Many family tree searchers with southeastern Kentucky roots are surprised to discover that they are related to themselves, sometimes in several directions. This is not at all unusual for anyone with roots in the 19th century Appalachia. In the modern world, most of our families are spread out anywhere from a few miles away to across the country. But in earlier years, a family or several related families would settle together in an area and most if not all of your friends and neighbors were some sort of relative.

One such group of families were the Farmers and Ledfords, joined a few years later by the Skidmores. These families settled first in the area on Martins Fork from Cawood to Cranks. The Farmer and Ledford families were already joined by the marriage of Aley Ledford to Betsy Farmer. Three of their children married children of John Skidmore and his first wife Mary Noe. Ira Skidmore married Sarah Ledford, Henry Skidmore married Elizabeth Ledford and John Ledford married Malena Skidmore. In addition, James Farmer, Betsy Farmer Ledford's brother, married the Skidmore's sister Susannah as his second wife and James' daughter Margaret, but his first wife Margaret Asher, married the Skidmore's half brother Abraham, son of John and his second wife Margaret Rupp.

Abraham Skidmore's brother, John, married Cammie Osborne, daughter of Enoch Osborne and his wife, Malinda, who was a sister of Betsy Farmer Ledford and James Farmer already mentioned above. Thus, most of the population in that area was either blood kin or related by marriage and is succeeding generations, first and second cousins would marry further complication the relationships.

Lest one think this was limited to the Cawood/Cranks area, it occurred in other sections of the county as well. On Clover Fork, the Turner, Bailey, Middleton and Wynn families intermarried. Out towards Wallins Creek and on down the Cumberland River, the Saylors, Blantons, Heltons, Brocks and Osbornes married each other repeatedly.

Complicating this even further, sometimes parts of a family in one area would move into another joining several already heavily related families. John Skidmore's third wife Martha Stepp moved over into the Wallins area after her husband's death and her children married into the Brocks, Blantons, Saylors and Howards.

Walter and Sarah Turner Middleton's son James and his children moved from Yocums Creek over on to Martins Fork and married into families in that area including the Fee family which had married heavily into the Noe and Farmer families. One of the Fee children, David, and his wife Lavina Ledford moved into what is now lower Leslie County and married into the Brocks and Hoskins in that area. Another of the Fee's, Hiram, married William and Susannah Brock Blanton's daughter Sarah and they moved over near her family along the Cumberland. Their children therefore married into the Saylor, Osborne, Brock and Howard families.

Each individual has eight sets of great great grandparents. But, for those with deep roots in the isolated mountains of eastern Kentucky, these eight sets of ancestors may be filled by only four or five couples with one or more of them appearing more than once on the ancestral charts.