Kathye, I agree with the approach you've suggested, but I would put finding any Quaker records as the first priority. That is, locate any Quaker records which mention Yannaky and her husband(s) and try to determine whether there was a John Payne who was her husband at the time they moved from Virginia to North Carolina (or even from North Carolina to Georgia). If their move to North Carolina was circa 1784 as your great-grandfather's research indicated, and if there is evidence that Yannaky wasn't yet married to Thomas Payne, Sr., then few, if any, children were born of the marriage of Thomas and Yannaky Payne. We'll still need to identify which of the older children are stepchildren of Yannaky or of Thomas, but we can start by trying to figure out which were the children of both. Is there any chance you can get a citation to a source from your cousin, so our search for the Quaker record(s) won't have to start from scratch? Also, from your reply I now understand that your great-grandfather spelled the name as "Yanakee" Payne. That's phonetically close if not identical to the spelling used in the will of Thomas Payne, Jr. (which used "Yannaky"). The use of "Annica" as her name is a recent development--occurring in the last six years or so, after your cousin found a North Carolina Quaker record which mentioned a woman named Annica Payne. I believe her name was Yannaky as her son (or stepson) Thomas Payne, Jr., called her in his will, or Yanoke as her father Nathaniel Ayers called her in his will--but not Annica. That doesn't mean that a record written by someone as unfamiliar with her name as we are didn't refer to her, but we must be careful not to jump to conclusions. The name Yannaky appears to be "Biblical." Since the Ayers family seems to have routinely used Moses, Nathaniel, and Obadiah as men's names, and the names Moses, Nathaniel and Zebediah for brothers and Ruth for a sister show up in the will of Thomas Payne, Jr., we shouldn't be surprised to find yet another Biblical name. But, frankly, I had never heard of a name like Yannaky before. (I, too, wondered if it was an American Indian name.) I asked a woman who has done a lot of genealogical research if she had ever seen such a name, and she immediately identified it as a Jewish or Hebrew name. I did a "Google Search" on the Internet (asking the search engine to find: +hebrew+names), and quickly found a site with lots of Hebrew names. However, there wasn't anything similar to Yannaky listed as a feminine Hebrew name. There were some feminine names similar to Yannaky listed as "Biblical": Yanik, Yanisha, Yannica, and Yannick. Variations listed under the "Australian" category (meaning that British settlers carried these names there, not that they were Aboriginal) were: Yanicka, Yanika, Yanneke, Yannica, and Yannick. One listed as "African-American" was: Yanika. And, to keep things interesting, the "Biblical" category included: Anaka, Aneka, Anekah, Anica, Anicka, Anik, Anika, Annika, Aniko, Anneka, Annik, and Annika. The "Hebrew" category listed: Anica, Anichka, Anicka, Anika, Aniki, Anikke, Aniko, Anneka, Annika, Annikka, Annikke, Annikki, and Anouche. It seems to me--based on the variety of "Biblical" names similar to Yannicky and Annica--that if there are Quaker records that will help identify Yannaky's first husband and sort out which are her children from that first marriage, those records may well have an "Annica" who isn't our Yannaky. (I believe the appropriate G-rated expression at this point is "Arrrggghhh!") Out of curiosity, I checked to see if there was a Hebrew or Biblical name similar to Regim...(whateverhisnameis), the name of one of Yannaky's brothers. Sure enough, there were "Regemmelech" and "Regimbald" under the Hebrew category. Probably, his name was spelled as Regimalek (or Regimalech) Baker Ayers. Waiting to hear from you, Bob