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DNA Updates

  • SH, descended through Richard Puckett. I don’t have any of her line built out so I will set this one aside until I am working on the Pucketts.
  • RW, also descended through Richard Puckett. I don’t have any of their line built out so I will set this one aside as well.
  • AT, descended through Benjamin Cox and Sarah Piety. I do have her line proven through her grandmother so I will finish this one up.

Coxes of Cox Creek Footnotes

15. Historic Romney 1762-1937, published by the Town Council of Romney, West Virginia, pp. 30-31. This book was found on FamilySearch. The referenced passage provides background on the first school in the area which was referenced in the mid-1700s by George Washington. Because the children of Isaac, Gabriel and Friend appear to have been educated, it is possible they attended this subscription school known as the Romney Academy.

16. Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1766-1769, pp. 87-88. This book can be found at Hathitrust. On March 20, 1767, the House recognized twelve men who served under Colonel Bouquet in an expedition against the Shawnee and Delaware Indians and granted them 40 pounds each. Isaac Cox, presumably the son of the older Isaac, was among this group.

17. Reuben G Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels 1748-1846, “Journal of George Croghan, 1765” (1904), I, pp. 126-129. Volume I, which this footnote references, can be found on the Project Gutenberg Website, gutenberg.org. The referenced pages describe Croghan’s journey from May 15-19, 1765 down the Ohio River as he made his way ultimately to the Mississippi River. Landmarks have been marked on the map below, indicating his daily progress during this segment of the trip. Croghan’s descriptions of the landscape lend to the attractiveness of the area for farming and settlement. Land deeds for various Cox family members reference Buffalo Creek near present day Wellsburg, West Virginia.

Daily progress (May 15 to 19, 1765) of Croghan’s journey down the Ohio from Fort Pitt (aka Fort Duquesne). Aerial perspective mapped using Google Earth with Lake Erie situated approximately 100 miles due north of Little Beaver Creek. Approximate distance covered in these four days was 165 miles.

18. Land Draughts in the Surveyor General’s Office, Pennsylvania Archives, Harrisburg, Appendix, 3rd series, p. 41. Unfortunately, it is not clear if this exact document is available on the internet. I did, however, locate what I believe to be other documents which describe the land claimed and patented by Gabriel Cox (son of Isaac) near the Monongahela River in 1769 in what is now Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.1 2 There are actually two separate plots of land–Coxburg and Cox’s Addition. A historical marker has been placed near the site.3

19. Land Patent Book, Brooke County, West Virginia, I, p. 1. A transcribed copy of land deeds recorded in Ohio County, Virginia, that are actually located in present day Brooke County can be found on FamilySearch. Tucked in the front of this book is a transcription of the surveyor’s description of lands for George Cox (son of Isaac) and Friend Cox in what is now Wellsburg. The original surveyor’s description, with drawings, was found in the Surveyor’s Books for Ohio County, Virginia which is available on FamilySearch.4 Considering I have a love of maps, I asked CoPilot to plot these out for me on a current day map of the area. He (yes, my CoPilot is an obtuse man) was unable to fulfill my request. I then manually roughed in the parcels using Google My Maps and the descriptions from the surveyor book. These two men basically owned all of the land that is now Wellsburg, WV. Holy cow! They later sold this land to Charles Prather who named the town after his son-in-law Alexander Wells.

Land parcels belonging to George Cox (northern parcel) and Friend Cox (yellow and purple).

Error Resolution

Per Ancestry’s Tree CheckerThis WeekLast Week
Total Errors50595067
Potential Duplicates512512
No Documentation41034100
Other Errors444455
  • The first individual to fix was “??”–no name, no documentation, and no relationships. Safe to say, this one should be deleted.
  • HS, a fifth cousin who needed some documentation. I was able to supply some for him and his siblings. An interesting newspaper article regarding an arrest came up as a hint with his name in an area where the family was known to live during that time, but I’m not positive it was him because the age was off by nearly a decade.
  • KF, a fourth cousin who also needed some documentation. I was able to supply a few documents for him.

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,952 people
End of Week: 27,966 people
Change = +14 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Continue research on Isaac Cox, “The Immigrant” and his wife Susannah Tomlinson.
  • Review Coxes of Cox Creek
  • Run newspaper search, especially for articles recounting local history
  • Review the Cox package of information from Sweden
  • Look for documents in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky

  1. https://www.phmc.state.pa.us/bah/dam/rg/di/r17-522warranteetwpmaps/r017-Map2502-Allegheny-JeffersonWeb.pdf ↩︎
  2. https://www.phmc.state.pa.us/bah/dam/rg/di/r17-114copiedsurveybooks/Books%20C1-C234/Book%20C025/Book%20C-025%20pg%20292.pdf ↩︎
  3. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=78747 ↩︎
  4. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS46-MVQR?view=fullText&keywords=Cox&lang=en ↩︎