Crawford Marriages

Have you ever felt the need to go back thru your genealogy research hoping that some new insight can be obtained from those notes and records located years ago? That's where I'm at with my Crawford research. I started with some marriage records from Augusta County, Virginia.

Vogt John & T. William Kethley, Augusta County Marriages, 1748-1850 (N.p.: Iberian Publishing Company, 1986).

While reviewing these records, I found that I already had most of these Crawfords in my database. However, I often was missing their spouse and/or documentation of their marriage.

In the process of re-looking at these records, I also took the time to find them on FamilySearch so I could see what other researchers might have on these families.

Below are my notes for Crawford males and females married in Augusta County prior to 1801.

Augusta County Marriages 1748-1850

Crawford.VA.030

by John Vogt & T. William Kethley
Iberian Publishing Company, np, 1986

Only transcribing marriages prior to 1801

page 66 - Men’s Names

Alexander Crawford [FS LZN5-951 - grandson of Alexander & Mary (McPHeeters) Crawford] & Rachel Lessley [Leslie FS 2W3B-9BV] - 20 Feb 1793 consent William Bell

Crawford Genealogy Collaboration

My Crawford line is a brick wall! I'm fairly certain my line goes back to Virginia from Kentucky -- but I can't find any land records, court records or even family members to help me go back a generation. Many other Crawford researchers also have brick walls -- maybe not in Kentucky, but somewhere in colonial America.

Not only are we struggling with our paper research, but it is difficult to break thru these brick walls by finding common ancestors from our DNA results. Since we are trying to go back 200 or more years, our autosomal DNA isn't of much help. And, our yDNA matches are for names and places that aren't familiar to us.

Crawford Clan DNA Challenge

Have you had your DNA tested? If so, did DNA help you answer a question? Based on Facebook posts I've seen, it appears that DNA is helping adoptees to connect with their birth family.

In my case, I wasn't hoping to identify a close relative. Instead, I was hoping (and still am hoping) to identify my 5th great grandparents -- particularly on my dad's CRAWFORD line. It's been 3 years since I first spit in a test tube (autosomal DNA) and since my brother swabbed his cheek (yDNA). That's 3 years of working with various DNA results and few clues about this mysterious CRAWFORD grandfather.

As I'm trying to learn more about our yDNA results, so I can make sense of how we might fit in the Crawford Clan, I've come to a couple of conclusions:

• There's too little data - I need more 5th, 6th and 7th cousins to do a yDNA test
• Determining relationships is VERY dependent on the accuracy of BOTH of our family trees