Hello. This is Jean Bails and I was the one who mentioned the huge area called Washington County before there was a state of Tenessee. Well, I was in a hurry to get the e-mail out and I made a serious error when it came to mentioning William Beals and his father, John. It was not his father, John. This was an error--a big error! For those who focused on the Beals part of the message,please delete that part of my message and replace it with this correction (sorry): William, the son of John and Mary (Clayton) Beals, didn't make it to Tennessee. I have never seen a date of death for him, but I have seen it estimated as about 1730, perhaps later, in what would later become Frederick County, Maryland. The William Beals or Bales who settled in what would become Knox Co., Tenn., before 1786 was born ca. 1747, the son John and Margaret (Hunt) Beals and grandson of John and Sarah (Bowater) Beals and William and Mary (Woolman) Hunt. He's my ancestor. This William has confused descendants because he had two wives named Rachel, with at least 17 children born over a span from 1770 to 1809. Among the older children was a son William Bales (1775-1850) who also married a Rachel, whose family was sometimes confused with his father's. The above correction came from [email protected] through the mailing list: quaker - [email protected]