Category Archives: artificial intelligence

Recent Findings on the Cox Family in Washington County

30 Sunday Aug 2026

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DNA Updates

  • No new DNA Records with a common ancestor identified this week.

Coxes of Cox Creek Footnotes

Last week, footnote 23 referenced a court case between Alexander Wells and the heirs of John Decker. I attempted to obtain a copy of the entire court file. Since Brooke County is in West Virginia, I reached out to West Virginia to see if they had it. They did not. They did suggest that I try the Brooke County Clerk or try to find it in Augusta County, Virginia. For now, I’ll save the response in my files. If I decide I really need it, I will reach out to Brooke or Augusta County.

28. Deed Book, Washington County, Pennsylvania, IC, p. 283. This document can be found on FamilySearch. This transaction is between Isaac Cox and John Decker for a 400 acre parcel of land known as “Mingo Bottom”. The transaction was for six hundred pounds and was made on July 9, 1778. It was witnessed by George Cox, John’s son-in-law, and presumably two of John’s sons. Which Isaac Cox this land belonged to is not quite clear–George’s father or his brother.

29. Ibid. I, p. 1. This document can be found on FamilySearch. It details the transfer of a parcel of land identified as “Rich Hill” situated in Yohogania County from Gabriel Cox (Isaac’s son) to a James Logan for 1000 pounds of current currency. The transaction was completed on July 7, 1781, however it was not recorded until January 1, 1782. Gabriel was identified as a Justice of the Peace for Washington County.

30. Crumrine, op. cit., Pamphlet VII, p. 391. October 25, 1779, the Court of Yohogania County granted Isaac Cox the right to relocate to Kentucky County, Virginia.

31. Boyd Crumrine, The History of Washington County, Pennsylvania (1882), pp. 229, 239. This book can be found on Internet Archive. This passage refers to a letter from Colonel Marshall detailing the issues he was experiencing in 1781 organizing the militia after Pennsylvania and Virginia came to an agreement on the border dispute. The Virginians, led by none other than General George Rogers Clark were disruptive to say the least. Lieutenant Colonel Gabriel Cox, under the orders of Colonel Pentecost, committed a number of “outrages” against Pennsylvanians who were drafted into service under General Clark but refused to report for said service. Lt Col Cox’s men seized and destroyed property, threatened women and children, and held residents in confinement. Some individuals were ordered to be hanged. (Penn Archives, Series 1, Volume 9, pp 343-345, found on Ancestry.)

Page 239, mentions charges levied against Gabriel Cox in 1782 during the Court of Quarter Sessions for the acts committed on the residents mentioned above. Charges included assault and assault and battery. He was found not guilty of the two charges of assault. After the first two acquittals, the charges were dropped in cases 4 and 5. In a nutshell, Gabriel did what was ordered of him…he was to assemble troops for General Clark. Brute force probably should not have been employed in the process. Since the boundary between Virginia and Pennsylvania (extension of the Mason-Dixon Line) had not been completed at the time, Gabriel ideally should have kept his activities south of that line. Those that filed charges against him, were residents north of the Line. (Penn Archives, Series 1, Volume 10, pp 80-82, found on Ancestry.) It does sound like Gabriel was involved in some form of rioting after the acquittals.

The Centennial Celebration of the Organization of Washington County, Pennsylvania (1881), printer, E.E. Crumine, p. 49. This book is available on Google Books, however, I did not see anything on page 49 that would be relevant to the Cox family.

Additional Findings–Washington County Deed Books

  • Gabriel Cox and his wife Sarah Enoch Cox witnessed a land transfer between Abraham Morgan and Samuel Irwin on May 27, 1783 in Washington County, PA.1
  • Isaac Cox sold a parcel of land in Yohogania County to Andrew Nye for sixteen hundred pounds on August 16, 1779.2
  • Isaac Cox sold a 1000 acre parcel of land to James Ellison located on Plum(b) Run which branches off the Salt River and is about 40 miles from the Falls of the Ohio (present day Louisville KY). This transaction is dated November 29, 1777. Based on the description provided, this parcel is located in the Spencer and Nelson County area. In 1777, it was part of Kentucky County, VA.3
  • On February 9, 1778, a transaction between Isaac Cox and Garrett Vinnaman for land about six miles from the tract he sold to James Ellison.4
  • On March 30, 1778, Lemuel Davis was bound to Isaac Cox as an apprentice. Lemuel was eight years old and was bound to Isaac until he reached the age of 21. Seeing as how Isaac Cox relocated to Kentucky in 1780, it might be necessary to look for subsequent papers regarding this arrangement to see if Lemuel accompanied the Coxes to Kentucky or if his apprenticeship was transferred to someone else.5
  • February 9, 1778, a transaction between Isaac Cox and John McDowell for land in the same area as Garrett Vinnaman.6
  • Gabriel Cox sold land on Hard Bargain Creek to James Swolivan on September 22, 1777.7
  • Isaac Cox and James McMahan were briefly in a trading company partnership with several other gentlemen. The trading company was located about a mile outside of Pittsburgh. Isaac and James sold their shares to Dorsey Pentecost.8
  • This document was witnessed by both Isaac Cox and Gabriel Cox in 1787. Their location was noted as Nelson County, Virginia. This would be the younger Isaac since his father had died in 1783.9
  • On October 9, 1780 Gabriel Cox served as administrator to the estate of Thomas Cook in Yohogania County.10

Additional Findings–History of Washington County, Pennsylvania

  • Page 146: In 1770, Gabriel Cox acquired property on Peters Creek.
  • Page 148: Gabriel Cox was on the 1772 assessment roll for Springhill Township.
  • Page 185: Isaac Cox was named a Lieutenant Colonel in the militia in 1777. Gabriel Cox was listed as a captain.
  • Page 186: Gabriel Cox’s house was identified for storage of magazines in Yohogania County.
  • Page 188: Isaac Cox, as a court justice, assisted with the collection of signatures for the Oath of Allegiance to the Commonwealth
  • Pages 205, 207, 217: Gabriel Cox served on road commissions.
  • Page 211: George Cox served on a road commission.
  • Page 215: Isaac Cox was named to a commission to build a courthouse and jail.
  • Page 219: Isaac Cox was placed in charge of salt distribution.

AI Tasks

When I started on footnote 28, I discovered that the Washington County deeds included grantor and grantee indices from 1781 to 1924. Since the Cox information was split up alphabetically by given name, I decided to enlist CoPilot to help me combine all Cox grantor entries into one table. What I am learning about these AI bots is that you have to treat it like a 3-year old and provide directions for each step in the process. For example, in the past I have learned that you have to limit the number of files and/or size of the files uploaded at one time for processing. So my plan was to upload this is batches of 5 files at a time (I had 24 files to sort). I assumed that I could just upload each batch of 5 and CP would know what to do. WRONG! I took a step back, applied the same prompt to each batch, making each batch a separate data table. Then I instructed it to combine the 5 csv files that were generated.

Error Resolution

Per Ancestry’s Tree CheckerThis WeekLast Week
Total Errors50325037
Potential Duplicates515517
No Documentation40954098
Other Errors422422
  • KE, the husband of a distant cousin has no first name and does not have any references. I was able to find his first name and a few references, including an obituary.
  • JG, a distant cousin, has no records attached. I was able to find a census record among other things.
  • DC, a distant cousin, has no records attached. I was able to find an obituary and other records.

Goals and progress
Beginning of Week: 28,002 people
End of Week: 28,004 people
Change = +2 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.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSXB-PQ8V-T?view=fullText&keywords=Cox&searchForm=advanced&lang=en ↩︎
  2. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSNL-HYFH?view=fullText&keywords=Cox&searchForm=advanced&lang=en ↩︎
  3. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSNL-HTGV?view=fullText&keywords=Cox&searchForm=advanced&lang=en ↩︎
  4. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSNL-HYRD?view=fullText&keywords=Cox&searchForm=advanced&lang=en
    ↩︎
  5. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSNL-HTLZ?view=fullText&keywords=Cox&searchForm=advanced&lang=en ↩︎
  6. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSNL-HTLM?view=fullText&keywords=Cox&searchForm=advanced&lang=en ↩︎
  7. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSNL-HYNV?view=fullText&keywords=Cox&searchForm=advanced&lang=en ↩︎
  8. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSNL-HYFS?view=fullText&keywords=Cox&searchForm=advanced&lang=en ↩︎
  9. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSXB-PQ77-T?view=fullText&keywords=Cox&searchForm=advanced&lang=en ↩︎
  10. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSXB-PQ7F-Z?view=fullText&keywords=Cox&searchForm=advanced&lang=en ↩︎

Cox Family Land Records and Historical Insights

23 Sunday Aug 2026

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DNA Updates

  • No new DNA Records with a common ancestor identified this week.

Coxes of Cox Creek Footnotes

22. Deed book, Ohio County, West Virginia, I, pp. 56, 57, 241. This took a bit of work to find, but is located on FamilySearch. In fact, page 241 is the same information that is in footnote 19 which was discussed a couple weeks ago. Mrs. Adams also named George’s brother Gabriel, however, a land survey in this book could not be found. Also, she mentions a total of 2664 acres, however, only 1566 acres are accounted for within these pages.

  • Friend Cox had 2 tracts totaling 708 acres stretching north along the Ohio River and east along Buffalo Creek.
  • George Cox acquired 400 acres north of Friend’s holdings.
  • Israel Cox held 258 acres along Buffalo Creek.
  • Peter Cox held a 200 acre tract along Buffalo Creek. Peter’s land lay to the east of Israel’s, sharing a boundary.

23. Lyman Chalkley, ed., Abstracts from the Records of Augusta County, Virginia (1912), II, p. 100. This book is part of a three volume set that is available on HathiTrust.org. It is actually titled Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish Settlement in Virginia (1745-1800). The referenced abstract refers to a dispute between Alexander Wells and the heirs of John Decker. George Cox married John’s daughter Susannah. This document provides pertinent timeline information regarding the migration of the Cox family. George Cox claims that he had erected a cabin on the land in 1772. Isaac Cox moved from the area in question to near Steubenville, Ohio in 1775. The abstract does not provide detail regarding where the land was.

A second case mentioned on page 106 involved a parcel of land near Steubenville that William McMahan had owned from 1775 to 1778. William married Isaac Cox’s daughter Ann. George Cox is mentioned as a despondent.

Deed Books, Hampshire County, West Virginia. The deeds for Hampshire County were discussed previously regarding footnote 14.

24. Deed Book, Brooke County, West Virginia, I, p. 45. This document is available on FamilySearch. In 1787, John Cox, as the heir at law of his father Friend Cox, sold 227 acres of land to Van Swearingen that Friend had intended on gifting to his son Benjamin. Referring back to footnote 19, two tracts of land totaling 708 acres were surveyed for Friend. This 227 acres was the northern part of the 400 acre tract. The remaining land was divided between Jonathan and Joseph. Jonathan and Joseph’s shares were sold to Charles Praither in 1788 who founded Wellsburg, WV in 1791.

25. Boyd Crumrine, ed., Annals of the Carnegie Museum (1903), “Minute Book of the Virginia Court held at Ft. Dunmore (Pittsburgh) for the District of West Augusta, 1775-1776” (reprint), Pamphlet XXI, p. 566. This part of the footnote refers to the renaming of Catfish Camp in the meeting proceedings. The reference can be found on Hathitrust.org.

supra, p. 18. This part of the footnote refers back to footnote 18.1

26. Crumrine, op. cit. “Minute Book of the Virginia Court Held for Yohogania County, 1776-1780“ (reprint), Pamphlets IV, p. 97; VII, pp. 211, 220, 234, 254, 277; Pamphlet XXI, pp. 528, 566. CoPilot was being helpful today and summarized the civic activities of various Cox family members while they resided in Yohogania County.

27. Ibid. Pamphlet VII, pp. 258, 397, 408, 411. This footnote references the Cox family members who participated in the militia during the Revolutionary War era in Yohogania County.

Error Resolution

Per Ancestry’s Tree CheckerThis WeekLast Week
Total Errors50375032
Potential Duplicates517517
No Documentation40984093
Other Errors422422
  • .AA, a distant cousin from the 1840s is suspected to be a duplicate and has no references. The duplicates are named Allison and Alice. They both were born in 1847. Alice lived a long life; Allison appears to have died as an infant. I’m guessing they were twins. I cannot find anything in my paper files regarding this family. Without any positive evidence of there being two girls, I feel compelled to remove Allison until some evidence of her existence surfaces. I will make a notation on Alice’s record that there possibly could have been a twin sibling named Allison.
  • MSB, a distant cousin from the early 1800s needs a reference. Several references presented themselves.
  • EK, a 2nd great grandaunt, needs a reference. Unfortunately, it seems that she lived her entire life in Germany and I do not have access to the international references at this time.

Goals and progress
Beginning of Week: 28,000 people
End of Week: 28,002 people
Change = +2 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/r17-114copiedsurveybooks/Books%20C1-C234/Book%20C025/Book%20C-025%20pg%20292.pdf ↩︎

Cox Creek History and Family Footnotes Explained

09 Sunday Aug 2026

Posted by in artificial intelligence, DNA Matches, Genealogy, maps

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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 ↩︎

Cox Family Research: Documenting Histories & Errors

02 Sunday Aug 2026

Posted by in artificial intelligence, DNA Matches, Genealogy

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DNA Updates

  • BC, through James Mattox and Elizabeth Moyer. This one wasn’t too hard to complete. I already had down to his grandmother documented. We connect through his dad and I wasn’t able to completely identify his mother.
  • SA, through Richard Puckett. I haven’t built out the Puckett tree so I will simply mark this one to do later.
  • LK, through Mathias Keller. This one was easy. Her father was already in my tree so it was only a matter of connecting her.

Coxes of Cox Creek Footnotes

12. Archer B Julbert, Historic Highways of America, “Braddock’s Road” (1903), IV, pp. 87-89. This book is available on Hathitrust.org. In the passage for May 7th, 1755, it mentions that they camped at Mr. Cox’s (probably Friend Cox) which was located along the Potomac River. It also states they crossed another waterway multiple times between Mr. Enoch’s place and Mr. Cox’s place. This was likely the Little Cacapon River. The distance between the two men’s strongholds was about 12 miles of poorly developed road. Mr. Enoch is quite possibly the father of Sarah and Mary Enoch who married Isaac’s sons Gabriel and Isaac Jr, respectively.

13. J C Fitzpatrick, ed., The Diaries of George Washington (1925), I, pp 405, 406, 449. This book is available on Hathitrust.org. The referenced pages describe the route Washington traveled in October and November 1770 which included not one but two of the Cox Forts. On October 8, 1770, the first Cox Fort mentioned was situated at the mouth of the Cacapon River (page 405)–the same location that Washington surveyed some 20 years previously. On October 10th, reference is made to a previous fort the Coxes had erected. This fort was located near Patterson Creek (page 406). The return trip in late November came past Cox’s Fort at the Cacapon (page 409).

14. Deed Book, Hampshire County, West Virginia, II through VI. This footnote references a series of land transactions made by various members of the Cox family during the period of 1757-1778. Mrs. Adams mentioned that Volume I was not available when she performed her research. Apparently it has been found at some point as FamilySearch has it digitized, along with the other volumes. At any rate, no mention of the Cox family was found in Volume I. The only mention of the Cox family in Volumes V and VI (1778-1785) were in reference to previous ownership of the parcel; they were not party to the transaction at hand.

Because of the number of documents found, I asked CoPilot to compile the information into a table for easy reference. I’m also attempting to have CoPilot map each parcel, however, that is more complicated. Based on the information in the table, the family gradually left the area. Gabriel appears to be the first to sell and leave in 1767. Friend followed in 1772 and Isaac and his sons brought up the rear between 1775 and 1779 which is consistent with Mrs. Adams’ summation.

Error Resolution

The last available update via Ancestry ProTools: I have 5067 errors in the tree–512 possible duplicates, 4100 with no documents, 455 other errors. My Ancestry error resolutions this week included:

  • BD, distant cousin needs sources. Unfortunately, no hints are populating for this living person. He was listed in his grandmother’s and his father’s obituary so those will have to do.
  • CS, another distant cousin needs sources. Since he is about the same age as my children, he was a little difficult to find. Thank goodness for small town newspapers that cover a ton of local events. He was named with his age as being a participant in a local parade. In my search, I was also able to find articles naming his two brothers as well.
  • JA, wife of a distant cousin needs sources. This one was easily sourced. She appears to be a cousin to my 2nd great-grandfather’s half-siblings.1

GED Miner Update

It’s been just over a month since I ran my tree through GED Miner. My tree score went up just a tad. I decided to work on tree errors and clean that up a bit.

  • There were four instances of a parent born after the child. Those were resolved by deleting the errant individuals.
  • There were nineteen age issues. Most of these were due to a transcription error when the documents were transcribed. A couple were connected to the wrong parents. A few were inlaws meant for pruning.
  • There are 312 people who are not attached to the tree. I’ll clean those out as I come across them. I found quite a few with the surname Taylor that were pruned.
  • There are 852 instances of duplicate birth or death events. I am going to tidy about 10 of these every day.

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,998 people
End of Week: 27,952 people
Change = -46 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. Bennett, G.T., The Asbill Family History, 1955, pages 99, 173, Ancestry.com. ↩︎

Research Progress on Isaac Cox Descendants

26 Sunday Jul 2026

Posted by in artificial intelligence, DNA Matches, Genealogy, maps

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DNA Updates

  • AH, through Michael Kaiser and Mary Anne Claussmann. I already have half her line documented. It was fairly easy to trace the rest of her line. It’s good to see the next generation become interested in their roots.
  • MC, through Reuben Staton. This one will take some effort to fill in so I will set it aside until I am working on the McCullough and Staton lines.

Research on Benjamin Cox of Montgomery County, Ohio descendants

I’ve thought long and hard about this research pathway and the amount of time it is taking. Since this is a collateral family to my direct line, I’m going to shelve it for now. I need to concentrate on the children of Isaac Cox and finish up that chapter of my manuscript. I will continue to check for shared matches of my DNA match descended from Friend Cox, however, when I write up the section on Friend, I will need to address his son Benjamin and whether this Benjamin was him.

Getting back on track…

First order of business is to get back on track researching Isaac Cox’s children. As part of this task, back at the beginning of March I was revisiting the source citations from Evelyn Adams’ Coxes of Cox Creek KY. Citation #6 is where I fell down the rabbit hole that is Benjamin Cox, supposed son of Friend Cox.

7. Land Survey Book, Brooke County, West Virginia, I, pp. 45, 47, 53. This is a set of three land deeds that were executed by John Cox, son of Friend Cox, after Friend’s death in 1785. At the time of Friend’s death, the land was situated in Ohio County, Virginia, which is now in Brooke County, West Virginia. Friend died intestate. As the eldest son, the property fell to John and he distributed it to his named brothers–Jonathan, Joseph, and Benjamin. An attorney represented Jonathan, Joseph and Benjamin and no locations were mentioned for any of the men.

8. Draper MSS, typed copy of 16S280-286, in the Filson Club. This note references typed copies of the Draper Manuscripts that were viewed at the Filson Club in Louisville, Kentucky. According to Google, the originals are at the Wisconsin Historical Society and the FamilySearch Library has a digitized copy. Unfortunately, there are access restrictions on these documents and they can only be accessed at the library in Salt Lake City. The Wisconsin Historical Society will do lookups and email a digital image for a fee. I’m considering requesting the lookup because I am curious as to what it contains.The footnote pertains to information about George Cox, son of Isaac.

9. J M Toner, ed, Journal of My Journey Over the Mountains (1747-1748), by George Washington (1892), p. 111. This is George Washington’s journal which he wrote as a young surveyor in the Northern Neck of Virginia at the age of sixteen. It is available on Googlebooks and at Internet Archive. This record from 1750 places Friend Cox in Frederick County, Virginia. Curious as to where this parcel was located, I enlisted the help of CoPilot to plot this out. It took several attempts to get the application to make a somewhat accurate drawing which helps me visualize the location once and for all.

10. Land Records of Northern Neck of Virginia, Book M, p. 200. I have to question the citation as it does not appear to have the correct page number. These records can be found on FamilySearch.1 The volume has a self-included index which indicates that Gabriel Cox was mentioned on page 241. Also a John Cox was mentioned on page 324. In 1764, Gabriel Cox entered into a land rental agreement with Lord Fairfax regarding 162 acres of land in Hampshire County, Virginia.

A similar agreement was made between John Cox of Hampshire County and Lord Fairfax in 1765 for 30 acres of land adjacent to that of Friend Cox illustrated in the map above. It might be reasoned that because John was granted a much smaller plot of land that he was significantly younger than Gabriel or Friend. This John could have been a son of any of the three elder Cox men. Isaac’s son John was born ca 1744 which would have made him 21 at the time of this transaction. Friend’s son John reportedly was born in 1747 which would mean he had not yet reached his majority in 1765. There is no evidence to date that Gabriel had a son named John.

I did briefly look through the original indices during the desired time period for family members. There were a couple Cox entries well ahead of when this group arrived and there were others who used the spelling Cocks. The given names associated with these records did not seem to fit with the known information on this family so I am not pursuing them further.

11. Land Records of Northern Neck of Virginia, Book K, p. 376. This document issued to Friend Cox of Hampshire County by Lord Fairfax references the land assigned to Friend Cox that was surveyed in 1750 by George Washington.

I will pick up with note 12 next week.

Error Resolution

The last available update via Ancestry ProTools: I have 5077 errors in the tree–514 possible duplicates, 4108 with no documents, 455 other errors. My Ancestry error resolutions this week included:

  • A presumably living 6th cousin without sources. Using information in his father’s obituary, I was able to track down a marriage record for him and a brother who was also lacking sources.
  • A distant cousin married two women with similar names. Ancestry is questioning whether they are a duplicate pair. Based on information gathered for both women, they are indeed two separate individuals. His divorce from his first wife was rather publicized. Since it came on the heels of their infant son’s death, her behavior leading up to the divorce may have been a result of grieving her child.
  • A 5th cousin who needed sources which were easily obtained.

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,984 people
End of Week: 27,998 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. FamilySearch, IGN 008358045. ↩︎