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Digging Up My Roots

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Digging Up My Roots

Tag Archives: Iowa

2025 Week 41

12 Sunday Oct 2025

Posted by suzieg1969 in Genealogy, maps

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ancestry, Cox, family-history, Genealogy, Hollingsworth, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, maps, Nebraska, Seattle

Time to wrap up the family of Jonathan and Rachel Cox. Their youngest daughter was Harriet. She married Thomas Hollingsworth. Thomas served in the Civil War and drew a pension until his death in 1882. Harriet made a widow’s claim at that time, but I didn’t have any better proof for her date of death. Her widow’s pension is not yet available at Fold 3. Only 22% of those have been digitized to date.

A search of the newspapers found an article in 1885 reporting on the annual Old Settlers gathering in the Knox County area. It was published in early August and Harriet was listed on the report from the Necrology Committee. In the following months, there were multiple legal notices in the papers regarding her estate. It would seem that one of her brothers served as administrator. After checking probate records, I was able to determine that she died on July 16, 1885 in Knox County, Indiana.

Of course, not all of Harriet’s children have been so easy to research. The children seemed to go in various directions. Millard married and moved to Wichita. Edward (aka Ellis) headed west and settled in Seattle. After Thomas died, Harriet returned to Knox County, taking Dora with her. John migrated north to Iowa, finally settling in Nebraska after several moves. Benjamin and Mary were elusive. Mary was mentioned in Millard’s obituary as still being alive, but nothing could be found for either sibling.

And with that, we return to Kentucky to research Austin Piety Cox, Ben and Sarah’s eighth child. With his wife Rebecca Phillips, they had ten children, seven of which were daughters. I’ll start Austin’s family next week.


I love maps! They help to tell the story, especially with migration. I found a new (to me) site that has me all giddy about creating maps. It’s called Ultimaps. I am forever wanting to illustrate where certain counties are in relation to others. This site has a blank county map of Kentucky and I can colorize it however I want! I’ve started by shading in the counties where my DeMosses are and where my Cox families are. I do have other lines that came thru Kentucky which I will add later.


Tree Ratings are back! I have 3 from this week to resolve. I have 5049 errors in the tree–374 possible duplicates, 4176 with no documents, 499 other errors.

  • First this week, is the husband of a distant cousin who I don’t have any references for and I don’t know his first name. Luckily, I found a wedding announcement for them right off the bat!
  • Another spouse of a distant cousin needs some references. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how she became connected to this cousin, because I can find no reference to her in any of his information. She’s been deleted.
  • Finally, a distant cousin without references. Of course, she would have six sisters who were all married and had a ton of kids…all without references. This exercise should make a dent in my errors for next week.

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.
209 years ago – death of George Catt (6th ggf)
194 years ago – marriage of Tamer Pool (4th ggm) and John Butler (4th ggf)
182 years ago – death of Hannah Puckett (5th ggm)
178 years ago – marriage of Francis Roderick (4th ggf) and his 2nd wife Eliza Pea
167 years ago – death of Gesina Brake Sievers (4th ggm)
165 years ago – marriage of Sarah Roderick (3rd ggm) and Robert Thompson (3rd ggf)


Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,078 people
End of Week: 27,106 people
Change = +28 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Focus on family of Austin P Cox and Rebecca Phillips
  • 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 3

19 Sunday Jan 2025

Posted by suzieg1969 in Genealogy

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Tags

California, Cox, Indiana, Iowa, mail-order bride, Meehan, Montana, Rhodes, South Dakota

Making headway in the Rhodes branch of the Cox family this week. YAY! Time was spent building out the family of Anna Rhodes Meehan. The migration of this family was somewhat interesting and seems to be driven by Anna’s husband, Walter. Walter had been married twice before Anna, and she was a bit older than most first time brides at 34. Walter was originally from Iowa and had lived for a time in Gallatin County, Montana. I’m not exactly sure how he became connected with Anna who had lived her entire life in Perry County, Indiana. I do not see anything obvious in my tree where Walter would have crossed paths with a Rhodes or Cox family member in either Iowa or Montana. There could have been a friend of a friend who put them in contact with each other. Or Anna could have been a mail order bride. According to newspaper announcements of their marriage, he was highly respected by his pastor. This would support the first theory. It is an interesting question to pose, but not one I have the time to explore fully. After returning to Iowa for a few years, the Meehans moved to South Dakota until the late 1930s when they relocated to Merced County, California.

A mail-order bride was a woman whose introduction to her husband came through the mail, and one who made plans to marry him before meeting in person. -National Postal Museum

Just two Rhodes children to finish researching. I should be able to complete this task by month end.

Beginning of Week: 26,878 people
End of Week: 26,954 people
Change = +76 people – GOAL MET!
Goal for coming week: Add 50 new people

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