Adam's Oldest Son

 

Perhaps it may seem odd in reviewing a family's genealogy to save the oldest child for the last entry, but for Moses Broyles, the son mentioned first in Adam Broyles' own will, his early dates of birth and death are buried deep within documents not as easily accessible to an online researcher like me.

Moses Broyles was likely born in the place where his parents, Adam and Mary, had settled in Virginia: Culpeper County. In her book, The Broyles Family: The First Four Generations, researcher Cathi Clore Frost estimated Moses' birth to occur about 1755-1760, based on the date of his confirmation listed in records of the Hebron Lutheran Church.

While Moses' father Adam later moved from Culpeper County to the region which eventually became Washington County, Tennessee, it appears that Moses chose to remain in Virginia. This, despite his being named as executor in his father's 1782 will in Tennessee. At his own death, about 1804, an inventory of Moses Broyles' possessions was presented in court in Madison County, as noted in the unpublished manuscript of Arthur Leslie Keith (see page view 52 in the online version).

Moses Broyles married Barbara Carpenter some time after 1776, another estimate based on Hebron church records. Barbara had connections to another family I've seen intertwined with the extended Broyles family, as her mother was a Wilhoit. Together and individually, this couple was mentioned often in records of the Hebron Lutheran Church, as well as governmental documents in Culpeper County and Madison County, and Moses was even mentioned in property records as far away as Kentucky.

There are five children listed for Moses and Barbara in the Frost book, although the Keith manuscript notes that one of their daughters may have died before her father, based on information drawn from his will. In the order listed in the Frost book, those children were William, Elizabeth, James, Anna, and Nancy.

Taking a peek at my DNA matches at Ancestry.com, specifically through the ThruLines program, I have three matches who descend from Moses and Barbara Broyles. We'll take a look tomorrow to see whether those are promising connections, based on their trees at Ancestry, as well as any documentation I can find to confirm the relationship.