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This week I have finished updating the children of William Harrison Ballard. I was able to fill in a lot of details for his seven children. Another researcher had a death date for Mary Ballard Jordan, however, I could not find any documentation to substantiate the fact. All I can be sure of is that it was after 1900 somewhere in Texas. Since her husband remarried in 1909, she likely died, but I cannot be certain.

There also was a bit of confusion with his son Andrew Jackson Ballard in the 1870 census. He was listed as Henry instead of Andrew which threw things off for a bit. I am now finished with this William Ballard and can move on to his brother Andrew.

While the Ballards and, to a lesser degree the Coxes, were prominent figures in the history of Kentucky, Andrew Jackson Ballard and his sons likely were the most prominent. AJ, a Louisville lawyer, served in the state legislature and was appointed by President Lincoln as the Clerk of the US District and Circuit Courts in Kentucky. His sons were prominent business men, having founded Ballard and Ballard Company in the 1880s, purportedly the largest flour mill in the world at one time.

Fun Fact!
In the 1930s, Kentucky baker Lively B Willoughby developed and patented an early version of canned biscuits. He partnered with Ballard & Ballard Company to put it in production. Ballard & Ballard was bought by Pillsbury in 1952 and they further developed the concept into the spiraled cardboard tube available today. In fact, my husband used those very canned biscuits yesterday when he made breakfast yesterday!

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5284 errors in the tree–386 possible duplicates, 4289 with no documents, 609 other errors. These numbers were reported prior to my clean up efforts this week. I am anxious to see how things fared when the new numbers are posted for the upcoming week.

  • Johannes Braun, my 3rd great-grand uncle, has no sources attached. Unfortunately, I do not currently have the Worldwide subscription for Ancestry so I cannot link any sources for Johannes. I do not know if he migrated to the United States like his nephew Mathias. I will need to revisit this one at a later date.
  • A 3rd cousin 3x removed was entered twice, once under her maiden name and once under her married name. Simple merge to fix.
  • Joanna Bonnell, a 6th great-grandaunt, has no sources attached. I was able to find information in a genealogy of the Passaic Valley of New Jersey.

This week in the past…
I’d like to take an opportunity to celebrate the anniversaries of births, marriages, and deaths of my bloodlines the week ahead.
340 years ago – birth of Jacques Cardinal (8th ggf)
336 years ago – birth of John Quincy (8th ggf)
317 years ago – death of Anna Shepard Quincy (9th ggm)
227 years ago – marriage of Mary Hopkins (5th ggm) and Peter Carral (5th ggf)
172 years ago – death of Henry Thompson (4th ggf)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,866 people
End of Week: 27,596 people
Change = -270 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Focus on Susannah Cox + James Ballard, specifically son Andrew Jackson Ballard
  • Review the information in The Other Polks to see if there is anything I don’t already have
  • Continue data mining on Ben Cox and Sarah Piety
  • Confirm the data from Polk Family and Kinsmen has been added for this family and page numbers are noted for easier citation adding
  • Review Coxes of Cox Creek
  • Review History of Mariah Creek Christian Church
  • Review bio of James Ballard, husband of Susannah Cox