Did you know about Jimmy Carter’s deep family roots in the CSRA?

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - The family tree of former President Jimmy Carter has little-known roots in the CSRA that date back more than two centuries.

Although Carter – the only native Georgian to occupy the Oval Office – grew up hundreds of miles from here, his family first settled in the CSRA after coming to Georgia.

The Carter family came to America from England in 1637, initially settling in Isle of Wight County, Va., and later finding its way to Bertie County, N.C., according to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum.

Carter’s fourth great-grandfather, Kindred Carter, moved to Georgia and settled in what’s now McDuffie County between 1773 and 1800.

In 1798 in Columbia County, Kindred’s son James, Carter’s third great-grandfather, married Eleanor “Nellie” Duckworth, whose family was from Warren and Columbia counties. The couple settled in 1815 along White’s Creek on a 500-acre plantation about 4 miles northwest of Thomson.

Their oldest son, Wiley, married Ann Ansley in 1821 in Warren County, where her family was from. Ultimately, Wiley Carter sold his land in Warren County on Rocky Comfort Creek, near Gibson, in 1851 and moved to land about 20 miles north of Plains.

But his son Littleberry Walker Carter stayed in Warren County, where he married Mary Ann Diligent Seals. They lived in an area that became Glascock County in 1857.

Around 1860, Littlebery and Ann Carter, Jimmy Carter’s great-grandparents, moved to the Plains area like much of the rest of the family had.

That was just after Jimmy Carter’s grandfather, William A. Carter, had been born. He also grew up in the Plains region.

And that’s where the future president was born on Oct. 1, 1924, to Earl Carter, a farmer and businessman, and Lillian Carter, a registered nurse.

It was a birth that ultimately put the small community on the international map.

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