Heartland Genealogy

I thought I had figured out those James Crawfords who appear on multiple family trees with intermingled records and families. To my surprise, I have found another one in Fleming County, Kentucky. James, the husband of Sarah Vansandt, died in May 1836. This is the James Crawford I already knew about. When I located the will of James Crawford, I found the will of another James Crawford dated September 1836. This James Crawford was the husband of Elizabeth D. Crawford, daughter of Mrs. Stockton. Not only are there TWO James Crawfords in Fleming County, Kentucky, but they both die in 1836! Fleming County Kentucky Probate Records Vols. D-E 1829-1837 FS Film 344040 DGS 4818899 image 316 - start of book E Image 522 Page 463 James Crawford Will

James Crawford's 1835 will found on pages 435-436 of Book E in Fleming County, Kentucky Legacies daughter Mary Kennerey son Crawford late son Henry Crawford son Josiah Crawford daughter Margery Blankenship (Maargary Kenney) late daughter Sarah Conran son James Crawford Son Samuel Crawford Daughter Jane Hamlett daughter Elizabeth Crawford son Joshua Crawford daughter Ann Barton son John L Crawford James Crawford Will

When working with Ancestry hints, do you look at the 'Member Tree' hints, or do you just ignore them? I look at them and often accept them without adding information to my tree. This creates a connection to other researchers that I can go back to. While working with a non-ancestor, Rev. James Crawford (1752-1803), the suggested member trees really puzzled me. Many were trees for the James Crawford that married Rebecca Anderson. However, they also included the family information for the James Crawford that married Sarah VanSant

Do you ever go back thru your research trying to use your older research to try and find new information? If so, that is what I'm working on with my James Crawford brick wall. As part of that process, I'm reviewing the other Crawford families I've identified and trying to prove/disprove a relationship with my ancestor, James Crawford. Thus, I was looking at the James Crawford who was a Presbyterian minister at Walnut Hill Church outside of Lexington, Kentucky. Not only am I trying to find additional information, but I'm also trying to make sure I have good source citations for the information I have already located. For Rev. James Crawford's death date, I had cited Kentucky Obituaries 1787-1854

James Crawford was born on 17 Apr 1772 in Virginia, British Colonial America. 1 – 5      He was listed on the tax rolls  in 1800 in Garrard, Kentucky, United States. 6      7 He registered a stock mark in 1811 in Washington Township, Preble, Ohio, United States. 8 James  voted in first election in 1814 in Washington Township, Preble, Ohio, United States. 9     He filed land entry papers indicating full payment for the NW 1/4 S14 T7 Range2E on 8 Jun 1816 in Ohio, United States. 10

Do you ever participate in one of Blaine Bettinger's DNA quizzes? Or, do you ever see someone else's post about their DNA stats and decide to investigate your own? I know I often take the time to look at the data and see how my data compares. That happened two days ago when someone (and unfortunately I don't know who and can't find the original post) posted about his Ancestry DNA Common ancestors. Basically, the poster indicated how many common ancestors he had at each cousin level and wondered how that compared to other testers. Thus, I decided to look at mine: One 1st cousin Three 2nd cousins Five 3rd cousins With over 3,000 4th cousin or closer DNA matches, I expected a lot of common ancestors at the 4th cousin level. Thus, I was shocked to only find EIGHT . Out of curiosity, I looked at my incomplete ThruLines spreadsheets to see how many cousins I have identified so far.

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is known for his Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenges. His blog post, DNA Tests and Analysis Summary wasn't a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge, but I decided that I needed to view it as a challenge to review my DNA results. Gedmatch highest cM match - 387.2 cM # matches sharing 68 cM or more - 9 # matches sharing 34 cM or more - 53 yDNA matches 18 at 111 markers with genetic distance of 6 or higher 52 at 67 markers with genetic distance of 1 or higher

Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to visit the Family History Center in Topeka, Kansas. During this visit, I was able to access digitized images from Botetourt County, Virginia. I was thankful these records were available at the family history center since they were locked at affiliate libraries. Botetourt County, Virginia List of Tithables, 1770-1789 FS Film 9106467 DGS 7856374 Looking for Crawford, Douglass, Maxwell 1770 Image 9 Anderson, Lemuel - 1 Crawford, James - 1 Dooley Kenery - 1

On my way home from the Northeast Kansas Library System's monthly board meeting, I stopped in Topeka to use the library and archives at the Kansas State Historical Society. One of the books I used was Montgomery County, Virginia: The First 100 Years. [Text by Judge C. W. Crush; Index by Mrs. Frances Terry Ingmire. St. Louis, MO: Mrs Terry Ingmire, 1982.] On page 94 of this book is a list of Captain Love's Company of Militia. Since James Crawford was listed as a lieutenant for the company, this list may prove useful to my Crawford research. By knowing the names of the various men in this company, I can search their pension records for mention of James Crawford (or any other Crawford). Page 94

Have you used 'shared events' in your genealogy software? Michelle Simmons Lewis had a Facebook post today that is causing me to re-visit the concept of shared events. In her post, she indicated that she was using shared events to help with a one-name study in early South Carolina. This post caught my attention today for two reasons: My Crawford research in Kentucky is similar to a limited one-name study; I could be using shared events to tie the various members of my Kentucky FAN club together. Unfortunately, Michelle Simmons Lewis' post contained hints for Legacy Family Tree software and I use RootsMagic. Knowing that the software packages are similar, I looked for information on shared events in RootsMagic. I found a video by Bruce Buzbee explaining shared events in RootsMagic.

Is something causing Ancestry's hinting system to merge people of the same name? I'm in the process of trying to disprove several Crawford men as the father of my James Crawford of Preble County, Ohio. Today, I'm trying to work on Rev. James Crawford (1752/3 to 1803) of Fayette County, Kentucky. I've found James Crawford [LZN5-SCD] in some of the Fayette County, KY records on Family Search. However, I have yet to find anything that would link James to his children. Thus, I decided to see if the Ancestry tree hints would help. I've had Rev. James Crawford along with several other Crawford families from early Kentucky in my tree for quite some time. Thus, I expected to find legitimate hints. Instead, I found a lot of hints for other James Crawfords, whom I also have in my tree. At first, I just assumed that other researchers had confused some of these Crawford families in their trees. However, when I looked at the hints for Ancestor Member trees, I realized t...

Have you ever run across a record in a county you've been researching and have no idea how the person in the record fits with known families in that area? Well, that's my situation -- and it is anoter James Crawford. James and Martha Crawford sold land in Barren County, Kentucky. Tax lists for Barren County show a James Crawford with 200 acres on the Marrowbone River. These tax lists also show another James Crawford with 50 acres on the Marrowbone. This second James Crawford is thought to be James and Sally (Smith Duggins) Crawford. I've also identified the family of David Crawford who died in Barren County, KY in 1812. Now, I've found a deed for a James Crawford and Patsy his wife selling land in Wythe County Virginia to Peter Kinson. This 1806 deed indicates that James and Patsy were living in Montgomery County, Ohio at the time.

I've seen several negative posts and comments about Ancestry's new DNA tool, ThruLines . I haven't come close to looking at all of my lines, let alone verifying them. However, I am thrilled Ancestry developed this new tool.

I found the following deed in Barren County for a James Crawford and his wife, Patsy. This James Crawford was living in Montgomery County, Ohio in 1806. I currently do not know anything about this James Crawford. Vols. Before A 1798-1807 Vol. A 1799-1899 FS Film 209719 DGS 7899149 Vol. A page 277 Image 270 Page 277 Crawford to Kinson

For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), answer the question: 1)   Have you done a good job of citing your sources in your genealogy management program or online family tree?  How are you doing?  How many source citations do you have, and how many p eople are in your tree?  What is the sources to persons ratio? 2)  Which master source (e.g., 1900 U.S. census, Find A Grave, specific book, etc.) do you have the most citations for?  How many?  How did you figure this out? 3)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this blog post, or in a post on Facebook. Randy Seaver provides another interesting challenge thru his ' Saturday Night Genealogy Fun ' to look at my genealogy data in a different way. Since I use RootsMagic , I thought I'd show how I'm getting the answers to these questions as well as answer them.

One of the tasks handed me during my ' Brick Wall' Consultation was to review all of my data and document the elimination of individuals as potential fathers to James Crawford (1772-1854) of Preble County, Ohio. Thus, I'm digging thru both my memory and my files. My memory was telling me that I had found a will for a Crawford in Barren County, Kentucky that eliminated this person as a father to James. Digging thru my files, I found some handwritten notes about a will in Barren County, Kentucky.

Do you have 'genealogy buddies' that you exchange research with? Do you write letters, post on mailing lists or message boards or in any other way make connections with others researching your family tree? Do you belong to a local, regional or national genealogy society? If your answer to any of these questions is 'No' then I encourage you to write those letters, messages and posts and to join a local organization and meet their members. It has been my experience that some of my best breakthroughs have not come from my own isolated research, but from the help of others. When I started researching my family, I was dependent on the U.S. mail to connect me with other researchers. Several times a year, a new edition of Everton's Genealogical Helper ( searchable at MyHeritage ) would arrive. I would sit and study that magazine looking for anyone researching any of my surnames. When found, I would send off a letter to see if we might connect. Occasionally, I would p...

I had the privilege of doing a brick wall consultation with Michael J.Hall , Deputy Chief Genealogical Officer at Family Search this afternoon as part of the Topeka Genealogical Society Conference! I submitted my research for the parents of James Crawford of Preble County, Ohio and the associated same name issues as my brick wall. The primary suggestion Mr. Hall had was to use "indirect evidence". Other suggestions included

Warren County Indiana Deed Records Deed records, v. 10-11, 1841-1850 FS Film 1977054 DGS 8071879 Book 10 page 113

Have you ever looked at a court document trying to figure out who all of the people are and suddenly realize you may have stumbled across something totally different? Well, that was my situation yesterday. I found additional documentation for the 1779 will of John Crawford in Montgomery County, Virginia (Order Book 2, image 292), At a court c/ and held for Montgomery County April 7th 1779 Last will and testament of John Crawford deceased proven by oath of George [D]ouglas James Crawford and Bazewell Maxwell and ordered to be recorded

For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), answer the question: 1)  What were the occupations of your ancestors? 2)  Please go back several generations (say parents or grandparents or great-grandparents) and list the occupations that they had in the records you've found for them.  You could do this, say, by ancestor table number. 1. Me Teacher Librarian Technology Coordinator 2. my dad Teacher 3. my mother Medical Secretary 4. Leon Russel Crawford worked for Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad in Dodge City, Kansas 5. Winnie Letha Currey Crawford Clerk for Eckle's Department Store in Dodge City, Kansas

Warren County Indiana Deed Records, v. 8-9, 1844-1848 FS Film 1977053 DGS 8071878 (locked) Book 8 page 487