Hi Joseph,

I can't answer that last question. In certain states you can still get married very young. Most of my ancestors married in their late teens and twenties, however, one gr.gr.gr.gr grandmother eloped at 15 in 1855. Another gr.gr. grandmother in the 1870s ran off with her husband at 14. I would stress that the age given in the census isn't necessarily her real age. For all we know the enumerator may have gotten the information from a neighbor. That's one of the drawbacks of the census - human error. The only way to solve this would be to try and locate a marriage record for William. Have the records of Abbeville County survived? I should know this because of my own SC research but the heat is getting to me. I can't remember whether this county's records went up in flames like so many other SC records. I think the Abbeville records survived.