Life History

Notes

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  Gregorys and Fews in Migration Patterns
  
  One factor in reconstructing a family lineage are patterns of movement and migration.  These migration paths are helpful in finding and evaluating records in our Gregory and related Few line.  We see Gregory records in a generational pattern along the migration streams along the tidewater area or valleys southwards and westward.
  
  Westward
  Records are being discovered in the westward line from Philadelphia through Fredericksburg and Hagerstown, Maryland, through what is now West Virginia, still part of Virginia in the era we are looking at, and on to Ohio and Indiana.  Records for Richard Gregory are fround in Culpeper County and Fauquier County, Virginia, on this westward path south of the Pennsylvania border.
  
  Dates and locations match a line of movement from the residence of his likely grandfather Benjamin Gregory of Pennsylvania, in eastern Virginia across the Potomac from Washington, DC.  This westward line of migration connects with the great Shanandoah Valley running southwestward along the eastern edge of the Appalachian Mountains in what is now West Virginia.
  
  This matches the pattern I refer to in individual notes for the Fews and Gregorys.  Gregorys from this lineage moved westward a bit to the part of Virginia that is now northern Kentucky.
  
  Southward
  Gregorys are found along the Shenandoah Valley which runs southwestward from Hagerstown to Bristol, Virginia/Tennessee, on the border, on through Jefferson and Cocke County, which were all one area of North Carolina, or then East Tennessee (current I-81 to I-40 to Knoxville) in the 1700s and early 1800s and on toward Cherokee and contiguous counties in Alabama.
  
  We find Gregorys that appear to be from two different lineages who followed the Shenandoah or similar route form  Philadelphia-Baltimore through Virginia into Tennessee, our line through the easterly route of the named east Tennessee counties, the other a bit more westerly, with members of both lines in Kentucky.
  
  I have been through all these areas and explored these lines of migration so have these in mind as I read through records and watch for connections and clues.
  
  Westward Ho
  Gregorys in the line of James Henry Gregory and Rachel Lewis are found in those counties of Tennessee from Jefferson-Cocke on to Knox, McMinn (where we find both these Gregorys, with apparently no crossover), Franklin, etc, in the westward migration route.  Gregorys of our lineage also seem to have moved northwestward through the mountain passes toward Louisville.
  
  The Fews in NC apparently followed the westerly route over the Smokies into Tennessee into Jefferson and surrounding counties where they connected again with the Gregory lineage.  We find them in the family of Francis Marion Few from North Carolina Jefferson County, Tennessee, where his daughter Letha married Andrew Jackson Gregory, my great great grandfather's brother.
  
  Crossflow
  Traffic went both ways along those midwestern routes over a period of two centuries.  Great migrations northward occurred int eh 1920s and later because of extensive floods along the Mississippi, destroying much of the Delta South.  Midwestern droughts accelerated movement to California.  Further industrialization in the next two decades and after WWII accelerated this migration northward and westward.
  
  The geographical indicators are not only contiguous counties, but similarly in the counties along these common natural migration routes, which also reveal patterns of the same family decade to decade and generation to generation.  These patterns match the same kinds of patterns we find in ethnic investigations all over the world.
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  Margaret Susannah's father Benjamin died some time after 1844, when Minerva, the last child reported im 1850, was born.  Her mother Susannah was the widowed head of the household.
  
  1850 Federal Census, Harrison County, Indiana, 25 September, District 45, p 679, Hse/Fam #811
  Susannah Few 47 F Widow $1000 Real Estate b KY [b abt 1803]
  Isaiah S Few 16 M Farmer b IN [b abt 1834]
  Margaret S Few 14 F b IN [b abt 1836]
  Emeline Few 11 F b IN [b abt 1839]
  Benjamin Few 9 M b IN [b abt 1841]
  Minerva E Few 6 F b IN [b abt 1844]
  
  Kentucky, County Marriages, 1783-1965
  Philip Breakheimer
  Susan Few
  Mother of bride Susanah Few
  License issued 19 July 1856
  Marriage 21 Jul 1856 Jefferson, Kentucky, performed by J H Bekkers
  Witnesses Thomas Carroll and ELiza Miller
  Jefferson County Book, p 190, July 1856
  
  Her full name is given in her husband's will, written in 1867, probated 10 April 1870.
  
  Kentucky, Wills and Probate Records, 1774-1989
  Philip Breckheimer
  Will written 9 Nov 1867 Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky, USA
  Full name of wife given as Margaret Susannah Breckheimer
  Investments in bonds and securities to be sold and only reinvested in other similar bonds and securities; all proceeds after taxes and expenses to be given to his wife so long as she shall remain unmarried; upon his wife's marriage, all investments to be sold and distributed equally to his children, or a trust for those still minor.
  Attested by P B Muir and John P Sacksteder
  Martin Bijur (?) appointed Executor
  Probated 25 April 1870 at County Court House, Lousiville, Kentucky (p 230)
  Death inferred bef 25 April 1870 Louisville, Jefferson, Kentucky
  Wills, Vol 6-7, 1862-1872, pp 229-230
  [For some reason, in this will collection, Ancestry.com has described the date a will was written as the Probate Date.  Probate date is generally given separately in these records, generally some months or years after the date the will was written, after the actual death of the person.]
  
  Susannah and Phillip both have burial memorials on Find a Grave.  They were buried in St Louis Cemetery in Louisville.  Note that Susan's memorial reports her parents as Benjamin Few and Susannah Richardson, whom I have not seen in any genealogies.
  
  Susannah "Susan" Few Bannon
  Birth Sep 6, 1836 Harrison County, Indiana, USA
  Death Mar 25, 1903 Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky, USA
  d/o Benjamin Few & Susannah Richardson
  aka Susan Breckheimer
  on her 1872 passport application, she was described as 5'9" with fair complexion, brown hair & hazel eyes
  Married Phillipp Breckheimer (d 1870) 19 Jul 1856 Jefferson County KY
  Known children: Emma Breckheimer Moore, William Breckheimer (ca1859 - ____)
  Married Patrick Bannon (1824 - 1906) 12 Sep 1880 Louisville KY, no children
  Children Emma Friedericka Breckheimer Moore (1858 - 1917)
  Burial Saint Louis Cemetery, Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky, Sec H, Lot 112, Grave 4
  Created by wafe Sep 14, 2015
  --  Find A Grave Memorial #152316619, https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=152316619

Sources

• 1. Find a Grave Memorial Registry
• 2. 1850 Federal Census, Harrison County, Indiana
  • 25 September, District 45, p 679, Hse/Fam #811
• 3. Kentucky, Wills and Probate Records, 1774-1989
• 4. Kentucky, County Marriages, 1783-1965