Greetings, For some time I (and others) have been researching the ancestry of one Jonathan T Jones and his wife Lucinda (maiden name unknown), and I have just learned that the reason our searches for records relating to this man may have been fruitless is that our ancestor might possibly have committed a murder (in Virginia or North Carolina) and fled to Kentucky. His true surname may have been Spicer. What we know for certain is that Jonathan T Jones was born between (about) 1790 and 1815 - probably in Virginia or North Carolina. He first appears in SE Kentucky records in 1840, and seems to have settled on Lost Creek in Perry County with his wife Lucinda (maiden name unknown) between 1835 and 1839. Their children included Elizabeth (who early records suggests was born in Virginia), Andrew Borkin, Delitha, Samantha, and William. The couple remained in SE Kentucky for the rest of their lives and Jonathan is rumored to have had affairs with other women, and fathered children out of wedlock (I'm descended from two of his legitimate children). As I said, more than one researcher has been looking into the parentage and ancestry of Jonathan T Jones for a number of years, and have yet to turn up a birth record for him. Victor T Jones has researched this question exhaustively and the only further clue he has come across is a later census record (which must be for the state rather than national census) suggesting Jonathan T Jones had been born in Lee County Virginia. And the only Jonathan T Jones born in Lee County Virginia at the appropriate time (or anywhere in Virginia as far as we can tell) was the son of Stephen Jones and either Mary Parsons or Minerva Tipton. That Jonathan T Jones married a Margaret Duff and went into Missouri in the 1840s or 1850s; he never lived in Kentucky. Recently though one of my cousins (through the Joneses) related a story told to her by the sister-in-law of her Jones grandfather. She apparently said that Jonathan T Jones was actually Jonathan (or John) Spicer, and that he had killed a man (in Lousiana), married a part or full blood indian girl named Lucinda (which would explain why there is no record of her maiden name), and fled to Kentucky. This woman said that John Spicer was a wealthy operator of grist mills, and that his kin (where he had come from) may have been in the business as well. The story has the air of myth, but the ring of truth. As it happens, my ancestor William Begley shot a man (apparently for lying about him in court) then fled to Kentucky, and married a part-Cherokee girl named Winnie Sizemore (the daughter of a part-Cherokee prize fighter named George Sizemore). In any event, I'd be interested to hear if any of the Wilkes County Spicers might have an insight into this question. At least one if not more Wilkes County, NC Spicer lines went into southeast Kentucky (Breathitt County, which is next door to Perry County), and the possibility that our JT Jones may have been a Spicer from NC is highly speculative, but the best lead I have now. Thanks. Best regards, Kenneth ____________________________________________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta. http://new.mail.yahoo.com