A female ancestor married her husband in Kentucky probably in the 1810s. By 1820, they are enumerated apparently as husband and wife, with some small children. They can be traced for the rest of their lives until they died in Shelby County, Indiana, in the later part of the 19th century.

It’s her that I cannot find–as if she was dropped off by a UFO at the county courthouse where she saw Enoch and they decided to get married right there, right then as the UFO was leaving Earth’s atmosphere.

Of course that’s really not what happened.

One possibility is that her family (property renters and not owners) moved into the county from somewhere when my female ancestor Nancy is in her late teens. Within short order she meets a young single neighbor man–Enoch. After the shortest engagement her parents will tolerate, Enoch and Nancy marry. Enoch’s family owns a farm and he likely helps his father on that farm. Nancy’s family moves further west. Maybe his father dies and her mother marries. Maybe both her parents die.

The possible problem is that her parents only lived in the area for a few years and then they head further west and take their other children with them. This leaves no families with the last name to be listed in the 1820 census and no one to be listed in property tax records either.