Reuben Tally Comer was the son of Joseph Fletcher Comer and Mary Brown. Joseph F. Comer was married twice. His first marriage was to Mary Brown on August 13, 1809. It appears that she died several months after the birth of Reuben Tally Comer. Joseph F. Comer then moved from South Carolina to Georgia with his four children and settled near Lawrenceville, Georgia. Hall County records show that he married Frances Venable on May 4, 1820. Unfortunately we know little about either the Brown or Venable families.

There is some anecdotal evidence in the family to believe that the Comer family was from England. But the Comer name is also common in other areas of the British Isles and Ireland is also a possibility.

The ancestors of this Comer family group came to Georgia from the Abbeville District of South Carolina. They in turn came there from the King William County area of Virginia. Our oldest known Comer ancestor is believed to be a John Comer who was born in either Virginia, England, or Ireland in 1675. He died in Halifax County, Virginia around 1766. This John Comer married Ann Anderson from Lunenburg County, Virginia around 1725.

John Comer and Ann Anderson had five children, three sons and two daughters. We do not know the birth date for John Comer, Jr., so his birth order is not certain.

We must say though, the name John Comer is very common in Virginia at the time he lived there, and research is difficult.

As far as we know the first genealogists in our family were from this Comer line. These three ladies researched the Comer, Howard, and Randolph families in Clarke, Jackson, and Oglethorpe Counties for over fifty years. After the death of the last of these ladies we inherited their research, which became the foundation for our research.

One of the treasures they left behind was several suitcases filled with neatly documented family photographs. These have proven to be extremely valuable in our work to bring all this alive. Names, dates, and places are fine, but without some indication of what a person looked like it lacks life.

As a courtesy to these three ladies we still carry the information they researched on the Howard and Randolph families, and there are links to those families on the right side of this page.

Our connection to the Comer family is through Clara Louise Comer, the fourth daughter and fifth child of William Jenkins Comer and Martha Deadwyler. William Jenkins Comer was the third child and third son of Reuben Tally Comer and Sarah W. Elizabeth Fulcher, our great-great-grandparents.

Reuben Tally Comer was born in an area of Jackson County, Georgia that may have later become a part of Gwinnett County when it was formed in 1818 from Cherokee lands and a portion of Jackson County. Like so many others who occupied western developed areas of Georgia in this era, they were living on the edge of the frontier. The redistribution of county structure was often created as white settlers entered the Indian lands in search of Gold.

Reuben Tally Comer's occupation is listed as a "Planter and Cabinet Maker" in official records. We know that several of his sons became large land owners in Madison County, and it is likely that he was also a successful land owner. We also know that our great-grandfather, William Jenkins Comer had some cabinetmaking skills since several of his furniture pieces have been passed down in the family.

The descendants of Reuben Tally Comer and Sarah W. Elizabeth Fulcher all stayed in or around their birthplace. They had five boys, all born in either Jackson, Banks, or Clarke County. Maysville, the family home, actually straddles the county line between Banks and Jackson Counties, and the exact birthplace may be lost in time.

All five sons were listed as either farmers or merchants, often on a large scale. The three oldest sons were eligible for military service during the civil War, and all three served in local units in the Confederate Army.

None of the sons married until after the Civil War and then all settled down in Banks, Clarke, or Madison County. The town of Comer, Georgia was formed and named during their residence in Madison County. When the railroad wanted to build a route through the county, they purchased land from James Thomas and Henry Towns Comer. The town was supposedly named Comer by the railroad in recognition of their cooperation.