Genealogy Jottings

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For the first time in a very long time, I did no genealogy this week.

We went to the mountains to hike and to visit the hot springs, but we did not do research. We did not visit sites associated with our families.

Instead, we relaxed in beautiful southern Wyoming!

Tax records, when available, can provide year-by-year clues and insight into families in early America. This week I looked for the Reeds on Shelby County, Kentucky lists from 1792-1815.

I found many residents with this name and its variants Reed, Reid, Read, and Ried. They were clustered on different waterways in the county.

Some lived on lands along Clear Creek, Brashears Creek, and Bullskin Creek. I do not know whether they are related to me or not.

My own known group lived along Elk Creek. Caleb Reed (1756-abt 1832) had a place there. Others included his brother Joshua and sons Thomas and Caleb C. I also found David and Barnett. I do not know the relationship between the last two and Caleb’s family. Perhaps they were additional brothers to Caleb and Joshua.

I learned some interesting information about the Reed family from the tax lists:

1. My ancestor Caleb had more livestock than the others did. He always had at least 4 horses and sometimes as many as eight. The others had 2-3. In the early years, when cattle were included on the tax list, he had over a dozen. The others had fewer.
2. Caleb possessed a larger farm than the other relatives had. He was taxed in some years for 350 acres compared to 89 for his brother Joshua.
3. The tax lists confirm the age of Caleb’s son Thomas. Family records say this son was born in 1783. In 1799, a male 16-21 appears in Caleb’s household. The new 16-year-old must have been Thomas.
4. The tax lists provide a clue to the age of Caleb’s son Caleb C. Reed. Other records offer conflicting information for his birth year. According to the 1820 census, he was born about 1775, long before his father was married. The 1810 census for Caleb’s household includes a son who may have been Caleb C. who was born much later, 1784-94. The 1804 tax list includes an additional male 16-21, perhaps Caleb C. If he turned 16 that year, he was born about 1788, the same date range as the youth on the 1810 census. This would place him between two other known children, Abigail (1785) and John (1794). Assigning a birth year of 1788 makes sense for Caleb C. given the evidence of the 1804 tax list, the 1810 census, and the sibling birth years. The 1820 census must have misattributed his age.
5. Caleb’s eldest daughter Sarah (Sally) married Thomas Johns in 1799. He appears on the tax list for the first time that year. His last entry is in 1808. He was not in Shelby County in 1810. The tax list provides a more precise year for the family moving away.
6. Caleb’s second daughter Rachel married Augustine Elliott in 1801. He regularly paid taxes from 1802 until his death in 1808. The following year, Rachel began paying the tax.
7. Caleb’s youngest daughter Elizabeth married Jonah Harris in 1814. He appears on the tax list for the first time the prior year, in 1813 and again in 1814. I did not find him on the 1815 list. Either he was missed or the family had moved away by then. They do not appear on the 1820 census for Shelby County.
8. In 1810, Caleb again had a male 16-21 in his household. If his son Caleb C. Reed was born in 1788, he was over 21 that year. The new 16-21-year-old would have been Caleb’s youngest son, John who was born in 1794 according to family records.
9. In the early years, the tax entries were listed by date paid. This changed in 1813 when the taxpayers were listed by militia group. The Reeds were listed in Reed’s Company of the 85^th Regiment. Caleb had been a captain in the Corn Stalk Militia several years earlier, but I do not know whether he or someone else led the company in 1813.
10. Joshua and Barnett Reed continued to appear on the tax list throughout the period. David last appeared in 1811 and was not replaced by a widow or possible son the following year. Perhaps he moved away.

Going through tax lists can be tedious. I took three sessions to view the years from 1792 to 1815. Yet I found the effort worthwhile, especially for a state where no census records exist for 1790 and 1800.

As I continue to do research on the life of my ancestor Thomas Reed (1783-1852), I am finding it helpful to look at the lives of his collateral relatives. He had several sisters, and women can be difficult to trace. But two of these women were widowed young, and their husbands’ estate papers shed light on the Reed family:

1. Rachel Reed Elliott (1781-1868). Rachel married Augustine Elliott in Shelby County, Kentucky about 1801. They had three children, Alfred (1802), Sarah (1803), and Ludwell (1807). Augustine passed away not long after Ludwell was born. Probate papers for him date from 1808, and Rachel was the Administratrix. My ancestor Thomas was named in the Settlement, receiving a gun. Material goods went to other Reed relatives as well. Rachel seems to have been a capable woman. She never remarried but moved on to Washington County, Indiana where she accumulated a large landholding. Her father Caleb Reed eventually moved in with her, and she cared for him until his death. She left sizable farms to each of her children.
2. Abigail Reed Kirkham Shaw (1785-1854). Abigail first married John Kirkham, the brother of Thomas Reed’s wife, my ancestor Anne Kirkham Reed (1782-1869). John and Abigail married in Shelby County, Kentucky on Christmas Eve in 1804, but he did not live long. The couple had settled in Nelson County, Kentucky where he passed away before August 1807. Abigail’s father Caleb Reed served as Administrator of the estate. Again, the Reeds received household and farm goods. I have not determined Abigail’s whereabouts for the decade after her husband died. She remarried in Shelby County nearly ten years later in 1817. She and her new husband James Joseph Shaw had five children in Kentucky, Josiah (1817), Peter (1819), Caleb (1821), Mary (1824), and Rachel (1828) before moving to Harrison County, Indiana about 1830. There they developed an interest in Texas, and they moved to Fayette County, Texas about 1835. They were just in time for Joseph and the older sons to participate in the War of Texas Independence. The Shaws became prominent citizens in their county, and their son Josiah served in the Texas Legislature.

These sisters had close dealings with their Reed family while they all lived in Kentucky. The men served as witnesses and bondsmen for one another as needed. Thomas Reed’s name appears throughout the legal dealings of Augustine Elliott and John Kirkham.

Yet life in Kentucky must not have been to their liking because they all left the area between 1815-1830. Perhaps the exodus was due to the tangled land titles in this part of Kentucky.

Thomas went to Illinois in 1829, but no other Reeds went with them. Other early settlers in their area may have been related to Thomas’ mother.

More work remains to be done with his collateral relatives to sort out the family tree. Thomas’ grandmothers were surnamed Boyd and Carr, and numerous people with these names appear in the Illinois records. They were likely relatives of the Reeds.

I grew up in Casper, Wyoming. I lived there from 1962-1975 and then again from 1981-85. It was an oil town back then. My father, my father-in-law, and I were all associated with the oil business.

The big producers began to leave in the late 60s, and by the late 80’s were all gone. Two of the refineries closed. The earlier generation of employees retired, and the rest of us moved on as the industry slid towards Texas.

Some of our family members remained in Casper, and we return to visit now and then. We were there earlier this week and drove around to see what has changed over the years.

We passed by several places that had been important in our young lives:

1. The house I grew up in looks much the same except for a new front porch. The maple tree my father planted in the front yard is quite tall now.
2. My husband/tech advisor’s family home has not changed much. The family sold it only a few years ago when his mother moved to assisted living. There is a newer, bigger shed in the backyard.
3. The schools I attended–Fairdale Elementary, East Junior High, and Kelly Walsh High School–have all been torn down. Only Kelly Walsh was rebuilt. These schools stood in a newer part of Casper, and the 1960s buildings did not weather well.
4. My husband’s schools are all still there. His Natrona County High School dates from the 1920s and will outlast us all.
5. His church building survives as well. My congregation outgrew the building I knew and moved elsewhere.
6. The office buildings where my dad and I worked are still standing. I saw a Space for Lease sign atop his.

Casper seems to be growing. At 60,000, the population is nearly twice what it had been when I first lived there. The town spreads east-west along the North Platte River and south towards Casper Mountain. With a dwindled oil business, the large employers are the hospital and Casper College.

Most of the stores we knew have been repurposed into other establishments. The mall stands mostly empty. New retail has been built to the east on land that was open prairie when I lived there. A wind farm dominates part of the skyline.

I enjoyed driving around the city to reminisce. Casper looks familiar to me but not the same. A lot changes in sixty years.

Two generations of my Reed family lived in Shelby (now Spencer) County, Kentucky after the Revolutionary War. They left footprints in the county records, but census records have been more difficult to find.

For starters, the U. S. census records for Kentucky in 1790 and 1800 are missing. The British destroyed the 1790 Kentucky schedules during the War of 1812. The 1800 schedules were lost.

A census substitute for the 1790 census exists in the form of the 1792 tax list for the county. Caleb Reed’s name appears there. He was taxed for land on the Elk Creek watershed. His son Thomas was still a child then.

1810

The first year for which a Shelby County census record is available is 1810. Both Caleb and Thomas had households in the county that year. They appear next to each other on the census sheet.

The male aged 26-45 in Thomas’ household is likely him. There is a female the same age, probably his wife Ann. There are also two boys under 10. We know of only one, Robertson, who was born before 1810. The other boy may have been an additional son who died young and whose name has been lost to us.

Caleb’s household cannot be fully explained with the information we have. He must have been the male over 45 years old. A female the same age resides in the household, too. She may have been his wife, Rebecca whose death date we do not know. Caleb remarried a few years later, in 1816.

There are numerous young people in Caleb’s household. The 1810 census does not provide their names. A male 16-26 could have been his son Caleb C. Reed whose birth year we do not know. A younger male aged 10-16 may have been his son John Reed, born in 1794.

A female 10-16 may have been his daughter Elizabeth who was 13 years old, born in 1797.

That leaves a female 16-26 and four younger children. Who were they?

Two of Caleb’s daughters, Rachel and Abigail, had been widowed by 1810. Abigail was 25 that year, but she had no children with her first husband. If she was the female 16-26, who were the children?

Rachel was 29 that year. Was her age misattributed? She may have been living with her father in 1810, but her children do not fit the enumeration in Caleb’s household. She had 3 children, not four. Her two sons and a daughter all would have been under 10 that year. The census record lists an additional girl under 10. Three of these could have been the known children of Rachel, but who was the fourth girl? Did Rachel have another daughter who died?

1820

This is the last census year in which Caleb and Thomas lived in Kentucky. By 1830, Caleb had moved to join his daughter Rachel’s household in Indiana, and Thomas had migrated to Illinois.

In Thomas’ household, we again find too many children. The girls under 10 would have been his daughters Eliza and Jane. There were also four boys, but we know of only two—Robertson born in 1808 and Caleb born in 1818. Did this family lose 2 sons, or were these other relatives?

Caleb’s 1820 listing was difficult to find. It took an every name search of Shelby County because he was indexed with the surname Rua instead of Reed.

Again, he had a large household. He had married the widow Elizabeth Van Dyke in 1816. They both appear in the household along with three young people under 25. These younger household members would not be Rachel’s family as she had moved to Indiana by 1820 and was enumerated there. Caleb’s other children were married and had their own households by then. Were the unidentified people part of the new wife Elizabeth’s family?

In addition to the unnamed people on the free white persons schedule, Caleb’s household included a slave schedule for the first time. Elizabeth, the widow of a plantation owner, brought these people along to her marriage with Caleb. They may have remained with her Van Dyke children after she had died several years later and Caleb went to Indiana.

These early census records require some close analysis because they do not name everyone in the household. The tick marks after the listing for the head of household present tantalizing clues to the genealogist.

For the Reeds, we are left with several questions. Who were the extra boys in Thomas’ household? Who were the unknown people in Caleb’s? We can only guess. Many people who died during those years in Kentucky were buried on their family farms, and records for them do not survive.

A complete genealogical research plan requires supplementing these early census records with other sources.

 

My maiden name is the very common surname Reed. The family has spelled it this way since the mid-1800s. But that was not always so.

When they lived in Kentucky (ca. 1790-abt. 1830), many of them could not read and write. They relied on lawyers and government officials to write their names for them. The records for the family turn up with their name spelled in several ways. I keep having to remember to check for alternate spellings.

Usually, the name was the familiar Reed. But often in the land and probate records I am finding Reid. And the family seems to have been a large one.

Now my job is to pick them apart and place them into family groups. There seem to have been two clusters in Shelby County, and I do not know if they were related to one another.

My own cluster lived along Elk Creek in what was then Shelby County but is now part of Spencer County. These members were my ancestor Caleb; his possible brothers Barnett/Barnard, David, and Joshua; and his sons Caleb C., Thomas, and John.

Other Reed/Reid men lived in other parts of the county. The most prominent one was Alex Reid. Their lands remained in Shelby County when Spencer County was carved out in 1824.

I believe I will need to make a spreadsheet to help me sort out all these men. It does not help when half the men in my family were named Caleb. The family in the other cluster did not seem to use that name.

This job will take some doing, but I have an advantage in this. The records from these counties have survived. I do have access to material that will help me create a good family tree for the Kentucky Reeds.

 

We just celebrated Independence Day, and I began thinking about the patriotism of my own family.

The Reeds lived in the northern United States in the colonies of New Jersey and Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War. They moved south to Kentucky in the early 1790s. So, did their loyalties lie with the North or the South seventy years later during the Civil War? By then the family had continued to migrate, and branches of the family lived far apart from one another.

My own line of the Reed family was in southern Illinois. Thomas Reed (1783-1852) became a pioneer settler in Coles County in 1829. Illinois was a Union state, but many residents of the southern counties had come from Kentucky and were Southern sympathizers. The allegiance of these Reeds cannot be assumed.

Thomas’s next younger sister Abigail (1785-1854) moved to Texas with her second husband Joseph Shaw (1789-1865) around 1835. Texas became a Confederate state.

Before their moves, Thomas and Abigail had been close. His wife Ann Kirkham (1782-1869), and Abigail’s first husband John Kirkham (1779-1809) were also siblings. Their families did not relocate in opposite directions until the Reed siblings were in their mid-40s.

Yet they did separate with one going north and the other going south. Why? And what did that mean for the sides they chose in the Civil War?

Thomas’s middle son, Caleb, who was my ancestor, had been just eleven years old when the family parted. His cousins Josiah Shaw and Peter Van Dyke Shaw were about the same age as Caleb. They were all tweens, as we would say, when their families left Kentucky.

I do not know whether they ever saw one another again or if they kept in touch. There must have been some communication because Thomas and Abigail each received legacies in their father’s 1832 will, probated in Indiana.

But how much influence did their family ties have on the thinking of these cousins when the war broke out thirty years later? Longtime Kentucky residents Thomas and Abigail had died well before the conflict began in 1861. Their sons probably knew that their birth state of Kentucky never joined the Confederacy even though many in that state supported its cause. Which way should they turn?

Caleb Reed was 41 years old when the war began. He had lived in Illinois since childhood. As far as we know, he did not serve. Given his Kentucky roots and his location in southern Illinois, he could have supported either side. We do know that his brother-in-law, childhood friend, and neighbor Robert Boyd lost two sons to the Union cause. If Caleb’s family and the Boyds were alike in their politics, perhaps the Reeds were loyal to the Union, too.

On the other hand, Abigail’s Texas family made a different decision and became true Confederates. Josiah served as a Captain in the Texas state troops. Peter was a Lieutenant in Rabb’s Company, CSA.

So one sibling’s (Thomas) family likely stayed loyal to the Union while the other one’s (Abigail) family joined the Confederacy. The explanation lies in their roots.

The Reeds had come from the northern colonies of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Most returned to the north after their stint in Kentucky. Thomas went to Illinois while his sisters Rachel Elliott and Elizabeth Harris and his brother John Reed all migrated to Indiana, a Union state. Their older sister Sarah Johns’ family went to Missouri where three of her sons fought, and one died, for the Union.

Abigail, on the other hand, married Joseph Shaw who was born in Tennessee. He had a deep southern identity and always lived in the South. He spent two years in a Mexican prison while fighting for Texas independence. Abigail and her husband were in Texas when it became a republic. The South and Texas held the hearts of the Shaw family despite Abigail’s family ties.

Thus, the Reed descendants of the Revolutionary War generation had some divided loyalties during the war between the states. Most remained true to the Union. One branch, for understandable reasons, served on the other side.

As Independence Day approaches, my thoughts turn to those family members who served in the Revolutionary War:

1. Gershom Hall (1760-1844). This Harwich man served a 90-day stint guarding the Massachusetts coast to prevent a British invasion. I joined the DAR based on his service record.
2. Robert Kirkham. This Virginian served at Boonesborough. He took part in a raid across the Ohio River to attack a Shawnee village, preventing them from aiding the British. I have a supplemental DAR application based on his service pending at the DAR.
3. John Day. Another Virginian, he served in the militia. I have not compiled an application based on his service yet. I am not sure I can find the documentation necessary to link up all the generations between him and me.

I have several other ancestors whose lineage and service I have yet to document:

1. Levi Carter (b. 1737) and Caleb Carter (1758-1811). This father and son probably served from North Carolina or Tennessee. We do not yet have enough information on this lineage or service to submit a DAR application.
2. Caleb Reed (1756-abt. 1832). The Reeds lived in Fayette Co., PA during the War. Caleb’s brother Joshua Reed served in the Virginia militia. Although Caleb was the right age to serve, we have found no proof that he did. I have this lineage proven, so I could submit a DAR application if I could find evidence that he supported the war effort in some other way.
3. Robert Templeton. He was of the Revolutionary War generation and lived in Tennessee, but I know nothing more about him. I have done no research on the Templetons although my dad’s cousins did. Their papers remain in a file drawer awaiting review.

At the DAR, we can order an engraved pin with our ancestor’s name and service once the application is approved. So far, I have one pin and one pending application. It would be nice to make the case for more and preserve their lineage and service information.

Caleb Reed (1756-abt. 1832) settled his family along Elk Creek in Spencer County, Kentucky in the 1790s. Family members lived in the area until 1830 or so but left few footprints. I was thus excited to visit a place that dates from their time in the county. An original house with a family connection still stands.

Caleb’s second wife was Elizabeth Van Dyke whom he married in 1816. The Van Dykes were a prominent family who owned a grist mill on nearby Brashears Creek. Their home, built in the 1790s, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

When we visited Kentucky a couple of weeks ago, we decided to stop in for a look. We found Spencer to be a rural county, and we had to drive along many narrow roads, some dirt, to find the house. It lies across the road from the creek and sits back by several yards.

The exterior of the home looked well maintained. A vehicle was parked outside, and building materials were stacked alongside the house. No one seemed to be around.

Then we noticed someone on a tractor cutting hay in a nearby field. He spotted us, too, and drove over.

He was the owner of the place, and we explained why we were there. He was interested to meet people with a connection to the Van Dykes, even if it is just by marriage.

He explained that he is restoring the place in hopes of retiring there. Then he invited us inside for a tour.

What a delightful time we spent there! The original part of the house has two rooms up and two rooms down. He has used reclaimed wood from an old tobacco barn for the floors. The staircase is a rare, split style. The rooms on the ground floor have the original fireplaces, one at each end of the house. He is trying to save the original plaster on the walls.

I wonder if my ancestor Caleb Reed ever visited there. He did marry into the family that built the house. I like to think he may have walked through that doorway.

I was thrilled to see the place, and I owe a big thanks to my husband/tech advisor for driving me to another obscure place to find my roots.

Not often does one run across a new genealogical source. We tend to focus on the familiar ones like census records, vital records, court records, pension records, and cemetery records. But how many of us have consulted or even heard of the records of the “Corn Stalk” Militia in Kentucky?

I, for one, did not know that such an organization even existed. I came across a reference to it while preparing for an upcoming research trip by reviewing the holdings of the genealogy collections in the Louisville and Taylorsville, Kentucky libraries.

The Militia was active from 1792-1811, or from statehood until the onset of the War of 1812. It was created to meet the need for a military establishment on the frontier. It was called the “Corn Stalk” Militia because regimental musters were held in October each year. The troops had no firearms for drills and often used corn stalks in the place of guns.

Free males between the ages of 18 and 45 were liable for militia duty. My Reed family lived in Shelby County, Kentucky during the years of the Militia. Our men would have been eligible to serve in the militia during the years of its existence.

I decided to investigate what records of the militia might be available. On Family Search, I located a digitized book about the Militia. The author, G. Glenn Clift of the Kentucky Historical Society, included a fine index of militia officers. In it, I found the names of several Reads, Reeds, and Reids. It includes names from my own family tree including Caleb Reed and his sons Thomas and John.

Were these militia officers my family members?

The answer will take more investigation. The indexed men served in different ranks from various regiments. I will need to see which Reed militiamen served in Shelby County where my family lived.

If I can make the case that men on the roster were my family members, I can look for records of military actions by their units. These accounts would add some wonderful information to my family story.