..................another discovered a gold mine when searching for a female.... The family tradition was that Sarah McMahill and George Holliday were married in Warren County, Illinois, in 1832. Sarah's father was John McMahill, and she was born in 1813 in Kentucky. There was no marriage record for Sarah and George in Warren County, Illinois, and there was no additional information about Sarah's parents. A county history for Warren County recorded a george W. McMahill born in Kentucky in 1826. His father's name was John and (he was) also a native of Kentucky. George's grandfather was also named John. Here was the first concurring information with Sarah McMahill: both Sarah and George W. were born in Kentucky, both were contemporaries, both had fathers named John, and both lived in Warren County, Illinois. A Search of the 1850 census for Warren County revealed four McMahill families living near one another: Family # 593: John McMahill, age 32, born Kentucky Family # 594: Jefferson McMahill, age 25, born Kentucky; also in the household was Susan McMahill, widow, age 62, born i Virginia Family # 595: George W. McMahill, age 27, born Kentucky Family # 599: William McMahill, age 43, born Kentucky Sarah named her only daughter Susan, which makes the widow Susan McMahill a likely candidate for Sarah's mother. In a twelve-volume set of tombstone transcriptions for Warren County, I found a McMahill cemetery. Among the inscriptions was one for "Susan McMahill, wife of John, died October 2, 1867. another Warren County history named Jefferson McMahill as bing born i Nicholas County, Kentucky. Now I had a more specific location to check. The grantor and grantee indexes to deeds for Nicholas County from 1806-63 revealed several transactions by McMahills. In particular one land sale was for Susan McMahill, and two entries were for a William. Susan's entry was a dower release, stating that she was the widow of John, and was dated April 28, 1832. So I now knew that John died before this date in Kentucky... ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com