This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/FKB.2ACE/44.1.1.1 Message Board Post: I don't have much on Samuel and Mary Ann's parentage as I mention below. There very well may be a connection, so let's explore and trade some information. I have compiled some information on the Lewis family including notes on the 1892 probate of Samuel Lewis. Since Arenia Thankful Lewis was born in Salem, MO, I have looked off and on at the message board for clues. The kidnap of Thankful and her two brothers happend in July of 1862 or 1863. (I'm not with my notes or I could give you the exact date). Thankful was about 12 at the time and the oldest. The two brothers were killed and Thankful escaped. The story has been reprinted several times since Thankful's trract in 1915. It was last published, I think was in "Tales of the Paradise Ridge". I can get the volume and issue next week. In 1962, there was a feature article in the "Diggins", the Butte County Historical Society publication. I grew up on Williams Road, then the odl stage Road that intersected with what was then the "Cherokee Road" as Thankful named it then. The school site is near the Butte College campus in Butte County, CA, about 13 miles north of Oroville. I have what I think is a photo of the house they might have lived in in 1863. Samuel and Mary went on to have several more children, some of whom were a bit "slow" in learning but good citizens of the county nevertheless. I wanted to find out the 1850 census records for Samuel and Mary Ann and their families. Names that pop up in relation to Samuel and Mary are: 1. "Aunt Nancy" from Marysville, as Thankful wrote 2. J. J. Mitchell who died in Oroville a young man in 1857 and whose probate named Samuel Lewis as his brother-in-law. Mary Ann Kearney contested the will to gain possession of one cow from J. J.'s wife and only heir. (I think she was successful). 3. Grandmother- who lived nearby the Stoneman school; no mention of last name. Was it Sam's parents or Mary's? I have found the deed for Sam's 160 acres purchased from Squire Butcher in 1859, but no other Lewis or Kearney in the old deed register for those years. I just wrote a booklet published by the Association of Northern California Records and Research (ANCRR). The 60 page booklet is entitled "The Alonzo A. Richardson Diary." The diary was originally written in 1903 and the Richardson's lived on the site of the Lewis' first house. It also features the second generation of Williams, who came out to California with Joe Miller and Samuel Lewis in 1854. The booklet has a centerfold color map showing property ownership in the Stoneman (Butte College) area in 1903. The booklet can be found on ANCRR web page through the CSU Chico web site. You can contact me at my email address : rwomack95482@yahoo.com for more particulars. I will be happy to share what I have and hope somone can tell me something about their family in Missouri.