One Brooks ancestor found, one Brooks ancestor lost... Dear Friends, Well, I finally had prints made of the photos I took of gravestones at Pine Island Historical Cemetery in Norwalk. While copying the information from my notes to the back of each photo, as some inscriptions were not clear, I came across the photo of one gravestone belonging to a Mary B. Brooks, wife of Moses VanHouten. At the time I visited the cemetery, for some reason, I didn't think she was part of my Brooks ancestry, even though her stone was fairly close to the others. However, lo and behold, upon searching various spellings of the VanHouten name, I found out that Eli Brooks, son of Lemuel and Lydia Benedict of Norwalk had their first child, a daughter, named Mary Borden? Bowden? Brooks on April 12, 1818. Therefore, Eli Brooks had at least five children, not four, as I previously reported back in August. Now Eli had two sons, Alanson Brooks, who died when he was 23 years old and as far as I know did not have any children, and Jeremiah T. Brooks, who had two children listed on the 1860 census, Hiram and Lucy B. I had been frantically pursuing whatever happened to Hiram, the only one left to carry on the Brooks name in my direct line. I must have been brain dead when I was entering the info into my file as I have just recently realized Hiram was born 6 years BEFORE the marriage of Jeremiah T. Brooks and Mary Ann Knapp. What a dummy! So there ended my search. Hiram was not the biological son of Jeremiah, no wonder I couldn't find him! (Hiram was the son of Mary Ann (St.John) and Charles M. Knapp (1816-1841) and I easily found him listed on censuses subsequent to 1860 as Hiram Lewis Knapp.) So, I have lost one Hiram Brooks, but gained one Mary B. Brooks... Children of Eli Brooks (8/23/1792-12/28/1857) and Nancy (Ellis?) Taylor ( 3/20/1783-1/6/1866): Mary Borden Brooks, born 1818 Jeremiah T., born 1820 Julia Ann, born 1824 Alanson, born 1826 Sarah A., born 1830 Fondly, Jeanne Jain