My friends - As we close out another week, I have a new item in the Skills Puzzler series for you. We have discussed, in the past, a little about divorce records in KY and where to find them and how to go about using them. In our scenario for this Puzzler, we have a situation in which a family story, handed down over several generations, whispered about a divorce between Asa Spratt and his wife Agnes in 1826 in a KY county. The story had it that Asa left on business one day and never returned, abandoning Agnes and their two year old son. The county records seemed to give some credence to this story, as Asa was found buying and selling land in that county up until March of 1826. Beyond that time, no further record was found of Asa in the county. More circumstantial evidence involved the fact that Agnes Spratt married in early 1828 to DeWitt Doright, but did so under her maiden surname of Agnes Pettyjohn, which would indicate that she had obtained a divorce and the court had legally restored her maiden name. However, a check of the circuit court minutes and other records in that county, as well as in all surrounding counties(which actually also had extant records), produced nothing in the way of a divorce proceeding for Asa and Agnes. Our task is to find those divorce records, for they did exist. Where should the researcher go from this point? Because of the stigma that was associated with divorce in those days, records were often made as brief as possible, to avoid any more exposure of the "grass widow" than was absolutely necessary. As a result, we have to be careful and vigilant when searching for divorce records. If you wish to opine on this Puzzler, you can send your thoughts to either the List or to me privately. I will return in a day or two with the solution. As is customary, we will not have any data posts per se over the weekend, but, if time permits, I will return with another land grants file offering, or perhaps a cemetery file. -B ============================================================