The week flew by and it’s time now for a new Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver on Genea-Musings:

1)  Have you found an unexpected record recently (or at any time)?

2)  This week, please tell us about that unexpected record and how it helped your research.

It just so happens that I’m sitting at my computer this very moment working on adding to the information I found in one of my husband’s convoluted Nation-Robbins-Ledbetter family lines in the first half of the 19th century in the area around Overton County, Tennessee.

1800 to pre-1850 is a difficult time period due to censuses not naming anyone other than the head of household and a definite lack of birth, marriage and death records. On top of that, this branch of the family rarely left wills or even estate administrations.

Therefore, this document was a fabulous find:

It’s the item on the left that isn’t very long, but has many signatures.

Isaac Robbins died about 1839, probably in Overton County, Tennessee, but possibly in Illinois, since the family made a trek there in the early 1830s, but decided not to stay.

Entry 14047 We do hereby nominate and appoint Alfred M. Ruton our attorney in fact for us and in our name to Sell and convey to any person their heirs and assigns forever who will purchase the Same by general [unreadable] deed in one or more tracts as he may think best our tract of land in the State of Illinois containing one hundred and Sixty acres it being the South East qr of Section twenty three of Township Eight North in range two west in the tract of appropriated by the acts of Congress for military Bounties in the Territory of Illinois and [receive?] the consideration {off the page side] or take notes for the Same at his discretion he may also bring and prosecute in our names any suit that may be necessary to gain possession or establish our title to the Same employ Such Council [to] ratify and confirm any act or thing he may lawfully do in the premises as fully as if we were present and and (sic) done the same ourselves.

In Testimony whereof we have hereunto set our hands and seals this 11th day of May 1839.

Attest: Jesse Roberts
{Alexr?] McDonald

Preston (X) Robbins
James (X) Robbins
Alfred B. (X) Robbins
Arthur (X) Robbins
Arthur Ledbetter & his wife Elizabeth Ledbetter
William Reynolds & his wife Hanah Reynolds
William Ledbetter & his wife Fanny Ledbetter
Isaac Nation & his wife Jane Nation
Isaac J. (X) Robbins

The next section affirms that they give their power of attorney to Arthur M. Ruton.

From the statement about military bounties, it appears that Isaac Robbins served in the War of 1812. Their father would have been a young man, so the timing is right.

UPDATE: The document on the right also pertains to the Robbins family and names two more daughters – Rachel, wife of James S. Willingham, and Nancy Ledbetter, who was deceased, but her minor children are named. She was the wife of Beverly Ledbetter.

Isaac Nation is my husband’s 4X great grandfather, but he is descended from Isaac’s first wife, Margaret Tillman.

In spite of that, these Robbins are his cousins as John Nation, immigrant to the colonies in the 1700s, married Bethiah Robbins, c1720.

The Robbins clan was a very large family with many descendants in each generation.

This power of attorney signed by these Robbins heirs firms up the children, at least those living in 1839, of Isaac Robbins, who died between September 1838 and May 1839, per this document.