Hickman Hensley

 I bought six yDNA kits at the FTDNA father's day sale this year.  Suzanne Baird found Jeff for me via a facebook chat group.  Jeff's tree connects him to Hickman Hensley.  Why was Jeff's yDNA of interest to me?  

According to Suzanne's tree, Hickman Hensley was the son of Benjamin Hensley and his wife Elizabeth for whom we have no maiden name.  Hickman was born in Halifax County, Virginia in 1759.  At that time Halifax County was a huge county going as far west as the settlers might move.

It was not until 1767 that Pittsylvania County was formed and then Halifax was finite while it was Pittsylvania that stretched to the west.  Then in 1777 Henry was formed out of the western part of Pittsylvania.  In 1785 Franklin was formed from the northern portion of Henry and the southern portion of Botetourt.   And in 1791 Patrick was formed out of the western part of Henry.  Making the Counties the sizes that they are still today.  In 1759, Hickman's parents could have been living in any part of this area.

I got out my Halifax County books and Dodson does not include any Hensley's in his survey books.

My Ancestor, John Hensley who was married to Milly and is said to be the father of Solomon Hensley in Solomon's death records, is shown in the titheable list of Pittsylvania County in 1767:

https://adkinsmetcalffamily.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/the-history-of-pittsylvania-county-virginia/

I have looked at this list many times, but somehow forgot to record in my brain that this was the FIRST titheable list in Pittsylvania County.  That John and Milly could have been living in Halifax County before this date!  That while somehow I have thought that they moved about this time, the truth is that the county line changed about this time. 

I know where in Pittsylvania County John and Milly lived about the time that Solomon was born.  You can read about this at:

http://marshamoses.blogspot.com/2012/10/hensleyfoster-connections.html

So to answer my above question, Hickman Hensley was born in the area of Virginia where my Solomon was born circa 1776.  He is still living in the area in 1779 (according to tree of Suzanne) when his son Larkin was born in Henry County.  Hickman seems to have moved his family to NC just after the birth of this child.  However in the time period in which my Solomon is born, he is still in Henry County.

So......Hickman is clearly a Hensley.  That is what Jeff's yDNA shows.  Solomon Hensley may have had a Hensley mother, but his paternal line is clearly Foster.  Another of my kits this year (Dewayne Hensley has proven that).  Dewayne descends from Solomon's son Alexander.  I had bought a kit many years ago for John Hensley who descends from Solomon's son, Bird.  These two men match each other and they clearly match a well represented Foster line!...

One other person that I want to mention as living in this area is Phebe Hensley.  Phebe is living in Henry County and has children born between the years (according to Marty Grant's website) of before 1784 to probably about 1790 or later since she has six children documented on Marty's site.  Were Phebe and Hickman siblings?  Was the father of Phebe's children a Foster?  

Was my John Hensley related to Phebe?  Hickman?  Hickman's parents?

Did John and Milly have other children besides Solomon?  Was John's paternal line Hensley?  Foster?  Was Solomon adopted?  Wow....I have enough research to keep me busy for years!

But one thing we do know thanks to Jeff Hensley is that Hickman was clearly a Hensley!

Dna match between me and Mike Tillman

I am editing this post in Nov 2022. Mike Tillman had a breakthrough in his research.  He has discovered that on his dad's side there is an adoption which obscured the fact that indeed Mike has ancestor Benjamin Franklin Carey  Mike descends from Ben and his first wife, Mariah Carey, through their daughter, Elizabeth.  I am going to leave the rest of the post alone.  Just remember that the segment that Mike and I share came from either Absalom Carey or Temperance Cooley.  Too most of the post has nothing to do with Mike and my match.

This post is VERY iffy!  So if you are reading this much later than today's date, e-mail me and ask what I found out at the end of the day.  I have a dna match with Mike Tillman that we know is on Chromosome #13 in the place that I match with Barbara Raemer through our mutual ancestor, Benjamin Franklin Carey.

This has been a trip with Mary and family from WV to Boston and last night we ended up in Providence, RI.  And it seems possible that my Carpenter family may have lived here quite early.  So I am exploring the idea that Mike and I share this chromosome segment from the Carpenter/Reynolds family line.

The above image was found at:

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_early_settlers_of_Rhode_Island

You can see that William Carpenter and William Reynolds live quite close together in the Providence RI area in the very early days of Providence.  Could these men be the ancestors that Mike and I share?  I will work on the idea as I have time.  

My group was staying in the Marriott Courtyard that is next door to the mall.  The small kiosk to buy one's ticket which was also the place to get on the bus was directly across the street from our hotel and next door to the Graduate hotel which is in the large building that has Biltmore sign on it.  

Our tour guide was excellent.  We learned about the facts that Roger Williams was the founder of the Providence plantations.  And the important information that made me love this early town:  Roger Williams was a most progressive individual.  I would like to think that my ancestors were like minded and chose to live in his neighborhood because they agreed with him.  Here is a bit of information from Wikipedia about Roger Williams:

The tour guide explained that Roger Williams lived in Salem, Massachusetts.  He was told he had to leave but could stay until the end of the winter if he promised not to preach.  But his followers continued to meet with him in his home in such numbers that the governing fathers decided that he was not abiding by his promise.  They made a plan to put him on a ship bound to England.  However, John Wintrop warned him of the plan and he escaped in the middle of the night.  He lived with the Narragansett Indian tribe until the end of the winter.  That spring he bought land from the Indians and settled in what is now Providence RI.  

Why was he kicked out of Salem?  The tour guide said that it was because he had dangerous ideas:  that he believed in the separation of church and state!  Roger Williams set his new Providence Plantations up so that the governing body was totally separate from the religious entities.  All were welcome to settle there regardless of their religion.  They could worship as they pleased.  

One of the other things that I love the man for is that he wrote a book about the Indian's language and customs.  His thought was that if everyone had a better understanding of the Indian ways, they could live among each other in peace,  

The tour guide agreed to drive by the lots that had belonged to the original settlers.  He explained that while Roger Williams home is no longer standing, there is a marker showing where he lived.  And that the street named Angell Street is approximately where Thomas Angell was living in the time period.  So one can get an idea of where William Carpenter and William Reynolds were living.  Here are a few photos that I took as we drove by.  The all give some idea if one is looking in the right area:

 I  guess that the island mentioned in some of the Carpenter documentation would have been as shown below?  

There is some documentation on Lynda McGinnis' Ancestry site for my own Carpenter family:

https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/52414114/person/13350448271/facts

And in the book on her site called 

†his book is available on Hathitrust

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t4qj81z5b&view=1up&seq=11

\

This does not show up well.  I'll zero in on the neighborhood in which the early settlers lived below:

Main Street on the modern map its the second street from the river on which the RISD Museum is located.  You can see Angell Street clearly.  According to the book about the Carpenter family that is explained in the cover page shown above, there was a highway between the land of Robert Coles and William Carpenter.  This road is now called Meeting Street because the Friends Meeting house was built on William Carpenter's lot.

Also on page 26 of the book is the following:

Pautuxet is shown with red marker in above map.

There is a description of an Indian attack on the home of William Carpenter on pages 26-27 during King Philip's war in January 1676.

Ok.  I quit for the night.  It seems that Lynda McGinnis does not believe that the William Carpenter who I have presented in this blog post belongs to our tree.  I will work on another post first chance that I get on the Carpenter family to which we belong.

Forth of July 2021

 It has been a crazy year.  Covid has caused a lot of "funny stuff"

But it is the 4th of July. And I am so lucky that much of my family still celebrates this holiday.  My daughter who lives in Lima, Peru has flown in from Lima to celebrate with the rest of the family.  I am not convinced that any of them remember what we celebrate.

But I feel the need to comment on many things,  I would start with my mother's Morrison family.  The three Morrison brothers left Pittsylvania County to  fight,  These three brothers were lucky enough to have come home together,  But they fought in all of the big battles...,they crossed the Delaware with George Washington,  I will do better tomorrow.  But I wanted to start.