Dear Cousins on the List In colonial research, the most frustrating part of tracking ancestors is figuring out who and where they were. As researchers we know that records that portray these people were almost always written by others. The original documents of "average" colonial families were few and far between and so their records are most often found in county, church or military documents that were written by Others. Identitying who they were according to these records is a great and often frustrating challenge, but it is a fun challenge too. Ancestors were very much on the move in the 18th century, as they moved their names were misinterpreted in new and different ways from the old misinterpretations! Then their misinterpreted names are misinterpreted again by a couple of centuries by transcribers! In this period the problems are compounded by names being pronounded in ways that we can't even imagine by that strange melange of English speaking, German speaking, Dutch speaking, Gaelic speaking, (etc.) group that formed the Backcountry society. As these Backcountry people moved they were on the fringe of civilization. They were often beyond the frontier; they were ones who pushed the frontier west and south. So, when they moved, their land was sometimes not recorded, and then, where they were moving was often in dispute. All along the frontier -- Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Carolina borders, the borders changed, leaving settlers unsure of what colony their land was in. Parts of these areas became West Virginia, Ohio, Ky, North and South Carolina, but also, as time moved on and disputes were settled, land that had been considered to be in Pennsylvania was ultimately considered Virginia. Land that was considered Maryland became Pennsylvania, and so on. Then, as border disputes were settled the parent counties in each of these colonies began to be divided into subareas and new counties formed. It is crazy-making! In our present focus on the NW/SW Perimeter, Rowan County in northwest Carolina was restructured into almost countless new counties, continuing into the mid-1800's. The early Rowan county tax lists are extant from the 1750's. Because of all these factors in figuring who and where has resulted in failure to properly identify individuals in this region. The internet is providing us the means to recheck assumptions made by searchers as long as 30 years ago (maybe longer!), myself included. Thirty years ago when I first began researching my families, I never felt I had any NC connections. I never felt I had any Maryland connections either, which ultimately was where I discovered my Penningtons came from. I was wrong, and now I feel my Penningtons had connections to the NC Penningtons that are still shrouded in mystery, but the fog is beginning to lift! The next page at the website will include ideas and examples on how to overcome Identity problems from both misidentification factors: misidentification from name variants, and misidentification from locality. Most often I use Penningtons as the central focus, but I use them as a generic identity. Penningtons are simply the focus. You can employ the same tactics with any other Backcountry family because their associations, their kinship, and their migrations follow the same patterns. I've found that in determining identity for one family you often also discover the identity of many others. Stay tuned to this station for updates! Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn Carolyn McDaniel cmacdee@teleport.com ========================================= --- Visit American Crossroads --- http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads