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/3dB.2ACI/157.341.616.626.1.1 Message Board Post: Identifying those shown in your message: 6 James, 21, b. IN, is my g-grandfather, James Alexander VanDorin. His mother was Mary "Polly" Lee, Jabez' first wife and daughter of Richard Lee and Sela (Celia) (Cela) Settles. 7 Jabez, 53, b. PA, is James' father, and head of the household. 8 Margaret, 44, b. NC, is Margaret Hockett Smith, Jabez' second wife. 9 Jasper, 14, b. IN, is son of Jabez and Polly Lee. 10 Emily, 13,. b. IN, is dau of Jabez and Polly Lee. 11 Lewis, 12, b. IN, is son of Jabez and Polly Lee. 12 Polly, 7, b. IA, is dau of Jabez, and Margaret. 13 Reuben, 5, b. IA, is son of Jabez and Margaret. 14 Betsy Ann, 4, b. IA, is dau of Jabez and Margaret. 15 John, 77, b. NJ, is father of Jabez. 16 Cela Lee, 74, b. VA, is mother of Mary "Polly" Lee, Jabez' first wife. My guess is that this odd arrangement came about by Cela Lee becoming a widow and moving in with Jabez and Polly before Polly's death in 1840, and then staying to take care of Jabez' minor children until he remarried about 1842, and then continuing to live with Jabez and Margaret, because by now she would have been 66, with no place to go. Jabez' father John was a widower, and also lived in the household. So Jabez had his children by his first wife, his second wife and their children, his mother-in-law from his first marriage, and his father living in his household in 1850. That is the way they did things back then.