This article, written by Todd Preston, President of the Magoffin County Historical Society, was taken from the July 21, 2011 issue of THE SALYERSVILLE INDEPENDENT newspaper.

            We are getting more and more queries that we can’t solve.  We will put a few of these out there hoping you can provide some help.  Perhaps the bit of info that you can supply will help someone make a breakthrough in his or her family history search.

            Sheila Mason at [email protected] wrote asking for the parents of Ephraim and Lucinda Hall.  According to the information printed in our Civil War books, Lucinda’s parents were John Hall and Elizabeth Wiseman. 

            William S. Gullett was born in 1843, Private in 14^th KY Inf., was a son of Franklin Gullett and Martha May.  Franklin married 1^st to Eveline Hammons and m. 2^nd Catherine Jones.

            Eveline S. Hammon was born in 1849 to Ephraim Hammon. Ephraim was born in 1822 and his wife Lucinda Hall was born in 1819.  Elizabeth’s parents are not known.

            Ephraim Hammon was born in 1802 and is said to be a son of Joseph Hammon b. 1769 d. 1869 and wife Polly.  Polly was born in 1770 North Carolina and we do not know her last name.

            Speaking of the Hammons family (there are various spellings of the surname).  Doris D. Rose of 887 Windward Dr., Rodeo, CA  94572-2036 would like to hear from anyone related to the Patrick family of Bloomington.  They would be descendants of the John Hammonds for whom a new marker was set when we worked on the genealogy of the Hammond family for our Magoffin County Founders Days celebration.  Doris needs descendants of Eliza Hammons who married first Samuel May and had a daughter Emiline who married Evan Spradlin.  Samuel married 2^nd to Martin Franklin 1834, and had only 3 children who reached adulthood and married.  Doris has been told that many of that family remains in the area of Magoffin, Johnson and Morgan counties.

Another branch of the family that Doris would like information on is Frona Johnson and her husband Virgil Patrick.

Doris visited us during the Hammond year and supplied us with much family information so that we can compile a family book of genealogy.  This is another of the projects that we have been working on.  Please help Doris with any material that would be of help to expand this branch of the family tree.

Patricia Watts ([email protected]) inquired about the names of her 4^th great-grandparents, Phillip and Ann Williams.  Their granddaughter Sarah married Thomas J. Ramey and Patricia would really appreciate any information anyone could provide on this family.

The Williams book published by our Magoffin County Historical Society gives this much information: Phillip Williams was born in 1743 VA and died in 1848 Johnson County, KY.  His wife was named Ann.  Someone who visited our library penciled in below this entry that her Indian name was “Floating Cloud”.  I repeat, this is a penciled-in entry and in no way has been documented.

The children of Phillip Williams were (1) Robert Williams whose 2^nd wife was Nancy Picklesimer; (2) George Williams, (3) Lourana Williams m. Nathaniel Picklesimer, (4) Susannah Williams m. Jesse Fortner and (5) Mary Williams married a Johnson.

We also had someone inquire if we knew of a book titled Howards of Southeastern Kentucky.  She also asked if it is the same book that was printed by the Magoffin County Historical Society in 1985.  These are two separate books.  The Howards of Southeastern KY was compiled and printed by Frances Dunham Yeager and we do not know of any copies for sale.  Our Howard book is still in print and available through our website https://sites.rootsweb.com/~kymhs/ or by visiting our genealogy library at 191 South Church Street here in Salyersville.

In Volume II of our Howard book I found the information that John Jacob Howard was born 28 Dec 1846 and married on 14 December 1865 in Harlan Co. KY to Sarah Mandy Coldiron. Sarah Mandy was born 2 Mar 1848 and died in 1923. She was a daughter of Jesse Coldiron and Lavina Blanton.  The children of this couple were (1) Jacob E. Howard b. 1871 m. Gertrude Bailey, (2) Lavina Catherine Howard b. 1873, (3) Hiram L. Howard b. 1875/6 m. Ellen Brock, (4) Robert B. Howard b. 1873, (5) Mollie Lee Howard b. 1880, (6) Jesse Howard b. 1883, (7) Mahala Howard b. 1886, (8) John Harrison Howard b. 1889.

We are looking forward to working with the Joseph family for the 33^rd annual Magoffin County Founders Day celebration.  Plans are in the works now for this event and we hope to have some tentative schedules in order in the near future.

We invite anyone interested in helping with this event to let us know.