Friends and Cousins, For months I've been eavesdropping on the Downing group, hoping to find someone researching my own brand of Downings. Finally I read something by "joe" and a response by "Sherry" on Samuel Downing, born in Lancaster County about 1784, married in Ohio CO., WV, and ending up in Ohio. I'd descended from his younger brother William (son of William). William was also born in Lancaster CO., PA (about 1752) and moved with his family to Ohio CO., WV where his father, William, purchased land on Glenn's Run just a few miles north of the city of Wheeling on April 5, 1803. Old William died there in 1813 (I noticed your notes said 1812) and left a most interesting will which ran to several pages instructing his family on matters mundane, moral, and monetary. His wife, Mary, and another son, Alexander, had preceded him in death and were buried on the property which he calls a "plantation" in his will. He and his wife raised 13 children. On November 30, 1809, William, the son, married Elizabeth Milligan, daughter of John and Sarah Robinson Milligan-formerly of Berkeley CO., VA. William and Elizabeth moved across the Ohio River to Belmont CO., OH, where they raised a family of two boys and five girls. One of the girls, Mary Elizabeth, eloped with a Baptist preacher named John Davis and were married in Wheeling. She was my grandmother's grandmother. "Sherry" mentioned the 1820 law suit between William Stringer and the brothers, William, Robert, and John Downing. I'd love to know what that was about. Stringer was a brother-in-law, having married their sister Jennet. William eventually drifted west. He and his wife spent several years with his daughter, Hannah, in Lafayette, IN, where William died and is buried. His widow, Elizabeth, moved on to Chicago but I lost track of her there. Here's the bottom line: I'd love to be in contact with anyone researching this family. I'd like to identify the connection of this family with other Downings in Lancaster CO., PA. I'd like to know more of William's parents-in-law, John and Sarah Robinson Milligan. I have a transcript of John Milligan's testimony as to his Revolutionary War service, but I know next to nothing about his wife. Any Downing-rooters out there researching this connection? Bob