The woman above is Ann Isabella Barry, who was born in 1797 in Augusta County, Virginia.  In 1821, she married John T. Allen, shown on the right; it was the second marriage for both of  them.  John T. Allen, who was born in Virginia in 1796, was my first cousin five times removed.  I place him in the category of noteworthy relatives that I have found through my genealogical research.

John Allen was a co-founder of Ann Arbor, Michigan, which he named in honor of his wife.  John Allen was apparently born into a wealthy family in Virginia and both of his wives had money.  But his story is not all pretty.

Historians state that his father fell into debt and that John Allen inherited that debt.  John Allen left Virginia to sell a herd of cattle in Baltimore.  But he did not return to Virginia to settle his debts. Instead, he used the money to buy land in the West, which he planned to sell off for a return on his investment.  He went into business with a man named Elisha Rumsey.

In 1824, Allen and Rumsey selected a site west of Detroit and registered their claim at the U.S. land Office in Detroit.  Later, Michigan leaders selected this site for the state capitol, which ensuring its prosperity because all business with the state would require trips to the state capitol.  Later in the year, Ann traveled to Ann Arbor to live there with her husband.

For more information, you can read http://moaa.aadl.org/moaa/pictorial_history/1824-1859pg2 and http://www.umich.edu/~aahist/john_aln.html.

For my Alexander/Fultz/Willson relatives, here is how we are related to John T. Allen:

Jack Alexander was the son of Janet Ingles Fultz, who was the daughter of Ida Virginia Willson, who was the daughter of Eliza Jane Ingles, who was the daughter of Elizabeth Crawford, who was the daughter of Rebecca Allen, who was the sister of James Allen, who was John T. Allen's father. So, John T. Allen and Elizabeth Crawford were first cousins.