Children of Thomas Whitlock (abt. 1745 – 1830) and Wife Hannah Phillips: Sarah Whitlock (1774 – 1837) and Husband Thomas Brooks

13 November 1839 account of Jane Brooks Lindsey in loose-papers estate file of Thomas Brooks held by Morgan County Archives

Or, Subtitled: “They were married together February 14, in the year of our Lord 1796

Sarah Whitlock was, if I have the children of Thomas Whitlock and Hannah Phillips ordered correctly, the couple’s fourth child. Sarah’s my 4th-great-grandmother. I’ve shared all that I know about her life in a number of previous postings. As this previous posting states, Sarah’s name is recorded in a family bible that belonged to her and her husband Thomas Brooks, and which passed from them to their oldest son Charles Brooks.[1] This bible is discussed in another previous posting

Children of Thomas Whitlock (abt. 1745 – 1830) and Wife Hannah Phillips: Daughter Who Married John Hammons (1)

Wayne County, Kentucky, Court Order Bk. A, p. 5

Or, Subtitled: A Cross-Slit and Underkeel in Each Ear — The Value of Earmarks in Genealogy

According to Margaret Austin of Bay Village, Ohio, who researched the Hammons family exhaustively for years and shared her research notes with me in April 1997, Thomas Whitlock’s son-in-law John Hammons appears to have been born about 1770-2. Margaret based this date on the fact that John Hammons Jr. appears on a jury list in Patrick County, Virginia, on 13-14 August 1793 in the cases of Lyne vs. King and Adams vs. Mankin and Keaton.[1] Margaret Austin’s notes also state that John Hammonds Jr. provided a deposition on 8 October 1792 in the Patrick County case of Dickerson vs. Laurance, and was sued on 13 May 1793 for debt in Patrick County in the case of Senter vs. Hammonds Jr. Note the variant spellings of the surname: Hammons and Hammonds (as well as Hammon/Hammond).

Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Hannah Brooks (1811 – 1853) and Husband Wesley Huffaker 

Wesley Huffaker’s signature to 2 May 1850 letter to David Dinsmore Lindsey in loose-papers estate file of Thomas Brooks held by Morgan County, Alabama, Archives

Or, Subtitled: The one child of Thomas and Sarah Whitlock Brooks who remained in Wayne County, Kentucky, dying there of childbirth

6. The sixth child of Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and Sarah Whitlock (1774-1837), Hannah Brooks, who was named for her grandmother Hannah Phillips Whitlock, was born 5 September 1811. This date of birth is recorded on her tombstone in Bethesda cemetery, at Bethesda in Wayne County, Kentucky, and in her obituary in the Louisville and Nashville Christian Advocate on 23 February 1854.[1] As with her brother Alexander Mackey Brooks, the sibling born immediately before her, her birthdate is not recorded in her parents’ family bible. We know she was a daughter of Thomas Brooks, however, since his 8 October 1838 will in Morgan County, Alabama, names Hannah Huffaker as his daughter.[2] As documents cited in the posting I have just linked state, Thomas’s estate documents show that Hannah’s husband was Wesley Huffaker.

Children of Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747 – 1805) and Wife Margaret: Susanna Brooks and Husband Ezekiel Harlan

Hardin County, Kentucky, Deed Bk. D, pp. 426-8

Or, Subtitled: “From there on, all trace is lost”

Working on the family of Susanna Brooks Harlan, a daughter of Thomas Brooks and Margaret Beaumont/Beamon’s, has been a real trip — significant gaps in records, wild twists and turns, hypothetical possibilities that I can’t prove, but which seem tantalizingly close to the truth. I can think of few other genealogical research projects I’ve undertaken in which I’ve encountered such surprises, with so many uncertainties and tangles. What follows is my attempt to sort out the tangles. My conclusions may be wildly wrong, but this is my best attempt to put together the facts as I can find them, and make a coherent narrative out of them.

Children of Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747 – 1805) and Wife Margaret: James Brooks (1772 – 1835) and Wife Nancy Isbell (1)

Wayne County, Kentucky, Marriage Bonds 1801-1813, p. 66

Or, Subtitled: From Virginia to Alabama by Way of Kentucky and Tennessee

We’ve met the second child of Thomas and Margaret Brooks, their son James Brooks, in previous postings. As we’ve seen, James’s year of birth, 1772, is recorded in the register of a bible belonging to James and his wife Nancy Isbell. A transcript of this bible register was published in November 1952 by Memory Aldridge Lester in the Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine, with a note that the bible belonged at that time to Nettie Raymond Brooks Young of Moulton, Alabama, and Lester had transcribed the bible at Mrs. Young’s house in June 1951.[1] Lester published the same transcript again in 1974 in a book entitled Old Southern Bible Records.[2] The posting linked above provides digital images of both transcripts.

Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock (1774-1837): Kentucky Years, 1798-1836

Thomas Brooks’s affidavit, 10 March 1804, Wayne County, Kentucky, in Whitlock v. Whitlock, Commonwealth of Virginia Chancery District Court, Staunton, box 10, file 38

Or, Subtitled: “A Rough Hardy Race of Men, Very Large & Stout, & Altogether an Excellent Population, for a New Country”

Thomas and Sarah Brooks Establish Their Young Family in Kentucky (1798-9)

In the previous posting about Thomas Brooks (1775-1838), I track him up to 1798, when he moved with wife Sarah Whitlock and infant daughter Jane from Wythe County, Virginia, to Pulaski (soon to be Wayne) County, Kentucky. As that posting notes, when the Brooks family made that move, Thomas and Sarah were a young couple, he 23 and she 24. You may have noticed that the previous postings discussing the Virginia beginnings of this Brooks family cited no records for Thomas in Wythe County other than tax records — with the exception of the record in his family bible stating that Thomas and Sarah married 14 February 1796.

Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock (1774-1837): Virginia Beginnings, 1775-1798

“Brooks Bible,” Itawamba [Mississippi] Settlers 8,3 (September, 1988), pp. 151-2

Or, Subtitled: A Virginia ➤ Kentucky ➤ Alabama Migration Pattern

Introduction: Now the Brooks Family Line

At the end of April 2021, I completed a lengthy series of postings that I began in November 2019. This series shared my information about my Lindsey immigrant ancestor, Dennis Linchey, who arrived in Richmond County, Virginia, aboard the ship Expectation some time before 1 June 1718 as an indentured servant from Ireland, and about his descendants. The series of postings that runs from November 2019 to April 2021 provides all the information I have about the descendants of Dennis Linchey, whose surname shifted to Lindsey before his death in August 1762 in Granville County, North Carolina — though my series does not follow family lines down to the last generations in each line.

Children of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks: Mary Jane Lindsey (1826-1850) and Husband James Irwin Brooks

Marriage license and return from original records marriage file; recorded in Lawrence County, Alabama, Marriage Bk. B, p. 256

Or, Subtitled: A Wife Dying Too Soon, Leaving a Bereaved Husband and Two Little Boys

Mary Jane Lindsey was the seventh child (and second daughter) of Dennis Lindsey and Jane Brooks. Her older sister Sarah Brooks Lindsey had been named for Jane’s mother Sarah Whitlock Brooks. Mary Jane was named for her father’s mother Mary Jane Dinsmore Lindsey.

The Children of Dennis Lindsey (abt. 1755-1795): Mark Lindsey (1774-1848) (1)

Lindsey, Mark Biography, James Edmond Saunders, Early Settlers of Alabama (New Orleans, 1899), pp. 122-3.
Mark Lindsey biography in James Edmond Saunders, Early Settlers of Alabama (New Orleans, 1899), pp. 122-3

Or, Subtitled: Spartanburg County, South Carolina, Families Move to Wayne County, Kentucky, and Then to Lawrence County, Alabama

Spartanburg County, South Carolina, Records for Mark Lindsey

We’ve met Mark Lindsey in previous postings. As I’ve noted, when the estate of Dennis Lindsey (abt. 1755 – 1795) was sold on 12 February 1795 in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, Mark shows up as a buyer at the estate sale. He and Mary Lindsey, Dennis’s widow, lead the list of buyers, in fact, both buying horses from the estate. As the posting I’ve just linked also tells us, an 11 April 1796 account of money received by Dennis’s estate lists Mark as one of those who had made payments to the estate, as noted in the estate’s book accounts. Continue reading “The Children of Dennis Lindsey (abt. 1755-1795): Mark Lindsey (1774-1848) (1)”