KE S Price (Contributor 47770472) cited/added reliable sources.

Hi, The source of marriage date for George Heinrich Crist SR and Elizabeth 'Besy' (Collings) Crist is [in] the Account Book, started by his father, Nicolaus H Crist (I see you have a portion of it on Elizabeth Collings memorial page). It specifies the date when GHC JR is born and that he is their first born son. That is where 5 March 1767 comes from. Also In the Account Book, GHC SR refers to his wife as Besy throughout the book. [Splendid]

Narrated by NICOLAUS HEINRICH CRIST

AS COPIED BY HENRY R. SELMAN 1958

George Heinrich Crist borne in the year of our Lord 23rd November 1744.

Page 104 Our fourth son George Heinrich married Elizabeth Collings today

in the Lutheran Church where we got married. She was fifteen years of

age today. Rev. Henrie Dreher performed the wedding Ceremony. Me and

Elizabeth's Pa, William Edward Collings growed [sic] up together and come to

America on the same ship. He married Anne Elizabeth Nowlin a cousin to

my Catherin. We had a feast, danced to good German music and played

games all day. 5 March 1767.

NOTE: Connecting Phoebe to parents Henry and Jemima may indeed be false information. Read on.

You will be disappointed, I'm afraid, with the Pigeon Roost biographical as pertains to Phoebe Houghland. The researcher, Constance Hackman, notes in the information on her marriage that "we know nothing of the wife or wives of William Elston Collings except that wife Phoebe signed a deed to Richard in 1827 conveying 50 acres to said Richard Collings." Then she goes on to say that there was a source at the time of producing the book (not named) that thought Phoebe was too young to have been the mother of all of William's children, and that he may have married more than once. That is the sum total of information from this book on Phoebe Houghland Collings.

One account of the massacre of September 3, 1812, tells that Phoebe was a victim and died that day, but as already mentioned, she conveyed land in 1827, and she is not listed as one of the victims in subsequent accounts of the mass burial. I have always found it interesting that the accounts of William defending the blockhouse with the help of his daughter that fateful night would indicate that his wife was not with him at that time. Did she remain in Kentucky with the younger children while he was forging a new life for them in Indiana? Was the threat of Indian attack so imminent that she had stayed at their farm near Coxes Creek (Nelson County) with other relatives awaiting a possible end to the hostilities? If she conveyed land in 1827 by deed, was she living on that land at the time or did she merely own a parcel that was sold? William did not die until November 1828 (according to his headstone), so why is she the one conveying land? I have no answers to any of my questions.

As to who her parents might have been, I also can provide no information. I think it is very interesting that this Johann Edward Houghland was on the same ship with whom I assume might have been the father of William Elston Collings (Johann William Edward Collings?). But as with all historical accounts that do not further provide incidental relationship information, he may also have been an uncle or grandfather for Phoebe for all we know. Another wrinkle, and something I have run into on numerous occasions with other family lines, would be if Phoebe's maiden name was not Houghland after all. What if Phoebe had married a Houghland at a very tender age and had become William Elston Colling's bride under her married legal name of the former deceased husband? I haven't secured any kind of marriage document to prove that kind of hypothesis, but I put it out there from past experience on brick walls.

In deference to Curt Sytsma, who has done an incredible amount of research on these families, I commend his efforts based on the scant amount of documentation available to him. Connecting Phoebe to parents Henry and Jemima may indeed be false information. The current archives of documents in early Kentucky at that time is very slim. He probably visited Frankfort and dug up all he possibly could about the Houghland arrivals in Shelby County, Kentucky, from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, prior to the Nineteenth Century. But, as you know, marriage records and deeds don't tell the whole story sometimes. It often comes down to a leap of logic, and that can be wrong, too. I once assigned a daughter to Andrew Rogers, Sr., in Kentucky because I was convinced he had to be her father as he signed the bond for her marriage. Later I discovered that he was in fact her uncle and had signed the bond because his older brother was financially incapable to provide the funds for bond for his daughter's marriage. I had to let several other family researchers know that I had inadvertently led them astray. :)

......