Hello- The inscription on William Sample's 1844 tombstone (Union Hill Cemetery, St. Clair Co., Illinois) states he was born in Loudoun Co., Virginia on Nov. 19, 1789. He may have been the son of James and Sarah Sample, as they appear to have been the only Sample family residing in Loudoun Co. during the 1780's. Sarah was the child and step-child respectively of Catherine and John Thomas. Each had been married previously, John Thomas to Hanna Mead, with whom he had five children: Mary, Joseph, Thomas, Leonard Taylor and Martha. Catherine to Darrell (first name unknown to me) with whom she had three children: Sarah (Sample), John and Thomas. Catherine's eldest child, William Blinstone, had been born out of wedlock from a shipboard romance with Henry T. McCabe, en route from Ireland to the port of Alexandria, Va. The subsequent setting is Leesburg. where Henry's father was a publican, and the time frame probably the late 1760's as Catherine's children were grown at the time of her death in 1793, Her daughter, Sarah Sample, had died the previous year, leaving at least two small daughters, Catherine (b. ca. 1789) and Susannah. Son-in-law James Sample served as witness to Catherine Thomas' will. With death first of their mother, followed by the death of their grandmother, the two little girls were adopted out, with at least Catherine going to the Brown family, apparently friends, as a Brown served as executor of Catherine Thomas's will. Later, (August 12, 1812) Catherine married a son of the family, John Dogget Brown. As far as I know, William Sample does not appear in Virginia records, and I first come across his trail when he was 21, and serving in the illinois mounted militia. Later in that year, on June 12, 1812. William married Nancy Preston. They settled first in Randolph County, Ill., and then a few years later moved north to St. Clair Co. Their first son was named James, and their first daughter Sarah. Thanks for your patience in reading this long story. Any information helping connect William to James and Sarah Sample would be very much appreciated. Tom Davis