Finally, we’ve moved on to another of Ben and Sarah Cox’s children…Austin. Austin was child number eight, born in 1799. He spent his adult years in Frankfort, Kentucky, marrying Rebecca Phillips in 1831. In addition to farming, Austin was known to have served as a land surveyor and as a clerk. He was briefly appointed to the role of Secretary of State of Kentucky from February to August 1836 by Governor James Morehead. Austin and Rebecca reportedly had ten children, most of which were daughters.

Nothing unusual cropped up in researching their oldest daughter Elizabeth. Sarah, however, raised a question or two. Kester’s The Other Polks listed Sarah’s date of death as July 25, 1850. Sarah was enumerated in the 1850 US Census. The date Austin’s household was recorded was on September 10, 1850. This would seem to be a discrepancy in the data. Unfortunately, Franklin County, KY, didn’t start recording deaths until 1852. However, careful examination of the instructions for the census state the name of every person whose usual place of abode on the 1st day of June 1850. Furthermore, Sarah’s death was published in The Frankfort Commonwealth on August 6, 1850, supporting the fact that she died on July 25th.

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An interesting fact about Austin P. Cox was revealed in the obituary of his daughter Laura Cox Kearns published in the Kentucky Post in 1906. There is an irregular boundary between Kentucky and Tennessee in Simpson County commonly referred to as the “Triangular Jog”. Apparently when the boundary was originally surveyed in 1780, the surveyors could not keep a straight bearing due to several factors present at the time. Several attempts were made to correct the issue and finally it was resolved in 1859 by Austin Cox and Benjamin Peeples. A historical marker identifies the site along US Hwy 31-W at the Tennessee-Kentucky State Line. You can read more about this dispute on the Kentucky Historical Society‘s website.

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I was able to complete my research on Austin and Rebecca’s children this week. Interesting facts included:

• a set of girl twins born in 1835 (Mary and Laura),
• a couple daughters did not live past their teens (Sarah and Charlotte), and
• a couple daughters never married (Mary and Rebecca).

One son, Wallace, was listed in Kester’s book but I could not corroborate with any documentation. He died as an infant in 1844.

I will now move forward to child number nine of Ben and Sarah–John Calhoun Cox. John married Eliza Garrett and they had eleven children. A descendant of at least one of those children is a DNA match for me. In the meantime, I’ll do a little clean up of danglers and placenames.

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Tree Ratings are back! I have 3 from this week to resolve. I have 5017 errors in the tree–376 possible duplicates, 4142 with no documents, 499 other errors.

• Up first is a second cousin whose family I think I worked on last week. He needed some citations, as did a couple of his brothers, so I fixed them up.
• The next was a father-in-law of a distant great uncle. Since I am not keeping in-laws in my database, I have deleted him and his wife.
• Finally, I have Francoise Bonneau who was born in 1786. She is a distant cousin with no citations. I was able to find one church record–thank you to the Catholic priests of Old Cathedral. There might be more information available in the Canadian records when I am ready to dive into that.

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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.
210 years ago – marriage of Elizabeth Staton (4th ggm) and Jonathan McCullough (4th ggf)
200 years ago – marriage of Michael Keller Jr (4th ggf) and his first wife Barbara Klein
177 years ago – marriage of Mary Caywood (3rd ggm) and John S Cox (3rd ggf)
154 years ago – birth of John F Thompson (2nd ggf)
125 years ago – death of Isaac DeMoss (3rd ggf)

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Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,106 people
End of Week: 26,923 people
Change = -183 persons
Tasks for coming week:

• Focus on family of John Calhoun Cox and Eliza Garrett
• 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

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