Gerald, Interesting! Joseph Thornton shows up in Morgan Co, IL in 1833 in a marriage record. His first wife died in August 1833 and he married a second wife, Nancy Metcalf Lewis two months later. That marriage record is in the Morgan Co courthouse. I may be wrong but I had the impression that Morgan Co was the larger county from which Cass was derived sometime between 1833 and 1840. At any rate, I have not found land records yet for Joseph Thornton in either county but I know that some of his children had farms right on the boundry between the two counties, just south of the town of Virginia. I have the 1840 Cass Co census record that I assumed was Joseph Thornton, though there seems to be one or two children missing. I had guessed that maybe the 11 year old son from the first marriage was living with a grown sibling at the time. I would be interested in seeing the information that you have from the 1840 Morgan Co Joseph. I have not seen that one. There very well could have been more than one Joseph in the region. It seems like several branches of the family descended on the area over a period of time. It seems to me that I saw other Josephs in the Morgan Co records but it has been a while since I was there. Thanks for the input and let me know how I can be helpful Dennis Wilhite