DNA Updates

• 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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1. FamilySearch, IGN 008358045. ↩︎