In 1762 or 1765 David Rankin married Sarah Ann Buchanan Campbell in Rockbridge, Virginia. In 1778 in the great Scotch-Irish migration from Pennsylvania through the shenandoah valley, David Rankin made the trek to Washington District of North Carolina (now Greene county, Tennessee) with his wife Ann, their family of small children his brother William and some family friends. The group (including the Moores, the Galbraiths, and the Rankins) all started from Pennsylvania in 1778. On the way the Rankin children became ill in Virginia in the fall of the year, and the Rankins remained in rockbridge County, Virginia through the winter. In the Spring of 1779 the Rankins continued their journey and settle above the Moores at the head of Moore's Creek (which after 1793 was called stories or Moon Creek), near a spring of good water, where there hous now stands.