Hi, List - I did not want to bring up another Roach question while y'all were discussing other Grainger County names, but that seems to have wanned a bit - so here's my delimma. John Roach, son of Absalom Roach and Mary Middleton, married Sally Roman(s) in Grainger County in December 1820, per marriage bond. The first two children were William S. Roach and my g-g-g-grandfa. Absalom Roach, who married Melvina Jane Cardwell in Grainger Co. TN. There were six other children after William S. and Absalom. John's will mentions his wife as being "Sarrah" - nothing to worry about here, Sally being a nickname for Sarah. I thought I had that all figured out. Then - up crops a death certificate of one of the six that says his mother was Sarah Cook. Also, two letters written by a descendant of another of the six that states John Roach married Sarah Cook. And, an aunt of mine that worked on genealogy from the 1940s until shortly before her death in 1995, had a family group sheet that had a John Roach married a Sarah Cook, with no additional information on it. Until the death certificate and the letters appeared on the scene, I just thought my aunt had information on another John Roach, whose identity I did not know. It is possible that Sarah Cook and Sally Romans were one and the same person. Sally Romans was born ca 1805, and may be listed on on the 1880 Grainger Co. census as being a 75 year-old woman living with yet another of the six, so that pretty much fits. However, she then would have been only about 15 years old when she married John Roach, so it does not seem possible that she would have been a Cook married first a Roman(s) and then John Roach.....? The other possibility is, of course, that she had "dual names", either because that's the way her parents named her OR because her father may have died young, mom remarried, and Sally used alternately her birth name and her stepfather's name. Yet, there is a possibility that Sally Roman(s) and Sarah Cook were two different people. I have not been able to come up with a marriage bond for John Roach and Sarah Cook. The Roman(s) families do not know who she may have been. I don't find many Cooks/Cookes/Koches in the area during the period 1823+ that could have been her parents. I use the name Roman(s) because it is not possible to tell whether there is an "s" at the end of the name on the marriage bond, or if that is a flourish of some sort. Also, some work published many years ago has John and Sally married in Dec. 1823. According to the marriage bond, that is not correct. So -- I thought I would toss this out there and see what some of you think about this perplexing situation! Thanx, Betty _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus