Beware of Ancestry "Historical" Records

This morning I accidentally encountered a marriage record for my 4th great grandfather Thomas Wingo which gave his bride as his sister-in-law, Sarah W. Rucker.

According to Ancestry's information regarding this database, the source of the information is as follows:

Source Information
Yates Publishing. U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004.

Original data: This unique collection of records was extracted from a variety of sources including family group sheets and electronic databases. Originally, the information was derived from an array of materials including pedigree charts, family history articles, querie.

Description
This database contains marriage record information for approximately 1,400,000 individuals from across all 50 United States and 32 different countries around the world between 1560 and 1900. These records, which include information on over 500 years of marriages, were extracted from family group sheets, electronic databases, biographies, wills, and other sources.

In other words, this information has been primarily taken from family group sheets, biographies and such, none of which would constitute a primary or desirable source.

The truth of this family connection is that Sarah Rucker was the wife of Thomas Wingo's brother John. Although not all Amelia County, Virginia marriage records are extant, Sarah, daughter of William Rucker, is documented as the wife of John Wingo in records of both Spartanburg County, South Carolina and Amelia County, Virginia.

Deed Book C, p. 289, Spartanburg County, SC
William Rucker for the heirs of Sarah Wingo, Dec'd This indenture made this 15th day of Sept and in the year of our Lord one Thousand seven hundred and Ninety Four - Witnesseth that I William Rucker of the State of South Carolina and the county of Spartenburgh do hereby give and bequeth unto the heirs of the body of my said daughter, Sarah Wingo, Deceased, one Negro woman by the name of Milly amd all the increase of her body to wit: Sim, Ben, Nan, Charles, Becky, Lewis, Rueben, Ady, and Morris. These at present in the keeping of John Wingo Junior in the State of Virginia and County of Amelia which negros I, William Rucker, never intended to dispose of in any other Way but to my said daughter and the heirs of her body for ever. Wherefore, I the said William Rucker do hereby authorize and Impower Sherwood Fowler to demand the said Negros above mentioned and to act in the behalf of the heirs of my said daughter deceased. Signed William Rucker

Deed Book 21, p. 59, Amelia County, VA
We the subscribers this Seventeenth Day of October 1797, Received of John Wingo Sr. of Amelia County two hundred and Thirty five Pounds seventeen shillings in negroes for which Negoes we the Subscribers do hereby agree that neither us or our heirs and will or shall ever put up or lay any claim or demand against the estate of the above mentioned John Wingo Sr or any part thereof. John Wingo Jr, Sherwood Fowler (for Mary Wingo Fowler), Abner Wingo, Churchill Wingo, Jane Wingo, Fanny Wingo Scruggs (Mrs. William Scruggs), Cyrus Seay (for Nancy Wingo Seay).

The maiden name of Sarah, the wife of Thomas Wingo, is unknown but autosomal DNA supports the belief that she was probably a member of the Joel Meador family of Amelia County. It is no small wonder that there is so much incorrect information across the internet regarding Sarah, wife of Thomas Wingo, Jr., when Ancestry is disseminating the false information as a historical record.

Jamestown Colonist Thomas Garnett

Jamestowne, established in 1607, was the first of the English colonies in America that endured the food shortages, indian attacks and countless other hardships to become a lasting settlement. The only earlier English colony had been Sir Walter Raleigh's ill fated 1585 settlement on Roanoke Island in North Carolina. The 115 colonists left at that settlement in 1587 had vanished when an expedition returned three years later to resupply the colony.

Settlement of Jamestowne

Recently I found that Thomas Garnett, the father of Sussan Garnett, sailed from the Port of London as a passenger on the ship Swan from June through August 1610 to the Jamestowne Colony. His daughter Sussan, born in Elizabeth Cittie around 1622, was the mother of Robert Foster, born about 1651 in Gloucester County and ancestor of the majority of the Foster families of Amelia County, Virginia which include our Mary Holt Wingo. The children of Thomas Wingo and Mary Holt were some of the earliest settlers to the Jackson Purchase. Thomas Garnett, his wife Elizabeth and baby daughter Sussan, survived the attack in 1622 by the Algonquin tribe who had become disenchanted with the colonists. The indians attacked the out plantations and killed over 300 of the colonists but a late warning saved Jamestowne.

Thomas Garnett may have come from Lancashire in England. English records show that there were Garnetts settled there from at least the 12th century and the parish records for the church at Kirkby Lonsdale, Lancashire show a Thomas Garnett, son of Robert Garnett, baptised there on the 14th of December 1585.

It appears that Thomas Garnett came to the American colonies as an indentured servant to Capt. William Powell. Tyler, Narratives of Early Virginia cites a conflict between Thomas Garnett and Capt. Powell from the record of the first meeting of the elected assembly at Jamestown on August 3, 1619:

Captaine William Powell presented a pettition to the generall Assembly against one Thomas Garnett, a servant of his, not onely for extreame neglect of his business to the great loss and prejudice of the said Captaine, and for openly and impudently abusing his house, in sight both of Master and Mistress, through wantonnes with a woman servant of theirs, a widdowe, but also for falsely accusing him to the Governor both of Drunkennes and Thefte, and besides for bringing all his fellow servants to testifie on his side, wherein they justly failed him. It was thought fitt by the general assembly (the Governour himself giving sentence), that he should stand fower dayes with his eares nayled to the Pillory, viz: Wednesday, Aug. 4thm and so likewise Thursday, fryday, and Satturday next following, and every of those dayes should be publiquely whipped.

The Virginia Colony

There is nothing to prove that the accusations made by William Powell against Thomas Garnett were true. Only William Powell who was known to be a drunkard and a gambler testified. Powell was also closely associated with the governor having been known to have lost his estate Chippokes, on the James River, in a card game with him.

In a "Muster of Inhabitants" taken in 1624-25, Thomas Garnett, aged 40, was living at Elizabeth City with his wife, Elizabeth, aged 26, who came in the ship Neptune in 1618, and their young daughter, Susan aged three. Elizabeth must have died sometime in 1624 because another census apparently taken later that year lists the wife of Thomas Garnett as Joyse Gyffith, age 20, who arrived in 1624 on the ship Jacob.

Whatever the truth of the conflict with William Powell, within fifteen years Thomas Garnett was no longer an indentured servant and had become a land owner in his own right. There is patent dated 3 July 1635 recorded in the Land Office at Richmond in Grant Book 1, page 201 from Governor John West granting 200 acres of land lying along the Little Poquoson Creek in Elizabeth City County to Thomas Garnett. The land was granted to Thomas Garnett for transporting four colonists to Virginia at his own expense for which he received 50 acres each.

My 5th Great Grandmother Sarah

Sarah was the grandmother of Jerman J. Wingo who settled the town of Wingo, in Graves County, Kentucky. She married Thomas Wingo, Jr. around 1757 and by 1765 she was a young widow with four small children. There are no clues to Sarah's surname and the identity of her family although they were surely neighbors of the Wingo family in Amelia County, Virginia living among the families between Flatt Creek and the Appomatox River.

Various family trees online, particularly on Ancestry.com list Sarah as Sarah Rucker, but that is incorrect as Sarah Rucker was the wife of Thomas Wingo's brother John. This is substantiated by a court case following Sarah Rucker Wingo's death around 1780. In 1791 her father, William Rucker, executed a deed of gift to the heirs of his deceased daughter. The disputed slaves Milly and her children Sam, Ben, Nan, Charles, Becky, Lewis, Rueben, Edy and Moses were still in the possession of John Wingo, Sarah's husband, as late as 1797. A settlement was finally negotiated between John Wingo and his children wherein they received the slaves given by their grandfather and agreed not to make any claims or demands against the estate of John Wingo. (Amelia Co., VA; Book 9; Page 275; Probate records; 22 Nov 1821)

Sarah is also listed as Sarah Foster in many online family trees which is probably the result of some confusion because she married John Foster the son of William Foster of the Stock's Creek area in Amelia County after Thomas Wingo, Jr.'s death. In 1779, Sarah's son Obediah was listed as a tithe of John Foster and in 1782, Thomas Wingo was. This indicates that it was Sarah and John Foster who raised Thomas Wingo, Jr.'s children, not his brother John W. Wingo as some speculate. It is not impossible that Sarah was the daughter of one of the other Foster families in the area but much research has failed to identify a family with a daughter Sarah who was of the right age and available to have been the wife of Thomas Wingo and William Foster's son John.

Over the last 30 years, I have researched many of the Amelia County neighbors of the Wingo family searching for a family that might have been Sarah's. Richard Borum's 1785 Amelia County will named a daughter Sara Foster, but no records can be found that definitely identify Sarah Borum and the Foster family she married into. Colonial Amelia County is filled with countless families like Meador, Burton, Worsham and Seay which are all names I see repeatedly in autosomal DNA matches but have no documentation of any family connection. For now I'll just keep researching each of the neighboring families as I find a DNA match and maybe someday I'll find Sarah.

DNA Matches Among My JP Families

This week the results of my recent DNA test have begun to show in Ancestry. There is currently no new information and nothing that will solve any lingering mysteries, but there have already been many matches to Jackson Purchase families where valid historical documentation already exists.

Numerous matches to Clapp descendants have already been identified including this match between William and Mary Clapp, children of John Isaac Clapp and Sarah Loy ~

Also a match to the previous generation George Loy and Mary Catherine Tillman, the parents of Sarah "Sally" Loy ~

A Wingo family match links Thomas and Sarah Wingo of Amelia County, Virginia to their sons Thomas Wingo and his brother Obediah who migrated to Spartanburg County, South Carolina after the Revolution. Thomas Wingo was the father of Jerman Jeduthan Wingo of Graves County ~

Marilla Pryor, wife of James Rodgers Cargill, of Graves County has always been considered a daughter of Jonathan Pryor and Elizabeth White although there are no historical records to confirm that relationship because of the courthouse fire that destroyed Graves County's earliest records. Now a DNA match to Eustacia "Stacy" Pryor for whom there is historical documentation, confirms that Marilla was descended from Jonathan Pryor ~

And finally, a match to Susannah Mary Pryor Newby confirms the long held belief that Jonathan Pryor and his brother James of Graves County were the children of Richard Pryor and Mourning Thomson of Virginia who migrated first to Tennessee and lastly to Logan County, Kentucky. In the past there has been much debate, discussion and some disbelief that Jonathan and James were truly the children of Richard and Mourning Pryor. Susannah Mary Pryor's husband, Henry Newby, was named among the heirs of Richard Pryor in a Logan County deed of 29 Nov 1811 wherein Richard Pryor's heirs were selling a tract of land to Jonathan Pryor whose relationship was unstated. (Logan County KY DB C:467-469)

I'm looking forward to many more interesting matches and hopefully a few new revelations as the matches continue to arrive.

Wingo Ancestor - Mary Holt

The mother of Jerman Jeduthan Wingo of Graves County, Kentucky was Mary Holt, daughter of Shadrack Holt and Judith Foster of Nottoway County, Virginia. Mary married Thomas Wingo sometime before September of 1800 when they executed a deed for land on Flat Creek in Nottoway County to her parents. Thomas Wingo had been associated with Shadrack Holt in Nottoway County deeds since 1796 when Shadrack and his son John had conveyed this same fifty-three acre tract to Thomas. Sadly all of the early marriage records of Nottoway County were either vandalized or burned by union forces during the civil war so there is no record of their marriage.

For many years there was great confusion because two Mary Holts married into the Wingo family. On the 23rd of November, 1783, Thomas Wingo's older brother William married Mary Holt. Obviously the Mary Holt born in 1778 was too young to have been the individual who married William in 1783 but this duplication of names confused many Wingo researchers for a very long time. The mystery was finally resolved by researching the Holt family. The Mary who married William in Amelia County in 1783 was found to be the younger sister of Shadrack Holt. When they married in 1783, her mother Mary Holt, widow of Richard Holt, gave consent for the marriage indicating that she was underage and born after about 1765. William Wingo's step-father John Foster signed the bond for the marriage.

As the county designations changed in the Amelia County area, William Wingo was found in the tax records of Prince Edward County in 1783 and after Nottoway County was formed in 1788, he was recorded in the tax records there in 1791. Sometime before May of 1792, Mary Holt Wingo, wife of William, died, for he married Fanny Shepherd in Prince Edward County on the 8th of May 1792. Shortly after their marriage, William, Fanny and the three young children born to he and Mary Holt Wingo, left Virginia migrating to Spartanburg County, South Carolina as his brother Obediah had done a few years earlier.

It is unlikely that any of these families actually moved from Amelia County. The area that became Nottoway County was originally Nottoway Parish of Amelia County. After the formation of Nottoway, Shadrack Holt is no longer found in the records of Amelia County and all historical records until his death in 1801 are in Nottoway County.

To add to the confusion caused by two Marys of the Amelia County Holt family marrying two Wingo sons, Ancestry.com's system has repeatedly listed "hints" suggesting a Mary Holt, daughter of a Samuel Holt and Mary Rowe of New Haven, Connecticut as a wife to Thomas Wingo. I just found that of 34 individuals in Ancestry with Thomas Wingo in their family trees, 15 of those 34 list Mary Holt of New Haven, Connecticut as his wife with one other listing her birth in Tennessee. For anyone interested in genealogy, an understanding of United States geography is a must.

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There is a wealth of information regarding our Holt family who came to St. Mary's, Maryland by 1646 and from there spread into Virginia and other southern states at the Holt Family site - A Journey to Christmasville.
UPDATE - I'm sorry but that wonderful Holt site has disappeared from the internet. If anyone is interested in more information on the Holt family, please email me.