One night this week when I checked my DNA matches, I had several older matches that suddenly had a common ancestor assigned to them…the same common ancestor…Temperance Posey. I do not have Temperance Posey in my tree at this time. Based on hints, she was supposedly married to Benjamin Lankford, my 5th great grandfather. From what I can tell, she was married to a Benjamin Lankford in Tennessee, but I’m not sure he is one and the same with my Benjamin. Making this more puzzling is that I have no matches for Benjamin…none. After a few minutes I could tell this would require some digging…more than I had for a Tuesday night.

This incident got me thinking. When will I be working on the Lankfords? I definitely hope to wrap up work on the Cox family this year, but what comes next? Here is the order of family lines I’m planning to work on. This should definitely take me a while. The lines after Carroll are rather spotty and that is where my tree turns to Swiss cheese.

• Cox
• Winkler
• McCullough
• Reeve
• Lankford
• Caywood
• Frost
• Lowe
• Ireland
• Gross (not sure if there is anything to find)
• Mattocks
• Gaston
• McGill
• Staton
• Carroll

---

Gathering information on the family of Thomas P and Sarah Hollingsworth Cox has been, at times, daunting. Their son Joseph C married Rhoda Flock and they had three children. Joe and Rhoda disappeared by the 1900 census. I found Rhoda mentioned in an 1892 newspaper attending a party. I also found her in some 1913 court documents along with her siblings. She was listed as the deceased wife of George W Clark. I have not yet substantiated that with a marriage record. Not sure I will.

Joe and Rhoda’s children weren’t challenging to document. They had scattered by 1900 which further supports that he had passed and she had moved on without her children, or was deceased herself. Their middle child, Thomas, married and had a child, then apparently divorced, but later was found listed as a boarder in his ex-wife’s household after she remarried. Rather unexpected, if nothing else.

Henry Clay Cox and his wife Lydia Parker were a bit easier to document. There was actually a decent write up when they celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. The article mentioned that Henry had three older brothers that served in the Civil War and two of them did not make it home. This will help with my argument that John S Cox was a child of Gabriel and Nancy.

The last two children of Gabriel and Nancy Cox that needed review were Nancy Jane and Susan. There isn’t a lot of information on either of the girls, but they do have headstones. Susan’s stone leaves me scratching my head. It’s old and weathered. The death date barely fits on the stone and it is unclear what the full year stamped into the stone is. Most researchers have called it 1837 but that does not correlate with other family events. Gabriel died in March 1836 so Susan could not have been born in April 1837 as this interpretation might suggest. Enlarging the photograph posted by Cathy Griggs on Find A Grave (memorial 57751282), I almost want to say it is 1832. This would fit with the birth gap between Henry and Nancy. Please let me know if you agree in the comments.

---

This week Ancestry gave me three new errors to resolve. I have 5281 errors in the tree–402 possible duplicates, 4271 with no documents, 608 other errors.

• My first error to correct this week was the father-in-law of my 4th cousin 5x removed. To keep myself from diving down every gopher hole, one of the guidelines I set for myself is to not research the extended families of those who marry into my tree. That includes the parents of the “inlaws”. If it becomes necessary to FAN out, I will. But as a rule of thumb, I leave them out of my tree. So, Mr. Edgerley and his wife will be removed from the tree to resolve the “issue” of having no records attached.
• The next person to fix was the husband of a 3rd cousin 2x removed. This was easy since he had several Ancestry hints. Updated him, added a few family members and I was done!
• The last error to correct this week was for Sebastian Catt, my 6th great-granduncle. Not sure why I need 5 references for his marriage to Sebra Conger, but at least he’s documented now. There are also several pay vouchers for him during 1810 when he served in the Indiana Militia.

---

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.
320 years ago – birth of Nicholas DeVore (7th ggf)
97 years ago – death of Rebecca Coppock Mattox (2nd ggm)

---

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,605 people
End of Week: 27,622 people
Change = +17 people
Tasks for coming week:

• Generate a rough draft of Gabriel and Nancy’s family and start editing and footnoting.