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2025 Week 40

05 Sunday Oct 2025

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This week, my research began with Finetta Cox, daughter of Jonathan and Rachel. According to a newspaper entry by the great-granddaughter of Jonathan, Finetta was born in 1828. The 1830 census does account for one female under the age of five, so this is likely Finetta. However, the 1840 census does not provide for a female between ten and fifteen. This would lead me to believe that Finetta died at some point during the 1830s. No further mention of her has been found and I shall move on.

Alexander Cox is the eighth known child of Jonathan and Rachel. He married Angeline Sartor and they moved to Kansas in the early 1880s. They had seven children who reached adulthood. His obituaries are kind of confusing, especially with respect to his younger children. That could be because they were published in Vincennes and the information was from someone other than the immediate family.

Filling in the details for Alexander and Angeline’s children was fairly straight forward. The only child that was difficult to find information on was their son John. John moved to Stockton, California some time before 1893, when he was listed in the Stockton city directory. The last evidence of John’s whereabouts was in the 1920 census. No obvious death information has been found in Stockton, Knox County or Labette County, the three most obvious places where he might have been laid to rest.

I have one last child of Jonathan and Rachel to review and then I can move on to the next sibling!

Tree Ratings are back! I have 3 errors from last week and 3 from this week to resolve. I have 5057 errors in the tree–374 possible duplicates, 4183 with no documents, 500 other errors.

  • Husband of a 5th cousin was lacking source documents. Using their residence location when her parents died, I was able to pull a few sources from the hints.
  • A dangler who was also suspected to be a duplicate of his brother. He was deleted, removing 2 errors at once!
  • The husband of a distant cousin was also lacking sources. By updating others in the family, I was able to find his first name and supply at least one source.

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 the week ahead.
249 years ago – death of Marie Creely (8th ggm)
217 years ago – death of Benjamin Bonnell Jr (6th ggf)
196 years ago – marriage of Sarah Ireland (4th ggm) and Joseph Reeve (4th ggf)
195 years ago – death of Thomas Butler (5th ggf)
188 years ago – marriage of Elizabeth Moyer (3rd ggm) and James Mattox (3rd ggf)
169 years ago – birth of Samuel T DeMoss (2nd ggf)
155 years ago – birth of Emma Nagele Keller (2nd ggm)
151 years ago – birth of Arely Fielden (2nd ggf)
89 years ago – death of Sarah Winkler DeMoss (2nd ggm)
78 years ago – birth of my mom Phyllis!

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,053 people
End of Week: 27,078 people
Change = +25 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Continue focus on Jonathan P. Cox and family – Harriet Cox
  • 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

2025 Week 39

28 Sunday Sep 2025

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Mykonos, Greece

So, I took another week off from my blog. This time my husband and I went on a cruise in Greece with friends. I didn’t take my laptop, but I did get some genealogy done during our At Sea Days, albeit very little was done on my family tree. My husband showed some interest in his maternal grandmother’s family roots. We didn’t really know all that much about her family. Growing up, the adults had been rather tight-lipped about the family’s origins. We actually learned quite a bit with very little effort. Some of the highlights included:

  • his grandmother had an older half-brother
  • his grandmother had a younger brother who was killed in an automobile accident at age 31
  • we found the Dawes Census Card linking his family to the Chickasaw Tribe on his grandfather’s side of the family.

I’ll work on his tree a little at a time. I have a lot to do on my own.

When I left off on my own tree, I was working on the children of Harvey Innes Cox and Mary Nicholson. I was down to the last two children–Andrew and Rachel.

Andrew Campbell Cox has been rather difficult to flesh out. He married Minnie Burton in 1897 in Labette County, Kansas. The 1900 census includes an infant daughter, possibly named Iris. A short newspaper blurb later that year, states Minnie Cox was grieving the loss of her young child. There were several legal notices naming Andrew published in local papers a few years later regarding Minnie’s family. The last evidence of Andrew was in his father’s 1912 obituary saying Andrew was in Paris, Texas. No mention of him has been located after that time. Several researchers claim he died in Anchorage, Alaska in 1934, however, no documentation supporting this fact has been located. He was not mentioned in his brother Henry’s obituary in 1929.

Rachel Cox wasn’t nearly as difficult to research, but her husband Otis Morrow was rather elusive by 1910. The 1910 census states that Rachel was married, however, Otis was not in the household. She had four children which lived to adulthood.

Tree Ratings are back! I have 3 errors from last week and 3 from this week to resolve. I have 5055 errors in the tree–372 possible duplicates, 4182 with no documents, 501 other errors.

  • The three from last week all needed sources attached. Two were spouses of distant cousins and the third was a 5th cousin.
  • The first error this week was for an unattached person from the 1840s. I simply deleted her.
  • The second was a little harder to clean up. A Mary Polk listed as the daughter of General Thomas Polk had no sources attached. Ancestry also claimed she was her sister Margaret. Both sisters were mentioned in Polk Family and Kinsmen, however, little information about Mary/Polly was specifically provided. It did mention that she married a Daniel Brown and they had three children who died young.
  • The third was a spouse of a distant cousin who did not have a first name in my tree.

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.
309 years ago – death of John Norton (9th ggf)
274 years ago – birth of Jane Wilson (5th ggm)
266 years ago – birth of James Ireland (6th ggf)
263 years ago – birth of Elizabeth Pea (5th ggm)
262 years ago – death of Jacques Cardinal (7th ggf)
250 years ago – death of Elizabeth Quincy Smith (7th ggm)
238 years ago – birth of John S Cawood (4th ggf)
210 years ago – death of Daniel McLeese (6th ggf)
182 years ago – marriage of James Fielden (5th ggf) and his 2nd wife Jemima Neal
162 years ago – death of Isaac Catt (4th ggf)
157 years ago – birth of Mathias Keller (2nd ggf)
150 years ago – birth of Sarah Butler (2nd ggm)
148 years ago – marriage of Rebecca Coppock (2nd ggm) and Calvin Mattox (2nd ggf)
135 years ago – marriage of Mathias Keller (2nd ggf) and Emma Nagele (2nd ggm)
131 years ago – birth of Emmett Keller (ggf)
124 years ago – death of Richard Bennett (3rd ggf)
76 years ago – marriage of Blanche Cox DeMoss (ggm) and her second husband Coen Robertson
67 years ago – death of Emmett Keller (ggf)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,029 people
End of Week: 27,053 people
Change = +24 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Continue focus on Jonathan P. Cox and family – Finetta Ann Cox
  • 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

2025 Week 37

13 Saturday Sep 2025

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This week I’m starting on the family of Harvey Innes Cox. I’ll get it started, but likely won’t finish it. His parents were Jonathan P Cox and Rachel Tigert Cox. He married Mary Nicholson in Knox County. They had nine kids that I know of. After he served in the Civil War, they picked up stakes and moved to Labette County, Kansas around 1868. This is where they remained until death.

Where exactly is Labette County? It is in the southeastern corner of Kansas, not too far west of Joplin, Missouri. Harvey’s family was mostly located in the Parsons area, in the northern part of the county, but over the years they could be found in the southern towns of Edna and Bartlett.

I have concerns about some of the information out there for Harvey’s descendants and families. His daughter Eliza appears in the 1860 census as a one year old, however, there is no trace of her after that. Some trees, and print books, list an actual date of birth and death, however no sources have yet to be found with this information. I would only hope there is a family bible out there somewhere that contains that information.

There is also erroneous information regarding the family of Benjamin F Cox, Harvey’s son. Benjamin married Etta Pond when she was 19. Some sources claim her maiden name was Stark based on her headstone, but this is incorrect. Benjamin’s obituary claims Etta died before his second marriage, but that is also incorrect. Scouring the newspapers, Etta filed for divorce from Benjamin in February 1916 according to The Times-Journal. It was granted in May. A marriage license for Etta Cox, 51, to William Wright was located in the South Kansas Tribune in January 1918. This was followed by a legal notice in the Parsons Daily Sun on April 21, 1921, where Etta Wright sues a William Wright for divorce. Part of her suit is to return her name to Etta Cox. Prior to 1930 Etta seems to have remarried to Eugene Stark, which explains the Stark name on her headstone. Pulling information from two very different obituaries for Etta ties the two women together.

I actually made more progress than I thought I would on this family this week. Three of the sons–Henry, and the twins Jonathan and Simon–appear to have never married so there wasn’t much drama to try and unfold. Two of the daughters–Eliza and Irene–seem to have died as small children so there was little to be found about them. The 1900 census mentions that Mary Nicholson Cox had 12 children, however, I have not been able to account for two of them. There does seem to be a significant gap between Harriet (b. 1851) and Henry (b. 1855). Researchers on FamilySearch have indicated there was a baby born in January 1853, however, no source is provided. The gap between Benjamin and Irene is likely due to Harvey being away at war for three years, so I would not expect a child to be hidden there.

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.
281 years ago – death of Louise Arrivee Cardinal (8th ggm)
258 years ago – birth of Lydia Smith (6th ggm)
242 years ago – death of Rev. William Smith (7th ggf)
228 years ago – marriage of Mary Gott (5th ggm) and John Squires (5th ggf)
193 years ago – birth of Benjamin Coppock (3rd ggf)
193 years ago – death of Richard Puckett (5th ggf)
179 years ago – death of George Boord (6th ggf)
148 years ago – marriage of Joseph E Cardinal (3rd ggf) and Elisabeth Carrie, his 2nd wife

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,020 people
End of Week: 27,029 people
Change = +9 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Continue focus on Jonathan P. Cox and family – Harvey Innes Cox
  • 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

2025 Week 36

07 Sunday Sep 2025

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Sally Cox. She was the first daughter born to Jonathan Piety Cox and Rachel Lemen Tigert. There really isn’t much, if any information on her existence. Robertine Cox Dees, the great-granddaughter of Jonathan and Rachel, named Sally as their daughter born in 1822.1 It would seem that Sally possibly died as a small child. She cannot be accounted for in the 1830 Census. There is only one female between the ages of five and nine identified and that likely references her sister Mary who was born in 1824. Other researchers, including Ancestry’s hints, try to attribute this Sally to one who married David Huff in 1842 in Hancock County, Kentucky. While that Sally’s father’s name was also Jonathan, it must be remembered that Jonathan was a popular Cox family name. It is not very likely that after Jonathan and Rachel moved the family north to Knox County in 1823ish, that they would have married her off to someone in a county they were not native to some distance away.

That said, all I can and will say about Sally is that she was born circa 1822, probably in Shelby County, Kentucky.

Moving on, Mary J Cox certainly has a few more details to consider. I have a couple DNA matches through her as well. There also seems to be some confusion between this Mary and another Mary who resided in Warrick County, Indiana during the same time period. The DNA algorithms are trying to attribute Warrick County Mary as a daughter of JP. She likely is descended through another branch of my Cox line. I’m sure there will be more on that later.

Mary married her distant cousin Isaac Polk. They had nine children together before her death in 1859. Isaac married a second time, however, I will research those three daughters at a later date. Mary and Isaac’s son Benjamin Franklin Polk served as county treasurer for one term in the 1880s. The family mainly resided in northern Knox County as prominent farmers and livestock growers. Both Jeanette and Henrietta were married to Ellis Hill, although not at the same time. A common ailment leading to death in this family was Bright’s Disease, an old school term for a general group of kidney diseases.

Revisiting a question from a couple weeks ago regarding Benjamin Cox, son of Jonathan and Rachel…nothing concrete was found regarding the parents of the Benjamin Cox in Montgomery County. No land records in Montgomery County were found indicating where Benjamin might have resided at the time of purchase. The Find a Grave memorial does include an obituary which states that Benjamin arrived in Montgomery Co in 1853, and he is attached to a William and Ida Cox from the Lexington, KY area. The 1880 census states his parents were born in England which is inline with information available on William and Ida.

A will for Jonathan Piety Cox was not found, so whether or not Benjamin was still alive in 1874 when JP died cannot be determined. However, I think it can be surmised that JP’s son did not move to Montgomery County and marry Mary Srader.

A lot of progress was made this week, including the pruning of several unattached branches in the tree. Next week I will continue with the descendants of Harvey Innes Cox.

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.
362 years ago – birth of Anna Shepard (9th ggm)
202 years ago – death of Jane Wilson (5th ggm)
130 years ago – birth of Ethel Thompson (ggm)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,336 people
End of Week: 27,020 people
Change = -316 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Continue focus on Jonathan P. Cox and family – Harvey Innes Cox
  • 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
  1. “Indiana Genealogy, Answers #638” The Indianapolis Star, 2 Jun 1929, page 74, newspapers.com. ↩︎

2025 Week 35

31 Sunday Aug 2025

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This week I am focusing my research on John Lemen Cox, son of Jonathan Piety Cox and Rachel Lemen Tigert. He was born in Shelby County, Kentucky, but lived out the rest of his life in Knox County, Indiana. He died in November 1900.

Among the many documents available for John is the 1880 plat map. I have always been fascinated with maps and comparing how things change over time. Having grown up in Knox County, I’m always curious as to where an ancestor’s land was located compared to today’s landmarks. I will say up front that my photoshopping skills are incredibly basic. I have taken the plat map for Washington Township and overlaid it on the map from Google, using the Price Cemetery and the town of Bruceville to line things up.

I was initially curious about the railroad that runs through Bruceville and snakes across the bottom of the image. That was the Indianapolis and Vincennes Railroad which has since been dismantled. What I did wonder was if it ran along the same path as State Road 67. Some sources mention that SR 67 was laid in the railroad bed in some places. That doesn’t seem to be the case in Washington Township, but may be so further north.

I was then curious as to where John L Cox’s farm was. Newspaper accounts state he lived on this farm for 65 years! He had several sections of land which are in the red rectangle. There is a small dot near the middle top of the rectangle indicating where the residence was. Closer examination reveals that SR 67 cuts through the middle of John’s land, and his property appears to be a stone’s throw from the Knox County Fairgrounds! How very cool is that?

The review of John’s family was fairly straight forward as I already had a lot of documents collected for them. John was married twice. He had three sons with his first wife, including a set of twins. After her death, he married Naomi Steen and together they had six children who lived to adulthood. Among his children was John Crittenden Cox, elected sheriff in Knox County from 1899 to 1900.

Most of John’s nine children never married. Of those that did, there were only four grandchildren produced. Interestingly, Caroline and James, both who never married, made each other the primary beneficiaries of their estates. Caroline died first in March 1936, leaving almost everything to James. James died later that year in September. Both of them made provisions that if the other predeceased them, their respective estates moved to one of their named nieces.

Caution was necessary when researching James. There was another James Cox who was of similar age who also lived in Knox County. He was born in 1858 and died in 1935. This alternate James had been married and had several children. Some sources confuse the two men.

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5170 errors in the tree–376 possible duplicates, 4235 with no documents, 559 other errors.

  • BUMMER! The tree score is gone. I don’t know if that is a temporary change or not. They are having a sale on the ProTools until Tuesday. I’ll pass for 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 the week ahead.
289 years ago – death of Nathaniel Bunnell Jr (9th ggf)
245 years ago – birth of Catherine Catt (5th ggm)
225 years ago – birth of Rebecca Wilks (4th ggm)
183 years ago – marriage of Rebecca WIlliams (4th ggm) and William Briscoe (4th ggf)
181 years ago – death of Phillip Catt (7th ggf)
177 years ago – death of Joshua Frost (4th ggf)
45 years ago – death of Magdelena Kaiser Keller (ggm)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,307 people
End of Week: 27,336 people
Change = +29 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Continue focus on Jonathan P. Cox and family – Sally Cox
  • 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
  • September 6th – FS Full Text Search at library of Benjamin F Cox (1819-?)

2025 Week 34

24 Sunday Aug 2025

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Let’s talk Benjamins–Benjamin Coxes, that is. I have ten of them. Let’s sort them out.

  • Benjamin Cox #1 (1757-1829) – This Benjamin is the granddaddy of them all, literally. He’s married to Sarah Piety.
  • Benjamin F Cox #2 (1804-1887) – This Benjamin Cox is the son of Benjamin #1. He was married first to Elizabeth Shepherd, then to Lucinda Williams. He spent his adult years in Knox County, Indiana.
  • Benjamin Cox #3 (1771-?) – This Benjamin is the son of John Cox, older brother of Benjamin #1. He was born in Maryland. He would be a cousin to #2.
  • Benjamin Cox #4 (1841-?) – This Benjamin is a grandson of Benjamin #1, through his son John Calhoun Cox.
  • Benjamin F Cox #5 (1819-?) – This Benjamin Cox is another grandson of Benjamin #1, this one through Jonathan Piety Cox. He is the focus of this week’s research.
  • Benjamin F Cox #6 (1820-1845) – This Benjamin Cox is yet a third grandson of Benjamin #1, a son of Gabriel Cox.
  • Benjamin Ballard Cox #7 (1869-?) – This Benjamin Cox is the great-grandson of Benjamin #1. He is descended through Isaac Cox and William Benjamin Cox.
  • Benjamin Franklin Cox #8 (1852-1905) – This Benjamin Cox is another great-grandson of Benjamin #1, descended through Gabriel and his son Thomas P Cox. He married Minnie Martin and lived in the Knox County, Indiana area.
  • Benjamin Franklin Cox #9 (1862-?) – This Benjamin Cox is also a great-grandson of Benjamin #1, descended from Jonathan Piety Cox and Harvey Innes Cox.
  • Benjamin Cox #10 (?-?) – This Benjamin Cox is the son of Friend Cox. This would make him a cousin of Benjamin #1.

That’s quite a collection of Benjamins. Unfortunately, I’m having a bit of difficulty with Benjamin #5. He appears to have left home by 1850–he was thirty years old–and was not listed near the family in the census. Someone on FamilySearch mistook him for someone fifteen years his junior so that relationship needed to be severed in the tree. Kester reports in his family history of the Polks that #5 married Patsy Shepherd. I can’t seem to find a marriage record for them and without an actual citation documenting this fact, I’m not sure where exactly to start looking. Benjamin #2 did marry an Elizabeth Shepherd in 1834, but #5 would have been too young to be party to that union.

Ancestry is trying to convince me that #5 moved to Montgomery County in central Indiana, married Mary Srader and raised his family there. While not completely out of the question, I haven’t found any evidence indicating that this is #5. To the best of my knowledge, I do not have any DNA matches connecting this line to my own. Of course, this would be pushing the limits of autosomal DNA matches.

Before I commit to #5 having married Mary Srader, I want to try and find something to substantiate the familial tie. I should try to locate a will for Jonathan Piety Cox in Knox County in 1874. Since court records for this county are restricted on FamilySearch, I will need to explore this more during my next visit to the library in a few weeks. Montgomery County newspapers around 1880 aren’t readily available online, so I am unable to find a death notice.

Also of concern is the spelling of Benjamin with an “e” on the end. This is not consistent with the spelling of Benjamin in my Cox family. This may be of no concern or it could be a significant detail. The 1880 Census states that B.F. Cox’s parents were born in England. #5’s parents were born in Kentucky. The more I look at this, the more I am convinced that the Montgomery County man is not the one I’m searching for. I will table research for Benjamin until September 6th. If I cannot find anything, I will add this to my to-do list for my next trip to Salt Lake City.

For now I’ll move on to the next child of JP and Rachel…John Lemen Cox.

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5170 errors in the tree–376 possible duplicates, 4235 with no documents, 559 other errors.

  • A grand daughter of Harvey Innes Cox with no sources. I haven’t gotten to this family yet, but I have now updated them.
  • A 7th cousin with no sources attached. Could not locate one that was definitively him.
  • A 5th cousin with no sources attached. He was named in his grandmother’s obituary.

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.
302 years ago – birth of Nicolas Cardinal (6th ggf)
263 years ago – death of Jean Creely (8th ggf)
261 years ago – birth of Jacob Pea Jr (6th ggf)
245 years ago – death of Francis Moore (8th ggf)
229 years ago – birth of Michael Keller Jr (4th ggf)
199 years ago – death of Jerome Creely (6th ggf)
192 years ago – death of Johannes Korz (5th ggf)
168 years ago – marriage of Mary Sievers (3rd ggm) and Henry Gravel (3rd ggf)
159 years ago – marriage of Mary Briscoe (3rd ggm) and Richard O. Bennett (3rd ggf)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,557 people
End of Week: 27,307 people
Change = -250 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Continue focus on Jonathan P. Cox and family – John Lemen Cox
  • 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
  • September 6th – FS Full Text Search at library of Benjamin F Cox (1819-?)

2025 Week 33

17 Sunday Aug 2025

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This week I’ve been doing a little of this and a little of that. I took some time one evening to delete some floaters. When I finished, I think it said I deleted well over 100 people! Another night, I cleaned up a few place names. Housekeeping in my tree is an enormous task that will take years to fix.

Aside from those activities, I have started researching Jonathan Piety Cox and his family with Rachel Tigert. Marriage license documents for this couple indicate that Rachel was over twenty-one, however, Jonathan was not and there is written permission from his father for him to wed.

I was unable to find much of anything on Tigerts in the Shelby County area at that time. Broadening my search to all of Kentucky, I did find a will for John Tigert in Warren County, Kentucky in 1820. A Jonathan Cox served as witness to the document. What are the chances that Gabriel’s brother Jonathan (husband to Rachel) is the same man? There is a bit of distance between Shelby County and Warren County, but I don’t think this is too far of a reach. While Mr. Tigert’s will did not specifically name his daughters, he did state he had five of them. The image below appears to be the actual document and not the transcribed copy in the clerk’s book.

A little further digging, and I found an alternate spelling of “Tygart”. John and Isabel were possibly married in Washington County, Virginia in 1800. This would not be consistent with Rachel being their daughter and of the age of 21 in 1817 at the time of her marriage. I guess she could have lied to the clerk. Other documents I found with the spelling Tygart did identify John’s five daughters by name, one of which was Rachel. Unfortunately, her married name was Simpson, not Cox, and the deed stated she resided in Warren County. What I did notice in the Washington County marriage records was the marriage of John’s brother James in 1796. Is James possibly Rachel’s father? At any rate, this has been a bit of a rabbit hole for me. If there are any Tigert/Tygart researchers out there and have an answer or just a theory, I’d love it if you would share.

I did manage to work through the family of Jonathan and Rachel’s first born, James. James married Christiana Polk in Knox County. They were slightly distant cousins. He left her a widow with four young children around 1849 or so. She remarried a couple times. What I am finding is that a portion of Jonathan and Rachel’s descendants migrated away from Indiana and landed in southeast Kansas, not far from Joplin, Missouri. At any rate, I will be working on their second son next week, Benjamin F Cox.

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5217 errors in the tree–380 possible duplicates, 4237 with no documents, 600 other errors.

  • The first error is a doozy. There is a child assigned to this individual who was born well after his death. After reviewing a few hints, it was determined that the errant child belonged to the wife’s second husband. The family was built out a bit and the error was corrected.
  • The second error presented is for the granddaughter of one of my cousins. The little girl is five. I don’t have any sources for her. The most obvious citation would be a newspaper announcement, however, the newspapers where they live are not available on Newspapers.com. This one will need to sit until she gets older.
  • The last error for this week is no records on the wife of a 6th cousin. Although not part of the error, I’d also like to find her maiden name. I have way too many women in my database with the last name “?”. Found several facts with documents to clear the error and update her last name.

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.
236 years ago – death of Nicolas Joseph Cardinal (6th ggf)
202 years ago – death of Jacob Richardson Jr (6th ggf)
200 years ago – marriage of John Cawood (4th ggf) and his 2nd wife Rachel English
169 years ago – marriage of Sarah Lewis (3rd ggm) and John W Fielden (3rd ggf)
132 years ago – birth of August Cardinal (ggf)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,642 people
End of Week: 27,557 people
Change = -85 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Continue focus on Jonathan P. Cox and family – Benjamin Cox
  • 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

2025 Week 32

10 Sunday Aug 2025

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This week I’m attempting to sort out Joseph Cox, the son of Benjamin and Sarah Piety Cox. Family histories that have been published1 2 3 suggest that Joseph was never married, however, details for him are scarce in these sources. The research of one of my DNA matches says otherwise. Let’s break this down a bit.

My “cousin” is descended from a Joseph Cox who married an Elizabeth Smith in 1833 in Jefferson County, Kentucky. According to her father’s will, written in 1847 and proven in 1860, she died prior to 1847. This means she would not be identified specifically in any of the census records.

It is not exactly known when Joseph died. The previously mentioned sources cited have his date of death as 1862. Jefferson County court records from April 1861 recorded the assigning of a guardian for Martha Cox and Elizabeth Cox, infant orphans of Joseph Cox, deceased, who are above the age of fourteen. 4 Joseph’s 1850 census listed both a Martha and an Elizabeth who would not yet have reached their majority in 1861.

What further complicates this is the presence of a marriage record in Jefferson County for Martha Cox to John Brown in 1863 that has a permission note signed by Joseph Cox. 5 This Martha apparently died in 1877 and Mr Brown then married her sister Lena. Did Joseph die in 1861 or after 1863? Are there two Martha Coxes of about the same age living in Jefferson County, Kentucky at the same time? Maybe the note was forged?

There is also a Joseph Cox who died in Jefferson County in 1866. His occupation was listed as a carpenter, whereas our Joseph Cox identified as a farmer in the census records. Which one is our Joseph Cox?

Regardless of when he died, my “cousin” has multiple Cox DNA matches as well as numerous matches with the Piety surname. Since this suggests that he is descended from both families, his line likely passes down through Benjamin Cox and Sarah Piety. The logical connection would be their son Joseph. For this reason, I believe that Joseph Cox was a widower with several children at the time of his death, whether it was in 1861 or 1866.

Wrapping up Joseph Cox, I do have DNA matches through more than one of his children which boosts my confidence level that he is a child of Benjamin and Sarah Piety Cox. There are even a few shared matches of fairly close Cox relatives of mine. With that, I will be moving on to his brother Jonathan Piety Cox.

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5227 errors in the tree–376 possible duplicates, 4250 with no documents, 601 other errors.

  • James DeMoss, a potential 6th great-grand uncle is lacking citations. This is my questionable generation on my DeMoss line so I haven’t researched it fully. There was a Findagrave listing for him which I added. He has a daughter named Joanna. This might be an interesting clue, as my 4th-great grandfather also had a daughter named Joanna. Makes me think it might be a well-used family name.
  • Husband of a 6th cousin 1x removed. Found a marriage announcement to clear both of them.
  • A question of duplicates for two women with the same name. After digging in and adding some facts, they are a set of duplicates. Both records had the same father’s name with different mothers. The father had been widowed then married again. After sorting out the correct mother’s name, the error was cleared. I was able to clear two duplicates in the process.

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.
335 years ago – death of Daniel Quincy (9th ggf)
236 years ago – birth of Gabriel S Cox (4th ggf)
219 years ago – birth of Elizabeth Sarah Lowe (4th ggm)
210 years ago – death of James Ireland Sr (6th ggf)
208 years ago – marriage of Rebecca Pea (5th ggm) and George Catt Jr (5th ggf)
166 years ago – death of Jonathan McCullough (4th ggf)
163 years ago – death of Catherine Catt Cardinal (5th ggm)
130 years ago – death of June Bennett (2nd ggm) and Arely D Fielden (2nd ggf)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,630 people
End of Week: 27,642 people
Change = +12 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Focus on Jonathan P. Cox
  • 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

  1. Kester, John G., The Other Polks, volume 1, New Elm Press, 2019. ↩︎
  2. Polk, William Harrison, Polk Family and Kinsmen, Bradley & Gilbert Co, 1912, Ancestry.com. ↩︎
  3. Adams, Evelyn C, “The Coxes of Cox’s Creek, Kentucky“, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, volume III, 1981, p. 442, Ancestry.com. ↩︎
  4. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-N3Z2-51NH?view=fullText&keywords=Joseph%20Cox&lang=en&groupId= ↩︎
  5. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89SQ-H84P?view=index&cc=1804888&lang=en&groupId= ↩︎

2025 Week 31

03 Sunday Aug 2025

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I made it to the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City! We have a group of about 20 ladies here researching for the week.

Day 1: The first task I’m tackling is looking at restricted access books from their catalog. The first is “DeMoss Family History” by Jo Ann Robertson Hornby written in 1998. She did an awesome job of citing her sources and even providing some document images. One detail that I definitely need to explore is that my line might be descended from William DeMoss and not Louis DeMoss. He is postulated to be a brother to Louis and lived in the vicinity of Louis in Maryland. He also moved to Orange County, Virginia around the same time Louis did. He had two children, one of which was a son named Thomas. This will be worth researching further.

Also worth exploring further are the purported children of Louis DeMoss (1715-1749) and Margaret Ramsey. Their children were listed in “Ancestors of John G Fee, Matilda H Fee, and John G Hanson” by Richard Sears, however, it does not appear to be sourced. They would have been the correct age to have parented my William DeMoss (1773-1815). Children: Peter, John, James, Louis, William, Mary and Elizabeth. Hornby only assigns one child, a daughter Christian, to this couple.

Day 2: Today I’m hanging out on the 3rd floor where all the US and Canada books are. First up is a book of marriage bond abstracts for Fleming Co, KY compiled by Gareth Mark. It does provide some useful information with respect to the Thomas DeMosses in Fleming County. A marriage bond for Thomas DeMoss and Mary Snediger (sic) dated 1823 named Lewis DeMoss as the father of this Thomas DeMoss. A separate bond from 1824 named a Thomas DeMoss as the bondsman for Elizabeth DeMoss who married Michael Hedrick. It’s possible that this is a second Thomas who lived in the county at the same time and is a brother to Elizabeth. This could also be the Thomas who married Rebecca Morrow and that I have DNA matches through.

A number of DeMosses born in the 1770s and residing in the Fleming County area in the early 1800s lead me to believe they were probably siblings: James, William, Mary, and Lewis. The marriage bond records for Mary to Thomas Lock in 1795 Mason County, Kentucky, indicated that her mother’s name was also Mary. The fact that her mother gave her permission would suggest her father was deceased. Part of Mason County became Fleming County in 1798. I’ll need to keep looking for the connection between this generation and the next.

Day 3: I think I have exhausted all sources for the DeMosses at this point in time. When I get home, I will need to review what is already in my manuscript for this line and make any updates based on what I have found. I did do a little research on my George Winkler line which will be the next after the Coxes. I found the divorce proceedings for his marriage to Katie Bean which barely lasted a couple months. Now I am back working on Susannah Cox Ballard’s extensive family.

James and Susannah’s son Bland, named for his grandfather, was fairly straight forward to research. He served as a federal circuit court judge under President Abraham Lincoln. Their son Josephus died as an infant. I also located a transcription of a family bible for the Ballard family which confirms the dates of their vitals. With that, I am finished with Susannah!

Moving on to Isaac Cox, the fifth child of Benjamin and Sarah Piety Cox. Isaac resided in Clark County, Indiana. His sons were river boat pilots on the Ohio River.

Day 4: Last day at the library. Today I am hanging out on the 3rd floor again and going thru the surname books. I seem to have found some good stuff on my Bunnell/Bonnell line. There are three books that chronicle the earliest parts of this family for me. “The Bunnell/Bonnell Family in America” by WIlliam R Austin happens to be on Internet Archive so I can refer back to it often at home.

There is useful information regarding the service of Benjamin Bunnell in the Revolutionary War that might be found in “A Village at War, Chatham, NJ and the American Revolution” by Donald Wallace White. I’ll need to check that out. I might be able to get another Patriot or two out of it. Digging further I was able to find the service source and proof of residency for Benjamin Bunnell so I will be preparing that DAR supplemental application when I get home. I’ve only been wanting to submit that one since 2019!

Back to my research on the Cox family. I have cleaned up Isaac Cox who resided in Jeffersonville, Indiana and am moving on to Joseph Cox, born ca 1790. According to most previously published family histories, he did not marry. However, I have several DNA matches that might say otherwise. Once I sort this out next week, I will elaborate.

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5243 errors in the tree–378 possible duplicates, 4261 with no documents, 604 other errors.

  • John Watson is a floater. I have deleted him.
  • A stepson of husband of wife of distant cousin. He is outside of my lines so I deleted him too.
  • A 6th cousin 1x removed has no documentation. I found his marriage record.

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.
375 years ago – birth of Susanna Whitehead (10th ggm)
360 years ago – birth of Louise Arrivee (8th ggm)
346 years ago – birth of Abigail Fowle (8th ggm)
346 years ago – death of Simon Cardinal (9th ggf)
285 years ago – marriage of Elizabeth Quincy (7th ggm) and Rev William Smith (7th ggf)
216 years ago – Elihu Puckett (4th ggf)
69 years ago – marriage of August Cardinal (ggf) to his second wife Jessie Shackelford

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,609 people
End of Week: 27,630 people
Change = +21 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Focus on Joseph Cox who may have married Elizabeth Smith
  • 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

2025 Week 30

27 Sunday Jul 2025

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I didn’t manage to do a lot of research this week. I was able to finish cleaning up the children of Andrew Jackson Ballard which I started last week. The family was quite prominent, with the children attending Yale, Vassar, and Cornell Universities. Charles and Samuel founded Ballard & Ballard Company, the flour mills which ultimately was sold to Pillsbury in the 1950s. Samuel served as lieutenant governor from 1919-1923. The youngest of A.J.’s children was Rogers Clark Ballard. He was a geological engineer, shrewd business man and held a significant interest in family history. He served as president of the Filson Historical Society for a number of years, a private organization whose mission is to preserve the history of Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley.

Barnett Ballard, the fourth son of James and Susannah, was accepted to the West Point Academy in 1833. A snippet of his letter accepting his appointment can be seen below.1 He died at age 17 while in service a year later.2

I am currently working on Bland Ballard, James and Susannah’s fifth son. He was appointed as a Federal Judge in Kentucky by Abraham Lincoln. I hope to have more on him and his family this week.

I should be able to get a lot of research completed in the coming week. It likely will not be concentrated on one particular family as I will be spending several days at the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City. There are several books with copyright restrictions that I want to get eyes on while I am there. I am super excited as this is my first visit to the family history mecca! I hope to have lots to report back on next week.

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5251 errors in the tree–382 possible duplicates, 4264 with no documents, 605 other errors.

  • A 2nd cousin 2x removed that had a residence entry before she was born. This sometimes happened in my tree with the 1940 census when the census taker listed “same house” for location in 1935 on small children. I deleted the timeline entry and all is good.
  • A floater. This is likely someone whose connection to my tree was deleted because they were a distant collateral family. He has been deleted.
  • A 3rd cousin 1x removed that had two errors attached! Since she had no records or data listed, the program thought she was a duplicate with a sister. That was dismissed. The other error was no sources. It took quite a while to find a source for her. Her four siblings were easy to document, but this one, not so much. I finally found a clue in the marriage announcement for one of her sisters! I was then able to track down a marriage record which held a birthdate as well. Whew!

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.
240 years ago – marriage of Therese Lefebre (6th ggm) and Jerome Creely (6th ggf)
163 years ago – marriage of Rachel Frost (3rd ggm) and Oliver McCullough (3rd ggf)
144 years ago – marriage of Sarah Winkler (2nd ggm) and Samuel T DeMoss (2nd ggf)
61 years ago – death of August Cardinal (ggf)

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,596 people
End of Week: 27,609 people
Change = +13 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Focus on Susannah Cox + James Ballard, specifically son Bland 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. U.S. Military Academy Cadet Application Papers, 1805-1866, file 1832/086, Ancestry.com. ↩︎
  2. Register of Westpoint Cadets, 1803-1866, Ancestry.com. ↩︎