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!

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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.

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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.

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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 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!

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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.