Many Things Honorable and Commendable Belonging to the Name: Ann Cochran Dixon, 1763-1857, and Her Kin

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the importance that kinship network analysis lends to the study of women's history, with a particular focus on women who did not leave behind personal writings. To colonial, national, and antebellum era women, "family" not only included the nuclear family, but also their effective kinship groups. To demonstrate the utility of kinship analysis, I have chosen Ann Cochran Dixon (1763-1857), a Scots-Irish frontierswoman, in relation to her Cochran kinship network. Ann and her kin are an ideal case study; she left no personal writings in which she specifically detailed life events, but the availability of sources documenting her family group makes it possible to reconstruct certain areas of her life through her connections with extended family members. Tracing and comparing the different actions of Ann Cochran Dixon and her kin spanning several generations will demonstrate that kinship can be used as a legitimate category of historical analysis.