Tag Archives: Shelby County KY

2025 Week 23

08 Sunday Jun 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Focus on Susannah Cox + James Ballard
  • Review the information in The Other Polks to see if there is anything I don’t already have
  • Continue data mining on Ben Cox and Sarah Piety
  • Confirm the data from Polk Family and Kinsmen has been added for this family and page numbers are noted for easier citation adding
  • Review Coxes of Cox Creek
  • Review History of Mariah Creek Christian Church
  • Review bio of James Ballard, husband of Susannah Cox

2025 Week 22

01 Sunday Jun 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Review the information in The Other Polks to see if there is anything I don’t already have
  • Continue data mining on Ben Cox and Sarah Piety
  • Confirm the data from Polk Family and Kinsmen has been added for this family and page numbers are noted for easier citation adding
  • Review Coxes of Cox Creek
  • Review History of Mariah Creek Christian Church
  • Review bio of James Ballard, husband of Susannah Cox

2025 Week 21

25 Sunday May 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Continue data mining on Ben Cox and Sarah Piety
  • Confirm the data from Polk Family and Kinsmen has been added for this family and page numbers are noted for easier citation adding
  • Review Coxes of Cox Creek
  • Review History of Mariah Creek Christian Church
  • Review bio of James Ballard, husband of Susannah Cox

2025 Week 20

18 Sunday May 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Continue data mining on Ben Cox and Sarah Piety
  • Sort and file downloaded docs for Ben Cox
  • Confirm the data from Polk Family and Kinsmen has been added for this family and page numbers are noted for easier citation adding
  • Review Coxes of Cox Creek
  • Review History of Mariah Creek Christian Church
  • Review bio of James Ballard, husband of Susannah Cox