Karen, I've only been able scan through your message very quickly--will go back tomorrow and read more carefully. However one phrase you wrote leaped out at me--Hampshire Co (W)VA. I have been trying to find out about a Thomas Clark b. 1755 who applied for a Revolutionary War pension in Bledsoe Co TN in 1819 Since this county is adjacent to Van Buren & Warren Counties where sons of my Thomas b. 1755 are documented to have been living 1820-1830, I have been examining the possibility that this Bledsoe Co TN Thomas might be ours. According to his pension record--oh rats! My mind just went blank--Oh! he enlisted under Captain Ashby--Stephen, I think. Anyway, I have been told that the Captain Ashby in question recruited primarily in the area of what is now Hampshire Co WV. So we may have something to talk about after all. I tend to agree that if there is a connection between our families, it more likely may have been back in Ireland before they came to this continent, however there is also a slim possibility they were together briefly in PA before spreading south and west. I want to talk more about resources for finding out about Clarks in Hampshire Co WV, but it will have to wait until I get my beauty sleep... Fay PS My particular Thomas Clark line was Baptist, however Samuel in Randolph Co NC was Presbyterian and there are a few Quakers smattered in between. Descendants of Thomas through his son Samuel b. 1775 (my husband's line) have been Methodist at least back to the Civil War.