Identifying Parents

Have you had a set of parents for an ancestor in your tree for years when you discover another researcher has a different set of parents? I recently made that discovery for my ancestor Sarah Rush Briles (KP93-T9C) on Family Search.

Seeing this other set of parents made me question whether I had made a mistake. I knew that my old research included a transcription  of a petition for dower that was printed in The Genealogical Journal of Randolph County, NC (Vol 3, #4, pages 5-6)

This transcript shows Sallie Rush as the plaintiff. Listed among the defendants is Alexander Briles and wife Sallie. The body of the petition identifies Sally Rush as the widow of Noah Rush deceased.

Is It Fake News?

Have you ever heard anything that sounded too good to be true? Have you ever believed something to only find out that Snopes.com says it is false? I know I have -- both in my Facebook timeline and in my genealogy.

Thus, when I saw that there were parents for my ancestor, James Crawford on Family Search, I so wanted to jump up and down with joy. Not only are the parents identified, but so are the siblings.

Analyzing Sources

I recently have been working on a 'go over' for my 2nd great grandfather, George Mentzer. In the process, I utilized Scrivener. I had probably heard about Scrivener, but when I saw it mentioned in the recent Twitter #genchat, I decided to try it. In the process of learning more about Scrivener and genealogy, I discovered Lisa Alzo's Ancestor Profile Template along with her 25 Genealogist Hacks Every Genealogist Should Know.

I haven't used my George Mentzer Scrivener project to write his biography (yet). However, I have used it to transcribe the various documents I've collected over the years.  My research folder contains the actual document files.

Land on Sugar Creek / Mary Crawford

Mary Crawford purchased land from Richard Cave in 1791. Below is a transcription of that deed.

Crawford Puzzle - One Piece at a Time

My Crawford lineage has always been like putting together a jigsaw puzzle -- trying to figure out how hundreds of pieces fit together. Many years ago, I wrote about dissecting these pieces in order to identify my line. At the time, I identified four James Crawford families that were in the same region of Kentucky prior to 1800.

• Rev. James Crawford (1752-1803) who married Rebecca McPheeters


• James Crawford who married Rebecca Anderson


• James Crawford (1772-1854) who married Sally Duggins in 1799 in Garrard County, KY


• James Crawford (1770-1833) who married Martha Knight in 1793 in Lincoln County, KY