Month: July 2025

Andrew Willis of Washington County – Revisited

Several years ago, a researcher asked if Andrew Willis, a Revolutionary War pensioner who died in 1823 in Washington County, Maryland, was descended from the immigrant John Willis of “Wantage” in Dorchester County. I published an article concluding we could not make that connection. Now, thanks to Sherry Taylor’s investigation of her Willis lines, it turns out we were wrong!  Revolutionary War muster rolls, pension files, census records, deeds, and probate filings establish that Washington County Andrew was a brother of Jarvis Willis, another Revolutionary War veteran and a proved descendant of Wantage John. Also, a tip of the hat to David McIntire, a researcher who almost nailed this years ago.  Below is the revised article; the original has been sent to the trash.

The Question

 Washington County Andrew was a Revolutionary War veteran who received a pension for service as a private in the 5th Regiment of the Maryland Line. There are five men named Andrew who were descended from Wantage John Willis and alive during the relevant period. Was one of those five the same man as the pensioner in Washington County? This article describes Washington County Andrew’s nuclear family and his geographic location. It then looks at each of the five men to see if they fit the facts about Washington County Andrew — his family makeup, geographic location, and military service. A bust on any of the three parameters means that particular person was not the same man as Washington County Andrew.

 Washington County Andrew – The Facts

Andrew Willis first appears in Washington County, Maryland in the 1800 census. That census lists him with (presumably) a wife, three sons, and two daughters.[1] The 1810 census shows him with the same family members.[2]

In 1812, Edward Willis (who is proved as Andrew’s son) purchased a small tract of land in Washington County on Antietam Creek.[3] His father was about 60 years old at that time. Edward may have purchased land his father had been renting and effectively became the head of household.

In 1818, Andrew applied for a pension. He stated he had served in the Maryland Fifth Regiment, had resided in Washington County for about twenty years, was 66 years old (thus born about 1752), was a laborer but unable to work, owned no home of his own, was impoverished, and his wife was old and frail. He said they lived with a son whom he did not identify.[4] He was awarded a pension paid from 31 Mar 1818 through his death on 4 Dec 1823. His pension was then paid to his wife Lettie/Letha Willis until her death.

As expected from the pension application, the 1820 census did not list Andrew Willis. It named Edward Willis heading a household that apparently included his parents, his brother and wife, and his sister. Subsequent records provide their names: brother and sister-in-law Isaac and Nancy, and sister Elizabeth.[5]

Edward died intestate in 1825 with a very small estate and no widow or children.[6] Under Maryland law, his estate went to his surviving parent(s) or to his siblings and their heirs if his parents were deceased. In 1829, Edward’s heirs sold the Antietam Creek land. The sellers were Hezekiah Donaldson and his wife Sarah, Nehemiah Hurley and his wife Elizabeth, and Isaac Willis and his wife Nancy.[7]

Edward’s mother did not participate in the sale, so she had already died. Sarah Donaldson, Elizabeth Hurley, and Isaac Willis were Edward’s living sisters and brother. Anyone not included in the deed could not have been a surviving sibling or child of a deceased sibling. That eliminates as possible siblings two Willis males who lived concurrently in Washington County.[8] Also, an unnamed son of Andrew and Lettie who appears in the 1800 and 1810 censuses but is absent from the 1820 census must have died without heirs. Otherwise, he, his spouse, or their child would have participated in the 1829 sale.

The facts prove Washington County Andrew’s nuclear family, as follows:

Andrew Willis                     b 1752                   d 1823

His wife:

Lettie LNU Willis              b 1756-65            d before 1829

Their children:

Edward Willis                     b 1785-90            d 1825

Isaac Willis                            b 1791-94            d after 1850

Sarah Willis                          b 1791-94            m in 1818 to Hezekiah Donaldson[9]

Son FNU Willis                   b 1791-99            d before 1820 Census

Elizabeth Willis                  b 1800                  m between 1820-25 to Nehemiah Hurley

Their daughter-in-law:

Nancy LNU                            b abt. 1790          m before 1820 to Isaac Willis

The evidence also proves Andrew resided in Washington County from at least 1800 until his death in 1823. The only evidence of his residence prior to that is his army service. The Fifth Maryland Regiment recruited from the counties of Queen Anne’s, Kent, Caroline, and Dorchester on the Eastern Shore. He was almost certainly from one of those counties.

By 1830, the family disappeared from Washington County. After Andrew, Lettie, and Edward died, the surviving family members moved to Ohio. In 1850, son Isaac Willis applied for a grant of land in Ohio based on Andrew’s service in the war. Isaac filed on behalf of himself and the other heirs of Andrew Willis.[10]

 Finding the Right Andrew Willis

Five descendants of Wantage John Willis who were alive during and after the war are candidates to be the same man as Washington County Andrew. Two were from Caroline County and three from Dorchester. They are shown below in bold face type in an abbreviated descendants’ chart showing their relationship to Wantage John. We will hunt for the man whose family matches the one above and who was in the right place to match Washington County Andrew’s residency and military service.

1) John “Wantage John” Willis d 1712

                   Caroline County Descendants:

2)    John “Marshy Creek John” Willis d 1764

                                    3) John “The Elder” Willis

                                                      4) Andrew “Friendship Andrew” Willis d about 1778

                                                                        5) Andrew No.1 Willis

                                    3) Isaac Willis

                                                      4) Andrew No. 2 Willis

                 Dorchester County Descendants:

2)    Andrew “New Town” Willis d. 1738

                                    3) Andrew No. 3 Willis

                                                      4) Andrew No. 4 Willis

                                    3) John “New Town” Willis

                                                      4) Andrew No. 5 Willis

                                                      4) Jarvis Willis

Spoiler Alert!

 Andrew Nos. 1 – 3 each had a nuclear family that did not match Washington County Andrew’s. Andrew No. 4 was too young to have served in the war. We can eliminate each (detail shown at the end of the article) and turn to Andrew No. 5, who must have been the same man as Washington County Andrew.

Andrew No. 5

Andrew No. 5 was the possible son of a John Willis in Dorchester County. John who inherited part of a tract called New Town as a contingent devisee when his brother George died. John did not pass New Town to any of his children; he sold it in 1784.[11] That might indicate none of his heirs were interested in the land, or they had moved away.

We know that one  proved son , Jarvis Willis, did so. Jarvis served in the army during the revolution and moved to North Carolina after the war.[12] He joined the regular army on 17 Feb 1777, served three years as a Corporal, and was discharged 14 Feb 1780 at Morristown, New Jersey.[13] He then appeared in Stokes County, North Carolina before 1790. Significantly, an Andrew Willis in Dorchester County enlisted in the same regiment and the same company on the same day as Jarvis and was discharged with him at the same place on the same day.[14] Surely, these men were brothers. Jarvis appeared in the Dorchester County 1783 Tax Assessment with no land and eight people in his household.[15]

Jarvis and Andrew showed up in Stokes County, North Carolina by about 1790. That census listed Jarvis Willis with a family of eight, matching his earlier household. Andrew Willis was not in that census but appeared on a Stokes County tax roll in 1791 with 250 acres of land.[16] Jarvis was listed on the same tax roll in the same district. He and Andrew may have shared the land. The 1792 tax roll showed Andrew’s acreage reduced to 200 acres, and Jarvis held 50. On a later roll, Jarvis had 125 acres, half Andrew’s original amount.

By 1793, Stokes County listed Andrew as “insolvent” and owing £5.10 in taxes.[17] Usually, this meant the party had abandoned their land and left the county. Where did he go? If he is the same man as Washington County Andrew, he took his family and retraced their steps 300 miles up the Great Wagon Road to Washington County, Maryland where he appeared in the census in 1800 and applied for a pension in 1818. Such reverse migrations were not common. I usually question the validity of any claim that someone migrated “backwards.”

In this case, the identical army service of Jarvis and Washington County Andrew outweigh any hesitancy about reverse migration. The date of enrollment is especially important. Officers of each company personally enlisted men to fill their ranks. For an officer to enroll two men on the same date meant the men almost certainly were in the same place when they signed up. There was no person more likely to be in the same location as Jarvis Willis on their enrollment date in February 1777 than a brother. With no other Andrew in the vicinity that seals the deal.[18]

Conclusion

Evidence about family makeup eliminates the first three men from being Washington County Andrew. Inability to have served in the army because of his youth rules out the fourth. We have no evidence of the fifth Andrew’s family on the Eastern Shore to compare to the Washington County family. However, there is strong circumstantial evidence implying Jarvis Willis is the brother of the fifth Andrew. His connections to Jarvis are significant – they enrolled in the same Continental Line company at the same time, served for three years, left the army on the same date, and later appeared together and may have shared land in Stokes County, North Carolina. Then Andrew Willis left at just the right time to arrive in Washington County to appear in the census there and to file a pension application. I conclude that the Andrew in Washington County is the brother of the veteran Jarvis Willis and therefore a descendant of Wantage John Willis.

The Descendant Andrews Eliminated

 Andrew No. 1

An Andrew Willis acquired land in Caroline County called Friendship Regulated in 1754. After Andrew’s death, his son Thomas distributed the land to his siblings according to his father’s oral instructions. Son Andrew No. 1 received 87½ acres.[19] The Supply Tax List of 1783 shows him in possession of that land with a household of five males and five females. A year later, Andrew No. 1 and his wife Sarah sold the land and did not appear in Caroline County again.[20] Their family, apparently four sons and four daughters (all born before 1783), are too old to be the Washington County family in which no child was born before 1785. Andrew No. 1 is not the same man as Washington County Andrew.

Andrew No. 2

Andrew No. 2 was the son of Isaac Willis and seems at first a likely candidate to be the same man as Washington County Andrew. After all, Washington County Andrew named one of his sons Isaac. Further, Andrew No. 2 disappeared from Caroline County before the 1800 census. Could he have moved to Washington County?

Sure. But the 1783 Supply Tax Assessment in Caroline County shows this Andrew with a household of one male and three females. That does not fit the Washington County family where the male children were older than the females and where no child was born before 1785. This rules out this man as Washington County Andrew.[21]

Andrew No. 3

Andrew No. 3 acquired about 60 acres in 1781.[22] He had that land in the 1783 Supply Tax Assessment for Dorchester County along with a household of seven people. Like the others we have examined, he had children born before 1783, while Washington County Andrew had none that old. He cannot be Washington County Andrew.

Andrew No. 4

Andrew No. 3 had a son, Andrew No. 4, to whom he devised the 60 acres. Andrew No. 4 was born in 1768.[23] He was the right age to have a young family in Washington County, but he was too young to have been in the war as a private. He was only nine when Washington County Andrew enlisted in the regular army and only fifteen when the war ended. He cannot be Washington County Andrew, either.

Again, thank you Sherry Taylor for your work on the Willis lines. Next, I must write about Jarvis Willis, who was Sherry’s primary interest. She is descended from one of Jarvis’s daughters! But I had to correct this article about Andrew first.

______

[1] 1800 Census Washington County, MD. The listing for Andrew Willis includes a man and woman 26-44 years old with two males under 10, one male age 10-15, and two females under 10. Note that if Andrew was born in 1752 per his pension application, the census understates his age by four years, which is not an unusual discrepancy.

[2] 1810 Census Washington County, MD. Ages of all family members track to the next appropriate age category except for the youngest daughter, who remains less than 10. She may have been an infant in 1800 and was 10 years old in 1810. Or, she may have died before 1810 and the census lists a new daughter.

[3] Washington County, MD Deed Book Y: 439.

[4] See Pension File S35141. Andrew stated he could not remember the exact dates but thought he enrolled in 1778 and was discharged in 1781. He was off by one year on both dates, according to official records.

[5] 1820 Census, Washington County, MD shows Edward Willis’s household with two men age 26-44 and one over 45, one female 15-25, one 26-44, and one over 45. The older man and woman are Andrew Willis and his wife Lettie. The two younger men are their sons Edward and Isaac. The youngest female is their daughter Elizabeth. The woman age 26-44 is Isaac’s wife Nancy LNU.

[6] Washington County, MD Bond Book C: 427 and Administrative Accounts Book 7: 413. Nehemiah Hurley was administrator, Nehemiah Hurley, Hezekiah Donaldson and Isaac Willis were bondsmen.

[7] Washington County, MD Deed Book KK: 610.

[8] William Willis and Levin Willis, who appear in census and deed records of the era, were not Edward’s brothers.

[9] Morrow, Dale W., Marriages of Washington County, Maryland, Volume 1, 1799-1830, (Traces: Hagerstown, MD, 1977), D64.

[10] 31 Dec 1850 letter from Bennington & Cowan, St. Clairsville, Belmont County, Ohio on behalf of Isaac Willis, online at Fold 3 pension file S35141 of Andrew Willis. Isaac knew his father was from the Eastern Shore of Maryland but was not sure of the county. He thought it might have been Kent. However, there is no Kent County Andrew. He also thought Andrew’s company commander was named Bentley. That was close. It was Benson.

[11] Dorchester County, MD Deed Book NH 2:546. John Willis sold to Levin Hughes. No signature of a wife, so she is presumed deceased. Also, at NH 2:88 Mary Willis Meekins, widow of Benjamin, sold in 1782 her half of New Town. Both shares originated with Andrew Willis, died 1738, who devised half each to sons Richard and George. George’s share descended to his brother John upon George’s untimely death. Richard willed his share to his daughter Mary who married Benjamin Meekins.

[12] Palmer, 19. 6 Dec 1758, Jarvey [Jarvis] Willis, parents John and Nancy Willis.

[13] Archives of Maryland, Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, 1775-1783, (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1900), 254. Corporal Jarvis Willis and Private Andrew Willis listed with identical enrollment and discharge dates.  https://archive.org/details/musterrollsother00mary

[14] Roll of Lt Perry Benson’s Company, 5th Maryland Regiment of Foot in the service of the United States commanded by Colonel William Richardson, 8 Sep 1778. Corporal Jarvis Willis and Private Andrew Willis appear on the same roster, both sick in hospital.

[15] Andrew did not appear in the tax list. Neither Jarvis nor Andrew appeared in the 1790 census in Dorchester.

[16] Harvey, Iris Moseley, Stokes County, North Carolina Tax List, 1791, (Raleigh, NC, 1998), 11. There is no record showing how Andrew or Jarvis acquired the land.

[17] Harvey, Iris Moseley, Stokes County, North Carolina Tax List, 1793, (Raleigh, NC, 1998), 43

[18] The only other person close by was Andrew No.4 who was nine years old, too young to have been enlisted as a private.

[19] Caroline County, MD Deed Book GFA: 269, 1778

[20] Caroline County, MD Deed Book GFA: 777, 1784

[21] 1790 Census Caroline County, MD lists Andrew Willis with a household inconsistent with the 1783 Tax List. The household has five males age 16 or older, six males under 16, four females, and one slave.  Possibly, this is several families living together. In any event it does not match the Washington County family.

[22] Dorchester County, MD Deed Book 28 Old 356. Andrew Willis purchased 59½ acres from Mary and Benjamin Meekins. The tract was originally owned by Henry Fisher and may have been called Fisher’s Venture in the 1783 Supply Tax Assessment.

[23] Palmer, Katherine H., Old Trinity Church, Dorchester Parish, Church Creek, MD, Birth Register, (Cambridge , MD) 19. 12 Feb 1768, Andrew Willis, parents Andrew and Sarah Willis.

John Mason Rankin letters: the real deal!

I reluctantly surfaced from a deep sleep when the cell phone rang. I looked at my watch. 3:00 a.m. It could only be one person: Spade, the family history detective. He digs up dead relatives, including Rankin relatives.

Yep, that’s the name that appeared on caller ID. I flopped back onto my pillow and waited for the phone to quit ringing. The old reprobate could just leave a message. He was probably loaded with Cutty.

Five seconds after it quit, the phone rang again. Voicemail messages are not Spade’s style. I capitulated.

What the hell could possibly be so urgent that it can’t wait until a decent hour, like 6:30 a.m.? said I.

IS IT TRUE? he asked, with considerable asperity.

I sighed. Is WHAT true?

I talked to Gams this evening. (She is also a Rankin researcher and a friend of Spade’s and mine). She claims you found copies of the John Mason Rankin letters from the 1850s in a library in San Augustine, Texas. IS THAT TRUE, and why didn’t you tell me?

My patience, if any, vanished, along with my lovely sleep.

Spade, how long has it been since you checked your damn snail mail?

Silence. That evidently took him by surprise, which is no small feat with Spade.

I repeat, how long has it been since you checked your $!#@!!&*%  mailbox?

Another long-ish pause. I dunno, he said. That mailbox down the street is a pain because I can never remember where I left the key.

I now had the upper hand, and we both knew it.

Here’s the deal, Spade. Listen carefully. I’m going back to sleep. I will get up at 6:30 when the alarm goes off. Then I will turn on the coffeemaker, have two or three cups, and scan the New York Times and Guardian. You, meanwhile, will go pick up your snail mail and see what I’ve sent to you. By then, it will be 8:30 or so. You can call me at nine, the universally accepted earliest decent hour to call someone.

 I hung up. For good measure, I reset the alarm for 7:00 am, rolled over and went back to sleep.

At 9:30, the phone rang. He was uncharacteristically pleasant.

Thank you for sending copies of those letters to me! Do the actual letters, rather than the transcriptions we’ve had, change our minds about anything? Who does John Mason identify as the father of Adam Rankin who died in 1747?

I paused before replying. As you NOW know, the 1854 letter says that Adam’s father was also named Adam. So we are still left with a glaring inconsistency between the letter and John Mason Rankin’s Bible, which says Adam’s father was named William.

Oops! he said. I guess I forgot to tell you. He actually sounded contrite. Robert Rankin of McAllen, Texas, the owner of the original letters, told me he thinks John Mason Rankin (JMR) made an error in the letter. He believes the Bible entry, which matches JMR’s handwriting, is correct.

 He continued. Also, the Bible was printed in 1813, making it nearly as old as JMR himself. It is probably the Bible he refers to when he says “my father’s Bible.” The earliest entries, including the genealogy, are probably from 1836, around the time his mother died. One would think that SHE provided much of the copious detail on the family, including the fact that Adam’s father was named William. That leads me to believe that when JMR refers to “my father’s Bible” in his letter, he is talking about the 1813 Bible and quoting his own writing. And information from his mother, which obviously has a great deal of credibility. 

I thought for a moment. That all made sense to me, even if some of  it was speculative. OK, let me see if I can sum up what we have concluded about Adam from JMR’s documents and our own research. I am accepting his information as the gospel truth, except on the inconsequential matters where we know he erred:

The Adam Rankin who died in 1747 was a son of William Rankin, who moved from Scotland to Ireland. Despite speculation by some, there is no evidence in the records that William came to the Colonies, and JMR doesn’t claim that he did.

Adam had brothers John and Hugh and a sister Jane. *** RRW NOTE: the John Rankin who died in Lancaster in 1749 was NOT Adam’s brother, according to Y-DNA tests. That contradicts the conventional wisdom, which has long held the two were brothers.

In 1720, Adam and Hugh came to the Colonies. Adam was then married to Elizabeth May, who died shortly after they arrived. He then married “Mrs. Steele,” who is proved in county records to be Mary Steele Alexander, widow of James Alexander.

Adam and Mary Steele Rankin had three sons, James, William and Jeremiah, as well as a daughter not mentioned by JMR.  James was therefore NOT, as some have speculated, a son of Elizabeth May. 

Adam died in 1750, says JMR, although county records prove he died in 1747.

 JMR goes on to provide considerable detail about the family of Adam’s son Jeremiah and his wife Rhoda Craig, JMR’s grandparents. 

 I ran out of steam. We were silent for a moment.

You have left out the most important thing, he said. He continued:

The JMR letters and Bible do not make any mention of the so-called “Mt. Horeb legend,” which contains the story about Rankin family martyrs during the Killing Times in Scotland. This undoubtedly means the legend was NOT a part of John Mason Rankin’s family history!!!

I thought about it. There is no way a family with so much detail in their oral history would omit something that momentous.

You’re absolutely right, Spade. That’s brilliant! Of course, there can’t be less than 500 trees on the internet which continue to assert incorrectly that the Mt. Horeb legend applies to both Adam and John. To the extent the legend contains any truth at all, it must apply to John’s line but not Adam’s.

There is nothing like a little flattery to restore Spade’s hubris.

OK, doll, he said, your next job is to contact all those online tree owners and point out the error of their ways.

And with that, he hung up. I hate it when he beats me to it.

I will transcribe the two letters and post them. That’s probably not necessary, since the available transcriptions are likely substantially accurate. I’ll do it anyway. Eventually.

That is all. See you on down the road.

Robin

Imagination failure: need help

An old friend and famous Rankin researcher gave me some pointed advice when I first started publishing on this website. People like to read stories, she said. She told me this at least twice, possibly three times, leaving me thinking my academic-ish genealogy articles were boring as hell.

Sometimes, though, there just isn’t enough information about long-dead people to craft a good tale. Or at least I lack the imagination to manage it and remain within the confines of truth.

In an effort to find out what might be popular other than stories, I have been looking at data on the articles on this blog to see what has been read the most often. This is what I learned:

… the all-time most read article is titled “Who Are the Scots-Irish, Anyway?” It is an historical article by a non-historian about the economic and religious factors driving Scots-Irish migration. There are apparently a lot of us Scots-Irish who wonder when and where our ancestors immigrated to the Colonies. Answer: most Scots-Irish arrived in one of the Delaware River ports during the so-called “Great Migration” from Ulster between 1717 and just prior to the Revolution.

… the second most popular article is “What is Proof of Family History?” It was inspired by a similar article by my distant cousin Roberta Estes. She and I might reasonably be characterized as rabid on the subject.

… the third most popular topic, grouping several articles together, is what you might call personal stuff. These are of no use whatsoever to anyone from the standpoint of family history research. They are just personal stories. These include one about my father titled “The Fastest Post Ever Written”, one about some of Gary’s experiences in Vietnam called  “Welcome home, sir,  and Thank You for Your Service,” and another simply titled  “Love Letter,” written to Gary on the occasion of a wedding anniversary. We’ve now been married for 58 years.

… there are other articles that definitely include stories which have had fairly numerous hits. E.g., “Family history stories:  the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” “Family Names and Stories,” and “AHA! moments in Family History Research.” The last one probably gets too deep into county minutiae to have much broad appeal and is also too recent for me to judge its popularity accurately.

… a couple of Rankin articles have had many, many hits: “UPDATE:Rankin DNA Project Families: August 2121,” which obviously needs to be updated again. Also, “Revised:: the Most Famous Rankin Legend of All,” in which I take on a Rankin shibboleth cast in bronze (I’m not kidding) which refuses to die.

… finally, a series of articles I have written about the Winn family of Lunenburg County, Virginia, taken together, has had more hits than anything else on this website. I can only conclude that there are a lot of Winn researchers out there who are adept at finding obscure family history blogs.

See articles at these links: (1) Virginia Winns Part 1: YDNA and Some Colonial Virginia Winn Families, (2) Virginia Winns, Part 2: Colonel Thomas Winn of Lunenburg, (3) Virginia Winns, Part 3: Col. Thomas of Lunenburg, John of Amelia, and Richard of Hanover, (4) Virginia Winns Part 4: Samuel Winn, Scoundrel, and a Famous Creek, (5) Virginia Winns Part 5: Richard and Phoebe Winn of Hanover County, (6)Virginia Winns Part 6: Competing Theories About the Hanover Winns, (7) Virginia Winn Series Part 7: Portrait of Mrs. John Winn of Hanover County,  and (8) QUERY: (1) WHO WAS JOHN WINN d. AMELIA COUNTY 1781 and (2) WAS HE RELATED TO THE LUNENBURG WINNS?.

There is another whole batch of Winn articles using Roman rather than Arabic numerals, probably because I couldn’t remember where I was in the list: (9) Lunenburg Winns: Part I of ???, (10) Lunenburg Winns, Part II of ?; Daniel Winn, (11) Part III of ?? How Many Times Was Col. Thomas Winn Married?, (12) PART IV of ?? John Winn Sr. of Lunenburg Who Died in 1795., and (13) PART IV Addendum: a Friend Told Me Where Daniel Winn’s Son Thomas Migrated. There are undoubtedly redundancies among these articles, my primary excuse being that one cannot be sure everyone has read prior posts. My secondary and probably more honest excuse is that I am old and cannot always remember what I had previously written. I was in fact somewhat taken aback when I saw that I had written so many Winn articles. And I am not sure these are listed above in the order in which I wrote them.

Some of my personal favorite articles are ones that take on some family history lore that is cast in concrete (or bronze) and that is just plain wrong. Some are easy, like disproving the notion that Samuel “Old One-Eyed Sam” of Lincoln County, NC, whose wife was Eleanor (“Ellen”) Alexander, was descended from Joseph and Rebecca Rankin of New Castle County, Delaware. Y-DNA conclusively puts that hoary old theory to rest. We don’t know Sam’s parents. Proving that Eleanor Alexander Rankin’s given name was actually Eleanor rather than Ellen, her nickname, was also fun, although Y-DNA is no help there. Likewise, it was easy to prove that the Adam Rankin (wife Mary Steele Alexander) who died in 1747 in what was then Lancaster County, Pennsylvania was NOT the brother of the John Rankin who died in the same county in 1749. Again, Y-DNA conclusively proves that Adam and John were not genetically related.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF ANY OF THE LINKS DON’T WORK and I will try to fix them.

The most fun articles for me to write are those that involve finding, interpreting, and untangling a web of county records. Interestingly, it is rare to find someone who uses the images of original county records available at the FHL website to do their family history research. Far more common are people who rely on online trees. Those, of course, are what perpetrate erroneous facts ad infinitum, ad nauseam, despite the fact that the software suggests FHL records.

I will never publish enough articles to make a dint in some of the easy-to-disprove errors (e.g., Old One-Eyed Sam’s father; Adam and John Rankin weren’t related). But I CAN respond to ideas. Specifically, I AM ASKING FOR FEEDBACK AND SUGGESTIONS. WHAT KINDS OF ARTICLES DO YOU LIKE? WHAT FAMILIES DO YOU WANT TO READ ABOUT? WHAT BRINGS YOU TO THIS BLOG, ANYWAY?

Thanks for reading! See you on down the road.

Robin