Re: Cumberland County, VA Blantons
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In reply to:
Re: Cumberland County, VA Blantons
Jeanie Trimble 3/28/01
I didn't realize that this had appeared in current research. It needs to be considered.
I haven't found any Blanton record in Cumberland before James in 1777 on a petition (They signed a lot of petitions). I haven't found any deeds for him.
However, it easy to see how they could escape our radar if they were not landowners. A tenant farmer or artisan could easily leave no record. It appears from a 1781 public claims voucher that James was a blacksmith since he was paid for shoeing horses and furnishing iron.
Even with Richard of Spotsylvania, the evidence is ambiguous. There are Anderson (brothers of Hannah, according to the Anderson site) connections on deeds in Spotsylvania. Richard appears in 1782, but not in 1787, on the Spotsylvania tax list. There is a 1787 Richard chargeable to James Blanton--he could be an unidentified son or brother of James instead of his father. (I am not absolutely certain that the Spotsylvania record is Richard married to Joanna.)
To tell the truth, if I were interpreting the 1782 & 1784 census and 1787 tax data without knowing anything else, I would think that James was the father of John, David and Thomas. The usual lineage requires the brothers to be living in the same household, but that could easily happen. James, the son of Richard of Spotsylvania, would have been old enough.
A year-by-year search of the state land and property tax lists (1782 on) might provide clues. Most of them are extant for Cumberland and Spotsylvania.
If it were only the older article, I might think that the writer (not to mention the typesetter) who actually wrote it up from family data was like the typical reporter: unlikely to get the facts straight.
More Replies:
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Re: Cumberland County, VA Blantons
Kyle Lowe 7/13/03