Which Mason family; that's the 64 dollar question. The record is incomplete and some of what I am doing is conjecture, but there is some basis for it. Early records place Bartlett Mason in Stafford County at the beginning of the 19th century and we know he moves to Owen County, KY. My ggg-grandfather, Nimrod Mason is known to have married Abigail Horton in Fauquier Co. in 1794 and he seems to move down to what will become Tazewell County where he is taxed for a couple of years and sign a petition to make Tazewell a county. He reappears in Frankfort, KY and dies in 1860 where a one line entry on the death record says he came from VA and his father was Louis Mason. (It also says his mother was Abigail Mason but since I don't know who provided this information, I strongly believe that someone confused him with his first wife, Abigail Horton--but we can't be dead sure). His son, Charles Henry Mason, by his second wide who he married in Frankfort in 1812-13 lived near the Bartlett Mason family. The naming patterns of Bartlett's line also reflect the name of Charles Henry Mason as well as Nimrod Mason. So, given the liklyhood of Bartlett and Nimrod being related, I look to Stafford County, which, I note, is contiguous to Fauquier. The records show there was a Lewis Mason in Stafford County. Obviously Louis and Lewis could be interchangeable in the records. Getting down to the nub of it, there is no evidence that Lewis Mason of Stafford is the father of Nimrod but its a good possibility. I've been told but haven't personally verified that Lewis's father was a John Mason and if that is the case then the records of Overwharton Parish come into importance as they indicate therein that John Mason's father was William Mason, a man apparently unrelated to the famous George Mason line. That's about it. If, as I have seen in VASTAFFO-rootsweb communications, the Union Army burned pre 1800 marriage records of Stafford County, I am sunk. That's why I am trying to see what has survived and what might be available when I get back there this June.