At one time, a couple of years or so ago, I was in touch with I think no fewer than three descendants of John Whitten, farmer and justice of the peace in London Britain Township at end of 18th century, and father of Davis Whitten, also farmer and justice of the peace of London Britain township, and a slew of girls. They checked John Whitten's papers, which they had a quantity of, for any mention that John and Isabella Smith, my own ancestors, worked for John Whitten, when, and on what terms. They found no mention of John and Isabella Smith. I am hoping to locate these people without having to unearth them from whatever e-mail account I was using at the time or re-research them; I know that a couple of them were registered on the Chester County genweb site. I wrote to them and got pointed to others, and so on. The notion that John and Isabella Smith worked for John Whitten comes from a biographical sketch of the family written by their grandson, which claims that, as John and Isabella Smith came penniless from Ireland and arrived at New Castle, Davis Whitten, "a kindly farmer and justice of hte peace", who was at the docks waiting to find some farm help, took them in and gave them a place. I've established that John and Isabella Smith must have come to Pennsylvania between 1787, and 1797, when their first child after a child who died on the ship, was born, in this country. In October, 1798, John Smith, a weaver, adn his wife, Isabella, purchased 39 acres of land in London Britain township, for which they paid cash, despite having been servants until then and having had nothing when they arrived. They could not have worked for Davis Whitten, who was enormously popular, seemingly good friends with everyone who lived at all near him, and surely well known to John Smith, who lived near the town tavern aka town hall, and whose son married the tavern keeper's daughter; because Davis Whitten was only a boy during the entire time when the Smiths could have worked for the Whittens. John Whitten was also a farmer and justice of the peace, so they must have worked for him. John Smith's son and grandson certainly knew Davis Whitten quite well, hence the confusion in the biographical sketch that the grandson wrote. A new question occurs to me. I would REALLY appreciate it if you would check those family papers again. John Whitten definitely had two free servants; a man and a woman the right ages to have been John and Isabella Smith, in his household in the 1790 census, along with his three slaves. The two servants are proven to been in John Whitten's household; if they were NOT John and Isabella Smith, then John and Isabella Smith most likely replaced them. Is there any record of what were these two servants' names? Also, any clues as to when they got there, on what terms they worked for John Whitten, and when they left his employment? Even if they aren't named, when they began and stopped working for John Whitten are clues to when John and Isabella Smith did what. A related question; what became of the slaves? Do any records exist concerning them in the family papers? Do they even tell what were the slaves' names? Surely the papers make mention of who was available to do the work on the farm! It seems that none of John Whitten's children were slave owners. Certainly Davis Whitten wasn't, though I vaguely remember that Davis Whitten may have been yet a minor when his father died. If John Whitten perchance both freed them, and settled some sort of property or money on him, it would suggest that possibly he did something similar for the Smiths, as I understand at some early and vaguely defined point in time, indentured servants often got settlements of money or other property at the end of their term of service. And that the Smiths had nothing and John Davis was waiting on the docks for them definitely suggests that they very likely were indentured servants. If the slaves were just sold to settle the estate or because the Whittens didn't want to be known as slave owners any more, it would be unlikely they did any favors for the Smiths - particularly if the family records don't even NAME the family slaves. Also, John Whitten's servants are very likely to be mentioned in his papers, where the slaves are mentioned. Yours, Dora Smith __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/