Kathye, Your great-grandfather's genealogy notes may have been wrong, at least on the chronology of the move from Halifax/Pittsylvania Co., Virginia, to North Carolina, and Yannaky's marriage to Thomas Payne. It appears from some Halifax/Pittsylvania Co., VA, land records that Yannaky and Thomas Payne, Sr., were married before March 13, 1778, and they moved to NC before December 23, 1778. Your great-grandfather's notes, which say that Yannaky was first married to a man named John Payne and moved with him to NC in about 1784, seem impossible to square with the VA land deed records--assuming that an examination of the actual records confirms the accuracy of the abstracts I've listed below. If your cousin found some NC Quaker records that showed a woman named Anica or Annica (who he believed was really Yannaky) married to a man named John Payne, that's more than a little problematical in view of the evidence that Yannaky and Thomas Payne were married before they moved to NC. I sure would like to know what records your cousin relied on--even what year he said the records pertained to. Is there any chance at all that you can find out from him? Here's what I found in some information about the descendants of Thomas Payne, Sr., sent to me by Mark Moran on May 3, 2001. (I apologize for not finding this sooner. At that time I was concentrating on identifying "my" Moses, so it didn't stick in my memory.) Abstracts of 3 deeds (that I hope eventually to get, transcribe, and post on USGENWEB for all to have easy access) show: (1) William Payne sold about 328 acres to Thomas Payne, both of Halifax Co., VA, on March 14, 1768. The land adjoined that of Read and Colwell near branches of the Dan River. Recorded May 19, 1768. The deed is on pg. 134 of a volume covering Halifax Co., VA, deeds for 1767-1772. (I don't know whether this is a description of the deed's location in the official deed book or the abstract's location in a book of abstracts from that deed book.) (2) Thomas Payne and wife Yanniker sold about 328 acres to John Lewis, all of Halifax Co., VA, on March 13, 1778. The land adjoined that of John Caldwell, John Lewis and Thomas Layn near the Dan River. Recorded Oct. 15, 1778. The deed is on pg. 135 of a volume covering Halifax Co., VA, deeds for 1778-1784. (3) Thomas Payne of Wilkes Co., NC, sold about 150 acres to Michael Ozbrooks of Pittsylvania Co., VA, on Dec. 23, 1778. The land was bounded on the south by Col. John Lewis, on the west by Moses Ayres, on the south by Fleming Bates, and on the east by John Lewis, Jr. Recorded March 16, 1780. (One of those two souths probably should be a north.) The first two deeds apparently refer to the same parcel of land. The size is the same. One of the adjacent landowners is Colwell in the first and Caldwell in the second--close enough for phonetic spelling. The Dan River is used to describe the location in both. By the time of the second deed in March 1778, Thomas Payne, Sr., had married Yannaky. The third deed indicates Thomas and Yannaky had moved to Wilkes Co., NC, by December 1778--assuming the Thomas Payne of the third deed is the same man as the one in the first two deeds. Since the land sold by the second deed was sold to a John Lewis, and the land sold by the third deed was adjacent to land owned by two different John Lewises, it's probable that the two parcels of land were close to each other and that the Thomas Payne in both those deeds was the same man. Assuming an examination of the actual records confirms the accuracy of the abstracts, Yannaky signed the second deed but not the third. Signing the deed that sold the land Thomas Payne had purchased in 1768 indicates that Yannaky had dower rights in that land. If she did not sign the third deed (and we're not dealing with two different Thomas Paynes), that may mean she did not have dower rights in the 150 acres sold at that time; but I don't know from the abstract why she wouldn't. (Sometimes people omitted the relinquishment of dower rights and had to go back and do it later when the new owner realized he needed it to have marketable title.) A wife's dower rights, so far as I know for the 1768-1778 period, applied to property of which the husband was "seised in fee" during the marriage. "Seised in fee" means the husband owned the title to the property with no limitations on inheritance or sale. (Black's Law Dictionary, 6th Ed. West Publishing Co., 1990) That doesn't mean that Yannaky and Thomas Payne, Sr., were married at the time he bought that 328 acres. It means that he had title "in fee" while they were married. So, for now we can conclude that they married before the deed was signed on March 13, 1778--but we don't know how long before that date. Sincerely, Bob