Wednesday, April 24, 2013

From Military Records to Primogeniture

I left off my last blog post stating I needed to find the Military record for Amaziah Browning said to be a son of Roger Browning of Greene County, TN. After trying several different methods of searching Fold3.org and Ancestry.com for alternate spellings I finally located an entry for an Amsy Browning also spelled Browner. According to someone's posting at an Internet genealogy site this record stated his mother was named Mary, and that he died on 3 Dec 1793. There is nothing about his family or place of birth on his military records. December 3, 1793 was the day he was discharged from the Militia in Knoxville, Tennessee. He was discharged and said to be sick on that day so he may have passed away? This Amsy Browning seems a little too old to be the son of Roger. He was said to be a Corporal which I take to mean he would have been older than 18 to 20 yrs. old? I am now thinking that he was a brother of Roger instead of son? Also the name Mary is given as his mother by several researchers. I don't know where this is from? Mary Abbot was Benjamin's wife so this may point again to his being the son of Benjamin.

Roger Browning becomes sole heir because he is Eldest

Jeremiah Browning's Pension document
Previous researchers seemed to have over looked the wording on the deed between Roger Browning and Jeremiah Browning. It states Roger was the eldest son. This seems to imply there were other sons. I believe there were at least two Jeremiah's living in Frederick Maryland around the same time. I believe they had an Uncle and Nephew relationship. From Jeremiah Browning II's Revolutionary War Pension document I gather he was a young man when he joined in about 1777. He would not have been born in the 1730's like Jeremiah I son of Edward Browning. In the Pension document Jeremiah II states his father didn't want him to leave the farm for the entire summer. Sounds like a young man still living at home. We also have a Jeremiah Browning dying in 1834. He is most likely a son of Benjamin Browning. Jeremiah also states his brother joined the military during the Revolutionary War. The only other Browning, Frederick Maryland, soldier seems to be Zephaniah Browning. So besides son Roger, Benjamin may have had sons named Amaziah, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah? This is the same story as in most early families first names are often used many times. It's difficult to separate all of these men without more records.
I still need a definite link between Amsy Browning and Roger Browning with Maryland. Both lived in Tennessee by the 1790's with no references of where they came from. We can only infer from naming patterns that they came from Frederick, Maryland.
Revolutionary War Roster Frederick Maryland





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