Dear Cousins, I raised a number of issues about re-evaluating identity, kinship, and relationship in my last e-mail. I used Penningtons as the focus of this identity crisis, because Penningtons have been at the heart of my research since I began looking up my families in 1969, and it has been the Pennington surname association's methods (and lack thereof) which raised my hackles enough to form American Crossroads. My point is, whether we are focusing on Penningtons or some other family, if they are part of the American Backcountry Culture that began in the Delaware Valley and moved south and west of the Appalachian mountains, they will have similar movement, be associated with the same perimeter localities, intermarry in the same families, and keep ranging south and westward in the same ways the Penningtons did. The methodology will be the same: History + Locality + Kinship = Identity. I believe that just as I was able to find information for Josie's families who are interconnected in northern Virginia, each Crossroads searcher will be able to find information on their surnames, using the same methodology. I got an answer from my pal Pete Pennington this morning, suggesting that maybe the many Levi Pennington answers/documentation do not exist in the records. Au contraire, mon cher ami/Cuz! I think it exists but we don't know where to look, and who to look for. This is at the heart and soul of creating American Crossroads as a means of applying new concepts of research to old genealogical problems. First, you have to understand the history of the region (and the people) in order to understand how to search for documents. Let's take the equation and apply it first to Old Frederick County, VA. History: Briefly, Frederick County was formed in 1734 from Orange, which was formed from Spotsylvania, etc. The original settlements were by some Germans led by the Stover family, the Quakers establishing Hopewell Monthly Meeting, and a land developing group led by Jost Hite with Isaac and John VanMetre. The Quakers' area was called Hopewell, and the area of Jost Hite and the VanMetres was referred to as Sherrando, (later written Shanandoah, after the River that defined the Watershed of the area.) My webpage about these Sherrando and Hopewell, along with the earliest patentees, is at http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads/Migrations/virginia.ht ml Locality: First, the changes in the Virginia counties are enough to make someone go absolutely bonkers. (NC too.) One needs to examine the counties made before Frederick (Orange and possibly Spotsylvania) as well as counties made afterward in order to thoroughly search for records pertaining to Frederick County. Additionally, you have to keep in mind that the waterways were the key to migration and settlement. The Potomac River separated this section of Virginia from Maryland. The Maryland localities on the other side of the Potomac have to be taken into consideration when delving into the genealogy of people of this region. Online, visit the genweb pages for each of the counties involved and follow their suggestions for links and online resources. Remember to check counties that were formed later from Frederick county. These too can be found at the Migrations/virginia page. You may find where your family was is now in West Virginia. Also some VA records might end up in PA, NC, SC; or vice versa. There are great online mapping servers that can really help with this. Kinship: Only you will know the surnames and variants connected with the families you're searching for. But here is the tricky part. You have to know the history in order to know what surnames might apply, and you will have to learn to think up spelling possibilities that might apply to your kinship families. You will have to be clever in finding possibilities to develop as clues. When I first started searching I didn't consider Quaker relationships and I didn't use the LDS files and Family History Centers because I didn't believe I had any Quaker or Mormon relatives. Terrible Mistake! There's lots of information to be found in Hopewell records about families who settled in Frederick County. Similarly, look for surname variants in the usual records and in Mormon records. Kinship and Variants: One Virginia searcher I wrote to about Pennington/Pembertons simply waved me aside saying their family never used that variant. Well, maybe their family didn't, but maybe the census taker did. Or the marriage records indexer did, or the county clerk, or the church recorder. Or maybe any of those fellas used Pendleton or Penton or Peninton or Piddinton, or any of a dozen other combinations. If you're searching on the internet -- with a search engine -- you will have to use each of those variants. I've also heard "one branch of the family started spelling it with one n, or two n's or adding an s," or some such. Well, usually it wasn't what the family chose, but what the person writing the record chose. I have found it written Pentinton, Penitant, Pennyton, even just Penny or Penn, and the record still referred to a Pennington. If you have access to a complete list, say an entire index rather than just the extracted names, you will be able to pick out possibilities. Don't forget to look in the B's, the D's and R's for Penningtons. You will be amazed to find Benningtons where Penningtons lived, Denningtons where the Penningtons lived, and Remingtons where the Penningtons lived. Each one may be Pennington after examining it further with clarifying information. The Largant family connected with Abraham Pennington is often indexed as Sargent. The Hyland family in Cecil county is confused with the Ryland family. Just remember always to follow up with further confirming records. This week I've been checking the book, "Colony of North Carolina 1735 to 1764, Abstracts of Land Patents, Volume One," by Margaret M. Hoffmann. Not one Pennington in it. Here's what I did find: Isaac Barrington 3641, 6997, Isaac Sr., 6943, 6997, Nathan, 5921; Mr. Parkeson 5816; James Parkinson 1125, 1132; Seth Pelkinton / Pelkington 4000 etc.; Edward Pemberton 910; Thomas Pendleton 1972; Thomas Pinson 6283, 6284; Linnington, George; 3837, 3838, 6380; William Crentonton 938; AND Allied or Other Kinship Families (with a gadzillion variants): Bell; Berry; Boone, Bonner; Crockett; Crouch; Davis, etc; Dick; Dunn; Elliott; Evans; Hogg; Hollingsworth; Holland; Keys; King; Lamb; Lane; Lewis; McDaniel, Morgan, Osborne Pearce/Pierce, etc., Thomas Odle 1252; Parsons, Parry/Perry; Phillips; Richardson, Roberts/Robards; Ross, Russell, Saltar, Sanders, Sheppard/Shepherd, Sikes/Sykes; Sims, Smith, Standley/Stanley; Stewart/Stuart; Swain/Swan, William Teague 4719, 4774, 4912, 5122, 5397, 5780; Tuley; Tyson; Watters/Watson/Wyat (no Watts); Whitle/Whitley, Wilcox/Wilcocks; Williams; Whorley, etc. I've looked over the Barrington records, and I am relatively sure that these apply to Penningtons. I haven't yet begun on the other likely ones. Cousins, this is what it means to research. When records of the history, localities, and kinship are interwoven together, I guarantee you will start finding your "longlost" ancestral identities within those interwoven results. Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn Carolyn McDaniel cmacdee@teleport.com ========================================= To send a message to the American Crossroads List: AMXROADS-L@rootsweb.com --- Visit American Crossroads --- http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads