Hawkins in the Northern Neck

While working on an article for Phil Hawkins' Hawkins DNA Newsletter for the month of May, I found myself talking about the ancestry of my dad's closest DNA match, Gene Hawkins.  Here is what I sent to Phil for his newsletter:

The month of May held a very special event for me!  I visited Gene Hawkins in Warren County, Ohio.  Gene is my dad's closest DNA match.  The celebration took place over dinner at the Golden Lamb with Gene's wife and several of his family and friends.  It was a VERY special evening!  I was in Cincinnati for the National Genealogical Society's Annual Conference only a 35 minute from Warren County.  Gene and I do not yet know who our common Hawkins ancestor will prove to be.  Gene connects to James and Jane Bourne Hawkins who were married in Culpeper, Virginia probably 12 April, 1781.  This couple moved to Kentucky after the Revolutionary War where James Hawkins died 2 Mar 1819 in Anderson County, Kentucky.  

James was the son of Benjamin and Sarah Willis Hawkins.  Benjamin Hawkins died c.1782 in Culpeper County, Va.  My Hawkins line has earliest ancestor, Thomas R. Hawkins who was born c. 1797 in the same general area of Virginia as Gene's early ancestors.  Thomas R. Hawkins lived most of his life in Orange County, Virginia which adjoins Culpeper.  He married Matilda Pinkard in Culpeper County in 1823.  

I believe that it is almost a certainty that Gene and I will find common ancestors in the Northern Neck of Virginia one, two, or three generations before what we know now. Perhaps our connection will be as early as the 17th Century.  Other researchers have told me that Benjamin Hawkins who married Sarah Willis had father, John Hawkins who died bef 1716 in Richmond County, Virginia (a part of the Northern Neck of Virginia).  The below information may or may not relate to Hawkins DNA group #1.  I am mostly brainstorming to see if anyone in DNA group #1 or any other Hawkins DNA group recognizes anyone or anything that might be a clue for all of us.

I found myself wanting to explain a bit about the Northern Neck and Hawkins connections to that area and decided to do that in a new Blog article.  In its most common definition today the Northern Neck consists of the four counties between the Rappahannock and Potomac River, which are Northumberland, Lancaster, Richmond and Westmoreland Counties.

However, for genealogical purposes, we might not want to be so narrow in our looking at the area.  So I am going to include Essex County in my information on this Blog which is just south of the Rappahanock River.  In these very early years Rivers were used for transportation and a neighbor who lived just across the river might be closer in proximity than someone who lived in a place that would have had to be reached via land roads.

You can see where Gene's possible ancestor, John Hawkins,  is said to have died in Richmond County.

Other early Hawkins men that I have looked at are Thomas Hawkins who I call Thomas of Old Rappahanock County.  Since my earliest proven Hawkins ancestor  is Thomas R. Hawkins, you can guess why I might like to look at early men named Thomas Hawkins.  This Thomas Hawkins died in Rappahanock County, Virginia in 1677.

The County of Rappahanock disappeared in 1692.  The part of the County that was north of the Rappahanock River became Richmond County.  The part that was south of the river became Essex County.

There is also a well documented Hawkins family that I call the John and Mary Long family.  It is doubtful that Mary actually had Long as a maiden name.  However,  Hawkins researchers called John's wife Mary Long for so many years that everyone immediately recognizes the family by this title.  This family seems to be found in Spotsylvania County in 1740 when John died.  Other researchers have told me that John migrated to these shores sometime between 1705 and 1720 and settled first in St. Anne's Parish in Essex County, Virginia.  He bought land in Spotsylvania County from Thomas and Larkin Chew 1723-1725.  He is said to have moved to Virginia with his brother, Philemon Hawkins.  This is idea is reinforced by the fact that he named a son Philemon.  Others say that both John and Philemon and their families lived first near Todd's Bridge over the Matapony River in what was then King and Queen County.  If you start at Tappahannock on the Rappahanock River in Essex County on the map below and travel in your mind south on Rt 340 to the Mataponi River, it crosses about the site of Todd's Bridge according to the research that I have done thus far.  If you have trouble seeing the below map, try single clicking on it to get a better view.

Eno families of NC and their relationship with my Moore Family in NC

In this Blog entry, I will look at the families that are named on the back of the Eno Cemetery Stone marker.  For more information about Eno Cemetery, see my Blog entry dated April 24, 2012.

I already talked about the Maddock family in the same April 24, 2012 blog entry.

I am reading Joseph Moore's article that was published in the Georgia Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol. 44, No 1 that was titled:  The Quaker John Moore of Upton's Creek, Wrightsboro Township.
On page 15, he says that the Moore family (Richard and Sarah (Jenkins?) Moore) were following their daughter Mary and her husband Joseph Mooney Sr. who  had made the trip to Orange County from Pennsyvlania by 1 March 1755, when Joseph Mooney was received in membership at Cane Creek Meeting.  The Mooneys had been members of Maiden Creek and New Garden Meetings in Berks County.  Remember that the Eno was a preparatory meeting for at least some of the years that these families lived in the area of Cane Creek MM.  I need to do a bit more research in order to be sure that the Mooney family mentioned on the stone is the same Mooney family that is daughter and son-in-law of John Moore.

Sarah Moore McKinsey--wife of George McKinsey

Today's entry is about George McKinsey and his wife, Sarah Moore.  It is also about the serendipity of the internet.  And the fortunate discoveries that networking can provide.

In 1998 my husband and I were preparing for a trip to Scotland with three other couples.  The men were a foursome who would play golf on as many of the famous golf courses of Scotland as they could arrange in the time period that we would be traveling.  I was trying to do as much research as possible to get ready to sightsee while the men played golf. 

The obvious choices for my research were my father's mother's people.  My grandmother's maiden name was McGregor and her mother's maiden name was McKinsey.  I knew the romantic story that was told in the family that Robert McGregor was a ship's captain who was transporting Irish passengers in the mid 1800's when he fell in love with Mary Ann Hare/O'Haire.  He married her and their first son was born in New York.  Robert then traveled to California and sent for his wife and son to join him. I descend from a later child, James McGregor, who was born while the family lived in Cherokee, CA.  

On the McKinsey side I knew very little.  But with help via internet from Tim Purdy of Susanville, CA,  I was able to discover that my grandmother's gr-grandfather's name was Andrew Jackson McKinsey and that he had moved to CA during the gold rush.  But I will save that story for another entry.

That year I was "hanging out" at my local LDS FHL and I somehow stumbled onto a fiche that I ordered that was a filming of a book by Ruby Mundell Barry:

The McKinsey's, McKensey, McKensie, McKinsey family : descendants of George K. McKinsey and his wife Sarah (Thomas) McKinsey of Newberry County, South Carolina, and Warren County, Ohio, and the migrations of their children into Indiana (fiche #6049761)

I printed out much of the book and it became my Bible on the McKinsey family for the next ten years.  My grandmother would have been amazed to find out that on her mother's side her family had been on our continent since before the Revolutionary War.  It is hard to believe that only 15 years ago I did not know these people.  I have had so much fun looking at the descendants of George and Sarah!

A new highlight in my McKinsey research was just a few years ago when Harriet Imrey who is my good friend via internet pointed out that George had been a loyalist in the Revolutionary War.  That was part of what started me on my quest to understand the Revolutionary War in the south that has been my passion ever since.  And that is a subject for another blog as well.

But back to my story.  I spent the next ten years after discovering George and Sarah McKinsey in SC looking at the Thomas family trying to figure out how Sarah was related and who of the Thomas family that were in NC and SC might have been her father.  I just couldn't seem to make her fit in.  Now, I don't want you to think that I am so dumb that it took me an entire ten years to make a breakthrough on a line.  I need to explain that I do many lines all at the same time. I am just as interested in the female lines as I am in the male lines.  Thus when I take a family back one generation, I have two lines to research:  that of the mother and that of the father of the ancestor at which  I am looking.   I am always researching ALL of my lines.  So I just chip away.

Why did Ruby Mundell Barry think that Sarah McKinsey's maiden name was Thomas?  Because of a will that she found that had been written by Nehemiah Thomas.  The transcription below of this will can be found:  

http://www.archivesindex.sc.gov/onlinearchives/Thumbnails.aspx?recordId=301869

From the evidence in the will, Ms. Barry had assumed that Sarah was the niece of Nehemiah Thomas.  However, I am now totally convinced that Sarah was the niece of Abigail Moore Thomas instead of Abigail's husband, Nehemiah.  That is that Sarah was a Moore NOT a Thomas as Ruby Mundell Barry had assumed.  I will save my arguments as to why I have adopted this Moore family as my own for another post dated Sept 1, 2012.

George McKinsey's second wife

Joseph Moore sent me a scan from a book compiled by Majorie Dickey Parsons called:  Lines and Lifestyles Dickey, Moore, Parsons and some Related Families.  My understanding of the people who are named on this page is so new and so exciting that I found myself wanting to record how it happened.  According to the notation on the front cover, Ms. Parsons is no longer alive.  Below is page 222 of Ms. Parsons' book.

Only a few years ago, I would have had no clue that Daughter Mary m. George McKinzie "in Ohio" who is listed in the above transcription of the will of John Moore was the second wife of my 5-gr-grandfather.  George was not the simple farmer that I would have believed him to be.  After the death of his first wife, Sarah Moore, George moved his entire family to Warren County, Ohio with the mass exodus of the Quaker families out of the south and into the non-slave northern states of Ohio and Indiana.  Then after getting his family settled in Ohio, he traveled back down to Newberry County, SC to finish some business and then down to Wrightsboro, Ga to marry a cousin to his first wife:  Mary Moore Lacy.  Next he proceeded to move all of her family up to Ohio.  It must have been a huge undertaking!