RICHARD AND MOURNING PRYOR: Son, Joseph Pryor

Joseph Pryor of Jackson Co., TN has been attributed to Richard and Mourning. That may be true as Richard Pryor was one of the early settlers of this area of TN and his other known children are found in neighboring counties. However, I notice most researchers claim him to be the Joseph born 1767 in SC and counted in Tuscaloosa, AL from 1824 through 1850.

I've gone through several family trees posted on Ancestry.com and have extracted the actual census records and I am now not at all convinced that the Joseph in Jackson County is the same man who later settled in Tuscaloosa County.

All of the strong candidates who are children of Richard and Mourning were born in VA. Why would Joseph have been born in SC?

Joseph Pryor in Jackson Co. was counted on the 1820 Census in TN. The youngest child born to Joseph in AL was Rebecca in 1819 in TN. That year would fit with his presence in TN at the time of the 1820 census.

In 1820 Joseph in Jackson County was aged 45 or older, so he is the correct age to be Joseph in AL. However, he does not appear to be married, or perhaps married to a much younger woman. On the census he had three females living with him: one who was between 16 and 25, and two girls who were under 10. This family structure doesn't fit with Joseph who had a family of 11 children-- 9 girls born before 1820 and none of them married before 1820 (all of them were married in AL).

There is no doubt that Joseph in AL was in TN from 1803 through 1817 since there is a clear census record of his daughters years of birth and they state TN as their birthplace. A researcher on Ancestry.com has a date of birth of 25 May 1793 in TN for his daughter Mary, which would place Tuscaloosa Joseph in TN before 1800.

So, if Joseph from Jackson Co., TN and Joseph in Tuscaloosa Co., AL are the same man, where was his daughters in 1820? Where was his wife?