Thank you for your reply. Ewing seemed to be a common name in early Logan Co.,, IL and may still be!!! I am particularly interested in a man named Christopher Ewing. His first wife, who reportedly died after giving birth to twins, was one Margaret Williams, reportedly born in Kentucky. I suspect, but cannot adequate prove except with circumstantial evidence, that Margaret may have been a sister or half-sister of my great-grandfather Williams, who lived in Texas from 1852 to his death in 1881. At any rate, in the last century [whew!!!-hard to believe], that is in the 1980s-1990s, my relatives discovered in an old trunk some old letters written to my GGF, one dating 1845 from Kentucky. In several of the letters, the name Christopher Ewing appears. It seems that during the Civil War, or during Reconstruction, my GGF must have borrowed money from Christopher. Thank goodness for those old letters--I have been able to patch together a pedigree for my GGF, taking me to colonial North Carolina and thence to Colonial Virginia. Many of Christopher Ewing's first children died, if I can interpret the cemetery inscriptions and the censuses correctly. Chris had two subsequent wives. His bio appears in one of the old histories of Logan Co. I thank him for that, considering that many of the early records of Logan Co. no longer exist!!! Thanks again for your interest. E.W.Wallace ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.