Rob Roy Tartan

By coincidence this Christmas season, I was particularly drawn to the plaid that was EVERYWHERE!  the plaid that people think of for Paul Bunyon and often call the Buffalo plaid was absolutely everywhere .....one sales person told me that she had decorated her bathroom in it...another told me that her mom had wrapped ALL of her gifts in it.  I bought PJ bottoms and a scarf and a shirt in this plaid.

And by chance just before Christmas, one of my very favorite magazines sent me an e-mail that contained EXTREMELY (to me) interesting information about this plaid:

A Brief History of Buffalo Plaid By: Christina Garton

I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but somehow, over these past few years, buffalo plaid moved its way from the rustic fringes to become the dominant plaid during the holiday season. It seems like this black-and-red-checked pattern is just about everywhere. You can buy matching pajamas in buffalo plaid for everyone in the family, including the dog. You can get burlap and buffalo-plaid garlands and wreaths to decorate your home. The stuff is everywhere. While I can’t tell you how a plaid once associated with Paul Bunyan and lumberjacks became the unofficial plaid of Christmas, I can tell you a bit about the history of this pattern. Although the name buffalo plaid might trick you into thinking it’s an American invention, do a little digging and you’ll find that the buffalo plaid is actually the MacGregor Red and Black pattern. In Scotland, the pattern is associated with the folk hero Rob Roy MacGregor (even though there is no evidence he ever wore this particular tartan), and the pattern there is often referred to simply as the Rob Roy. Continue reading.

Now, why is this so interesting to me?  My well loved grandmother, Mary Ann McGregor Hawkins had McGregor ancestors!  I have yet to find these connections, but I do expect to eventually find dna connections.  Everything that I read about McGregor suggests that NO ONE adopted the McGregor name.  If one carried the name, he/she had been born McGregor because the name had been proscribed and if one changed one's name, he/she changed it to something besides McGregor.  And that if one is a McGregor, the chances are more likely that he/she descends from Rob Roy than for one to NOT descend from Rob Roy....so I find everything Rob Roy to be of interest.  I'll try to put my photos from Scotland on a blog post at a later date and link it to this post.

Another Morrison Theory

I sent out an e-mail this afternoon that I had worked on last night.  Bob Morrison (one of the Morrison yDNA administrators) had been helping me a bit with some ideas after my last post.  He suggested that my Cabell County yDNA participant had a 0 mutation match with a man who believes his line connects to Thomas Calvin Morrison.....this is an ancestor of Valerie Morrison's.  Much of the e-mail I don't feel I can post in a public spot.  So this is a reminder that I have filed it in my inbox in mailbox labelled Morrison with date Nov 2019.

It is mostly ideas about the DNA pointing to the possibility that Valerie's Thomas Calvin Morrison could have been a son of William and Rachel Witcher Morrison....it is kind of a wild and crazy idea....but I didn't want to loose it.

Did my Morrison family come straight from Scotland or were they Scotch-Irish?

The wonderful old roots web mail list reactivated this weekend with a message from Linda Merle who has been our long time list owner.  I could not resist the chance to post to the list and also make a plea that we not let this list die or lay dormant.

I learned a long time ago that the best way to keep a list chatting is to do a bit of fishing.  Anything that one can think of to send that might cause some discussion.  And I turned to my Morrison family. The TN part of the h2 Morrison family have the folklore that brothers came from Scotland.  While there is a bit of folklore in the Cabell County Morrison group that the original Morrison immigrant came from Donegal....both could be correct!  If you go to:

http://marshamoses.blogspot.com/2017/02/county-donegal-and-morrison-family.html

You will see on the map that is on this blog post that if one was still living in Isle of Lewis when one decided to move, almost certainly the best way to move would be via boat or ship....and Donegal or Derry might be the first stop....as likely as anyplace.  Now I can blow up my own theory a million ways....our h2 Morrison group may have already moved many generations ago to Scotland mainland. Or for whatever reason never have been on the Isle of Lewis at all.  At this point, our research group has no real proof of any scenario.  I wanted to put into one place some of the ideas that I was looking at this morning.

From Wikipedia here is a definition of the Scotch-Irish:

These included 200,000 Scottish Presbyterians who settled in Ireland between 1608 and 1697. Many English-born settlers of this period were also Presbyterians, although the denomination is today most strongly identified with Scotland. 

and from https://thelibrary.org/lochist/periodicals/wrv/v4/n4/s71i.htm

In order to clarify this paradox in the "Scotch-Irish" terminology, we shall have to go back to the old Whitehall Palace in London, on a day in September 1607, only four months after the English had planted the first permanent colony in America. King James I was disturbed by reports of further turbulence in his unruly Irish dominion. He decided to act on a proposal by Sir Arthur Chichester, Lord Deputy of Ireland, to repeople the island with Protestants.

That was the beginning of the Ulster Plantation. What then formed nine counties of Northern Ireland (now six counties) was actually re-peopled in the 17th century with Protestants from Northern England and the Lowlands of Scotland. The proportion was roughly four Scots to one Englishman. They largely displaced what Macaulay referred to as the "aboriginal Irish," who were almost wholly Catholic. The Scots were Presbyterians and the English Anglicans with some dissenting creeds.

Thus we have the Scotch-Irish who later were to be such a large factor in settling the New World. They disliked the term because they held the native Irish in contempt as an inferior people. The Irish, on their part, were equally averse to being linked in any way with a people they hated as invaders. But language grows without consent and in spite of ordinance. And so a hyphenated term that was repulsive to both parties and misleading in context was woven into history.

The incident has a rough parallel in the Democratic-Republican Party of Madison’s and Monroe’s time.

It is one of the ironies of British empire rule that having settled Ulster with people of the Protestant faith, it was not long until the British were presecuting the residents of the Plantation for holding to their dissenting Presbyterianism. By 1715 the Anglican church establishment had been so tightened that Presbyterians could not hold civil or military office, nor be married by their own ministers.

Even more galling to the Orangemen (as they came to be called after the Revolution of 1688 when William, Prince of Orange, became joint sovereign with his Queen Mary) were the trade restrictions imposed by the English as though on "foreigners." The transplanted Scotch and English had made agriculture and stock-raising thrive on the rocky hills of Ulster. They had introduced flax growing and built a high-quality linen industry, and were engaging in superior woolen manufacture. Deprived of the right to export their goods even to the motherland or the other English colonies or to import from anywhere but England, their source of a livelihood was narrowed to bare subsistence.

It was under these circumstances that there began early in the 18th century and continued until around 1775 the great exodus of the Scotch-Irish to America. 

 I was playing with these ideas this morning and found the below information on Wikipedia using Isle of Lewis as the search term:

Following the 1745 rebellion, and Prince Charles Edward Stewart's flight to France, the use of Scottish Gaelic was discouraged, rents were demanded in cash rather than kind, and the wearing of folk dress was made illegal. Emigration to the New World increasingly became an escape for those who could afford it during the latter half of the century.

and

Clan Morrison is a Scottish clan. The Highland Clan Morrison is traditionally associated with the Isle of Lewis and Harris (Leòdhas) around Ness (Nis) and Barvas (Barabhas), and lands in Sutherlandaround Durness. There are numerous Scottish clans, both Highland and Lowland, which use the surname Morison or Morrison. In 1965, the Lord Lyon King of Arms decided to recognize one man as chief of all Morrisons, whether their clans were related or not.

Sooooo....if our Morrison family descends from the traditional Clan Morrison, they likely have roots in the Island that is called Isle of Lewis and Harris.  It is marked on the below map by a red marker.



When I look at my ethnicity reports, I almost always have a small percentage of Scandinavian.  I have said to others that it is likely from my Irish ancestors because of the fact that the Vikings raided Ireland over and over and almost certainly women were raped...Looking at the Isle of Lewis, I see that the land was actually settled for a while by Norwegian Vikings.  My Scandinavian roots may have come from my Morrison family!

From Wikipedia using Isle of Lewis as search term:

In the 9th century AD, the Vikings began to settle on Lewis, after years of raiding from the sea. The Norse invaders intermarried with local people and abandoned their pagan beliefs. At that time, rectangular buildings began to supersede round ones, following the Scandinavian style. Lewis became part of the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles, an offshoot of Norway. 

Interestingly enough I received a message from one of the trivia sites in the last day or two talking about Viking settlements in what is now Scotland.  On the below map the marker marks th Orkney Islands with the red marker.....Isle of Lewis and Harris is to the left on this map with Stornoway as one shown on the map.  According to Wikipedia, Stornoway is the capital of Isle of Lewis and Harris.



In case you have interest in reading about the Viking ruins here are two sites:

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/08/12/viking-drinking-hall/

and

https://www.history.com/news/viking-drinking-hall-scotland-discovery

Quaker connections

I was getting ready to tell a buddy how to look at his Quaker connections on Ancestry today and thought that I should just make a blog post for EVERYONE!  The most important thing on Ancestry for me are their Quaker records!  They are amazing!  After signing in to Ancestry, go to search  and choose card catalog from the drop down menu,  Put Quaker into the search box for keyword.  Scroll down to the record collection that has more than 6 million records in it and choose it.  It is fully searchable and takes you to the actual, real, in their own handwriting records of the Quakers in the US.  It is an amazing collection!  

If you have any ancestor who may have passed through the Philly area, you want to take a quick look to see if there is any record in any of the monthly meetings along the way to where you are finding them at this point in your research.  The Quakers always took a letter with them to say that they were in good standing in their monthly meeting in which they were now a part....which means that you will find where they were coming from and where they were going.  And often names of children and spouses and marriages and even more fun:  wrong doings!

Children of John Hawkins and his wife, Elizabeth (Butler?)

I have had on my mind a lot lately that my magic segment on Chromosome #13 may or may not have come down from the John Hawkins who died in the epidemic c.1715 in Richmond County, Virginia.  The one fact that I know is that a great many of my matches in this spot on chromosome #13 seem to connect to participants whose tree includes one of the children of Benjamin and Sarah Willis Hawkins.  I am not clear at this time if I have matches who believe that they descend from a different orphan of John and Elizabeth (Butler?) Hawkins.  And it is that puzzle that I am working on this week.  What would be really exciting is if it is not a Hawkins segment at all.....but is from Elizabeth and then we would have proof that Elizabeth's maiden name was indeed Butler.  But this would have to be proved by finding a person who is a match to one of Elizabeth's siblings....but has no Hawkins connection.  It may be too far back in the tree to ever happen.   However, I find it very interesting that this segment on Chromosome #13 has stayed so strong for as many generations as it has in my own line.

But as part of this puzzle solving process, I am looking at the children of John and Elizabeth.  There are six orphans who are clearly named in the will of John Hawkins.  The four boys are Benjamin, William, James and John.  This is not a correct birth order.  William may have been the oldest.  It is possible that William was not Elizabeth's son.  That he was the son of a first wife to John.  Others tell me that he was born in 1698 while the other five were born in the 1700s....just a bit later ....like 1706 to 1715.

http://marshamoses.blogspot.com/2012/11/will-of-john-hawkins-of-richmond-county.html

In John's will he asks the Butler men to take five of the children.  He asks Henry Wood to take William and teach him the trade of plaster.  It is possible that this is just because William is older than the others, but it is also possible that William was not a Butler.  Perhaps John's first wife had been related to either Henry Wood or his wife at that time:  the much married Sarah.  Craig Kilby believed that Sarah had been Sarah Rosser.  I don't know if there is proof of this.  Her four husbands were:
1. William Willis
2. Henry Wood
3. Rush Hudson
4. Edward Turberville

I took the following from a Brockman book that I read via Family search:

.... He was the son of William and Sarah Willis of Richmond and King George Co. VA.  His mother as the young widow of William Willis married a 2nd time to Henry Wood by whom she had one son, Henry Wood.  As her third husband Rush Hudson, she had other children named in her will.  This Sarah maiden name unknown married a fourth time, as his 2nd wife, Mr. Edward Truberville.  Edward Turberville had one daughter by his first wife, who married Walter Shropshire of King George Co., VA, the widow Mrs. Sarah Turberville, received one third of his estate and Walter Shropshhire received the other two thirds in right of his wife.  The will of Sarah Turberville is recorded in Book 2, page 210, Orange Co. VA dated June 18, 1760 and probated may 28, 1761.  She names her children as follows:  My son John Willis 1 shilling, my son William Willis, 10 shillings, my son, Henry Wood 1 shilling, my son David Hudson, 1 shilling, my son Joshua Hudson, 1 shilling.  To my daughter, Sarah Hawkins, all my wearing clothes.  To Rich Hudson’s daughter, Sarah 1 sheet, to Rush Hudson’s daughter, 1 trunk.  My son Rush Hudson to be Executor of my estate.  Wit Benj Hawkins, Moses Harwood, Kezia Rosser.

There is no doubt in my mind that Sarah Willis who married the orphan Benjamin Hawkins must have been the same Sarah Willis Hawkins who was named in Sarah Turberville's will.  And also I feel sure that this same Sarah Willis was living in the home of Henry Wood when the orphans were being raised.  Henry likely married the oft married Sarah after John Hawkins' will was written.

So, the two Sarah's were not in the household at the time of the death of John and Elizabeth Hawkins....but very soon after.  But these dates would suggest that William's mother (which might have been Elizabeth as was the mother of the other five) might have been related to Henry Wood.... 

[note:  I am looking at a few trees on Ancestry.  The one that is owned by wolfpackmom and labelled Journigan Family Tree shows Sarah Willis Wood Turberville to have father David Rozier (1669-1698) with wife Sarah Sherwood (1664-1698).  I took the time to look at the owners of the trees who include Sarah and Henry Wood....and I am not a DNA match to anyone who owns one of those trees]

The two daughters of John and Elizabeth Hawkins married Morton brothers.  Sarah married  John Morton.  Elizabeth married Elijah Morton. As I have written this blog post I realize that I know that son, Benjamin, married Sarah Willis.  But I know very little about William, John and James.  Janet had told me that John married Margaret Jennings, but I have no proof of this.  Craig Kilby suggested that the will of William Hawkins in Orange County in 1776 was the will of this man.  In it he names wife, Elizabeth, and sons John, William and Benjamin.  Others suggest that he had first been married to Mary Margaret Smith......perhaps from deed records he was married to Mary until about 1760.  I know absolutely nothing about James.  But if he is as unimaginative in the naming process, he is likely to have had a William, Benjamin, John and James as well......just don't know how to sort all of these men out!

Ok.  I now have a place to work on sorting out this group!  Can I do it?

Rauch family from Switzerland

I was playing around on Ancestry today.  I decided to click on a shaky leaf for ....hmmmm....not sure exactly which ancestor I clicked on .....but I found an ancestry researcher who goes by wildpat.  Wildpat lives in Zurich.  And he had an entire branch to explore.  These are ancestors who were living in Switzerland for many generations.  I don't want to loose this thought....and here is a map of where these people lived.



And here is what the branch looks like:

I heard from wildpat, and his name is actually Patrick.  He has a wonderful website at:

https://www.glarusfamilytree.com/family-research-services

Lacy family

I was looking for the blog post that I was almost certain that I had written fall 2018 when I visited Tom Lacy in his home neighborhood near Richmond.  I can't find anything in this blog site.  So I hope to remedy this situation by starting something in this spot.  It was a wonderful visit.  I will add photos and information as I have time.  But right now, I want to add information from Tom Lacy about two pieces of information that can be found on the web.  Shawna asked if the information that she was reading was correct.  And here is what Tom answered to those questions:

 I have two major research projects that have been dragging along for several years or more. 

One is the myth that Thomas Lacy II was instrumental in helping to catch Blackbeard the Pirate. Immediately upon becoming a member of the Huguenot Society I was told this story. When I was able to track Hazel down I found she was living in Richmond, VA in a retirement center near my home. Upon asking her why the story did not appear in her book as in another Lacy Genealogy she answered my question with a question. "Tom, have you checked the dates when Blackbeard was captured?" I was only able to speak to her by telephone. She explained that she was in extreme arthritic pain and not able to receive visitors. Shortly thereafter, before I could learn the true story, she passed away. 

In October 2013 I presented the true story to the Huguenot Society Annual Meeting. The primary ingredient to the story, however, is still missing. When or why did Thomas Lacy II join the British Navy. I have documentary  proof he received a reward as an AB Seaman in the amount of 5 months gratuity for the capture he was involved in. If I can fill in all the blanks I have a producer that will consider this story as a PBS Special. Thomas Lacy II assisted in capturing "the bloodiest pirate to sail in Virginia waters"..but not Blackbeard in 1718.

Second, Stephen Lacy is reported to have built the first Christian Meetinghouse in Hanover County, possibly in Virginia. Some researchers have said where they believed this 20 X 20 log meetinghouse was built, but the exact location has yet to be proven. Ancient maps show Thomas Lacy (believed to be Thomas Lacy II) lived in the present day vicinity of an existing house of worship that claims to have been connected to that first meetinghouse. But other known facts dispute their claims. 

Again, if I can tie all of this research together this too would be PBS worthy material. 

Do any of you, in your family histories, have any information regarding these to subjects? 

God bless. 

Cuzin" Tom  

I am fairly certain that Tom told me that after he joined the Huguenot society he found that the Lacy family were not really Huguenot.  I will get Tom to clarify this and finish this blog post.  

Cooley, Coley and other close families in Connecticut and my brother Greg!

I am editing this postin 2023 to show new information.

My newest puzzle and adventure started with a dna match with Mike.  Mike matched both me and Mom on Ancestry.  It is a 24cM match.  But it turned out that Mike had uploaded his results to gedmatch.  So I was able to see that his match was on Chromosome #13 in the same spot as that of Barbara Raemer's match.  And Barbara and I feel almost certain that this chromosome came down to each of us from our mutual 3-gr-grandparents, Benjamin Franklin Carey and his wife Hannah McNeely.  We had never figured out to which of the family lines this segment has connections.....Carey or McNeely.....  And almost bored (because I have already painted this segment), I wrote to Mike to see how he was connected to Ben and Hannah.  And he knew of no connection to either family.  So I looked around to see if I could find a connection to Carey or McNeely for him....without success.  So I became even more intrigued.  This segment came down to Mike from one of the ancestors of either Ben or Hannah.

That paragraph was from 2019.  Mike called me this winter and said he had found new information that he did descend from Benjamin Franklin Carey but with Ben's first wife, Maria Ketchum.  Mike descends from their daughter, Elizabeth who married Milton Hinchman.  So I will edit the following to show new information that we now know that the segment that Mike, Barbara Raemer and I all share comes down from one or the other of Benjamin Carey's parents:  Absalom Carey or Temperance Cooley.  

I am not sorry that I spent many hours thinking that Mike and I shared earlier ancestors.  It led me into doing research on my New England/Connecticut/New York ancestors that has been a lot of fun!  So I am leaving some of the below as it was before the new information.  So disregard the fact that I had decided that Mike and I share the Cooley line....now we know that it could be the Carey line or the Cooley line.  But we do know the segment definitely comes to us from Benjamin Franklin Carey and not either of his wives.

So here is the old information:
Next I took a better look at Mike's tree.  Many of his early ancestors were found in Fairfield, Connecticut in the time period that Mike and I would expect to find a connection from the size of the segment that we share.  I know that the McNeely family was mostly in Southwestern Virginia in this time period.  HOWEVER, Benjamin Franklin Carey moved from upstate NY to Southwestern Virginia just after the Revolutionary War.  It seemed likely that zeroing in on the Carey family might have the best chances of finding results.

So the surnames that I would be first looking at were Carey and Cooley (parents of Benjamin Franklin Carey are Absalom Carey and Temperance Cooley)  Information from my Carey gals buddies said that Benjamin Franklin Carey was born in Walkill, Orange County, New York in 1795.

Next I took the advice of Blaine Bettinger to work on a quick and dirty tree.  Looking on Ancestry, I found a tree that belonged to Terry Lee to try to build a "quick and dirty tree" of my own.  And Terry had the answer right there in his tree.  Daniel Cooley Sr is the man who moved his family from Fairfield CT to Goshen, Orange County, NY.




Terry's tree can be found on ancestry at this URL:

https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tree/3932678

You can see on the map below that there is only about 20 miles between Goshen and Wallkill (scale is on bottom right hand side of map:



Mike and I have not yet figured out just which ancestor is in both his tree and mine.....the ancestor who gave each of us that segment on Chromosome #13.    So I have begun to look at the area in Connecticut.  I found the below map of the Towns and Counties.  And while I haven't yet spent the time figuring the area out, I did not want to loose the map.


I found the map below at:  https://www.chuckstraub.com/Letterboxing/ctmap.htm

 

So far this new part of my tree has been a lot of fun!  But the fascinating part is that my brother is visiting for a few days for the funeral of his high school basketball coach.  And guess what.  I had honestly forgotten a very important fact.  My brother lives right there!  Right in Westport on the map above!  I guess I will be making a train trip this fall to visit!  Golf and genealogy and visiting my brother all in the same trip!  Doesn't get better than that!

Star Spangled Banner and Beuhring

I constantly tell myself that I am going to do the research to know if my 3-gr-grandfather, FGL Beuhring was present at the battle after which the Star Spangled Banner was written.  Today's Travel Trivia suggested that Baltimore is one of the 10.  So below is a screen shot of their comment.  This is definitely on my top 10 list of places in the US that I would like to visit.  AFTER I do the research.  I think that it is possible that Melba has already done this research and that the answer is in her book.

Barnes DNA matches

Several months ago I was chatting with Jim Barnes about Hawkins and Barnes connections.  As a result I used Barnes on the FTDNA family finder site as a search term and was quite amazed when I got 62 matches.  I only get 69 matches when I use the surname Hawkins (which is my maiden name) as the search term.  So I seem to have almost as many matches who claim Barnes ancestry as I have participants who claim Hawkins ancestors.   I have thought about it off and on since Jim and I chatted.  Of, course, it is possible that this is just a coincidence that I match that many people who have connections to Barnes.  But it is also possible that there is a reason for this.

So I have been thinking about the possibilities all of this past weekend.  And how I am going to explore this idea.  Of course, I will use the chromosome browser to see where I match each of these participants and if the match between us is shared by others.

It would seem that the match might be random.  Or the match might be a match on the Hawkins side.

I do know that there are marriages between Hawkins and Barnes more than once.  To produce matches to me who carry the Barnes surname or have particular interest in the Barnes surname, it would need to be a Barnes male who married a Hawkins female.  The marriage that I can think of right off hand is at least one of Benjamin and Ann/Nancy Bourne Hawkins daughters.  Their children were marrying in Mercer County, Kentucky around the 1810 time frame.  I did a blog post about their children that I tried to identify from the will that Benjamin left.

Here is the blog post that I wrote:

http://hawkinsdna.blogspot.com/2019/03/autosomal-match-to-hawkins-family-1.html


If I think of other marriages that might have produced the same sort of match, I will add them here at a later time.

As I explore, I will up date this blog post.

In August 2019, I am adding something that I would like to look at.  I just don't have time to search this morning.  BUSY day.  This is the footnote that is found in my Hawkins/Bourne data base for John Hawkins who married Margaret Jennings.  I have a GUESS (not a fact) that this couple had son Joseph.  And my footnote is this:



Now this doesn't make sense without looking at it....but I don't want to loose this clue.

Philemon Chapman and his wife, Frances Holderby

I could not help but look at my matches on Ancestry Thrulines for potential ancestor Sarah McCorkle (1750-1820) who was the wife of Edward Chapman and the mother of Philemon Chapman if the hints on ancestry are correct.  Ancestry suggests that this couple are the parents of Philemon Chapman who married Frances/Fannie Holderby.  I know a little bit about Philemon and Fannie as they lived most of their lives in what is now Cabell County, WV and both died in this county.  My data base says that Fannie died in 1872 at the age of 90 in the home of her son-in-law,  Dr. J.D. Kincaid.

Ancestry suggests that I have 2 dna matches who descend from Philemon's brother, William Chapman and 6 dna matches who descend from Philemon's sister, Sarah/Sally Chapman who married a man with surname Pointer/Poynter.  That is enough matches to seriously look at Edward and Sarah McCorkle Chapman as a good possibility for 5-gr-grandparents.

The BIG question is if all of these matches have accurate research and that there is indeed proof of marriage of Edward Chapman and Sarah McCorkle as well as proof of relationship of the children.  Is there a will for Edward Chapman?  Where was Sarah living when Edward married her?

Right now, my mind is somewhat confused about the facts.  So I am going to put down the facts that I know whether they support the theory or are in conflict with the theory and then try to write my story from what I know.

First of all, there is a marriage record found on Ancestry that looks quite excellent for Philemon and Frances/Fannie:

Digitally enhanced from multi-generation photocopy of original. Original photocopy produced from Green County, Kentucky official records (repository unknown, assumed to be Green County Court House) retrieved first hand by Evelyn L. Miller c.1985. Scan and digital enhancement in 2009 by Douglas Miller (related through Martin family, not Miller).

DonnaJeffrey48

DonnaJeffrey48 originally shared this on 14 Feb 2016

Where is Green County?  It is shown below as a highlighted area just South of Louisville and east of Bowling Green.





So the question in my mind is who is the Chapman family moving with?  Where have the come from.  Ancestry researchers suggest Culpeper County, Virginia....but had they been somewhere else between the move from Culpeper to Green County?

And the biggest question in my mind is why did Philemon and Fanny move to Cabell County in what is now WV instead of west?  And why did they marry in Green County if Fanny's family was in Cabell?

Fanny's father, William Holderby, is already in Cabell County.

“We (the undersigned), appointed to locate the public buildings under the act, etc, taking into consideration the convenience and inconveniece of the population, and interest of the county do fix the mouth of the Guyandotte, on the upper side, in the middle of a field occupied by William Holderby, as the most practicable place for said public buildings, etc.”

    Holderby’s field consisted of 100 feet of land on either side of what is now Bridge Street (3rd Ave) and extended from Guyan to Main Streets.  It was in this field that the first county courthouse was built in 1809

 He purchased the first lot which was sold in the town of Guyandotte, in 1811.  (Deed Book I-page 164).  THis Deed is recorded in 1810, but since the town was just being laid out it is very probable that it was not occupied before 1811.  It was purchased from Thomas Buffington.  Also in this book on page 163, is the Deed for seventy nine acres on the Ohio River, purchased from Jonathan Buffington, which ran down the Ohio river from the Guyandotte a certain distance and extended towards the hill, which was  purchased by James Holderby in 1811, a brother of the William Holderby mentioned above.

 There is no doubt that William Holderby and family were in Cabell County in this time period.  It would seem most unusual for the bride to have traveled to the Groom's place of residence to marry.

However, a look at the WV marriage records shows no marriage for Philemon and Frances and the information about WV marriages say that the records start in 1809.

Did William Witcher have two wives?

In May 2021 I am rethinking all that I have said below.  please do not spend time reading without getting in touch with me to see how I have updated my best guesses.  mosesm@earthlink.net 

Please mention blog post you are reading and why you have interest.  marsha

I have been working on my dna matches who claim Witcher ancestors.  So as part of this process, I have also been working on what I know about William Witcher who lived in Pittsylvania County, Virginia during the Revolutionary War.  There are more blog posts about this family on this site.  (use Witcher, Morrison, Goad as search terms to narrow the posts to those of interest on the main page)

In my data base, I have Lydia Atkinson as his wife.  However, many of the Ancestry trees have Ann Majors as his wife.  I am looking at the possibility that both women were wives to William.  Ann Major having been closer to William's age while Lydia was younger and is the mother of the last four children.

William leaves a very good will when he dies in which he names 8 children.  He leaves slaves to seven of these children:  Son, John, son William, Jr,  Son Daniel, Son, Ephraim, Son James, Son Caleb, and daughter Elizabeth Razor.

To daughter Rachel, he leaves no slaves.  He leaves land on which her husband, William Morrison, now lives.  I believe this land to be the land that William Witcher had bought from William Atkinson in 1758 for 5 shillings.

The trees on Ancestry give 1724 as the date of birth for William Witcher, Sr.  They give 1725 as date of birth of Anne Majors.  Many of them suggest a death date of 1766 for Ann Majors Witcher.  I believe that they most likely have no documentation for this date.  Instead they have chosen to have her death make the birth of all of the children make sense....They give the following dates of birth for the children:

John        1742
Daniel     1746
Ephraim  1749
James      1750
William   1758
Caleb       1762
Rachel     1764
Elizabeth 1765

They give the date of death for Ann Majors Witcher as 1776.  I do realize that often families lost children which would account for time periods of no children.  But I suggest that Anne Majors was the mother of the first 4 children.  Then there is a lull in the births for 8 years.   I have documentation for land that William Witcher buys for 5 Shillings from William Atkinson.  It is a 100 acres.  This is a gift.  It is nice land for 5 shillings.  It is land that is given in July1758.  I believe that William married William Atkinson's daughter, Lydia, in this time period and the two of them then are responsible for the births of the next four children.

I would like to have other Witcher researchers use their matches to Majors and Atkinson to try to prove or disprove my theory.  Any help you can give me is greatly appreciated.

marsha hawkins moses
mosesm@earthlink.net

.

I have filed a copy of the deed that I found on Family Search

It is a digital copy in genealogy documents/Witcher

William and Nancy Webb (Parents of Nancy Webb who married Bird Hensley)

I have an unusually free week this week.  I am cleaning out my inbox and combing through saved e-mails for information that I do not want to loose before I delete them.  I have wonderful information from my Webb research group.  I just don't seem to be able to catch up with their research.  And I want to be able to start where I am now any time that I get back to looking at this family line.

First I have a timeline filed in Genealogy documents>Webb that I have used to capture some of this information.  I also have at least one e-mail saved that has all of these researcher's e-mails on the same addressed e-mail.

This group have proven that William Webb and Nancy Webb had at least the following children:
Nancy
Isaac
Thomas
Sarah
William Jr.

Their proofs are both DNA and also documents.

Also I can throw out all of the old blog posts about where this family lived when they were in the Warren County area of Kentucky which is where my Nancy was born.  This group has proven to their satisfaction that the family was in Logan County, Kentucky.

Lastly, there is a thorough summary of the research of the group to date on this family attached to William, Isaac and Sarah on our trees.  Just click on 'Gallery' under their names on the profile page and you will see it as 'Webb History'.

https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/71255109/person/48236488851/facts

This is Torey's tree above.

Shirley Culpeper Brooke's tree is:

https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/75244082/person/34311391349/facts

And Jane Cartwright's is:

https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/68305750/person/30562447242/factsThi

Joseph Belt (1680-1761)

Ancestry sent me a photo to add to my tree on Ancestry.  It is a quite impressive photo.  It is the photo of a monument to Joseph Belt who is a part of my Sprigg line.  I will check with Suzanne to make sure that I am adding this correctly.  Here is the photo:



And here is the information about this marker:

Inscription:  Colonel Joseph Belt
1680 Maryland 1761

Patentee of "Cheivy Chace", Trustee of first free schools in Maryland, one of the founders of Rock Creek Parish, member of the House of Burgesses, Colonel of Prince George's County militia during the French and Indian War.
 
Erected 1911 by The Society of Colonial Wars in the District of Columbia. 
 
Location. 38° 58.082′ N, 77° 4.599′ W. Marker is in Chevy Chase, Maryland, in Montgomery County. Marker is at the intersection of Western Avenue and Chevy Chase Circle and Connecticut Avenue, on the right when traveling west on Western Avenue.  Touch for map. It is on the northeast corner of Western and the circle. Marker is in this post office area: Chevy Chase MD 20815, United States of America.  Touch for directions.

James Hawkins of Stafford County, Virginia c.1800

This blog post is going to take a while to make sense.  I am trying to sort through the information about James Hawkins who is found in Stafford County at least from 1797 until 1820.  I have such a mish mash of information that I am going to just start adding it and then sift through what I have.

Why did I get interested in this James Hawkins?

Because my "brick wall" for 20 years or more, Thomas Ross Hawkins, had a daughter named Angelina.  Angelina married James A. Whitlock.  When Angelina died  either her husband or one of her children  filled out the death certificate.  And the person took the time to put in good information in the blanks.  And Thomas Ross Hawkins ....that I had thought for MANY years to have been born in Orange County, Virginia suddenly had a new birth county:  Stafford County.  So suddenly I believed that Thomas Ross Hawkins was born in Stafford County, Virginia.  And then, Phooey....Stafford County is a burned county....not a lot of information ....But I do have an approximate birth date for Thomas R. Hawkins of 1797 based on census information and the following from From the Religious Herald of Richmond, June 18, 1885:

 On the 6th day of April,

1885, at the residence of his son, Rev. E.P. Hawkins of Louisa County, Rev

Thomas Hawkins quietly fell  asleep, being eighty-seven years and seven

months old."

I would then calculate his birth to be Sept 1797.

You can see from Angelina's death certificate that clearly her father was born in Stafford County.  There would have been no reason for husband or child to have made such a thing up....all of the years that they had known him, he lived in Orange County, Virginia.  If they were just guessing, they would have guessed Orange.  They knew he had been born in Stafford.

 

So next I ran my new information by Elaine....and not long after Elaine found a tax record in which James Hawkins was paying taxes for William Ross in Stafford County, Virginia in the right time frame.  These have to be my men right?

Here is the blog post that I wrote at the time I discovered this information so you can see that tax record for yourself:

https://marshamoses.blogspot.com/2019/01/james-hawkins-and-william-ross.html

Timeline for James Hawkins and William Ross in Stafford County:

1783 William Ross and William Ross Jr are both on Stafford County Property list .  There is no Hawkins on the list in this year.

1797  On list B James Hawkins is paying for Wm. Rofs and there is another William Rofs later in the list.  This is approximately the same year in which Thomas R. Hawkins was said to have been born in Stafford County.

1800 Tax List James Hawken 103 acres Pt. Park and William Ross 202 acres Pt. Park   Jerrilyn says: 

"Pt. Park" means part of the Parke tract.

 The 1800 Virginia census was lost so the tax list is our best documentation. There is no Hawkins male listed on the personal property tax list at all in the County (I am using Binns tax list to do this research).  William Ross is on the list with 2 males over the age of 16.  This could be his own son or it could be his son-in-law, James Hawkins.  But there seems to be only one William Ross on the list.  So perhaps  as another theory the father-in-law, William Ross, has already died.  I feel certain that if Thomas Ross Hawkins was born in 1797, his father must have still been living in Stafford Count, but I don't know why he would  not have been on the tax list.

1811 James Hawkins is on the Stafford County personal Property List …on list A.  William Ross is on the same list.

1812 There is no Hawkins on the Stafford County personal Property List.  Killis Hord is listed.

1813  There is no Hawkins on the Stafford County personal Property List.  Killis Hord is listed.  There seems to be only one William Ross on the list.  William Ross is on the list, but I only see one William Ross. (I believe that this is because William Ross the father is deceased)

I looked at a deed book for Fleming County, Ky at the Filson library in May 2019.  There is no Hawkins transaction in the years between 1797 and 1818.

1820 There is a James Hawkins in Stafford County, Virginia in the 1820 census.  It is a large household.  3 sons:  1 under 10, 1 between 10 and 15 and 1 older than 16.  James is 45 or older.  4 daughters under 10 and one older than 16.  His wife was 45 or older.  In 1820 Thomas R. would have been 22-23.  So he could have been the one older son.  He is not yet married....but he could also be in Orange County with Uncle Benjamin.  He is found earlier than that in Orange County…perhaps when he was going to school.  And he has not yet married Matilda.  It is a large family.
  

Is there a will for William Ross?  Are there wills available at all in Stafford County?  

From Olyve:  I don't know where James b. ca 1765 was born. He left Stafford's tax role about 1825 and showed up in Clark CO. KY in 1826.   Other researchers say that James died in Flemming County in 1834.

I need to clarify this and find some documents.

Then I pulled out notes from a lady that I had communicated with for many years.  Her James Hawkins was from Stafford County and died in Fleming County, Kentucky.  There seems to be only one James Hawkins in Stafford County in the right time period....why would my James Hawkins move to Kentucky...and leave children in Virginia?  

So I started looking at Ancestry trees ....and there is more than one that looks  like the following:

This James Hawkins has wife, Margaret, born 1769 in Virginia and died in Fleming County, Ky 1834.    

And James is given dates that are similar as you can see from the above.  

So what is wrong with this picture?  James is about 26 when his first child is born and his wife is about 21.  That seems normal enough.....but then....they have three children that make sense for the age...and then don't have any more for 16 years. After 16 years they suddenly have six more children at ages 35 to 53.  It is absolutely not impossible.  But there almost has to be more to the story.  

Especially when you factor in that my Thomas Ross Hawkins was born in 1797.  And that he has sisters, Mary and Elizabeth and brothers, Moses and Benjamin.  I think it possible that Moses joined the family in moving to Kentucky.  But Mary and Elizabeth and Thomas Ross stayed behind in Virginia.  I don't know much about Benjamin but I do find a Benjamin Hawkins in Orange County who is of the right age.  These children stayed behind in Virginia with Uncle Benjamin and Aunt Mary/Polly...perhaps because of their age?  Don't know yet.

So was there a first wife?  And when she died, did James remarry ....and then his older children joined him in moving to Kentucky while his teenagers stayed behind...and James moved his baby, Moses, with him and with his new wife?  It would seem that all of James' children were born in Stafford County.  If the dates on the Ancestry tree are correct.  

So I guess the first question I'll start with tomorrow is:  When did James move his family to Fleming County, Kentucky?  And did he first move to Clark County, Ky?

Ok, I am still looking at trees tonight.  Walter R. is said to have been born in Stafford County so they are still in Virginia in 1817.  I am using Walter R. to search the trees.  He has wife Angeline Snedegar.  Here are some of the facts that I am finding on various Ancestry trees:

James Hawkins' wife is Margaret Jane Morton

James and Margaret's marriage was in Culpeper in 1790.  My best guess is that this researcher used the date of the first born child to come up with this information.  I have looked the Culpeper, Spotsylvania, and Orange County marriage books and while there are a number of Hawkins marriages, this one is not listed.  I have also checked Theresa A. Fisher's book for marriages between 1722 and 1850 that includes City of Fredericksburg, Orange, Spotsylvania and Stafford Counties.  I find no marriage between James Hawkins and Margaret Jane Morton.  Nor do I find a marriage between James Hawkins and any woman with last name Ross.  Stafford County is a "burned" county and the records are scarce.

Again from Ancestry trees, all of James' children are said to have been born in Virginia.  The last child named is Sally Ann born in 1819....so they did not move until after 1819 to Kentucky.

Many of the Ancestry trees say that this James is the son of William and Elizabeth Bourne Hawkins.  I would like this to be true if it is my James.  However, Elizabeth is certainly dead by 1819.  My notes say that William is still alive and probably living in Jessamine County, Kentucky at this time since he died in Jessamine in 1836.  Why did James not move to Jessamine County instead of Fleming?  Perhaps he and his wife moved to an area where her family lived? 

While I was looking for a deed for Sandi, I found the following map that I had worked on several years ago.  I have added it to the blog in two sizes to make looking at it easier.  Note that Clark County is much closer to Jessamine County than is Fleming.  I need to work on these ideas a bit.  And look how close Madison County is to Jessamine and the other Counties of interest in this time period!

The below map can be manipulated to read smaller parts better.

 

Then I have to make the fact that the father of my Thomas Ross Hawkins had a brother named Benjamin work for William and Elizabeth Bourne.  Uncle Benjamin has to fit into the family.  William and Elizabeth Bourne did indeed have sons named both James and Benjamin: 

Deed Book B. Pg 328 John, Benjamin, and James Hawkins, Polly Barnett, Willis Hawkins, and Sally Hawkins children of Elizabeth Hawkins daug of Andrew Bourne of Culpeper Co, VA to our brother Moses Hawkins P of A to recover slaves left us by our grandfather, Andr. Bourne: Feb 1808 s and ack. by John Barnett and Willis and Sally Hawkins only and rec. same.”

 So far nothing to absolutely rule this theory out totally.  Just need to work on it a bit.  

Joseph Sprigg and his wife, Ann Taylor

An Ancestry thruline that I looked at yesterday put me in contact with Suzanne who is the researcher who is connected to my dna match on FTDNA, William Donaldson Sprigg, Jr.  Mr. Sprigg is Suzanne's deceased father.  Suzanne has always been the researcher connected to the kit.  Suzanne and I had tried to exchange information a few years ago, but neither of us had done enough research to come up with the connection.  Now with help from all of the bells and whistles that are provided by the five big DNA sites, we are able to identify a really good match between Suzanne's dad and me on Chromosome #11.  So, of course, I first painted the chromosome match on dnapainter and then began to look at all of the new information that this makes available to me.

I descend from Joseph Sprigg and his wife, Ann Taylor, through their daughter Lucretia who married John Redmon in Pulaski County, Arkansas 23 April 1828.  I had found this marriage information on Ancestry in 2005 and my comment at this time was:

..... I found a marriage entry on Ancestry in June 2004 for John Redmon to Lucretia Sprigg in Arkansas Pulaski County for the date that I entered above.  The date works well for Louisa M. Redmon’s parents and is further substantiated by the fact that Louisa and John Slater name a daughter Lucretia “Luty” C. Slater.

Lucretia Sprigg and John Redmon had daughter, Louisa M. born in Arkansas.  I already had information that L.M. Redmon and Dr. John Slater had married in Arkansas.  

My notes that I had saved in my data base seem to firm up that what I have found is correct:  

I interviewed my grandmother (Mary Ann McGregor Hawkins.  She was the gr-granddaughter of Dr. John Slater and Louisa M. Redmon Slater) in the early 1970's.  My notes from that interview say:  Helen's grandfather (Dr. Slater) left North Carolina after the war and was a doctor in Lassen County, California.  And he was also the grandfather of John S. Partridge of San Francisco, California who was recently [letter written July 26, 1923] appointed Federal Judge in this state...

My research has shown the time when John Slater left North Carolina was BEFORE the war.  The census of 1860 in Lassen County shows John to have been born in North Carolina--so that substantiates granny Mary’s statement that he moved from NC, but tells us that he left NC before the Civil War.

Then the 1850 census finds John A. Slater living in Greenbrier, Independence, Arkansas with a wife: Louisa M. Slater who is 19.  This John has North Carolina as his birth place as well. 

It is quite interesting to note from the family sheet that Tim Purdy sent me that this family came via wagon train as the 4th child is born in Kansas in 1875...ˆmy date must be wrong....it must be 1855....I will double check this.

According to Fairfield’s Pioneer History of Lassen County California Dr. John Slater crossed the plains and came into the valley in 1857

I feel very good about all of these facts adding up to a story that is substantiated.

Now with Suzanne's help I have added Louisa Redmon's brother to my tree.  Ignatius Sprigg is the brother from whom Suzanne descends.  Ignatius Sprigg married Mary Polly Adkins.

Now I am working on adding more using the information from the Maryland Historical Society's magazine:  Volume 8, Issue #1.  I accessed this issue from the Maryland Historical Society's website.  And the URL for that is:

http://mdhs.msa.maryland.gov/pages/Login.aspx