Aaron Davis' son, Jahu Davis

I've finally finished the section for Jahu (Jehu, Jahue, etc) Davis, whom most people find mis-identified in public records as John Davis.  The bulk of his descendants are from his son, Thomas Anderson Davis, though three of his daughters are known to have also started families.

Rather than creating a PDF of just the section for Jahu Davis, I have made one for the entire Aaron Davis Chapter:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ppstqvhbe33vefp/Aaron%20Davis.pdf?dl=0

Thus, there are some minor changes to the three earlier sections that I had produced for this chapter.

At some point I will reformat the book so that only a few generations of descendants are included.  When I do that, I will create a second volume that includes only the descendancy lists for the three Davis families.  A big reason for doing this is because indexing the book with the number of people that it currently includes will be a nightmare.  So the plan is to include a full name index for the first volume and probably no index for the second volume (that really is a decision for later in the process, so who knows what will actually happen?).

Aaron Davis' Daughter, Elizabeth (Davis) Henson

I actually had finished the re-write of this section of the Aaron Davis chapter at the same time as I had done the previous section, but figured it was best not to put both sections out at the same time.

Most of this section was done after I subscribed to Newspapers.com, so the listings are a bit more detailed and the citations are somewhat abbreviated.  I've decided to include living people, but generally do not provide birth and death information after the mid-1940s or so.

You might have noticed in the previous section that I have added chapter name headers to each chapter, making it clear (if a single page is printed) that these are descendants of, for instance, Aaron Davis.  I had also re-titled the book to The First Davis Family of Jackson County, Illinois, but have since changed it back to the original title because Nathan and Clement Davis had also arrived in Jackson County around 1808 or so.  Thus it is not possible to determine which family arrived first.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9o55ikzo05t4cr7/Elizabeth%20Davis%20Henson.pdf?dl=0

Since printing the above I've improved the newspaper citations, so that it is as easy as possible to find the right newspaper and zoom in on the information of interest.  I've also started replacing the citations Find A Grave bios and obits with the same information from a specific newspaper, where possible.

Descendant surnames in this section:
Shrewsberry, Lynch, Bartlett, Vollmer, Mattingly, Fry, Drumtra, Morris, Elmore, Callahan, Isom, Aselmeier, Davis, Mills, Zitta, Blumyer, Goehl, King, Bouck, Evans, Keck, Riseling, Patterson, Lancey, Tweedy, Will, Treadway, Stanford, Overstreet, Whisler, Talbot, Williamson, Wright, Bowman, Cairns, Philp, Bowers, Crisler, Bagley, Levan, Borgsmiller, Imhoff, Shannon, Vancil, Hanna, Eatherly, Carden, Smith, Morgan, Popejoy, Klein, Anderson, Miller, McBride, Thompson, Hamblen, Kessel, Rohlfing, Enders, Moeller, Tope, Heiple, Bryant, Fuhrhop, Summers, Weseloh, Morrow.

Aaron Davis' daughter, Matilda Priscilla (Davis) Bradshaw

This section of the chapter on Aaron Davis has taken a while to work through, mainly because of the depth of research necessary to try to make sense of Eliza Evaline Bradshaw (daughter of John and Matilda Priscilla [Davis] Bradshaw) and her marriages to Henry Painter and Joseph Victor Glodo.  The result of that effort is somewhat speculative, but I believe I am on far more solid ground than speculation that has been done by others.  And I suspect that whoever in the future pays to get a copy of Joseph Victor Glodo, Sr.'s Civil War pension application will likely find that I am correct in most, if not all, important details.

So here is the link to the recent draft of the section about Matilda Priscilla (Davis) Bradshaw:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0hs4w3s2ifbamhh/Matilda%20Priscilla%20Davis%20Bradshaw.pdf?dl=0

Note that the citations in this section are a bit too detailed, and I will likely pare them down the next time I review it.  In the next section that I am working on (Elizabeth [Davis] Henson), the citations are pretty much limited to those that prove a family connection, and even some minor connections are not cited.

Also, I recently subscribed to Newspapers.com, so some of the citations for this section will eventually be replaced with newspaper citations.

Descendant surnames for this section include:
Woodward, Dorway, Layne, Gillooly, Sloan, Claussen, Herring, Ledbetter, Sanders, Paulus, Tucker, Cattoor, Pinkston, Cornwell, Friedemann, Kessler, Reeves, Prater, Fry, Harasek, Bradshaw, Craig, Carmack, Lee, Fly, Bateman, Balling, Hill, Danback, Douthitt, Painter, Glodo, Sickmeier, Speis, Whelchel, Callahan, Guetersloh, Heeszel, Gannon, Ogle, Todd, Morgan, Carter, Hawkins, Kueker, Holcomb, Richardson, Brown, Cuttill, Mason, Ralls, Holderfield, Flood, Jelley, Cochran, Gola, Querling, Hagemier, Verble, Fricke, Stewart, Kilby, Hodge, Schuenke, Burcham, Maciejewski, Daniels, Spearhouse, Dunn, Reeder, Rogers, Cox, Thurman, Phelps, and Gasawski. 

It is probably worth noting our current situation.  As most of you know, Alea and I have spent the past two+ years traveling around the U.S., camping in our 12' Camp Inn teardrop trailer.  For the winter (from now through at least February) we will be camping within 100 miles or so of Orlando, Florida.  Most of the time we will have decent cell reception, which is necessary for me to continue to research and write the book.  But that won't always be the case, and at times camping conditions will be far from favorable for making much progress.  So I will continue to plug away at it, but don't be surprised if the pace of progress varies considerably.

Aaron Davis' son, Andrew Jackson Davis

I am currently updating the chapter of the book for Aaron Davis and his descendants.  Below is a link to the changes to the section about his son Andrew Jackson Davis.  This section alone took about a week of working full time to update, so I decided that it would probably be best to post these smaller book section updates as I complete them, as opposed to waiting for full chapter updates.  Aaron's chapter was the only chapter not fully updated in draft two, so I am hoping that the other chapters will be less time consuming to update (and I've already made quite a few changes to most other chapters).  The PDF below uses revision marks - so it is clear what has been updated since the last draft and what hasn't.  You will see that a very large portion of this section has been updated.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xvw74kpr54htep6/Davis-Aaron-AndrewJ.pdf?dl=0

Hopefully one or more of you will have the time and inclination to review this and provide comments, suggestions, changes, deletions, additions, etc.  For descendants who were born after 1940 I generally don't provide birth or death information, though I have included marriage information when I find a source for that.

Regarding source citations, I've tried to limit citations to the minimum necessary to prove the relationships between people.  I generally won't source marriage records, except for licenses that list parents and other details.

I believe this is a fairly complete listing of Andrew Jackson Davis' descendants, though it is always possible that someone had moved out of state and has fallen through the cracks.

Descendant surnames in this section: Carter, Morgan, Gillespie, Blankenstein, Kasperzick, Asbury, Kuegler, Tucker, Chavaux, Dickhans, Sellers, Pobst, Mobley, Mabuce, Peterman, Hawn, Fishburn, Reed, Forbis, Criss, Robison, Zook, Bullinger, and Eakins.

Moore and Cumberland Counties, NC

I spent the afternoon in Charlottesville, NC and completed my research of Cumberland County records.  There was a record of Mathis and others living east of Governors Creek around 1786, which could have been in Cumberland County.  But their deed indexes are online and there was no deed where Mathis sold that property.  It could also have been in Harnett or Lee County, but the former only has land records from 1855 and the latter from 1908.  So it looks as though land records are exhausted, unless I find a source for surveys related to land grants (I found online records for the grants, so I suspect the surveys are not available).  

I found where Mathis Davis was involved in at least two lawsuits, one against the state of North Carolina.  I suspect these were both settled in Moore County, where the records have been destroyed, so I won't pursue those.

I found no grantor deeds from Mathis, only grantee deeds.  The former would likely have required the signature of his spouse, since she would have a dower interest in the property.  If such a deed had shown that his wife's name was Martha, it would have been another brick in the foundation proving that he was the father of James, Aaron and Amos.

Book Progress

I believe I have finally researched most of Aaron Davis' descendants in my tree on Ancestry.com.  As time allows, I will attempt to update the Aaron Davis chapter of the book.  Once that is done I will share a link, seeking your help with comments, corrections, etc.

I have also been updating other sections of the book as time has permitted.  My plan is to go back through each chapter, adding major reference citations to the descendants lists, and reviewing the 1900 and 1910 Census records for any wives who were alive at that time.  The intent of the latter will be to see how many of the surviving children have been identified (since some are nearly always obscured by the lack of an 1890 Census).  As that work is completed, I will send out links for each chapter, again with the intent to get your feedback.

Once all of that is done, I will publish a final draft for any final corrections or comments.  During that time I will create the book's index and document all of the descendant surnames, which will be listed on the title page.  Indexing will be incredibly time consuming, and is best not started until most of the final edits have been done.

If anyone is hanging on to information that might be incorporated into the book, now would be a good time to forward that to me.  Send me an e-mail or contact me through the blog's contact form and I can provide an address where we will be residing periodically during this winter.

Since I don't intend to charge for the book, I can't offer to pay anyone for their help.  But I will be certain to credit your contributions in the book's front matter.

If, once the final PDF is published, there is sufficient interest in purchasing hard copies, I might consider doing so as a fund raising effort to pay for copies to be donated to regional libraries.  But the book will be formatted such that it can easily be reproduced at your local copy store or on your home printer.

Almost a Eureka! Moment

Serendipity was at work this past Monday, when I visited the Sparta Public Library to view a copy of the 1907 Atlas for Jackson County, Illinois.  It happened to be the closest library to Jackson County that was open on Monday, otherwise I would have gone to a library in Jackson County.  They have only a single call number for their roomful of genealogical history books: GEN HIS.  That meant that in order for me to find what I wanted, I literally had to look at each and every volume.  In doing so, I happened upon an abstract of early Kaskaskia newspaper notices.  One such notice reads as follows:

"Vol. 5, #33, Tues, June 19, 1821
Mr. John Gathers, 19 [sic], and Mrs. Patsy Davis were married in Brownsville, Jackson County, on May 21.  The ceremony was attended by the children and grandchildren of the bride."

It is hard to imagine a 19 year old marrying a grandmother in 1821 Illinois, so that is likely erroneous information (possibly 79?).

I got to wondering how many Davis widows living in Jackson County in 1821 were old enough to have married children, and thus grandchildren?  The answer: very, very few.  After all, 1821 was still a very early time in Illinois (just three years after statehood), and the vast majority of pioneers did not yet have grown sons who had married.  After all, the average pioneer family was fairly young.

The one possibility that to me seems very likely is that she may have been the widow of Mathis Davis.  When he sold land in Livingston County, KY, the deed was acknowledge by this wife, Martha (Patsy being a common nickname for Martha).  

If Mathis was the father of James, Aaron and Amos, as I have speculated, then he was likely near 80 years old in 1820.  So his widow would probably have been of a similar age, and in 1820 they were living just a few miles south of Brownsville, where this wedding took place.

If there were any record of the groom, John Gathers, it would help immensely in determining if all of my speculating is correct.  But that name does not show up in a search of Census records from 1818 to 1830.  The one possibility is that the name was not transcribed accurately, which would greatly complicate any efforts at finding him.  Could it have actually been Gaston, which is the name of a close neighbor?

The next step would be to determine how to get a copy of the actual newspaper notice, in order to determine if there is a transcription error.  I will see if there is a research library that might be willing to find that information for me, but I suspect it appeared in the Illinois Intelligencer, which was published in Kaskaskia from 1818-1832.  There are copies on microfilm at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA, so if we happen to pass near there when they are open, I will get a copy of the actual notice.

In my mind, if there is record of her groom living in the vicinity of either James Davis or Aaron Davis, the odds would be very high that she was the widow of Mathis Davis, and that Mathis was the father of James, Aaron and Amos Davis.

Ralph Davis Descendants?

Jim Davis
While visiting Jackson County last month, I received some family lore from Carole Burroughs about a brother of William "Uncle Billy" Davis named "Rafe" Davis (probably Ralph Davis).  It stated that he had a son named Jim, who had married Hulda Roach.

I found a Hulda Gray (age 29) in the 1850 Census, whose daughter was Mary Ann Gray, b. about 1845.  There is a marriage record for Caleb Parks Gray and Hulda Joiner in 1843.  But Hulda's age suggests she could have married as early as 1839, and since the courthouse in Brownsville had burned down in 1843, there would be no record of an earlier marriage.  So she could have been the Hulda Roach who had married Jim Davis...

In the 1850 Census, I found 29 year old James Davis listed last in the household of William "Uncle Billy" Davis.  The others in the household were listed in birth order and thus were Uncle Billy's children, so it is likely that James was a nephew, since he was added after the youngest child.  I had always wondered just how he was related to the others in the household, so this perhaps explains that.

In the 1860 Census, I found Mary Ann Gray (age 15) living in the household of James and Mahala Davis.  There was also an Adaline Roach age 7 (listed last, just after Mary Ann Gray), plus Delia Davis (age 6 months), Maville Davis (age 2) and Leonard Davis (age 7 years).  

James had married Hulda at the end of 1853, so Leonard was likely their child.  There is a five year gap between him and his sister Maville.  It would seem most likely that Mahala was the mother of both Maville and Delia: that Hulda had died around 1856 or so.  Mahala was likely also the mother of Adaline Roach by an earlier marriage.  Unfortunately, there is no marriage record to corroborate these assumptions.

William Davis' son John had married Mavel Roach, and he had a brother named Leonard.  So it is plausible that Hulda was Mavel's sister, and that Mahala was their sister-in-law.

And these facts and assumptions support the family lore provided by Carole Burroughs.  As such, it is likely the best proof that we will ever find that this James Davis was the son of Ralph Davis, and that Ralph Davis was the brother of William "Uncle Billy" Davis.  

Unfortunately, there is no evidence that any of his children survived.  But at least there is some evidence that he had existed...

It is also worth noting that I think this Jim Davis was the James Davis, Junior who had witnessed an 1838 deed for James Davis (William's father).  My presumption is that Ralph had died by then and the younger James was being looked after by the elder James.

Bett Davis
Carole had also noted that "Rafe" or Ralph Davis had a daughter named Bett (presumably short for Elizabeth).  She was said to have married Charles Rich.  No such marriage record could be found, though there was a marriage between Elizabeth Davis and Chester C. Rich (which should be Richie).  Upon investigating this marriage, it was found that Chester had married Mrs. Elizabeth Davis and that a Civil War Pension record for Chester established that her maiden name was Jarrett.  So this wasn't Ralph's daughter.

If Bett had married, it was likely prior to 1843, making it very unlikely that we can determine what happened to her...

Du Quoin, Illinois & the Bicentennial Property

We have camped just north of Elkville, IL at the Du Quoin State Fairgrounds, Site C-197.

On the way here, we stopped at the library in Sparta to get copies of the various Davis properties of interest from a reprint of a 1907 Atlas of Jackson County.  It is combined with an 1878 history of Jackson County, so I also reviewed all the pertinent Davis citations, all of which I had previously found elsewhere.  It pointed out that the Aaron Davis property had left family hands at a very early date, so it won't take long to figure out exactly when that happened.

Regarding John Spear, the son of William Madison Spear and Sarah Davis, I looked through the probate records of his father-in-law, Uncle Billy Davis.  It establishes that his middle name was "Matterson" [sic: Madison] and that his youngest daughter was Mary Spear.  She appears in the 1860 Cenus as Caroline Spear.  She married John E. Vancil on 10 Mar 1880 (the record was mis-transcribed as Mary Spencer).   It seems they both died prior to the 1900 Census - he in 1891, her date unknown.  There are public records that establish that they had three children (an unsourced family tree suggests they had at least three others): Margaret "Maggie", who married Arthur Guy Wilson; Emily Marie, who married Arthur Grover Thompson; and Arthur Milton, who married Mary Kaufman.  It appears only the latter had children: Sylvester and Edith.  I will attempt to do some deed research for William Madison Spear while at the courthouse in Murphysboro.

I got a surprise e-mail from Carole Burroughs, which included a title abstract of the James/William Davis bicentennial property.  It turns out that the property left Davis hands and into the ownership of H. P. Burroughs.  Later, a male descendant of H. P. Burroughs married a female descendant of William Davis, so it came back into Davis hands.  So it will be easy enough to get the facts straight about all of that for the book.  That has saved me a huge amount of mind-numbing work, so I will likely have more time to do some other research while we are in the area.

She has also included some information about James' son Ralph (or "Rafe") Davis, who supposedly left at least a few descendants.  I am following up on those leads, to see what public records might support the information that I was provided.  More on that later, once I chase wherever that leads... 

John Speer or Spear, b. about 1847

John Spear was one of the sons of Sallie Speer, who was a daughter of William "Uncle Billy" Williams.  In William's 1868 will, he gave $50 to the seven children of his deceased daughter Sallie Speer.

Sallie was married before the 1843 courthouse fire, so there is no record of her husband's name.  But there are two 1838 deeds from Madison Speers and his wife Sarah to William Davis for two 40 acre properties near James Davis' third homestead.

The 1850 and 1860 Census for Jackson County shows the family of William M. and Sally/Sally Speer, containing a total of 8 children.  The eldest is Americus, b. 1835.  He would have been too old to have been Sally's son, so he was a child of Madison's first wife, whose identity is unknown.

On 9 Sep 1869, John Spear married Nancy Spear, the daughter of Charles and Polly (Walls) Spear.  The relationship of Charles Spear to Madison Spear, if any, is unknown.  They are found in the 1870 Census living in Perry County in Township 6 South, Range 3 West.

In the 1880 Census they are living in Clay, Dunklin County, Missouri.  They had two children: Martha, age 5 and Simon P., age 3.

I could not locate a 1900 Census record for John, Nancy or their two children.

On 8 Nov 1905, Mrs. Nancy Speare married William Cross in Dunklin County, Missouri.  They are found living together in the 1910 Census for Salem, Dunklin County.

In the 1920 Census, they are living together, and also in the household are stepdaughter Bell Couch [sic: Couts], age 30; Goldie M. Rodgers, age 9; William F. Rodgers, age 6; and Robert D. Rodgers, age 4.  Who was Bell Couch?

On 30 Aug 1903, Belle Spear married James Henry Pendergrass in Homersville, Dunklin County, Missouri.

On 16 Aug 1904, Bell Pendergrass married W. F. Rodgers in Geneva, Dunklin County, Missouri.

On 28 Jul 1918, Mrs. Bell Rogers married W. P. Couts in Dunklin County, Missouri.

Thus Bell was the third known child of John and Nancy Spear.  The three children found in the 1920 Census record above were Bell's children by her second marriage.

Nancy (Spear) Spear Cross died on 17 Oct 1924.  Her death certificate information was provided by her husband, William Cross.  It states that she was born in Illinois on 27 Oct 1850 to Charles and Polly (Walls) Spear.

Additional Property of William Davis in Perry County, Illinois

It just occurred to me that William Davis (son of James Davis) might have owned property in Perry County, as part of James Davis' third homestead was located less than a mile from Perry County.  

I found where a William Davis had made a land entry on 2 Mar 1839 for 80 acres described as the E 1/2 SW 1/4 of Section 6, T6S, R1W.  He received patent to the property on 10 Oct 1840.  The patent states that he resided in Jackson County, Illinois.  Here is a link to the patent image:

https://glorecords.blm.gov/details/patent/default.aspx?accession=IL1410__.189&docClass=STA&sid=raeub213.ua3#patentDetailsTabIndex=1

Since there was only one William Davis known to have resided in Jackson County in 1840, it would follow that the person who patented the above property was William "Uncle Billy" Davis.

SLC Research

Alea and I have started heading east and we plan to stop in Salt Lake City on Monday and will perhaps stay over on Tuesday to do some research (we can stay longer, if needed).  I have a general research outline put together and will create a list of specific microfilms and books to look for this evening.  That way, I will be able to get to work right away after we get checked in to the local KOA.

From there we will work our way towards Murphysboro, and I suspect we won't be interested in doing more than about 350 miles per day.  So once we leave Salt Lake, it will take us at least four or five driving days to reach there (perhaps longer if we opt to avoid the freeways).  There is a possibility that we will stop around Ray/Carroll/Caldwell counties in Missouri, if we happen to pass through at a time when either the courthouses or local genealogy societies are open.  We will have a better sense of that once we leave Salt Lake and have a chance to create a potential research list for those counties.

If anyone has any Davis related research ideas for Salt Lake City, please pass them on.  I will mainly be focusing on Davis research in Moore and Cumberland Counties, North Carolina, but may also see if there are any family histories that may be of interest. 

I still haven't heard from Carole Burroughs, but I will likely try again soon, as that is a big part of the reason for returning to Illinois.  It would be great to see the surviving portion of James Davis' homestead.  The remainder of my time there will mostly be focused on tracing the chain of title for that property, as well as possibly also for Aaron's property.  The latter will depend upon what is shown on the 1907 plat maps - if the property hadn't been split too many times, that research could likely be done in a reasonable amount of time.

Autosomal DNA

What Ancestry.com calls AncestryDNA is autosomal DNA.  It can tell if two people are likely related (it isn't foolproof) by comparing long strands of identical DNA.  It can't tell HOW people are related, only that they likely shared a common ancestor at some point (this knowledge is mostly only helpful with an accurate paper trail that proves your lineage to a shared ancestor).  Ancestry.com can also estimate the number of generations back when this DNA was shared, though the accuracy declines the farther back that the match occurs.  

It was an autosomal DNA match to Jack Callahan (a descendant of Aaron Davis) that enabled me to discover that James Davis was my 4th great grandfather, and that discovery led to the current book project.  And that in turn has led to the realization that a lot more Davises from Jackson County, Illinois are related to one another than had previously been the case.

Another Davis match of mine is Patricia O'Leary, though we don't know which Davis brother from whom she descends, except that it was not Aaron.  Because of this, her line has not yet been included in the book, but I intend to add it to the next draft, along with analysis and/or speculation as to how her ancestors connect to one of the three Davis brothers.  I had originally thought it most likely that she descends from one of James' sons, but my current analysis suggests that is far from certain.  I hope to post about that soon.

So I know that I have AncestryDNA matches with descendants of at least two of the three brothers.  But there are also other distant Davis cousins for whom I do not share common long strands of DNA.  That is understandable, as in each generation only half of the DNA is inherited from each parent.  So the farther removed from the common ancestor, the less likely that descendants will share significant amounts of Davis DNA.  It is also possible for a Davis Cousin A to have more than one strand of Davis DNA.  So Cousin A could match with both Cousin B and Cousin C, but Cousins B and C might not share a match.  That is how Ancestry.com's DNA Circles work.  If we can get enough Davis descendants tested, in theory a DNA Circle would be created showing which cousins we match directly to, and which are inferred by those cousins with matches on more than one DNA strand.  The more connections, the greater the confidence of our shared relatedness.

It would be very helpful to be able to identify any researchers who descend from either James, Aaron or Amos Davis who have taken an AncestryDNA test, or at least to identify those who are willing to share that information.   My hope is that we could use this knowledge to visit each other's Ancestry profiles, where it would tell us whether we share matching DNA (for distant cousin matches, this is much easier than slogging through thousands of potential 5th cousin matches).  Hopefully that would show inter-relatedness among all three Davis lines - James, Aaron and Willis, and thus validate the research behind the book.

Having your siblings and close cousins perform AncestryDNA tests can also be very helpful, as those close relationships can narrow down which common DNA strands are inherited from your father or mother (and thus which is likely to have Davis DNA, as opposed to your other family lines).  Having your oldest living Davis ancestor tested would be even more helpful, as it would further isolate which common strands are Davis strands.

If there is sufficient interest in doing this, I would keep track of the results on a dedicated page on the blog, and would provide a link to them on the blog.  If there is enough information compiled to be meaningful, it would be included in the book, likely in a summary of some sort.

One last thing.  I added a Contact Form link to the blog.  If anyone reads any posts and has comments or questions, this form allows them to contact me directly without having to do so through their mail program.

Some Information Shared by Marcia Estep

Marcia shared the following with me via e-mail.  I asked her to post these images here so that anyone interested could see them.  In her e-mail to me she said, "Just thought you might like have a copy of these letters, email, obit that I obtained last year from my cousin Dorothy from CA last year. She is the daughter of Dora Davis who was married to Harry Wells. I thought they were pretty interesting."

A Brief Introduction

The idea of creating a blog to facilitate sharing Davis research has been in the back of my mind for quite a while.  It would seem to be the easiest means of keeping fellow Davis researchers in the loop on the progress that I make on my book about James Davis, his brother Aaron Davis, and their nephew, Willis Davis (son of Amos Davis).  James was the first Davis to have settled in present day Jackson County, Illinois back in 1808.  His brother and nephew followed him there several years later.

In the acknowledgments to my book, there is information about the people who have helped me prior to this point.  But it appears likely that the list of fellow researchers may start growing considerably due to a few recent events.

The first was meeting Marcia (Lyle) Estep, who has been digging into various descendants of James' son William "Uncle Billy" Davis (they migrated to Southern California in the late 1800s).  She recently came into possession of a photo album that includes past owners of a portion of James Davis' third homestead, which is located west of Elkville, Jackson County, Illinois (and very near Du Quoin, Perry County, Illinois).  The property is now owned by the Burroughs.

In February 2016, Dee (Little) Burroughs passed away, and her obituary stated that in October 2018 her family farm would be celebrating the 200th Anniversary of James Davis' land entry for the property - the point at which he began to buy the property from the Federal Government on credit.  I had been eager to contact Dee's children or close cousins, since it seemed she had had an interest in the Davis family history.

These two events led me to finding one of Dee's daughters on Facebook, Launa (Burroughs) Dinkins.  She in turn put me in contact with her sister Carole, who has taken on the role as the family historian.