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: Rebecca Brooks (1786-1860/1870) and Husband Jacob Walters

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.

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

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.

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: Jesse Brooks (1783/1786 – 1860)

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. 

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:

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

Will of Thomas Brooks, 4 November 1804, Wythe County, Virginia, Wythe County, Virginia, Will Bk. 1, pp. 308-9

Or, Subtitled: Fertile New Land, Lead Mines, Shot Towers and Forges, and Movement from the Middle Colonies into the Valley of Virginia

With my first posting about Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747-1805), I shared my information about Thomas’s life in Frederick County, Virginia, up to 1792, when he moved his family to Wythe County, Virginia. My account begins with a March 1767 deed of Patrick Rice to his son John, which Thomas witnessed, the first certain record I have of him in Frederick County. Since, as my posting indicates, I have not found information about Thomas’s father, I haven’t been able to track this family line sufficiently to say with any certainty where Thomas Brooks was born — a point to which I’ll return when I discuss in more detail the information I have about Thomas’s mother Mary, who made her will in Frederick County on 9 July 1786, with the will being probated on 4 April 1787.

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.