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Category: Ancestors

A Clue in Samuel Downing’s Bible

A Clue in Samuel Downing’s Bible

Samuel Downing was born in Maryland. The family soon moved west. At the age of 18 he served with the Ohio Militia in the War of 1812. In 1818 he married Margaret Matthews in Pike County, Ohio. After her death he married her widowed sister Mary Matthews Day. Margaret and Mary were daughters of John Matthews, said to be a surveyor. The name of their mother is unknown. The only surviving Matthews child in 1880, William, said on the census…

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A Farmer is Born

A Farmer is Born

On this  date 128 years ago in a farmhouse three miles northwest of Mt. Pulaski in Logan County, Illinois, Eliza Harding Downing gave birth to her second son, Ellis. The couple already had an 18 month old. When Ellis was two he got another brother.  This picture was taken when he was about 4, just before his maternal grandparents, their other daughter and three sons, none of whom were married at the time, moved to Iowa. His father’s father had…

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Moved Away

Moved Away

Recently I had a discussion with a relative – our mothers were cousins – about some family members. I knew they married but lost track after that. She remarked it was because I moved away. I have heard a version of that before. But you know, if your ancestors hadn’t “moved away” you’d still be living in a cave in eastern Europe or wherever they currently think we came from. Our mutual ancestors come from people who “moved away” for…

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Where Does It End?

Where Does It End?

When I began entering my genealogy into PAF in the 1980s I pretty much stopped at my grandparents. Yes, my aunts and uncles, cousins and siblings, are there but not all the children of my grandparents’ cousins. Certainly not their children. Maybe not my cousin’s children. Vaguely there were concerns about privacy but also I wasn’t thinking about contemporaries. I was entering ancestors. With DNA there is the suggestion you need six generations of complete information. I’m doing ok –…

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John Downing, Revolutionary War Veteran

John Downing, Revolutionary War Veteran

John Downing was born about 1762 in Maryland. Thanks to DNA testing we know he saw service in the Washington County, Maryland, militia. He was a Private, 5th Class, in Capt. Basil Williams Company, 2nd Battalion, in 1778. For many years he was believed to have served in Pennsylvania. See John Downing’s Elusive Service. As far as we know, he did not apply for a pension which is part of the reason his service was elusive. As a result we…

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French’s Chapel – Methodist Church

French’s Chapel – Methodist Church

For 81 years French’s Chapel served the residents of a rural area in Logan County. It was located on the south side of Salt Creek and just west of the Primm Road, a little over seven miles northwest of Mt. Pulaski, five miles east of Broadwell, seven miles south of Lincoln. The church was built in 1870 on land originally owned by Asa and Hannah Clark French. Hannah was the daughter of John Winans Clark. Her uncle David Clark and her…

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Humphrey Scroggin, Revolutionary War Veteran

Humphrey Scroggin, Revolutionary War Veteran

Humphrey Scroggin has been discussed before. His burial place is almost certainly in Carlyle Cemetery but his DAR marker is in Steenbergen. See Who is Buried in Humphrey Scroggin’s Grave? Humphrey Scroggin was born in 1763 in Culpeper, Virginia. He served in Capt. S. Tarrant’s Company of Colonel Abram Penn’s Regiment. His application for a pension was more detailed as to his service record. “On this seventeenth day of November, Eighteen hundred and Thirty four, personally appeared before the Circuit Court,…

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James Turley, Revolutionary War Veteran

James Turley, Revolutionary War Veteran

James Turley was born January 8, 1761, in Fairfax County, Virginia. We know a great deal about James Turley because he wrote about his life in detail his application for a Revolutionary War pension. “I was born in the year 1761 at my residence in this County, I have a record of my [birth] copied from my Father’s family Bible.” It was in Virginia in 1781 that he married Agnes Kirby. Agnes was one of the daughters of David Kirby…

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Lake Fork Predestinarian Baptist Church

Lake Fork Predestinarian Baptist Church

I originally placed a version of this on the Logan County ILGenWeb site, of which I am the County Coordinator. It remains there. Since that time there have been many changes. I no longer know the location of one copy of the records. The one I know of is too fragile to scan further. I understand the Primitive Baptist Library in Carthage, Illinois, has an old photocopy of one set. I am posting the information here using the theory that…

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Who Is Buried in Humphrey Scroggin’s Grave?

Who Is Buried in Humphrey Scroggin’s Grave?

This is a photo of the marker on the grave of one Humphrey Scroggin in Steenbergen Cemetery, Mt. Pulaski Township, Logan County, Illinois. But does it mark the grave of Humphry Scroggin, Revolutionary War veteran? Humphrey Scroggin, the RW veteran, was born about 1763 in Culpepper County, Virginia. According to his pension application he was drafted twice to serve out of Henry County, Virginia. After the war he bought land in District 96, South Carolina, in 1784, is found in…

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