Michael Thomas bought land near Fort Redstone (now Brownsville) in Pennsylvania and moved from Culpeper Co., Virginia in stages. Two of his sons, Abraham being one, drove the sheep up from Culpeper. The family was not alone in making this move as several others from Culpeper were making the same move at about the same time. In the last half of the 1770's, some members of the Michael Thomas family moved to Kentucky. It is not clear to me whether the early Michael, who is recorded there, is the father or the son.
Some say that the father Michael did go early to Kentucky, but that he returned to Mingo Bottoms, now in Brooke County, West Virginia. By 1799, he was back in Kentucky with some of the children. In that year, he died and left a will. Before the ink was dry on the will, the courthouse burned. Not all documents were completely destroyed. Those which had been bound into books were burned on the outer edges while the centers of the pages were preserved. So fragments of the will of Michael remain.
Sometimes three pages are distributed as the remains of Michael's will, but it appears to me that one of the three pages is not a part of Michael's will. It is possible to discern a few names in the other two pages. Most of the children seem be from the second marriage, but it recognizes a few people who originated in Culpeper County, such as Adam Smith (his cousin) and some heirs from the first family. Sons mentioned in the will include George, Solomon, Abraham, Michael, Daniel, and Israel. Daughters mentioned are Rachel, Eve, and Barbara. For a man who was the father of twenty-five children, this leaves a big gap. Some of the additional names are to be found at the estate sale.
This particular case shows the need to study the communities in which the subjects lived. We need to know something about the Culpeper community where Michael lived for a while. Here we find that he had a cousin, Adam Smith, of about the same age. These two men go through much of life together and help to identify each other. We find several other relatives in Virginia who are to be found later in Kentucky. Study is required in the southwest Pennsylvania area whose records are found in the jurisdiction of more than one state and county. The third community is Kentucky. By studying the communities, we gain confidence that we are tracking the same man. One could devote a lifetime to the study of the Michael Thomas family. There is a lot of history to be found and written down, both for the family and for a developing nation.
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