Hi Katherine,

I am researching an ancestor Woodson Wren Simmons from Ocean Springs, MS and have looked into Dr. Woodson Wren of Natchez, MS to see if my Woodson might be named after him or one of his relatives. I just find it very coincidental with the names, and came across the fact that Woodson Wren owned land near Ocean Springs in the early 1800s. This is what I found, in case you don't have this info: Dr. Wren "received a conveyance of land from Littlepage Robertson, which included the entire Fort Point Peninsula." Then in 1833, Dr. Wren made a "land and slave conveyance to Samuel A. Cartwright, also of Natchez", (son-in-law to Dr. Woodson Wren, and husband to Mary Wren), "of all 640 acres of his Ocean Springs Property/Fort Point Peninsula and 7 female slaves". Let me know if you have any information about the Joseph B. and Harriet Badon Simmons family, who moved to Ocean Springs about 1872. I wonder if my ancestor, Woodson Wren Simmons, born in 1875 in Ocean Springs could have been named after one of Dr. Woodson Wren's descendants - maybe Samuel Woodson Wren (who died in 1880). I wonder if Samuel Cartwright kept the Fort Point Property in the family, and maybe the Wren Family and the Simmons family intermingled.