Or, Subtitled: “[They] settled on the unbroken prairie, prepared to cultivate the soil; there were spent the last days of the old folks”
This post is a continuation of a previous post tracking the family of Margaret Brooks, daughter of Thomas Brooks and Sarah Whitlock, and her husband Ransom Van Winkle in Wayne County, Kentucky. An obituary of their son Alexander Van Winkle confirms that Ransom and Margaret Brooks Van Winkle moved their family to Morgan County, Illinois, in the fall of 1829.[1]
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
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.
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: “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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Begats and Bequeathals 