Thank you, Lyn & thanks to your mother for the transcription. I am curious re "In the 1870 census an Anna Stanley is present in Benjamin's household. For whatever reason, she does not appear in this will, unless perhaps it is another name used by Martha or Sarah." and I'm not where I can get to any records of that household in the 1870 census. Can you refresh our memories -- were Martha &/or Sarah listed? Thanks again. Barbara

Some of you might recall some research we did a while back on the descendants of Rebecca L. Poythress who married Benjamin Stanley of Brunswick Co., Virginia. Particularly, we were interested to find a connection between this Stanley line and one Anna Stanley known to be associated with the family of James Edward Poythress of Sumter Co., Alabama. What follows is a transcription of the will of Benjamin Stanley, recently transcribed for us by my mother. There is no mention of Anna. Daughters Martha and Sarah are mentioned. Heirs of John D. Stanley, a son who apparently proceeded Benjamin in death, would have been wife Lucy and children Willie and Gertrude. In the 1870 census an Anna Stanley is present in Benjamin's household. For whatever reason, she does not appear in this will, unless perhaps it is another name used by Martha or Sarah. Rebecca had died in 1861, a son, Benjamin L. in 1861, and another son, James W., in 1867. No heirs are mentioned for either of these sons. ================== Will of Benjamin Stanley; Brunswick Co., Virginia, Will Book 20, pp. 418-19 In consideration of the uncertainty of life & the certainty of death, I Benja [sic] Stanley of the state of Virginia & County of Brunswick do hereby declare this to be my last will & testament. I hereby give & bequeth [sic] to my daughter, Martha R. J. Stanley her life or as long as she remains single one tract or parcel of land lying & being in the County of Brunswick containing one hundred & forty four & one fourth acres at her said Martha R. J. Stanley's death or marriage said land, to be divided to wit as follows one third to go to my son, G. M. Stanley, one third to the children of my daughter, Sarah F. Thomas & the other one third to the heirs of John D. Stanley. I do hereby appoint my oldest son, George M. Stanley, Executor of this my last will & testament this 1st day of June 1876. Signed: Benja his X mark Stanley Witness: Willliam Fitts Nelson T. Crowder Proved - Brunswick Court August term 1876 Teste: E. R. Turnbull, Clerk =================== Transcribed March 2001 by Beatrice P. Baird from original Will Book in Clerk's Office, Lawrenceville, Virginia Best regards, Lyn P. Baird [email protected] ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.

Prince George County, 1790 Personal Property Tax List (printed page in Clayton Library- no other years Shown) Poythress, Elizabeth Poythres, William (sic) Poythress, Joshua, Est. Poythress, Mary Poythress, William Notes: 1) this list incomplete insofar as rate and amount of tax not included. (Doubful if personal property will be itemized when original is located in LVA. 2) land taxes for 1790 for comparison with above: Name Acres Peter Poythress 100 1000 400 225 100 290 Mary Poythress 100 Joshua Poythress 404 200 William Poythress 184 120 850 Mary Poythress 293 For sure, comparisons are odious; contradictions implied from above: a) Peter Poythress, with huge land holdings, not taxed for personal property. b) One of the Mary Poythresses escaped personal property tax in 1790 c) Unless William Poythres and William Poythress are the same (doubtful), one of them escaped personal property taxes in 1790. d) Joshua is "Est." for personal property, would presumably be "alive" for land taxes. e) Summary conclusion: the two taxes appear to be on uncoordinated tracks unless there are unusual circumstances. 3) The personal property tax records above are only the one year of taxes. In 1782, VA enacted a major revision of the laws providing for statewide enumeration at the county level of both land and personal property. Both kinds of taxes are shown in yearly sequence on microfilm at LVA. We HAVE recorded (see: Virgina Land Tax Records, Prince George County) the land taxes from 1782 thru 1798 (microfilm reel 255 in LVA, 1782-1811) REMAINDER OF PROJECT (which likely can only be done at LVA) a) finish the land property records in reel 255 for years following 1798 b) record all of the years beginning 1782 for personal property tax records

"Hello.  Someone on another list sent out a message giving the following URL. http://www.ssa.gov/foia/foia_guide.htm I've checked in out, and on 1 July (this Sunday), the fee for a copy of one SS application will jump from $7 to $27 if you do have the SSN, and to $29 if you do not.  Other fees are going up as well.  The entire list is at the above URL. So let's all get those requests into the mail. Lowell"

Nice sleuthing, Diana. Did you know that your second and third site quotes (and texts) were duplicates. This matter of "finding Francis" all by his own records is begining to be like sifting through grains of sand at the beach. I think I'm even up to a separate 3-ring binder for him, with still no reference to his parents. Authors Collins and "the James boys" however, hint at an avenue that looks to perhaps have more potential (although it hasn't done anything for us yet) than looking for Francis himself. Francis had two sisters, both of whom married and moved to Kentucky: One sister married a Peniston and lived in Mercer County (s. of Lexington). Peniston is a rather old and venerable name in KY and has a number of avid researchers. I have asked each as I ran across them to keep an eye out, not especially for Francis but for the clue to Francis' parentage via the records of his Peniston sister. So far, no gold. The second sister is the one referred to by Collins, et al., the widow "Prior" (although I have without exception seen it as Pryor in Kentucky records). My guess would be that the family either changed the spelling; or, more likely Collins, et al., writing thirty years after Francis' death, may have just used the conventional spelling of "prior". In any case, I will now add "Prior" to my search criteria. Since they both start off "Pr" however, I suspect I might have picked up a Prior if one had been there anyhow. If the family of Francis and his two sisters were relatively well fixed as the stories hint, perhaps there were legacies passing to the daughters. Unfortunately, those wills would likely be in the home county of the very grantor parents whom we are chasing, wouldn't they? Perhaps not. The really bad news (not unexpected) was that I can't find any census records on the Pryor or Peniston families related to the two female Poythress girls. Francis himself died at a advanced age, in 1817 as I recall, so by 1840 (when the censuses start having real information) it is likely all three siblings are dead. At any rate, I'm only suggesting that we punch Pryor and Peniston into our hint list and react if the names pop up. Thanks, Maynard

I got confused. Here is the third reference. http://www.starbase21.com/kybiog/caldwell/ogden.b.txt Diana

Most of these I have seen before, but perhaps someone knows something new about the Preacher Francis Poythress. These are three sections from HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, by Lewis Collins, and J.A. & U.P. James, published 1847. Reprinted by Henry Clay Press, Lexington, Ky., 1968, . where Francis Poythress is mentioned. http://www.starbase21.com/kybiog/jessamine/poythress.f.txt http://www.starbase21.com/kybiog/fayette/haw.j.txt http://www.starbase21.com/kybiog/fayette/haw.j.txt I found these on www.Google.com just shopping around for the heck of it. Google has 60 pages of references to "Poythress", not all genealogical. Did you know that Google doesn't always show you the same thing when you enter a subject for query? Had to get that factoid from some fancy seminar, second hand at that. Diana

For those of you on AOL, the address (I am now told) is: http://legal.web.aol.com/feedback.html Maynard

Yesterday, while looking for something else (of course) I cam across two pictures. Both were found in a double picture holder. The first according to the writing on the back is a picture of Mary Ellen Poythress Roberts done at J. H. Faber (or Tabor) of Granby St., Norfolk. In pencil, in a different hand is written "Sis" and "Mary Ellen Roberts." She was born in 1857 and died in Feb 1921. The second according to the writing on the back (in the same hand) is Benjamin Poythress ? and Susan M. _______ done at M.D. Trainor, Eutaw and Lexington Sts., Baltimore, MD. I find this to be unlikely given the attire but there is a resemblance and theoretically the person who owned the pictures would know his own grandparents.<G> I am unable to fathom why they would be in Baltimore for pictures. He was a huckster and this guy is dress fairly fancy in my mind for a huckster. I have made JPEG copies of the files for who would like to see them. Just send me an email and I will send you them as an attachment. C. Craig R. Scott, CGRS Willow Bend Books 65 East Main Street Westminster, MD 21157-5026 [email protected] www.WillowBendBooks.com

For the benefit of those who've never had any reason to have to think about it, I wanted to let folks know: Identity theft involves people out there in the world who seek out opportunities to "adopt" a different identity for themselves (name, date of birth) whether or not they can also get that name's correct Social Security number (using a bogus one, instead) or that person's true mother's maiden name , though of course knowing those items, too, just makes it all the easier for them. These kinds of people steal identities in order to open credit/bank accounts in that identity. They run up huge bills which they do not pay, and then abandon that identity & move on to a different one. When those credit card companies & banks & cell phone companies start trying to collect their bills from such people, they try sending their collection notices to any logical address for that identity -- including the legitimate address for that name, which they of course can get from credit reporting agencies, and which they logically assume is another address for the same "person." I've recently been made more personally aware of this problem because someone(s) took the identities of 3 young adults we know well. The suspect(s) apparently had gotten some of those unsolicited credit card applications that are always coming, out of the trash. They sent the applications in to the credit card companies to open new accounts, changing their addresses to ones unrelated to the real young people. Once they had the new credit cards, they opened up further accounts for cell phones & at local stores & banks -- opening numerous accounts -- and they ran up huge bills on ALL the accounts. When the dunning letters began arriving several months later at the true addresses of the legitimate people, it meant they had to initially notify not only all the various companies, but also all the credit reporting agencies mentioned below in a recent message off-List to me from one of our Listers: - Equifax 1-800 525-6285 - Experian (formerly TRW) 1-800-301-7195 - Trans Union 1-800-680-7289 - Social Security Administration also has a fraud line at 1-800-269-0271 Such follow-up hassles include filling out affidavits swearing that the bills are fraudulent, and literally months of writing letters & making calls trying to clear one's own credit. It is very similar to the problems one can immediately have from a lost wallet, but this kind of identity theft is more insidious because the person whose identity has been stolen doesn't know immediately -- they don't know until much later, when MUCH damage has been done. Shred such credit applications before you put them in the trash. And as far as List or Board situations, PLEASE be aware and be protective of your own identity & that of your extended family and fellow researchers. Do not make freely available in messages that can be archived & available to anyone with an internet search capability, ANY exact dates of birth for LIVING people. If you want to discuss your own family in some List or Board situation & want to give just a year of birth for yourself, or a month & year, then your fellow readers should be able to readily understand that they don't need it to be more exact.

See below. So far, many corporations have been quite lax in pursuing this new federal law. Given that internet service providers in part make their living by shopping "prospective customer" information all over the place, don't be surprised if you have not heard from your internet service provider. You might want to think about taking the inititave as below. June 26, 2001 AOL Customer Service: Recent federal legislation has imposed upon you the requirement to seek permission from the customer prior to sharing any information you may have relative to that customer. You were required to publish to your customers your particular privacy policy with respect to sharing customer information and the extent to which you intend to share any information not required by law. This policy would also extend to sharing of information with others in your "corporate family", e. g., in your case, Time or any other corporate entity. As a part of this notice, the customer is to be given the opportunity to "opt out" of your policy, thereby making it illegal for you to engage in such information sharing to any degree as it pertains to that particular customer. Since I have not heard from you in this matter, please accept this e-mail as my notitification that I wish to "opt out" of any policy of yours which shares ANY information regarding me with entities within or without of the AOL-Time Warner, Inc. organization. Would you be so kind as to acknowledge receipt of this notification? Thank you. Yours very truly, John M. Poythress ([email protected])

My question relayed from another list was the issue of My Family--a subsidiary of Ancestry.com--claiming to copyright stuff on the Genconnect. I think the legal issue is incorrectly put by the authors of the attached excerpts, but I think one has the right to ask why a copyright notice is necessary. What are the intentions of Ancestry. I know others are bothered by Yahoo--who bought Geocities--and by Family Tree Maker making similar copyright claims on hard-earned material donated by thousands of people all around the country. It is my understanding that genealogy material cannot be copyrighted, but perhaps any write-ups which combine and extrapolate facts are. I have checked out nothing, which is why I didn't send this to the list originally. Perhaps when I have more time I will. I for one think Ancestry.com's financial rescue of Rootsweb is something to be commended. I am just curious if there is a "catch." Diana Excerpts of the issue from the other list. As list admin for several lists on rootsweb and gen connect board, I > decided to check out the new boards. If you choose to print a > message, you will get a notice that the INFORMATION is copyright by > MYFAMILY.COM and cannot be used without their permission. It doesn't > say anything about the author, just the permission of MYFAMILY.COM. > It would be sad to find later on that you couldn't use you own family > Bible records because MYFAMILY.COM holds the copyright. > They don't bother to put this forth when someone posts, only when > they choose to print. > Carol R.

> Anyway, I have resisted giving Ancestry.com the 70 bucks a year not because I > particularly begruded the 70 bucks but I have "accumulated" too much > information already......what I need is some ORGANIZATION.....and of course > only I can do that. > > Craig.....you stay up today on all this stuff....give us a "see Spot run" on > it, would you? I'm not sure I know what the question is. Craig

Diana, I got that message and didn't pay attention to it because I figured they'd tell me when it was put together and I didn't need to watch the birth pains. However, I did go to Myfamily.com and afterwards made the comments below to the Screven list lady and got the below answer which still doesn't tell me much except that Ancestry.com bought Rootsweb. No particular surprise there even if I didn't get the news. "Volunteer" subscriptions never stay afloat. Anyway, I have resisted giving Ancestry.com the 70 bucks a year not because I particularly begruded the 70 bucks but I have "accumulated" too much information already......what I need is some ORGANIZATION.....and of course only I can do that. Obviously, at some point I'll join and not be unhappy to do so but no point in digging my hole even deeper right now. Craig.....you stay up today on all this stuff....give us a "see Spot run" on it, would you? Thanks, Maynard Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 14:01:44 EDT From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Deborah, I apologize but I wasn't paying attention when you first announced the "merger" of two databases, presumably Rootsweb and Ancestry.com. I went to Myfamily.com and discovered that Ancestry.com is largely "fronting" the deal and one must join (pay) to access their combined data.....which was in part previously free on the Rootsweb site. Is this all there is to it or is there something I am missing here?  I have a feeling there is more to this. Thanks, John M. Poythress ______________________________ Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 19:57:17 -0600 From: "Deborah Byrd" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Ancestry bought out Rootsweb two years ago.  Without the merger Rootsweb.com would no longer exist.  Not enough users donated for their free services so Ancestry stepped in.  The merger allowed for free services to continue and to have a user pay portion also. The meger between Genconnect and The ancestry family history boards maintains the FREE USE of the boards.  You don't have DON'T have to pay to view or post to the Boards.  Ancestry requires that the user chose an id and password to give the user the ability to edit  their mailing address for board messages they posted and eventually to edit the messages that the user has posted. The apperance of needing to pay for the boards is an issue that we have raised.  However, Ancestry doesn't have an alternative way to proved the user the abilty to change addresses or edit previously posted messages. Broken Mail links was one of the major complaints with Genconnect. If anyone has anymore questions holler.  The system still is in flux, and they have found some glitches but expect them to be solved in the  next couple of weeks. Deborah Byrd P. S. (from MP)...it also strikes me that if all one can access is the posts to the query board and they haven't figured out a "discriminatory function" of some type you'll get every message in the world in your mail box if you "subscribe" even to the free list. That's not very appealing but SURELY they figured that one out.

Subj: Re: Ancestry Date: 6/24/01 To: <A HREF="mailto:BPoythress">BPoythress</A> Dunno, Bud, but I'll copy it along to the list......(thanks for the comment....however, I think Debbie is after "William" and her William is considerably before 1889). in a message dated 6/23/01 6:55:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time, BPoythress writes: > Subj: Re: Ancestry > Date: 6/23/01 6:55:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time > From: <A HREF="mailto:BPoythress">BPoythress</A> > To: <A HREF="mailto:VKRatliff">VKRatliff</A> > > Maynard: > > That R. W.  Poythress is probably Warren Poythress from the Newington area > of Effingham/Screven County bunch.  I recall my Dad mentioning a Warren > Poythress who probably stopped by my Dad's store on his travels to and from > Savannah/Newington, etc.  Warren could have very well worked for the rail > road in and around Savannah. > > Isn't it Debbie Freeman who might be connected with a Warren Poythress of > Newington......... > > Just guessing cuz, > > Bud  

This from the lady who runs the Screven board so I'd assume its applicable to other "county" boards. I know nothing about it so I guess I'll go exploring like the rest of us. From: "Deborah Byrd" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Subject: [GASCREVE] Message boards Okay the message board system is up and running on Myfamily.com.  They are very different from the old genconnect boards.  All of the categories are listed on the board page, so no more separate query, deeds, bios, obits, wills, and deeds boards. When you post a message, the query category is the default so no need to select it if you are posting a query.  If you are posting a deed etc, there is a pull down menu to select which category you are using.  There are several search features, according to traffic on the board admin mailing list some of the search features seem to be acting up don't use the global one, it brings up ever message ever sent with the key word in it. the boolerian protocols for search words don't appear to be working yet. Have a look around, be patient, lots of bugs still in the system.  Opinion is out on the new boards.  Some love them, some hate them. Deborah Byrd

In a message dated 6/23/01 6:15:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: > Subj: Re: Ancestry > Date: 6/23/01 6:15:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time > From: [email protected] (Christine Poythress) > To: [email protected] > > these sound like my great grand fathers Well, Christine, you rascal, have you been lurkin' and not letting us know whom you're "after"? Hope it is a "hit" for you. I'm fairly sure Warren and maybe Reubin are out of Effingham County. However, for the time they were in Savannah you should be in luck; Chatham County has great records. "R. W. Poythress" is a blank for me. Let me poke about in my mountain of papers and I'll see what I can find on the first two for you. Best, Maynard > > > >

Oops, sorry about that Craig.....I forget you're always out there lurking! <g> I'll behave myself in future. Maynard

Of course is it probably the grand-daughter of one of these two that has the family bible that connects all of our various families together into one. And being in the proud position of having the, what shall I call it, progenitor with the latest birth date I take that late in the game stuff seriously. I was in Birmingham and as is my norm I checked the phone book for Poythress. There were several. Of course I never call them, I just check the telephone books.<G> Craig > > Got it! Hope it means more to you than it does to me :( > > Name Business Name Occupation Location 1 Location 2 City State Year > > > > Reuben W. Poythress C. R. R watchman Savannah GA 1889 > > > > J. Warren Poythress S. Guckenheimer & Sons clk bds 202 State Savannah GA > > 1891 > > > > R. W. Poythress C. R. R. whf watchman Savannah GA 1891 > > > Thanks a ton, Jane, you're right. Probably a dead end since its pretty > "late" in the game for most of us. Really appreciate your getting this for > us and I'll pass it along to the board in case it hits somebody. > > Thanks again, > > Maynard > > > > > > > ==== POYTHRESS Mailing List ==== > The Poythress Web Page is at http://www1.minn.net/~atims/ > > > > > >

In a message dated 6/23/01 1:08:14 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Congs writes: > Subj: Ancestry > Date: 6/23/01 1:08:14 PM Eastern Daylight Time > From: <A HREF="mailto:Congs">Congs</A> > To: <A HREF="mailto:VKRatliff">VKRatliff</A> > > Got it! Hope it means more to you than it does to me :( > Name Business Name Occupation Location 1 Location 2 City State Year > > Reuben W. Poythress C. R. R watchman Savannah GA 1889 > > J. Warren Poythress S. Guckenheimer & Sons clk bds 202 State Savannah GA > 1891 > > R. W. Poythress C. R. R. whf watchman Savannah GA 1891 Thanks a ton, Jane, you're right. Probably a dead end since its pretty "late" in the game for most of us. Really appreciate your getting this for us and I'll pass it along to the board in case it hits somebody. Thanks again, Maynard