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