The Family Tree Problem Solver: Tried-And-True Tactics for Tracing Elusive Ancestors Read Online Free PDF Page B

[— ? —] who preceded him in death. In his will, John Y. Phillips named three sons, John Y., Theodore, and Warner. 12 The loose papers in the probate packet named his children as Harriet, Newton, Theodore, Warner, John Y., Ann P., Ellen, and Austin Phillips. 13
    Hiram Phillips was born about 1792 in Virginia and married 1818 in Bourbon County, Kentucky, to Elizabeth Cave. He served in the War of 1812 and received a bounty land for his service. 14 He spent most of his long life farming in Boone County. His twelve children were Ellen, James, William, Augustine, Addison, Richard, Sarah, Hiram, Elizabeth, Joseph, Martha, and Isabella. 15
    Warner Phillips was born about 1794 in Virginia; died 24 March 1881 in Boone County; married Catharine Hutchings. The 1880 census gave his parents' birthplaces as Virginia. Needless to say, there were a number of families with the Phillips surname that lived in Virginia in the early 1800s. Warner and Catharine were the parents of eight children: Joseph B., four sons born between 1827 and 1844 who all died in infancy, Franklin W., Ann, and Catharine M. 16
    Jane Phillips Huddleston died in Boone County, Missouri, in 1849. She left a will appointing her brothers Hiram and Warner Phillips as her executors. Legacies went to her children John H. and Cordelia A. 17
Onomastic Evidence?
    Many genealogists know that naming patterns can be particularly important if there is an unusual name involved or a pattern of repetition in the family. This can often lead to other siblings and parents. Although the brothers used each other's names when naming their children, the only unidentified names that were repeated were Ann and Ellen. No given name was repeated that might have led to a possible father.
    Other than the marriage for Hiram and Elizabeth Cave, no other recorded marriages were found for any of the family members in either Virginia, Kentucky, or Missouri. All of the children for each of these couples were born in Missouri, and the three brothers appeared as the first settlers in Columbia Township of Boone County by 1821, the year of statehood.
    Other family members had found more information. The annotated cemetery inscriptions of Boone County, Missouri, reported that the “Phillips Family came to Boone County from Bourbon County, Kentucky.” 18 In addition to Hiram's marriage there, his wife's father, Richard, had given permission for the marriage. Richard Cave was found in the tax and land records of Bourbon County, and followed his daughter to Missouri. Yet nothing was found in Bourbon County for either of the other Phillips brothers, their sister, or any clues to their parentage. An article in the
Missouri Historical Review
stated that, “Warren and J.B. [
sic
] Phillips came from Scott County, Kentucky.” 19 “Hiram Phillips is also said to have come from Kentucky but exact county unknown.” More study was done in Scott County. No results. These two “genealogical” statements stymied researchers for years.
    The Phillips descendants had studied the War of 1812 bounty land application for Hiram Phillips. He served in Johnson's Regiment of Mounted Kentucky Volunteers. Later he was a sergeant in James Coleman's Regiment of Mounted Volunteers. Although the application gave his marriage date and place, there was no further information regarding his place of enlistment or origin.
    I checked the probate records for each of the brothers. Everything confirmed they were related and every associate in Boone County led back to Bourbon County. And yet, the brothers were of age before they left Kentucky, and although all of their later associates appeared on the tax rolls of Bourbon County, they did not. No one named Phillips appeared on the 1810 census for Kentucky that had males in his household of the right age to be John, Hiram, and Warner.
    The break in this problem came in reanalyzing records the family already had. The crucial question was one mentioned earlier: “Who else was involved in