This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: waroper Surnames: Roper, Loving, Rutledge, Edelman Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.roper/1875.1.1.2.2.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: Frank: Overall, I want to commend you for a very thoughtful and insightful post discussing the RUTLEDGE and EDELMAN connections. I will discuss some of the more important possible implications in another post. But I wanted to at least post one cautionary note as to the identity of the "T. ROPER" shown in the LOVING Will. You stated: > I previously speculated that the T. Roper might be Tennessee Roper of Maury County. > The only Roper whose first name starts with a "T" in the 1820 and 1830 Maury County > census records is Tennessee Roper. While I agree with your assertion that Tennessee ROPER (b 02 Jul 1798) is the ONLY known adult "T. ROPER found in Maury in 1820 and 1830, I would also remind you that Thomas ROPER (b abt 1780 - NC) was in immediately adjacent Hickman County, TN, in 1820. This is the Thomas ROPER we believe later settled in Clinton County, Illinois. It is important to bear in mind that since Maury and Hickman Counties are immediately adjacent, identifying locations of ROPERs and LOVINGs in these counties is rather critical. However, NO ONE seems to be willing to take the time to actually inspect the Maury and Hickman DEED RECORDS and instead they continue to rely solely on a few abstracts of Maury deed records, which are inherently INCOMPLETE. * One location in Maury where the ROPERs seemed to have owned land was on Flat Creek. Flat Creek is a tributary of the Duck River, flowing into the Duck River from the north. Flat Creek joins Duck River about twenty miles almost due South of the Town of Franklin (Williamson County) where George W. ROPER later settled at Roper's Knob, and about nine miles east of the town of Columbia. Flat Creek is to the East of Interstate 65, which runs North-South into Nashville. Flat Creek flows into Duck River between I-65 and U.S. 431 just South of U.S. 412 (Tennessee State Highway 99). This is very near the Eastern boundary of Maury County, adjacent to Marshall County. The headwaters of Flat Creek are in Williamson County near U.S. 31A. Flat Creek flows Southerly and Westerly from Williamson, through the Northwest corner of Marshall County and into Maury County before flowing into Duck River. * Another ROPER location near Maury is the property shown to be on Lick Creek, in Williamson County, identified in a deed dated 19 Apr 1817 and recorded 15 June 1817. I mention this deed because if one looks at a map, it turns out that while the headwaters of Lick Creek are in Williamson County, this creek then flows through the Northwest corner of Maury County in Hickman County. Lick Creek is a tributary of the Duck River, like Flat Creek, flowing into Duck River from the North. Lick Creek is to the North and West of the Natchez Trace. This ROPER property was about fifteen miles to the North of Columbia (Maury Co.) and about twelve miles Southwest of Franklin (Williamson Co.). * Another location where the ROPERs seem to have owned property in Maury is at "Big Tombigby Creek." Abstracts of Chancery records seem to show that in 1824 there was some correction to a deed of conveyance from William ROPER to William LOVING on the East Fork of Big Tombigby Creek. This conveyance seems to be dated 10 Sep 1817, based upon the abstract, but I am not confident that this is correct unless and until someone looks at the underlying record. As far as I can tell, no one has sufficient interest in this ROPER family to pull that actual deed records OR the Chancery records. Everyone seems to want to make speculative ascriptions based upon the incomplete abstract. "Big Tombigby Creek" seems to be the stream now known as Big Bigby Creek. Big Bigby is a tributary of the Duck River, which creek flows generally South to North, flowing into the Duck River near Southall Road to the South Southwest of Williamsport and to the South and East of the Natchez Trace Parkway. Big Bigby Creek flows past the town of Mount Pleasant. You will see a Rickett's Mill Road to the West of Mount Pleasant, probably a clue that a RICKETTS family had a mill near there at one time. The headwaters of Big Bigby Creek are near the Maury County - Lawrence County line. That you cite a Will record of William LOVING is suggestive that the "T. ROPER" might be more likely to live near Big Bigby (Big Tombigby) Creek rather than at or near Flat Creek. * Since no one has bothered to locate the ROPER properties on Flat Creek or Big Tombigby Creek (below), it is difficult to say with precision how close these two properties were to the property on Lick Creek. We have the best description of the Lick Creek property. The Lick Creek property was probably about eighteen to nineteen miles away. While this seems to suggest a precise location as to the Flat Creek property, the narrowness in distance reflects NOT that the location is precisely known, but rather than Flat Creek flows in a direction such that along its length, the distance to the ROPER property on Lick Creek is about the same (as the crow flies). The distance between the ROPER properties on Lick Creek and the property on Big Tombigby (Big Bigby) Creek is much less clear, since Big Bigby Creek begins near the Lawrence County Line and flows North. These properties may have been separated by fifteen to thirty miles, depending upon precisely where the property was located on Big Bigby Creek. * We also do NOT know the location of any land owned by Thomas ROPER, of Hickman, because no one is interested enough to check the actual land records in Hickman County. Intuition suggests that he might have drifted over the county line from the Lick Creek location, but this is really speculation based upon incomplete data. * While it seems to me that the KNOWN records seem suggestive that William LOVING was at or near Big Bigby Creek and it is MORE LIKELY that Tennessee ROPER might be the "T. ROPER" shown in the records, this is something that could really be pinned down simply by doing the basic genealogical research of identifying and transcribing ALL of the extant deed records in Maury County. People continue to make wild, speculative and unsupported ascriptions because they are TOO LAZY to pull the readily accessible deed records. When someone bothers to actually CHECK, we are likely to find that there is rich extant evidence which shows how many of these Tennessee ROPERs are related. But no one dares to look because the results will PROVE the fraudulent nature of their own invented lineages! I suspect that the speculative ascription of Tennessee ROPER as the "T. ROPER" in the records is probably RIGHT in this particular case, however we cannot really exclude the non-trivial possibility that it might instead be Thomas ROPER because no one will do the research. Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board. <br>