I attempted to make some replies to Chuck's web site that Laura wrote about, but it appears that I have to have an MSN account. Since I'm not exactly sure what that entails, I opted to leave no message. The William Cowan who was born 1800/01, lived in Marion Co. TN, and married Cynthia Morgan is my direct ancestor and apparently he is not the son of Samuel and Sarah Keith Cowan. It seems that their William was born @ 1811 and is the one in the Titus Co. 1850 census who married Sarah Hickey, despite the fact that my Samuel Co. Cowan, son of William from Marion Co., is there also. My Samuel lived next door to his in laws, who lived next door to Eli Keith, Sarah Cowan's brother. I was quite sure that this was a family nest, but too many other researchers disagree. The Samuel C. Cowan who lived in Marion Co. and was born in 1806 is definitely my Williams' brother and not the Samuel who was Sarah Keith's son. These two men lived together, owned property jointly, and are buried very close to each other. I have copies of letters of 2 of my William's granddaughter, speaking about going to Uncle Samuel's at Victoria (that's where he lived in Marion Co.) to visit. At any rate, while it would certainly make my research a lot simpler if I could fit my William in here, I'm afraid that it's wrong. I have spent a lot of time and money trying to find the parents of my William. I have learned a great deal about Cowans in TN but unfortunately haven't solved this mystery. So to those who have put this on a web site, they may want to take it off. Cindy Henslee Stamps