In my research, I have been lucky to have so many family trees written by other people. From there, I have two jobs; 1) prove the work they did with sources, and 2) expand on their work, finding earlier ancestors and filling out the family tree.
The Cross Family Tree, as written by Samuel B. Cross, is quite a work. But there are really no sources, so we don’t know where he got his information. Does not mean he is not accurate, just means it is not proven. I have proven much of it, but not all. The parents of Andrew Cross (my 3rd great grandfather), for example, are not considered proven by myself and several other family genealogists. He names the parents as Cornelius Allen Cross and Mary Stephens. And Mary Stephens’ parents were Leonardt and Elizabetha Stephens. But where did he get this information?
But I recently found two documents that help in this matter.
I recently found a will of Elizabeth Stevens in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. She was the grandmother of Andrew Cross. Her will states and proves the names and relationships; she says her deceased husband was Leonard Stevens, her daughter Mary Ann Stevens is the wife of Allen Cross. Allen Cross is sometimes called Cornelius Allen Cross and is the father of Andrew Cross.
I did contact the Clearfield County Historical Society, and they have the original Cross Family Bible, which names the parents of Andrew Cross as Allen Cross and Mary Cross, and I now have a photocopy of that Bible page.
The will was important, because I sometimes had the name spelled as either Stephens or even Stepheus. I think the Stepheus was a typo and the u is really an n. But the suggestion was their name was German, so Stepheus was a possibility. I now know their name, in America, was Stevens. Previously, possibly in Germany, there was an alternate spelling, but that is not examined yet.
Leonard and Elizabeth Stevens are the grandparents of Andrew Cross. His parents were Cornelius Allen Cross and Mary Ann Stevens.
So, it seems the work of Samuel Cross is accurate and parts of it are now proven with a few documents. We have the parents of the wife of Cornelius Allen Cross. Who are the parents of Cornelius Allen Cross? Is the next question to answer.
I have full source citations on my ancestry.com online tree. Go to my contact page and shoot me an email, and I can invite you to my tree.