There are many different versions of the given names, but these at least seem to follow a more or less consistent evolution over time. In the earliest documentation, from his military service, he starts as Randolph and then shifts to Randall. These names are explicitly noted as belonging to the same individual. In early Kentucky records, he is R. Joseph and then Joseph R. This kind of switch is common among people who go by their middle names, such as my mother.

Randall Hoskins (“alias Randolf Hoskins”) was a member of the 1st Regiment of the Maryland Army from 1778 to 1782. He participated in a number of battles and earned a pension, along with rights to a grant of land.2165,2155 2157 The Maryland Legislature extended his pension in 1829, noting that he was then a resident of Washington County, Kentucky.

There is considerable circumstantial evidence suggesting that he came from Charles County, Maryland, probably from the Bryantown area. He enlisted in the First Regiment of the Continental Army in Charles County.2166 The 1778 Bryan Town census includes Richard Mudd, who testified on behalf of Joseph Randall’s pension application.2165,2157 There are numerous names of neighbors identical across Washington, Kentucky and Byran Town, Maryland: the 1830 Washington census has on one page the sequence Samuel Sims, Samuel Smith, Andrew Mudd, Gabriel Mattingly, John Clements, Joseph R. Hodskins, Vincent Hoskins, all except Mattingly with family names found among the 245 persons of the 1778 Bryan Town list. The family of Joseph’s second wife, Barbara Allison, had its roots in Charles County.2167

Hi migrated to Kentucky from Maryland in perhaps the early 1790s, following in the footsteps of his father-in-law, James Mollihorne, who was one of the first Maryland settlers at Pottinger’s Creek in 1785.913 Their son Vincent is reported to have been born in Maryland in 1787.96 R. Joseph Hoskins appears in Washington County, Kentucky tax lists beginning in 1796.2168

He was a common man: a private throughout his military service, unable to read or write, a farmer not rising to land ownership until late in his life, and that in conjunction with his second marriage.

Although here is no single direct link from Joseph Randall Hoskins to my ancestor James M. Hoskins, there are two bodies of circumstantial evidence that persuade me that this is a father-son relationship. One is the names of James’s children. The second is the close geographical association maintained by a group of persons across moves, consistent with this family relationship.

James Hoskins and Elizabeth Emerson’s first reported child is Susan E., which would match the name of Elizabeth’s mother, Susan Emerson. The second child is Joseph Henson, whose first name matches that of James’s father and whose middle name matches the first name of Elizabeth’s father. The third child is reported without clear documentation to be John Randall, whose first name would match that of a possible brother of James and whose middle name would match his father’s middle name. The name James M. matches the name of James’s grandfather, James Molohan.