John Crawford Clue

Have you ever run across a little tiny clue that changes your entire thinking about family members?

Well, I may have run across just such a clue for my Crawford family members in early Lincoln County, Kentucky. In the 1783-1786 Court Order book for the Lincoln County Supreme Court of Kentucky (Family Search film 551323), I found mention of a deed for John and William Crawford on image 69.

Image 69
June the 18th 1785
Saturday the 18th day of June 1785
Present
The Same judges as yesterday

The Heirs of John McClelland plts
against
John and William Crawford Defts

Upon a Caveat

Ordered that the former order herein be set aside and that
the first be discontinued

Lincoln County Taxes

Do you find little clues in tax records? When I reviewed the Lincoln County Kentucky tax records, I made some discoveries that are helping my CRAWFORD research in the area.

• Discovered John Crawford -- who owned 913 acres of land
  
• Sellers families listed beginning in 1787
• Rebekah Crawford (widow) listed in 1787-1791
• James Crawford owning 114 acres of land  on Sugar Creek (same description as land owned by Rebekah Crawford) in 1794
  
• Douglas families listed  beginning in 1789

1795 Mystery

• William Crafort - 500 acres Richland Creek

1799 Mysteries:

• James Crawford -- 100 acres on Rolling Forks
• Robert Crawford -- 200 acres

1784 Grand Jury

1784 Grand Jury

Lincoln County Kentucky

as found in the Court Order Book, 1783-1786 for the Kentucky Supreme Court of Lincoln County

Image 24

March 5th 1784

Venture into Court Records

Do you try and find every record you could on an ancestor? I used to think that I did. However, I have to admit that I haven't always researched all available records for a community. I often stop with the indexed records and often avoid those non-indexed records.

It turns out I likely need to be  using those records. A local historian from the Garrard County, Kentucky area contacted me last week. She had seen my blog post about not finding land records for the SELLERS families in the area. She provided lots of hints. One was a rumor that the Sellers acquired their land in Garrard County by trading a horse for it. She said that if the rumor was true, I might not find a deed. Another hint was to dig thru the court records -- especially since there were a lot of legal battles over Kentucky land.

So, I've started my journey into court records.

I've started with the Madison County, Kentucky Court of Quarter Sessions. These court documents have been filmed and are available on the Family Search site -- and there is even an index to them!

Madison County Kentucky
Court of Quarter Sessions case files 1789-1802, indexes, 1789-1802

Case Files, 1-778, mixed dates ranging 1789-1802
FS Film 2115181 item 3 DGS 7838115

Image 45

Crawford, Mary - Poe, William 587

Barren

Have you ever re-looked at some tax records and discovered that you can now figure out who these people might be when before they were just a list of names found in that county?

Well, that has been my experience as I'm going back thru some of my Crawford Kentucky research in hopes that it leads me back another generation.

I've recently re-looked at Madison, Lincoln and Garrard county tax lists and combined with land records, I have a much better understanding of who the various Crawfords listed in these tax roles are. Since I have deeds indicating James Crawford (husband of Martha Knight) lived in Barren County, Kentucky, I decided to re-look at those tax records.

I first searched the Barren County KY tax lists some time ago. Based on the "V20-0014" notation on my notes, I'm guessing I used the American Genealogical Lending Library to research these records at home.

Barren County Connection

Have you ever questioned whether an ancestor lived in a certain place because the migration path was illogical?

Well, that is the case with our Crawford research. James Crawford and Martha Knight were married in Lincoln County, KY in 1793. James Crawford and Sally Duggins were married in Garrard County, KY in 1799. Both families migrated to Preble County, Ohio.

So when clues pointed to at least one of them being in Barren County, KY (South of Lincoln and Garrard), those clues were questioned because it seemed illogical for these couples to migrate South before migrating North to Ohio.

That gut feeling was proven incorrect when a Barren County deed was discovered. This 1821 deed was for the sale of land by a James Crawford of Preble County, Ohio. Records place both James Crawfords in Preble County, Ohio at the time. So far, no record has been found for a third James Crawford in Preble County, Ohio in 1821.

Since the deed identifies the wife of James Crawford as Martha, this deed places James and Martha owning land in Barren County, KY. Another set of deeds for the sale of land in Garrard County, KY by Rebecca Crawford and James Crawford, both of Barren County, provide additional evidence that James Crawford was in Barren County, KY (See Rebekah's Land)