This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Burton, Trent Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/XeB.2ACE/3195.1.1.1.1.1 Message Board Post: Scott, I don't have a good answer. I know that it adversely affects your book, but maybe that is not such a bad thing. I think that there are two things that we have to consider. First, you have the best database on the Trents. So, whatever is figured out from these new records has to match up with your database from Virginia. The facts are the facts. Second--you and I have discussed this before--many of the early Hawkins County genealogies are in error. It may upset many researchers, but so be it--is the cup half empty or full? For example, we know for a fact that the Hawkins County Burton and Murrell genealogies were wrong. It tooks me four years to figure it out. I am sure that you found similar problems in VA. It may be that the Trent genealogies in Hawkins and Hancock counties are wrong too--I don't know for sure or to what extent. So, maybe one approach is to say--ok--if Samuel Trent (Burton) and James Burton Trent were closely related what does that mean in terms of your database? How would we explain it? Maybe we can't, and that is good information. But, in Hawkins and Hancock counties, 2nd and 3rd cousin marriages were the rule--for better or for worse. Taken as a whole, it does appear that Samuel Trent (Burton) and James Burton Trent were closely related. David