Tag: Ezekiel Harlan

Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Thomas Whitlock Brooks (1805-1879) of Wayne County, Kentucky, and Randolph County, Missouri

William D. Lindsey3 Comments
History of Randolph and Macon Counties, Missouri (St. Louis: National Historical Co., 1884), pp. 541-3

Or, Subtitled: “He entered land and devoted his time to improving his place and farming”

4. Thomas Whitlock Brooks, the fourth child of Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and Sarah Whitlock (1774-1837), was born 22 December 1805. This date is recorded in his father’s family bible (and see also here). As the postings I’ve just linked state, I have not seen or found information about the bible’s provenance — except we know that the bible originally belonged to Thomas Brooks and was bought by Thomas’s son Charles at his father’s estate sale in April 1839 — and haven’t seen the original bible register. I’m relying for information on a transcript of the register (by an unidentified person) published in 1988.[1] The transcriber of the bible read the name of this son of Thomas and Sarah Whitlock Brooks as Thomas R. Brooks. A biography of George H. Cottingham, who married Thomas Whitlock Brooks’s daughter Sarah Margaret, in History of Randolph and Macon Counties, Missouri, gives Thomas Whitlock Brooks’s middle initial as B., and a biography of Thomas’s son William C. Brooks in the same work shows it as N.[2]

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Children of Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747 – 1805) and Wife Margaret: Rebecca Brooks (1786-1860/1870) and Husband Jacob Walters

William D. Lindsey1 Comment
Hardin County, Kentucky, Original Marriage Bonds and Consent Notes, 1807, available digitally at FamilySearch

Or, Subtitled: “You can’t tell much about the birth of a baby, except that you were there” (Peggy LaRue Walters on Abraham Lincoln’s birth, at which she assisted)

Rebecca Brooks, daughter of Thomas Brooks and Margaret Beaumont/Beamon, was born in 1786 in Frederick County, Virginia. Rebecca was enumerated twice on the 1850 federal census, once in the household of her son Jacob Warren Walters in McCracken County, Kentucky, and once in the household of her son-in-law Barrett Pace in Barren County, with both census entries stating that she was 64 years old and born in Virginia.[1] The 1860 census, in which Rebecca appears in the household of her son-in-law David Foster Pace at Elizabethtown in Hardin County, Kentucky, gives Rebecca’s age as 74 and place of birth as Virginia.[2] Barrett and David Foster Pace were brothers, sons of Joseph Pace and Martha Foster, who married sisters Margaret and Grace Walters, daughters of Jacob Walters and Rebecca Brooks.

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Children of Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747 – 1805) and Wife Margaret: Susanna Brooks and Husband Ezekiel Harlan (2)

William D. Lindsey7 Comments
Pennsylvania Gazette (20 September 1753), p. 3, col. 2

Or, Subtitled: “Wears a cap or wig, black velvet jacket and breeches, and ruffled ſhirts, but may change his apparel”

My previous posting tells you that Susanna Brooks and her husband Ezekiel Harlan have led me on a merry chase as I’ve tried to figure out even the most basic facts about them on the basis of limited evidence, including which particular Ezekiel Harlan Susanna married, when she was born, when and where the couple met, and when and where they died. I’ve become fairly confident that the Ezekiel Harlan whom Susanna married was an Ezekiel Harlan who was born in 1769-1770, and was the son of Ezekiel Harlan (born 1732-6) who was son of Ezekiel Harlan (1707-1754) and wife Hannah Oborn of Chester County, Pennsylvania. To add to the confusion created by the plethora of Ezekiels in this line, the Ezekiel Harlan born in 1769-1770 had a son Ezekiel, too, who was likely born around 1787-8, and who appears in records of Hardin County, Kentucky, along with his father.

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

William D. Lindsey2 Comments
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.

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Children of Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747 – 1805) and Wife Margaret: Jesse Brooks (1783/1786 – 1860)

William D. Lindsey3 Comments
Kentucky State Archives, Kentucky Birth, Marriage and Death Records (1852-1910), microfilm #994063, available digitally at Ancestry in the database Kentucky, U.S., Death Records, 1852-1965 (Edmonson County Deaths 1859-1860)

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. 

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Children of Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747 – 1805) and Wife Margaret: Robert Brooks (1780 – 1847)

William D. Lindsey3 Comments
Biographical History of Tippecanoe, White, Jasper, Newton, Benton, Warren and Pulaski Counties, Indiana, vol. 2 (Chicago: Lewis, 1899), p. 1049

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]

See Find a Grave memorial page of Robert Brooks, Abbot cemetery, Fickle, Clinton County, Indiana, created by Thelma Brooks Morgan, maintained by TCHA Research Library, with a tombstone photo by Thelma Brooks Morgan
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Children of Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747 – 1805) and Wife Margaret: Margaret Brooks (1772 – 1857) and Husband Joseph Day (2)

William D. Lindsey3 Comments
History of Daviess County, Kentucky, Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages, and Townships, etc. (Chicago: Inter-State, 1883), p. 535

Or, Subtitled: A Family Clearly Illustrating the Genetic Tendencies to Twins in Brooks Lines

This posting is a continuation of a previous discussion of Margaret Brooks (1772-1857), daughter of Thomas and Margaret (Beaumont/Beamon) Brooks of Frederick and Wythe Counties, Virginia. As the article to which the link points tells you, around 1790, Margaret married Joseph Day (1768-1855), son of Joseph and Catherine Yarnall Day of Frederick and Botetourt Counties, Virginia. The previous posting focuses on the family of Joseph and Margaret Brooks Day up to 1804, when they moved from Botetourt County to Kentucky. This posting begins the chronicle of their lives with the move to Kentucky.

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Children of Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747 – 1805) and Wife Margaret: Sarah Brooks (1771 – 1857) and Husband John Lahue

William D. Lindsey2 Comments
Death record of Sarah Brooks Lahue in Kentucky State Historical Society and State Archives, Grayson County, Kentucky, Registry of Deaths 1857, in Kentucky Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1852-1910, digitized at the Family Search site

Or, Subtitled: Post-Revolutionary Exodus of Wythe County, Virginia, Families to Grayson County, Kentucky

As my last posting tells you, having completed a lengthy series of posts about the children named in the 9 July 1786 will of Mary Brooks of Frederick County, Virginia, I’m now going to begin a series focusing on the children of Mary’s son Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747 – 1805), who is my ancestor. Thomas died testate in Wythe County, Virginia, with a will dated 4 November 1804, which was probated 12 February 1805.[1] That will names his wife Margaret and the following children:

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Children of Mary Brooks (d. 1787, Frederick County, Virginia) — Mary Brooks (1745/1750 – aft. 15 May 1815) and Husband Jacob Hollingsworth (1742 – 1822)

William D. Lindsey5 Comments
Fort Hollingsworth, photograph (June 2015) by Wikimedia user Gwringle, at the Fort Hollingsworth-White House page at Wikimedia Commons

Or, Subtitled: Migration of Families with Quaker Roots from Pennsylvania through North Carolina into Northwest Georgia by 1790

Chester County, Pennsylvania, Beginnings of Jacob Hollingsworth

Alpheus H. Harlan, History and Genealogy of the Harlan Family, and Particularly of the Descendants of George and Michael Harlan, Who Settled in Chester County, Pa., 1687 (Baltimore: Lord Baltimore Press, 1914), p. 33

As has been noted previously, Jacob Hollingsworth, who married Mary Brooks about 1767-8, was the son of Samuel Hollingsworth and Barbara Shewin of Chester County, Pennsylvania. In his history of the Harlan family long connected to the Hollingsworths, Alpheus Harlan indicates that Jacob was born about 1740 or 1742.[1] According to J. Adger Stewart in his classic study of descendants of Valentine Hollingsworth, the immigrant ancestor, the first son of Samuel and Barbara Shewin Hollingsworth, also named Samuel, was born about 1740.[2] Stewart evidently bases this estimated birthdate on the fact that Samuel and Barbara married in 1738. He does not suggest a birthdate for Jacob, but implies that Jacob was born about 1742. As Alpheus Harlan notes, Samuel Hollingsworth was a farmer of Birmingham township in Chester County, and died there in November 1751.[3] This suggests that Jacob Hollingsworth was born in Birmingham township in Chester County.

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Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747-1805): Wythe County, Virginia Years, 1793-1805 — Brief Addendum

William D. Lindsey5 Comments

Wythe County, Virginia, Court Order Bk. 1805-1808, 13 September 1808, p. 330

Or, Subtitled: Estates, Chancery Cases, and Unresolved Questions about Land Disposition

This is a brief addendum to my previous posting about the Wythe County, Virginia, years (1793-1805) of Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747-1805). As that posting indicates, on 13 February 1804, Thomas bought 300 acres of land along Poplar Camp Creek south of the New River from Thomas and Sarah Herbert.[1] This is the only land record for Thomas I have found in Wythe County records, though statements in the county court order books prior to 1804 make me think that Thomas was living on this land before he bought it, and possibly even from the time he came to Wythe County in 1793 — see the previous posting for information about this.

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