Exciting Beadles DNA News

For a very long time, descendants of Lewis Yancey Beadles of Graves County, Kentucky and descendants of Basset Beadles who settled just south of Graves County in Weakley County, Tennessee have been searching for their origins. Karen Frazer who descends from Basset has been working with her own family members and descendants of other Beatles families to encourage male family members with the Beadles surname to participate in Y-DNA testing at Family Tree DNA. In the last week Karen has shared the matching Y-DNA results of a descendant of Basset Beadles to a descendant of James Beadles of Louisa County, Virginia who was the uncle of our ancestor Lewis Yancey Beadles of the Jackson Purchase. To add to these great results, there was also a descendant of Edmond Beadles whose DNA matched. Edmond Beadles was initially from Louisa County and also migrated to Kentucky.

Both Lewis Yancey Beadles and Basset Beadles were born in Virginia and migrated to the Jackson Purchase area shortly after it was opened for settlement arriving in May and June of 1830. Lewis Yancey Beadles received his first land grant from the Bureau of Land Management on the 31st of May 1830. Less than a month later on the 17th of June 1830, Bassett Beadles and his son William both received grants all of which are recorded in Kentucky's grants west of the Tennessee River.

The map of the Jackson Purchase area above points out Wingo, Kentucky where Lewis Yancey Beadles received six (6) sections of land adjoining the section granted to his son-in-law Jerman Jeduthan Wingo for whom the town derived it's name.

Basset's first land grant in 1830 was in the area of Cuba, Kentucky to the southeast of the town of Wingo where Lewis Yancey Beadles had settled. Within the next few years Basset moved further south and is recorded in Weakley County, Tennessee in 1840. The town of Dukedom in Weakley County is credited with having been named for Basset's son Duke.

During the 1850's Basset's son William was also a resident of Graves County, Kentucky where he was the County Clerk. William's two sons, Alfred and Marshal, became physicians and Dr. Alfred Beadles practiced in Wingo, Kentucky.

It has been speculated that these Beadles' families may have been related but until Karen received the Y-DNA results, there was nothing more than proximity to connect the two families of the Jackson Purchase. Since he was listed on the tax lists of Louisa County, proximity is also the only thing to connect the third matching Y-DNA tester's probable ancestor Edmund Beadles to brothers James and William Beadles.

There were two Edmund Beadles of the same era, one living in King William County who was a Revolutionary War soldier and brother to Joel Beadles. That Edmund does not appear to have ever left the Tidewater area for his Revolutionary War pension statement given in 1834 states that he was at that time a resident of King William County and had always been. I had initially believed that a small scrap with Edmund Beadles' signature as a witness in the file of a Louisa County chancery suit involving William and his brother James Beadles was the Edmund Beadles who migrated to Pittsylvania County and subsequently to Kentucky, but recently discovered that he signed with an X on several deeds in Pittsylvania which indicates that the signature is not his. This second Edmund Beadles who is believed to be the ancestor of the third Y-DNA tester is recorded on the tax lists of Louisa County along with brothers William and James Beadles. In 1782, Edmund or Edmond was listed on the tax lists there but by 1795 he was apparently living in Pittsylvania County for he is listed on their tax lists of that year. In 1788 he was joined by Rice and Seaton Beadles on those Pittsylvania tax lists. Two deeds dated 1797 that name him along with wife Unity indicate that they were selling their property in Virginia prior to migrating to Kentucky. By August 16, 1800 Edmond and Rice Beadles were listed on the tax lists of Lincoln County, Kentucky. The third DNA tester descends from John Beadles who married Priscilla Harralson in Person County, North Carolina around 1792 and is believed to be a son of Edmond. Person County is just below Pittsylvania County on the Virginia-North Carolina border. John was still recorded in Person County in the 1800 census but within a few years, he had settled in Mercer County, Kentucky adjoining Lincoln County.

This by no means solves all of the mysteries of the Beadles of Virginia's Tidewater region, but these Y-DNA results are an important discovery in regard to the research of the Beadles families of Virginia and has proven that they were very closely related. All three of the Beadles' descendants whose Y-DNA matched are extremely close genetically, matching on 109 of 111 SNP markers.

If you are a male Beadles' descendant with the Beadles surname, please consider participating in the Y-DNA project at Family Tree DNA and further adding to our knowledge of these families.

James Nicholas Beadles

James Nicholas Beadles, son of Lewis Yancey Beadles and Martha C. Vaughan, was named for his maternal grandfather Nicholas Vaughan of Amelia County, Virginia. He was born on March 6th, 1825 in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, before the Beadles with their extended family migrated to Kentucky's Jackson Purchase area around 1830.

Upon first arriving in Graves County, the Beadles' family along with the Wingo and other associated families settled around the area of the town of Wingo which was named for J. N. Beadles' brother-in-law Jerman J. Wingo. Reportedly, as a young man James began work in Mayfield, Kentucky in retail.

On September 19th, 1850, he married Macerina L. Eaker. A little more than a year later on November 8th, 1851, Macerina died, leaving an infant daughter Margaret. Thirteen days later on November 21st, six month old Margaret also died.

Besides his involvement in merchandizing, James Nicholas Beadles, also served as acting cashier of the Mayfield branch of the Bank of Ashland. On April 27, 1858, he was married to Catherine Chappel Mayes of Caldwell County who died on January 10, 1862. James and Catherine Beadles had one son, Robert Mayes Beadles, born on 26 July 1859 in Graves County.

On May 29, 1861, what is referred to as the "Mayfield Convention" took place at the Courthouse there. The extensive notes of the proceedings kept by James N. Beadles who was a Unionist, were later published in the Louisville Daily Journal. Secession was the primary topic and many Jackson Purchase residents favored a sectional military alliance with Tennessee. The final decision made at the convention was that, at least for the immediate future, the western Kentucky counties would follow the rest of the state and maintain neutrality.

His third marriage on the 28th of August 1866 was to the young widow of Col. Albert Perry Thompson, Mary Elizabeth Mayes, probably a cousin of his deceased wife Catherine Mayes. Col. A. P. Thompson served in the 3rd Kentucky Infantry of the CSA organized at Camp Boone, Tennessee in July of 1861. In 1864, the 3rd Kentucky Infantry was ordered to report to General Nathan Bedford Forrest and Col. A. P. Thompson was placed in charge of the 8th Kentucky Infantry during Forrest's assault on Paducah. Col. Thompson was killed by cannon fire while leading his troops through the streets of Paducah during that unsuccessful offensive.

In December of 1866, James N. Beadles went to New Orleans where he was recorded as being a commission merchant in census records. The 1870 census lists his household as including his widowed sister Letitia Beadles Slayden and her children. His own wife and children apparently remained in Kentucky for they are not listed with other members of the household. The ability afforded by the Mississippi River to travel easily between New Orleans and Kentucky appears to have allowed him to maintain residences in both locations throughout the 1870's. He was recorded in Mayfield in the 1880 census and is reported to have returned there permanently in Feburary of 1882. At that time, with other associates he organized the Bank of Mayfield, of which he became the cashier.

He and Mary had four sons - Lewis, James Nicholas Jr., Wiltz William and Locke Beadles. James Nicholas Beadles died in Mayfield, Kentucky on September 30th, 1894 and is buried there in the Maplewood Cemetery.

Jerman J. Wingo of Wingo, Kentucky

Jerman Wingo's parents, Thomas Wingo and Mary Holt Wingo died in Pittsylvania County, Virginia in 1828 and 1827, respectively. Shortly after their deaths, sometime in 1830, Jerman with his wife Ann, their three small children and his younger brother William Thomas Wingo left Pittsylvania County migrating to the newly opened territory of Kentucky west of the Tennessee River. They came west with Ann's parents Lewis Yancey Beadles and Martha C. Vaughan Beadles, and were joined by most of her siblings.

On the 21st of November 1831, Jerman J. Wingo received 2 land patents of 160 acres each and on the same day, his father-in-law Lewis Yancey Beadles received 8 patents of 160 acres each, all located in Graves County.

Patent 2338 had previously been #2113 which was granted to Levi Tucker

Reverse side showing Levi Tucker's assignment to Jerman J. Wingo and
Lewis Y. Beadles' signature as witness.

Aunt Molly Wingo Peal, granddaughter of Jerman J. Wingo, repeated stories she had been told as a child by older slaves of the family's migration from Virginia to Kentucky. The men herded the cattle while the female slaves and children herded geese and chickens as they traveled west through the Cumberland Gap to Kentucky. Jerman Wingo was an amateur horticulturist and they told her of his bringing fruit tree cuttings from North Carolina and Virginia to be planted in Kentucky.

For those who have traveled along this route even on modern roads, it is all too evident what a monumental task it must have been to travel from Virginia thru the Cumberland Gap all the way across Kentucky to the Jackson Purchase area in wagons bringing all their worldly possessions as well as livestock.

Within the next decade, Jerman's only other sibling, sister Lucinda with her husband George Bolinger and their family followed, migrating from Virginia to the Jackson Purchase.

Throughout the next 50 years, the Wingos, Beadles, Bolingers and other allied families such as the Slaydens developed prosperous farms and plantations on the Jackson Purchase land grants. The Beadles, Bolingers and Slaydens became involved in business such as banking and manufacturing in addition to holding public office. After Jerman Wingo gave right of way to the railroad as well as land for a depot, the town that grew there was first called "Wingo Station" and later shortened to Wingo.

During the Civil War, the effort to control the two great rivers, the Mississippi and Ohio, brought the presence of the Union Army to the Purchase. Ulysses S. Grant and the Union army captured Paducah which gave them control of the Ohio and the Tennesseee Rivers. Since the majority of the residents of the Jackson Purchase were southern planters and sympathized with the Confederacy, it was an extremely difficult time in the Purchase area. Many years later, Jerman's son, Elijah Willis Wingo told of their home on the Wingo Plantation having first been confiscated for use as a hospital and then later burned.

In a newspaper article from Denton, Texas in March 1930, Elijah Willis Wingo described the move from Kentucky in 1869 to Stephenville in Erath County, Texas. He said that in spite of the hardships of the 32-day trip to Texas and the dismal living conditions in the early days, it was not as bad as those they left behind in Kentucky after the Civil War.

Jerman and Ann both survived the trials of the Civil War in the Jackson Purchase. Even after the losses of the war and reconstruction, the 1870 census lists Jerman's worth in real estate property at $8,000 and $4,000 in personal property. They raised their eleven children in Graves County and nine of the eleven survived them. Jerman died in Wingo, Kentucky in 1873 and Ann died there in 1879. Both are buried in the Greer Cemetery of Wingo, Kentucky with other early settlers to the Jackson Purchase such as the Plumlees and Bosticks.