Saturday, April 2, 2016

Which William Webb is my ancestor?

My gut feeling tonight is that MY 4-gr-grandfather, William Webb, was living in the area of Kentucky near Bowling Green in 1812 when his daughter, Nancy, was born.  Nancy is my 3-gr-grandmother.  I wanted to explore the idea of how many William Webbs were living in that area in that time period.  So my first thought is to look at the census of 1810 to see who I can find.  Using the census collection on ancestry, I find the following in the County of Logan, Kentucky.  It shows William Webb with 2 male children under 10, 1 male between the ages of 26 and 44, 1 female under 10, 1 female between the ages of 26 and 44.  It is a young household with five people living in it.  My Nancy is not yet born.  This is a possible scenario for my ancestor.



There is an older couple with last name Webb just after William's entry.  The man's name is Thomas.  According to other researchers, William and his wife, Nancy, named a son Thomas.  Is this a coincidence?  Is this meaningful?

There is another William Webb in the same time period who also has a young family in Warren County:


This man has 2 males under 10,  1 male 10-15,  he is 26-44, 1 female 10-15, and female in his same age bracket.  This family is also a possibility for my ancestors as other researchers have given me ages for children, and it would seem that my Nancy was one of the later children.  Actually this is a better scenario for the William that our group has been thinking about as Isaac should have been in that age range of 10-15 in order to have married his wife in 1816 in Indiana.

And there is also a William Webb in Barren County:



Oh, phooey....it is never as simple as I had hoped.  This man has 3 males under 10, 1 male 10-15,  1 16-25, and 1 male 45 or over.  2 females under 10-15, 1 female 16-25, and 1 female 26-44.  If other researcher's information is correct, William Webb had birth date of c. 1762 which would have made William 48.  Hmmmm....The William Webb in Logan and Warren may have been too young.....This last William Webb would have been a better age.  However, my Nancy is not yet born.  So she must have parents young enough to have another child in 1812.  And Torey tells me that her ancestor, Sarah was not born to the couple until 1815.

This morning I started the morning thinking that MY William Webb was likely to be the William Webb that connects to Winnie's Martin/Merry Webb line.  However, Winnie has told me that she has recently found information:

Marsha, I recently found records where William Webb lived on land belonging to my Martin Webb just after Martin died.  This William is mentioned in 1826 Edmonson County Ky ca 1826 along with other family members.  Edmonson was created from Warren, Hart and Grayson Counties. I cannot find him at a later date.

Torey just explained:

Yes, they moved to Warrick County (adjacent to Gibson) in Indiana in 1814 and stayed for ten years.  Son Isaac married Ruth Strickland in Gibson County in 1816.  The Stricklands were a family that travelled with the Webbs.  They are listed on the same census as James McClure in Gibson County in 1820.  They all moved on to Illinois in the mid-1820s.

With that clue, I will look this morning to see if I can find a Strickland Family in the census of 1810.  I don't find this to be a helpful clue.  The only Strickland Family in the 1810 census found in Kentucky is James Strickland who lives in Smithland, Livingston, Kentucky.  This is too far to be neighbors.  If this is Ruth Strickland's family, they are not yet traveling with the Webb family.  But they do live close enough to Indiana to have moved there in the coming years.