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.12 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 Checker
This Week
Last Week
Total Errors
5059
5067
Potential Duplicates
512
512
No Documentation
4103
4100
Other Errors
444
455
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
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
Bennett, G.T., The Asbill Family History, 1955, pages 99, 173, Ancestry.com. ↩︎
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
Last weekend was a travel weekend which didn’t leave much time for genealogy. Of course, a whirlwind trip cross-country to spend less than 48 hours with my sisters during cold and flu season can take a toll and I ended up with a massive head cold as a result. I’m on the mend and ready to finish up Ben and Sarah’s family narrative.
But first, Ancestry has compiled a few year-end statistics for me.
Apparently 131,000 new hints were added to my tree
26,850 of those hints came from new collections that were added to the site this year
I viewed 8703 records
I added 2138 people to my tree
My tree helped 1661 other researchers
My DNA matches increased by 2510 people
I did accomplish a bit of writing this weekend. I sorted out Joseph Cox who was the focus back in Week 32. He was the one who had previously been identified as a bachelor at the time of his death, but appears to have actually had six children! I also merged duplicate files for him on FamilySearch.
I should be able to finish up Jonathan Piety Cox’s bio before the day is over. He was my focus during Week 33. Since he had not yet reached his majority when he married in 1817, he needed his father’s permission to obtain the marriage license. I think it is so cool that an image of the permission note is available and carries the handwriting and signature of my 5th great-grandfather.
Permission for Jonathan Piety Cox to obtain a marriage license signed by his father Benjamin Cox.
I’ve been playing around with Google’s NotebookLM. I really like the concept of the Infographic. Too bad the free version only gives you three per day. Need to be selective in what you create! I have noticed that when I do a document dump, it tends to make up names and dates, making the graphic worthless. I decided to upload the narrative I wrote for a single family unit–in this case, Gabriel and Nancy (Squires) Cox–to see what it might do. So. Much. Better! It didn’t mention John S Cox having served and died in the Civil War, but that was because his story was told in a previous chapter, focusing on him. I’ll have to decide what to include about the linking child on future runs. At any rate, I thought I’d share the output of my experiment on Gabriel and Nancy. Once I get the process perfected, I think including these in my manuscript will break up the monotony of lots of text.
Since I missed a week, I have 6 error hints to resolve. The last available update: I have 4926 errors in the tree–376 possible duplicates, 4094 with no documents, 456 other errors.
Distant cousin needed a source.
Husband of a distant cousin needed a first name and a source. I have not been able to identify this individual.
Husband of a distant cousin. I used a marriage announcement for the cousin’s brother (also a cousin), to ballpark marriage dates for the siblings and their spouses.
Father-in-law for a distant great-granduncle has no sources attached. Since I am pruning extended family from the tree, I deleted him and his wife.
Father-in-law for a distant cousin has no sources attached. Again, since I am pruning the tree, he and his wife were also deleted.
Distant cousin has no sources attached. I found a few sources for him and cleaned up his family while I was at it.
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. 325 years ago – birth of Anna Schmidt (7th ggm) 304 years ago – birth of Elizabeth Quincy (7th ggm) 298 years ago – birth of Rachel Van Winkle (7th ggm) 264 years ago – marriage of Rachel Maquinet (6th ggm) and John J Pea (6th ggf) 243 years ago – birth of Joseph Cardinal (5th ggf) 235 years ago – birth of Jonathan McCullough (4th ggf) 227 years ago – marriage of Barbara Mattox (5th ggm) and Samuel Wilks (5th ggf) 213 years ago – death of Rachel Van Winkle (7th ggm) 193 years ago – birth of Eli T Butler (3rd ggf) 190 years ago – death of Rebecca Jones (5th ggm) 187 years ago – birth of Joseph Ellis Cardinal (3rd ggf) 170 years ago – marriage of Louisa Reeve (3rd ggm) and Isaac DeMoss (3rd ggf) 165 years ago – death of Margaret Gray (5th ggm) 164 years ago – marriage of George Winkler (3rd ggf) and his second wife Katie Bean 162 years ago – death of Nancy Squires Cox (3rd ggm) 140 years ago – death of Letitia Casey (4th ggm)
Goals and progress… Beginning of Week: 27,008 people End of Week: 27,006 people Change = -2 persons Tasks for coming week:
Finish writing the biographies of the family of Benjamin and Sarah Piety Cox.
Review the information in The Other Polks to see if there is anything I don’t already have.
Confirm the data from Polk Family and Kinsmen has been added for this family and page numbers are noted for easier citation adding
Digging Up My Roots 