Gary, Thanks for the info. I have to admit I was skeptical at first, the second Tobias as the son of Matthias is not consistent with all the records. I thought I was be able to read up in the archives of the Wilhite list or in the Germanna archives and find a place where someone had cleared this all up in the past, so far I haven't found that sort of explination but there certainly are a number of people who list the families much as you have them. There doesn't seem to be any doubt that Matthias and the first Tobias were brothers. Matthias married Mary Ballenger and Tobias1 married Catherine Walke, everything seems to agree on that. Despite his not being mentioned in the will of the first Tobias, there are those who have made the case that the second Tobias and his brothers Joel, John, Lewis and sister Catherine are really children of the first Tobias and Catherine Walke. I'll leave that possibility for someone else to answer. Tobias2 seems to have been an interesting person, I understand that he freed slaves and became a Shaker, he was married to Mary Polly Shirley. It seems that I read somewhere that he and his brother William both married Shirley sisters and that at least Tobias was married in England, do you know anything about that? There seems to be no disagreement that Michael was the son of Tobias1, and there are a good number of sources saying he was married to Mary Shirley. Was there a third Shirley sister who was also named Mary? That doesn't sound right, Polly is a nickname for Mary, one cousin/brother was married to a Mary who is called Polly and the other is married to another Mary, same last name. There are also sources saying that Michael was married to Mary Ballenger, that also sounds strange. His uncle Matthias was married to Mary Ballenger, I guess there could have been another Mary Ballenger, but no sources say anything about Michael being married twice, it must have been one or the other. Gary, most (but not all) of the info available is consistient with the way you have it. Can anyone clear this up a little more? Thanks, Gerald -----Original Message----- From: GWilho6262@aol.com [mailto:GWilho6262@aol.com] Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2002 12:22 PM To: WILHITE-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [WILHITE] Michael Wilhite Hello Everyone; Hope this might clear some of your questions up. Michael WILLHEIT, born abt 1735, died bef 16 Jul 1804, married Mary SHIRLEY, parents Tobias WILLHEIT and Catherine WALKE. Tobias WILLHEIT, born 5 Oct 1750, died 7 Feb 1839, married Mary (Polly) SHIRLEY, parents Matthias WILLHEIT and Mary BALLENGER. Michael and Tobias were 1st cousins. Gary A. Wilhoite ==== WILHITE Mailing List ==== To unsubscribe from WILHITE, send an e-mail message to: WILHITE-L-request@rootsweb.com (for individual messages) WILHITE-D-request@rootsweb.com (for Digest mode) Type only ONE word in the Subject line: unsubscribe ============================== To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237