Georgia, USA
Anna was a daughter of James Beard and a woman named Jane (Jane' surname remains unproven at this time). Anna was born in Rockingham County, Virginia. She was the oldest sibling to three brothers and five sisters.
Anna was married to Mr. William Bell on January 1, 1781, in Rockingham County, Virginia. This union produced eight surviving children documented. William and Anna moved from the Shenandoah Valley, down to Knox County, Tennessee around the year 1806-1808.
Anna's husband William passed away in Knox County in 1813 leaving her a widow. She lived in Tennessee for for many years before moving with her daughter Tamer Jane Bell Barnett Berry to (what is now) Murray County, Georgia. This was around the time of the 1832 Land Lottery when Northwestern Georgia was officially taken from the Cherokee people and surveyed into 160 acre "land lots" for white settlement, and divided up into its current counties.
The Bell's were (unfortunately) slave owners in Tennessee as well as Georgia. Shortly before her death, in Murray County, Georgia, Anna deeded her slaves to her daughter Tamar and new son in Law, Elias Berry, some of which were specifically named slaves inherited from her late husband, William Bell Sr in 1813. These records, albeit a horrible part of history, are definitive proof Anna was residing in Murray County and did not die in 1813 (this was the year of her husbands death) or 1830 as some researchers think.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/226055643/anna-bell
