Children of Rebecca Brooks (1786-1860/1870) and Husband Jacob Walters (1785-1846)

Photo of Hardin Brooks Walters and wife Mary Rana Lock Walters from Lynn North’s “King/Walters Family Tree” at Ancestry

Or, Subtitled: Marriage Returns, Permission Notes, and Faded Old Photos

I haven’t discovered estate documents for Rebecca Brooks, daughter of Thomas and Margaret Beaumont/Beamon Brooks, or her husband Jacob Walters. Since the couple’s children were born well in advance of the 1850 federal census when individuals began to be named on the census (with the notable exception of enslaved individuals), there are not census listings, either, to enable researchers to create a picture of this family based on the federal census. What follows is my best attempt compile a list of the children of Jacob Walters and Rebecca Brooks in the absence of estate records for Jacob and Rebecca or censuses listing the names of their children, and to provide information about them:

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 Jesse Brooks (1783/1786 – 1860) and Wife Mary: Delphia, Jesse, Mary, John B., Rebecca, and Joseph D. (2)

See Find a Grave memorial page of Joseph D. Brooks, Forest Hill cemetery, Kansas City, Jackson County, Missouri, created by Steve McCray, with a tombstone photo by Steve McCray

Or, Subtitled: “Gone To Rest

This posting is a continuation of a previous one that discussed the first four children of Jesse Brooks and wife Mary of Wythe County, Virginia, and Wayne and Barren Counties, Kentucky. The previous discussion provided information about Jesse and Mary’s first four children, Elizabeth, Thomas, William, and James. As that posting and a previous one note, I don’t have absolute proof that all of Jesse Brooks’s children were by his wife Mary, whose surname is not known, despite many online trees and articles which identify this Jesse Brooks with a man of the same name who married Mary Vaughan in Prince Edward County, Virginia, in 1795 — when this Jesse Brooks was 9-12 years old. As the two postings I’ve just linked also state, I am inclined to think all of Jesse’s children were by his wife Mary. As stated below, we know from a death record of Jesse’s son Jesse that Jesse Jr.’s parents were Jesse and Mary Brooks, so this proves that all children after Jesse Jr. were definitely by Mary.

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

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, 1852-1910digitized 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: