Guernsey Co., Ohio



Guernsey Co., Ohio

The last couple of days I have spent a lot of time studying this map of Guernsey Co., Ohio. My 4th great grandfather spent a good part of his life in Madison Township, Guernsey Co., Ohio. His name was Samuel Pounds. He was the son of my Revolutionary War ancestor William Pound and his wife Elizabeth Tune.

Samuel was born 26 June 1778 in Chatham Co., North Carolina. According to his daughter Naomi, Samuel raised two families. Nothing is known about the first family, but the names of the second family are listed on the pages of Samuel's family Bible. I have been able to discover a lot about Samuel and I'll be telling you about him from time to time. However, I have never been able to identify positively where and when Samuel died. There are many other unknowns in his life also.

No one knows exactly when Samuel came to the Northwest Territory. We don't know who is first wife was, nor the names of most of the children from that marriage. We don't know exactly when he left home and took off for the "territories" nor what he did for those 20 some-odd years before he shows up in the 1820 Ohio Census for Guernsey Co., Madison Township. I've been studying the tax records for these early counties and townships trying to learn more about Samuel and his life.

Family tradition puts Samuel in Northwest Territory in 1812. It is said that he served as a scout during the War of 1812, although there are not records to support that claim. As a scout, it was not necessary to enlist and evidently he never enlisted. But he would've had to be in the area long enough to become familiar enough with it in order to scout. I personally believe he was in the area around 1804. Someday I hope to be able to prove that assumption. That is the fun of genealogy...the discoveries and the ever present quest to learn more.

Pounds Family Tree

My desk

Today I didn't get to my desk until about 1:30 p.m. Doctors appointments and errands took precedence. My desk is piled with files about 4 inches high and they slide to the right down against the monitor stand. What a mess of organization it is! I know where everything is! I know what needs to be done with each file and piece of paper. I just need more time to do it all! The problem is just that I have too many projects running parallel right now. :)

I have been working to update and source my colonial files: John Pound Sr., Thomas Pounds Sr., Thomas Pound Jr., and William Pound Sr., my Revolutionary War Veteran.

You can check out my public member tree on Ancestry.com. (You don't have to be a member to view the trees.) The name of it is "George B. Pounds". I hope you like it. Just remember, it is a work in progress. Here is the link for George's profile page: http://trees.ancestry.com/tree. There'll be more about Grandpa George later.

Genealogy Journey

In 2004 I began my journey in quest of my family history. I've learned that genealogy is a never-ending journey, much like a continuous puzzle. There are always more pieces out there to find, more bits of interesting information and more lost cousins to find and add to the mix. I owe my interest in gennealogy to my brother Wayne who first began to search for our family's story when he received a phone call from a distant cousin whom he had never heard of. The cousin was asking about the place and time of death of our great great grandfather Thomas Pounds, Civil War Veteran. That was over 20 years ago and we are still trying to answer that question. Although we have been able to put many pieces of the puzzle of Thomas's life together, we have never been able to find the piece that reveals exactly when and where he died. Meanwhile we have built a very large Pounds family tree.