I just read your interesting Internet posting on 1/2013 on John Henry Eddings. I guess I missed it because I was in the hospital then. As you infer, John Henry and his descendents seemed to have problems with their birth years, often showing conflicting dates. Here are a couple comments on this family.
. John Henry Eddings was really born in Jackson Co., Ala. Supposedly ( I want to emphasize "supposedly") a few days after his birth father Caswell took his family and joined other Eddings, Middleton, and Blackburn families in south eastern Missouri on that famous 1841 trip to Indian Territory where Frances Elizabeth Weaver Eddings died. I would think such a trip for a newly born baby and his mother would be a rough trip.
. I feel Margaret Catherine Pidcock died 1877 in the birth of son George. That is why she wasnot on the 1880 census.
. Son Allen Singleton Eddings , on his WW1 Draft Registration said he was born 10/19/1881. Since Margaret Pidcock was dead by then, apparently John Henry had "an affair" resulting in the birth of Allen. The "affair" wasnot with Sarah Bell, who was born in Tn. Allen said his mother was born in Missouri. Bob Eddings.