Dear Sheri, "Does anyone know where the marriage between John and Nancy may have occured? Also would anyone know where any of the children born by John and Nancy would have been born? I know most ended up in Grainger Co., TN to marry and die." John and Nancy were NOT married in Virginia. The bond for John and Nancy's marriage is dated 11 January 1805 in Grainger County, Tennessee. It is a "no return" so the exact date they were married can not be known, but usually marriages took place the same day the bond was dated or within the next few days (sometimes a longer period of time elapsed). However, other records confirm this marriage did take place. It is likely that all of John and Nancy's children and all of John and Jane's children were born in Grainger County since that was where "Big" John lived at the time. My records usually indicate these presumed places of birth. One always realizes that an individual child could because of circumstances unknown to the researcher be born someplace else, but with the abscence of birth certificates etc. one does the best one can. Some of the lists I am on are full of "serious" genealogists who are very, very picky They place no reliance on census information except that it indicates the "location" of the parents at the time the census was taken etc., etc. Now I am a SERIOUS genealogist, but I realize that with the paucity of records on some of our East Tennessee families one can only do the best one can New England researchers have town vital records dating back to the earliest days, etc etc. Those of us who have ancestors who belonged to dissenting congregations and were often unable to read or write cannot always be that precise! I try to be extremely sure of my "links"(I would rather be permanently stalled on a great great grandparent than identify someone as an ancestor on scanty eveidence), and narrow birth dates, birth places, marriages and deaths down as closely as I can and sometimes all I can come up with is a "circa" date or an assumed place of birth. Elizabeth Shown Mills once remarked on my TMG list (won't go into why she was participating on the list), "searching a southern genealogy is NOT that easy.!" Excuse the tirade all! <grin>. Sheri, I ASSUME all of Big John's children were born in Grainger County, Tennessee. Gail > > Thanks, >

Gail, I do appreciate your information. I had felt that the Nancy and John children were born in TN but was hoping someone on this list would have information to confirm my speculations. I was basicly trying to determine if perhaps John had married prior to arriving in TN. You are correct in it is hard to tell when actual birth dates, even years are. There was the birth of the State of Franklin, then TN, the changing of several boundary lines, the known fact that many enumerators got their information from other family members or neighbors rather than the actual person, so many variables. I know that many names both Christian and surname were written as pronounced, and that became written in stone as time passed. As you may know I volunteered to help an elderly gentleman attempt to determine who Big John's father was. This gentleman kindly provided me with all his information by snail mail, and all of it is old information. I know new discoveries and corrections occurred because I have tripped and stumbled my way through much of his work. I took his work and began stripping it apart, questioning the list when I found inconsistencies which raised red flags. Much of his information came from Selena but I see where she has corrected a major amount of data since his original queries in 2001. I want to wrap up the basic research task and get back to my own work. I appreciate all who have volunteered and answered my many questions. I am not new to research, merely to the Mayes lines. I am sure I will be asking a few more before I ship all my results and printouts to him. Sheri Gail Roorda <[email protected]> wrote: Dear Sheri, "Does anyone know where the marriage between John and Nancy may have occurred? Also would anyone know where any of the children born by John and Nancy would have been born? I know most ended up in Grainger Co., TN to marry and die." John and Nancy were NOT married in Virginia. The bond for John and Nancy's marriage is dated 11 January 1805 in Grainger County, Tennessee. It is a "no return" so the exact date they were married can not be known, but usually marriages took place the same day the bond was dated or within the next few days (sometimes a longer period of time elapsed). However, other records confirm this marriage did take place. It is likely that all of John and Nancy's children and all of John and Jane's children were born in Grainger County since that was where "Big" John lived at the time. My records usually indicate these presumed places of birth. One always realizes that an individual child could because of circumstances unknown to the researcher be born someplace else, but with the absence of birth certificates etc. one does the best one can. Some of the lists I am on are full of "serious" genealogists who are very, very picky They place no reliance on census information except that it indicates the "location" of the parents at the time the census was taken etc., etc. Now I am a SERIOUS genealogist, but I realize that with the paucity of records on some of our East Tennessee families one can only do the best one can New England researchers have town vital records dating back to the earliest days, etc etc. Those of us who have ancestors who belonged to dissenting congregations and were often unable to read or write cannot always be that precise! I try to be extremely sure of my "links"(I would rather be permanently stalled on a great great grandparent than identify someone as an ancestor on scanty evidence), and narrow birth dates, birth places, marriages and deaths down as closely as I can and sometimes all I can come up with is a "circa" date or an assumed place of birth. Elizabeth Shown Mills once remarked on my TMG list (won't go into why she was participating on the list), "searching a southern genealogy is NOT that easy.!" Excuse the tirade all! . Sheri, I ASSUME all of Big John's children were born in Grainger County, Tennessee. Gail > > Thanks, > ==== TNGRAING Mailing List ==== To UNSUBSCRIBE please send your message to [email protected] --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more