I am tracking Josiah Morton, my ggggrandfather, and family and the trail is sparse and hard to follow. The last two counties, Bedford TN and Henderson TN, where I currently have indications of Josiah MORTON and Nancy JOHNSON living, suffered catastrophic losses of records in several courthouse fires each. I know Josiah and his wife, Nancy JOHNSON, were NC natives and gave birth to at least one son, John Alexander MORTON, in Wilson County, 14 Jun 1829. A Josiah MORTON shows up in the 1830 Bedford County TN Census Pg. 51, living next door to Wiley Johnson, who may be Nancy's father or other close relative. The households are as follows: Wiley Johnson 1001110100000 2015001000000 Josiah Morton 2100010000000 3100100000000 The same pair of families are found in the 1840 Henderson County TN Census Pg 20. An additional family is added here, living between the two. Wyley C Johnson 0000000010000 0000000010000 Benjamin(e) Johnson 0110010000000 2100100000000 Josiah Morton 0220001000000 1111010000000 It seems as though Benjamin and his family were living in the household of Wiley JOHNSON in the 1830 Census along with some other family members who are no longer present in 1840. In the 1850 Henderson County TN Census District 7 Pg165 (329 handwritten) Two Josiah MORTON households are listed on the same page: 107Josiah Morton 23M_Farmer_Tenn Nancy do 25F_ _ _Tenn John " 3M_ _ _ Tenn 111Josiah Morton 51M_Farmer_NC Nancy do 49F_ _ _NC Adeline " 18F_ _ _Tenn Thomas " 16M_Farmer_Tenn Robert " 13M_ _ _Tenn Martha " 10F_ _ _Tenn Jane " 8 F_ _ _Tenn Assuming that the younger Josiah is one of the two young males in the 1830 census household of the elder Josiah, the other might be, and probably is, John Alexander MORTON,my gggrandfather who, at 21, is living in Hickory County MO in 1850 per census records. Can anyone provide further information on these families, based on all of the names from the censuses. Any connections or clues would be appreciated. I am especially interested in anything that will lead to birth places and parents of the elder Josiah MORTON and Nancy JOHNSON or concrete proof that the people in these censuses are actually the parents of John Alexander MORTON. Thank you in advance for even wading through all this data. Brec Morton, Kansas City