Historical County Boundaries - Cynthiana, Kentucky

This week Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings blog challenge of Saturday Night Genealogy Fun (SNGF) is one I find very important and well constructed. The topic is Historical County Boundaries. Randy referred us to the Historical U.S. County Maps page on Randy Majors website ( http://randymajors.com/p/maps.html ) I highly recommend you take a look at this interactive site.

First we needed to read the whole page about the mapping, then choose a location and document its historical jurisdiction each 10 years from 1790 to 1900. Then we needed to post about what we found and how it did or might effect our research.

I chose the location of the ancestors of my paternal grandfather. They had farms outside Cynthiana, Kentucky. I have varied the instructions a bit as the history of the county prior to 1790 is also of interest. Here is what I found.

Cynthiana, Kentucky

1772, Dec. 1 in Fincastle (created from Botetourt) County, Virginia
1780, Nov. 1 in Fayette (created from Kentucky), Virginia
1789, May  1 in Bourbon County, Kentucky portion of Virginia
1792 Kentucky became a state
1800 in Harrison County, Kentucky (created in 1795)
Subsequent changes to Harrison County did not change the location of Cynthiana, the county seat.

Prior to statehood in 1792, some records are in Virginia. None of my Harrison County family was likely in the area to create county records prior to the establishment of Fayette County in 1780, so that is where records might begin. Between 1789 and 1795 county records should be in Bourbon County, but some are still recorded there later in the 1790s (will of Edward McShane in 1796, marriage bond of his daughter Mary to John Waits in 1798.) Everything since then should be in Harrison County. Were any of them there early enough to have records in Fayette County?

Eason Heirs of Alexander Adams (ca. 1719 – 1805)

Alexander Adams, an early settler in Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky, died there on 12 January 1805 at the age of 85.[1] His will, written 23 December 1799, was proven in the Fayette County Court in the May 1805 session and ordered to be recorded.[2] Later the will could not be found, but its terms are summarized in an 1829 deed from his daughter, Agnes Eckles.

Alexander’s widow Ann Adams was left a life interest in the estate which was to be equally divided after her death among three daughters, Mary Milligan, Jane Eason, and Eleanor Steele and his grandson, Alexander Eckles, son of his daughter Agnes Eckles.[3]

Alexander Eckles sold his future share of the estate to Fulton Thompson on 18 June 1812.[4] When the will could not later be found, Agnes Eckles executed another deed to Thompson on 5 March 1829 relinquishing any claim to the estate that would have been hers without the will.

In 1831 the shares of Mary Milligan and the heirs of Jane Eason were sold to Charlton Hunt and Richard A. Curd. One deed sold the share of Alexander “Eson” and his wife Jane of Owen County, Indiana, on 13 August 1831. It specified that he was one of the children and heirs of Jane “Eson,” deceased and her husband Robert “Eson,” also deceased. The deed was recorded in Fayette County, Kentucky, on 30 December 1831.[5]

A single deed, dated 10 June 1831, sold the shares of John Milligan and Mary his wife, daughter of Alexander Adams and additional heirs of Jane “Eson,” daughter of Alexander Adams, all of the State of Pennsylvania. Their names and locations were:

• John Milligan, Esquire, and wife Mary of Westmoreland County
• John Eason and wife Elizabeth of Indiana County
• John Patton and wife Jane of Centre County
• Nancy Eason of Centre County
• Henry Hughes and wife Margaret of Lycoming County
• Samuel Shaffer and wife Elizabeth of Lycoming County

This sale was also to Hunt and Curd of Lexington, Kentucky.[6]

The share of Eleanor Steele was not accounted for in these deeds. Robert Eason and his wife Jane (nee Adams) were both deceased by 1831 when the deeds were executed. All of their surviving children may be included in these two deeds. All of them lived in Pennsylvania except Alexander Eason who lived in Owen County, Indiana.

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[1] Died (Alexander Adams), Kentucky Gazette, Lexington, Kentucky, 15 January 1805, p. 3.

[2] Order Book 1: 274, probate of will of Alexander Adams, Fayette County Clerk, Lexington, KY.

[3] Deed Book 5: 112, Agnes Eckles to Fulton Thompson, Fayette County Clerk, Lexington, KY.

[4] Deed Book G: 62, Alexander Eckles to Fulton Thompson, 1812, Fayette County Clerk, Lexington, KY.

[5] Deed Book 7: 435-36, Alexander & Jane Eason, heirs of Alexander Adams to Hunt & Curd, Fayette County Clerk, Lexington, KY.

[6] Deed Book 7: 436-48, Eason & Milligan heirs of Alexander Adams to Hunt & Curd, Fayette County Clerk, Lexington, KY.

Tombstone Tuesday: Nichols in Georgetown

I've written about my Eckles and Nichols family in Kentucky. I have yet to learn of the location in which the family in Georgetown (Scott County, Kentucky) were buried into the 1860s. The earliest family recorded on a tombstone in the Georgetown Cemetery is undoubtedly of later origin. One side commemorates Charles Nichols (1817-1862), his wife Nancy Boyd (Eckles) Nichols (1819-1888) and their daughter Mary Ann Nichols (1843 - 1864). The reverse of the stone is for their son Charles Boyd Nichols, a prominent Kentuckian. He lived from 1848 to 1920. Also on the stone are his wife Ella Tarlton Nichols (1848 - 1930, also my relative) and their infant daughter Mary Ann (22 Jan 1872 - Feb 1872). I believe it is likely that son Charles Boyd Nichols had the stone carved for his parents as well as his own family. Its style is more in keeping with the 1920s than 1888 let alone the 1860s.

photographed in Georgetown Cemetery 1 September 2011

Close by are the stones for the eldest in this Nichols family and his wife. Moses Eckles Nichols (1841 - 1908) has a stone inscribed "Father" beside one inscribed "Mother" for his wife Martha "Mattie" Coleman (Lightburne) Nichols (1845 - 1911.)

Georgetown Cemetery records are posted online and may be searched HERE.

Thriller Thursday: William Ackles Murdered 1789

This is as much mystery as thriller as I do NOT know who William Ackles was. Using abstracts to the Kentucky Gazette and the online index to it at the Kentuckiana Digital Library I have searched for everything on the surname Eckles and its spelling variations. I find no news article on this murder, but it made the paper when the court issued an alert that the perpetrator had fled with a directive to apprehend him. The Kentucky frontier of 1789 was an outpost of Virginia and could be quite dangerous in many ways. Without details of William Ackles being stabbed to death by Thomas McMillin we are left to imagine the location and circumstances.

Kentucky Gazette, 2 January 1790, Lexington, Kentucky, p.2

My ancestor, Robert Eckles first has records appearing in Fayette County, Kentucky, in 1788. The surname often is spelled with an "A" or Ackles and many other variation with either initial. While others of the surname were in neighboring counties, all records in Fayette and its seat of Lexington, seem to be of Robert's family. Except for the stabbing death of William. It is an event I need to research, if possible, to see if William is also related. The County Clerk had records in his home when it burned in 1803, but I have to learn whether that included criminal proceedings.

Robert's youngest son, born 1800 or later, was named William. As William is a common name, it is too early to believe this naming supports a connection to the murdered man.

Mystery Monday: Everyone Knew Her As Nancy – but her name was AGNES!

While I think I've solved part of this mystery, some is unresolved and now there are new mysteries. Last year I created a scrapbook page about three generations in my family all named Nancy. It makes for some interesting problems in identification.

An example of the identity problem begins with a book transcribing funeral invitations including one for a Mrs. Nancy Eckles in 1839. The transcriber attributed it to the first wife of Charles Eckles of Georgetown, Scott County, Kentucky. (Marie Dickore, compiler, Copies of Names on Invitations to Funerals and Burials In Scott County and Fayette County, Kentucky, 1821 - 1898 (Cincinnati, Ohio: n.pub., 1942), 8.) Based on other evidence I came to believe his wife had died earlier and that the 1839 death was really his mother. On a recent trip to Kentucky I found an item seeming to confirm that Charles' wife died earlier (see below.)

A big surprise about her name awaited in the County Clerk's office in Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky. A series of wills appears to show that Nancy (Boyd) Eckles was named Agnes but mostly called Nancy. Look at the names of daughters and sons in the wills of John Boyd (who seemed NOT to be her father with no child Nancy), John's widow Martha and their unmarried daughter Mary. John's will was written before Nancy Boyd married Charles Eckles in 1816 in Fayette County with bondsman James McIsaac. James McIsaac was married to John Boyd's daughter Martha and thus was Nancy's brother-in-law.

John and Martha both signed with their mark. John Boyd had been the most likely candidate for her father, so it is especially rewarding to find that he apparently was the one. Information on nicknames (History and Genealogy Unit, “A Listing Of Some 18th and 19th Century American Nicknames,” Connecticut State Library (http://www.cslib.org/nickname.htm: accessed 31 August 2011).) claims that Nancy could be a nickname for Agnes. The consistent list of names over the three wills seems to agree with that. The mother's will uses a number of nicknames for her other children as well. Another document tying Nancy to John Boyd is a guardian report by Charles Eckles in Scott County, KY. (Charles Eckles guardian report (recorded 17 January 1831), Scott County Will Book E, Part 2: 161, Scott County Clerk's Office, Georgetown, KY.) He received payment from the estate of John Boyd on 27 January 1830 as guardian of Mary and Nancy Eckles. They were his daughters. This seems to imply that their mother, the named heir of John Boyd, was probably deceased by this time and her daughters were receiving her inheritance.

Next question: was her mother-in-law really Agnes too?

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Help Through I Ching?

Randy Seaver's SNGF (at Genea-Musings) is really off the wall this week looking for genealogy research help by throwing the I Ching. His directions read:

1)  The writer of the Nuts from the Family Tree blog wrote about her question for the I Ching ( Book of Changes) guru in Cluless No More.  I thoguht that this might be a fun thing to do on Saturday night. 

2)  Go to http://IChingOnline.net and ask a question relating to your genealogy research.  You can "throw the coins virtually" or "throw the coins by hand."  You have to click the "throw" button six times, then click on "Read." 

3)  Report the question you asked and the answer you received, in the form of the Cast Hexagram (which explains the situation you are now in, or what has gone before), to your readers.    

4)  Does the answer make any sense to you?  How do you interpret the answer? 

5)  Write your own blog post about this, or post a comment on Facebook or Google Plus, or write a comment on this blog post.

I followed the directions and it was very interesting, maybe even hopeful.


My Question: Will I unravel the Eckles family in Fayette County, Kentucky? (see post here)

My Cast Hexagram:

The Cast Hexagram reading is for  45 - Gathering.

The first part of it reads:

The Lake rises by welcoming and receiving Earth's waters:
The King approaches his temple.
It is wise to seek audience with him there.

Success follows this course.
Making an offering will seal your good fortune.
A goal will be realized now.

That is followed by this Situational Analysis:

This is an important Convergence, and you must be part of it.
Look for the Center of this convergence.
Like waters running to the sea, like an astronomical convergence of planets revolving around the sun, you should let the gravity of this Center draw you near.
Others are also drawn to this Center, and among them you will find shared bonds and kindred spirits.
This tribal convergence will give you a clarity of purpose.
You will no longer be alone.

This sounds very encouraging to me, especially as I plan to go to Kentucky the end of the month and especially do research in Fayette and Scott counties. I've made contact with and hope to see relatives there I've not seen in about forty years, so the gathering might be very literal.

I tried the Custom Search at the Trigram Symbol tab, but of three "hits" and another using "Eccles" nothing was remotely connected. My question is very meaningful to me, but not an easy Internet search.

Thanks to Randy for a really different adventure on Saturday Night.

Treasure Chest Thursday: Will of Charles Williamson

Deborah (Williamson) Bell was my great-great grandmother. I wrote about difficulties learning the identity of her father. A very strong candidate was a Charles Williamson who died in Wood County, (West) Virginia in 1858. See my earlier post: HERE. He was included in a book by Raymond Martin Bell and Edna Marian Miller with just eight children. They did not include Deborah. I hoped they had missed some esoteric document, but a very basic document reveals the truth.

FamilySearch has browsable images of "West Virginia Will Books, 1756-1971" for all 55 counties of West Virginia. In Wood County's Will Book 5 I found three entries for Charles Williamson in the index: his will on p. 127-8 and two settlements on pp. 180-81 and 266-68. The image below is a little too small to read and not in the best of shape to begin with, but it is a treasure!

The will names eleven children. Based on the census records for Charles Williamson, I believe there were twelve, the additional one a daughter, Judith, who died in 1847 and is buried in Compton Cemetery in Wood County as are Charles, his wife Martha and other of their children. I created a table based on his census returns of who was represented assuming all the children were his children. The will now gives names to "my daughter Deborah Bell" but also daughter Sarah Williamson and son Samuel M. Williamson. The will named executors but Charles added a codicil naming his wife and Joseph Bell as executors. The settlements are done by executor Joseph Bell. He was Deborah's husband.

The Williamson book gives the maiden name of Charles's wife as Martha Martin. Learning her family will be added to my queries now. I will also have to verify the Williamson descent from Moses Sr. and his son John, both having served in the American Revolution, down to Charles.

I just found the will last night and when I saw those magic words "my daughter Deborah Bell" there was cheering in my house!
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• 1820 U.S. census, Tyler County, Virginia, p. 86; NARA M33, roll 140, digital images, Ancestry.com.
• 1830 U.S. Census, Tyler County, Virginia, p. 187; NARA M19, roll 200, Ancestry.com imaged from FHL microfilm 0,029,679.
• 1840 U.S. census, Washington County, Ohio, Marietta Township, p. 299; NARA M704, roll 433, Ancestry.com imaged from FHL microfilm 0,020,179.
• 1850 U.S. census, Wood County, Virginia, District 65, p. 110A; NARA M432, roll 981, digital images, Ancestry.com.

(all Virginia locations now in West Virginia)