In Search of…How Am I Related to That Close Match?

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My friend recently reached out to me for some help with a close match at Ancestry. Which vendor doesn’t matter – the process for figuring out who my friend is related to her match would be essentially the same at any vendor.

My friend has no idea who the match is, nor how they are related. That match has not replied, nor is any of her information recognizable, such as an account name or photo. She has no tree, so there are literally no clues provided by the match.

We need to turn to science and old-fashioned sleuthing.

This eighth article in the “In Search of…” series steps you through the process I’m stepping my friend through.

This process isn’t difficult, per se, but there are several logical, sequential steps. I strongly recommend you read through this (at least) once, then come back and work through the process if you’re trying to solve a similar mystery.

The “In Search of…” Series

Please note that I’ve written an entire series of “In Search of…” articles that will step you through the search process and help you understand how to unravel your results. If you’re new, reading these, in order, before proceeding, would be a good idea.

  • I introduced the “In Search of” series in the article, DNA: In Search of…New Series Launches.
  • In the second article, DNA: In Search of…What Do You Mean I’m Not Related to My Family? – and What Comes Next? we discussed the discovery that something was amiss when you don’t match a family member that you expect to match, then how to make sure a vial or upload mix-up didn’t happen. Next, I covered the basics of the four kinds of DNA tests you’ll be able to use to solve your mystery.
  • In the third article, In Search of…Vendor Features, Strengths, and Testing Strategies, we discussed testing goals and strategies, including testing with and uploading to multiple autosomal DNA vendors, Y DNA, and mitochondrial DNA testing. We reviewed the vendor’s strengths and the benefits of combining vendor information and resources.
  • In the fourth article, DNA: In Search of…Signs of Endogamy, we discussed the signs of endogamy and various ways to determine if you or your recent ancestors descend from an endogamous population.
  • In the fifth article, DNA: In Search of…Full and Half-Siblings we discussed how to determine if you have a sibling match, if they are a half or full sibling, and how to discern the difference.
  • In the sixth article, Connect Your DNA test, and Others, to Your Tree, I explained how to optimize your DNA tests in order to take advantage of the features offered by each our primary DNA testing vendors.
  • In the seventh article, How to Share DNA Results and Tree Access at Ancestry, I wrote step-by-step instructions for providing access to another person to allow them to view your DNA results, AND to share your tree – which are two different things. If you have a mystery match, and they are willing to allow you access, in essence “to drive,” you can just send them the link to this article that provides detailed instructions. Note that Ancestry has changed the user interface slightly with the rollout of their new “sides” matches, but I can’t provide the new interface screenshots yet because my account has not been upgraded.

Sarah – The Mystery Match

My friend, who I’ll be calling the Tester, matches Sarah (not her name) at 554 cM. At that close level, you don’t have to worry about segments being removed by Timber at Ancestry, so that is an actual cM match level. Timber only removes segments when the match is under 90 cM. Other vendors don’t remove cMs at all.

Ancestry shows the possible relationships at that level as follows:

Some of these relationships can be immediately dismissed in this situation. For example, the Tester knows that Sarah is not her grandchild or great-grandchild.

Our tester does not have any full siblings, or any known half-siblings, but like many genealogists, she is always open-minded. Both of her parents are living, and her father has already tested. Sarah does not match her father. So, this match is on her mother’s side.

It’s obvious that Sarah is not a full sibling, nor is she a half-sibling, based on the cM values, but she might be a child, or grandchild of a maternal half-sibling.

Let’s begin with observations and questions that will help our Tester determine how she and Sarah are related.

  1. It’s clear that IF this is a half-sibling descendant match, it’s on her mother’s side, because Sarah does not match our Tester’s father.
  2. The tester’s mother has six siblings, none of whom have tested directly, but three of whom have children or grandchildren who have tested.
  3. By viewing shared matches, Sarah matches known relatives of BOTH the maternal grandmother AND maternal grandfather of our tester, which means Sarah is NOT the product of an unknown half-sibling of her mother. Remember, Ancestry does not display shared matches of less than 20 cM. Other vendors do not restrict your shared matches.
  4. Ancestry does not provide mitochondrial DNA information, so that cannot be utilized, but could be utilized if this match was at FamilyTreeDNA, and partially utilized in an exclusionary manner if the match was at 23andMe.

DNAPainter

DNAPainter’s Shared cM Tool provides a nice visual display of possible relationships, so I entered the matching cM amount

The returned relationships are similar to Ancestry’s possible relationships.

The grid display shows the possible relationships. Relationships that fall outside of this probability range are muted.

The color shading is by generation, meaning dark grey is through great-great-grandparents, apricot is through great-grandparents, green is through grandparents, grey is through one or both parents, and blue are your own descendants.

Based on known factors, I put a red X in the boxes that can’t apply to Sarah and our Tester after evaluating each relationship. I bracketed the statistically most likely relationships in red, although I must loudly say, “do not ignore those other possibilities.”

Let’s step through the logic which will be different for everyone’s own situation, of course.

  • Age alone eliminates the great and half-great grandparents, aunts, and uncles. They are all deceased and would be well over 100 years old if they were living.
  • The green half relationships are eliminated because we know via shared matches that Sarah matches BOTH of the Tester’s maternal grandparent’s sides.
  • We know that Sarah is not a second cousin because second cousins match only ONE maternal grandparent’s ancestor’s descendants, and Sarah matches both of the tester’s maternal grandparents through their descendants. In other words, Sarah and our Tester both match people who descend from both of the Tester’s maternal grandmother AND grandfather’s lines, which, unless they are related, means Sarah’s closest common ancestor (MCRA – most recent common ancestor) with our Tester are either her maternal grandparents, or her mother.
  • Therefore, we know that Sarah cannot be any of the apricot-colored relationships because she matches BOTH of our Tester’s maternal grandparents. She would only be related through one of the Tester’s maternal grandparents to be related on the apricot level.
  • Sarah cannot be a full great-niece or nephew, or great or great-great niece or nephew because the Tester has no full siblings, confirmed by the fact that Sarah does not match the Tester’s father.
  • We know that Sarah is not the great-grandchild of the Tester, in part due to age, but the definitive scientific ax to that possibility is that Sarah does not match our Tester’s father. (Yes, our Tester does match her father at the appropriate level.)

We know that Sarah is somehow a descendant of BOTH of Tester’s maternal grandparents, so must be in either the green band of relationships, the grey half-relationships, or the blue direct relationships. All of these relationships would be descended from the Tester’s maternal grandparents (plural.)

We’ve eliminated the blue direct relationship because Sarah does not match the Tester’s father. This removes the possibility that the Tester’s children have an unknown great-grandchild, although in this case, age removes that possibility anyway.

This process-of-elimination leaves as possible relationships:

  • Grey band half niece/nephew and half great-niece/nephew, meaning that the Tester has an unknown half-sibling on their mother’s side whose child or grandchild has tested.
  • Green band first cousin which means that the tester descends from one of the Tester’s maternal aunts or uncles. Given that Sarah is not a known child of any of the Tester’s six aunts and uncles, that opens the possibility that her mother’s sibling has a previously unknown child. Three of the Tester’s mother’s siblings are females, and three are males.
  • Green band first cousin once removed is one generation further down the tree, meaning a child of a first cousin.

Using facts we know, we’ve already restricted the possible relationships to four.

Hypothesis and Shared Matches

In situations like this, I use a spreadsheet, create hypothesis scenarios and look for eliminators.

I worked with the Tester to assemble an easy spreadsheet with each of her mother’s siblings in a column, along with their year of birth. All names have been changed.

The hypothesis we are working with is that the Tester’s mother has a previously unknown child and that Sarah is that person’s child or grandchild.

Across the top of our spreadsheet, which you could also simply create as a chart, I’ve written the names of the maternal grandparents.

The Tester’s mother, Susie, is shown in the boxes that are colored red, and her siblings are listed in their birth order. Siblings who have anyone in their line who has tested are shown by colored boxes.

The Tester is shown in red beneath her mother, Susie, and a potential mystery half-sibling is shown beneath Susie.

This is important – the relationships shown are FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE TESTER.

This means, at far left, with the red arrow, these people at the top, meaning the mother’s siblings are the Tester’s aunts and uncles.

The next generation down are the Tester’s first cousins, followed by the next row, with 1C1R. The cell colors in that column correspond to the DNAPainter generation columns.

In the red “Mother” group, you’ll see that I’ve included that mystery half-sibling and beneath, the relationships that could exist at that same generation level. So, if the mystery half-sibling had a child, that person would be the half-niece/nephew of the Tester.

The cM value pointed to by the arrows, is the cM value at which the TESTER matches that person.

In this case, Ginger’s son, Jacob matches our Tester at 946 cM, which is exactly normal for a first cousin. Ginger’s son, Aaron, has not tested, but his daughter, Crystal, has and matches our Tester at 445 cM.

Three of the Tester’s aunts/uncles, John, Jim, and Elsie are not represented in this matrix, because no one from their line has yet tested. The Tester has contacted members of those families asking if they will accept a testing scholarship.

Analysis Grids

Some of the children of our Tester’s aunts/uncles have tested, and their matches to Sarah are shown in the bottom row in yellow, on the chart below.

Of course, obtaining Sarah’s matching cM information required the Tester to contact her aunts/uncles and cousins to ask them to look at their match to Sarah at Ancestry.

For each set of relationships with Sarah, I’ve prepared a mini-relationship grid below Sarah’s matches with one of the Tester’s aunts/uncles’ descendants.

  • If Sarah is related to the Tester through an unknown half-sibling, Sarah will match the tester more closely than she will match any of the children of the Tester’s aunts and uncles.
  • If Sarah descends through one of the Tester’s aunts’ or uncles’ lines, Sarah will match someone in those lines more closely than our Tester, but we may need to compensate for generations in our analysis.

I pasted the DNAPainter image in the spreadsheet in a convenient place to remind myself of which relationships are possible between our Tester and Sarah, then I created a small grid beneath the Tester’s match to Sarah, who is the yellow row.

Let me explain, beginning with our Tester’s match to Sarah.

Tester’s Match to Sarah

The Tester matches Sarah at 554 cM, which can potentially be a number of different relationships. I’ve listed the possible relationships with the most likely, at 87%, at the top. I have not listed any relationships we’ve positively eliminated, even though they would be scientifically possible.

I can’t do this for our Tester’s Uncle David, because the Tester has not yet heard back from David’s son, Gary, as to how many cMs he shares with Sarah.

Our tester’s aunts, Ginger and Barbara do have descendants who have tested, so let’s evaluate those relationships.

Ginger and Sarah

We know less about Ginger and Sarah than we do about our Tester and Sarah. However, many of the same relationship constraints remain constant.

  • For example, we know that Sarah matches both of Ginger’s grandparents, because Ginger is our tester’s aunt, Susie’s full sibling.
  • Our tester and all of the other family members who have tested match on both maternal grandparents’ sides.
  • Therefore, we also know that the 2C relationships won’t work either because Sarah matches both maternal grandparents.
  • Based on ages, it’s very unlikely that Sarah is a great-grandchild of Ginger’s children, in part, because I’m operating under the assumption that Sarah is old enough to purchase her own test, so not a child. Ancestry’s terms of service require testers to be 18 years of age to purchase or activate a DNA test. Also, Sarah’s test is not managed by someone else.
  • We don’t know about great-nieces and nephews though, because if one of Ginger’s sibling’s children had an unknown child, that person could be Sarah or Sarah’s parent.

Ginger’s son Jacob

Using the closest match in Ginger’s line, her son Jacob, we find the following possibilities using Jacob’s match to Sarah of 284cM.

The DNAPainter grid shows the more distant relationship clearly.

You can quickly determine that Sarah probably does not descend from Ginger’s line, but let’s add this to our spreadsheet for completeness.

You can see that the MOST likely relationship, of the possible relationships based on our known factors, is 1C2R, which is the least likely relationship between our Tester and Sarah. It’s important to note that our Tester and Jacob are in the same generation, so we don’t need to do any compensating for a generational difference.

Comparing those relationships, you can see that the least likely relationship between Sarah and Jacob is much more likely between Sarah and our Tester.

Therefore, we can rule out Ginger’s line as a candidate. Sarah is not a descendant of Ginger.

Let’s move on to Barbara’s line.

Barbara’s Daughter Cindy

This time, we’re going to do a bit of inferring because we do have a generational difference.

Barbara’s granddaughter, Mary, has tested and matches Sarah at 230 cM. While we know that Sarah probably wouldn’t match Mary’s mother, Cindy, at exactly double that, 460 cM, it would certainly be close.

So, for purposes of this comparison, I’m using 460 cM for Sarah to match Cindy.

That makes this comparison in the same generation as Ginger and our Tester to Sarah. We are comparing apples to apples and not apples to half an apple (an apple once removed, technically, but I digress.) 😊

You can see that this analysis is MUCH closer to the cM amounts and relationship possibilities of Sarah and our Tester.

Here are the possible relationships of Sarah and Cindy, with the most likely being boxed in red.

Where Are We?

Here is my completed spreadsheet, so far, less the two DNAPainter graphs for Ginger and Barbara’s lines.

To date, we’ve eliminated Ginger as Sarah’s ancestor.

Both Susie, the mother of our Tester, and Susie’s sister Barbara are still candidates to have an unknown child based on DNA, or one of their children possibly having an unknown child.

Of course, we still have one more sister, Elsie, and those three silent brothers sitting over there. It’s much easier for a male to have an unknown child than a female. By unknown, in this situation, I mean truly unknown, not hidden.

What’s Needed?

Of course, what we really need is tests from each of Susie’s siblings, but that’s not going to happen. What can we potentially do with what we have, how, and why?

Our Tester can refine these results in a number of ways.

  • Talk to living siblings or other family members and tactfully ask what they know about the four women during their reproductive years. Were they missing, off at school, visiting “aunts” in another location, separated from a spouse, etc.?
  • Check to see if Sarah shared her ethnicity results (View match, then click on “Ethnicity.”) If Sarah has a significant ethnicity that is impossible to confuse, this might be significant. For example, if Sarah is 50% Korean, and one of Susie’s brothers served in Korea, that makes him a prime candidate.
  • If possible, ask John, David, Jim, Ginger, Barbara, and Elsie to take DNA tests themselves. The best test is ALWAYS the oldest generation because their DNA is not yet divided in subsequent generations.
  • If that’s not possible, find a child or grandchild of Elsie, Jim, and John to test.
  • The Tester needs to find out how closely David’s son, Gary matches Sarah, then perform the same analysis that we stepped through above.
  • Ask Ginger’s son, Jacob to see if Sarah also shares matches with the closest family members of the known father of Ginger’s children. One of Ginger’s children could have had an unknown child. This is unlikely, based on what we’ve already determined about Sarah’s match level to Jacob, but it’s worth asking.
  • Ask Barbara’s granddaughter, Mary, to see if she and Sarah share matches with the closest family members of the known father of Barbara’s children. This scenario is much more likely.
  • If the answer is yes to either of the last two questions, we have identified which line Sarah descends from, because she can only descend from both Barbara AND the father of her children if Sarah descends from that couple.
  • If the answer is no, we’ve only eliminated full siblings to Ginger and Barbara’s children, not half-siblings.
  • If our Tester can make contact with Gary, ask him if he and Sarah share matches with David’s wife’s line. One of David’s children could have an unknown child.
  • If our Tester can actually make contact with Sarah, and if Sarah is willing and interested, our Tester can create a list of people to look for in her matches – for example, the spouses’ lines of all of Susie’s siblings. If Sarah matches NONE of the spouses’ lines, then one of Susie’s siblings (our Tester’s aunts/uncles,) or Susie’s mother, has an unknown child. However, if Sarah is a novice tester or genealogist, she might well be quite overwhelmed with understanding how to perform these searches. She may already be overwhelmed by discovering that she doesn’t match who she expected to match. Or, she may already know the answer to this question.
  • It would be easier if Sarah granted our Tester access to her DNA results to sort through all of these possibilities, but that’s not something I would expect a stranger to do, especially if this result is something Sarah wasn’t expecting.

I wrote instructions for providing access to DNA results in the article, How to Share DNA Results and Tree Access at Ancestry.

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Tracking John Dobkins or Dobbins to Maryland – 52 Ancestors #378

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Scientist Dr. David Resnik discusses the concept of consilience of evidence with his students. In essence, consilience of evidence isn’t a brick wall falling in one fell swoop, but chipping away at that wall with all sorts of different types of evidentiary tools. That’s what we’re going to do.

This article provides the next chapter in the life of John Dobkins Sr. and his son by the same name. Or maybe I should say it’s an earlier chapter, because we are stepping back in time. I said stepping, but it’s more like mountain climbing, except you’re not even sure you’re on the right mountain.

After the last few articles about the Dobkins family, I’ve received several inquiries asking, “How do you do this?” Today, I’m sharing the methodology with you in this article, but every question has different types of evidence, in different places. Those pieces will, cumulatively, inform our conclusion – which – by the way, may need to be reevaluated at any time due to new evidence emerging.

I should probably state the obvious. Genealogy is a series of moving from one roadblock to the next – after doing the happy dance, of course.

One of the most difficult tasks in (American) genealogy is to advance an ancestor back in time and space when you have no idea where they came from. For example, we found John Dobkins Sr., wife Mary, and their son, John Dobkins Jr. with his wife Elizabeth, in Shenandoah Valley on the Virginia frontier in 1735. Just one of 49 settlers. That’s it. John, 49 other people, and that’s all we knew.

Unless there’s some type of record, how do you figure out where they came from?

In our case, not only do we have that issue, we also have the problem of an uncertain surname.

It’s written variously as:

  • Dobkins and Dobkin in Virginia and on into Tennessee
  • Dobikins and Dobekins, with and without the s, in Virginia, but that “i” or “e” between the b and k may be an early handwriting artifact
  • Dobbin and Dobbins in Virginia and into Tennessee
  • Dobin and Dobins
  • Dawbin and Dawbins in Virginia

Neither John Sr. nor John Jr. could write, so their names were written by those who could. English spellings weren’t standardized, but when you add in the fact that the person doing the writing might have been German or Scots-Irish or Welsh, or something else, they would have written that name the way they heard it, filtered by the language their ears were used to.

I have found our Dobkins men, and guess what, their surname where I found them was spelled Dobbins. Now that doesn’t mean it was actually Dobbins, it just means that I found them and that’s how it happened to be spelled this time.

Hopefully, there will be more records to unearth. Unfortunately, VERY little is online, and much no longer exists, or never did.

This chapter in their lives is the story of how I found them. Make yourself a cup of tea!

That Danged FAN Club

I accidentally discovered the power of the “fan club” about 30 years ago when I compiled an “everything” document about my Halifax County, Virginia families, then entered it into a spreadsheet, and looked for patterns of people associated with various Estes men. I “knew,” or thought I knew that my John R. Estes and his wife, Nancy Ann Moore were from Halifax County, VA, but I needed more. I needed proof, but first, I needed evidence. I visited Halifax County, in person, three different times.

I did find my evidence, and then my proof, confirmed by deeply buried dusty documents in the courthouse basement, then by DNA connections.

FAN, friends, and neighbors, was named as such by Elizabeth Shown Mills. She provides an example, here

In essence, it’s spreading the net in an ever-broader circle to evaluate everyone around your ancestor.

  • Who did they marry?
  • What church did they attend?
  • Who were their neighbors on census and tax lists?
  • Who signed as their deed witnesses?
  • Who witnessed their wills?
  • Who provided bond for them?
  • Where did they live, down to the plot?
  • What was the history of the area when they lived there?

Let me translate. You can’t find this stuff in any quick search. If you’re lucky, VERY lucky, someone will have thoroughly researched your line and documented it, with sources. You’ll also find some of this research electronically, but most of it is still in courthouse basements and libraries. I use the FamilySearch catalog for county resources religiously.

If you’re unlucky, you’ll find hundreds of wrong trees that have been copied and copied and copied, perpetuating inaccuracies and bad information. Look for sources, and verify.

Look for what’s not there too. What records aren’t mentioned? What does your ancestor’s absence in records indicate or suggest? Why are they NOT on a tax list, or in a census?

Reread records you already have. Let me say that again. Reread records you already have. You may see with new eyes what you missed before, or understand something differently.

Furthermore, read histories and journals of the area you are researching.

Look for obscure resources, such as petitions in state archives, etc.

Write what you know, or think you know, in chronological order. You’ll spot holes, inaccuracies, and conflicts. You’ll wind up asking yourself those tough questions. Write this like you’re explaining the situation to a novice, because someday, you’ll be gone and the person reading it will be a novice.

Let’s begin where I was stuck.

Shenandoah Valley History

I was stuck. I “think” I’m at the end of the available records, although I do still need to peruse Orange County Court notes. During the process of writing this article (which is why I tell people to write everything down, in order), I also discovered that I need to read about 40 years of Frederick County, VA records too. That’s great because they hold possibilities.

An earlier researcher who provided a great deal of information about John Dobkins included many original sources. Cecil Smyth reported that “John was a Scotch-Irishman from Ulster, Northern Ireland. We do not know the year he emigrated or anything about his wife. They settled in what was Orange County, VA in 1731 or 1732.”

Unfortunately, Cecil did not explain where he obtained that information. Over time, I came to believe that he surmised that information based on several factors:

  • John Dobkins had two children baptized by the Presbyterian minister in 1741. Cecil missed the fact that he also had one child baptized by the Lutheran minister, Reverend John Stoever in 1737. Those records were probably unknown back then.
  • The first settlers arrived with Jost Hite in 1731. Cecil reported John’s arrival as “1731 or 1732.” What evidence is there that John Dobkins was there this early?
  • Cecil found and reported that “John Dobikin Sr. (b c 1685) received a bond from Benjamin Borden on 24 September 1735 for “150 pounds Sterling to make patent in full and ample manner as the King gives me” on 150 acres, part of Benjamin Borden’s 3,300 acre tract. The 6 January 1735/36 Morgan Morgan/Peter Woolf census listed John Sr. as a settler on the McKay, Hite, Duff and Green 100,000 acre Colony of Virginia grant land.” The Bordon Grant was primarily settled by the Scots-Irish.

Initially, I didn’t realize this 1735 transaction was a bond, not a grant. In essence, Borden promised John that he could get a patent on that land.

Because the two men, John Dobkins Jr. and Sr. had the exact same name, their records were intermixed and I’m not clear that other researchers understand or understood there were two men. One would have to analyze the records closely.

I came to be suspicious of Cecil’s Scots-Irish statement, as well as the date, as I found conflicting information.

Confusing

John Dobkins was VERY CONFUSING!!!

If it feels like I’m shouting that, I am.

My first problem, as I assembled the big picture involving land and neighbors, was that I realized that the FAN Club didn’t seem to be Scots Irish.

Then, I found this:

Van Meter, a trapper, held a 10,000-acre tract in the Shenandoah Valley which he had acquired from Lord Fairfax. A condition of this sale was that one hundred German families were to settle in the Valley. Van Meter sold this land to Joist Hite of eastern Pennsylvania in 1727. Hite proceeded to search for one hundred German families, and, in 1731, the group headed for the Valley.

Aha, maybe this is where Cecil got the 1731 date, but John Dobkins Sr. did not seem to be among the Germans.

Was John Dobkins German?

John Dobkins Jr. on the other hand, eventually lived right in the middle of the German families on Holman Creek. But that wasn’t until the mid-1740s.

These men are getting even more confusing.

But wait, there’s more:

Enroute, they encountered Robert McKay and his group of Scotch-Irish settlers from the coast. They perfected a plan to pool land and money so that they could eventually obtain more land from Lord Fairfax. They purchased 70,000 more acres over the next two years and determined a plan for dividing it. The Scotch-Irish were to settle the eastern half from Winchester to Luray and Hite’s Germans would occupy the western portion from Winchester to beyond what is now Strasburg. Hite erected a house five miles south of Winchester along what was to become the “Valley Pike” (U.S. Route 11).

And then:

Other settlers were soon to follow. Benjamin Allen, Riley Moore and William White arrived from the Monocacy Valley in Maryland and settled in the area of what is now Mt. Jackson.

And there’s more.

Religion

Henry Scarborough in an article about Quaker Pioneers of Shenandoah and Rockingham Counties reported that he had discovered the original Quaker Meeting House on the land of Jacob Neff, near Holman’s Creek near where it flows into the North Branch of the Shenandoah River. That’s exactly where the Holman and Moore lands were located. In the 1800s, Samuel Moore still owned the adjacent land.

Today, the Corhaven Cemetery is a cemetery of enslaved people on the land of Sam Moore, maybe 1000 feet from the present day Liberty Church.

Based on the Cemetery photos this is on the border of the Jacob Holeman and Daniel Holeman 1749 land grants, and it’s on the Fairfax Survey line. So was John Dobkins Jr.’s land, just slightly further west. In the 1770s, John Dobkins Jr.’s son, Reuben,  married Elizabeth Holman, daughter of Jacob Holman.

Elizabeth Holman’s father, Jacob, owned slaves, which pretty much precludes Quaker, Mennonnite and Brethren. Reuben Dobkins inherited some of his slaves, which probably excludes those religions for the Dobkins family too.

According to the Holman Y DNA project, Holman appears to be English. Rev. Stoever said he married two English couples in his journal when he visited the Shenandoah Valley and he married Thomas Holman, so this makes sense.

Liberty church replaced the original Quaker church that was located a mile or so closer to the Shenandoah River, adjacent an old cemetery. Neither the church nor the cemetery exists today, but it was between the Neff Mill (Neff’s were Swiss) on the Shenandoah River on the road that is now Quicksburg Road. Early residents stated that people came on horseback from Mt. Jackson to New Market, on horseback, to attend the Quaker Church that was on Neff’s land.

John Dobkins Sr.’s land was 4 or 5 miles southeast of the church, and John Dobkins Jr.’s land was about the same distance northwest. Additionally, rumors of other meeting houses, especially in connection with the Allen family, have never been confirmed, but they assuredly could have existed. So, there were Quakers living in close proximity to John Dobkins.

Scarborough also mentioned that early Shenandoah Valley settlers followed the practice of some of the early settlers in Pennsylvania of not securing patents for their lands, but assigning their warrants and surveys from the pioneers to those who wished to purchase land from them. This may explain, in part, what happened to the original land of John Dobkins Sr. just south of the Fairfax line. It is what happened to the land of John Jr.

The author closes with this paragraph which will assuredly send me down a very deep rathole for days. This is exactly why I never seem to finish anything!

Ok, so we have Quakers, Lutherans, Mennonite, Brethren and the Scots-Irish Presbyterians all mixing it up in the valley. But they assuredly did not arrive all together and they established their own communities.

People almost NEVER traveled alone. Most often, a group of family members, or at least community members traveled together. Given that this valley was unsettled at the time they arrived, they had full agency in terms of picking their neighbors, meaning where someone lived and who their neighbors were might well be a clue as to who they arrived with. Which, in turn, might tell us more about them.

However, I can’t tell who John Dobkins arrived with.

Who did he settle near? Who were his neighbors?

Who did he have direct contact with?

Oh, and there’s one more thing too.

The Moore Family

John Dobkins Jr.’s wife has been reported to be Elizabeth Moore, daughter of Thomas Moore – but once again, I’ve found NOTHING to support this. That doesn’t mean it’s not true though, especially since we have no factual idea of where that family came from.

There is one clue.

In 1751, John Dobkins Jr. sold his land on Holman Creek to Thomas Moore.

That’s it – the sole contact between those two men. Well, at least on the surface. Let’s dig deeper and spread our net wider. It’s always about this time that I’m VERY irritated with Elizabeth Shown Mills – probably also because it’s generally about 2 AM and I’m beyond exhausted and frustrated.

Why do these ancestors have to hide?????

The Lawsuit and Peter Wolf’s List

Thankfully, we have a 22-year-long lawsuit, Hite vs Fairfax, a deposition and a list.

Peter Wolf’s deposition in the lawsuit taken 6th March 1754 and witnessed by Isaac Parkins, Ger’m Keys and Thomas——–(?).

Peter Wolf being first sworn…Deposeth as followeth, That he is now in the fifty fourth year of his age that he came into this Colony from the Jerseys some time in the year 1733, and that he settled upon a tract of Land which was supposed to belong to Joist Hite and as this Deponent believe the same was in Dispute That sometime in the year of our Lord 1736 this Deponent was sent for by the Lord Fairfax who was then as Samuel Timmands’s to Pilot him up to Joist Hite’s which accordingly he did.

There are also a couple of references to Peter Wolf’s list that he took known as “the number of Settlements upon the Grant granted to Robert McCay Jost Hyte and their Partners in the forks of Shannando and the several Branches thereof.”

This is the 100,000-acre grant given to Jost Hite and his Quaker partner Robert McKay. They needed to seat 100 families to fulfill their obligation under that conditional grant to seat 1 family per 1000 acres.

Note that some historians state that McCay is Quaker, not Scots-Irish.

They list the 49 names, as follows:

    • Robert McCay Senr.
    • John Funk
    • Henry Johnston
    • Thomas Parmer
    • John Denton
    • Jonah Denton
    • Henry Falkenburg
    • Edward Wormwood
    • Andrew Falkenburg
    • Jacob Falkenburg
    • David Carlock
    • Benjamin Allen
    • Reiley More
    • John Lewis
    • William White
    • John Dobikin Senr.
    • James Gill
    • Andrew Bird (Burd in 1770)
    • John Nichols
    • William Bridges
    • Charles Smith
    • Daniel Holeman
    • Charles Robinson
    • William Linviel
    • John Gorden
    • John Wood
    • John Cannaday
    • Robert McCay Jr.
    • Joseph Whites
    • William Oldham
    • William Barke
    • William Anns (?)
    • Barnel Hegin
    • Samuel White
    • Joshua Jobe
    • George Robinson
    • James Sickles
    • William Barnett
    • James Leeth
    • John Calbreth
    • John Edmondson
    • Isaac Howell (Houser in 1770)
    • John Read
    • Joseph Tindell
    • Michael Brook
    • Joseph Read
    • David Keath
    • William Goodwin
    • George Leeth

Whereas the said Robert McCay, Jost Hyte and their Partners have requested of us George Hobson and Morgan Morgan two of his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace at Opeckon in the County of Orange to view the Settlements within their said Grant and that Mr. George Hobson went part of the Way with me in order to view the same the weather proving bad he returned and there being no other Magistrate over the Ridge Mr. Jost Hight appointed Peter Wolfe in his room to go with me to view the said Settlements within the said Grant.

I the said Morgan Morgan do hereby certify that the said Peter Wolfe and myself have viewed and that we seen the above Settlement being in number forty-nine and that the same are now improving by the above named persons within the said Grant Given under my hand this 26 day of January A:Dom: 1735/6.

Morgan Morgan

This is followed by Peter Wolf, on January 26th, 1735/36, stating that he “had in fact viewed the settlements in the Fork of Shannando and the several Branches thereof and that he did see forty-nine Settlements in number and that the same were now improving by the Persons named in the list.”

The red names are the original plats, and the blue names are 1770 landowners. What happened to the rest of those people???

I can’t help but notice that the name Morgan Morgan looks Welsh to me. Hmmm.

Welsh, tuck that away in some corner of my mind.

The Neighborhood is Established

This list establishes the earliest neighborhood.

I noticed James Gill on that list. He is the person who, with his wife, in 1737, John and Elizabeth Dobkins stood up with each other when their babies were baptized. Note that James Gill was killed by Indians 22 years later on April 24, 1758. This must have struck terror into the hearts of the Dobkins family members. James was their neighbor and friend.

Is the proximity of James Gill to John Dobkins on that list circumstantial? Did they stand up for each other just because they were neighbors? Were they actual neighbors? Was there something else? Were they related?

Using the maps provided in the Smyth book, above, and the accompanying names from the location where we believe that John Dobkins Sr. lived, just beneath the Fairfax line in what would become Augusta County, then proceeding north, I’ve combined the information by plat, as best I could. The properties between the two maps aren’t the same shape and don’t exactly fit, but I’ve come close. The people are listed in the “closest to furthest” proximity to John Dobkins.

Note that the date is the patent date, NOT the date the families settled on the land.

Tract Date Name 1770 Name Acres Origins
98-873  Z Burd, Andrew 210 Chester Co, PA
45-870  Y Hodge, John 210 Poss PA
Neighbor to Y, drawn but not listed Dobkins, John Sr. Not shown 150
X Harrison, Burr 3 Poss Long Island, NY
G-228  Q July 21, 1749 Hodge, John Hodge, John 126
G-229  P July 21, 1749 Scholl, Peter Schell, Peter 420 in 1749, 110 in 1770 NY or NJ
G-230 July 21, 1749 Schene, Jane (widow of Matthew Skeen) On map but no name 301 Midlothian, Scotland
G-231  M July 21, 1749 Looker, Thomas Looker, Thomas 431 in 1749, 182 in 1770
N Cutlip, George and Skeen, Matthews 64 + 108 in 1770
G-232 July 21, 1749 Sevier, Valentine Includes New Market, long tract, no 1770 designation 370 in 1749 London, England
G-237 July 21, 1749 Seahorn, Nicholas Above Valentines, not shown in 1770 399 in 1749 Germany
G-234 K, L July 21, 1749 Newman, Mary (widow of Samuel) John and Walter Newman 216 in 1749, 26 and 66 in 1770 St. Stephen Parish, Cecil Co., MD
G-235  I July 21, 1749 Carroll, William Carroll, Joseph 600 in 1749, 300 in 1770 Prob MD
G-244 July 21, 1749 Carroll, William 143 Chester Co., PA
G-236 July 21, 1749 Newman, Samuel Houser, Henry 400 in 1749, 140 in 1770
G-233 F, G July 21, 1749 Lusk, Samuel Chester Co., PA Alderson, Curtis & John 404 in 1749, 74 & 80 in 1770 Alderson – Yorkshire, England to NJ to PA
G-393  99 July 10, 1735 Holman, Daniel Holman, Daniel 891 in 1749, 395 in 1770 see G395 England or VA
G-395 Aug 2, 1750 Holman, Daniel Holman, Daniel 130 in 1770, can’t determine 1749 lines Poss Kent Co., MD
G-394 Aug 2 1750 Holman, John Holman?, 420
G-238 lower E July 21, 1749 James, William Kagey, Henry 315 in 1749, 309 in 1770
G-238 upper D July 21, 1749 James, William James, Thomas & Joseph Can’t tell in 1749, 184 in 1770
G-239  B, C July 21, 1749 Ruddle, John Ruddle, George & Harrison, George 412 in 1749, 174 & 35 in 1770 Chester Co., PA
G-390  99 Aug 2, 1750 Naffe, John Henry Sherill, Adams, Neave, J.H. 470 in 1749, 200 in 1770 Neff – Bonfield, Germany
N-96 Aug 5, 1766 Harrison, Burr Not drawn 200
G-241 A July 21, 1749 Ruddle, Cornelius Kingree, Daniel 393 in 1649, 197 in 1770
H-710 Oct 20, 1756 Neff, John Henry Not marked 404
M-94 Dec 18, 1762 Clark, William Not marked 187
G-240 July 21, 1749 White, William Not marked 410 Monocacy, Maryland
158 June 29, 1739 White, William Not marked 400
G-269 Aug 12, 1749 Clark, William Clark, William & Carleck, David 462 in 1749, 400 in 1770, shown as pat in 1737 Carleck- Germany
157 June 29, 1739 Allen, Benjamin (Barnstable, Mass) (Reuben’s uncle) Not shown 400 Reuben Allen, Cecil Co., MD (Quaker)
Forestville on Holman Creek
H-135 1752 Brock, Henry Not shown 268 NY
G-367 1749 Brock, George Not shown 224
H-113 1752 Funkhauser, Christian Not shown 444

It’s clear that these maps and land plats are not equivalent. It’s also worth noting that this is not a list of all the settlers, especially not in 1770. It’s a history of these specific land plats. We know that this isn’t a complete list, because John Dobkins Jr. owned land west of Forestville by 1751 and the Fairfax Line surveyors found him already there and farming in 1746.

This is only Benjamin Bordon’s 3300-acre tract. We also know that many of these men, if not all, had settled here in the 1730s. Their land just wasn’t granted until years later.

The early settlers’ plots and plats are shown in approximate order, south to north. I wish John’s land had been shown and labeled, but it wasn’t. However we know, based on the size of the original 3300 acres, and the fact that exactly 150 acres are missing, and there’s one plat drawn but not identified that it’s probably his. We can probably find some confirmation based on other documents – and who he interacts with. Plus, his will was probated in 1746 in Augusta County, not Frederick, which tells us he HAS to be one of the three plots below the Fairfield Line.

We also know that the Hite-Fairfax dispute delayed or caused land to be granted without being resurveyed. The grants were passed and assigned hand to hand, and the ownership was questionable for the next 35 years. This probably explains why there is no record of John Dobkins Sr.’s land being disposed of by his widow, Mary.

What else do we have?

Baptisms

Besides John Dobkins and James Gill, who else had children baptized in 1737 by the German, Lutheran Rev. Stoever?

  • Andrew Bird father of Rebecca Bird born in 1732, witnesses James Gill and Sarah Moor.
  • William Breedyes, father of James born 1733 and Hanna born 1734
  • Rilie Moor father of Terkis Moore born 1731, witness Catharine Gerlach
  • Rilie Moor father of Thomas Moor born 1732, witness Theobaldt Gerlach and wife
  • Rilie Moor father of Jacob born 1734 witness Andrew Bird
  • Rilie Moor father of John born 1736 witness Charles Ehrhardt and wife Clara
  • John Hodge’s 3 children
  • William White’s 3 children
  • Daniel Hoolman’s (Holman) son Isaac, witness James Guill (Gill)
  • John Leenwill’s son Lewis, witness Stephen Lewis
  • Frederich Gebert father of Susanna baptized in 1736, witness Clara Strubel
  • Nicolaus Brintzler, sponsor John Frederick Strubel.

By 1738 and 1739, Stoever was baptizing German children in the Valley, so Germans had clearly arrived by then.

In a different portion of Stoever’s book, we find what look to be marriages. Based on the reference to Orange County, we know it was before 1743.

  • June 8 – John Hodge and Elisabeth Windseeth, Jacob Thigh and Mary White, Daniel Hoolman and Elizabeth Cartlay, North River, Shenandoah, vulgo, Cockel Town in Orange County, in the Colony of Virginia.

I also noticed that Stoever had several Monocacy baptisms too. Some of those surnames are the same as those found in the Shenandoah Valley, including Gerlach. Hmmm…

Did Stoever travel to the Valley to service some of the same families he knew in the Monocacy area?

Dobkins Children

Sometimes first names matter.

We know that John Dobkins Jr. had children with the first names of:

  • Thomas
  • John
  • Jean
  • Jacob
  • Evan
  • Reuben
  • Rebecca

Fortunately, at least two of these children had rather unusual names – Evan and Reuben. Jacob isn’t terribly common either. I need to keep my eyes open for families with these names, especially in one family.

I searched for Evan in the early books and found Evan Jones who lived in the Shenandoah Valley. Evan Jones was said to be Welsh. He lived near the county line on Back Road, formerly known as Zane’s Road.

FAN Club

Ok, now I’m off to my spreadsheet. I have a love/hate relationship with spreadsheets. The data entry feels like wasted time and is mind-numbing, but the results are often quite fruitful because you can see relationships in ways that don’t require you to remember things.

Plus, when you are forced to go back through original documents, you find things you missed.

I couldn’t figure out what happened to the land belonging to John Dobkins Jr., which would bracket his death for me – and might give me a clue whether or not he actually did go to the western waters, Washington County, in what would become Tennessee after it struggled, then died on the vine as the rebel State of Franklin.

Did he actually homestead two frontiers? One when he was maybe 30 or 35, and another when he was 70, or older?

I entered all of the data I have for John Dobkins Sr, John Dobkins Jr. and their children into the spreadsheet. I went back to sources, such as Chalkley’s Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish Settlement in Virginia series and the Northern Neck Virginia Land Patent books. No, you wouldn’t think of Shenandoah Valley as the Northern Neck, but there we are.

Click to enlarge images

I’m showing the first 7 rows of my spreadsheet as an example. I have a total of 362 rows, and 77 items. An item is not equivalent to a row.

You can see items 1 and 2, above. I create a separate row for every person named in the item.

In item 1, which is John Dobkins’ Sr.’s land grant, which was actually a bond, so I need to fix that, two people were mentioned. Both John and Benjamin Borden have a row. I neglected to add that William White stated that he saw the transaction.

Giving everyone their own row allows me to filter for all occurrences of Benjamin Borden, for example.

Assigning an item number lets me select all people mentioned in item 1.

Using filters, I can select any surname(s) and see the various people who interacted with John Dobkins by that surname.

For example, here’s Moore.

In the last book I rechecked, I found something in the index which led me to an entry that, somehow, I had missed previously.

Here’s the answer to what happened to John Dobkins Jr.’s land, and when. Glory be!!!!

Name spelling is not standardized, AND, the search feature does not always work correctly. I actually consult the index, then look on each page. That’s how I found this entry which answered this perplexing question.

John did not have an estate in Augusta County, Virginia, so apparently when he assigned his survey, S-374, he was living, which increases the probability of the man in Washington County in November of 1787 being our John Dobkins. April 1, 1788 is when this was recorded. Not surprising given winter roads and weather.

However, now I need to check the Frederick County,VA records for John, because until I saw this, I didn’t realize he had moved across the county line from the part of Augusta which became Shenandoah. It’s VERY obvious now.

However, this still is a bit confusing because the acreage doesn’t agree. This is 200 different acres than we previously knew about on Stoney Creek.

I asked Cousin Carol to check and see what she could find. Carol and I have been researching our family for decades together, and she often finds things that I haven’t.

Cousin Carol

Cousin Carol found something more.

John’s original survey on Stoney Creek that was assigned to William Bean. This is the land documented earlier by Jeffrey LaFavre, here and here.

Carol found John Dobekin’s 400 acre survey. Thomas Gill is his chainer, providing one more connection to the Gill family. In fact, this Thomas Gill is the child whose baptism John Dobkins witnessed in 1737, the same day as Thomas’s father, James Gill witnessed the baptism of John’s son, Thomas Dobkins.

Both men had sons named Thomas baptized the same day, and stood up for each other’s baptisms. Hmmm…

The front of the survey shows that the survey was done for John Dobekins, but I can’t read the word after his name. Then William Bean is written in.

Then, “assigned to Cap. Cornelias Ruddle in presence of William White and John Ruddle, deed to issue inthe name of William Bean by desire of Cornelias Ruddle.”

The survey jacket confirms the chain of ownership.

No wonder the titles to these lands are confused and were for decades. This land wasn’t conveyed and recorded, the warrant and survey were just assigned. Not surprising since it was a long ride to the courthouse.

I swear, John is playing hide and seek with me.

Histories

I’m a big fan of “History of” books, especially ones that were written quite early. Some of those books include the memories of people born in the early 1800s, and they tell us what their grandparents, born in the 1700s, told them.

Those are absolute goldmines.

The History of Shenandoah County is searchable, including by first name only.

I searched for Reuben, and among others, discovered both Reuben and Jacob Moore. Hmmm…

“About the year 1734, as noted in the preceding chapter, Benjamin Allen, Riley Moore and William White settled in this neighborhood,” referring to the Smith Creek corridor.

Then, “In 1734, Benjamin Allen, Riley Moore and William White came from the Monocacy Valley in Maryland and took up some of the fertile lands at or near the site of Mt. Jackson.”

“Fertile lands” might be a clue as to why they settled in that specific location.

It appears, based on a 1782 journal of a Quaker minister that Grifith Dawbin (Dobbin), Thomas Moore and the Allens were Quakers. It’s interesting to note that the women from the Hopewell Friends church accompanied the minister to Shenandoah, 55 miles distant. On the road, they met a contingent of Friends from York County, PA.

Searching for Evan produced references to Evan Jones and a few others.

Why is John Dobkins never mentioned anyplace in these histories? I’m going to assume it was because he was a simple, quiet, yeoman farmer, just plowing his fields and harvesting his produce.

Additional Resources

There are also other resources that I use as well.

One is WikiTree and another is WeRelate. WeRelate has profiles of ancestors grouped usefully. Here’s the list of Early Settlers on the North Branch of the Shenandoah River.

I also have a friend, Maree, who is relentless in digging through obscure resources. I think she views these missing folks as a personal challenge to uncover the truth. Most of what she finds doesn’t hit that mark, but that’s the price one pays for the ONE that does. Bless her patient heart!

This time, I had to laugh because Maree kept finding my Dodsons out of Virginia. DNA confirms that they are not the same family, but those names do sound alike. Too much alike.

In any event, between my research, Maree, and my cousin, Carol, we are making halting progress. I probably ran down 200 blind alleys. Did I mention we were having, literally, a hurricane during this research adventure too?

I’m not going to bore you with every alley, but I do want to share relevant information from my “everything” document. .

Riley Moore

Riley Moore, a near neighbor of John Dobkins Sr., is listed in the Register of Old Augusta Families at WeRelate.

Remember the unsourced rumor that John Dobkins Jr.’s wife was the daughter of Thomas Moore. For that to be true, she would have been born around 1710, which means Thomas Moore would have been born in the 1680s or earlier.

She cannot be the daughter of Riley’s son, Thomas, who married Phebe Harrison, the granddaughter of an entirely different ancestor of mine, Isaiah Harrison that I didn’t expect to find here. What this means, though, is that if I match descendants of this Thomas Moore, it could be through my Harrison line, not because of Dobkins/Moore DNA.

We are at least one generation offset, because this Thomas Moore would be the same age as John Dobkins Jr, not a generation older. The older generation was Riley Moore. If he had a daughter, Elizabeth, she’s not mentioned in his will, and the other children are.

However, Riley Moore had a brother or half-brother named Thomas Moore as well, who also immigrated to Shenandoah from Monocacy Hundred in 1733. Born about 1717, he married Mary Allen, whose father was Reuben Allen, which connects the Allen and Moore families.

Reuben is not a common name. Now it’s in two families who are found with our Dobkins folks.

This Thomas Moore died in 1790 and did have a daughter Elizabeth, but apparently did not mention his daughter, Elizabeth’s married name in his will. I think I need to review his estate documents, in particular, the settlement if there is one. If indeed, Elizabeth is Thomas’s daughter, she would have married John Dobkins before he arrived in Shenandoah Valley, or at least by 1735, the birth year of their first child baptized in Orange County. This means Elizabeth would have been born 1710ish.

Given that Thomas Moore’s birth date is given as “after 1717,” this seems to eliminate this connection too, or maybe his birth date is simply wrong.

However, given the common first names, such as Reuben and Jacob, not to mention Thomas, there easily could be some connection, someplace. Or, maybe it’s further back a generation.

Riley Moore died in 1760 on his land in the Shenandoah Valley which then fell into Frederick County, VA. He only named his wife and sons James and Reuben. Witnesses to the will were Evan Jones, Amos Lewis and Susan Lewis. There’s the name Evan. Evan is the Welsh name for John.

Riley Moore was clearly English, given that his children were born and baptized at St. Barnabas Church, Queen Anne’s Parish, Prince George Co., MD between 1700 and 1712. There was no child named Elizabeth.

There seems to be a connection before Shenandoah Valley, and there assuredly is one after arrival.

In the road orders, on May 22, 1750, “Thomas Moore and Riley Moore are hereby Appointed Surveyors of the High Way in the room of Daniel Holdman and it is Ordered that they set up posts of Directions and Clear & keep the same in repair According to Law.”

Posts of direction. The earliest road signs. Clearly, more settlers were passing through on their way south and, eventually, on into the Carolinas.

Benjamin and Reuben Allen

Benjamin Allen never married. Reuben Allen was his brother. The following information is provided by Mike, here.

Reuben Allen I – Although there is no record of surveys or patents for land near Mt. Jackson owned by Benjamin Allen’s brother Reuben, Reuben Allen I appears to have been by far the larger landowner of the two. Reuben Allen I died in 1741. As his sons were too young to have acquired much wealth on their own, the various Fairfax Grants in 1749, issued to Reuben Allen I’s widow Mary and her sons Reuben II, Jackson and Joseph, appear to be for lands previously owned by their father. These Fairfax Grants of 625, 400, 270, and 202 acres, all four of which joined Benjamin Allen’s land, were no doubt for lands once owned by Reuben Allen I, brother of Benjamin.

Dr. Wayland in writing his “History of Shenandoah County, Virginia” makes no mention of Reuben Allen I, brother of Benjamin. However, Reuben evidently followed Benjamin to the Valley, as he had in Cecil County, Md. Reuben Allen I died intestate in 1741 and records of his estate are found in Orange County, Va. The deed in Dartmouth in 1721 shows he had a wife Mary at that time. No marriage has been found in either Quaker or Civil records. The Carleton Genealogy states Mary was Mary Jackson, dau of Samuel Jackson of Baltimore Co., Md, but this has been proved incorrect. Samuel Jackson died in Baltimore County in 1719 and his dau Mary was willed 90 acres of “Carter’s Rest” and 100 acres of “Jackson’s Outlet” (Md. Calendar of WiUs, Vol. 5, p 2). This same 100 acres of Jackson’s Outlet was leased to James Taylor by Mary Forster. Taylor, in turn leased the land to Mary Forster’s brother-in-law, Rowland Kemble. No record of Reuben Allen is found in Deed Records and Rent Rolls in Baltimore County, which at this time period bordered on Cecil Co., Md. However, the possibilities are good that Mary’s maiden name was Jackson as this name appears many times among the descendants. Reuben and Mary may have married before he left N. J. to move to Cecil Co., Md. in 1719.

Mary survived Reuben Allen I, as did five known children. Reuben and Mary had been married over twenty years and there were undoubtedly other children, some of them minors when Reuben died in 1741, but no Guardianship records were found, nor dower rights for his widow. With the distance to the Courthouse it is not surprising that none of these records exist. In fact, it is a sign of the hardiness of these Allens that we do have in Orange County, the petition for letters of Administration, made by Reuben Allen II, shown in the Court Order Book as “eldest son”; the Administration Bond of Reuben Allen II, made with Benjamin Allen and Thomas Moore as Sureties; and a full and complete inventory of his goods and chattels made by Peter Scholl, William White and Abraham Collett. The inventory shows it was made February 2, 1741/42 and was filed for record the 27th day of May 1742. The Administration Bond is dated November 26, 1741, and the record shows Reuben Allen II, Thomas Moore, and Benjamin Allen acknowledged this Bond in Court. Reuben Allen II was a Quaker, as evidenced by his affirmation in lieu of the oath of Administration (Orange County Va. Will Bk 1, pp 179, 180, 219, 221). Thomas Moore, one of the sureties for the Bond, was the son-in law, husband of Mary Allen.

A comparison of household articles in the inventories of both Reuben Allen I and Mary Allen shows many items still in the possession of Mary when she died in 1751 (Aug. Co. Will Bk 1 p 423). Jackson and Joseph Allen were named Administrators of the Estate of Mary Allen, deceased on the 29th of May 1751 (Aug. Co. Will Bk 1 pp 336 337). Thomas Moore and John Dobekin were sureties for Jackson and Joseph Allen’s Administration Bond (Aug. Co. Will Bk 1 p 356). Reuben Allen II, son of Reuben and Mary Allen died within a day or two of his mother. Whether their deaths were the result of an Indian raid, or perhaps an epidemic is not known. Ingaborg Allen, widow of Reuben II was granted letters of Administration on 28 May 1751, with Cornelius Ruddell and John Dobiken as Sureties (Aug. Co. Will Bk I p 335).

It’s very clear that these families were close, and likely intertwined.

Evan Jones

From the VAGenweb site:

In 1791, Evan Jones was high sheriff of Shenandoah County. In 1785 he had been one of the census enumerators, and he was prominent as a magistrate and otherwise. His home was on the Back Road (Zane’s Road?) in the southwest part of the county, one mile from the Fairfax (Rockingham) Line. It is probable that in every generation of his descendants there has been an Evan Jones. The old homestead today (1927) is owned by one of them, Evan Jones, and his brother, J.A. Jones. The old farm has never been out of the hands of the Jones family. The present Evan Jones is one of the men prominent in county affairs.

I have been unable to determine where Evan Jones came from.

Backtracking Up the Great Wagon Road

The Dobkins family seems very connected to the Moore family. Furthermore, John Dobkins arrives at the same time, and lives close to the Monocacy men – Benjamin Allen, Riley Moore and William White.

I think it’s time to look in the Monocacy and see what I can find. Based on Riley Moore’s information, it looks like Prince George’s County, Maryland might be a good beginning.

This also makes sense on another level too.

In the book about Life on Holman Creek, I find my Millers, Zirkles, Garbers, Wines and a very large number of my Brethren family members literally surrounding John Dobkins land. Where did they come from? Frederick County, Maryland, near Hagerstown, land that was once part of Prince George’s County. In other words, the Monocacy.

By Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant) – Self-photographed, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1951953

The Monocacy River runs south out of Adams County, PA into Frederick County, MD, above, where it dumps into the Potomac River, below.

By G. Edward Johnson – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=93635068

An old Indian trail, probably the first “highway,” was found along the river.

The Great Wagon Road eventually connected these places. Of course, what began with a trickle when those first 49 settlers arrived on horseback or walking, became a steady stream of wagons carrying families with dreams, especially after the Revolutionary War.

What does Maryland have to offer?

Found Him!!!

The book, Pioneers of Old Monocacy is chocked full of historical information, including an index entry for both John Dobbins Sr, and John Dobbins Jr.

Doggone, there he is, plus his son in 1733 and 1734. This means that John Dobkins Jr. would have been married by this time, and probably pushes his birth year back to about 1708 or earlier.

Clearly, based on this document, I need to find the Maryland State Papers and see what else is there.

The second list, in 1734, tells us that John Dobbin got into a bit of trouble. Poor quality tobacco plants were to be burned in order to preserve the quality of the cured and finished tobacco product. If a man didn’t have some tobacco to be burned, generally in a central location, witnessed by others, that simply meant he had failed to comply with the order. This transgression, of course, could affect the price that all the farmers could command for their combined tobacco crop.

This event could have had something to do with why the two Dobkins men decided to pack up and strike out for the frontier. No one could tell them what to plant and grow there, or how to do it. Wheat, corn, and, eventually, apples were the primary crops in the Shenandoah Valley. Not all fields had to be cleared either. Some were already open prairie, the Indian “old fields,” now abandoned, but ready to be utilized again with much less effort than felling mature trees across an entire forest.

Prince George’s County is where the Van Meters were from too. They were involved in the earliest settlement of the Shenandoah Valley, so John Dobkins likely knew them and had heard the tales.

Thomas Cresap was living in Prince George’s County as well. Cresap was a land speculator, Indian trader, and explorer. His questionable methods and “loose” transactions caused so much angst between Pennsylvania and Maryland settlers, and governments, that he literally started Cresap’s War, named not in honor of him, but because of him.

All I can say is that John Dobkins, or Dobbins, needed to be very grateful he teamed up with Van Meter and not Cresap.

It’s hard to think of Maryland as the wild west, but at one time, it clearly was.

Maryland in the 1730s

I don’t exactly know where John Dobbins and his son lived, but it’s likely someplace in this region.

We know that they were in the “Monoccosea Hundred,” shown below, in the Catoctin Valley in western Frederick County. Cacoctin Mountain, the eastern-most reach of the Blue Ridge, about 15 miles east of Hagerstown, is where Camp David is located today.

Many of the surnames, such as Friend, found in this area when John Dobkins lived there are also found in the early Shenandoah Valley settlement.

The settlers likely congregated, perhaps at Richard Touchstones, in preparation for beginning the journey “from Monocacy to Shenandoah Mountain,” today’s South Mountain.

The Valley led directly from Maryland, across the mountains and into the Shenandoah valley, further south.

Many of the Quakers at Hopewell in Fredrick County, VA came from Monocacy, as did Benjamin Borden – the man who initially gave bond to John Dobkins in 1735, promising that John could patent his land. A list of early Frederick County wills can be found here.

Preparations

I don’t know what kind of thought and preparation went into the decision to leave Maryland and embark not only on a journey, but a journey into the complete unknown. The Shawnee Indians had all been massacred by the Catawbas in that very valley, probably between 1650 and 1700, so the Shenandoah Valley was at that point, uninhabited. The Warrior path that would become the settlers’ trail, then the Wagon Road, and now Highway 11 ran directly along the North Fork of the Shenandoah and Smith Creek.

John Dobkins was a farmer. He and his son wouldn’t have left Maryland until after the crops were harvested. They would have planned to arrive in the springtime in time to, hopefully, prepare the land for even a small first-year crop in the Shenandoah Valley.

Fall was a preferred time to migrate anyway. Not wet like the spring. Not the heat and humidity of the summer, and not frozen and slippery in the winter.

Perhaps the hardest part was leaving family behind.

John Dobkins the elder, and Mary, his wife, were clearly old enough to have adult children. Did some of those children stay behind? Daughters maybe, who married, and we will never know who they are?

Did they have siblings, or parents, that they would never see again? What and who were they leaving behind?

Did they visit tiny graves, taking flowers and explaining that they would see those children in Heaven one day?

If they didn’t leave living children behind, they surely wept as they said goodbye beside those graves one last time.

If they left living children behind, what became of them? Did John and Mary also leave weeping grandchildren behind?

Did they give them mementos to remember them by? Would they ever see any of them again?

The Trail to Shenandoah

This map shows the old Philadelphia Waggon Road at its beginning near Opequon Creek and Antietam Creek on the Potomac River.

Opequon Creek, shown above at the red arrow, at the Potomac where the wagon road to Shenandoah Valley left from.

This journey would take them about an hour and a half, maybe two, today. Just an afternoon drive – down and back in one day. It would have taken at least two weeks, and probably more since many people were probably on foot, and the terrain was rugged.

It was “only” 80-100 miles. Only. A paradigm shift away from anything resembling safety or life as they knew it.

Crossing the Potomac from the border between Maryland and West Virginia. Of course, they would have had to ford the river or take a rope ferry.

You can see the Blue Ridge in the distance.

About 10 miles later, the Shenandoah River empties into the Potomac River. Our pioneers turn left and head upstream, into the mountains.

The Valley from above shows the mountains on both sides. John and the other families continue to follow the river, between the mountain ranges. Maybe the wives said to each other, when the men were out of hearing, that they could go back if they wanted. Several would have been pregnant.

Crossing from present-day West Virginia, into Virginia, directly into Frederick County. These buildings wear the patina of age. John passed here, but of course, there was nothing more than a path.

Mountains rise on both sides of the road.

If they traveled in the late fall, it would have been stunningly beautiful as they, day by day, approached the land where they would stake out their claims and build the cabins that would be their new homes.

A little further south, the valley widens a bit, offering more tillable land, and the Shenandoah River splits into the North and South Branches at present-day Front Royal.

Our group of settlers continue down the North Fork. They were halfway by now. Without Hite or Van Meter, someone who could “pilot” the way, they would have been entirely lost.

The group would have passed and made note of occasional Indian mounds, sad sentries to the villages that were destroyed, with all their inhabitants, a generation earlier. Ghost villages.

Today, the Old Valley Pike is marked by sleepy villages with beautiful homes built before automobiles, standing close to the present-day roads.

The settlers’ path brought them closer to the Blue Ridge to the east, paralleling the North Fork of the Shenandoah.

South of Mt. Jackson, the caravan would have forded the Shenandoah one last time, trying to keep at least some things dry. Just east of that location, the mouth of Smith Creek deposits its water into the North Fork of the Shenandoah, dividing the waterway once again.

The horse train continued its path south, on to the Borden grant. They would have wanted to find headwaters of creeks to assure clean water for people and livestock.

The settlers are now threading the needle, with the North Fork of the Shenandoah behind the tree line at right, and Smith Creek behind the trees below the escarpment at left. This valley looks relatively flat, beautiful, and fertile.

Better yet, it was uninhabited, theirs for the taking and working the land.

One of the settlers would, unwittingly, settle on the land where the Shenandoah Caverns would be discovered on Neff land in 1884. Endless Caverns, the longest cave system in Virginia, was discovered about a mile from John Dobkins Sr.’s land in 1879. For all we know, and John never knew, that cave labyrinth might run right under his land.

Questions – So Many Questions

Indeed, we managed to push the needle about 100 miles, back into Maryland. That seems so much further than 100 miles. It seems like a lifetime, a different world. It assuredly was for those brave settlers.

Why did the Monocacy men continue to travel beyond the other settlers? As each of the other families stopped and claimed land, why did they settle, together, so far south on Smith Creek? Was that considered the best land? Were they late arrivals? Did it cost less, to Borden, because it was more remote and therefore, more dangerous?

We know that Daniel Holman built a fort house at the entrance of Holman Creek where it intersects with the Shenandoah River for the protection of his family and nearby settlers, probably in the red area above, about 200 X 300 feet. Three sides would have been protected by water. Holman’s Fort would have been about 5 miles north of where John Dobkins settled.

What records can be found in Prince George’s County, Maryland?

Is the original name Dobbins, Dobkins, Dobikins, or something else?

Did John arrive in Maryland from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or New York like some of the other Prince George’s County families?

Was John Dobkins or Dobbins an immigrant? If so, when did he arrive, and from where?

Was he married when he arrived?

Who was his wife, Mary?

Is John, his wife, Mary, or his son John’s wife, Elizabeth, related to the Allen and Moore families? My bet is yes.

Is the Dobkins family related to the other Monocacy families?

What about James Gill and the two sons named Thomas? Is that significant?

What does Y DNA tell us?

Dobkins Y DNA – What Does It Say?

We have two men descended from Evan’s son, Thomas Dobkins, who was born in 1781 in East Tennessee and died in 1822 in Missouri.

The high-level haplogroup of these two men is I-M253, but unfortunately, they don’t match any other men of the same surname.

At 37 markers, the highest they tested, they do match one man who is from Scotland, and one man living in Sweden. That’s it!

Unfortunately, haplogroup I-M253 is about 4500 years old and most frequently found in Scandinavia and Northwest Europe.

Of course, with sea travel and Vikings, it could have traveled anyplace in that region.

I am attempting to find another male to take a Big Y test, as the DNA of the original tester was not sufficient to process.

Viewing the Dobkins 12-marker matches, the correlation with the British Isles, northwest Europe, and Scandinavia is reinforced/

All I can really say with a high degree of confidence is that the Y DNA of the Dobkins line is rare. That’s much better than being common, but we need more markers and the Big Y test.

If you are a Dobkins male descended from this line, please reach out. I’d love to provide a Y DNA testing scholarship for you.

We still need more evidence.

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How to Share DNA Results and Tree Access at Ancestry

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There are two types of access you may want to share with other users at Ancestry, and specific times when you’ll want to do each.

If you have set your privacy selections to allow DNA matching, and tree sharing, your DNA matches will have access to that information. If not, they won’t.

Let’s check.

Click the down arrow to the right of your signon page, then Account Settings.

Click on DNA.

Then, click on the little right arrow waaaaayyyy over there.

Scroll down until you see Tree Link, and be sure your test is linked to yourself in your tree.

Privacy

Next, the Privacy section displays your selections in effect for both matching and your ethnicity estimates. Click on the little down arrow labeled “Change” to view other options.

If you do NOT have matching enabled, you won’t see matches and they won’t see you.

Granting DNA Sharing Access

If you don’t match with someone, they won’t be able to see whether you’ve tested your DNA or not.

  • You can still share access to your DNA, even if you don’t match.
  • If you do match, and you’re collaborating with someone, you can share more with them, in essence, letting them “drive.”

Here’s how.

Next, click on Sharing Preferences.

You’ll click the down arrow to see who you’ve shared your DNA results with. These people may or may not be your DNA matches. For example, there are a few people that I’ve collaborated with for years that I’ve shared my DNA results with because I’m really, really HOPING they will make a breakthrough for both of us.

Plus, not to be morbid, but you just never know when you’ll be meeting the ancestors and I want my DNA to go on working for my genealogy partners and family members after I’m no longer doing the work myself. That’s also why I write my 52 Ancestors stories, but I digress.

You might be wondering what kind of information other people could be looking for. Let me give you an immediate example. Even though we don’t personally match, my cousin Greg has been looking for people that he matches, and I match too, that he knows descend from our common ancestor, Peter Johnson.

Any tests you own are listed first here, along with anyone you’ve granted access to your DNA results.

If you click on “Add a person,” you can add someone else to your share list.

You always get to select the level of access people you share with have.

If your cousin George tested for you, has no interest himself, you’ll want to ask him to grant you the ability to manage his results. Just understand that manage means just that – entirely.

Typically, I grant view because they can see everything I can see, but they can’t change things.

Sharing DNA does NOT mean you’re automatically sharing your tree.

Sharing Trees

Sharing trees is important for three reasons.

  • DNA matches
  • For people who don’t match your DNA but are researching the same ancestors and find your tree through hints or ancestor searches
  • People you specifically want to provide access to your tree

One of my cousins kindly shared his DNA results with me, but he did not share his tree and now I can no longer get in touch with him. Unfortunately, he’s not well, so it’s unlikely that I will ever be able to contact him.

Let’s look at Tree management, sharing and invitations.

Your Tree Privacy Settings

Go back to Account Settings and select “Trees.”

Next, you’ll see your trees and trees that others have shared with you.

Select the tree you wish to view, share, or work with.

Then, select Privacy Settings at the top of the page.

You can review your tree privacy settings. As you can see, mine is public. I firmly believe that a rising tide lifts all ships. I realize that this is a controversial topic, but I share my work freely and hope others will as well. I’m providing quality breadcrumbs. At least my research and information is available among the copy/paste misinformation abominations.

My cousin who shared his DNA with me has a private tree, and even though I can see how he matches people, I cannot view their common ancestors because his tree is private and he didn’t realize he needed to grant me separate access to his tree in addition to his DNA results.

Furthermore, if your tree is private, your DNA matches can’t view your tree and the DNA match has limited utility without tree access.

Invite People to Your Tree

My tree is public, so it’s available for viewing in searches and by DNA matches. However, I still need to grant specific access to people to directly access my tree without them having to search around to find my tree in their ancestor search hints and matches.

Click on “Invitations.”

You’ll be able to see who you’ve granted access to, their Role, and if they can see living people.

To invite someone to your tree from here, click on “Invite People.”

Don’t forget to click “save” at the bottom of the page.

You can generate a one-time link for the person you’re inviting, meaning the link can only be used by one person, or have Ancestry send them an email invite or use their Ancestry Username.

An Easier Tree Invite Location

There is no easier way to invite people to view your DNA results, but there is an easier way to share your tree.

On your main Ancestry page, click on Trees, then on the down arrow by the name of the tree you wish to share. Select “Invite” which will take you to the same Invite page as above.

Now is a good time to review your settings and be sure they are the most beneficial to your genealogy goals.

Furthermore, you’re going to need this article for my next “In Search of…” article in a day or so.

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John Dobkins Sr. (c 1685-1746) Wilderness Homesteader on Smith Creek in the Shenandoah Valley – 52 Ancsestors #377

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We don’t know where John Dobkins was born, nor when he, or his ancestors, arrived in the colonies. We don’t know if he was born here, or overseas. If he was born in the old country, where was that? Was he married when he arrived, or did he marry here? We do know that his wife’s name was Mary, or at least, his wife when he died.

We aren’t even positive about the spelling of John’s surname. John wasn’t able to write, so others would have written his name as it sounded to them. There were Germans, Scots-Irish, Dutch and probably English settlers in the Shenandoah Valley, so they would have heard and written his name differently. It’s no wonder we find his surname recorded variously as Dobkin, Dobkins, Dobikin, Dobikins, Dobin, Dobins, Dobbin, Dobbins and more variations. Two generations later, my ancestor, Jacob Dobkins spelled it Dobkins, as did the descendants of his brothers, Reuben and Evan, at least most of the time.

I discovered a significant amount of information in an undated, uncopyrighted book that I think was written about 1978, The Dobkins Family in America, 1730-1978, by Cecil B. Smyth Jr. (1929-2014.) It was this book that showed me where to dig further. Cecil did an incredible amount of work on this family, including historical research on the ground and in the region. I communicated with Cecil before his death, and I think he’d be pleased that we’ve used his work as a foundation building block.

County Formation

Between 1720 and 1734, what would become Shenandoah County was a part of Spotsylvania County, Virginia. From 1734 to 1738, it was included in Orange County. In 1738, the area of Orange County west of the Blue Ridge Mountains was separated to become the new counties of Augusta to the south and Frederick to the north.

In 1753, the dividing line between Augusta and Frederick Counties was made to coincide with the Fairfax line. On March 24, 1772, a new county was formed from Frederick County which was to be known as Dunmore. In 1778, its name was changed to Shanando which eventually morphed to Shenandoah.

Early Settlement

In 1716, Sir Alexander Spotswood, the Royal Governor of Virginia, headed west with a small army along the Germanna Trail. Many in the exploratory party contracted German measles along the way, but Governor Spotswood and a few hearty souls continued on and crossed the Blue Ridge at Swift Run Gap.

The Governor forded the Shenandoah River and buried a bottle on the west bank. This bottle contained a note he had written which claimed all territory west of the mountains to “The River of the Spaniards,” now the Mississippi, in the name of and for King George I of England. After the French were driven out of the Ohio Territory, the claim lasted until the end of the American Revolution.

On June 17, 1730, John and Isaac Van Meter were issued “land orders” from Governor Gooch authorizing them to select 40,000 acres as a buffer zone against raids by the Indians and the French moving into the Ohio River Valley.

Van Meter, a trapper and Indian trader, held a 10,000-acre tract in the Shenandoah Valley which he had acquired from Lord Fairfax. A condition of this sale was that one hundred German families were to settle in the Valley. Van Meter sold this land to Jost Hite of eastern Pennsylvania in 1727. You can read more about the confusing details, here.

Hite proceeded to search for one hundred German families, and, in 1731, the group headed for the Valley.

Hite purchased the Van Meter’s rights for unpatented parcels within the 40,000 acres on August 5, 1731.

Hite personally migrated to the Shenandoah Valley in 1731. Local tradition holds that he brought 16 German and Scotch-Irish families in the initial settlement caravan. They lived near the Pack Horse Ford crossing over the Potomac River until completing their houses further south on Opequon Creek.

At the time, there were no roads crossing the Blue Ridge. Travelers on foot had passed through mountain gaps for 10,000 years, while colonial explorers using horses had been crossing the mountains since John Lederer in 1670. However, it took two decades after first permanent colonial settlers arrived in the Shenandoah Valley before the old trails were improved enough for wagons to make a reliable crossing over the mountains into the Piedmont.

In 1734, the Van Meters sold Hite the parcels they had previously patented, except for some parcels near Shepherdstown (then Maryland, now West Virginia) where John Van Meter had lived. Hite may have been John Van Meter’s cousin or nephew, a relationship that could have facilitated their dealings.

Enroute west, they encountered Robert McKay and his group of Scotch-Irish settlers from the coast. They perfected a plan to pool land and money so that they could eventually obtain more land from Lord Fairfax. They purchased 70,000 more acres over the next two years and determined a plan for dividing it.

The Scotch-Irish were to settle the eastern half from Winchester to Luray, in essence the South Fork of the Shenandoah. Hite’s Germans would occupy the western portion from Winchester to beyond what is now Strasburg, the North Fork of the Shenandiah. Hite erected a house five miles south of Winchester along what was to become the “Valley Pike,” U.S. Route 11.

Two of his grandsons built much larger homes along Cedar Creek near Strasburg a half century later. His son-in-law, George Bowman, settled along the south side of Cedar Creek in what is now Shenandoah County in 1731 or 1732.

Another son-in-law, Paul Froman, settled along the creek eight or nine miles northwest of Bowman.

Other settlers were soon to follow. Benjamin Allen, Riley Moore and William White arrived from the Monocacy Valley in Maryland and settled in the area of what is now Mt. Jackson, just a few miles north of John Dobkins’ land.

Jacob Funk bought 2,030 acres between Fishers Hill and Strasburg, including part of the present town of Strasburg, from Henry Willis in 1735.

By 1738, many people had settled what would become Shenandoah County forty years later, in 1778.

The first Indians encountered by the settlers were friendly, and the two groups lived together peacefully for about 20 years. Apparently, the Native people didn’t object to the Pennsylvania settlers due to the treaty William Penn had struck with the Native Americans on the banks of the Delaware. It probably didn’t hurt that Van Meter traded with the Indians, earning their trust, and some backcountry settlers had purchased land directly from the Indians. According to Wine, in Life Along Holman’s Creek, the Native people objected violently to any migration of the “long Knives,” which would be the English for the most part, from east of the Blue Ridge.

Jost Hite and Robert McKay advertised to residents of the Philadelphia, PA area that settlements of the land west of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Northern Neck of Virginia were available. John Dobkins Sr. and his wife, Mary were among the takers.

Cecil reports that “John was a Scotch-Irishman from Ulster, Northern Ireland. We do not know the year he emigrated or anything about his wife. They settled in what was Orange County, VA in 1731 or 1732.”

I surely wish that Cecil had documented his source for either his arrival date in the Shenandoah Valley or John Dobkins’ origin in Ulster. The name Dobbins is found in Dublin and Sligo in 1848-51 when Griffins Valuation of Ireland was conducted. It’s also spelled Dobbyn around County Armagh. However, there are several early Dobikins in England, so the jury is still out on this one.

The Shenandoah Valley region, nestled between the Blue Ridge and the Allegheny Mountain ranges was extremely rugged, remote and stunningly beautiful. It still is.

There were no courts opened in Frederick County before 1743 nor in Augusta before 1745. Records for Frederick and Augusta counties were recorded in Orange County until 1743.

Found in Pioneers of Old Frederick County, VA by Cecil O’Dell.

John Dobikin Sr. (b 1685 c) received a bond from Benjamin Borden on 24 September 1735 for “150 pounds Sterling to make patent in full and ample manner as the King gives me” on 150 acres, part of Benjamin Borden’s 3,300 acre tract. The 6 January 1735/36 Morgan Morgan/Peter Woolf census listed John Sr. as a settler on the McKay, Hite, Duff and Green 100,000 acre Colony of Virginia grant land.

This grant proves critically important.

In the Hite/Fairfax lawsuit, William White stated that he was present when Benjamin Bordon gave a bond guaranteeing a good title to the land on Smith Creek that has been purchased by John Dobbin on September 24, 1735. Borden had received 100,000 acres along the branches of the James River in the upper part of the Shenandoah Valley from the Governor’s council in May of 1735.

This is noteworthy, because Borden’s land was supposed to be south of the Beverly Grant, outside of the area claimed by Lord Fairfax. The fact that Borden is guaranteeing John a good title tells us that his land should be south of what would become known as the Fairfax line. We will see in a few minutes why this is an important piece of data.

Clearly, based on that testimony, John Dobkins was physically in this location at that time.

Peter Wolf’s deposition in the lawsuit taken 6th March 1754 and witnessed by Isaac Parkins, Ger’m Keys and Thomas——–(?).

Peter Wolf being first sworn…Deposeth as followeth, That he is now in the fifty fourth year of his age that he came into this Colony from the Jerseys some time in the year 1733, and that he settled upon a tract of Land which was supposed to belong to Joist Hite and as this Deponent believe the same was in Dispute That sometime in the year of our Lord 1736 this Deponent was sent for by the Lord Fairfax who was then as Samuel Timmands’s to Pilot him up to Joist Hite’s which accordingly he did.

There are also a couple of references to Peter Wolf’s list that he took known as “the number of Settlements upon the Grant granted to Robert McCay Jost Hyte and their Partners in the forks of Shannando and the several Branches thereof.”

This is the 100,000-acre grant given to Jost Hite and his Quaker partner Robert McKay. They needed to seat 100 families to fulfill their obligation under that conditional grant to seat 1 family per 1000 acres.

They list the 49 names, as follows:

    • Robert McCay Senr.
    • John Funk
    • Henry Johnston
    • Thomas Parmer
    • John Denton
    • Jonah Denton
    • Henry Falkenburg
    • Edward Wormwood
    • Andrew Falkenburg
    • Jacob Falkenburg
    • David Carlock
    • Benjamin Allen
    • Reiley More
    • John Lewis
    • William White
    • John Dobikin Senr.
    • James Gill
    • Andrew Bird (Burd in 1770)
    • John Nichols
    • William Bridges
    • Charles Smith
    • Daniel Holeman
    • Charles Robinson
    • William Linviel
    • John Gorden
    • John Wood
    • John Cannaday
    • Robert McCay Jr.
    • Joseph Whites
    • William Oldham
    • William Barke
    • William Anns (?)
    • Barnel Hegin
    • Samuel White
    • Joshua Jobe
    • George Robinson
    • James Sickles
    • William Barnett
    • James Leeth
    • John Calbreth
    • John Edmondson
    • Isaac Howell (Houser in 1770)
    • John Read
    • Joseph Tindell
    • Michael Brook
    • Joseph Read
    • David Keath
    • William Goodwin
    • George Leeth

Whereas the said Robert McCay, Jost Hyte and their Partners have requested of us George Hobson and Morgan Morgan two of his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace at Opeckon in the County of Orange to view the Settlements within their said Grant and that Mr. George Hobson went part of the Way with me in order to view the same the weather proving bad he returned and there being no other Magistrate over the Ridge Mr. Jost Hight appointed Peter Wolfe in his room to go with me to view the said Settlements within the said Grant.

I the said Morgan Morgan do hereby certify that the said Peter Wolfe and myself have viewed and that we seen the above Settlement being in number forty-nine and that the same are now improving by the above named persons within the said Grant Given under my hand this 26 day of January A:Dom: 1735/6.

Morgan Morgan

This is followed by Peter Wolf, on January 26th, 1735/36, stating that he “had in fact viewed the settlements in the Fork of Shannando and the several Branches thereof and that he did see forty-nine Settlements in number and that the same were now improving by the Persons named in the list.”

The names in red, above, are shown on map 15, shown below, representing the original settlers. The blue names are found in 1770 and shown on map 15A. However, referencing other records, including grants, deeds, court and other records, and baptisms, we find many families who are clearly active in the community but not listed among the original grants along Smith Creek.

The fact that John Dobikin is noted as Senr., and his son by the same name is not listed tells us that they are homesteading together, as one family.

I think it’s also worth mentioning that, at least at first glance, these earliest settlers don’t appear to have Scots-Irish names.

In 1737, William Mayo surveyed this region and noted “Many families of forreign protestants are settled hereabout, under grants from his Majesty’s Governor.”

Where is Smith Creek?

Smith Creek runs for about 20 miles, as the crow flies, in the Shenandoah Valley along what is now Interstate 81 near New Market.

If you pan out, you can see the migration path directly down the valley from Pennsylvania, through the Hagerstown area, on down the valley to the newly minted Borden grant for settlement. On the early maps, this is called the “Waggon Road to Philadelphia.”

I found John’s land on Smith Creek, but what happened to it remains a mystery.

The land patented to his son, John, in 1750, which we had all assumed to be his father’s original patent land was found 8 or 10 miles away, on Holman Creek, not Smith Creek.

It was not this same land, but I spent a lot of time trying to make those pieces fit together. They don’t.

However, Holman Creek dumps into the Shenandoah River not terribly far from the intersection with Smith Creek.

The intersection between Holman Creek and the Shenandoah River is shown at left, and between Smith Creek and the Shenandoah at the right arrow.

The original grant owners were mapped in the book, Pioneers of Old Frederick County by Cecil O’Dell, and included in Cecil Smyth’s book, but John Dobkins is missing.

The Holman family was granted land at the intersection of Holman Creek and the Shenandoah River, and still owned that land in 1770. On those two property owner lists, no individual owned 150 acres, the amount granted to John Dobkins. But the entire grant of 3,300 acres is short exactly 150 acres when adding the total of the known property owners.

However, by studying the property owners, one can learn more about the neighborhood, and I found important clues.

The above drawing shows most of the earliest land grants and shows clearly where the grants lay along Smith Creek. Note the Fairfax line that divides Frederick County from Augusta County.

Map 15A shows the same parcels with their 1770 owners.

By 1770, John Dobkins Sr. had been buried for almost a quarter century, and his 150 acres is still missing.

John Dobkin Sr. became ill in 1743, sick enough to write his will on November 3, 1743, appointing wife Mary and son John Jr. as executors. This confirms that John Jr. was of age at that time.

In the name of god amen the 3rd day of Nov 1743, I John Dobikin of Orang County in the Colony of Virginia, farmer, being ? sick and weak in body but of a perfect mins and memory thanks be given unto god thereof caulling unto mind the mortality of my body and knowing that it is ? for all men once to dye do make and ordain this my last will and testament that is to say principally and first of all I give and recommend my soul into the hands of God that gave it and for my body I recommend it to the earth to be buried in a Christian like and decent manner at the discression of my executor not doubting but at the general Resurrection I shall receive the same again by the mighty Power of God and as touching such World by ? with it hath pleased God to bless me in this life I give my wife and dispose of the same in the following manner and form.

Imprimis it is my will and I do so order that in the first place all my just debts and funeral charges be paid and satisfied.

Item I give and bequeth unto Mary my Dearly Beloved Wife all my goods and chattles, tenements and lands and at her decase to dispose of as the shall think proper leaving her and my son John Dobkins executors of this my last will and testament and I do herby utterly disalow revok and disanul and ? all former tesament wills….

John signed his will with a somewhat fancy mark, not just an X. This suggests to me that he could not write. If he were simply too sick to sign, he would just have made an X, I would think.

Witnesses were William Jeames (James), William Galenbe and Samuel Brown (his mark.)

This will is unusual because he left his land to his wife. This means she would either have:

  • Sold or transferred the land
  • Had a will
  • Had an estate if she died without a will
  • Or remarried when the land would have become the property of her husband

There’s no evidence of any of those four things, but one of them had to have happened. His land didn’t just vaporize..

John Dobkins Sr.’s will was probated on May 12, 1746 in Augusta County where John Dobkins Jr. and Mary were appointed as executors.

Ten days later, on May 22, 1746, John Dobkin, Benjamin Allen and Tunis Hood are bound as sureties for Mary Dobkin and her son, John Dobkins, as executors of John’s estate.

On June 12, 1746, the estate inventory of John Dobkins Senior was filed and had been appraised by William White, William Carrell and William James. I absolutely love estate inventories, because they describe EXACTLY what was in the house, and barn, and I mean everything, Right down to hammers and dung forks. These inventories convey the story of how these people lived – both by what is present and what is absent.

  • Four milch cows
  • Two year-old heifers
  • One three-year-old steer
  • One three-year-old bull
  • Three two-year-old steers
  • Three yearling calves
  • One bay horse five-years-old
  • One bay mare and colt three-years-old
  • One sorrell mare and colt seven-years-old
  • One black mare four-years-old
  • One dunn horse fifteen-years-old
  • Twelve sheep
  • Two sows and ten piggs two barrows and a boar and three shoats
  • A plough and clevis
  • A cart and cart saddle
  • One feather bed and pair of sheets a pair of blankets and a rug
  • Two spinning wheals one small and the other bigg
  • A great Bible
  • A chest and trunk
  • A sithe and two sickles
  • A dung fork
  • A brand iron
  • Old iron
  • 2 axes
  • Old iron
  • A hammer and pinchers
  • A broad ax
  • Two augers and a drawing knife
  • One iron pot and a iron racing
  • Two iron potts
  • One iron hatchall
  • Three pewter dishes
  • A parcel of old brass
  • One brass candlestick
  • A bed a pair of sheets and blanket and covlet
  • A grindstone with an iron hasel
  • A side saddle
  • A suit of wearing cloaths
  • One gray horse two-years-old
  • One gunn

The total estate was valued at 72 pounds, 13 shillings, no pence, and had been appraised on March 18, 1746. I sure wish we knew who purchased items at his estate sale, or maybe there wasn’t a sale given that he had left everything to Mary.

I realize looking at this list that the 15-year-old horse would have been their pack animal over the mountains, lo those many years ago. That horse had been through the entire trip with the family. They depended upon one another. I wonder if the horse realized John had died, and pulled a wagon with his casket to the burying ground.

What I wouldn’t give to see that Great Bible. Clearly, his son John would have eventually taken possession of the Bible, but what happened to it after that? Hopefully someone penned John’s birth and death dates, as well as those of his children. Maybe his parents and wife’s name too, if we only knew where it was today.

John styled himself as a farmer, but many farmers had a secondary skill in addition to farming. We see evidence of that by finding carpenter tools, blacksmith tools, or similar craftsman items in their estate sale. John apparently truly was a farmer, because he owned 14 cattle of various sorts, 6 horses, 12 sheep, and 16 pigs of various ages. Interestingly, the side saddle would have been Mary’s, so where is his saddle?

The rug would have been a woven bed rug, not a floor rug.

That “snug as a bug in a rug” saying – yep – that was referring to a bedbug and a bed rug. That featherbed and bed rug was the most valuable item inside the house. Four times as valuable as John’s only gun, as hard as that is to believe on the frontier.

I can just see Mary insisting on having a feather bed. She probably plucked hundreds of chickens and geese before they went into the pot, saving the feathers. That was probably their only creature comfort, given that they only had one candlestick and three pewter plates, but no table or chairs. Yes, that feather bed was valuable indeed!

John had assuredly passed the half-century mark, and probably three-score, yet, other than the clothes he was buried in, he had one “suit of wearing clothes.” I surely would like to know if that has a meaning beyond the individual words. Is this a specific type of clothing, or a specific cultural saying? Since it was referenced as a suit, was it a jacket, breeches and waistcoat? If so, why would he have hauled that overland, on horseback, to the frontier? His dunn horse surely already had enough to carry.

John’s Land

Since John Dobkins’ will was probated in Augusta County, not Frederick County, this tells us that he was living in the area of the map below the county dividing line between Augusta County and Frederick County. The fact that Bordon provided his grant confirms the same.

Based on the map of the grants provided in the book, and the county dividing line, I attempted to reconstruct that area, today.

This area on Google maps is located just east of US11, known at Valley Pike, near the intersection with Greatview Lane. You can tell by the shape of the river. Note that Smith Creek to Thornton Gap Road on that original map is now 211.

John assuredly lived close to the existing grants. He wouldn’t have wanted to be by himself. That wasn’t safe. As it was, it looks like he might have been one of the furthest south homesteads, bordering on the untouched wilderness.

I’ve reconstructed this portion of the grant using the river and the approximate edges of the grants.

There is one grant that is not labeled. Y and Z are labeled. Z extends on both side of Smith Creek, apparently. Y is on the east side of Smith Creek but the parcel on the western side of Smith Creek, opposite Y, is not labeled.

Unfortunately, Craney Island Road, crossing this land is only one lane, and the Google vehicle does not drive down one lane roads, so we can’t view it more closely.

Still, we can look across the field, knowing that Smith Creek is just over yonder, below those mountains. I believe we’re looking across John Dobkins land here.

These plats are not shown on the original survey map with names, so it’s likely that one of these belonged to John Dobkins. Probably the one with the question marks since none of the accounted-for plots are 150 acres.

Plats Y and Z, along with the unlabeled plat to the west of Y are shown within the red arrows.

It’s very likely that John Dobkins Sr., with help from John Dobkins Jr. cleared these fields, built a log cabin, and set about farming.

When Was John Born?

The fact that John Sr.’s son, John Jr., had a child born in 1736 tells us he was married by at least 1735. Given the marriage age for men of about 25, John Jr. had to have been born about 1710 or maybe even earlier

That pushes John Sr.’s birth back to at least 1685, or perhaps earlier.

If John Sr. was born in 1685, he died at age 61. If Mary was the same age, they would have been having children from about 1705ish to 1727-1730ish. Of course, John Jr. could have been their youngest child, not their oldest, which means they would have been 20 years older, dying at 81. I find it doubtful, though, that a man of 71 would have homesteaded in the wilderness. It’s remarkable enough that a man of 50 or 51 did.

I can’t imagine doing something like that, knowing that one was literally starting over with absolutely nothing. He would have been manually felling trees to clear land and cutting logs to build what was necessarily a small cabin. Without wagons, how did they keep the wildlife at bay while they built their cabins?

Loose Threads

This also causes me to wonder if John and Mary had other children. They must have. If they had additional living children, why were they not mentioned in John’s will? There are no other Dobkins families in evidence, other than John Jr.

There is a James Dobbins in 1751 and 1753 in Augusta County, but he shows no connection to our Dobkins family and eventually moves to South Carolina.

Griffith Dobbins is a Quaker man, and I found no connection with him either, other than naming a child Thomas. In 1813, that Thomas obtained land from a former neighbor family of John Dobkins Jr., more than a half-century after John Sr. died, and a quarter-century after the last of our Dobkins family had loaded up the wagons and departed for the next frontier. Given that John Dobkins Jr. had a son, Thomas who is unaccounted for after 1753, that 1813 Thomas Dobbins sent me on a wild goose chase. Thanks so much to my cousin who found the actual deed record, allowing me to track him down, and putting me out of my misery:)

By all appearances, John Dobkins Sr. and Mary led incredibly difficult, challenging lives, fraught with danger daily, and filled with heartache if only one of their children lived to adulthood. Perhaps they were simply grateful that one child had survived – John’s namesake, John Jr.

I sure wish we knew more about their story.

Actually, I just made a new discovery, and we do, although this too creates more questions than answers…

Stay tuned.

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FamilyTreeDNA to Surpass 60,000 Y DNA Haplogroups and Introduces New Time Tree

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The public Y DNA tree at FamilyTreeDNA is on the brink of crossing the 60,000 branch threshold.

When do you think it will sprout enough leaves to get there? I’m betting on tomorrow, or maybe the next day?

You can check here to see when it happens!

Discover Tool Grows Too

The new Discover tool launched almost exactly three months ago, and people are purchasing or upgrading to the Big Y test to learn about their matches and discover their place in the history of mankind. Of course, every test boosts genealogy and helps the tree of mankind grow. You can read about how to use the Discover tool, here.

The Discover Tool continues to add features for Y DNA testers too.

Introducing the Time Tree

A couple of weeks ago, FamilyTreeDNA introduced the time tree.

The time tree shows your haplogroup age and placement on the tree, plus age estimates for nearby haplogroups too. You can click up and down the tree by haplogroup.

My Estes haplogroups are shown above with incredible accuracy based on my proven genealogy. I’m still amazed that science, alone, without the benefit of genealogy, can get within half a century many times.

Looking at another example, you can see that haplogroup Q-FTC17883 has two testers and a notable connection, Kevin Segura.

The genetically calculated age estimate of this branch is about 1950.

Using the back arrow to click back one haplogroup shows the current testers, the Lovelock4 ancient sample, and additional haplogroups.

Note that while the Lovelock sample is shown to be the same haplogroup as today’s testers, recovery of ancient DNA is not always complete. In other words, that sample might have SNPs that the contemporary testers don’t have, or the sample may be incomplete, or no-calls may not be reported. Sample ages may not be included either, so FamilyTreeDNA has to work with what’s available.

What I’m saying is that Lovelock 4 is “at least,” reliably, haplogroup Q-FTC17883 and shares that SNP with present-day testers.

But Wait, There’s More

This past week, FamilyTreeDNA made another big update.

Included are the ancient samples published in the recent paper about the Southern Arc, the bridge between western Asia and Europe and samples from western Europe and England that help tell the story of Anglo-Saxon migration.

These ancient peoples helped form the gene pool in Europe, then pushed on into the British Isles.

Additionally, this past week’s updates include:

  • 345 new haplogroup reports (Haplotree changes up until September 23rd)
  • In total, almost 2,600 ancient DNA samples, including all the samples from the Southern Arc and Anglo-Saxon migration papers, two large new studies with a total of 590 samples!
  • In total, over 4,300 academic modern DNA samples from different parts of the world, including 1,200 new from Sardinia
  • New flags added: Druze, Italy (Sardinia), Western Sahara (Sahrawi)

Fun

I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to find my ancestral lines in appropriate surname and regional projects, upgrading cousins, and finding new people to test.

I enter their Y DNA haplogroup into Discover and share my new-found information with my cousins who agreed to test. Everyone loves Discover because it’s so relatable.

For example, you can enter haplogroup:

  • I-A1843 to view Wild Bill Hickok
  • Q-M3 for Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket
  • R-FT62777 to learn about Johnny Cash

By entering your own, or your ancestor’s Y DNA haplogroups, you can discover where they came from, which lines they share with notable people, and identify their ancient cousins. The more refined your haplogroup, the more relevant the information will be, which is why I recommend the Big Y test. My Estes line estimated haplogroup from STR testing is R-M269

There are 23 haplogroups between R-M269 and my ancestor, Moses Estes’s haplogroup, R-ZS3700 in 1711. R-M269 is interesting, but R-ZS3700 is VERY relevant.

Even if you can’t “jump the pond” with genealogy records, you certainly can with Y DNA and mitochondrial DNA testing.

Can you find the Y DNA haplogroups of your male ancestors? Check surname projects and your autosomal matches for cousins who may have or would be willing to Y DNA test. I wish I had just tested all those earlier cousins at the Big Y level, because several have gone on to meet their ancestors and I can’t upgrade their sample now.

Test yourself and your cousins to reveal information about your common ancestors, and have fun with your new discoveries!!

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Svante Pääbo Wins Nobel Prize in Medicine for Ancient DNA Reconstruction Methods

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By Duncan.Hull – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54362935

Swedish evolutionary geneticist, Svante Pääbo, now at Max Planck Institute in Germany, was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine today. His early work in reassembling Neanderthal ancient DNA from tiny bone fragments, and then identifying those pieces of DNA in contemporary humans revolutionized the entire field of genomics.

I wrote about his discovery, at the time, in the article Decoding and Rethinking Neanderthals.

You can hear an interview here about how he received the call.

Pääbo is a second-generation Nobel Laureate. His father shared a Nobel prize in 1982, Svante says his father wasn’t a big influence in his life, but his mother was.

If you have roots outside Africa, you carry some Neanderthal DNA, and the DNA Svante discovered is in your own genes.

Svante wrote an inspirational book about his life and paleogenetic discoveries that I enjoyed immensely. Never let anyone tell you that something can’t be done! Thank goodness he followed his passion, regardless of people thinking it was “a joke.” If you’re interested, you can order the e-book here and read it right away.

In his honor, Nature has compiled a collection of his publications, here.

I was extremely pleased to see this award conferred in the field of genetics. All of the ancient DNA that is recovered from archaeological dig sites and processed to unveil history, or compare against our own DNA relies on his monumental discoveries. In essence, Dr. Pääbo founded a new field that contributes to historical, genealogical, and medical genetic information.

Svante gave humanity the gift that keeps on giving. By way of example, here’s a recent paper about the contribution of Neanderthal introgression into modern human traits that is founded upon his paradigm-shifting techniques.

Thank you, and congratulations Dr. Svante Pääbo!!!

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Capt. John Dobkins Jr. (c 1710 – c 1788): One Rugged Frontiersman – 52 Ancestors #376

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We know nothing about John Dobkins Jr. between his birth and when we first find his father, John Dobkins Sr. in Orange County, Virginia in 1735 when he received a bond from Benjamin Borden for a patent on 150 acres in the Borden Grant.

Borden, a land speculator, had moved to this area by April 1734 and received a patent on October 3, 1734 for the area including Smith’s Creek, where John Dobkins Sr. settled.

Borden also received 100,000 acres along the branches of the James River in the upper part of the Shenandoah Valley from the Governor’s council in May of 1735.

This is noteworthy because Borden’s land was supposed to be south of the Beverly grant, outside of the area claimed by Lord Fairfax. The fact that Borden is guaranteeing John a good title tells us that his land should be south of what would become known as the Fairfax line. This is an obscure, but important piece of data that we will eventually need to locate John Dobkins Sr.’s land.

John Dobkins’s surname was sometimes written Dobikins, Dobbins, and other sound-alike derivatives.

Clearly, his son, John Jr., probably born about 1710, was with him when he arrived. The Dobkins family was one of the first 50 families to settle west of the Blue Ridge, or anyplace in the Shenandoah Valley, for that matter.

In the book, The Dobkins Family in America by Cecil B. Smyth Jr., Cecil tells us that in 1730 Jost Hite and Robert McKay advertised to residents of the Philadelphia, PA area that land was available for settlement west of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Northern Neck of Virginia. They had obtained grants of 40,000 and 100,000 acres. Among the takers was John Dobkins Sr. and his wife, Mary.

According to Smythe, John Dobkins settled in what was Orange County, VA in 1731 or 1732, although I can’t find anything before 1735. The first settlers did arrive at that time, but additional groups from other areas, including the Scots-Irish, Quakers, Germans, and other protestant groups arrived over the next couple of years too. This part of Orange County would later divide into Augusta and Frederick County.

However, there were no courts opened in Frederick County before 1743 nor in Augusta before 1745. Records for Frederick and Augusta counties were recorded in Orange County until 1743. The area that became Shenandoah County was part of Augusta and Frederick counties from 1738 to 1753. In 1753, the line dividing those counties was moved up the Valley and made identical with the Fairfax line. In 1772, Dunmore County was established from Frederick and in 1778 was renamed to Shenandoah County. Yes, land division and county formation on the western waters was much like sausage-making. Messy.

Found in Pioneers of Old Frederick County, VA by Cecil O’Dell.

John Dobikin Sr. (b 1685 c) received a bond from Benjamin Borden on 24 September 1735 for ‘150 pounds Sterling to make patent in full and ample manner as the King gives me” on 150 acres, part of Benjamin Borden’s 3.300 acre tract. The 6 January 1735/36 Morgan Morgan/Peter Woolf census listed John Sr. as a settler on the McKay, Hite, Duff and Green 100,000 acre Colony of Virginia grant land.

Traveling Ministers

In the early frontier settlements, circuit-riding ministers were quite welcome. They provided religious services and brought news from the outside world. Maybe even letters from family members. Without churches, baptisms couldn’t be performed, and funerals were clearly handled locally by someone saying a few words over the casket of the deceased.

One of the earliest, if not the earliest minister to travel to the Shenandoah Vannoy to service the founding families was the German immigrant, Lutheran Reverend John Stoever.

Fortunately, he recorded the location of the baptisms as he traveled from place to place.

His first recorded Shenandoah baptisms were performed on March 31, 1735 when he baptized numerous babies and children. Some had been born as early as 1727, but most were born in the 1730s.

Many families had several children in need of baptism. They probably hadn’t seen a minister, or heard a sermon in a long time.

Children

The year after John Dobikins Sr. received his grant, his son, John Jr. and daughter-in-law, Elizabeth, gave birth to their son, Thomas, who was baptized when Reverend Stoever came to preach.

Baptism Records of Rev. John Stoever

  • John Dawbin (Shenandoah.) – Dawbin, Thomas, b. Nov. 8, 1736; bap. June 8, 1737. Teste: James Gill

John Dawbin and his wife Elizabeth also witnessed the following baptisms, children of James Guill:

  • John Dawbin testis, June 8, 1737, baptism of Thomas Guill, son of James.
  • Elizabeth Dawbin, testis, June 8, 1737, baptism of James Guill, son of James.

Years later, in 1753, one Thomas Dobekin was a chain carrier on Stoney Creek, on land adjoining John Dobekin. He would have been 17.

That was the last mention of Thomas, so he seems to have disappeared, leaving no breadcrumbs behind.

In the book, Tinkling Springs and Her Families, we discover the Presbyterian Reverend John Craig’s record of baptisms from 1740-1749:

John Dobbins children Jean and John both on March 6, 1741, at Rockfish, a settlement and meeting house east of the Blue Ridge and 15 miles SE of Tinkling Spring.

The fact that two children were baptized at the same time suggests that the church was far away. And indeed, it was.

Looking at Google maps, the closest church to John Dobkins Sr.’s home was actually Tinkling Springs, not Rockfish. It was even 9 miles further to where John Dobkins Jr. lived in the mid-1740s, which makes me wonder if the minister might have gone into the “backcountry” settlement preaching and baptizing children.

No additional Dobkins children were baptized, ever, in this church, nor do we find additional baptism records for this family by Stoever who was in Shenandoah again on May 1, 1739, performing baptisms.

This would suggest that at least one child was born, and died, in the intervening years.

While normally finding a Presbyterian baptism would suggest a Scots-Irish family, I’m not so sure this time. In the backcountry during this timeframe, there were no other churches. As one of my Brethren cousins who is a minister says of frontier families – “people attended the church of opportunity.”

We know from these records that by 1741, John Jr. had at least three children. Thomas, John, a son named for himself (and his father,) and a daughter named Jean. We find Thomas mentioned one more time. Nothing more about Jean.

We don’t find John unless the John who is found on the next frontier with John Jr.’s other children in 1787 is actually his son, John. There is no marriage record for John, but there is a hint from the Johnson family descendants who had recorded the marriages of both Darcus and Margaret Johnson to Dobkins boys. That family reported that a third daughter of Peter Johnson and Mary Polly Philips, Rachel, may have married a John Dobkins. Researchers had discounted that, in part, because, before finding the baptismal record for John Dobkins (the third) in 1741, no one knew he existed.

We know that John Dobkins Jr. did have other children:

  • Reuben was probably born in the 1740s
  • Jacob was born in 1751
  • Evan was probably born in the 1740s or early 1750s
  • Rebecca was probably born before 1763. She married Patrick Shields in 1783, but we know nothing further.

John Dobkins Jr.

Several trees show John Dobkins Jr.’s wife, Elizabeth, as a Moore. There is no evidence for this, and I suspect that assumption occurred because John Dobkins lived next to and sold his land to Thomas Moor.

That’s backwards though, because normally it’s the father-in-law who sells to the son-in-law.

We know that John was married by 1735, and it’s not unlikely that he married before arriving on the frontier with his father.

I found nothing to indicate that John Dobkins’ wife was a Moore, although there’s nothing to preclude it either.

Early Records

Prior to 1746, when the older John Dobkins died, it’s sometimes difficult to tell which John Dobkins is being referenced. The John Dobbins in the following record could have been either father or son.

  • Pages 234-37. 23-24 Sept. 1741. William Beverley, Esq., of Essex County to Samuel Doeg (Doak) of Orange County. Lease and release; for ₤20 current money. 647 acres in Beverley Mannor… corner to John Mitchell… Alexr. Brackenridge’s line… Pat. Campbell’s line… (signed) W. Beverley. Wit: Francis Beatty, Patrick Hays, John Dobbins. 25 Sept. 1741. Acknowledged by Wm. Beverley, Esq. [Orange County Virginia Deed Book 6, Dorman, pg. 32].

Military Service

The next record of John Dobkins, is a 1742 military record, which clearly seems to be John Dobkins Jr.

Cecil tells us that each Virginia County appointed a county militia Lieutenant who functioned as the militia commander and was responsible for organizing and maintaining the county militia. The militia was made up of volunteers who were responsible for protecting and defending the local residents, particularly in the event of an Indian attack.

Local militias were called upon during the French and Indian War (1754-1763,)  Dunmore’s War in 1774, and the Revolutionary War (1775-1783). All was not peaceful on the frontier.

By 1742, John Dobkins was Captain of the Augusta County militia which means he is a fully functional, responsible adult capable of organizing and leading other men. If he were baptized in 1741 as an adult, he would not have been noted as the child of his father.

It’s worth noting that there is one John Johnson in John Dobin’s 1742 militia Company 6.

In 1743, John Dobbin is listed on the Militia Roll as the Lieutenant of Horse in Orange County.

He probably moved from his father’s land in Augusta County to his claim further west on Holman Creek in Orange County between 1742 and 1743.

Based on the fact that the militia references where John is being referred to as “Capt.” continue uninterrupted between the time John Dobkins Sr. wrote his will, until and after his death. It would appear that the John Dobkins in the militia was John Jr.

Of course, it’s possible that the 1742 entry is for John Sr. and the 1743 entry is for John Jr.

A court-martial was held on January 15, 1745 and John Dobins was present.

Later that year he is listed as a Captain of Horse and is present at another court martial on September 11th.

On September 3, 1746, another court martial was held, but Capt. John Dobin was fined for not attending the general muster and the court martial.

This unquestionably tells us that the man serving in the militia is John Jr., because his father’s estate was probated in May of 1746.

On September 2, 1747, John attended another Court Martial.

Settling in the Shenandoah Valley Wilderness

When John and his father first arrived in Orange County, the family settled very near New Market, not far from where Holman Creek dumps into the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. John Dobkins Sr. lived just south of the county line that would one day divide Frederick and Augusta Counties.

Augusta was formed in 1738 from Orange County and Frederick County was formed from Orange in 1738, but not officially organized until 1743.

John Dobkins Sr. lived near the red arrow in the lower right. The Fairfax dividing line between Augusta County and Frederick County is found (approximately) in a straight line drawn between the purple arrows.

John Dobkins Jr. lived near the red arrow in the upper left-hand corner.

The green arrows point to the path of Holman’s Creek from its headwaters near the purple arrow on the left, to its intersection with the North Shenandoah River near Interstate 81.

We know that by 1746, when his father died, John Jr. was not living on the same land as his father. At some point, John Jr. had moved 9 or 10 miles further west, on Holman Creek.

We know where John Dobkins Jr. lived based on the survey of the Fairfax line which formed the border between Augusta and Orange County, then between Augusta and Frederick County when Frederick split from Orange in 1743.

Come along on a surveying trip. You’re in for a big surprise!

The Fairfax Line

When the Fairfax grant was surveyed and mapped in 1736, the connection between the Rappahannock with the head springs of the Potomac was not surveyed, so the question of where that boundary should actually be located was hotly disputed. The Fairfax grant was massive, the size of the rest of Virginia, which of course, at that time, included what would become West Virginia.

The dispute didn’t end with the survey though. In fact, it’s thanks to a later lawsuit that we have the surveyor’s journal. The journal was used as evidence in the Supreme Court case, State of Maryland vs the State of West Virginia, filed in 1891, to settle that dispute once and for all. The lawyer, George Price, of West Virginia, who submitted that journal as evidence returned it to the surveyor’s descendants in 1910, at the conclusion of the case, documenting why he was in possession of the journal in the first place.

Beginning in September of 1746, surveyors were contracted to establish the Fairfax line, the southern border of Lord Fairfax’s land to establish the limits of the Northern Neck Land Grant, also known as the Fairfax Grant, consisting of over 5 million acres. Surveyors were Peter Jefferson, father of the future President Jefferson, along with Thomas Lewis who, fortuitously, kept a journal, which has been transcribed, here.

This 1751 portion of the Fry-Jefferson map shows the Fairfax Boundary line, along with Smith’s Creek and the Indian Road, also known as the Great Indian Warpath, by which the settlers arrived. This would become known as the Great Waggon Road to Philadelphia as well as the Carolina Road.

Eventually, millions of settlers would seek their fortunes along this road, turning off onto capillaries and settling along streams, but that was still in the future. John Dobkins was among the first, brave, or maybe foolhardy, fifty families to try their luck in the backcountry. One massacre, and they would all be dead and entirely lost to history.

The history of the Wagon Road had yet to be written. When John set eyes upon it, they could only have used pack horses because it was just a rugged Indian trail, impassable to wagons.

The 1746 Fairfax survey extended from the head of the Rappahannock to the head of the Potomac, as was written on the outside of Lewis’s journal. The journal was 3.5 inches wide and 5.5 inches tall, and he faithfully recorded the day’s activities in a quill pen

By Monday, Sept 29th, they were having problems crossing the Blue Ridge. He noted that, “it being impossible to take our horses over the Peaked Mountain, they were sent over Masenuten Gap with the commissioner and baggage. Mr. Brook and I went up to where we left off on Saturday.”

The author who lived in New Market transcribed and published the journal, and placed notes at the bottom of the page. This note says that Peaked Mountain is between McGaheysville and Kezeltown.

The surveyors had sent their baggage train a different way with the idea that they would meet up again in Shenandoah Valley.

On October 1, (page 19 in the printed booklet) John Lewis penned this entry in his journal:

Wednesday, October 1st – Set forward with our baggage in order to overtake
Colo. Jefferson and Capt Winslo. We did about 2 o’clock at John Dobins.

Their notes for Tuesday:

216 pole X (X=cross) Smith Creek runs to Rt.
429 X ye Indian Road
810 X ye North Branch of Shanando
1600 poles a pine marked
21 miles

The author’s note at the bottom of the page states that “this first line crossed from Smith’s Creek to the North Shenandoah River exactly where new Market now stands. The Indian Road is the forerunner of the Valley Turnpike.”

Wensday worke and from the marked pine
206 poles Masunuten Gap Bears S 60 E
960 poles a tree marked 24 miles in Dobins cornfield
1000 total for this day.

We encamped in Dobins meadow
Raind in the evining

We know that John was raising corn and had a meadow. We also know that the Fairfax line ran through John’s land.

John’s house and the Armentrout Mill are located at the red arrow. You can see meadowlands and a substantial field, today. That just might have been John’s cornfield.

I believe that Massanutten Gap is actually known as New Market Gap in the Massanutten Mountain, today. You can watch a beautiful drone video, here.

Surveying was not for the faint of heart. Lewis reports that several horses were killed, falling over rocks and “precipes” in a place called Purgatory. He also mentions that Col. Fairfax turned back at the 1000 pole mark, unable to undergo the fatigue of the journey. Two days later, he says that they had to press forward because the horses were starving and their provisions were not sufficient for themselves.

Two days later, on the 5th, Lewis tells of the horrible conditions in the mountains and that both horses and men were injured with broken bones. On the 6th, he reported that the horses had had nothing to eat since they had left Dobins four days earlier.

Lewis tracks the miles they have surveyed from the origination point.

A few days later, he notes that “the mountains prodigiously full of fallen timber and ivey as thick as it could grow – so interwoven that horse or man could hardly force his way through it.”

A day or two later, at the Styx River, he records:

The appearance is so dismal as to strike terror into the heart of any human creature. Ye lorals, ivey and spruce pine so extremely thick in ye swamp through which this river runs that one cannot have the least prospect except they look upwards. The water of the river dark brownish, cooler and its motion so slow that it can hardly be said to move. Deep about 4 feet and the bottom muddy and banks high which made it extremely difficult for us to pass the most of the horses when they attempted to ascend the farthest bank tumbling with their loads back in the river. Most of our baggage that would have been damaged by the water were brought over on men’s shoulders such as powder, bread and bedclothes and c. There was not a place big enough for one man to lye on, no fire wood except green or rotten spruce pine and no place for our horses to feed. To prevent them from being poisoned by eating of loral we tyd them all up.

Then, at 68 miles on the 15th. Lewis pens:

Never was the Elysian fields more welcome to a departed soul than this place – if I may be allowed the expression was to us. I wish it were possible for me to give a just description of this place that might others judge was reason we who were engaged in this affair have to say so.

The Swamp, (which is very uncommon in places of ye kind) is prodigiously full of rocks and cavitys whose covered over with a very luxuriant kind of moss of a considerable depth. The fallen trees of which there was great numbers and naturally large were vastly improved in bulk with their coats of moss. The spruce pines of which on all sides there are great plenty their roots grown out from the trunk a considerable height above the surface, covered over and joyned together in such a manner as makes their roots appear like semie globs. The loral and ivey as thick as they can well grow whose branches growing of an extraordinary length are so well woven together that without cutting away it would be impossible to force through them provided they grew on a good even surface, their roots together with the pines are spread over the rocks and under the moss like arches. In what danger must we be, in such a place all dangerous places being obscured under a clock of moss such thickets of loral to struggle with those branches are almost as obstinate as if composed of iron. Our horses and often ourselves fell into clefts and cavities with out seeing the danger before we felt the effects of it. No ones misfortune was of much to service the others, for in striving to evade a seen dangerous or bad place often fell into a worse. Frequently we had the roots to cut and the rocks to break to free our horses of which 4 or 5 might have been engaged at a time.

The next day, he reported that they “lay by” in order to rest because they are much fatigued and crippled.

On the 17th, they encountered another laurel swamp so difficult they were afraid of not being able to get out.

On the 19th, they were lost and discouraged, thinking themselves too far west, but they were actually too far east.

On the 20th, the men took a break to hunt and to see if they could find the head of the Potomac. The boundary line was supposed to have been run ten years earlier, in 1736, but the author of the pamphlet penned a footnote indicating that they think that the 1736 line was not run. The men heard guns in the distance which they believed to be Indians.

In case you’re wondering why on earth anyone would want to homestead there, his entry on the 21st is enlightening.

The land or soil on the NW side of the river is black and very moist a great many small springs and ouzey places and pretty stoney and hilly. Exceedingly well timbered with such as very large spruce pines, great multitudes of Beach and Shugartrees, Cherry trees the most and finest I ever saw. Some 3 or 4 foot diameter thirty or forty foot without a branches. Some few Oaks, Chesnuts and Locusts though not many.

On Thursday, the 23rd, they created the Fairfax Stone by engraving their initials and the year, dined on a venison loin, and drank to his Majesty’s health. The stone still existed in 1859, but was described as “indescript sandstone, shapeless and would scarce attract the attention of a passerby.” It was destroyed in 1883.

The surveyors turned around and began their way back, still surveying. A second line was surveyed to check the first line.

Peter Jefferson was “very much indisposed,” even though he had been described as being one of the “strongest men of this country.”

Monday, the 13th:

Never was any poor creatures in such a condition as we were in nor ever was a criminal more glad by having made his escape out of prison as we were to get rid of those accursed lorals.

Lewis continues to describe the swamp again as twice as bad as the Styx, with horses sometimes tumbling in places out of sight.

Then:

Mr. Brook was taken very ill with a dizziness in his head and fainting in the middle of the swamp which we had reason to fear would have been his sepulcher.

A couple of days later, the men camped at a settler’s house and were eating, drinking, gambling, and having fun.

By this time, it would have been getting cold. They celebrated the King’s birthday, then set out on November 1st.

By November 3rd, they reported being on the top of what is interpreted to be Shenandoah Mountain, and out of water.

On November 4th, they had to let their horses ramble to find food, and they could not find them. So they left a man to hunt for the missing horses and told him to meet them at Dobins.

On November 6th, they made their way back to John Dobkins place.

Lewis’s entries continue later:

1060 pole marked a Dogwood 47 miles
1380 pole marked a Chesnut Oak 48 miles on the side of Black Jack Hill
1700 pole a white oak marked 49 miles by a branch
2020 pole a pink marked 50 miles
2340 poles a black oak marked 51 miles

2580 pole X the head of Holmans Creek. Run to the left down to Dobins hear we left off and road down to Dobins here we met with Mr. Brook who had been with the commissioners round by Wests Gap and then left them on the road. We pitched our camp by Dobins field and had the liberty of his meadow for our horses.

That meadow, either John’s or nearby, above, probably doesn’t look a lot different today.

Friday, November 7th:

Went to where we left off the day before.
Thence 80 poles marked a hiccory 52 miles.
Hear we stopt thinking proper to measure the distance between the two lines the course N 44E 460 poles to the old line a little to the NW of Dobkins house.
Then returned to camp.

A pole is 16.5 feet, so 44 poles would be 726 feet and  460 poles would be 7590 feet.

The good news is that because they traversed and measured twice, coming and going, we have two descriptions of where John Dobkins land was located.

Today, this is the Fairfax line on North Mountain Road, not far from John Dobkins house.  Holman’s Creek is running parallel to the right, and the present-day St. Luke’s United Church-Christ cemetery is visible on the left.

Additionally, a later land survey references John’s land as being near the head of Holman’s Creek.

Saturday the 8th:

Beginning at the end of 80 pole run the day before (which is the head of Holman’s Creek), thence
320 pole a red oak marked 53 miles
640 pole a white oak marked 54 miles
960 a black oak on the east side of Timber Ridge marked 55 miles
1280 pole a pine marked 56 miles
1600 pole a pine marked 57 miles
1788 pole X the north branch of the Shanando a pine on the NW side marked Fx the River Bears up N 80 down ye contrary
1920 pole a pink marked 58 miles
2240 a hiccory marked 59 miles
2266 X the Indian Road
2560 a read oak marked 60 miles
2620 X Smith Creek and left off

By the 13th, they were back at the beginning point, fired off a “discharge of 9 guns” and drank to the health of “his majesty & L. Farfax.”

They had missed the original mark by 100 yards, or 300 feet, in a distance of 76.5 miles, which was pretty amazing, especially considering the extremely challenging terrain and the equipment of the time.

The next day, Lewis noted they had “sider and apples which now was become expence. A great novelty.”

A day or so later, they discharged the men and auctioned off the horses and tents. I’m sure the settlers were glad to purchase them.

By the 19th, Lewis reported 4 inches of snow. That entire trip had to be rather cold and miserable, especially because the men were wet so much of the time in rivers and swamps.

This survey, indeed, confirms the location of John Dobkins’ land, on or near the Fairfax line, on or near Holman’s creek, and about 7 or 8 miles west of the Indian Road, which is US11 today.

As difficult as this trip was for the surveyors, remember that John Dobkins, and his father, John Sr. had carved homesteads and a life out of this wilderness more than a decade earlier. Wine tells us in his book that some of the lands were prairie tracts, having been burned over by the Indians every year, but the land along Holman’s Creek was forested and had to be cleared.

The first settlers were free to choose their own land, and as much as they could actually use.

I’m so grateful for Lewis’s journal that painted such a vivid picture of early life in the mountains for posterity.

Holman’s Creek

At some point, probably between 1742 and 1743, John Dobkins Jr. moved onto land of his own, where the surveyors found his home. He moved further west on Holman’s Creek with his young family.

The land granted to John Dobkins (Jr) in 1750 is shown at left. Holman Creek is tracked with the red arrows, and Smith Creek is shown at far right. This path is at least 6 miles as the crow flies, and more along any road or path. I wonder how often John Jr. was able to see his parents.

John Dobkins Sr. left his land to his wife when he wrote his will in 1743, and she, along with John Jr. were his executors in 1746 when he died. For a long time, researchers presumed that the land owned by John Dobkins Jr. was the same land owned by John Dobkins Sr., especially since we don’t find a sale of John Sr.’s land, nor a death of Mary. I have no idea what happened to his land, or when. Perhaps tracking current deeds back in time would reveal that story.

Life Along Holman’s Creek

In the book, Life Along Holman’s Creek, we find that Capt. John Dobkins is noted as one of the first settlers in the area and was granted title to 400 acres on August 2, 1750.

This John Dobkins is clearly not John Dobkins Sr. who died in 1746.

Jost Hite was instrumental in settling the Borden Grant in the 1730s. We find Jost Hite in the southern Pennsylvania and northern Maryland region, on the border area north of Hagerstown recruiting fellow German settlers.

While the initial 50 settlers brought by Hite did not appear to be heavily German, John Dobkins Jr.’s land on Holman Creek was surrounded by numerous Germans, many of whom were Brethren and migrated from Frederick County, Maryland on the Pennsylvania border. I recognize many names associated with my Mueller (Miller) family line. In fact, one of my ancestor’s sons, Lodowich Mueller (Miller) settled here, along with many associated families.

In fact, the Miller and Wine families were baptized in Holman Creek, between Moore’s Store where John Dobkins owned land, and Forestville. J. D. Wine, a Mueller (Miller) descendant would come to own the favorite local swimming hole, where the women would modestly swim upstream from the men in hot weather. Those adventures were still decades in the future when John Dobkins carved a homestead out of the wilderness along Holman Creek.

Once that stream of immigration down the valley began, it never ended – increasing after the French and Indian War, Dunmore’s War, and again during and after the Revolutionary War when Lodowick Mueller arrived from Frederick County, Maryland accompanied by his daughter, Susannah, and son-in-law, Michael Wine. Pietists like the Brethren were penalized for their refusal to serve in the militia, or military, so many “escaped” to the less-organized frontier. That and the lure of land were powerful motivators.

John Dobkins’s land is marked with the red star. His direct neighbors included both the Zirkle/Circle and Miller families. Brethren families include Miller, Zirkle, Myer, Garber, Fry and Wine. Many other German families are also found in this neighborhood, and most of the early deeds and wills are signed in German script.

The southeast corner of John’s tract later became the village of Moore’s Store, specifically the area where John Dobkins lived which is now an orchard.

Apparently, apples were being raised in this area back in 1746 too, given that the surveyors were enjoying apples and cider. This is John’s land today. I wonder if he planted fruit trees when he first cleared this land.

The second page, below, attaches to the right of the map above.

On this page, the Wine family cemetery is located on the original Jacob Holeman land. In addition to the Brethren families, there is also a Quaker Church. These families, by and large, do not appear to be Scots-Irish, which is part of why I question that statement about John Dobkins.

Cecil Smythe located John Dobkins land, and even though all I has was a horrible black and white, meaning mostly black, copy of a bad copy of a picture in the copy I had of his book, I found the house on Google maps based on his description of the house and the fact that Holman Creek was nearby, literally “across the way” at Moore’s Store. I could see “just enough” of that poor quality photo. Thanks Cecil.

I love approaching his house, at right, on this timeless old road. The homes built back then weren’t constructed planning for roads as we know them. They were built along animal and Indian paths, following streams, near fresh, uncontaminated water.

Cecil stated that later owners added the second half-story and the red bricks on the original stone fireplace on the log cabin that John Dobkins built on the land where he lived in the 1740s and early 1750s.

I wish we could see the interior and the original logs.

Across the road, we see the Armentrout Mill, a beautiful historic landmark. Was it built when John lived here? John sold this land to Thomas Moore, and we know that Moore’s son Peter ran the mill, but we don’t know when this stone house was built.

The original cabin is on the right in this photo.

John Dobkins’ home backed up to Holman Creek. All early cabins needed easy access to water.

Thomas Moore purchased this land from John Dobkins in 1753, which remained in his family for the next 200 years according to Wine.

Based on the reconstructed neighborhood in the Wine book, this is approximately where John Dobkins land was located. The Wine book does not show the county boundary through John’s land. The surveyors corrected for a surveying error in this vicinity though.

The address, if you want to take a look on Google maps, is 3912 Flat Rock Road, Quicksburg, VA, at the tiny crossroads known as Moore’s Store.

Given that John Dobkins Jr.’s three children, Thomas, John and Jean were born between 1736 and 1741, they may have born right here.

John had at least three additional, and probably four more children. Son Reuben was probably born in the 1740s and Evin/Evan either in the 1740s or 1750s. Those boys probably were born here.

In 1751, John Sr.’s grandson, Jacob Dobkins was unquestionably born in this log cabin on Holman Creek.

Rebecca Dobkins was married in 1783, with John Dobkins as her surety, so she was likely born in the late 1750s.

Given that we know Elizabeth was pregnant in 1735, Rebecca would not have been born after 1757 or 1758, so she was probably born at their next home.

John Jr. was born wherever the family came from, but his children never knew any home other than the frontier – that is – until they struck out on their own for yet the next untamed frontier.

The Johnson Family

Jacob, my ancestor, would marry Dorcas/Darcus Johnson in March of 1775 in Shenandoah County before he served in the Revolutionary war.

Jacob’s brother, Evan married Margaret Johnson on January 30, 1775.

Both Johnson women were reported by Johnson family descendants to be the daughters of Peter Johnson/Johnston and Mary Polly Philips.

It’s very clear from many triangulated matches, and other evidence that Peter Johnson was indeed related to Dorcas and Margaret Johnson, believed to both be his daughters. Additionally, his family notes also recorded that it’s possible that Peter’s daughter, Rachel, married one John Dobkins. I have no evidence either way.

I’m mentioning this at this point, because somehow, these families met. Using the FAN (friends and neighbors) principle, I’m particularly cognizant of any Johnson/Johnston that interacts with any Dobkins family member.

There is one Henry Johnston listed in the original 49 settlers, although he is not shown on the original grant map, or the 1770 map. But then again, neither is Jacob Dobkins although we assuredly know he received a land grant. Perhaps Henry Johnson lived near John Dobkins on those Borden Grant lands. I should work on Henry Johnson’s family history, if I can determine where he originated.

We know that Peter Johnson lived in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, very near the border with Frederick County, Maryland, where some of the Monocacy settlers lived. Is that the connection? We also know that the Shenandoah Valley settlers came from the Lancaster County, PA area where Peter Johnson first settled.

Was Peter Johnson visiting family members in the Shenandoah Valley? Did he settle here for a short time around 1775 before moving on to Allegheny County, Pennsylvania? How did the Johnson girls meet and marry the Dobkins boys?

Let’s keep our eyes open for Johnson/Johnston connections.

What Else Do We Know About Capt. John Dobkins?

What was going on in the everyday life of John Dobkins aside from his militia duties, plowing fields, and harvesting crops?

  • In 1747, Zebbulon Harrison sued John Dobekin for debt. The writ was dated August 24, 1747, but the debt was from 1746. It’s worth noting that the Burr Harrison family, in 1770, lives on the X parcel that is missing from the original Beverly map. So, did Zeb sue his neighbor’s son, or did the Harrison family wind up with John Dobikin Sr.’s land?
  • May 21, 1747 – Road ordered from Fork of the New Road, near Jumping Run, or Colletts, to the Co. Ho., and John Dobikin, John Smith, Jacob Dye, Thomas Moore, and William Brown lay it off.
  • January 16, 1748 – John Dobikin executor for Rudal Brock’s will – son Frederick; son George, daughter Christiana Funkhouse, daughter, Julian Brock, daughter, Eve. Executors, John Dobikin and William James. Proved by Peter Gartner and John Bare, Proven Feb. 15, 1748
  • Feb 14, 1748 – John Dobikin executor bond
  • 15, 1748 – John Dobikin surety for Jonathan Cobourn’s bond as administrator of James Coburn.
  • December 23, 1748 – John Johnston’s will – wife, Hannah. Executors, wife and John Dobins, Proven May 17, 1749

Here’s another Johnson connection.

In the Northern Neck Land Grant book along with Chalkey’s Chronicles, we find:

  • May 17, 1749 – William Hill’s will – weaver; children Sarah, James, Mary, John, Joseph, Hannah, Rachel, Elizabeth; wife, Mary. Executors wife Mary and Thomas Moore. Proved by John Dobikin and Isaac Johnson. Proven May 17, 1749.

Who was Isaac Johnson? How is he connected?

  • July 13, 1749 – William James, of Smith Creek, will – yeoman; wife, Sarah, estate until eldest son Thomas James comes of age, Three sons, Thomas, Joshua, and Joseph. Executor wife and Thomas Moore, proven August 22, 1749.
  • July 21, 1749, Archibald Ruddle of Augusta County was granted 406 acres on Holman’s Creek adjoining Capt. John Dobkins and Peter Gartner. This land was surveyed on May 24, 1751.
  • February 27, 1750 – John Dobikin surety for Magdalene and Andrew Bird’s bond as admin of Andrew Bird.
  • August 2, 1750 – Capt. John Dobkin, of Augusta County was granted title to 400 acres of land on Holman’s Creek by Lord Fairfax, called Forest, probably because it was wooded.
  • March 13, 1751 – John Dobkin appraiser for Michael Rinhart’s inventory with Nicholas Seehorn, David Magit, and George Shuneman.
  • April 9, 1751 – John Dobikin surety for James Robinson’s will, yeoman – wife, Mary, and her daughters, two youngest sons, Isaac and Jonathan, son James, son David, 200 acres on Shanado River where he now lives. Exec wife Mary and son David. Proved by McDonal. Proved May 28, 1751.
  • May 24, 1751 – John Dobekins patented 406 acres on Holman’s Creek surveyed for John Dobikins.
  • August 22, 1751 – Henry Carson’s appraisement by John Dobikin, Adam Reader, and Alexander Painter.

The Fairfax line eventually became the line between Rockingham County, Virginia, and Hardy County, West Virginia.

I attempted to extend this line on the map. John Dobkins’ home on Holman Creek is shown with the red pin. I do know that the county boundary was adjusted “up the valley” a bit at one time to coincide with the Fairfax line. I also don’t know which line they used, the original or the second one surveyed on the way back.

Stoney Creek

In 1752 or 1753 John sold the four hundred six acres on Holman Creek to Thomas Moore and moved to land along Stoney Creek.

John was listed as Captain when he sold that land to Thomas Moore.

  • June 23, 1753 – John Dobikin, grantor, Elizabeth Dobikin, grantor’s wife, from Fairfax August 7, 1750, 400 acres on Holman’s Creek.
  • August 10, 1753 – Capt. John Dobkins is mentioned as an adjoining neighbor along with Peter Gartner in a grant to Archibald Ruddle and then Archibald to Stephen, delivered to Charles Hyleton or Styleton in October 1763.

In 1755 a deed dated January 3rd refers to land on the northwest side of Stoney Creek as being adjacent to John Dobkins.

  • A few days later, on May 5th, Burr Harrison Sr. of Prince William County received 200 acres on Stoney Creek in Frederick County surveyed for Henry Burge and plot returned by Robert Rutherford on January 3, 1755. Burge did not comply with order from office of [in] 1768. Adj John Dobekin. (See Book N)

These properties are listed, transcribed and mapped on Jeffrey La Favre’s map.

I’m incredibly grateful, once again, to Jeffrey La Favre whose ancestors lived near my McKee family in Washington County, Virginia, as well.

The two parcels BH200 and GC400 on the map both touch John Dobkins’ land, so his land must be WB400 which is 400 acres.

By the time John Dobkins moved to Stoney Creek, the French and Indian War was beginning in earnest.

French and Indian War 1752-1766

The French and Indian War started before and extended after the Seven Year’s War. This conflict pitted the English colonies against the French who were aided by the various Indian tribes. The French promised to honor the Native land rights and stop the European encroachment. The English, busting at the seams with 1.5 million settlers east of the Appalachian Mountains wanted their land. The French, with 70,000-80,000 settlers scattered through Canada and the Mississippi corridor wanted to convert the Native people to Catholicism.

By Pinpin – Own work from Image:Nouvelle-France1750.png1)Les Villes françaises du Nouveau Monde : des premiers fondateurs aux ingénieurs du roi, XVIe-XVIIIe siècles / sous la direction de Laurent Vidal et Emilie d’Orgeix /Éditeur: Paris: Somogy 1999.2) Canada-Québec 1534-2000/ Jacques Lacoursière, Jean Provencher et Denis Vaugeois/Éditeur: Sillery (Québec): Septentrion 2000.Map 1 ) (2008) The Forts of Ryan’s taint in Northeast America 1600-1763, Osprey Publishing, pp. 6– ISBN: 9781846032554.Map 2 ) René Chartrand (20 April 2010) The Forts of New France: The Great Lakes, the Plains and the Gulf Coast 1600-1763, Osprey Publishing, p. 7 ISBN: 9781846035043., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3086036

This 1750 map shows the lands claimed by various entities in 1750. It’s no wonder that the Native people felt displaced. They were.

For the first 20 years or so after the first settlers arrived in the Shenandoah Valley, along Smith Creek, the settlers lived peacefully with the Indians, but that would change with the onset of the conflict.

Areas much further east, including Hagerstown and most of western Maryland and Pennsylvania were entirely depopulated during this war. The Indians had more to lose than anyone else and were extremely effective warriors against the scattered homesteads of the encroaching European settlers.

Raids in the Shenandoah Valley were vicious and brutal, but often undocumented. No one made a list of who died.

Dr. Patrick Murphey, author of Life on the Inner Frontier: The French and Indian War in the Shenandoah Valley presents enlightening information in this YouTube video.

We have very little information about the Shenandoah Valley residents during this time.

This war was one of guerilla warfare wherein the Indians appeared out of no place, stuck and killed, then vanished. Their goal was to terrorize the settlers into leaving. It didn’t work.

Everyone was terrified, clustered in homes serving as forts. The season named Indian Summer received its horrible nickname during this war. The settlers left the safety of the forts in the fall and winter, but that’s also when the Indians often struck, during the last warm spell before the frozen winter set in.

I will never hear “Indian Summer” again without thinking of their terror.

In the springtime and summer, the settlers returned to the forts or fortified homes, packed in together, but safe. Of course, this also meant that any disease, like cholera, dysentery, or consumption, ran rampant, killing many, in addition to the raids themselves.

You would have known your neighbors well. Very well. Too well.

The Valley Road, also known as the Great Warrior Path transected the original settlement, along Smith Creek, right where John Dobkins Sr. originally settled.

In many cases, the raiding Indians killed the men and took the women and children captive to be adopted into Indian families as replacements for family members lost either to warfare or other causes.

Both the French and English paid the Shawnee and other “Ohio Indians” for scalps.

Fort houses were often constructed of stone to prevent fire, built over springs so no one had to venture out for water, with pull-up stairs, loopholed for guns to shoot outward, and often, but not always, stockaded. Sometimes the local militia built blockhouses for protection.

Jacob Dobkins, the son of John Dobkins Jr., would build a blockhouse during the Revolutionary War at Harrodsburg, Kentucky. Born in 1751, Jacob spent his entire childhood under the long shadow of warfare. By the time the French and Indian War, and the raids ended, he was 15 or 16 and probably quite experienced in how to protect himself and his family.

If you think about it, it’s a miracle that he, or any of the settlers, survived. Many didn’t.

The Shenandoah Valley residents constructed Holman’s fort at the mouth of Holman’s Creek where it intersected with the Shenandoah River. Of course, this might explain why the Dobkins family, and others, were close to the Holman family.

John Dobkins Jr. would have been living dangerously, very dangerously, if he lived 8 miles west of the Fort during this time. He had obviously claimed this land, built his cabin, and moved prior to the outbreak of hostilities.

Perhaps, given that John was a Captain in the militia, he and his neighbors constructed another fortified home to protect the residents further west, along Holman’s Creek. Otherwise they would have made themselves targets, literally sitting ducks.

I can’t help but wonder about the stone Armentrout Mill, right beside what we think is John Dobkins’ home. What about its earliest history? Could this have been Captain Dobkins fortified home, instead of, or maybe in addition to, the cabin across the road?

In 1753, the Valley Indians began meeting with those across the Allegheny Mountains and, soon thereafter, disappeared to the west. Then, raids commenced, and the French and Indian War was underway.

I was able to piece together some information about Indian raids in this area, and a few poor souls who died.

In 1753, during the beginning years of the war, John Dobkins sold this land and moved further north – to Stoney Creek.

  • On September 17, 1757, 34 people were killed or captured on Cedar Creek and Stoney Creek.

This literally made my blood run cold, knowing John Dobkins and his family were living there. Is this, perhaps, what happened to John’s son, Thomas Dobkins? What about his namesake son, John? And his daughter, Jean?

You’ll recognize many of the names of people known to have perished as neighbors with whom John Dobkins interacted.

  • In 1758, fifty Indians and four Frenchmen arrived at the home of George Painter near Shenandoah, nine miles below Woodstock, at the location still called Indian Fort Stock Farm.

Painter had a large basement. He was killed there along with four babies before the house and stable were burned. The indentation in the ground where the structure collapsed remains to this day.

Forty-eight people were taken prisoners. Two of Painter’s sons and Jacob Fisher who hid were the only ones to escape capture, which is how we have that history today.

  • That same summer at Fry’s Fort, a stockaded fort on Cedar Creek, the Young and Day families were killed and some members captured.
  • On June 1, 1764, Bowman’s Fort, near present day Strasburg on Valley Pike was attacked, with 32 people killed. George Bowman was the son-in-law of Jost Hite and had arrived in 1732. Bowman’s neighbor, George Miller, was killed as was John Dellinger whose wife was captured and child was killed. If these families were Brethren or Mennonite, they refused to use violent means to protect themselves. The Indians knew that, which may be why there are a disproportionate number of Brethren names on the list of known attacks.
  • Next came Nisewanger’s Fort, near Middletown.
  • Jacob Miller’s Fort may have been attacked in 1766, near Millerstown, now called Woodstock.
  • In 1766, after the war had supposedly ended, five Indians attacked the Sheets and Taylor families as they traveled to the fort at Woodstock. The men were killed immediately, but the wives picked up axes and managed to save themselves and their children. These women clearly weren’t Brethren.

No attacks are recorded after 1766. It was very probably a very tense peace for a very long time. The residents had lived under constant threat for 12 long, frightening, years.

Some people refer to the French and Indian War as the beginning of the American Revolution. It would only be a few years until the next war began on the frontier in 1774.

Life After the War

Life continued. John’s children were growing up, or were grown. We know John was still living because several records exist.

  • March 8, 1768 – Thomas Moor of Frederick County (so north of the Fairfax line) was granted 293 acres on Holeman’s Creek adjoining John Dobekin, Stephen Ruddle, John Thompson, Reese Lewis, Boon’s survey.
  • August 19, 1773 – John Dobbins buyer at the estate sale of Thomas Rutherford
  • On April 14, 1774 – George Coffield of Dunmore Co., assignee of Edward Rian, 400 acres on Stony Creek in said County. Surveyed Dec. 29, 1753 for Edward Rian and forfeited by advertisement and recorded in Book N. Adj John Dobekin, John Bayly.

Bailey is at JB400 on the La Favre map, so Jacob has to be WB400. The current address is 4109 Jerome Road, Edinburg, VA.

On John’s tract, at the intersection of what today is Jerome Road and Alum Springs Road, right beside Foltz Creek, we find another old stone cabin still standing, with an old chimney.

This old cabin is clearly on John Dobkins’ land, seen in the distance across Stoney Creek, shown above.

You can see the original stone in both the house and the fireplace.

The Revolutionary War

Dunmore County was formed in 1772 from Frederick County. Dunmore was renamed to Shenando, now Shenandoah, in 1778 with no boundary changes.

Many of Shenandoah County’s citizens were involved in the American Revolution. In June, 1774, some residents met in Woodstock, with the Reverend Peter Muhlenberg heading the meeting. He was elected Chairman of the Committee on Resolutions which and issued a fiery statement about tyranny, taxation and representation.

Muhlenberg was appointed colonel of the Eighth Virginia Regiment in December, 1775. One Sunday in January, 1776, Muhlenberg delivered a stirring farewell sermon to his congregation and left for battle with his German regiment.

The men of Shenandoah were experienced wilderness settlers and made a major contribution to the war, including John Dobkins’ son, Jacob.

While the Revolutionary Was not yet in full swing, Lord Dunmore’s War had begun in which the Virginia Governor essentially declared war against the Native people.

The 1775 list of men in the Dunmore County militia during the Revolutionary War under the command of Capt. Jacob Holman includes Evin Dobkin, Jacob Dobkin, and Reuben Dobkin. John is not listed, but he would have been about 65 by this time. We know Jacob was of age by this time, and it’s likely that both Reuben and Evin were too.

In 1775, John Dobkins’ sons were marrying:

  • January 30, 1775 – Evan Dobkins married Margaret Johnson
  • Before 1783 – Reuben Dobkins married Elizabeth Holeman who was listed in her father’s 1784 will.
  • March 11, 1775 – Jacob Dobkins married Dorcas Johnson

In the midst of the War, life continued.

  • On April 20, 1777, a lease between Cutbert Harrison of Dunmore County to Elias Coffelt of same for 5 shillings, a parcel of land lying on Stoney creek, the line of John Dobins survey on a steep hill…containing 200 acres…rent one peppercorn on Lady day next. Witnesses Edwin Young, John Sehorn and G. Garrison.
  • In April 1778, Evan Dobbins was appointed as Constable. John’s sons were doing well for themselves.
  • In November 1780, the court ordered that John Dobkins be relieved from payment of future county levies.

Generally, this was done when a person reached a specific age, or was infirm and unable to earn a living. To have baptized a child in 1736, John had to have been born before 1715, and more likely about 1710. If he was born in 1710, he would have been age 70 in 1780, so that sounds right.

  • In December 1780, John Daubin sat on a jury. The next day, he proved his attendance for 3 days at the suit Holdman vs Bean. I’d guess Holdman is Holman and Bean may be Boon.
  • In 1780, the Dunmore County militia was called to action to repel the British invasion. By that time, John’s son, Jacob Dobkins, was already in Kentucky.

In 1782, John Dawbin is shown on the personal property tax list with no poll tax, two horses, and 6 cows. Reuben has one poll, 3 horses and 11 cows. Jacob has 1 poll, 2 horses and 2 cows. Evan is missing.

According to the “Census of 1783,” there were 1,302 families residing in Shenandoah County. That’s a huge increase from 49 families in roughly 50 years.

  • In 1783, John Dobkins was shown on the Shenandoah County Tax list as head-of-household with 4 whites. His son, Jacob Dobkin had 8 family members, which means at least one child died that we don’t know about, and Reuben Dobkin had 4.

Who was living with John Dobkins? One daughter, Rebecca possibly, and her newly minted husband? Where’s Evan? Maybe he’s one of the people living with John. Are there children we still don’t know about? So many unanswered questions.

  • On February 21, 1783, Rebecca Dobbins married Patrick Shield, with John Dobbins signing as bondsman.

John’s signature isn’t just an X, but is unique, suggesting that he doesn’t know how to write his name but artfully draws the same signature each time he signs.

What Happened to John?

Cecil Smith says that John Dobkins Jr. went to the western land that would become Tennessee about 1785 with Jacob and Reuben, although I’m not so sure.

What happened to John’s Stoney Creek land? Was it sold? If not, what happened to that land? I found a deed reference in 1813 that his former land belonged to Joseph Pugh, but I was unable to figure out how Joseph Pugh acquired the land. I did research the entire group of deed books between the formation of Shenandoah and 1813, but I was simply unable to discern the trail of ownership.

Cecil probably felt that John accompanied his sons because records of a John Dobkins are found in the new location, on the next frontier.

One hint that John may have been bitten by the land bug is the fact that one John Dobbin had applied for land between 1773 and 1780 on Elkhorn Creek in what was then Fincastle County, Virginia, but would become Kentucky one day. Jacob Dobkins was “not found” on the Fincastle tax list in 1773 as well.

If this John is Jacob’s brother, John, born in 1740s, he would have been 33 or older at the time someone named John Dobkin applied for land on Elkhorn Creek. Jacob’s father, John would have been 53 or older at the time. That land was sold, not settled.

Another interesting, but apparently disconnected tidbit, is that Joseph Pugh purchased another Shenandoah County man’s land on…you guessed it…Elkhorn Creek. So apparently, this was discussed in the area.

By 1785, Jacob Dobkins had struck out for the western country, probably hoping to own land of his own. He wasn’t alone. At least two of his brothers and either his brother or father, John were along on that wagon train.

No Dobkins name remains on the 1785 Shenandoah County tax list, but Jacob, then living in the contested portion of North Carolina that eventually became Washington County, Tennessee was summoned to give a deposition.

  • Page 252 – Friday the 6th (think this is May 1785) – ordered the justices of Shenandoah Co. Virginia to take the depositions of Jacob Dobkins, Sylvia Foella, and other witnesses in the suit between Valentine Sevier Sr. and Andrew Bird.

In November 1787, we find mention of John again.

  • Washington County, TN Page 294 – Nov. 5, 1787 – Will of Rudolph Cresslias – executor Elizabeth and John Cathart Cresslias – William Noodling Sr., John Dobbins, and Abraham Riffe appraisers.

Who is this John Dobbins? Jacob’s son, John was born about 1777, so this clearly isn’t him.

Evan married in 1775, so this John isn’t his son.

Reuben married Elizabeth Holman, but for this John to be his son, he would have had to born about 1766, or earlier, which means that Reuben would have been married by 1765. It’s possible, but unlikely.

Any person assigned to appraise an estate would be someone with experience. Not a task for a young man.

Is this the John Dobkins baptized in 1741 that was rumored to have married the third Johnson sister, Rachel? That’s certainly a possibility. He would have been about 47 years old.

The two most likely scenarios are that this John Dobkins is either the father or the brother of Jacob, Evan and Reuben. However, we don’t find hide nor hair of John again for several years.

  • Page 345 – Jacob Dobkins of John Wier for 100 acres dated February 21, 1788, by Abraham Riffe
  • Page 358 – Evan Dobkins finds a stray horse on November 13, 1788.
  • Reuben Dobkins (spelled Dobbins) takes part in Martin’s campaign of 1788 against the Cherokee near present-day Chattanooga, Tennessee, also known as Dragging Canoe’s War.

These Dobkins men simply cannot escape warfare. It must be a way of life for them.

The less than straightforward Treaty of Sycamore Shoals with the Cherokee was at the heart of the conflict in this region, and when combined with local emotional politics, the situation boiled over.

  • March 1794 – Jacob Dobkins vs John Sevier and Benjamin Mooney – appeared – found for plaintiff for 63.10 and 6 cents costs.

Jacob and Reuben Dobkins settle, at least for some time, in Washington County, then in Jefferson County, Tennessee.

  • Reuben is found in Jackson County in 1802, but is back in Jefferson the next year. In 1820, a Reuben is found in Overton County.
  • Jacob Dobkins was in Jefferson County in 1796 when he sold land, then in Claiborne when the new County was formed from Grainger in 1801.
  • Evan Dobkins was in Washington County in 1793. One Evan was found in 1810 in Sevier County. Evan had married Margaret Johnson, and we find Johnson Dobkins emerge in the 1810 census in Sevier County, along with Evan. John Dobkins obtains a land grant in Sevier County in 1810.

One final clue about John Dobkins may be two petitions, although it’s impossible to know for sure without actually viewing the petitions to see if John signed with a signature. We know that John when signing for Rebecca Dobkins’ marriage signed with a unique mark.

John Dobbins is reported to have signed a petition to the Tennessee General Assembly to form a new county for Sumner County, Tennessee in 1799. Also in 1801 for a county northwest of the Clinch River. I found this reference by another researcher from years ago, but I don’t find his name on a transcribed list of petitioners.

Given that our John Dobkins, Jr., was born about 1710, I doubt this is the same man. He would have been 90. It’s much more likely that this John is either his son, or his grandson, a child of Jacob, Reuben or Evan who would have been born in 1778 or earlier.

John Dobkins Jr. could have died in Dunmore or Shenandoah County, Virginia, before 1785, but a will does not exist for him. But then again, neither does a land sale, at least not that I’ve been able to find.

I suspect that John Dobkins died in Washington County, sometime after 1787, in his late 70s. He had a remarkable life spent entirely on a series of frontiers with disputed and fluctuating boundaries. He is probably buried in land that was once Virginia, North Carolina, the State of Franklin, the Territory South of the Ohio, and eventually became Tennessee. John didn’t move so much as the states and counties moved underneath him.

Capt. John Dobkins was one rugged frontiersman.

_____________________________________________________________

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Why was Old Man Jacob Dobkins’ Will Fraudulently Secreted, Concealed and Destroyed? – 52 Ancestors #375

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26

Get yourself a BIG, oversized cuppa java, because this is better than the best soap opera.

Yes, really.

Know what else? We’ve vindicated Old Man Jacob Dobkins too. At least somewhat. When you’re done reading this, his last will and testament will no longer be “disappeared.” We’ve “reappeared” it, 191 years later, almost two centuries after John Hunt, the sheriff, wrote it for him. John then read it aloud to those in the room. Jacob acknowledged that it was what he wanted, then he sat down and signed it, in his home, in front of John Hunt, two unbiased, unrelated, witnesses, and a few nosey family members.

How could that will have simply disappeared without so much as a trace?

Back Story

For decades, the fact that Jacob Dobkins had no will made no sense. Truthfully, my cousins and I all looked, individually, and I think we just figured it was one more of those head-scratching omissions. I knew from Jacob’s Revolutionary War Pension papers approximately when he died – and I even read the court records page by page – all to no avail. Nada. Nothing.

That omission was inexplicable.

According to his Revolutionary War Pension application, Jacob Dobkins was born in 1751 in Augusta County, Virginia. I wrote about his early life and service in the article, Jacob Dobkins (1751-1835); Several Bullet Holes Through His Clothes.

He truly lived an amazing life.

By La Citta Vita – Shenandoah River, aerial, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26763408

After the War, where Jacob served in Kentucky and Ohio, he returned to his home in Shenandoah County, Virginia – to, his wife Dorcas and young children. But Jacob had experienced a taste of adventure and what lay beyond those Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah Valley – and he would never be the same. He heard them calling.

Jacob packed up his family and struck out for the frontier, first settling in Washington County, NC, which was contested land between Virginia and NC. His name appears on a petition to the governor of North Carolina in 1789, asking, begging for help and protection after the State of Franklin dissolved. You can read my transcription, here.

Tennessee was not yet a state, and this territory referred to as “South of the French Broad” was literally the untamed wild west.

Then we find Jacob in Jefferson County, then Hawkins on the border with Greene County for a dozen years, then on to the Indian Boundary Line in what would become Claiborne County, TN in 1801.

His was one of the first homes established along Cedar Fork on the Powell River.

Jacob’s original Claiborne County home stood well into the 1900s, and likely still stands today in a reconstructed village. You can see more photos and read about his homestead in the article, Come Sit a Spell With Jacob Dobkins.

Jacob was already living in Claiborne County when it was formed in 1801, sitting on the original court as a juror. He was no young man by this time – about 50 years old. His eldest children were already marrying.

In 1802, Jacob bought land on the north side of Wallen’s Ridge from Longhunter Elisha Wallen, and added more acreage over the years. I believe his goal was to purchase enough land to provide an enticement to his children to remain nearby.

Two of his daughters, Jane (Jenny) and Elizabeth married Campbell boys from Hawkins County.

John Campbell and Jenny Dobkins owned land adjoining the Liberty Baptist Church today. The original house still stands next door.

Jacob sold land to Elizabeth Dobkins and George Campbell as well as to his son, Solomon, and his other daughter Margaret who married Elijah Jones.

His son John Dobkins patented land on the south side of Wallen’s Ridge and lived nearby too.

Jacob’s home wasn’t large, at least not by today’s standards. However, by the standards of the frontier, Jacob appeared to be rather well-off, at least for a humble farmer. His strategy of buying land on the undeveloped frontier, clearing it, then selling it a few years later to new settlers was paying off. You could always purchase more land on the frontier further west. Jacob seemed to be an upright, respected man within the community, serving on juries, witnessing deeds, attending court, and doing what normal men of his time did.

In 1809, Jacob did something quite out of character. Perhaps as he aged, he needed help. By 1810, his children were all adults, married and none remained at home. Jacob was 58 or 59 years old when he purchased slaves.

“I Jesse Cheek hath bargained and sold unto Jacob Dobkins 4 negroes names Aneker or Anekey, Mitilty, Jiary, Amelyer for the consideration of $130 in hand paid.”  March 29 1809 Jesse signs, registered July 30, 1809.  John Campbell and Solomon Dobkins are witnesses.

Jacob’s son, Solomon, who was of age to marry and did shortly thereafter, and son-in-law John Campbell were witnesses.

As much as I hate to say this, I think this building on Jacob’s property was probably the slave quarters. I could be wrong, of course.

There’s one other single chimney standing that was clearly attached to a structure of some sort.

In some cases, the enslaved people simply slept in the main house, but in this case, Jacob seems to have purchased a family unit.

That transaction broke my heart. However, those enslaved people tie into Jacob’s will, or lack thereof. They would affect his family for generations, much more than he could ever, ever have anticipated. I bet Jacob, from the other side, fervently wished he could go back in time and “undo” his action. However, that’s not a choice we get.

By then, all he could do was watch it unfold and unravel.

Jacob seemed to have a relaxed, close relationship with his children. They lived nearby.

Jacob began distributing his property to his children, including his enslaved people, in about 1814 or 1815. Solomon would have just returned from the War of 1812 where he got into some sort of trouble. He was court-martialed and stripped of his Captain rank. Solomon’s problems wouldn’t end there.

We find only snippets about the Dobkins family for the next several years. Early census schedules, a few deeds, tax lists, court notes, and such. Everything seemed pretty normal except for a thing or two.

Never ignore or dismiss “a thing or two.”

One of those “things” was that Jacob Dobkins died, with assets, including property, but not only did he NOT have a will, neither was his death reported to the court so an administrator could be ordered to process his estate.

That means his estate records, will, inventory, and such were missing from two separate sets of records – the Will book and the Court Minutes – both of which exist for this time period. How odd.

I found that even stranger because we knew exactly where to look in the records based on his pension payments and when they stopped.

Then…BOOM!!!

Bombshell

A few days ago, cousin Debbie messaged me with this:

YAY! I finally found a document with proof that Jacob Dobkins is Jane Dobkins/Campbell’s father!

Of course, I wanted to know where and how. Debbie told me that the local DAR Registrar checked and found that a contested will existed at the Tennessee State Library and Archives that included Jane Dobkins’ deposition wherein she states that she is Jacob Dobkins’ daughter.

Now, we had known this for years, based on DNA matches among other evidence, but the problem is that none of that evidence was adequate for DAR membership, which was Debbie’s goal.

Debbie sent me the link to the Supreme Court case. She ordered the page she needed. I ordered all 59.

I was hoping against hope that the title of the case as indexed was in error and that William Fregate was actually William Fugate who was rumored to have been married to the sister of John and George Campbell. The person who initially set forth that theory is now deceased and declined to provide any evidence or even a source – except to say that there was a contested will and I would just have to find it myself.

Was this THAT will? It didn’t look hopeful from the name of the case, but hey, you never know.

J. B. Heiskell next friend vs Jeherle Fregate, admr.

Here’s the case description.

Add. plaintiffs: Avery Sinira Deadrick, mother of Cynthia Ann, Lewis, Nelson, & Hessy & Jean Jefferson. Defendant administrator of the estate of William Fregate (dec.). Through the will of the deceased, the complainants state they are entitled to their freedom. Defendant states the will was fraudulently obtained and altered.

Furthermore, searching for the keywords Dobkins and Campbell did NOT display this case – so I was very uncertain.

I ordered the case to be scanned anyway. I’ve spent a whole lot more for nothing before.

This case turned out to be an absolute goldmine.

However, I still don’t know if one of the Fugate men married John and George Campbell’s sister.

This document answered a whole lot of questions, exposed a family scandal, and gave birth to an avalanche of new questions.

Jacob’s Children

Here’s what we know, or thought we knew, about Jacob Dobkins and his wife, Dorcas Johnson’s children:

  • Andrew Dobkins born circa 1775 in probably Dunmore County, VA died in 1852 Greene County, TN, married Johanna Woolsey around 1800, and had children, William, Patsy, Rebecca, Dorcas, Rachel, and Mary “Polly.” Note – at the end of this case, I now believe that Andrew was NOT the child of Jacob, but of one of Jacob’s brothers, either Reuben or Evan who also migrated with him to the Virginia/North Carolina borderlands, but did not move to Claiborne County.
  • Jane “Jenny” Dobkins was born about 1777 in Dunmore County and died between 1850 and 1860 in Claiborne County, TN. She married John Campbell around 1800 and had children Jacob, Elizabeth, Elmira, Jane, Martha, Rutha, George Washington, and William Newton. Note – Her deposition provided us with her birth year.
  • John Dobkins was born about 1777, probably in Dunmore County, VA, and died after 1840 in Claiborne County, TN. He married Elizabeth Shaw before 1805 and had two known children, Lorenzo Dow and John.
  • Jacob Dobkins Jr. – Note – this person previously attributed to Jacob Sr. is the son of Solomon Dobkins and is not Jacob’s son. It’s likely that at one time Jacob did have a son with his name, but we find no records as an adult.
  • Reuben Dobkins was born about 1783 in Shenandoah County, VA, and died in 1823 in Claiborne County, TN. His wife’s name was Mary “Polly.” It’s unclear whether they had children before his death. Note – It appears she remarried to Thomas Martin.
  • Elizabeth Dobkins was born about 1783 in Shenandoah County, VA, and died after 1850 in Claiborne County, TN. She married George Campbell around 1796. They had Elizabeth “Betsy,” Barnabus “Barney,” Dorcus, Peggy, Jenny, Charles, James, John, and Jacob. Note – We only learn of son Jacob through this lawsuit.
  • Margaret “Peggy” Dobkins was born about 1785 in what would become Tennessee and died after 1850 in Claiborne County, TN. She married Elijah Jones in 1808 and had Elisha and Dorcas.
  • Solomon Dobkins was born about 1787 in the territory that would become Tennessee and died in 1852 in Kaufman County, TX. He married Elizabeth about 1809 and had Phebe, Jacob, George, Hugh, Alexander, Nancy Ann, Barthena, Lucinda, Manervy, Clinton, and Marcellus.

Goldmine!

I learned an incredible amount about so many aspects of Jacob’s life, the lives of his children, and the neighborhood where he lived. This lawsuit, despite the horrible injustice done to the complainants, provided a plethora of picturesque information about day-to-day life in the first half of the 1800s in Claiborne County, Tennessee.

For the most part, I’m simply transcribing this incredible document. I will be adding commentary from time to time. I’ve labeled where my commentary begins.

In some cases, I have omitted legal jargon that does not add to the narrative. Three dots also means some text is omitted. Occasionally, I have simply summarized a passage.

Numbers are electronic page numbers in the pdf files, here and here, received from the Tennessee State Library and Archives. The second document has the document page, along with the original page number. For the most part, I’ve left the punctuation intact and corrected little of the sentence syntax. In many cases, it’s obvious that commas and periods are missing. Bolding is mine for ease in reading. Indentions are the transcriptions.

The handwriting is difficult. Words I can’t make out have a ?, so maybe you can figure out that word. If so, please post in the comments with the page number and surrounding words so I can find it. Thanks.

The two pdf scanned files are:

To future researchers – you’re welcome!

The Lawsuit

J.B Heiskell by their next friend vs Jehile Fugate administrator of William Fugate

Comment: Yay – it is Fugate!

[Page 1] Filed Sept 12, 1853 – 12th Chancery Circuit – Motion to dismiss disallowed – affirmed and remanded to the chancery court – deft to pay the costs of this court.

[Page 2] Index – not transcribed

[Page 3] A record of a case began and determined in the Chancery Court at Tazewell in the Eastern Division of the State of Tennessee where in Cynthia Ann and others are complainants and Solomon Dobkins and others are defendants.

Comment: The chancery court records do not exist for this timeframe, so the only records we have are those that have been appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court. The process was that the local Clerk and Master would hand copy all of the pleadings and depositions and answers and send an entire packet of certified documents to the Supreme Court. That’s what we have today.

On Oct. 3, 1850, Cynthia Ann one of the complainants appeared before the Clerk and Master and took and subscribed the following oath, to wit:

Cynthia Ann and others vs Solomon Dobkins and others.

[She certifies her poverty and asks for a decree.]

Complainants Anny Louisa Deadrick and Cynthia Ann, Lewis, Nelson and Hessy, her children and Isam Jefferson, the last of who is the brother of complainant Any Louisa Deadrick. That about 14 or 15 years ago Jacob Dobkins departed this life in the said county, after making his last will and testament by the provisions of [Page 4] which your complainants are entitled to their freedom, that the said will has been fraudulently secreted and concealed for many years and they believe up to this time but if it is not yet concealed it has been destroyed lately, as they have been informed that within a very short time since, the said will was in the possession of George Campbell, who is the son-in-law of the testator, and your complainants Anny Louisa Deaderick and her said two children, Lewis and Hessy are in the possession of the said George Campbell, complainant Cynthia is in the possession of Margaret Jones, who is a daughter of the testator, but she lives with one Joseph Simmons.

Comment: Who lives with Simmons? Margaret or Cynthia, or maybe both?

Complainant Nelson is in the possession of and claimed by one William Fugate who has lately threatened to sell him to a negro trader, and complainant Nelson charges that this is a plan of the said William Fugate to have your complainant taken out of the country to that he can not assert his right to his freedom. Complainant Isom Jefferson is in the possession of and claimed by one Solomon Dobkins. Complainants show that they are all in a state of slavery are likely to continue such unless they can get the aid of the courts of the country. Your complainants further show that the said will as they are informed and believe was witnessed by Randal Lanham and William Lanham one of which has left the country, but the other is yet in the said County of Claiborne. Your complainants further show that they have been illegally held in slavery for many years and have been for a long time serving the persons herein before named without any compensation.

The premises? considered your complainants, who are all residents of the said county of Claiborne, pray that the said Soloman Dobkins, George Campbell, Margaret Jones, William Fugate, all of whom are residents of the said county, may be [Page 5] made defendants to this bill of complaint and that they be compelled to answer the same fully and in every particular and especially that they be required to answer and say at what date the said Jacob Dobkins departed this life? And where? Did he the said Jacob not make his last will and testament in the county of Claiborne and what are its contents? Who witnessed the said will? So if not ? in the possession of the said George Campbell? If not where is it? Do they or either of them know where it is? Where was it when they last saw it or heard of it? Let each answer and give answers to the statement and charges of this bill according to the best of their knowledge and information and belief, let them and each of them answer and say who are the witnesses of said will? And why it is that the said will was never presented to the court for probate and recording? Who were the executors appointed in the said will? And the said defendants and called on, if the said will is yet in existence, to produce and file the same with the answer, and especially let the said George Campbell and answer and say where the said will is? Was it not in his possession? If so when? Has he not shown the said will to some persons since the death of the said testator? If so whom? And to whom did he show it, let him state when last he saw the will? And if it is not in his possession, let him answer and say where it is according to his knowledge information and belief.

And in the mean time your complainants pray that are injunction may issue to restrain the said defendants from removing your complainants or either of them out of the county of Claiborne and that your Honors will also appoint a receiver to take them into possession so that they may not be sold or removed out of the county and beyond the jurisdiction of this honorable court.

[Page 6] And on final hearing, the prayer of complainants is that the said will may be set up in the Honorable Court if by the fraud of any of the said defendants it has been destroyed and complainants declared free, and if the said will is provided that the complainants be allowed to take steps under it to secure their freedom, that they have an account of their hire from the time that they were entitled to their freedom, and if in any thing they have mistaken their remedy they pray such other and further and different relief as they may be entitled to, under the circumstances of the case. This is the first application for an injunction in the case. They therefore pray for relief.

Netherland and Maynard Heiskell, solicitors for complainants.

Signed by Cynthia Ann with her mark on September 30, 1850

Court required defendants to post bond in “double the supposed value of the complainants for their good treatment” [Page 7] and failing to provide that bond the sheriff is to take the complainants into his possession and keep them safely until further order of the court.

Comment: I’m utterly dumbstruck – at several levels.

  • First – if true – I’m amazed that anyone would actually try to hide a death and will from an entire county – and apparently succeed.
  • Second, that Cynthia Ann, an enslaved woman who didn’t even have a last name, and her family members, had the MOXY to actually file suit against the ENTIRE DOBKINS FAMILY. People that could sell them down the river, could beat them, deprive them of food, and take their very lives. They could sell off their children. That happened all the time.
  • Third, that the slaves were able to find white men to file their suit as their “next friends” in the south is a testimony of a different kind.
  • Fourth – the fact that apparently many people are accused of being involved in this illegal fraud – and many in high standing in the county – is jaw-dropping.

Of course, this might not be true. We have to wait, look at the evidence, and see.

I have so many more questions than I started out with.

Subpoena to answer was filed and issued on October 3, 1850.

The Sheriff is commanded to summon Solomon Dobkins, William Fugate, George Campbell and Margaret Jones to appear at the Chancery Court to be held at the court house in Tazewell upon the first Monday of December next to answer the bill of complaint by Cynthia Ann and others, persons of color, filed against them.

Delivered October 8, 1830.

December 3, 1850 – Defendants allowed until [Page 8] second rule day to file their answers so as not to delay the hearing of this cause.

Comment: I’d say the defendants either weren’t taking this case seriously or were intentionally being uncooperative.

December 5, 1850 – Court issues interlocutory order because the injunctions had not been complied with. Margaret Jones has not complied with the order of the Judge granting the injunction and has suffered the said complainant Cynthia to be attached and that the sheriff has taken bond from certain other persons to wit: Thomas W. Jennings with George Rose his security for her forthcoming at the term of this court. William Fugate in like manner, failed to provide bond and that Nelson has been taken by virtue of the attachment and placed in the hands of Robert C. Woodson and bond taken with William Riley for security. Solomon Dobkins has given bond for the forthcoming of the complainant Jefferson at the present term of this court and for his good treatment until this time, but [Page 9] that the said bond does not embrace the time yet to come during the pendency of this suit. George Campbell has entered into a bond similar to the bond last named for the forthcoming of said Anny Louisa Deadrick and Louis and Hessy.

Cynthia Ann and Nelson to be delivered up to the Clerk and Master who is directed to hire the said complainants to some fit person at a fair rate per annum who shall give bond with approved security each in the penalty of $1200 for the safekeeping, kind treatment and care of said Negros during the space of 12 months from the first of January next and delivery at the expiration of the said period.

Comment: That’s exactly right – Margaret Dobkins Jones and William Fugate, neither one complied either initially or by the two extra days provided by the court. I bet the defendants are taking this suit much more seriously now.

That Solomon Dobkins and George Campbell enter into like bond for $1200 and that George Campbell in the sum of $200 as to the mixed treatment of the negroes, complainants, in their custody, respectively

[Page 10] Dec. 6, 1850 – Ordered to take the deposition of Elizabeth Campbell of Claiborne County, she being aged and infirm on giving defendants 5 days notice. Also deposition of George Campbell.

December 28, 1850 – Answers of George W. Campbell and wife was filed, which is as follows, to wit:

George W. Campbell to the bill of complaint filed in the chancery court at Tazewell

[Page 11] George Campbell says it is true Jacob Dobkins died in Claiborne County, TN about the time mentioned in the bill, but the precise time…does not now remember. It is true that respondent married one of the daughters (Elizabeth) of said Jacob. It is true that the complainants except the girl Hessy mentioned in the bill were the slaves of Jacob Dobkins at the time of his death, the said Hessy having been borned since his death. It is true that at the death of the said Jacob he was the owner of another slave named Berry, brother to the complainant Isham Jefferson. It is true that the death of the said Jacob Dobkins he made his last will and testament which was drawn by John Hunt who is since dead and was witnessed by William Lanham who resides in Claiborne County and Randall Lanham who has left the state. It is also true that the provisions of said will the complainants were entitled to their freedom.

At the death of the testator this respondent together with the other sons-in-law of the testator and his daughter met at the testators house about the time of the death of the testator and after they were assembled, they all with the exception of Elijah Jones who married a daughter of said testator walked out to the garden fence and Solomon Dobkins son of the testator and one of the defendants in the court remarked to them that his father had made a will by which he set all his negroes free (the complainants.) And that if he, the said Solomon or John Hunt, who were named executors in it saw it, they would be found to go by it, said Solomon further said that they were all of age and that the best way was to burn or destroy the said will, to this proposition the wife of respondent objected and said she would rather have nothing than that her father’s will should be burnt or destroyed. The said Solomon said that the will was in [Page 12] a box in the house and in a chest. We went in the house and the said Solomon went to the chest, unlocked it, and took out the box and put it under his arm and as he went out of the house he plucked the coat of respondent and ? went out with said Solomon, who put the box containing said will I the respondents arms and respondent immediately handed them over to John Dobkins a son of testator and brother to Solomon, the said John was a man of weak and ? mind, he had the said will out, when he was about to destroy it or burn it, the wife of respondent spoke to her brother John and with much feeling said “in God’s name Johnny don’t destroy our father’s will” on which the said John handed the will to his said sister, who put it into her bosom and carried it home with her that evening. Respondent further says that the said Elijah Jones, who had married one of the daughters of said testator but had separated from her and was on bad terms with said Solomon was not as respondent believed present at that time in the house as said Solomon had ordered him away, but he was not far off as the said Jones went home with respondent and wife that night, and after getting to respondents house his wife took the will out of her bosom and handed it to the said Jones and said “That is what they say is my father’s will.” Said Jones took it and after reading it over said that it was the will of her father, and that in it the negroes were set free. The said will was then put in a chest of respondent’s house and it remained there until within the last three years, which it was taken away by some person, but by whom respondent does not personally know – nor does he now know where it is, but as to the contents of the will they are truly stated in the bill so far as the freedom of the complainants is concerned.

Comment: Holy cow. I can hardly believe what I’m reading.

He set his negroes free, yet his children, or at least one of them, schemed, apparently successfully, to keep them enslaved?

Elizabeth took her father’s will and literally put it where she knew her brother wasn’t going to get it? She would have been in her 50s at the time.

What happened to Elizabeth’s determination? What changed her mind? What happened to the will?

In the late 1800s, you can see the fence around the original homestead and another building that was added later. Is this the fence they stood beside after Jacob died? This photo was probably only taken some 70 years or so later.

In this section, we also learn that John Dobkins may have had a disability – or at lest he was described as such.

And we now know that neither Elizabeth nor George could read or write, but that Solomon Dobkins and Elijah Jones both could.

Elijah also tells us that he and his wife separated. I know from later documents that he remarried in the 1840s, but I never found an actual divorce. Ironically, Elijah, even twenty years after separating from his wife, was still on good terms with her family except for her brother, Solomon.

Respondent further states that during the time said will [Page 13] was in his wife’s possession it was seen by Barnibus Campbell and Charles Campbell, sons of this recipient, who came to enquire for it, because they said they had heard that said Solomon Dobkins had threatened to put respondent in the penitentiary for destroying the said will. It was also seen and respondent believes read by one Mordecai Cunningham who was examining among the papers of respondent for some title deeds and was reading them over and when said Cunningham came to the will and looked it over he remarked to respondent that it was the will of Jacob Dobkins, ? rather he spoke to respondent’s wife and said “This is your father’s will.”

Comment: For years there has been LOTS of speculation about whether or not Barney was in fact the child of George Campbell. This removes all doubt about what George thought, anyway. Some Y DNA from Barney’s descendants does not match the Campbell line, but other does, as does some autosomal, so while there is a genetic break downstream someplace, Barney is indeed George Campbell’s son.

Respondents will state why said will was not sooner spoken of and produced by him. On the day when it was determined to secret said will and to keep the complainants as slaves a bond was drawn up in the penalty of several thousand dollars binding each one who signed it, (and all both men and women were prevailed upon to sign it) and that they were to abide by a division or property that day made among them, and were to keep the said will a secret. Respondent further states that since the filing of the bill in this case that William Fugate one of the defendants in this care and complainant came to the house of respondent and told respondent and his wife that the said Fugate held “that forfeited bond, that he got it out of the papers of the papers of John Campbell and that he meant to enforce it,” and the said Fugate further stated to respondent and his wife that when they were examined about the matter all they had to say was that there never was any will there and further said he understood it as well as any of the lawyers and that the way was to let him and Barney look for it and that they could not find it, that he would show them about freeing the negroes. Respondent knew the hand write of the testator and so did his wife and he believes the signature to the said [Page 14] will was in the proper hand writing of the said Jacob Dobkins.

Comment: Holy chimloda! It truly was a cabal. Not only did they decide to defraud the complainants, but also to prevent their own father’s last wishes as stated in his will, from being carried out. Not just having to do with his immovable property, but also with the human lives he controlled, but wished to free upon his death.

I won’t even ask the question about why Jacob didn’t just free them before his death, because the answer is probably the same reason as why his children didn’t want to free them either.

Also, this confirms that John Campbell died in Claiborne county. I believed so, but there has been speculation otherwise. So John Campbell retained the paper that everyone signed pledging to keep their guilty secret on penalty of forfeiture of the bond.

Where was that bond money? Who held it? How much did they have to pledge? And maybe even more important, who told? Clearly, someone told.

How is William Fugate involved anyway?

Respondent further states that the names and ages of the complainants and the persons with whom they are living are correctly set out in the bill respondent further states that he knows that the complainants are entitled to their freedom under the will of the said testator and he has always insisted that those of them in his possession should be liberated at his death and he new freely consents that the complainants maybe emancipated. And having fully answered defendant prays to be dismissed with his ?.

George Campbell signed with his mark

Elizabeth also signed with her mark.

Comment: Prior to this suit, I have never seen a middle initial for George Campbell. I’m guessing the W. is probably for William, but that’s just a guess.

[Page 15] January 8, 1851 – the answer of Solomon Dobkins was filed.

Soloman Dobkins…states that there are many falsehoods contained in the complainants’ bill.

True that he is the son of Jacob Dobkins who departed this life in the latter part of the year 1835 as well as he recollects. He was at times in great intimacy with his father, having been his agent in the transaction of his business for near 20 years before his death. At the time of his death he was very old and infirm. About four? years before the death of Jacob Dobkins made his will and testament in which there as a bequest of freedom to all his negroes as respondent understood though he never read the same as he now recollects. This request of freedom extended to all of complainants who were then in ?. The said Jacob placed this will in the hands of respondent for safekeeping and it remained in his possession for a short time only when the said Jacob spoke to respondent and informed him that he had understood since he made his will that the laws of the state would not allow the emancipation of slaves unless they were removed beyond the limits of Tennessee, and that being the case he said “it would be better for the slaves to remain in slavery” or “that they preferred to remain in slavery” the precise expression respondent does not remember. He then took the will out of the hands of respondent, and it was the understanding of respondent that the said Jacob did not intend to set [Page 16] his negroes free. His object then as respondent supposed was to destroy the same, since which time respondent has never seen it or has he ever heard of the same until within a few years past, when he heard that George W. Campbell one of the respondents in this case had the will of the said Jacob, so soon as respondent heard this he remarked that it would penitentiary the said Campbell for he had concealed the same. The said Campbell and his wife Elizabeth were heirs of the said Jacob. Shortly after the said Campbell came to the house of respondent in company with his wife Elizabeth and denied to respondent that he had taken or concealed the will, this was done in the presence of said Elizabeth and it is a little remarkable if they had the will, or knew of its existence, that they did not inform respondent of it as he was one of the executors of the said Jacob in the will placed in the hands of respondent by the said Jacob, as respondent was informed at the time of its execution. The conduct of the said Campbell and wife in concealing the will from the knowledge of respondent can be accounted for alone upon the grounds that they were heirs of the said Jacob, and that if his will could be supplied, that would be in total to a childs part of the value of said slaves.

The charges in the bill of complaint as to what occurred about the time of the death of the said Jacob in response to the distribution of the will is basely false and without the semblance of truth to the best of the recollection of respondent but the respondent will state what did occur. About the time of the death of the father of respondent or shortly after, all the heirs not at the old family mansion of the said Jacob, respondent told them all that some years ago his father had made a will by which he had set his negroes free and provided that his [Page 17] other property should be equally divided amongst his heirs. That he did not believe that it was the will of the old man that the negroes should be free, but that if the will was found they would be entitled to their freedom, that if the old man had not destroyed it, and could be provided he would be compelled to execute it and free the negroes. But he if had done so and it could not be provided they should divide the property equally as it appeared to be the wish of the old man, that all his heirs should share alike.

Comment: It appears that Jacob gave his will to his son, whom he trusted.

The main home on a property was often called the mansion in old deeds and references. It probably was a mansion to some, but not in the way we think of Tara.

Here’s Jacob’s mansion.

Respondent further states that before the day Jacob was buried, the keys of the trunk he said Jacob were placed in the hands of the said G. W. Campbell who kept the same in his possession until Benjamin Sewell and John Hunt the commissioners agreed upon divided the property. Respondent never saw a tin box then as respondent now recollects as entirely (or untrue) as stated in the answer of said Campbell, the bond to which he refers in his special answer instead of containing a penalty against producing or discussing the will, only contains a penalty to abide by the award of the commissioners who divided the property, said bond is in existence and will be provided upon the final hearing if necessary. Randall Langham and William Langham were witnesses to the will before referred to and John Hunt and respondent were executors of the same, as respondent is informed and believes.

Comment: Of course, the commissioners divided the property not knowing the full scope of what they should be doing. So agreeing to abide by their division, which was predicated upon deceit, is exactly the same as saying they agree to keep their mouth shut.

Also, John Hunt was the man who physically wrote Jacob Dobkins’ will, so he would assuredly have asked about it. They clearly lied to Hunt who by 1850 is conveniently dead and can’t be deposed.

Respondent denies all knowledge of said will or its contents except as above stated. He never believed that it was the will of is father to set the negroes free after said will was given up to him. If said will is in existence respondent calls for the production of the same and full proof in ? thereto. Respondent never either distinctly or indistinctly agreed with any person to conceal or destroy the same, according to the best of [Page 18] his recollection and belief. Respondent has had the boy Isom Jefferson in his possession claiming his as his own property under the division of said commissioners and does not believe that the commissioners would ever have installed this suit, if they had not been prompted to do so by some evil-disposed persons and intermeddlers in other people business. Respondent denies all fraud or improper conduct and having fully answered he prays to be hence dismissed with his ?.

Solomon Dobkins signs

Comment: I can’t even…

January 8, 1851 – William Fugate answer.

That he came to the county of Claiborne some time in the year 1826. Some few years thereafter the same Jacob Dobkins departed his life, but at [Page 19] what precise time respondent is not informed nor has he any correct means of learning. Respondent had but a slight personal acquaintance with the said Jacob, having seen him but seldom before his death. The said Jacob Dobkins owned some negroes in his lifetime and complainant may have been among the number.

Whether or not the said Jacob made a will before his death, respondent knows nothing and consequently cannot speak of its contents. Respondent has no recollection of ever having heard that he had done so, until within the last twelve months. Respondent denies all knowledge of said will or its contents and call for any proof of the same. It is true as stated in complainants bill that he has in his possession the boy Nelson but no claims to him have been an innocent, honest and long? purchaser for a fair and ? consideration, without any notice that the said boy had any right or claim to freedom. Respondent purchased him of John Dobkins, now dead in the year 1837 as well as ? for $297.50, all of which has been paid in good faith to the said John Dobkins, said boy Nelson was five years old in August 1837, said boy Nelson was since he was purchased by respondent has been a locaky? and painy? child, until the last two or three years and has consequently been of little value to respondent. The said John Dobkins was one of the heirs at law of the said Jacob, decd.

Comment: This establishes John Dobkins’ death between the 1840 census and the 1850 census, before the suit was filed.

The charge in complainants bill that respondent intended to sell the said boy Nelson to a negro trader is utterly gratuitous and unfounded. Respondent may have threatened the boy to do so, but if so it was without any serious purpose on the part of respondent, but done with a view to scare him and make him a better boy. If the said complainant Nelson is entitled [Page 20] to his freedom under the will of the said Jacob Dobkins, respondent will interpose no difficulties in his way, but if not he insists upon his rights under the purchase from the said John. The bill of sale taken at the time of the sale of said boy will be produced upon the final hearing if required. Respondent denies all formal or improper conduct on his part and having fully answered he prays to be discharged.

William Fugate signed on January 8, 1851

Margaret Jones failed to answer.

Dec term 1852 death of Solomon Dobkins suggested.

Comment: This seems to be out of order.

January 11,1852?

Complainants represent that since the filing, Solomon Dobkins has made an arrangement to sell or has actually sold to said Fugate his valuable farm lying in Claiborne County [Page 23] and is making preparation to leave the state with his property to the state of Texas.

Comment: This sounds quite shady and is exactly what the original complainants asked the court to prevent from happening. Isom would have had no choice but to go, and Texas is way beyond the reach of the Tennessee courts.

Isom Jefferson is asking for his payment of the amount which is due to Isom Jefferson for his services for the last 15 years or more. Asked that the court enjoin Fugate from paying our any part to said Dobkins until the final hearing and Dobkins enjoined from transferring of negotiating any notes or choses in action given for the said purchases money or any past thing.

[Page 25] Dobkins answers and said he sold his farm to Fugate for $5195 to be paid by a negro girl for $500 and other payment terms listed. Claims Isom has no claim upon him.

[Page 26] It appears that William Fugate accepted Nelson in payment from the Dobkins heirs for “a claim which the said Fugate had upon the heirs of said Jacob Dobkins.”

June 3, 1851, the answer of William Fugate was filed to the separate suit against Solomon Dobkins and William Fugate. Fugate claims he has no knowledge of the complainant’s right to freedom, and that is a question between other parties. Admits he did purchase Dobkins tract of land [Page 28] and that respondent was to surrender all claim to a certain slave named Nelson to said Dobkins, which slave is one of the complainants in this case. Executed note to Dobkins due March 1, 1851 payable in Tennessee money.

Fugate said Nelson was to be traded. (page 28)

Comment: in October 1850, Solomon Dobkins and Jefferson, then using the Dobkins surname, sign an agreement wherein Solomon frees Jefferson, but Jefferson has to agree to drop his suit in chancery for his labor and wages in the 15 years since Jacob Dobkins’s death.

Did Jefferson sign this because he was afraid of being taken to Texas and this was his only safe way out?

When I initially found this several years ago, I was very confused by this transaction and could find nothing in the court record. It had seemingly appeared “out of the blue.” Solomon’s son, Jacob signed as a witness, and Nathaniel Brooks was Solomon’s son-in-law. John Campbell Dodson was the grandson of Jane Dobkins and John Campbell.

Did Jefferson high tail it out of town, or did he stay nearby his family? I cannot find him in any future records other than this suit.

June term 1851 – Court orders an investigation of Solomon Dobkins, William Fugate and Campbell and wife, and Margaret Jones, whether Jacob Dobkins made a will and if so ? the provisions of the will such as are alleged in the bill of complainants, or what the provisions of the same…to the next term.

Comment: This looks to be getting quite serious.

Clerk and Master report October 2, 1851

Clerk and Master has caused the parties to appear before him at his office on the 19 September and depositions taken.

[Page 32] The bill alleges that some 14 or 15 years before it was filed Jacob Dobkins made a will by which complainants are entitled to their freedom which will has been concealed.

The answer of Solomon Dobkins admits that a will was made by which the negroes were to be set free and that after he had made the will, the old man stated to him that he had understood the laws would not admit the emancipation of slaves unless they were removed out of the state and that it would be best for the negroes to remain in slavery, but denies any knowledge of assistance in the concealment of the will

The answers of defendant Fugate states that he knew nothing about the will.

The answer of G. W. Campbell and wife admit that a will was made which emancipated the slaves of the deceased, the complainants and the children of Amey Louisa Deadrick bring among the number.

From the evidence taken the ? facts appear.

W. Campbell states that a will was made by Jacob Dobkins which set his slaves free as stated more fully in his answer.

Elizabeth Campbell states that when they [Page 33] met to divide the slaves, Solomon Dobkins stated that his father had made a will which intended his slaves to be set free that him and John Hunt were the executors and of either of them saw it they would be compelled to carry it out; he recommended that it be destroyed; she took the will from John Dobkins who was about to destroy it and carried it home with her where it remained until a few years ago when it was taken out by some person to her unknown.

Comment: No wonder Soloman wanted to go to Texas.

William Lanham states that him and Randall Lanham witnessed a will made by Jacob Dobkins which was drawn by John Hunt. Solomon Dobkins was present. He did not hear that part of it which disposed of the property ?. The testator Jacob Dobkins signed and acknowledged it in his presence. He never witnessed but one will for said Jacob Dobkins.

Barnabas Campbell saw a paper which his mother handed him stating it was the will of her father. He did not read it.

Elijah Jones was present when the negroes were divided and he then heard that a will was made by Jacob Dobkins, he advised the heirs to have the will proven and to go by its intentions, but they stated they would lose too much and they had the negroes divided. He read the will at George W. Campbells; he cannot give the precise words of the will but so far as the freedom of the slaves was concerned, the will stated that the negroes were to be set free or emancipated if the laws of Tennessee would allow them to remain in this state and if it would not allow them to remain if emancipated, they were to stay on the farm of Solomon Dobkins and he Solomon was to take care of them and act as their agent for them and to have the control of them.

[Page 34] Then as other proof in the record as to a decision made by Jacob Dobkins of his slaves among his heirs several years before his death; but as this first decision was not regarded by the heirs in the settlement of the estate and a new division made by them, and not relied upon the answers; the master does not believe it affects the merits of the case as to the will and he does not examine it further.

From the foregoing facts in the cause the Clerk and Master reports that the said Jacob Dobkins in his lifetime made a will and which will was unreported at the time of his death and which will has been concealed since or destroyed so that it has never been proven or recorded. And by the terms of this will the complainants Isam Jefferson, Nelson, Cynthia Ann, Amey Louisa Deaderick and Lewis and Hessy, children of Amy Louisa Deaderick are entitled to be emancipated, in parcealnce? of the acts of assembly in such cases, made and provided, which was clearly in intention of the testator.

The evidence upon which the above report is founded is respectfully reported.

[Page 35] Response by Solomon Dobkins et al:

The proof shows that there was a division of the negroes in question by old man Dobkins amongst his children some 15 or 20 years before his death and the negroes delivered into the possession of his children and consequently the old man Jacob had no right to dispose of them by will or otherwise twenty years afterward.

Comment: It’s interesting that Jacob began parceling out both his land and other “property” about the time he broke his collarbone as he reported to the court. This was only five years or so after he purchased the enslaved people, who appear to be a family.

The fact that Jacob Dobkins made a will by which the negroes were to be emancipated does not sufficiently appear from the proof.

If he made a will from the proof, the emancipation of the complainants was only conditional, if the laws of Tennessee would permit them to remain in this state, as the laws of the state at that time of the death of Jacob Dobkins would not allow the complainants freedom, and to remain in Tennessee, the bequest of freedom was null?, as the condition would not be allowed by our laws.

[Page 36] Decree – June term 1851

That said Jacob Dobkins did in his lifetime make a will which was unrecorded at the time of his death, which will has been concealed, secreted or destroyed and that has been provided. By the term of said will the complainants as named are entitled to be emancipated and that the said provisions be drawn up in due form and filed as follows:

The last will and testament of Jacob Dobkins decd as ascertained in the Chancery Court at Tazewell in the cause pending in said court [Page 37] wherein Cynthia Ann, Isom Jefferson, Nelson, Amey Louisa Deaderick and her children Lewis and Hessy by their next friend…as complainants and Solomon Dobkins, William Fugate, Margaret Jones and George Campbell and wife as defendants and transmitted to the county court.

“I Jacob Dobkins do direct and will that all my slaves shall be set free at my death and emancipated according to law. I do appoint Solomon Dobkins and John Hunt my executors. May 1831. Signed Jacob Dobkins Witness William Lanham and Randall Lanham.”

The same being affirmed by this court.

Comment: So the court in essence “reconstructed” the will of Jacob Dobkins, as best it could, and ordered it to be recorded. *Only* 16 years later.

This also gives us an approximate time that Jacob wrote his will – in May of 1831 which means he must have been feeling poorly. He would have been 80 years old at that time. Fortunately, he lived to file for his Revolutionary War pension the following year, which provided us with a wealth of information.

Jacob died between September (final pension payment) and sometime in December of 1835 (when his heirs quitclaimed his land to daughter Betsey.) Maybe that land was the price of her changing her mind.

Defendants file bill of exception.

[Page 38] Defendants take exception to the language employed in the decree so far as the same declares that by said will it was intended to manumit complainants that bring an adjudication upon that point.

They also except to said decree pronounced on the report because the language of the will as set out in the report and decree is not in conformity with the language of the witnesses, giving the language of the will

And because the evidence does not so prove the will as to establish the same.

January 5, 1852

Clerk and Master reports:

    • Isam Jefferson to Abel Kesterson for $100
    • Nelson to Robert Woodson? For $65
    • Cynthia Ann to J. B. Heiskel for $30

Comment: I believe this is the result of the court ordering that some of the complainants be taken into protection and then let out for wages. It’s interesting that Isom is included given his agreement with Solomon Dobkins in late 1850 when he was supposedly freed. Perhaps Isom, Nelson, and Cynthia Ann are receiving their own wages now, under the oversight of the court.

[Page39]

Same as the following year, 1853.

At December term court, 1852, the death of Solomon Dobkins is suggested in this cause.

[Page 40] June 9, 1853 Court notes that defendant Solomon Dobkins is deceased. Jehiel Fugate as administrator. This suit to continue against Jehiel Fugate as administrator.

[Page 41] – Court is attempting to determine value of the 15 years of services. Judgement irrovuppo? was regularly entered against Margaret Jones in her lifetime, the other defendants having answered.

Comment – Referring to Margaret Jones “in her lifetime” means she is deceased as of June 9, 1853. Perhaps she was ill before, and that’s why she never answered the complaint.

Clerk and Master proceed to take proof and state an account of the value of the services of the complainants showing:

    1. How long they have been illegally held in servitude, by whom each complainant has been held.
    2. The value of the services of each of the said complainants from the time of the death of Jacob Dobkins deceased, computing interest on the same from the end of each year to the next term of this court.
    3. What allowance if any should be made to the persons holding said complainants for ? clothing.

[Page 42] And that the Clerk and Master make report the next term of this court. Made June term 1851 and should have been inserted at the proper place.

Supplemental Bill

Solomon Dobkins entering into bond with approved security in the sum of $2000 conditional to pay and satisfy all such sums as shall be decreed to the complainants Isom Jefferson for his services upon the final hearing and to abide by and perform whatever decree shall be made in the premiss?, that the imprimation? granted in this cause and the attachment preventing the defendant Fugate from paying to deft Dobkins the amount due him for the tract of land shall be ?.

On the 8 of Sept. 1851 a bond was executed and deposited which is as follows…Solomon Dobkins, William M Cocke and William Bullard…held and firmly bound…the condition that when a bill has been [File 2 page 1, original document numbered page 41] filed by said Isom Jefferson by his next friend…against said Solomon Dobkins and William Fugate (a supplemental bill) at attach certain funds in the hands of said William Fugate belonging to said Dobkins to satisfy an alleged amount due to complainant Isom Jefferson for his services and at the last term of the Chancery Court at Tazewell when said cause is pending, the imprimation? was dissolved upon the said Dobkins entering into bond. Now if the said Dobkins shall pay and satisfy all such sums as shall be decreed to the complainant Isom Jefferson for his services upon the final hearing and abide by and perform whatever ? shall be made in the permises?, then this bond to be void, otherwise to remain in full force and virtue. Sept. 8, 1851.

Comment: Again, this is after the document filed between Solomon Dobkins and Isom Jefferson. Perhaps the court didn’t care for those conditions. We know that Isom is no longer with Solomon though, so at least he didn’t get spirited away to Texas.

June term 1853 – Jehiel Fugate and William Fugate pray and appeal from the decree pronounced in this cause to the next term of the Supreme Court to be held at Knoxville upon the second Monday of September next, and said despondents having given bond and security.

[Page 2 – original document page 42]

Granted.

William Fugate, William Niel and Jehiel Fugate bondsmen. June 10, 1853

Proof of complainants – depositions of George Campbell, Elizabeth Campbell, William Lanham and Barnet Campbell taken by complainants before the Clerk and Master.

[Page 3 – original document page 43]

George Campbell first sworn stated that he has now heard his answer which he had ? in read out to him and the said answer contains the true statement of the matters in controversy as far as he recollects, and adopts his answer as his deposition and adopts the same now; and he wishes to state further that he had never seen the keys spoken of by Solomon Dobkins in his answer or had them in his possession, and that the first time he saw them was on the day the divide was made when they was in the trunk and used then by Solomon Dobkins, they was never deposited in his custody for safe keeping.

  1. Question by respondent S. Dobkins by his agent Jacob Dobkins. Did I not propose to the heirs to divide according to my father’s will for if John Hunt or myself found that will it was my opinion that we would be compelled to go by it and the negroes would be free but from what my father had told me since he wrote will, I knew that was not his will at that time for them to be free.

Answer: My recollection is not good enough to recollect what he said now about it not being his will at that time. I am satisfied that he never stated that he knew that was not his father’s will at that time.

Comment: Jacob Dobkins is Solomon Dobkins’ son. Apparently, Solomon has already gone to Texas.

2. Did you not all agree, if he had not destroyed his written, that we would divide by it and all agree to it.

A: As for my part I did not agree to it, or have anything to do with it. The old woman managed it. I had very little to do with the proceedings from the start.

Comment: I think he just threw his wife, Elizabeth, under the bus.

3. Then did I not give you the key of my [Page 4, original document page 44] father’s trunk to keep until we could get ressris? To come ad divide the estate, and did you not take the key home with you and that night come and steel four of the negroes and take them home and conceal them in your loft and claimed them as your own property and stated that your lawyer had advised you to do so, and then did I not ? you, that if you did not take them back it would penitentiary you, and you sent them home again that day and also after that did not ? John Hunt and B. Sewell to come and divide our father’s estate equal among us soon as it was convenient and the day was set and the heirs all met and you come and fit ? the key of father’s trunk, then did I not give you or your wife father’s trunk to unlock, supposing father’s money to be in it, and you took it, and did you not unlock it and the ? divide the money?

A: He never gave me the key of the trunk to keep, and I did not bring the key with me. Then was four of the negroes come home and by a lawyer’s advise then were kept in the loft and if the old woman (my wife) had got her just rights they would all have belonged to her by a divide that the old man had made before he made he will, I think he had some talk then about penitentiarying me for it, but he would have been short of penitentiarying me for that, I sent them back again. I think they did agree to let Sewell and Hunt divide the negroes. I had no hand in it and cannot recollect but little about it. I never took the key and never had it in my possession. I never unlocked the trunk or had my hand in it. These negroes were a part of the negroes that were divided.

Comment: Oh boy, the plot gets even thicker. Those poor enslaved people, being stolen back and forth and hidden in the barn loft. What little peace and continuity they had in their lives was gone.

4. Who unlocked the trunk?

[Page 5, original document 45]

A: John Dobkins unlocked the trunk and took the will out.

5. Do you know who he gave the will to?

A: I do not know any more than what my wife states, that he gave it to her.

And further this deponent saith not.

George Campbell signed by his mark.

Elizabeth Campbell next sworn states:

That as near as she can recollect Jacob Dobkins died in 1835. She is a daughter of said Jacob, the first that she knew of the will was on the day we had met to have the negroes divided. My brother Solomon Dobkins came to us and stated that father had made a will by which he had set his negroes free and that if John Hunt or him saw it they would be compelled to carry it and the only way was for us all men and women to agree and destroy the will, and I said to him in the name of God with my hand held up that I would have no hand in it, that if father had made a will and had not given me a cent, I would rather it would stand and I turned off and left them, who were all standing at the garden fence, and the minit I saw the will, John Dobkins had it out in the yard, he gave it to me and I brought it home. Elijah Jones came home with me that night, and took the will out of my bosom, and handed to him, stating that here is the paper they say is my father’s will, and he took it and read it over to himself and stated that it was his will and by it the negroes were free; the will was put in a chest and kept locked up and I do not know when it was taken out, or by whom.

Hessy is a child of Amey Louisa Decubinch?. She is about 11 years old on the instant of [Page 6, original document page 46] January last, as well as an idiot?.

Comment: If “idiot” is what this says, that was the accepted term of the time for people with intellectual developmental disabilities. It was not a derogatory term then.

Solomon Dobkins was sick with the mumps some three years after father’s death, he expected to die and sent for us to come and see him. My husband and me went to see him, and I stated to him in a conversation that he had not treated my husband as he should have done, that he had threatened to send him to the penitentiary for breaking open a trunk and taking out the will, and he asked George Campbell if he did not open the trunk and take out the will, and he replied that he had not done it, and Solomon then asked him who had done it and George said that it was your brother John.

Comment: I have never seen mumps referred to in a historical document before, nor did I realize it was potentially fatal. Apparently, mumps victims sometimes develop encephalitis and other severe diseases. Thank goodness for the mumps vaccine that began being administered to children in 1963.

Witness states that she could read when she was young and was acquainted with her father’s hand write, that she looked at the will and she believed that the signature to it was in his hand write.

Witness states that she was in a small box which was in a chest that Solomon Dobkins unlocked the chest and took the same box which contained the will out, he went out with it and she did not see him open it. John Dobkins had the will in his hand and handed it to her as she has stated.

While the will was in her house, Barney Campbell, and Charles Campbell who were her sons saw the will. Barney Campbell came and stated that Solomon Dobkins had been there and threatened to send George Campbell to the penitentiary for croming? the will of Jacob Dobkins and he had come to see about it. Charles Campbell came also for the same purpose. Mordicai Cunningham also saw it.

Comment: This is interesting, because it appears that Elizabeth’s two sons did not know what their parents had schemed to do, and that the evidence was still locked inside in that chest. Having said that, I wonder if Solomon was trying to stir up trouble. What was his objective in telling Barney and Charles?

The will continued there until about three years ago when it disappeared, she does not know who took it, or what had become of it the only person who was about the house who would likely have taken it was her grandson Nathaniel Brooks, and she does not know that he got it.

Witness states in cross examination that the will was kept with some deeds, the last she recollects of seeing it was about three years ago, but she missed it first about a year ago and Brooks would have known the will from his education from the other papers.

On the night after father was buried we were all there but George Campbell and Solomon Dobkins stated that his father had left him and John Hunt to settle the matter and his father wanted the male? to have the property equal, he did not say that he had made a will, and that if any of us was contrary he had it in his power to cut us off without anything. My father never told me he had made a will, or said anything to me about a will, I could read a little and was used to father’s hand write that was the way I knew it was his signature to the will. The chest was locked and the key usually hung up on the bed nail.

Comment: A bed nail was what people hung their clothes on.

That was very clearly a threat from Solomon.

She never read the will, she looked at it when Jones handed it back and saw her father’s name to it signed by him as she believes and witnesses by William Lanham and Randall Lanham, and heard Solomon Dobkins say it was her father’s will

Witness states that the key hung up that unlocked the chest when the will was kept and Brooks could have for the key and opened the chest if he wanted to he is the son-in-law of Solomon Dobkins, he was then not the son-in-law of Dobking was visiting then.

Further this deponent saith not.

Elizabeth Campbell signed with her mark.

Comment: When trying to figure out when Dorcas Johnson, Jacob Dobkin’s wife died, I was able to establish that she died before Jacob, in part because she did not apply for his pension as a widow.

Furthermore, Jacob apparently did not mention her, or, if he did, the people who read the will didn’t mention that because it was irrelevant after she died.

I had previously discovered an index entry that Jacob Dobkins’ heirs all quitclaimed his land to Betsy Campbell, here called Elizabeth. Of course, that’s the deed book that is missing. So we don’t know who all signed.

I found it very odd at the time that they all quitclaimed to her, not her husband. A quitclaim is not a buyout, but in essence, simply a relinquishment of rights for no remuneration. I still wonder why, but I’m now sure it has something to do with that clandestine agreement and what she and her siblings and their spouses all colluded to do.

Until reading this, I don’t think I ever fully comprehended what it meant to not be able to read. It’s not just having to make an X for your signature. It’s not being able to verify anything – even that the document you hold in your hands is your own father’s will. You must trust everyone else, even for the most critical transactions of your life.

[Page 8, original page 48]

William Lanham next sworn states that some time in June or May, the year he does not recollect, Alexander Dobkins a son of Solomon Dobkins came to him in the field and states that John Hunt was at his grandfather’s doing something writing and wanted me to go and witness it. I told him to go and get Randall, my brother and he done so. I went up to the house and John Hunt, Jacob Dobkins, and Solomon Dobkins were there. Hunt said they wanted us to witness some writing, he commenced reading a paper which he said was the will of Jacob Dobkins, he read on down to the disposition of the property and he stopped and stated that it was not usual for the witnesses to hear that part of a will and implied that if that was the way I did not care about knowing; when he was done reading Old Jacob Dobkins went up to the table and set down and signed the paper. Hunt asked him if he acknowledged the execution of the will and he stated that he did and acknowledged the contents of it. My brother Randall Lanham and myself witnessed it. Randall Lanham moved to Indiana and from there to Missouri and the report is he is deceased, but I do not know whether it is true or not.

Witness states that he did not read the will and he did not know that it is the same will that Mrs. Campbell spoke of, he never knew its contents or that the negroes were to be free, until he heard it spoken of, he thinks it was upwards of twenty years ago that the will was witnessed, he never witnessed but one will for old Mr. Dobkins.

Witness states he was well acquainted with Isom Jefferson, he was a good boy to work and industrious and peaceable and from 1835 up to this [Page 8, original page 49] time his since were worth after clothing him seventy four dollars a year upon earning?.

Signed William Lanham

Comment: I’m stunned that this man doesn’t know if his brother is actually deceased, or not.

Barnabus Campbell next sworn stated that Solomon Dobkins came to my house and stated that he intended to penitentiary Old George Campbell for burning his father’s will, this was a short time after the death of Jacob Campbell, George Campbell was my father and immediately came to his house to see about it, and when I come my mother handed me a paper which she stated was her father’s will. I took it in my hands and looked at it, but did not read it. I handed it to my brother Charles and he handed it back to mother, told my mother what Dobkins had said and she said the will was not burned, nor never should be that he ? Solomon Dobkins would be glad it was burnt. The rumor of the county was that the old man had made a will setting the negroes free.

Signed Barnet Campbell

Comment: This Jacob Campbell has to be a previously unknown son of George and Elizabeth, because the Jacob Campbell who was the son of John Campbell and Jenny lived into the late 1870s and died in Texas.

Deposition of Elijah Jones and William H. Jennings taken by complainants May 16, 1851 (1851?) before the Clerk and Master.

Elijah Jones sworn states at the time that the heirs of Jacob Dobkins Sr. met (after the death of the said Dobkins, I was present, I believe it was in December 1835). They met I was informed in order to divide the estate as they would all of age, then was something said about the old man Dobkins having made a will, they all as well as I knew ? at a ? that they would not have the will proven and recorded; my advice to them was to record the will [Page 10, original document page 50] and live up to the contents; they refused to do so and said that they would lose too much if that was done. My understanding was that if the will was proven that they would lose the negroes; the will was not shown to me then, but I believe that I saw and read the will at George Campbell’s that evening or the next morning. I am not certain which, I cannot now state what was the whole contents of the will, as it has been so long, but I feel very confident that the negroes were to be free, but on what terms or conditions I do not recollect. I knew that as I insisted they heed the letter not divide the negroes, that Solomon Dobkins became very much irritated and ordered me to leave the place. I replied to him that it was a public day and that I would not leave, but that I would say no more, only that I thought they would someday wish they had taken my advice. They proceeded to make a decision. John Hunt and Benjamin Sewell was two if not all that was chosen by the heirs to make the decision. I am not certain who were the witnesses to the will. I believe that William Lanham was one but am not certain that he was. I have almost forgot all about the will and the whole transaction, but since I was summoned I have reflected brought second things to recollection, that I could not have stated when the subpoena was served. There was very little interest in the will if the negroes were set free, for them was not much other personal property belonging to the estate. This was the reason that they all agreed to divide all the difference in the price of the negroes were made up in other property.

And further this deponent saith not.

Elijah Jones

[Page 11, original document page 57]

Comment: Even knowing that John Hunt was aware of Jacob’s will, they STILL involved him, perhaps not wanting to arouse suspicion. How did they even look the man in the eye? Is it possible that Hunt simply looked the other way? He couldn’t insist on enforcing a will that Jacob could have destroyed. However, he could and should have required the estate to be submitted to the court for administration. Why didn’t he? He was, after all, the sheriff.

Thomas W. Jennings next sworn deposeth and saith that before William Fugate bought the boy Nelson, he came to my house and asked me if I knew anything about there being a will of Jacob Dobkins and I told him all I knew about it was from the report in the neighborhood, he said he was talking about buying this boy and he did not think it would be any effect, that it was not recorded.

By William Fugate: Have you not been an agent for these complainants, in this matter, and did you not threaten that you would file a bill to have them set free.

Answer: I have not been an agent for them. I have never stated that I would have it done, but I have stated that it would be done.

And further this deponent saith not

Signed Thomas W. Jennings

Comment: It appears that there is another person that supports their bid for justice.

Depositions of Jenny Campbell, William Riley, and Elijah Jones taken Sept 12, 1851 before the Clerk and Master

Jenny Campbell first sworn:

Question by Solomon Dobkins: If your father Jacob Dobkins made a distribution of his negroes before his death amongst his children, please state when it was and how it was.

Answer: I know nothing of my own knowledge only from information.

By same: Which one of the negroes did your sister Mrs. Jones take home with her, how long did she keep him and what did she do with him?

Answer: Jefferson was the one she took home with her. I do not know how long she was with him. She went back to her father’s when her and her husband parted but I do not recollect

[Page 12 – original document page 52] when that was. The boy remained with her and she took him back with her to her father’s. The boy was with her several years before she went to her father’s.

How old was the boy when she took him away?

Answer: I do not know exactly, but from my best recollection he was about 9 or 10 years of age, the boy stayed at Old Mr. Dobkins after she came back and I think Mrs. Jones clothed him and she remained there until a short time before the death of old Mr. Dobkins.

Question by complainant’s solicitor: What is your age? Can you write or read writing?

Answer: I am in my seventy-fourth year. I cannot read or write. I never saw the will and know nothing about its contents.

Comment: These few sentences are packed full. Jenny is my ancestor. First, this absolutely confirms that she is Jacob’s daughter. It’s this deposition that cousin Debbie was seeking.

This is also the only place she ever provides her age – and the only words we have from her own mouth.

Her deposition also provides significantly more information about Margaret Dobkins Jones. She apparently took Isom when he was a child. When Margaret separated from her husband, she went back home to her father’s. I wonder if she took her children with her. I can’t help but wonder what happened between her and Elisha. He allowed her to take her possessions, and if I recall, returned the land too.

Divorce was unheard-of at the time and required Supreme Court permission. There was no such thing as no-fault. I did not find their divorce in the index at the Tennessee Archives, but their indexing system leaves a lot to be desired since this case didn’t even come up using the surname of Dobkins.

Where did Margaret go before Jacob died, and why did she leave her father’s home? She was about 30 when she left her husband and a little over 50 when Jacob died. In 1850, Margaret is age 65 and living with Daniel Leonard, a carpenter, who is living one house away from Joseph Simmons

We also learn that Jenny can’t read or write, and her age which gives us a birth year of 1777, assuming she had already had her birthday in 1851.

While Jenny did live nearby, it was across Little Ridge, so she and John Campbell were not direct neighbors with Jacob Dobkins or her siblings. She seems to not have maintained day-to-day contact with people in that group. Plus, she was raising her daughter, Elizabeth’s children and probably had no time for drama. Still, she and John were a part of the group who agreed to secret her father’s will and divide the slaves.

Jenny lived beside present-day Liberty Baptist Church, and Jacob lived on what is now A. L. Campbell Lane. Solomon Dobkins as well as George Campbell and Elizabeth lived adjacent to Jacob Dobkins on the Powell River.

William Riley next sworn

In the fall of the year 1834, I taught a school in the neighborhood of the old Mr. Dobkins, perhaps the schoolhouse was on his land. During the school I went to Old Mr. Dobkins’s one night to stay all night with him. While in conversation with Jacob Dobkins decd he said then was a boy then by the name of Berry that he had given to Mary Martin when he was a child. His mother died left him and if she would raise him she might have him. He told me that she had taken him in her bed and raised him and he intended the boy Berry for her and that a short time previous he had sent the boy home to her and the boy stayed some time with her and got dissatisfied and had come back to him, and that he had sent word to Mary Martin and Thomas Martin to come and get him, that he intended the boy for them. He also told me to tell [Page 13 – original page 53] them to come down and get the boy and he would make them a bill of sale to him, for fear that he might drop off said he, and the heirs might rock them out of the boy.

Did Mrs. Martin get the boy away before the death of the old man, if not what became of him?

Answer: She did not. He remained then until the death of the old man, when he and the complainants were divided amongst the heirs.

How long after this conversation was it until Old man Dobkins died?

To the best of my belief, he died in the year of 1835.

Signed William Riley

Elijah Jones next sworn:

Mr. Jones you will please state all you may know in relation to a division of the negroes of Old Man Dobkins in his lifetime, if there was one, if so who got the complainant Isom Jefferson?

Answer: There was a division in part of the negroes, I believe it was in the year 1815. The boy Isom Jefferson was given to my wife, [I] was not present, we then lived in Powells Valley. I moved the boy to my house and kept him then for some time. I cannot say how long but I think it was something near 12 months when me and my wife separated. I sent the boy home to the old man Dobkins by my father with a letter. In that letter stated to the old man, as he had given me the negro, that I would return him to him and he might give him to his daughter if he saw proper. He remained there as I believe until the death of the old man. When the property and negroes was to be divided I was there, and insisted of the negroes was to be divided, that Isom Jefferson should [Page 14 – original page 54] belong to my wife. I claimed no interest myself. I then stated that as the old man had given him to me, and her that I claimed no part, that she ought to have him. The answer by all was that the old or former division was of no effect and they would not let her have the boy, is all I know at this time about the division as respects that boy. There was another boy the old man gave to Mary or Polly Dobkins wife of Reuben Dobkins. She did not get him at the last division. I insisted she ought to have him, for he took him when helpless and had all the trouble that was the frowned?. The old man stated he gave her to the boy Berry, then the heirs all still insisted that the former decision or gifts should not hold, nor did they let them. I believe that George Campbell and wife the first decision was to have a girl Amey but I do not believe that they received her at that time. I got Isom Jefferson but believe she was to remain with the old man perhaps as long as he lived, but I am not certain. They got her at the last division but did not get all her children. My wife for one Cynthia Ann and John Dobkins got one. I am not certain what was his name, he was a small boy. I supposed his name was Nelson. They both are children of Anny as I was informed and am informed that by an complainants in this bill.

Comment: This is quite interesting because it confirms that the Reuben Dobkins who died in 1823 was the son of Jacob Dobkins, and not Jacob’s brother by the same name. This progression makes me think the Mary “Polly” who was Reuben’s wife remarried to Thomas Martin, which is why Jacob tried to gift her with the child, Berry. What happened to Berry?

Was not Old Mr. Dobkins at the time of his death a very aged infirm man, what was his age and what we the condition of mind, had not age made him very childish?

Answer: He was among the best? of men. I have not been with the old man for some time [Page 15 – original page 55] before his death. I perhaps passed by there one time not more than one or two years before his death. The old man was appeared the last time I saw him to be in as good a state of mind then as is common of his age, which I believe was eighty or upwards.

In your former deposition you state something in relation to the will of Old Mr. Dobkins and that you think you saw it. Please state in whose handwriting, if you know it, the will appeared to be.

Answer: I believe the will that I read was in the hand writing of John Hunt. I was well acquainted with his hand writing; as respects the freedom of the slaves, I cannot give the details? Precisely, but will give the meanings or substance. The will stated that the negroes were to be set free or emancipated if the laws of Tennessee would allow them to remain in the state and if it would not allow them to stay if emancipated, they were to stay on the farm of Solomon Dobkins and the Solomon Dobkins was to take care of them, and act as their agent for them, and to have the control of them, is I believe what in substance the decd stated about the negroes, as to the date of the will, I think been date some three or four years before the death of Jacob Dobkins but cannot say precisely.

And further this deponent saith not.

Elijah Jones signed his name.

Deposition of Susan Hardy taken January 17, 1852.

Question by respondents council: Please state what you may have heard Old Jacob Dobkins, in his time, in relation to freeing his slaves and what he intended to do with them, if he gave any reason why he would not free them, state what it was, when and when did it take place, and how long before his death.

Answer: I never heard Old Jacob Dobkins say anything about setting his slaves free and never had any conversation with him on that subject.

And further this deponent saith not.

Susan Hardy signs.

Comment: I have no idea who Susan Hardy is or how she is connected.

The bill of costs is attached, but I did not transcribe it.

So, What Happened?

I don’t know, nor do I know how to find out. With former chancery suits heard at the supreme court, I’ve called the library and asked about the outcome, and apparently, they don’t have the disposition information. Just the case files.

How incredibly ironic. It’s like missing the last page of the book.

I tried to find the complainants in 1860 with families that would be likely candidates, but I couldn’t.

In 1850, George Campbell was listed on the Slave Schedule with people:

  • Female 40 – black
  • Male 15 – black
  • Female 10 – mulatto

The mulatto description begs another question for which there will never be an answer.

Next door was Solomon Dobkins with:

  • Male 43 – black
  • Male 39 – black

One of those men was Isom, but who was the other? Did he wind up in Texas?

I’d like to think that these people received their freedom, albeit 17 or 18 years late. Better late than never.

I also can’t help but wonder how much, if any, wages they were compensated for. Isom was supposed to receive a horse and saddle. Did he receive that, and did he receive anything else? Did he use that horse and saddle to ride into the sunset and never look back. He was 43 years old in 1850. Where did he go?

Did they change their names, or leave the county, or both? Is that why I can’t find them in the 1870 census? They could also have died, of course. Twenty years is a long time, and we know the three oldest people were born in the early 1800s

What happened to Isom Jefferson’s brother, Berry, and his sister, Anny Louisa Deaderick who was probably born about 1810 or so.?

If Isom Jefferson was 9 or 10 in 1814/1815, he would have been 4 or 5 in 1809, or born about 1804 or 1805.

Berry was his brother, and was quite ill as a baby. If Berry was given to Reuben Dobkins’ when they were married, that occurred before Reuben’s death in 1823. If Barry was given to her when she was a widow, that happened after 1823 when Reuben died. This also tells us that when Barry was born, Isom Jefferson and Anny Louisa Deaderick’s mother died, so Barry was clearly the youngest. Their mother was probably one of the four people named in 1809.

Aneker or Anekey, Mitilty, Jiary, Amelyer

Was Isom’s father with the family in 1809 too?

I’ve done my best to reassemble the family, here.

Name Relationship Age When With Whom When
Anny Louise Deaderick Mother and sister 40 in 1850 census, so born about 1810 Jacob Dobkins, then George and Elizabeth Campbell in 1835
Cynthia Ann Daughter of Anny Can’t find in census, but since she filed the lawsuit in 1850, that suggests she is an adult Margaret Jones, but can’t find her in 1850 census
Lewis Son of Anny 15 in 1850, so born about 1835 George and Elizabeth Campbell
Nelson Son of Anny 5 in 1837, 19 in 1850 so born about 1831 John Dobkins until 1837, then bought by William Fugate, with Fugate in 1850
Hessy Daughter of Anny Born after 1835, 10 in 1850 census George  and Elizabeth Campbell
Isom Jefferson Brother of Anny Louisa Deaderick 8 or 10 in 1814, 43 in 1830 so born about 1807 Solomon Dobkins
Berry – Ill as an infant and not expected to live. His mother died. Brother of Isom Jefferson Before Reuben died in 1823? Mary Martin, widow of Reuben after she married Thomas Martin, then back to Jacob Dobkins until his death. Did John and Jenny Campbell receive him? Probably deceased by 1850 since he’s not listed in the lawsuit.

Based on this information, it appears that probably only Isom would have been named in the 1809 purchase transaction, but the mother of Anny, Isom, and Berry certainly was, and possibly their father as well.

I hope that descendants of these people can find them if they are looking. One thing is for sure, their acts were legend-worthy.

Thoughts

I’m left with lots of questions and some thoughts.

First, I have so much respect for the bravery of Cynthia Ann, the young woman of color with no last name. The trouble-maker. The rabble-rouser. The incredibly brave enslaved woman who initiated and signed this lawsuit on behalf of herself and her family members – including her mother, uncle, and siblings. Despite the odds against her, and the long drawn-out nature of the suit, she did receive a positive outcome, even if the defendants filed an appeal and kicked it to the higher court. I hope that Cynthia Ann didn’t suffer ill-treatment as a result.

Injustice was committed for days, months, and years – but that day, justice, or something resembling justice was finally done.

I hope they were freed before the Civil War freed all slaves. I hope they did receive justice, or at least some compensation, and found a way to live a joyful life from thenceforth. I wonder if Cynthia Ann’s motivation was outrage at injustice or if there were other reasons. I surely would like to know what happened to that family and to her in particular. I can’t help but wonder how one would transition from enslaved to free in the blink of an eye. Were they prepared for making their way in the world? Where did they go? Did their families know, a couple of generations later, how brave Cynthia Ann was? Does she have descendants today?

My second set of thoughts is that a WHOLE LOT of strangely misfitting pieces in the Dobkins/Campbell family line now make a lot more sense.

I knew there was a secret, but I had no idea the magnitude of that secret. I know my ancestor’s daughter, Jane Campbell Freeman was divorced in 1830, a HUGE scandal. I thought it might have been that.

I knew from another suit that, let’s just say, one Campbell daughter was caught by one of the slaves copulating in the barn with her double first cousin, the son of the other Campbell brother. This family was no stranger to scandal.

I knew that something was unusual about Margaret Dobkins Jones’s situation, but I didn’t know what. I never expected that she lived separately from her husband for most of her married life and probably never divorced, but he remarried.

Yet, her husband, Elijah, remained connected to her family, except for her brother, Solomon. Was he defending his sister’s interests, or was there something else?

Of course, Solomon had his own set of issues.

Then there was that cousin who made insinuations about William Fugate, but absolutely WOULD NOT get up off the family scuttlebutt. She enjoyed holding information hostage, unfortunately. Maybe she was embarrassed.

Then, someone else who lived in Claiborne County told me that one of their relatives in Barney’s line started researching this family some years back, found something, tore everything up, and stopped. They wouldn’t tell anyone what they found and said no one needed to know. I thought that they might have discovered that Barney did not belong to George Campbell, but now we know, based on this and DNA, that Barney WAS in fact George’s son, so it wasn’t that.

There was a break in Barney’s genetic male line a generation or so later, though, so who knows what they might have found. I’m guessing that went to the grave with the two adults involved back in the 1800s.

I’m not a betting person, but I’d bet what they found was either part of this chancery suit, or something having to do with it. That paperwork may still be floating around in that family someplace, or was then. Maybe they found the agreement that everyone signed. We never did see that that produced in the lawsuit.

Maybe they actually found Jacob’s will, but I’d bet dollars to donuts that was burned sometime between 1847 and 1849, between the last time Elizabeth saw it and then noticed it was missing – assuming she’s telling the truth.

My guess is that the guilty culprit who burned the will was George Campbell, because it was his box or chest that held the will all those years, and he was the one who was threatened to be “penitentiaried.” Maybe he or Elizabeth decided that enough was enough, and the evidence needed to disappear.

It’s VERY clear that what they did was extremely serious, and VERY illegal. I don’t think the penitentiary was an idle threat.

There wasn’t one innocent party in that family – not one. That’s why everyone, men and women, and their spouses, had to sign that clandestine “do not tell” agreement.

Yet, somebody told. That information hit the grapevine highway.

The Dobkins siblings also couldn’t have pulled that off alone. People gave them cover for not registering Jacob’s death, and several people knew he had a will at one time, not long before his death. In particular, John Hunt, long-time sheriff and friend of Jacob’s who wrote the will, along with the witnesses.

You know John Hunt had to have asked about Jacob’s will.

You know the family lied and said they found no will. So Jacob had probably changed his mind and torn it up or burned it – at least that’s what they would have said to John Hunt when he inquired.

That’s what the compact was for – to discourage anyone from telling that ugly truth – by making it VERY expensive to do so. Plus, that penitentiary threat, to some extent, hung over everyone’s head.

That agreement and what they had done, plus maybe a guilty conscience, caused them to fight between themselves for the duration of their lives. Solomon tried to leave it behind and died soon after arriving in Texas. I don’t think his family never knew, just like they never knew about his issue, whatever it was, during the War of 1812. He was stripped of his rank, according to his military records, yet he was still called Capt. Dobkins in the family and in Claiborne County. Nope, he never told that secret either.

Word of this misdeed never trickled down in my line either, although it was many generations ago. Rumors that reflect poorly upon direct ancestors don’t tend to get repeated.

None of our ancestors are perfect. Some are more imperfect, in different ways, than others.

I’m grateful to know the truth, whatever it is.

And I feel that in some small way I’ve vindicated many people by publishing Jacob Dobkins “will,” such as it is, and along with it – the truth.

It’s no longer fraudulently concealed, secreted, or destroyed. In fact, we’ve just raised it from the dead!

_____________________________________________________________

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Connect Your DNA Test, and Others, to Your Tree

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To optimize your DNA tests, each tester needs to take advantage of the features offered by each vendor.

In order to do that, we need to perform the following tasks.

  1. Upload or create a tree (except at 23andMe who does not support trees)
  2. Connect our own test to our own profile card on our tree
  3. Connect other tests we manage to their (or our) tree, depending on the vendor
  4. Connect matches who are known relatives to their profiles on our tree

Each vendor handles these situations differently, so we’ll look at each one of the vendors with step-by-step instructions for handling those situations. We all want to get the most out of the tests we’ve taken!

Plant a Tree

If you have not created or uploaded a tree at each one of the vendors (except 23andMe who does not support genealogy trees), please do so. However, 23andMe does provide for links to your tree elsewhere, so we will review that function.

I manage my “master tree” on my own computer, but I also maintain trees at both Ancestry and MyHeritage where I attach documents and research found at that vendor. I also update my ancestors at WikiTree to be sure other researchers benefit from new discoveries.

I have not uploaded my full tree from my computer anyplace because I have many private notes that are not appropriate for disclosure, not to mention speculative and unproven relationships. I created a pared-down tree at one time to upload to both Ancestry and MyHeritage, and build those trees out from there.

I’m often asked about replacing your tree at the various vendors with an updated tree. If you do that, be aware that you will lose your DNA connections and document links. I do NOT recommend that. I simply maintain multiple trees. I wrote about this in the article, “Genealogy Tree Replacement – Should I or Shouldn’t I?” If you are considering that option, PLEASE read that article first.

RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker, and Legacy Family Tree Software all provide a syncing option with various vendors and FamilySearch, although not every vendor allows access to each of those software companies. I probably should experiment with the syncing option, but given a family member’s terrible experience some years back, I’ve been unwilling to do that. My biggest fear is that I will corrupt the file and not notice it until it’s far too late to revert to a backup.

When you upload or create a tree, make sure deceased and living people are marked as such, and you’ve opted to share your tree. If you don’t, you accidentally have a private tree. Worse yet, you might not realize it. I wrote about that in Quick Tip: Trees, Death Dates and Unintentionally Private Ancestors.

Now, let’s take a look at each vendor.

23andMe

23andMe does not support traditional genealogy trees, but they do provide a location for you to link your tree at another vendor or source.

Under your name at the right side, you’ll see “View Your Profile” under the dropdown.

I’ve not been able to find a generic Ancestry tree link that will allow non-Ancestry subscribers to view my tree, but it’s easy to do at MyHeritage. Simply open your tree at  MyHeritage and just copy the link at the top. Don’t worry, people won’t see anyone living.

If you want to use “one world” types of trees, you can also link to other trees such as FamilySearch or WikiTree, but just remember that you don’t control that content.

You don’t need to connect yourself to your tree at 23andMe, because there is no genealogy tree. However, 23andMe constructs a “genetic tree” for you using your closest matches, based on how you match other people, and how they match each other.

You can view your tree under “Family and Friends,” then “Family Tree.”

I added my ancestors’ names so it’s easy to keep straight. You can do that by simply clicking on the colored circle representing the ancestor, starting with your parents.

If you know that one of your matching relatives is not in exactly the correct tree location, you can click on their circle, and then click on Edit to make modifications.

You may want to add a relative that you can identify but who isn’t connected on the tree that 23andMe constructed.

Looking on the far-right side of the tree, in the lower corner, you’ll see “Add a Relative.” Click there and follow the instructions.

Ancestry

At Ancestry, you need to link your test to “you” in a tree. Your test can only be linked to one person in one tree at a time. You can change this, but you will lose any ThruLines you currently have. They will be regenerated based on the new tree you connect your test to, but based on the tree and other factors, they may not be the same. My recommendation is if you’re going to disconnect yourself and reconnect yourself elsewhere, record everything first.

Alternatively, you can take a second DNA test and simply link that second test to another tree. IMHO, that’s a better alternative. You can leave one in place as your research tree and use the second test to experiment with.

To link your test to your tree, select the “DNA” tab. At far right, you’ll see “Settings.”

You need to tell Ancestry who you are in your tree. Click on “Settings,” then scroll to “Tree Link.”

You can also link other tests you directly manage to their placards in your tree as well.

These links allow Ancestry to form ThruLines using both DNA matches and common ancestors in trees for 7 generations.

On your DNA Match page, Ancestry will ask you if you recognize a match.

If you click on “Yes,” you’ll be asked which side the match is on.

Then you’ll be given a long list of possible relationships in most-likely to least-likely order. Literally, Erik is the last option offered.

Select and confirm.

I’m not positive exactly HOW this helps Ancestry help you, but I suspect it confirms and helps Ancestry perfect ThruLines, relationship predictions, and perhaps even “sides” of ethnicity.

I wrote about Optimizing Your Tree at Ancestry for More Hints and DNA ThruLines.

FamilyTreeDNA

At FamilyTreeDNA, every DNA test kit has its own kit number and associated tree, so you don’t need to tell FamilyTreeDNA who you are if you create a tree from scratch on their site.

FamilyTreeDNA offers a unique family matching feature that sorts your matches into maternal and paternal sides.

In order to take advantage of this, you will need a tree. You can upload a GEDCOM file, although the upload at FamilyTreeDNA does not seem to do well with very large files.

If you don’t have a GEDCOM file on your computer, you can download a tree from either Ancestry or MyHeritage and upload to FamilyTreeDNA.

I wrote about this in the article Download Your Ancestry Tree and Upload it Elsewhere for Added Benefit.

If you upload a tree, you’ll be asked to select the person in the tree that is “you,” meaning the person who tested their DNA.

You’ll want to link known matches to your tree to enable Family Matching, aka bucketing, so that FamilyTreeDNA can divide and assign your matches maternally and paternally.

If you are building your tree at FamilyTreeDNA from scratch, simply click to begin and complete the information on the placards to add your information, then your parents, building out from there. You’ll want to add the ancestral lines to connect with your closest matches on your match list.

Family matching, or bucketing, is enabled by linking known matches to their proper place on your tree. FamilyTreeDNA then evaluates each match, determining if they match a common segment with you and someone you’ve linked. If that match does share a segment with both of you, meaning they triangulate, then that person is assigned either maternally, paternally, or both. I wrote about Triangulation in Action at FamilyTreeDNA, here.

The best people to link are your parents and grandparents, of course, but that’s not always an option. You’ll want to link as many matches as you can.

To link people, either click on the Family Tree tab at the top of the page, or on the “Link on Family Tree” under Relationship Range for individual matches.

Simply click on “Link Matches,” then drag and drop your match to their placard.

Here’s an example of linking parents.

Once someone is linked, the green dot will appear signifying that they are linked, and which type of test. Green is a Family Finder autosomal test, blue means they’ve taken a Y DNA test, and pink is a mitochondrial DNA test.

If your parents aren’t available to test, link every upstream relative that you can identify. By this, I mean that your children and full siblings will match you on both sides, so aren’t helpful for parental-side assignment.

People who have DNA tests from both parents can expect around 80% of their matches to be assigned maternally, paternally, or both.

If you have relatives who have tested at other vendors, you can ask them to upload to FamilyTreeDNA for free matching.

MyHeritage

At MyHeritage, you will connect yourself and any relatives whose tests you manage to your tree.

Under “DNA,” select “Manage DNA kits.”

At the right, you’ll click on the three dots, also known as a hamburger menu (who knew.)

Select Assign (if this is a new test or a transfer) or Re-assign a kit.

Be sure to do this for every kit you manage. I made that mistake and wrote about how I discovered and fixed the problem, here. Kit assignment enables Theories of Family Relativity and other super-helpful features.

I wrote about several things you can do to optimize your chances of receiving Theories of Family Relativity, here.

You can upload DNA kits to MyHeritage from tests taken at other vendors, here.

Fish in All the Ponds

I have provided step-by-step download/upload instructors for all vendors, here. It’s important to fish in all available ponds by making sure you have DNA tests at all four vendors. Then, upload or create trees and complete this bit of housekeeping to increase your chances of catching fish!

_____________________________________________________________

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You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

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I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

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Rest in Peace, Queen Elizabeth – 52 Ancestors #374

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Her full name was Elizabeth Alexandra Mary of the House of Windsor. She was born as Princess Elizabeth of York to The Duke and Duchess of York, later to become King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth. After King George died, her mother was known as Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother to avoid confusion with her daughter, then Queen Elizabeth II.

Not being British, at least not in the past 246 years or so, the British tradition of names combined with titles that change is somewhat confusing to my American mind. Let’s just say I encourage you to read the Wikipedia article here.

Queen Elizabeth has been Queen of the United Kingdom and several Commonwealth realms longer than I’ve been alive. She ascended to the throne in February 1952 when her father, King George, died, pledging herself to the service of her country in a speech to Parliament.

A little-known fact about Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, who was really quite remarkable, is that she was literally in a treehouse in Kenya when she was informed that her father had passed away unexpectedly, and consequently, she had become Queen.

She was staying at the Treetops Hotel at the foothills of Mount Kenya, in a treehouse built in the branches of a huge fig tree on a series of tall but quite spindly-looking stilts. Her husband, Prince Philip, learned of King George’s death from a reporter, before Elizabeth, and conveyed the sad news to the 26-year old woman who had no idea she was, at that very moment, already the Queen of England.

You can view the original treetop structure here.

Clearly, Elizabeth returned immediately to assume the mantle of public service she would humbly wear for the next 70 years.

Seventy years and seven months – the longest reigning monarch in British history and the longest-reigning female monarch in world history. Only one other monarch, ever, reigned longer than Queen Elizabeth – French King Louis XIV who ascended the throne at age four. Clearly, he wasn’t making decisions at that age. Her Majesty celebrated her Platinum Jubilee in June of this year. I’m glad that both she and the British people were able to experience that celebration together.

By Stuart Yeates from Oxford, UK – Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=728182

Her Majesty, the Queen, had recently been experiencing health challenges after having contracted Covid in late February this year, although there’s no evidence that was a factor in her death. She passed away at Balmoral Castle, her home in Scotland, on September 8th, 2022, at 96 years of age, after fulfilling duties just two days previously.

The Queen was greatly-loved, not only in England but also in much of the rest of the British Isles and Commonwealth countries. Many of the British subjects, and others, never met the Queen in person, but are grieving deeply. She was widely viewed as a lovely, kind, grandmotherly person.

Nature published an article explaining the science behind the outpouring of public grief. Let’s face it, Queen Elizabeth has been a constant in all of our lives for most all of our lives. While some of her family members have been embroiled in numerous scandals, she herself has been a unifying factor within the Royal family and also, for the most part, the rest of Great Britain too. She always offered hope and comfort.

The Queen brought four children into the world, and the monarchy has descended to her eldest son, Charles, now King Charles the third. While he is officially King, he has not been ceremonially crowned, as yet, and won’t be until several months after Queen Elizabeth has been laid to rest. No one feels like celebrating just yet.

If you’re interested in the royal line of succession, which also baffles me, there’s a good article here with a pedigree chart – something genealogists understand. The net-net of this is that Prince William is next in line, and then his eldest son, who is, of course, still a young child.

Cousin Queen Elizabeth

Elizabeth, although I didn’t know it for a very long time, even after becoming a genealogist, was my 11th cousin, three times removed, 11C3R. Her great-grandchildren are my generation. We appear to also be related in other ways as well, but those are either unproven, and what I would consider speculative, or more distant.

If you’re rolling your eyes right about now, trust me, I was too. That’s part of why I discounted that tidbit for such a long time.

Several years ago, cousin Bill Nevils told me that we connected to the Royal Monarchy through the Muncy line. Bill was a remarkable, meticulous genealogist, as was James Muncy who also, independently, reached the same conclusion long before the days of quick copy and paste internet trees.

I’ve spent the past several years confirming my ancestors, one per week, in the 52 Ancestors Series (plus DNA when possible), and to date, I’ve worked my way through 6 and most of 7 of the 14 generations between me and Sir Andrew Windsor and his wife Elizabeth Blount who were married about 1490, my common ancestors with Queen Elizabeth,

I’m not terribly concerned about the accuracy of The Queen’s genealogy. Once one intersects with a Royal line, the genealogy has been scrutinized with a microscope by people with far more resources and money than I have at my disposal. I’m VERY grateful for that!

Queen Elizabeth, along with all of the other British Monarchy, are descended from William the Conqueror – along with an estimated 5 million other people. William the Conqueror is descended from Charlemagne, as is most if not all of the rest of Europe, including the British Isles, and the European diaspora.

So, one way or another, or more likely in many ways, if you have any European heritage at all, you too are probably related to the recently deceased Queen.

Gateway Ancestors

If you’re looking for what are known as “Gateway Ancestors” in the US, colonial immigrants, you can find a curated list of well-researched lines at WikiTree, along with the Magna Carta Project gateway ancestors here.

Our Connecting Lineage

The genealogy connecting Queen Elizabeth and me, which sounds very odd, I must admit, beginning with Sir Andrew Windsor and Elizabeth Blount is shown below. Beneath that, I’ll provide the WikiTree links and my ancestor stories, where they exist.

 Gen Name WikiTree 52 Ancestors
1 William Sterling Estes https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Estes-2199 Many, see Wikitree entry
2 Ollie Bolton https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bolton-1715 Ollie Bolton Estes Robbins (1874-1955) and the Wrath of a Woman Scorned
3 Margaret Clarkson/Claxton https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Claxton-738 Margaret N. Clarkson/Claxton (1851-1920, Baptist Church Founder
4 Samuel Claxton https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Claxton-328 Samuel Claxton/Clarkson (1827-1876), Civil War Veteran
5 Agnes Muncy https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Muncy-246 Agnes Muncy (1803-after 1880), A Grieved Mother
6 Samuel Muncy III https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Muncy-93 Samuel Muncy (1761/1768-1839), Who’s Your Daddy, Your Mamma, and Your Kids?
7 Samuel Muncy Jr. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Muncy-225 Revolutionary War Veteran
9 Samuel Muncy Sr. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Muncy-95 Revolutionary War Veteran
10 Francis Muncy https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Muncy-96
11 Hannah Brewster https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Brewster-1099
12 Sarah Ludlow https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ludlow-121
13 Roger Ludlow https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ludlow-37 Immigrant – Great Migration
14 Thomas Ludlow https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ludlow-8
15 Edith Windsor https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Windsor-38

London

Twice I’ve been to London and in close proximity to the two Royal castles that grace central London. The Royal family is front and center everyplace in England, and the Royal flag indicates whether Her Majesty is in residence at the time, or not, in any specific location. I was stunned that everyone in London knew, without looking.

In 1970, as a student and long before I was interested in genealogy, I visited Buckingham Palace and watched the ceremonial changing of the guard.

My cousin, The Queen, would have been 44 and not even approaching her mid-life point yet. Of course, none of us knows at the time when that milestone occurs.

A few years ago, I stayed just a couple blocks away from Kensington Palace.

Here, I’m walking through Hyde Park on the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Walk, with Kensington Palace in the background. I’m not at all sure I realized that until I saw this photo later that the Palace was back there. I wanted my picture with the marker in the walk. I was glad Diana hadn’t been forgotten and omitted altogether. I didn’t realize Diana had been my 12C2R by marriage, and her children, Princes William and Harry, are my 13C1R.

The palace gate was a block or so from my hotel, and across from the bus stop.

I wondered out loud to my husband if the black car exiting the Palace grounds might have been the Queen. I discounted it as even a possibility due to the lack of pomp and circumstance – then a local told me that no, the Royal Standard flag was not flying over the Castle, so she was not there. She was in Balmoral for a visit, I was informed, just matter of factly. Everyone felt an affection and kinship with the Queen, like a favorite family member.

It was just accepted that everyone knew where the Queen was, and what was going on with the Royals. As someone said to me, “She is ours, and we are hers.”

By Conay – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2656298

Here’s the Royal flag flying above Buckingham Palace.

Apparently, the Royal Standard also flies on the car in which the Sovereign is riding and on the Royal plane when it’s on the ground. Right now, it is also draping the Queen’s coffin.

Preparing to Lay the Queen to Rest

Queen Elizabeth will be laid to rest on Monday. Londoners are waiting for 24 hours now, in the cold, and the line stretches for many miles to leave flowers and pay their respects. These are no casual acts of reverence – but a deeply felt connection to the woman who served Great Britain as the only Monarch most have every known. Simply put, they love her.

King Charles, along with Elizabeth’s other children are standing ceremonial guard over their mother’s coffin as she lays in state in Westminster Hall, which is also Westminster Palace, the famous complex where the British Parliament meets, seen here from across the Thames River.

Queen Elizabeth’s four children, including the King, entering together in full dress military uniforms, standing vigil, each on one side of her coffin, was emotion-packed and exceedingly difficult to watch. Grieving is hard enough in private – but this is on full display to the world.

By Terry Ott from Washington, DC Metro Area, United States of America – Built in 1016, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=122737498

Today, however, was the most agonizing part for me – watching her grandchildren stand vigil. You can see Prince William’s lip quiver as he fights public tears as the world watches. I couldn’t even breathe when my mother died, let alone manage to grieve combined with upholding an exceedingly public Royal tradition, broadcast ’round the world. Nothing could ever prepare you for this.

My condolences to the entire Royal family and the British people as well. I hope their memories and great love sustain them.

The good news is that they had decades to make wonderful memories – and Queen Elizabeth was remarkably healthy right up to very near the end. The bad news is that everyone had so long to form those bonds that have been snapped. Great love equates to great grief – and these people, all of them, are clearly in mourning.

Funeral Service

Queen Elizabeth’s funeral will take place Monday, September 19th in Westminster Abbey, the same location where she was crowned in 1953. She will be interred in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, beside Prince Philip, her husband of 73 years who died in 2021, and her parents. Her funeral service commences at 11 AM UK time and will be broadcast live on probably every news channel imaginable if you care to join me in watching what will assuredly be a memorial like no other. The doors open at 8 AM, so if you’re one of the dignitaries attending in person, don’t forget your invitation, and don’t be late! 😊

At 11:44 AM, sharp, the Queen’s coffin will be moved from Westminster Hall to Westminster Abbey, an 8-minute trip, with King Charles III leading the Royal family as they walk behind, escorting their beloved mother and grandmother, a woman who just happened to also be their revered Queen, one last time.

The funeral service will be followed by two minutes of silence at noon. Details can be found here.

History is literally being made with the first funeral of a ruling British Monarch to be televised. I hope you’ll watch. After all, Queen Elizabeth is probably your cousin too.

_____________________________________________________________

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You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

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I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

Genealogy Products and Services

My Book

Genealogy Books

Genealogy Research