Or, Subtitled: Old and week in body but of sound and perfect mind and memory
In a long series of postings of which this is the final one, I’ve been following the children named in the 9 July 1786 will of Mary Brooks of Frederick County, Virginia (and see also here), and have tracked the descendants of those children for a generation or two.[1] As we’ve seen, Mary’s will names the following children:
Or, Subtitled: A Revolutionary Officer Who Rubbed Shoulders with Washington and Jefferson
My last posting in this series about Elizabeth Brooks (1747/1750 – 1816) and husband George Rice ended with a brief discussion of the first record I’ve found in Frederick County, Virginia, showing George as an adult living a life independent of his father. This record is a Northern Neck grant of 300 acres in Frederick County that he received on 7 March 1763.[1] As I noted in the posting linked at the start of this paragraph, the grant shows that the land (which George Washington surveyed) lay along the line of the land of George’s father Patrick Rice. The posting linked above has a digital image of the land grant.
Or, Subtitled: “Your Orator Further Sheweth” — Valuable Inheritances and Predictable Litigation
With this posting, I’m climbing back up the Brooks family tree and starting to track lines stemming from another daughter of Mary Brooks, the earliest Brooks ancestor I’ve been able to prove. As I’ve indicated previously, Mary died testate in Frederick County, Virginia, with a will dated 9 July 1786.[1] In her will, Mary named children Mary (Hollingsworth), Elizabeth (Rice), Thomas, Sarah (Asdril [i.e., Ashdale]), Susanna (Haynes), and James. As the posting I’ve just linked says, I have not been able to discover the name of Mary’s husband, or her maiden surname, or where this family lived before I first catch sight of them in Frederick County, Virginia, records in March 1767.
Or, Subtitled: “Of English Descent” or “a Native of Ireland” — Take Your Pick
As I stated at the end of my penultimate posting, after having shared with you the information I have about Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747- 1805), I now want to focus on Thomas’s mother Mary Brooks, who died testate in Frederick County, Virginia, with a will dated 9 July 1786.[1] Mary’s will was proven in Frederick County court on 4 April 1787, so she died at some point between those two dates. This will is just about the sum total of what I know of this Brooks family in the generation prior to Thomas Brooks.
Or, Subtitled: “I will and bequeath to my beloved son Thomas Brooks, whom I likewise constitute make and ordain my whole and sole Executor”
I’ve now finished telling you what I know of Thomas Brooks (1775-1838), who moved with his parents from Frederick County, Virginia, where he was born in 1775, to Wythe County, Virginia, in 1793, and from there to Wayne County, Kentucky, in 1798. As I’ve also shown you, at the very end of his and his wife Sarah’s lives, the couple moved their family from Kentucky to Morgan County, Alabama, in November 1836, and in 1837, Sarah died at the home of their daughter Jane Brooks Lindsey in Lawrence County, Alabama, with Thomas dying under Jane’s care in 1838.
Begats and Bequeathals 