Tag: James Brooks

Children of John Hammons (1770/2 – 1828) and His Whitlock Wife

William D. Lindsey1 Comment
Mobile County, Alabama, White Marriage Bk. 4, p. 63, available digitally at FamilySearch

Or, Subtitled: “There are six now living, two dead“

In what follows, I’ll tell you what I know of the children of John Hammons and his wife who was a daughter of Thomas Whitlock and whose given name I have not discovered. I do not have proof positive that all of these children were born to John’s Whitlock wife, but since documents listing them as his children never indicate that any of these children were half-siblings to each other, I think it’s safe to assume that all are children of John’s Whitlock wife. Note that, according to Betsy Shrader in her 1831 affidavit cited below, John Hammons had two children in addition to the six listed below, who died prior to 1828 and of whose names I have not seen a record.

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

William D. Lindsey1 Comment
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).

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Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Alexander Mackey Brooks (1808-1899) — Move to Texas and Years in Bastrop

William D. Lindsey5 Comments
Brooks-Wilbarger House, Bastrop, Texas, photo made 12 March 1834 by L.C. Page Jr. for Survey HABS TX-33-C-6, at the Historic American Buildings Survey site maintained by Library of Congress

Or, Subtitled: “I came to Texas in the fall of 1838 and have lived here ever since”

This posting is a continuation of a previous one chronicling the life of Alexander Mackey Brooks (1808-1899), a son of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Sarah Whitlock of Wythe County, Virginia, Wayne County, Kentucky, and Morgan County, Alabama. The previous posting focuses on Alexander’s years in Wayne County, Kentucky, and Lawrence County, Alabama. As it notes, according to testimony Alexander gave on 1 November 1895 in the Brazos County, Texas, District Court case, Mary J. Harriman et al. vs. D.C. Giddings et al., his move from Alabama to Texas took place in the fall of 1838.[1]

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Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Alexander Mackey Brooks (1808-1899) —Wayne County, Kentucky, and Lawrence County, Alabama, Years

William D. Lindsey4 Comments
Transcript of bible register of Alexander M. Brooks, from a 1 November 1895 deposition of A.M. Brooks in Brazos County, Texas, District Court case #2809, 15 March 1895-15 October 1897, Mary J. Harriman et al. vs. D.C. Giddings et al.

Or, Subtitled: “He left Lindsay to clear up the debts of the firm, which brought him to the ground”

5. Alexander Mackey Brooks, the fifth child of Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and Sarah Whitlock (1774-1837), was born 8 September or 8 November 1808. The two sources I’ve found providing a record of his date of birth have conflicting information, and I’m inclined to think the 8 November 1808 date is correct, since it’s a transcription of a bible register in which Alexander recorded his date of birth.

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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 (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Margaret Brooks (1803-1855) and Husband Ransom Van Winkle — Wayne County, Kentucky Years

William D. Lindsey3 Comments
Tombstone of Margaret Brooks Van Winkle and Ransom Van Winkle, Franklin town cemetery, Franklin, Morgan County, Illinois, by Connie Clark: see Find a Grave memorial page of Margaret Brooks Van Winkle, created by Vicki

Or, Subtitled: A Southeastern Kentucky Family Migrates to West Central Illinois, Late 1820s

The third child of Thomas Brooks and wife Sarah Whitlock of Wythe County, Virginia, Wayne County, Kentucky, and Morgan County, Alabama, was

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Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Jane (1797 – 1852) and Charles Brooks (1800/1 – 1861)

William D. Lindsey7 Comments
Bond of Charles Brooks and John Stewart, 24 January 1823, for Charles’s marriage to Deniah Cornelius, see Lawrence County, Alabama, Marriage Bonds and Licenses 1820, available digitally at FamilySearch

Or, Subtitled: Wherein I Confess That I’ve Made a Whopper of a Mistake, about Which I Need to Tell Readers of This Blog

I need to start this posting with a confession. I make mistakes. I know that will shock you profoundly[!]. In working on this posting, I discovered I have made a colossal one, one that reverberates through previous postings about my Brooks family. Finding that I have gone wrong about one key piece of information will now require me to backtrack through previous postings and correct multiple erroneous statements based on one big wrong turn.

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Children of Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747 – 1805) and Wife Margaret: John Jehu and Rachel Brooks

William D. Lindsey2 Comments
Will of Thomas Brooks, Wythe County, Virginia, Will Bk. 1, pp. 308-9

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.

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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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