Tuesday, September 28, 1976

Dear Mary:

     I am glad you are interested. Every little bit helps, -- it is like putting
together a jig saw puzzle, at which I am not very good. I should have started all
this, when I was younger.  It takes me so long to figure out relationships, partly
because I grew up without any cousins or other relatives,-- except for grandparents
and unknown cousins in Ohio..

     I am enclosing some crude charts of what I think the relationships were in the
West Virginia family you to belong to, -- but I left out someone at that.  You see, I
didn't have to do very much to get the Ohio Jacksons straight, because of the work
already done.  And then the Rockaway, New Jersey charts helped with those before
Edward, but I wasn't sure that the two were really connected.  Not that it is
important, I admit, -- I just enjoy doing it like a puzzle.  Librarians always try
to answer difficult reference questions, and this is one, for me.  I think that
you will help clear up some discrepancies about the Virginia Jacksons.  I really
haven't looked up anything much in Virginia yet.  The next time I go to Mesa, I'll
see if there are any county histories there.

     Would you like a copy of the first part of the Robbins book?  Dorothy Ding-
felder zeroxed the part that pertained to our family for me, and I can do the same
for you, if you want.  I saw the entire book at Salt Lake, but have only the
pages Dorothy sent me.  Robbins did not have much information about Joseph's child-
ren or his wives.  About Edward, he wrote only "b - - - - - d. in Red Stone, Virginia.
Most of his children moved to Georgia."  Well, you mention Red Stone Fayette County,
Penn. -- and I can't find any such stone in either state.  I'll have to consult some
old maps, I guess.

     After I wrote you last, I received a letter from Mrs. Hoffman, author of the
DAR microfilm "Colonial Ancestors of Edward Jackson (1741 - 1807)".  She writes that
she is much to busy to look up her Jackson records now.  She has a business of sup-
plying coats of arms, -- doing research in heraldry.  She says, I do honest research
and can prove and make a lineage of all sketched in the book."

     She gave one new piece of information: "In 1973 'Cousin' Zella Ford and her
husband, Dr. Earl Ford, La Jolla, Calif. went back to Salem, W.Va. and found the
gravestone of Edward and his son, Stephen, on a farm where animals had been turned
into.  They got it cleaned up and had it moved to the 7th Day Baptist Cemetery next
to our Sarah Abigail (Jackson) Hughes.  I have some pictures of it.  I also have some
new data on your William Jackson with a listing of his 11 children from Craig Weaver,
Columbus, Ohio." (They moved the stone, not the grave, evidently.)

     She claims that the three children Edward went to Pennsylvania with were Stephen,
Sarah Abigail, and Jemima.  In my Ohio genealogy, he took with his wife, Jemima, Step-
hen, and Samuel.  Whether Stephen was born in 1764 as Hoffman says or 1768, he must 
have been young to be in the war.  Do you know the Craig Weaver she mentions?  I wish
she had given his address.

     Did you know that James Jackson of Long Island was a Quaker?  They kept very good
records, which made it easier to learn about him.  I was so fascinated in Salt Lake
City reading about the early history of Hempstead, that I didn't do as much real re-
search as I might have.  But it's an interesting hobby, and there's no end to it.

     I have started to search for my mother's families and am corresponding with a
"cousin" in Seattle Washington, about the Spencer, Rilea and Wisbey families, but I
continue to come back to the puzzles of the Jackson family.

Sincerely,

Ruth

Letter contributed by Andrea Dietze
Transcribed by Paula Mellor

Back to Page Three