Thanks, Shirley, for the relevant quotes on Jane Middleton Rust. My Reunion file up and quit on me this weekend and has gone to the spa (LeisterPro) for repairs, so I can't trace out the relationships yet. On first glance, though, I don't find it terribly unusual for a woman in the 18th c to marry at 15 and have 12 or 14 children and still live to be 81. I have other known cases of women with a dozen or more kids starting in their mid-teens. If Jane had her first child at 18 and last at 35+, she still had 10 years or so of potential childbearing. Guess she finally figured out what was causing those births and stopped! The one thing I remember (from a partial printout I did some time ago) is that Jane MIDDLETON wife of John CRABB outlived her husband, "whose will made in 1775 was proven in 1779." (EMR) That means she could not have been a widow married to Benedict RUST in 1766. So the best answer is that EMR made an error in proofreading and Benedict's wife was Jane MIDDLETON Crabb's daughter Jane Middleton CRABB. It's quite normal that John CRABB would call his married daughter Jane Middleton Rust, omitting her maiden name. I caught what I suspect is another error in EMR from your quote (p. 323). He says Mary MIDDLETON, dau. of Benedict MIDDLETON and Elizabeth ROGERS, married George RUST-323. Now that's possible, but on p. 421 he says Mary (George's wife) was the daughter of Robert and Mary MIDDLETON. I think Benedict's daughter may be the Mary MIDDLETON of William A. Crozier, ed., _Westmoreland County Wills_ (Virginia County Record Publications, n.s. 1, 1913), p. 64, citing Will Book 14: "MIDDLETON, MARY, 6 Mch. 1755; 27 Sept. 1763. To William and Thomas the sons of Thomas Middleton decd; Mary Brown dau. of my brother Benjamin Middleton; Leazure widow of Thomas Middleton decd. extx." Crozier often mistakes Benedict for Benjamin. Of course, there were several Benjamin MIDDLETONs, so it's possible that Mary really did have a brother Benjamin, in which case she could have been the daughter of Benedict's brother John. John's sons were John, Robert, Thomas, and Benjamin. It is quite likely that Mary would leave property to her nephews and niece. (Just to confuse things, John's son John II married the sister of his uncle Benedict's wife.) I don't have birthdates for George (son of Matthew RUST and Winifred COX) and Mary, but George's parents were born before 1700 and Robert MIDDLETON was born probably around 1700, so they were the same generation. Mary MIDDLETON wife of George RUST was more likely the granddaughter of Benedict MIDDLETON and Elizabeth ROGERS. Kathleen Much kathleen@casbs.stanford.edu