Tag Archives: Polk

2025 Week 36

07 Sunday Sep 2025

Posted by in Genealogy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

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 22

01 Sunday Jun 2025

Posted by in Genealogy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

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

Posted by in Genealogy

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

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 15

13 Sunday Apr 2025

Posted by in Genealogy

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

It’s manuscript time! This is where I try to bring my ancestors to life. I approach it one sentence and one fact at a time.

While trying to include what little I know about Gabriel Cox, I found his name on a list of jurors from 1829. There were actually two lists–the grand jury and the traverse jury. Not familiar with the term “traverse jury”, I decided to look it up.

A TRAVERSE JURY‘s primary role is to listen to evidence presented in court, deliberate, and render a verdict based on the facts of the case. 

What I found interesting was that a Jacob Pea and Philip Catt from my mother’s bloodline were also on this same jury.  Not sure if they are my great-grandfathers or their sons. Hopefully I can figure it out when I start researching those families. Small world!

In writing up Nancy’s part of the biography, I included a land record where she received 40 acres of land near Freelandville, Indiana, using a certificate issued by the Wabash-Erie Canal Board of Trustees. I don’t know that the land was ever improved with a house or buildings. Today it is still used for growing crops while a swath is covered with mature trees.

Land purchased by Nancy Squires Cox in 1857.

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5289 errors in the tree–378 possible duplicates, 4304 with no documents, 607 other errors.

  • First up was 1st cousin 5x removed Sarah Arnold who didn’t have any sources attached. Interestingly enough, I will be working on her family unit in the near future. She was the daughter of Elbridge Arnold and Finetta Cox. Finetta was one of Gabriel’s siblings. I added a census record and will come back to Sarah soon.
  • Error correction #2 this week was for a 6th cousin who did not have any sources attached. He was located in the 1950 US Census, along with other undocumented family members and cleared from the list.
  • My last record to clean up belongs to Margaret Polk. I believe she was added to the tree when I was entering information from the text Polk Family and Kinsmen by William Harrison Polk. Obviously I did not finish the task of researching the Polk family. Her father was Brigadier General Thomas Polk. I was able to add a source for Margaret and several other family members, clearing several extra records from the errors list! I am definitely looking forward to researching this line of the family and its contribution to our country’s history.

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 William Briscoe (5th ggf)
233 years ago – marriage of Mary M. Overlin (6th ggm) and Jacob Pea Jr (6th ggf)
213 years ago – death of John Keirsey (6th ggf)
205 years ago – death of John C Cunningham (6th ggf)
187 years ago – marriage of Sally Mattocks (4th ggm) and Benjamin W Lankford (4th ggf)
161 years ago – death of Louisa Reeve DeMoss (3rd ggm)
and most importantly, MY BIRTHDAY!

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,760 people
End of Week: 27,761 people
Change = +1 person
Tasks for coming week:

  • Continue editing and footnoting the bio of Gabriel and Nancy Cox and their children.
  • Start writing the discussion of indirect evidence supporting Nancy and Gabriel are the parents of John S Cox.

John L. Cox

04 Monday May 2020

Posted by in Genealogy

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

John L Cox was the first of at least five children born to Jonathan Piety Cox and Rachel Lemen Tigert.  He was born on May 4, 1820 in Knox County, Indiana.  There are some variations on his middle name with some sources listing it as Lemen, a family name from his mother’s side, and others referring to him as Lemuel.  His siblings included Mary J, Harvey Innes, Alexander and Harriet.  Mary was the mother of Henrietta Polk and Alexander was the father of Rachel Cox Rafferty, both women who were recently the subject of biographies on this blog.

John lived his entire life in Knox County, in the area between Bruceville and Bicknell.  He actually amassed a respectable-sized farm which in 1880 totaled more than 300 acres.  John was married twice.  His first marriage began on October 3, 1849 to Mary Robinson.  She gave him three sons, John Crittenden and twins Harmon and Jonathan.  She died at the age of 23 in 1852.

John L Cox Washington Twp

A couple years passed and John married Naomi Steen on September 21, 1854.  Together, John and Naomi added at least six children to their family, all reaching adulthood and all but one living into their late sixties or beyond.  The children in order of birth: Enoch S, James L, Richard T, Logan, Naomi and Caroline.

All of the family was well-known and respected in the community.  Logan, after serving in the military, went to medical school.  Unfortunately, just week’s shy of graduating, he was stricken with a debilitating ailment which slowly killed him for over a year.  He died in 1894 at the age of 32.  John C, the oldest of the nine siblings, was elected County Sheriff in 1898.  Harmon, one of the twins, died at the age of 46.  He was a business man in Daviess County.

After fifty-six years of marriage at the age of 80, John Lemuel Cox passed away at the family home from jaundice.  He is buried in the Asbury Chapel Cemetery located in Ragsdale, Indiana, as are many of his family.

 

John L Cox is my 1st cousin 5x removed on my dad’s side.

REFERENCES

  • United States Census, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900
  • Indiana Death Certifcates
  • Indiana Marriage Index
  • United States Indexed County Land Ownership Maps, 1880
  • The Indianapolis Journal, November 14, 1900 via Newspapers.com
  • The Vincennes Commercial, July 2, 1898 & August 14, 1894

Henrietta Polk

23 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by in Genealogy

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , ,

On April 23, 1848, Henrietta Polk was the third child born to Isaac Polk and Mary Jane Cox.  She was preceded by Jeannette and Benjamin, and followed by six more siblings–Charles, Rachel, Alice, Harriet, Florence and Jonathan.  The family resided in the Oak Station (Widner Township) area of Knox County, Indiana, where her father apparently had a sizable farm.  When Henrietta was eleven, her mother died, leaving Isaac with many mouths to feed.  Two years later, Isaac married Martha Couchman Ferguson, the widow of John Ferguson.  They added three more daughters to the family–Delilah, Hester and Eva for a total of twelve children born to Isaac.

Henrietta attended school as a youngster and lived on her father’s farm well into her twenties.  On November 8, 1879, she married single father Ellis Hill.  Ellis had been married and widowed twice previously–first to Lavinia Risley and then to Henrietta’s older sister Jeanette.  Both women appear to have died as a result of childbirth complications.  Henrietta, consequently, became a stepmother to nine year old Mary.

Ellis and Henrietta made their home in the north central part of Washington Township in Knox County where Ellis farmed 80 acres of land.  Over the next two decades, they had five children, three of which made it to adolescence–Walter, Fannie and Hallie.  Hallie apparently had some health issues and was sent to live with an aunt in Idaho where the climate was more favorable for her.  Unfortunately, the improvement was short lived and she died in April 1906 in Idaho.  Henrietta, who suffered from paralysis, passed away a few short months later on July 17, 1906 on the family farm on the outskirts of  Bicknell, Indiana.

Henrietta Polk Widner

Isaac Polk farm in Widner Township, Knox County IN

Henrietta Polk Washington

Ellis Hill farm in Washington Township, Knox County, IN

 

Henrietta Polk was my 2nd cousin 4x removed on my dad’s side.

REFERENCES

  • United States Census, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900
  • Indiana Death Certificates
  • Indiana Marriage Index
  • Find A Grave
  • The Western Sun, April 27, 1906
  • Combined Atlases of Knox County, Indiana, 1880-1903