First of all, apologies for the cross-post to those of you who see this letter more than once. My cousin Margy and I need some assistance in untangling a most infernal knot. The ancestors involved are Sarah RUNNELS and Benjamin HUDDLESTON. Ben and Sarah died in Kentucky in the 1880s, leaving 4 children: James Franklin, Thomas, Rebecca Jane, and Cynthia. Jim's death certificate (died in 1953) states that he was the son of Benjamin Huddleston II who was born in Clay County, Indiana. Jim's daughter, Ada Huddleston Miles (1906-1989) always said that her grandfather Ben had been born and raised in KENTUCKY and that he fought in the Civil War as a volunteer from Whitley County, Kentucky. Of course, so far we haven't been able to turn up any record of Ben as a soldier. Margy recently started digging through Indiana census records and has found, in 1850 in Clay County, a Huddleston family with a father named Ben and a son named Ben who could possibly be the father of Jim, Tom, Rebecca, and Cynthia. In Clay County in 1850, there are a number of Runnels families, and there is a Sarah Runnels who is about the right age. Has anyone researched the Huddleston and Runnels families of Indiana and/or Kentucky? If Ben and Sarah were born and grew up in Indiana, when did they go to Kentucky and why? I'm not even going to get into the Tennessee Huddlestons (a Ben born in 1843 in Campbell County, right across the state line from WHitley County, KY, where Ben and Sarah died), or the Tom/George Hamlin who raised Ben and Sarah's 4 kids after they died in an epidemic. If anyone has ANY clues whatsoever to the Huddlestons and Runnels of Clay County, Indiana, Margy and I would be most deeply appreciative. Donna B. in Raleigh, NC - Huddleston kin through BOTH grandmothers