2025 Week 29

20 Sunday Jul 2025

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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

2025 Week 28

13 Sunday Jul 2025

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No, that’s not a typo. I took a week off and headed north to Alaska with the fam. Now it’s time to get back to work.

I’ve made some decent progress this week on my Ballards. I cleaned up Perlina Ballard Simpson Collings’ family information a bit, filling in some of the blanks. There was some interesting family dynamics going on there, especially after she married the second time. In 1850, the four older children from her first marriage were in her household, but the youngest who was twelve was living with Grandma Ballard. Perlina’s oldest two boys both died in their twenties. Joseph actually had a will and it gave the appearance that there was no love lost between the first family and the stepfather. Joseph’s will left everything to his full-blooded sisters and his mother and specifically stated that she was to have control of whatever he gave her, not her husband. Nothing was left to the half-siblings who were still minors in their own right.

The next two children of James and Susannah were Thomas and Sarah. Neither of them married. Little is known about Sarah’s death other than she was still a young woman. Thomas was listed as the head of household in 1850 with several family members residing with him, including his mother and Perlina’s youngest daughter Emma. Thomas died in his early 40s from a “painful illness”1. I haven’t located a will yet, although two of his brothers were tasked with managing his estate through probate.

I’m now working on son #3 William Harrison Ballard. He was actually married twice. His first marriage was short and resulted in no children. His second marriage to Mary McQuiddy was more fruitful with at least eight children born. As I am working through those individuals, I’m a bit frustrated with their son Barnett. Seems he married in 1886 and then he took off to roam the Great Plains leaving his wife behind. There were no children and she never remarried. It’s not clear if they ever divorced–at one time divorces in Kentucky required approval from the state legislature, and both identified as widowed in multiple census records. One newspaper article mentioned that he left for health reasons and he ultimately ended up in New Mexico and West Texas where it is much drier. For a period of time, he did serve as postmaster for one small town.

I also did some cleanup on my tree which explains why I had a decrease in people this week. When I am adding family members from an obituary, it is common for the wife to be listed without her maiden name. I have a bad habit of adding them with “?” as the last name. As you can imagine, I have a lot of women with the last name “?”. I decided to start working through this list and finding their last names. Mixed in with the wives of cousins are the mothers-in-law of cousins. These were added before I made the decision not to include the in-laws in my tree and they haven’t yet been cleaned up. So far I have sorted through the first names starting with “A” and I now only have 5 that I could not assign a last name. I’ve deleted about 150 people. I’ve also run a “floaters” report. It’s 18 pages long. I will be busy in my clean up efforts in the coming weeks.

And for good measure…don’t forget to back up your trees! If you have made a lot of changes, you may also want to go through a compacting process if your software has that feature. It’s been a while since I compacted my tree and it compacted more than 4%!

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5281 errors in the tree–376 possible duplicates, 4299 with no documents, 606 other errors.

  • The first is the wife of a 6th cousin. She recently passed so I was able to add a few references for her.
  • A 4th cousin 2x removed that is a DNA match with no citations. Unfortunately not much could be found about this young girl.
  • A 2nd cousin 5x removed with no citations. I was able to find a couple of references for her.

This week in the past…
I’d like to take an opportunity to celebrate the anniversaries of births, marriages, and deaths of my bloodlines from last week and the week ahead.
405 years ago – death of Francoise Deschallais (11th ggm)
258 years ago – death of Colonel John Quincy (8th ggf)
237 years ago – birth of James Ireland (6th ggf)
201 years ago – death of James Shields (6th ggf)
174 years ago – marriage of Henry Thompson (4th ggf) and his 2nd wife Rebecca Beck
167 years ago – birth of Rebecca Coppock Mattox (2nd ggm)
161 years ago – death of Elizabeth Lowe DeMoss (4th ggm)
108 years ago – marriage of Zeda Mattox (ggm) and Frank Fielden (ggf)
60 years ago – death of Blanche Cox DeMoss Robertson (ggm)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 28,019 people
End of Week: 27,866 people
Change = -153 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Focus on Susannah Cox + James Ballard, specifically son William Harrison 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
  1. Obituary, The Weekly Shelby News, 1 Dec 1852, page 3, column 5, newspapers.com. ↩︎

2025 Week 26

29 Sunday Jun 2025

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Not a lot of research was completed this week as real life got in the way as it sometimes does. I did have a few new DNA matches that I tagged for later. There was one for a 4th cousin that I had most of the line documented already so I finished connecting her and expanding out her family a bit.

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5320 errors in the tree–402 possible duplicates, 4312 with no documents, 606 other errors. There was a significant increase in the number of possible duplicates so I also ran a duplicate report in Family Tree Maker. There were 25 true duplicates that I could find. There were several sets of twins with similar names that I ruled out as duplicates.

  • A 5th cousin without any references.
  • A 2nd cousin 4x removed listed with a possible duplication error. It was not an error. It was confusing her with a younger sister who had a similar name.
  • A 2nd cousin 5x removed without any references. Luckily she was listed in the 1850 census.

This week in the past…
I’d like to take an opportunity to celebrate the anniversaries of births, marriages, and deaths of my bloodlines which will occur during the week ahead.
238 years ago – marriage of Lydia Smith (6th ggm) and James Ireland Sr (6th ggf)
163 years ago – death of Sarah Harmon Boord (6th ggm)
149 years ago – marriage of Francis Cox (2nd ggf) and his 1st wife Eliza Hollingsworth
136 years ago – birth of Samuel Isaac DeMoss (ggf)
129 years ago – death of Elizabeth Moyer (3rd ggm)
82 years ago – birth of Samuel T. DeMoss Jr (happy heavenly birthday Dad!)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 28,039 people
End of Week: 28,019 people
Change = -20 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Focus on Susannah Cox + James Ballard, specifically daughter Perlina
  • 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

2025 Week 25

22 Sunday Jun 2025

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This week I had a DNA match appear through John Squires and Mary Gott. I was a bit excited since I don’t have many DNA matches for this set of great-grandparents. The connecting relative was a Martha Mount. Oddly enough, there were two Martha Mounts who were about the same age and lived in neighboring counties. They married different men and, as it turned out, my Martha Mount was not the same Martha Mount belonging to my match. They very well could have been cousins to each other, but the other Martha was not my cousin since Alfred Mount married into my line. So I dug a bit further and looked at our common matches. It would seem this match shares DNA with cousins along my Fielden and Mattox lines. I’ll need to examine her relationship to me closer when I get to those lines.

This week’s research focus was on Benjamin C Ballard, second child and oldest son of James and Susanna Cox Ballard. He married in Shelby County, Kentucky in 1829 and started his family there. In the mid 1830s, they migrated to Greene County, Indiana and settled near Worthington. He had five children with his first wife who died in 1839 at the age of 30. He remarried and added two more children to his family before his death in 1844. He was fairly active in the community. There were numerous references to him in probate records of others, serving as administrator and even guardian in an instance or two. The family continued to maintain a prominent standing in the community after his death. Details regarding the family could be found in biographies of Catherine Stalcup Ballard and John J Ballard in Biographical Memoirs of Greene County, Indiana published in 1908. The book can be found on Google Books for free.

The next Ballard child is Perlina Ballard. Perlina married her first cousin Benjamin Simpson. It should be a quick review of my previous research. Hopefully I can also put some time in on child #4 Thomas next week as well.

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5288 errors in the tree–376 possible duplicates, 4308 with no documents, 604 other errors.

  • Wife of a distant cousin was missing sources. I updated both her and her husband.
  • A 6th cousin with no sources which was updated.
  • Pryor Smallwood, a 6th great-granduncle with no sources attached. An extensive genealogy of the Smallwood Family in Maryland Genealogies provided the needed information on this uncle. This reference will be useful when I get to researching the Smallwood family.

This week in the past…
I’d like to take an opportunity to celebrate the anniversaries of births, marriages, and deaths of my bloodlines which will occur during the week ahead.
259 years ago – marriage of Mary Saunders (6th ggm) and John McCullough (6th ggf)
192 years ago – death of Stewart Cunningham (5th ggf)
100 years ago – birth of Dorothy Cardinal Keller – Happy Birthday Grandma!
76 years ago – death of Ethel Thompson Cardinal (ggm)
67 years ago – marriage of Edeine Fielden DeMoss (gm) and John Heath her 2nd husband
58 years ago – marriage of Phyllis Keller and Samuel DeMoss Jr (my parents!)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,990 people
End of Week: 28,039 people
Change = +49 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Focus on Susannah Cox + James 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

2025 Week 24

16 Monday Jun 2025

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Not much exciting this week research-wise. I started on Susannah Cox Ballard and her husband James Ballard. I was able to research their first born, Elizabeth Ballard who married Robert Gregory. I did explore their three children a bit. Two married and moved to the Kansas City area. William, the second son, was mayor for a short time and later operated a wholesale grocery store in that town. The third remained married for a number of years, but divorced and lived a long life in Memphis. I would have enjoyed exploring this family further, however, it is not in the scope of this project. There is a fair amount of information in The Other Polks and I may revisit these cousins at a later date. I must move on to Elizabeth’s brother Benjamin.

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5291 errors in the tree–376 possible duplicates, 4311 with no documents, 604 other errors.

  • A 3rd cousin with no records attached. Found a record to clear the error.
  • A mother-in-law of a distant cousin with no records attached. She was deleted.
  • The spouse of a 1st cousin 2x removed with no records attached. Found several records to clear the error.

This week in the past…
I’d like to take an opportunity to celebrate the anniversaries of births, marriages, and deaths of my bloodlines which will occur during the week ahead.
282 years ago – death of Louis DeMoss (7th ggf)
270 years ago – birth of John McCullough (5th ggf)
166 years ago – death of Eva Korz Keller (4th ggm)
164 years ago – birth of James S Cardinal (2nd ggf)
158 years ago – marriage of Amanda Newcomb (3rd ggm) and Eli T. Butler (3rd ggf)
144 years ago – birth of Junie Bennett Fielden (2nd ggm)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,977 people
End of Week: 27,990 people
Change = +13 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Focus on Susannah Cox + James 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

2025 Week 23

08 Sunday Jun 2025

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So this week, I am shoring up my information on Sarah Piety Cox, daughter of Benjamin and Sarah Piety Cox. There isn’t a lot published about young Sarah (aka Sally). What is known, and is supported by various documents, is that she did not ever marry. She inherited land and money from her father when he passed in 1829, as well as when her mother died in 1840. Based on various land deed records that were recorded, she apparently moved with her younger sister Finetta and her husband Eldridge Arnold to Clay County, Missouri around 1841. It is presumed that Sally died in Missouri in 1860. A citation for Sally in “The Other Polks” by John G Kester references a manuscript written by Rogers Clark Ballard Thruston. RC is a grandson to Sally’s sister Susannah. I would think the information in that manuscript would be fairly reliable. Unfortunately, World Cat only lists it at one library–The New York State Library. I would love to get my hands on a copy.

The Story Center, Woodneath Branch, MCPL
By Robert W. Peterson – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=117904519

As I was gathering information on Sally, it was necessary to research Finetta a bit. I’ll do a more thorough job on her later, but I found it fascinating that the farmhouse she and Eldridge built in the 1850s is on the National Register of Historic Places. A later owner named the property “Woodneath” and more information can be found here. I have added it to places I’d like to visit someday. They may have more information on the family that I can include with my manuscript.

Also while I was researching Sally on FamilySearch, I discovered that she was mistaken to be the wife of a Benjamin Wallace who ultimately ended up in Iowa. The frustrating part was that Mr. Wallace’s wife, born Sarah Ann Cox, was about 25 years younger than my Sarah Cox. Does no one pay attention to these important details? I cleaned that mess up and made sure to include all the deed documents I had found for Sally so it was clear she was not associated with Mr. Wallace.

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5292 errors in the tree–376 possible duplicates, 4312 with no documents, 604 other errors.

  • Friend Cox, my 6th great granduncle, needed some citations.
  • A 2nd cousin 1x removed… a 2nd cousin’s daughter needing citations. There is little on this child. I was resigned to attach her great-grandmother’s obituary.
  • A 5th cousin…this one is fairly young as well. Not much to find on her. I did find a traffic violation in a newspaper that listed her age which unfortunately was useful.

This week in the past…
I’d like to take an opportunity to celebrate the anniversaries of births, marriages, and deaths of my bloodlines which will occur during the week ahead.
298 years ago – birth of Elizabeth Stone (6th ggm)
247 years ago – death of Jeanne Duguay (7th ggm)
222 years ago – marriage of Mary Gott Squires (5th ggm) and her 2nd husband Henry Caplinger
138 years ago – marriage of Magdalena Keller (2nd ggm) and Michael Kaiser (2nd ggf)
105 years ago – death of Zeda Mattox Fielden (ggm)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,970 people
End of Week: 27,977 people
Change = +7 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Focus on Susannah Cox + James 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

2025 Week 22

01 Sunday Jun 2025

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So I received my copies of The Other Polks in the mail yesterday. That was a quick turnaround and I was pleasantly surprised by that. First glance has me a bit disappointed because there is very little on Gabriel and Nancy and no mention of their son John who died in the Civil War. Of course, there are some details that I haven’t yet located, and there are some references which I will definitely need to track down and review. I have to remind myself that genealogy is continually evolving as more documents are found and/or digitized. Remember, patience is my friend.

I did get a head start on Benjamin and Sarah Piety Cox’s oldest daughter Elizabeth this week. There seems to be quite the motherlode of documents available for Shelby County on FamilySearch at home. Elizabeth was married twice–first to Joseph Simpson and then to Samuel Miller. There were plenty of court records, probate records, and land records to piece together this family prior to 1850. On my to do list this week is cross referencing with the various family genealogies I have before moving on to Betsy’s sister Sarah. Ben and Sarah had 11 children, so I’m hoping I can have this family unit close to wrapping up by the end of the summer.

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5282 errors in the tree–374 possible duplicates, 4304 with no documents, 604 other errors.

  • Up first is a 4th cousin 1x removed Cox descendant without any documentation. I filled in a lot of missing data for him and his family.
  • Next is a 5th cousin, again from the Cox line, with no documentation. This one was more difficult, but I found a marriage record and was able to call it good.
  • The last profile to fix this week is a 2nd cousin 1x removed along my Mattox line. There were a few hints to work from. In a newspaper search I discovered he and his wife started their own business back in the 1980s making kaleidoscopes! So cool!

This week in the past…
I’d like to take an opportunity to celebrate the anniversaries of births, marriages, and deaths of my bloodlines which will occur during the week ahead.
246 years ago – birth of John C Williams (5th ggf)
183 years ago – death of John C Williams (5th ggf)
176 years ago – marriage of Phillip S Board (5th ggf) and his second wife Susan Robinson
170 years ago – birth of Francis M. Cox (2nd ggf)
165 years ago – marriage of Oliver P. McCullough (3rd ggf) and his second wife Rebecca Grimes
161 years ago – death of Sarah Bunnell Ireland (5th ggm)
135 years ago – death of Josephine Lankford Winkler (3rd ggm)
131 years ago – marriage of Sarah H. Butler (2nd ggm) and John F Thompson (2nd ggf)
124 years ago – death of Amanda Newcomb Butler (3rd ggm)
111 years ago – death of Henry V Gravel (3rd ggf)
46 years ago – death of Lillian Edeine Fielden DeMoss Sutton. Rest in peace, Grandma.

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,883 people
End of Week: 27,970 people
Change = +87 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • 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

2025 Week 21

25 Sunday May 2025

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So this week I’m getting my bearings on Shelby County, Kentucky. It is east of Louisville. Biographical accounts for Benjamin and Sarah state they lived near Bullskin Creek. Tax records confirm Bullskin Creek was the water source for their land. Information on Find A Grave state they are buried in the Cox Family Plot which was on the family farm. The physical location for the farm is identified as 5 miles west of Shelbyville and 1 mile south of the turnpike. Since there are no true turnpikes (toll roads) in Kentucky at this time, it is either 1 mile south of US 60 or 1 mile south of Interstate 64. Bullskin Creek runs north-south under both highways.

As I was transcribing Benjamin’s will, there were several entries that bequeathed a monetary gift to some of the heirs. It was specifically worded as “the sum of one hundred dollars in specie”. So what is “specie”?

Historically, specie money was primarily composed of gold and silver coins, valued for their intrinsic worth as precious metals. 

I started reviewing the information in “The Coxes of Cox’s Creek, Kentucky” by Evelyn Crady Adams which was published in Genealogies of Kentucky Families in 1981. It is available on Ancestry and it does have citations which I appreciated. In this read through, I was especially interested in clarifying the timeline of life events for Benjamin and Sarah. I was and am still not certain that they were 16 and 14 when they were married ca 1783, as is the claim in Polk Family and Kinsmen which was published in 1912 and does not have any citations. I have as yet to find a marriage record for them.

Accounts in both manuscripts give similar stories of how the Coxes and the Polks/Pietys arrived in the same general location. Each family had its own “station” or stockade and were only a few miles apart. It’s not clear where the Pietys were living in 1782 when Kincheloe’s Station (formerly Polk’s Station) was raided and burned by Indians.

While I was poking around on FamilySearch looking for something to answer all these questions I have, I did come across a reference to a three volume set of books about Charles Polk, the Indian Trader and his descendants. The first volume specifically called out the descendants of his daughter Sarah Polk Piety, mother of Sarah Piety Cox, so I was intrigued. Written in 2019, I was hoping to find an electronic version. It is available in print, but only known to be in a few select libraries, nowhere near me. Considering the cost of traveling to one of those libraries would exceed the price of the three books, I bought the three books. Now I wait for them to get here. I hope it is more up to date than the 1912 family history.

Until I get my books, I’ll start documenting Ben and Sarah’s children.

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5268 errors in the tree–372 possible duplicates, 4290 with no documents, 605 other errors.

  • A 6th cousin DNA Match on my Cox line. She’s probably about my daughter’s age so I don’t know how much I’ll be able to find.
  • This one was a bit of a challenge, but I finally got a first name and a source for the 3rd husband of a 5th cousin.
  • Here’s one I haven’t come across before. When I added the 1940 census data, it also had a line item for residence in 1935. Only problem with that is that this person wasn’t born until 1939. This was for a husband of a 4th cousin 1x removed. All fixed now.

This week in the past…
I’d like to take an opportunity to celebrate the anniversaries of births, marriages, and deaths of my bloodlines which will occur during the week ahead.
277 years ago – birth of George Catt Sr (6th ggf)
275 years ago – birth of Philip Catt (7th ggf)
250 years ago – birth of Thomas Johnson (5th ggf)
209 years ago – marriage of Elinor Johnson (4th ggm) and Francis Roderick (4th ggf)
206 years ago – marriage of Rebecca Wilks (4th ggm) and her first husband James Hughes
188 years ago – birth of Robert C Thompson (3rd ggf)
160 years ago – death of Michael Keller Jr (4th ggf)
137 years ago – marriage of Arabelle McCullough (2nd ggm) and Frank Cox (2nd ggf)
76 years ago – death of Magdalena Keller Kaiser (2nd ggm)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,871 people
End of Week: 27,883 people
Change = +12 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • 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

2025 Week 20

18 Sunday May 2025

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This week I had limited time to work on research, but made the most of my library aide shift yesterday. Because the library is a FamilySearch affiliate, I do most of my searching on that platform when I am there. I focused on Benjamin Cox in Shelby County and downloaded 30 images that I now need to sort through and file. Most were either tax ledgers or land deed records. Some of the land deeds were for transfers made after Ben’s death by his heirs. All and all, it was a pretty good haul of information. Now I just need to sort through it.

I also need to deep dive into Shelby County, Kentucky, and see about making connections there.

I do have concerns about Benjamin’s supposed year of birth. Most sources say he and Sarah were married when they were 16 and 14, respectively. If that were the case, based on the marriage date I have, he was born ca 1767, not 1757. I will need to look into that in the near future. He was a twin so I can utilize information on Jonathan to help resolve this discrepancy.

Lots to do, but I’m excited to learn more about this ancestor!

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5268 errors in the tree–372 possible duplicates, 4291 with no documents, 605 other errors.

  • A 5th cousin 1x removed with no citations. Nothing links up for her. Eventually linked her mother’s obituary to her record to clear the error.
  • Rachel Regina Maquinet…wife of John Jacob Pea and my 6th ggm…has no records attached. I found reference to their marriage which I added to her record.
  • Elizabeth Moyes, wife of a 3rd great-granduncle also had no records attached. Lots of records available to choose from.

This week in the past…
I’d like to take an opportunity to celebrate the anniversaries of births, marriages, and deaths of my bloodlines which will occur during the week ahead.
305 years ago – death of Michelle Garnier (9th ggm)
241 years ago – birth of Sally Short (5th ggm)
210 years ago – marriage of Elizabeth Devore (5th ggm) and Peter Courtright (5th ggf)
192 years ago – birth of Zeresh Puckett (3rd ggm)
159 years ago – birth of Sarah Winkler (2nd ggm)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,868 people
End of Week: 27,871 people
Change = +3 person
Tasks for coming week:

  • Continue data mining on Ben Cox and Sarah Piety
  • Sort and file downloaded docs for Ben Cox
  • 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

2025 Week 19

11 Sunday May 2025

Posted by in DNA Matches, Genealogy

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So my main focus this week is to review the remaining five DNA matches I have for Benjamin Cox and Sarah Piety.

  • The first two are siblings. Their tree does not lead back to Benjamin and Sarah. Their Cox line stops at a John Cox in the early 1800s in Tennessee. Ancestry’s IA attempted to make a connection to Ben and Sarah through a Benjamin Cox born in Tennessee in 1786. These might connect a couple generations further back. I’ll revisit them in the next generation.
  • The third DNA match also is projected through the same Benjamin Cox who is not a son of Ben and Sarah.
  • The fourth DNA match was actually fruitful. I was able to get her added, but that family was messy–multiple marriages, and an unfortunate murder-suicide mixed in.
  • The last DNA match for the Cox line at present was connected to Benjamin’s brother Jonathan Piety Cox, however. The family was residing in Warrick Co, IN, not Knox County. I need to be on the look out for a Jonathan who married a Nancy Huston. I’ll revisit this one again later as well.

To recap, I have 9 Cox DNA matches that need extensive research to add to my tree. Hopefully I’ll be able to place them while working a future generation. For now, I need to get busy on Ben and Sarah.

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5276 errors in the tree–372 possible duplicates, 4298 with no documents, 606 other errors.

  • The first error was for someone entered as James. He had no last name and was only connected to two other people in the tree who were not connected to the tree in any way. I removed all three.
  • Helen is my second error for the week. She has sources but is not connected to the tree. I’ll remove her too.
  • The last error for this week is a 6th cousin who doesn’t have any sources attached. She is a granddaughter of a DNA match. She has lots of hints, so I’ll get her cleaned up as well as her siblings and parents.

This week in the past…
I’d like to take an opportunity to celebrate the anniversaries of births, marriages, and deaths of my bloodlines which will occur during the week ahead.
301 years ago – death of Jacques Cardinal (8th ggf)
222 years ago – birth of Nicholaus Sievers (4th ggf)
186 years ago – birth of Louisa Reeve (3rd ggm)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,833 people
End of Week: 27,868 people
Change = +35 person
Tasks for coming week:

  • Start 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