Re: TN LaFollettes Correction
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In reply to:
Re: TN LaFollettes Correction
Nancy Yoder 7/04/05
Hi, Nancy -- Belated reponse to your last posting.It did occur to me that my quick search for your possible ancestors was probably something you did ten years ago and then some.I still haven't heard from my Gann friend, perhaps on vacation, but will keep after him.
My interest here is in trying to figure out (accurately) who my Joseph's brothers (Jean's sons) were, and maybe that will coincide with your interest.Clearly your Rebecca is related someway to Elizabeth (Gann) LaFollette, though perhaps not by blood.Simply too unlikely that unrelated LaFollettes would have been living in such close proximity.I have Elizabeth Gann and George LaFollette with a son Jeremiah, b. 1800-1810 -- think that's just because I found Jeremiah with his own household in the same vicinity in a census, so maybe he's not their son.If he is, that would argue for Elizabeth Gann's George being a son of Jeremiah.But I have another possible theory.
The first George LaFollette supposedly had three marriages -- Jemima Menthorne 1769, Sarah Stansbury 1797, and Hannah Moore 1803.I've found the latter two marriages in Frederick Co VA, but I've found nothing to prove which George LaFollette Sarah and Hannah married.Now I'm suspicious that the third marriage, to Hannah in 1803, might have been George's son George, this because of census records I've found (these are the only George LaFollettes I've found in Virginia):
1810, George Follet, Frederick Co VA, p. 338 (Pughtown) -- 1 male 26-45, 1 female 16-26, 2 males 0-10.
1820, George Lafolit, Harrison Co VA, p. 753 -- 1 male and 1 female 45 and over, 2 males and 1 female 10-16.
If ages are accurate, 1810 George, b. 1765-1784, must be the first Goerge's son George, and the family looks like George and Hannah Moore, with their two sons, John b. 1803-1807, and George b. 1810.1820 George could be the same person, though with a female not listed in 1810, or could be the older George.
I've found no further evidence of son George in any census records, UNLESS he's the same George who moved to TN and m. Elizabeth Gann.If his wife, Hannah or someone else, d. soon after the 1810 census, he could have m. Elizabeth as his second wife.And if that's true, your Rebecca could be the widow of a son of George's first marriage -- namely (if he first m. Hannah Moore) son John, about whom no one seems to know anything, perhaps because he d. young, leaving a widow and their children.
This is so speculative that I have no idea if it's of any use to you, or to me for that matter.I just think it's very likely that your LaFollettes descend from Jean, and I've always found it useful, when there's a family an ancestor probably belongs to, to work on it from both directions.
Can't remember if I told you this, but my search of many years for anyone named LaFollette (and variations) has produced no one through 1830 except Joseph and George and their descendants.That doesn't prove that an unrelated LaFollette didn't sneak into TN to spawn your family (or that there aren't others I haven't found), but it certainly tends to suggest that all of these early LaFollettes were single family unit.
If there was a brother Charles (named in John H. LaFollette's book), he must have d. young, or maybe John H. remembered his name wrong -- maybe Charles was Isaac, the apprentice of 1765.(I think the fact that John H. remembered three brothers is probably more reliable than the brothers' names.)But even if so, where are Isaac's descendants?I have found two Isaacs in Guernsey Co OH in 1830, both age 60-70, so b. 1760-1770.One is George's son.The other can't be Joseph's son (he had two Isaacs, both otherwise accounted for), so perhaps he's the son of a third brother?Or, if the enumerator put his mark in the wrong box, he could be a decade older, b. 1750-1760, in which case he could be Isaac the apprentice.But if so, one has to wonder what he was doing between 1765 and 1830.And if so, he seems to have gone to Ohio with George's family, so probably isn't your ancestor, unless he had a son who went to TN.
Don't know if you're aware, but there was a Mary LaFollette who is generally thought to be a daughter of Joseph.Only problem is that she's not listed with his other children in the family bible.Strikes me that's not a simple oversight -- Joseph had several children after Mary, and someone surely would have noticed that she was missing and added her.It's possible she was recorded on a page that didn't survive, or that she was omitted when someone transcribed the Bible entries (I've never seen the original).Or it's possible she's not there because she wasn't his daughter.Maybe a niece?If so, probably not George's daughter -- why would she have gone to KY with Joseph's family if she had a family of her own still in VA?So maybe she argues for another brother (another son of Jean) who d. young, prior to her marriage in 1790.
I don't know if I'll ever sort this out, but I'm very interested in the TN LaFollettes for what they may tell me about Jean's family.I wonder if you could send me, here or to my email address (click on my name above) anything you have on Jeremiah and his family, or on George and Elizabeth Gann LaFollette.
The one thing I've decided about Jean's sons, however many there were, is that they didn't come to America with Lafayette, as is persistently reported.I think they may have fought with Lafayette and that may have been inflated as traditions were passed along in the family.Lafayette came in 1777 -- Joseph and George were both m. in NJ before that, and if there was a brother Isaac, I think he was probably the apprentice of 1765.
Hope something here is useful.Take care.Marilyn