Biographical Sketch (1975):2255, p. 10. "Jacob Kern, son of Adam and Esther Kern, born 7/4/1779, Frederick County, Virginia, died 1843, Shelby County, Indiana. Married Sarah Ryan, daughter of Darby and Anna Semmes' Ryan 12/20/1806. Sarah Ryan was living in Frederick County., Va. with her grandmother, after the Mill in Endicott City, Md. which Darby had bought with his wife's dowry, failed due to his roystering and drunken habits. Anna Semmes' brother John of Kentucky, a man of means, bought a new home for her and her daughter, Nancy, but presumably, Sarah had gone to live with her grandmother in Frederick County, Virginia before that. Jacob and Sarah made their new home in Tom's Brook, Shenandoah County, Virginia. Jacob, following in the footsteps of his father, Adam, and eldest brother, Nicholas, had a blacksmith shop.

With Sarah in poor health, Jacob sold out in Tom's Book and took his ailing wife and 6 children to Boutetourt County, Clifton Forge, in early 1818, but she died only a short time later. With 6 children, ranging in age from 16 years to 5 years, Jacob remarried late that same year, Delphia Ann Stanley, born in North Carolina. A mention of 13 children would indicate 7 by this 2nd marriage . . . All but 2 died, either still born or dying in early childhood.

In 1839, Jacob joined a caravan of virginias going West, into newly opened land in Ohio. There was quite a company there of Kern family, Elizabeth (Aunt Betsy) and son John; also Samuel Kern (son of Nicholas), but Ohio was getting crowded, and when Indiana was open to settlement, all these Virginia Kerns moved there, and their descendants continued moving to newly opened Western lands - Iowa - in Bremer and Floyd counties."