Or, Subtitled: Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative
Sometimes our searches for genealogical records yield negative results. That is, we search for material we hope or even expect to find in vital records, land records, court records, etc., and find that no such material is there. Part of the process of genealogical research is noting the lack of records for which we’ve done careful searches.
Or, Subtitled: Precious Transcripts of Old Bible Registers, Tucked Away in Family Bibles
This posting is another interruption in the series I’m currently doing about the children of Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and wife Sarah Whitlock of Wythe County, Virginia, Wayne County, Kentucky, and Morgan County, Alabama. I’ve promised you a continuation of my discussion of the family of Thomas and Sarah’s son Thomas Whitlock Brooks (1805-1879). I’ll soon be posting information about Thomas W. Brooks’s children by his wives Nancy Gillespie and Nancy Westfall.
Or, Subtitled: “Upon James Brooks throwing in two hundred dollars, Robert Brooks one hundred and twenty dollars, Jesse Brooks one hundred dollars”
I’m now drawing to a close my lengthy series about the children of Thomas Brooks and wife Margaret Beaumont/Beamon of Frederick and Wythe Counties, Virginia. This series began with an examination of Thomas and Margaret’s years in Frederick County, where they settled after they married in 1771 and where Thomas had been living prior to 1771. The narrative then moved on to a discussion of their life together in Wythe County, where they relocated in 1792 and where Thomas died testate before 12 February 1805. His estate records suggest that Margaret may have died in Wythe County after 1808, or that she left Wythe County after 1808 to move to Kentucky with some of her children and died there.
Or, Subtitled: “Fabulous tales have been set afloat”
I have not located probate records for Jesse Brooks, son of Thomas Brooks and Margaret Beaumont/Beamon, who died in Edmonson County, Kentucky, on 30 January 1860. As far as I know, no one else has found an estate file for Jesse, either, and no document has been located that provides a list of his children.
Or, Subtitled: “Sir, this is to let you no that you may let robert humprey hav mareg lisons”
Jesse Brooks, son of Thomas Brooks and Margaret Beaumont/Beamon, was born in Frederick County, Virginia, in 1783-1786. His death listing in the 1860 death register of Edmonson County, Kentucky, shows him dying in that county on 30 January 1860, aged 75.[1] A digital image of the death listing is above. This document states that Jesse’s parents were Thomas and Margaret Brooks and that he was born in Virginia.
Or, Subtitled: “Born in 1823 on the site where her death occurred and where she had always lived”
As the previous posting indicates, a brief biography of Robert Brooks in Biographical History of Tippecanoe, White, Jasper, Newton, Benton, Warren and Pulaski Counties, Indiana states that his children with wife Rachel Adkins were Margaret, Thomas, William, Millie, Nancy, John, Betsy, Charlotte, Mary, Daniel, Sarah A., and James.[1] This source appears to be listing these children in order of birth, but information about their dates of birth on various documents including federal census reports seems to provide a slightly different birth order for the children. I am indebted to researchers Thelma Brooks Morgan and Marilyn Merritt, both descendants of Thomas and Rachel, whose research notes I cited in the previous posting, for some of the following information about the children of Robert Brooks and Rachel Adkins:
Or, Subtitled: “Respected citizens, and … consistent members of the Methodist church”
The obituary of Robert Brooks, son of Thomas Brooks and Margaret Beaumont/Beamon, in the Methodist publication Western Christian Advocate states that he was born 8 November 1780 in Frederick County, Virginia.[1] His tombstone in Abbot cemetery at Fickle in Clinton County, Indiana, states that he died 14 June 1847, aged 60 years and 7 months.[2] Note that the date of birth implied by this tombstone inscription would be 14 November 1786, which conflicts with the date stated in Robert’s obituary. The 1830 federal census puts him in the 1780-1790 age category, while the 1840 federal census shows him born between 1790 and 1800.[3] I find Robert first appearing on the tax list in Wythe County, Virginia, in 1803, which suggests that he was born by or before 1785.[4]
Or, Subtitled: “Joseph Day Junr hath been Guilty of unneceſsary frequenting places of divertion & dancing”
In this posting, I’m returning to my ongoing project of tracking family lines stemming from Mary Brooks, who died in Frederick County, Virginia, in 1787. In previous postings, I’ve tracked the following children of Mary and their descendants: Mary (1745/1750 – abt. 1815), who married Jacob Hollingsworth; Elizabeth (1747/1750 – 1816), who married George Rice; Sarah (1750/1755 – 1810/1820), who married an Ashdale/Asdale/Asdell; and James, who did not marry. As I’ve also noted in this series of postings about the children of Mary Brooks, I know nothing about her daughter Susanna except that Mary’s will identifies Susanna as Susanna Haynes.
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: Military Careers Persisting Down Family Lines, as Families Scatter to Four Corners of the Earth
The last child of George Rice and Elizabeth Brooks, Rebecca (who was probably named for George Rice’s sister Rebecca Rice Connell), produced an interesting family with husband George W. Kiger, with sons who followed in the military footsteps of their grandfather George Rice, and who scattered to various places from Winchester, Virginia, where all were born. I’ve spent a great deal of time trying to track the children of George W. Kiger and Rebecca Rice, primarily because there are gaps and inconsistencies in what I can discover about this family, and I had hoped to fill those gaps and resolve the inconsistencies by researching t the entire family.
Begats and Bequeathals 