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In working on the profile for Lincoln and Lucinda (and Melissa), it was very helpful to make a spreadsheet to list all the vital dates (birth, marriage, death) and how I got them, as well as the first names of the family members and how they were linked to their parents. This wasn’t my own bright idea — it came from a genealogy workshop I took last year, taught by a professional genealogist who encouraged us to use spreadsheets as a way of being more thorough and focused on sources.

I’m including a PDF of that file here in case it’s helpful to others. Please let me know if you have other data that supports or contradicts these dates so we can share information!

I’ve decided to move next to a profile for my 2xgreat-grandfather John Brewster and his first wife, Rebecca Farr. They were the parents of my great-grandmother, Farsina Brewster, whose daughter Sarah married Frank Cochran, the son of Lincoln Cochran and Lucinda Daugherty (whose profile is now up on this website). Stay tuned!

After a long delay (too long!), I’ve finally posted a profile of my great-grandfather’s family. James Abraham Lincoln Cochran was born in 1861 in Morgan County, in eastern Tennessee. To be named “Abraham Lincoln” in a state that seceded from the Union was a pretty bold gesture on his family’s part. He went mainly by Lincoln or Link for most of his life.

Lincoln married Lucinda Daugherty in early 1881; her family lived just across the county line in Scott County, and her father was a Civil War veteran who served in the Union cavalry. (We should get his pension file from the National Archives very soon!)

Another of Lincoln’s great-granddaughters has interviewed many Cochran and Brewster relatives to get more information about our family history. Several of these relatives, including Lincoln’s youngest son, told her that Ezekiel Cochran was not Lincoln’s father, but that it was instead someone named “Moisher or Nitzschke.” We’re hoping that several Y-DNA tests will help us figure out who the likely candidate is.

Now I’m off to write the last of the four profiles on great-grandparents: for Jesse Branham and Laura Thrasher (paternal side of the family). I’ve already posted profiles for John Woods Rowland and Anna Lou Whitus (also paternal side), and on the maternal side, William Davis and Farsina Brewster.