What I've Found So Far...

Aunt Linda (Arkansas) was gracious enough to help get me started with this project by giving me access to her ancestry.com family tree.  It's a great starting point because I have names back to the mid 1800's. 

I was reluctant to sign up with Ancestry.com because it is for me pretty expensive.  But Linda's free limited pass has been more than enough to pique my interest in the project...enough so, that I settled on much cheaper option (with a free 14 day trial) over at Archives.com.

I've been tearing through records (mostly death, right now) and have looked at already crafted public family trees. 

What I've Found So Far:

1.  Aunt Linda's tree stopped in the mid 1800's.  I was able to follow the Vaughn name back to a Benjamin Vaughn (b:1745, Virginia,d: 1812, Caldwell, Kentucky) and found that he was possibly married to a Cherokee native with no record, yet, of her name.

2  Benjamin moved to North Carolina at some point and had a son named William Thomas (b: 16 Aug 1776, Tryon, Polk, North Carolina, United States, d: 1850,Webster, Kentucky, United States) who then also moved to Kentucky.  W. Thomas' wife's name was Millicent, but no luck yet on her maiden name.  Although I do have a birth date of 1780, in Virginia.

 3.  Aunt Linda's tree stopped here at W. Thomas and Millicent's son, John W. Vaughn (b: 1818, North Carolina, USA, d: ?,  Union, Kentucky, USA).  The W in Johns name, I'll assume is William like his father.  Which would make them Sr. and Jr. respectively.  It was also common practice in those days to go by the middle name.  John W. was married to Alley Jane Skinner (b: 1823, Arkansas? Kentucky?, d: 1880, Union, Kentucky, USA).  I was able to trace the Skinner tree all the way back to John Skinner I (b: 1590, Braintree, Essex, , England, d: 30 Oct 1650, Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut, USA) just when the colonies were barely colonies and itty bitty babies!  I'll post on the Skinner tree at a later time.  The birth place of Mrs. Alley Vaughn is either Arkansas or Kentucky.  I've see both in public trees and records.  I like to believe her connection to Arkansas is quite possibly the reason of a Vaughn migration from Kentucky to Arkansas where my immediate family resides.

 
4.  The Vaughn's loved Kentucky and settled there to make livings as farmers according to most of the death certificates and Census info I've seen.  There also seems to be evidence of a major co-mingling of Vaughn/Skinner/Pullum/Dillbeck clans.  I suspect there are some Skinner siblings who married into the Vaughn clan, for example, around the same time.  However, I have no evidence of such happenings yet.  But I've seen these last names together in multiple documents attributed to folks I don't know about...yet they all have location in common, Webster County, Kentucky.  I don't even know yet if John W. Vaughn and Alley Jane had siblings.  These types of mysteries keep me intrigued.  Also wondering if J W Vaughn and/or Alley Jane had other spouses?  no evidence yet.

5.  Aunt Linda only had Jesse Bassett Vaughn listed as the only child of John W. and Alley J., however, due to a 1860 US Census, there were 2 other children other that Jesse Bassett listed as members of the household:  Mary E. (b: 1843, d: ?) and Joseph C. (b: May 30, 1845, d:  Oct 8 1920, Providence, Webster, Kentucky, USA).  Although their last names weren't listed, it was safe to assume they were their children.  I did find Joseph C's death certificate and his parents were listed as J W Vaughn and Alley Vaughn.

6.  I then came across a death certificate of one E B Vaughn (b: apr 8 1859, d: jan 28 1923) with parents listed as J W Vaughn and A J Skinner...yet another child, the youngest, added to the tree. 

As you can see,  I've found alot of good info to add to the tree.  So much more to find out.  Keep posted!