Alex McCandless was born about 1839 in the area that had been Cherokee Lands, could have been Alabama, Georgia or Tennessee.  Though in one census it was said that he was born in TN it appears that he was referring to an area, not the state.  The NE section of Alabama, the SE of Tennessee and the adjacent parts of Georgia and North Carolina had been Indian (primarily Cherokee) territory and until the 1836 cessions people did not seem to know what "state" they stood in.

Alex died in Texas in October of 1869 leaving a widow and three children.  I've tried to document my entire family in pictures here.  These pictures are two the children of Alex McCandless and Dicie Cordelia McBee; the daughter Nannie, was the middle child and the man with his wife was Alex's youngest son, my Great Grandfather John Richard McCandless.  The eldest son apparently never had time for pictures as none exist.  It was Nannie's conversations with her children that offered the clues about the Native American links.  She insisted that she was half Delaware and research yielded the fact that there were Delaware among the Cherokee in the TN/AL/GA area.  No documentation has yet been found but the search continues.

      John Richard McCandless                 Nancy E. "Nannie" McCandless               William Lee McCandless (not pictured)
     and his wife Mary Ida Perry                 Husband: Samuel Lee Morgan                      Wife:  Alice Roberta Lamb