This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/hZ.2ADIB/1696.1 Message Board Post: This Richard Allison is part of the larger Allison clan that migrated from Maryland in the 18th century to western North Carolina. Many of this family settled around Old Fort in McDowell Co, NC. The census inaccuracies you see are not all that uncommon. Mary evidently was a second wife to Richard, who was aging, and so may or may not have provided the census information herself. Sometimes the census taker just looked at the woman and guessed! Women frequently don't age much in the census. As for the missing child Benjamin in 1860: he was 16 by then and could have been off working as a farmhand for another family or could have died in the years between the census. I can't tell you who Richard precisely descends from, but I do know that given his location and the names of his children (Richard, Benjamin, and Thomas among them), that he is from this larger Allison clan, all descendants of Thomas Allanson/Allison of Christian Temple Manor, Charles Co, MD. There is a message on Genforum about this family. I can't vouch for the accuracy, but it says that Mary was a Ricketts and the second wife of Richard Allison. See www.genforum.com, go to the Allison forum to message 572 for the message about the family of this Richard. The person who can best help you sort this out is Michael Allison, who heads the national Allison Family Association. His email is dma12@bellsouth.net . However, I suggest you wait until early November to contact him. He is very busy all this month with the annual national Allison family reunion the weekend of Oct 15 in Brevard, NC. Good luck. If this is your family, then you have more cousins that you can imagine out there! Sandra Kidd descendant of Ephraim Noah Allison to Thomas Allison, Jr., to Thomas Allison, Sr., to Benjamin Allison, Sr., to Thomas Allison to Charles Allanson to Thomas Allanson, the immigrant to MD and Lord of Christian Temple Manor, Charles Co, MD