You really already sold me with the Humprey Cathey in the 1850 census as neighbor to one of three Joseph Jolly men of the area.

I just wanted to see how you made your case that the Jolly extended family had three difference Josephs, very common in families of the 1800s.

So, to wrap this up, why were they killed? I am starting to think bushwhackers (probably local ones) killed Cathey and Jolly because they were Yanks. Do we have any evidence that they were taken from their homes and killed some place else, or was this a crime of convenience?

Secondly, when were Cathey and Jolly killed? Do you have any idea when they were last known to be alive? The county history gives no time frame whatsoever. There seems to be no collaborative resource that mentions these deaths or gives the approximate time they were killed.

The reason I am asking, is that I have a cornball theory that the same five southern riders that hit the Good farm killed Cathey and Jolly, too. Do you have anything that says my theory is correct? If not, and that's the way it seems to me, I cannot connect the Good murders with the killing of Cathey and Jolly, and I had better not attempt to do that with such shortage of detailed information. Is that your reading on the connectivity of the murders of the two Goods and the murders of Cathey and Jolly?

Thanks, Bruce