Mark Todd's Blog

 (a posting by Mark Todd)

This post is the second in a two-part series describing my slaveholding ancestors and their slaves. Click here for Part One, which highlights selective slave-owner ancestors, their lives, and an overview of their slave holdings.

In this post, I enumerate below all the names, dates, and locations of the owners and their known slaves.

So far, I've identified thirty-three slave-owning great-great grandparents who, in the aggregate, owned about 200 human beings (actually, 190 enumerated individuals listed below besides verbiage that implies additional slaves). 

The records below generally reference the male head of household only, except where a wife became a widow and I found specific records for slaves with her as subsequent head of household and owning slaves. These records include biographical data for the enslaved people when recorded but in only 28 cases the actual given names. As was typical of the times, after emancipation these individuals usually took the surname of the head-of-household of a given plantation.

Also note records report "Race" as either Black or Mulatto, the latter referring to a slave who is half Black and half White (see my previous post in this two-part series).

As staggering as this list is, I found a number of statements in wills and probate that sometimes suggested intentions that slaves be well treated after probate. For example, Thomas Lewis expressed concern about his "old" slave Rebecca who, after his wife Judith's death, was to be allowed to choose which among Lewis and Judith's children she wished to live with. One practice of the times for which I found no evidence among my ancestors was that slaves were to be freed at owner deaths. 

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Below are resources and Websites where any readers who also have slave-owning ancestors can share their information to help African-American family genealogists find their roots.

First, watch this great video by Family Fanatics: 
“What to Do When You Discover You Have Slave-Owning Ancestors”

And then these two articles for further guidance:
America Magazine
“My ancestor owned 41 slaves. What do I owe their descendants?”

Family Tree Magazine
"How to Find Slave Schedules and Share the Information in Them"
 

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Mark and Kym Todd are volunteers on WikiTree, a project to create the entire human tree. Profiles, sources, and documents for key individuals described above are on WikiTree:

(a posting by Mark Todd)

That my heritage includes ancestors who owned slaves should not have come as any surprise to me: I descend from multiple ancestral lines in Colonial Virginia, the Colonial Carolinas, and the Antebellum South. 

But the documented evidence took me aback--in fact, so much so I had to step away from genealogy for a while to process this information. (And it's made me think about appropriate ways to respond to the actions of my ancestors--see some of these avenues in the next post.)

So far, I've identified thirty-three slave-owning great-great grandparents who, in the aggregate, owned 129 human beings (more, but these are the ones for whom I've found enumerated, available records). 

In context, I actually have a total of 1,016 great-great grandparents in the Colonial American generations I've been researching between 1700 and 1860, so slave-owners only account for 3.24 percent of my ancestors in this pool, which means almost 97 percent were not slave owners. But that mathematical consolation somehow rings hollow.

In this blog, I'm going to tell the stories of two ancestral families who were part of multi-generational slave-owners. (In the next blog, I'm going to enumerate all the names, dates, and locations of the owners and their known slaves.)

The Family of Josiah Todd and his wife Zilpha Thomas

If you've read my genealogy blogs before, you've already met Josiah Todd (1778-1853), my paternal great-great grandfather.  He was born in Bertie County, North Carolina during the Revolutionary War, and died in Lowndes County (formerly Dallas County), Alabama. Josiah's father William was a slave owner in North Carolina, as were several of Josiah's children, including my great grandfather Hardy Todd. During the War of 1812, Josiah served as an ensign under Capt. John O'Hara with Youngblood's Regiment of the South Carolina Militia. He was a founding member of Bethany Baptist Church and even donated the land where the church stands. He owned considerable landholdings totaling more than 1,000 acres, and raised fifteen children with two wives. The second was my second great-great grandmother, Zilpha Thomas (1794-1871).

The 1850 Slave Schedule for Josiah records he owned 11 slaves, and his 1853 will specifically bequeaths to Zilpha "three negro slaves, namely, Annie a girl aged 23 years, Robin a negro man aged about 27 years, and Bill a negro man aged about 27 years."  But then he states," the rest of my slaves shall be divided among [my ten living] children," which places the tally at a total of 13 slaves.

After Josiah's death, the 1853 census records show Zilpha actually retained six slaves. The 1860 slave schedule shows her still with six slaves, her son Atha with six slaves, and her son Hardy with one slave (accounting for all 13 enslaved people bequeathed in Josiah's will).

The following year would see the beginning of the American Civil War and four years later the end of slavery.

The Families of  William Kees Hardin and  his father-in-law  William McCandless 

My maternal grandmother was always dismayed her father-in-law Watt Hardin Sr was the child of slave owners, but I don't think she realized he also represented the sixth generation of slaveholders on that line. And his father William Kees Hardin (1808-1889), my great-great grandfather, had the largest holdings within all six generations. In addition to hands-on oversight and work on his plantation, William was active in community affairs his entire life, having served at different times as a deputy sheriff, a U.S. postmaster and, throughout the Civil War, a justice of the peace. A newspaper article published at the time of his death states, "He was an energetic, painstaking man, a good farmer, a kind husband, and a loving father."  By the time of the Civil War, he had also owned some 45 to 50 enslaved people.

Early Tax lists for Hardin County, Tennessee for both 1836 and 1837 report he owned a black male worth $650 at that time. By the 1840 census, he owned five slaves. And an 1850 Slave Schedule records he then owned fifteen slaves: eight males, respectively aged 70, 35, 11, 9, two at age 8 (of which one was Mulatto), 2, and 1; and seven females, aged 51, 24, 16, two at age 6, and two at age 4." 

The 1860 Slave Schedule for Hardin County records that W. K. Hardin had increased his slaveholdings to thirty, of which eleven were Mulatto (M): fourteen males, aged 50, 19 (M), 19, 18 (M), 12, 12 (M), 11, 9, 8, 5 (M), 5, two aged 4, and 3; and sixteen females, aged 40 (M), 35, 30, 17, two aged 17 (M), 14, 14 (M), 9 (M), 8, 8 (M), two aged 6, 6 (M), 4, and 2. Mulatto refers to an individual who is half-white and half-black; the disproportionate increase in Mulattoes from 1850 to 1860 suggests W.K. Hardin was  involved in the disturbing practice known as "growing slaves," to use a term supplied by historian Henry Lewis Gates Jr. 

William K. had married Sarah McCandless on 10 Dec 1838, daughter to another slave owner in Hardin County named William McCandless (1788-1851), my second great-great grandfather. The 1830 U.S. Federal Census records William as head of household in Maury County, Tennessee , including Sally (implied as the one Free White Persons - Females - 30 thru 39) in a household including eleven “Free White Persons” as well as nine slaves, consisting of two “Slaves - Males - Under 10,” three “Slaves - Males - 10 thru 23,” three “Slaves - Females - Under 10,” and one “Slave - Femals - 24 thru 35.”

The 1840 U.S. Federal Census records William as head of household in Hardin County, Tennessee, and his wife Sally (implied as the one “Free White Persons - Females - 40 thru 49). The household contains seven “Free White Persons,” but also records 14 slaves, including five males: two under age 10 and  three between ages 10 and 14; and nine females: seven under age 10, one aged 10 to 24, and one aged 35 to 55.

The 1850 Slave Schedule for District 1, Hardin County, Tennessee, records "Wm McCandless" as owning seven slaves: three males ages 9, 10, and 17; and four females, ages 9, 13 (a Mulatto), and two that were 14.

And remember my maternal grandmother's dismay for her father-in-law? Watt Hardin Sr (1841-1933) enlisted in the Army of the Confederacy at Hampshire, Maury County, Tennessee, 1 Jul 1861, to defend slavery. According to records at the National Park Service (NPS) Civil War details, Watt was a Third Lieutenant with J.B. Biffle's 19th Regiment, Tennessee Cavalry.  The NPS details corroborate family accounts that Watt took his horse to war but leaves out that he was also accompanied by his "whipping boy" (a slave companion of the same age that he'd had since a young child) to saddle, groom, and care for the mount. (I think I recall grandmother saying this slave's name was "Robert," but I'm not certain.)

Watt served in the battles of Shiloh, Munford, Perryville, Stones River, Chickamauga, Brice CrossRoads, Harrisburg, Paducah, Franklin, Nashville, and others before his regiment surrendered on 3 May 1865 alongside the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana as part of T.H. Bell's command.  After his release from internment after the Civil War, he returned to his home county and a year later in 1866 married my great-great grandmother Alberta "Allie" Gertrude Hall. 

I hope Watt's former whipping boy Robert survived as well and got his freedom, but no records I can find tell that story's ending.

The next post will provide research notes for all thirty-three of my slave-owning ancestors as well as names (if known), locations, and ages for all 129 slaves in my research--all this in the hope that some African-American family genealogists might find useful clues in searching for their own ancestors. 

I'll also list resources and Websites where any readers who also have slave-owning ancestors can share their information to help African-American family genealogists find their roots.

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Mark and Kym Todd are volunteers on WikiTree, a project to create the entire human tree. Profiles, sources, and documents for key individuals described above are on WikiTree:

Josiah ToddZilpha ThomasWilliam Kees HardinWilliam McCandlessRobert "Watt" Watkins Hardin Sr

 (posted by Mark Todd)

DNA findings of the last decade have certainly revealed surprises for many test-takers--sometimes awkward and surprising but other times an opportunity to confirm connections when documentation and paper trails are slim or nonexistent.

The following post is for genealogists and descendants of immigrant ancestors Mark and Mary Hardin of Elk Run, Stafford County, Colony of Virginia, detailing my genetic genealogy DNA research that supports Mark Hardin was married to Marie Madeleine de la Chaumette. This post is also a direct citation link from the WikiTree profile listed at the bottom of the page, and is published in tandem with a separate narrative account of the story of these two ancestors, my fifth great-great grandparents on my maternal side.

DNA evidence for connection to Marie Madeleine de la Chaumette

My initial DNA research, all autosomal since Y-DNA doesn’t track matrilineal lines, produced a convincing number of shared identical DNA segments comparing uploaded DNA kits on GEDmatch.com from Hardin, de la Chaumette, and Shumate (anglicized name for Chaumette) descendants, and initially revealed three triangulated, identical DNA segments comparing me, a documented Mark Hardin descendant, with two direct documented descendants of Marie Madeleine's brother, Jean-Baptiste de la Chaumette. 

Subsequent research has so far additionally identified a total of twenty-one instances of identical triangulated DNA segments shared variously by--and in many instances, by multiples of--twenty-two living descendants of the Hardin, de la Chaumette, and Shumate lines. 

For the pool included in this research, I (a Hardin decendant) shared instances of two or more identical DNA segments  in common with many Chaumette/Shumate descendants, but of particular note were shared identical segments on

Chromosome 1 for five different Hardin/Chaumette/Shumate descendants,Chromosome 6 for four different Hardin/Chaumette/Shumate descendants, Chromosome 10 for four different Hardin/Chaumette/Shumate descendants, and Chromosome 16 for four different Hardin/Chaumette/Shumate descendants

I plotted these segments using DNApainter and include a sample image below for Chromosome 16. This image reveals I share identical segments with two Chaumette/Shumate living descendants of the pool, a different identical segment with another descendant, and I share an identical segment with three others. (I have removed descendant names for this public posting. Contact me directly if you would like more particulars about any of the findings in this post.)

implied match to me for each painted segment

These findings corroborate Mary Hardin’s name at birth as Marie Madeleine de la Chaumette.

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The next post will explore the dark legacy of my slaveholding ancestors in Colonial America  and the Antebellum South. Stayed tuned!

* * *

Mark and Kym Todd are volunteers on WikiTree, a project to create the entire human tree. Profiles, sources, and documents for key individuals described above are on WikiTree:

Marc Hardouin and Marie Madeleine de la ChaumetteJean-Baptiste de la Chaumette

(A post by Mark Todd)

One of my early goals as a budding genealogist was to track the direct descent of the paternal surnames of my four grandparents at least as far back as their respective first immigrants to America. Those four surnames are Todd and Wilson, Hardin and Sims. That's been easier said than done since my heritage goes back seven or eight generations in this country on at least three of the four branches. I've hit a brick wall on the Wilson branch at only four generations--for now.  (I've explored Todd and Sims lines for this blog series already.)

The three branches I have traced successfully all held varying degrees of controversy and mystery before I could bridge the respective connections for each surname between Old World and New. 

The story behind the immigrant ancestors for my mother's maiden name, Hardin, took a combination of paper-trail documentation and extensive genetic genealogy DNA research* to help me confirm the identities and eighth-generation stories for my fifth great-great grandparents, Marc Hardouin and Marie de la Chaumette.

 French Huguenots Marc Hardouin and Marie de la Chaumette

Marie Madeleine de la Chaumette was born in 1673 in Rochechouart, Poitiers, France, to Daniel de la Chaumette and Marie au Couturier.

The Chaumette family were French protestants (Huguenots) in the Haute-Vienne, formerly the ancient Aquitaine controlled by the English, in the region of Limousin and the city of Rochechouart, where many of the Chaumettes lived. Marie Madeleine’s parents were married in de Confolens, Charente, France, on 30 April 1653, but against the church edict, which at the time would not record marriages for Huguenots.

Some members of the Chaumette family were weavers, and they began exporting serge cloth to
England at least as early as the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453) They were members of the upper-middle merchant class (“le petite bourgeoisie”) but also public officials, including consuls, notaries, doctors, pharmacists, lawyers and barristers (defense attorneys). Marie Madeleine’s father, Daniel, was a barrister.

Her future husband Marc Hardouin was from the Hardouins (or Ardouins) of the city of Rouen in Normandy, France, who were also from a weaver merchant class, but they had moved to the nearby Normandy Cotentin Peninsula to avoid the plague in the sixteenth century, very near the Channel Islands where members of the Chaumette family had moved to be nearer their own weaver trade with England.

The Hardouin family were also Huguenots, and were among those who also fled, like the Chaumette family, to England in the late seventeenth century after Louis XIV’s revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, which had protected French Protestants from persecution.

Marie Madeleine’s uncle Jean and father Daniel de la Chaumette (also father to Jean-Baptiste de la Chaumette) may have fled with their families to England as early as 1681 with Pastor Clovis Palasy.

That both Hardouin and Chaumette families were engaged in the weaver trade with England, that both families were Huguenots, and that both families fled to England and lived for a time in the relatively small and contained area of Spitalfields, London – all suggest that the Hardouin and Chaumette families would certainly be acquainted at the time that Marc and Marie Madeleine were of marriageable age. 

By some accounts, Marc was friends with Marie's brother Jean-Baptiste. Research suggests Marc and Jean-Baptiste knew each other in England, and considering Marc and Jean were strong advocates of the Protestant Faith as French Huguenots, the two may have served together in the English army before emigrating separately to the New World.

Marc emigrated to Colonial Virginia no later than 1707. Mary (anglicized for Marie) Madeleine and Mark Hardin (also anglicized) may also have married before 1709 in Northumberland County, Colony of Virginia. (Their son, my own fourth great-great grandfather, Henry Hardin was born in 1710 in Prince William County, Colonial Virginia.)

An account on Jean-Baptiste (later anglicized to John) Chaumette’s WikiTree profile states he immigrated from the West Indies Island of Martinique to settle in Stafford County, VA, because Mark Hardin facilitated Chaumette’s purchase of 200 acres of land in that county. The Wiki Profile biography for Jean-Baptiste de la Chaumette also places his later death around 1728 inside Mark Hardin’s tavern: John "was killed by a blow in the head by a highwayman wielding the large door key of Marc Hardouin's ordinary"--that is, his tavern. 

According to the account, years later after Mark's own death when the tavern was demolished, "workmen pulled up the treadle on one of the steps [and found] Spanish money galore."

Besides Mark's tavern, the couple apparently prospered in land acquisitions and sales, Mark having recorded a grant of 642 acres in Stafford County in 1707, as well as other land transactions naming both Mark and Mary (for relinquishing her dower rights for pending land sales) in Virginia for Richmond County in 1720, King George County in 1726, and Prince William County in 1733. Along the way, Mark and Mary had a total of ten children.

Daniell [sic] Shumate (the anglicized name of the Chaumettes) and Judith Shumate both signed as witnesses for Mark Hardin’s will dated 21 May 1735, in Prince William County, Colony of Virginia, and then the same “Danl Shumate” also signed an oath for the probate of the will. The Hardin will also names witness Judith (Bailey) Shumate, Mary Hardin’s niece-in-law married to Jean (Chaumette) Shumate, another son of Mary’s brother John (anglicized from Jean-Baptiste). “Danl Shumate” in Prince William County would have been Mary’s nephew, the son of her brother John/Jean-Baptiste. Clearly, the Hardin and Chaumette/Shumate families remained close and intertwined in Colonial America.

Mary Hardin passed away after her husband Mark's death in 1735 but before March 1755 in Prince William County, Virginia (changing to Fauquier County after 1 May 1759).

Both Hardin and Shumate families were well-to-do when they arrived in the New World on account of the prosperity of their respective family's earlier weaver trades, so their experiences in Colonial America gave them material advantages and opportunities as planters and merchants from the very start. And they thrived in a New World that favored the very protestant values which had caused their persecution in the Old.

* The next post, published in tandem with this one, documents the DNA evidence confirming the genetic link between the Hardin and Chaumette lines, and establishing Marie Madeleine de la Chaumette as wife to Marc Hardouin, a connection that has been debated for years by genealogists. This subsequent post will likely be of interest to only Hardin and Chaumette/Shumate descendants. For the rest of our readers...

The subsequent post will explore the dark legacy of my slaveholding ancestors in Colonial America  and the Antebellum South.

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Mark and Kym Todd are volunteers on WikiTree, a project to create the entire human tree. Profiles, sources, and documents for key individuals described above are on WikiTree:

Marc Hardouin and Marie de la ChaumetteJean-Baptiste de la Chaumette

I've been reading Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Alan Taylor's American Colonies, a socio-political  and economic account of the English colonies in the New World. Mainly I was prompted by wanting to know more about the forces that drove my seventeenth- and eighteenth-century ancestors to emigrate to and then often relocate within various colonies and colonial provinces in subsequent generations.

Some of my New England ancestors were protestants and separatists seeking religious freedom, and largely Puritans, Baptists, Anglicans, or Presbyterians. (For the record, they usually sought religious freedom for their own beliefs but rarely for the freedom of others who didn't conform to their own narrow-band convictions.) 

Other ancestors were more southerly merchants and entrepreneurs motivated by opportunity and the promise of financial independence -- and usually at the expense of the pre-Columbian indigenous inhabitants as well as by the exploitation of imported slave labor. (These ancestral scruples deserve its own blog posting, but I'm still coming to terms with this dismaying heritage.)

But a number of my ancestors were also Quakers--in fact, some thirty or more (so far as I've been able to identify).

I'd like to share a few specific stories about selected Quaker ancestors, who fall within both my paternal and maternal lines, respectively, from Colonial Virginia, Colonial Maryland, and the colonial Province of West Jersey. 

A bit of contextQuakers, or more properly the Religious Society of Friends of God, began in the mid-seventeenth century and largely founded by George Fox in Yorkshire, England, where a number of my ancestral branches originate.

Quakers tended to be pacifists who wouldn't bear arms, take oaths or swear allegiance to earthly authority, and they promoted gender equality, religious tolerance, the abolition of slavery, and true democratic principles within their communities. But such notions were not popular ideas--and certainly not ideals--during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries for both England and its American colonies, where Quakers were often persecuted.

My Paternal QuakersMy paternal line has revealed at least eight Quakers.
If you've read my three previous blogs, you know over the past year I've discovered through Y-DNA and autosomal DNA results that my genealogically documented third great-great grandfather Thomas Todd was the product of a liaison between a son of immigrant William Goforth and his wife Anne Skipwith and a daughter of immigrant Capt. Thomas Todd and his wife Anne Lovelace Gorsuch. Ironically, both of these grandmothers were daughters of Quaker converts, and both due to tragic circumstances.

Anne Skipwith's mother was Honora Saunders (1620-1679) of Yorkshire. Her husband Willoughby 

York Castle's Clifford Tower Prison  in the 17th CenturySkipwith, a Yorkshire lord, died in 1658 during the English Civil War. He'd backed the wrong horse and when the Stuarts were restored, his lands were confiscated. Honora petitioned and was granted the return of her estate. Four years later, she converted to the Friends in 1662. She must have been fervent in her new faith because, according to Quaker meeting records of Yorkshire, she died "a Prisoner for Truth" in York Castle prison on 15 April 1679, a prison known for housing political prisoners including such a prominent Quaker as George Fox himself for a time. Her daughter Anne and son-in-law William Goforth Sr would be early colonists in the Province of West Jersey, and their son, William Jr (who is the likely father of my own ancestor Thomas Todd) would later be denounced in a Quaker monthly meeting at Falls, New Jersey, in 1682 because of his alleged activities in connection with privateering.

Another Quaker ancestor is Anne Gorsuch's mother Anne Lovelace Gorsuch (1639-1752). Her husband Rev. John Gorsuch was a staunch English Loyalist and at odds with Oliver Cromwell, who had him falsely accused and charged among hundreds of other ministers. But shortly after Rev. John was "ejected" from prison, according to the Visitation of London, he was soon found "smothered in a Haymow" in 1642. His widow Anne immigrated to Lancaster County, Virginia in 1651 with her brothers and several of her children. Her sons, Richard, Charles, Robert, and Lovelace, joined the Society of Friends there and were with the group of Quakers driven out of Lancaster County, Virginia by Gov. Berkeley in 1660. When they moved to Baltimore, Maryland, so did Anne, and also to Baltimore, where her daughter Anne Gorsuch was already married to Capt. Thomas Todd (one of whose daughters is the likely mother to my own Thomas Todd). 

My Maternal QuakersMy maternal grandmother's grandmother Lydia Hanna Jane Youngblood also descends from a line of at least sixteen Quakers on her great-great-grandfather's maternal line, also dating back to the 1600s origins of the Society of Friends.
William Coale Jr (1633-1678), was born in Jamestown, Colonial Virginia, and son of Quaker immigrant William Coale Sr, a famous Quaker preacher in the Colonies. William Jr also became an important Quaker minister. According to his WikiTree page biography, "He was instrumental in setting up the first Quaker meetings on the Western Shore of the [Chesapeake] Bay, at his home, West River Hundred in Anne Arundel County. In 1658 William refused to bear arms in the militia and was subjected to land penalties. In 1659, he and several other Friends challenged the provincial court by refusing to swear oaths to administer a Quaker orphan's estate. They lost their challenge, and the court stripped them of the estate to make an example of them.  In 1660 William moved his family to the West River in Ann Arundal County, MD. West River is 30 miles south of Baltimore on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. He owned 150 acres called 'GreatBonnerston.' During the 1660's, William traveled throughout Virginia as an itinerant missionary with several other Friends. He was imprisoned for his efforts and one of his companions died in jail." 

Thomas Thurston (1622-1693), born in Gloucestershire, England, immigrated to Colonial America, and was a well-known early Quaker missionary. According to his WikiTree biography, "While persecuted in several colonies[, he] was well-treated by the Native Americans who visited him while he was imprisoned in Virginia." According to the Maryland Historical Society, "[Thomas] was banished from Boston before his travel through Maryland ... in 1658" and "made a prisoner in Anne Arundel County for his efforts to seduce the people, and the Governor and Council of Maryland issued orders directing Justices of the Peace to seize any Quakers that might come into their districts, and to whip them from Constable to Constable until they should reach the bounds of the province. Anyone helping him would also be in trouble."

Thomas's daughter Elizabeth (born about 1650 in Dedham, Suffolk, Massachusetts Bay Colony) would marry George Skipwith (1629-1683), a Quaker from Leistershire, England, who emigrated to Colonial Maryland probably in the late 1650s, but the life for Quakers in this colony were much improved by the 1670s: George was prosperous, and he and his wife established a plantation called Silverstone in the Herring Creek Hundred, where records describe him as "George Skipwith, Anne Arundel County, merchant," according to a deed of 7 April 1679. And a Third Haven Monthly Meeting of Friends refers to a meeting to be held at his home on 7 June 1679. 

Clearly, true religious freedom was a hard-fought battle in the early days throughout the American colonies. One of the personal ironies is how many of my other ancestors--Puritans, Anglicans, Baptists, and Presbyterians--stood against the "heresies" of my Quaker ancestors. What would they have thought to know so many of these opposing bloodlines would later merge into the likes of me! 

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Here are links to the WikiTree profiles for the key ancestors I discuss above, which includes additional documentation and sources.

Paternal Quakers 
Honora Saunders (1620-1679) 
Anne Lovelace Gorsuch (1639-1702)

Maternal Quakers
William Coale Jr (1633-1678) 
Thomas Thurston (1622-1693) 
George Skipwith (1629-1683)

(The third and final in a three-part blog series.)

In the previous posting, I reported my research establishing and naming Thomas Todd's mother, Frances Todd, daughter of Maryland planter and merchant Thomas Todd Sr and his wife Anne Lovelace Gorsuch, based on a combination of genealogical records and DNA matches with 15 living, direct descendants of this Todd+Gorsuch line.

The next step was to determine the father, which follows.

Thomas Todd’s father, my 4GGgrandfather and the great-grandfather to Josiah Todd

Y-DNA suggests my 3xGGgrandfather Thomas Todd’s patrilineal heritage comes from the Goforth line rather than the Todd line. My test results confirm that I have substantial Y-DNA matches with members of the Goforth family, as do the two other Josiah Todd descendants who have also taken the FamilyTreeDNA Y-DNA test, and they also show these same Goforth matches.
We even know the specific family, William Goforth and Anne Skipwith, arriving in West New Jersey in 1677 as part of the Quaker movement in the New World, with their six sons: George Goforth (1663-1732), William Goforth (1665-1748), John Goforth (1667-1750), Miles Goforth (1673 to before 1734), Zachariah Goforth (1675-1736), and Thomas Goforth (dates of birth and death unknown, but presumably died quite young).

William Goforth Sr died in 1778, within months of arriving in the New World, but his sons lived their entire lives during the window of time that would have made a liaison between one of them and a daughter of Thomas Todd Sr and Anne Lovelace Gorsuch feasible. (See the previous blog post for those findings, and my high confidence that this daughter is Frances Todd.) 

The following brief quoted excerpts and highlighted summaries for each of William Goforth Sr and Anne Skipwith's sons all come from Goforth family historian and genealogist George Tuttle Goforth’s (GTG) excellent and well documented manuscript The Goforth Genealogy: A History of the Descendants of George Goforth of Knedlington, England, 2001:

George Goforth (1663-1732)
Born 1663 in Yorkshire, England; died 1732 [about 10 miles from Trenton] in Burlington, New Jersey; eldest son; married JANE ROBINSON; “called himself a ‘Mariner,’ having been a Captain of a boat on the Delaware River, he owned a farm for many years. In 1681, George Goforth was apprenticed to George Hutchinson, and in 1682 he carried dispatches to New York City from the Acting Governor Markham of PA., protesting the action of Lord Baltimore” (GTG p. 8). Spent his whole life in New Jersey farming. “He named in his will his wife, Jane, and son, William as his heirs, but as neither was then ‘in the province [New Jersey],’ the condition was set forth in the will that unless they returned to claim the property within 5 years, it was to pass into the possession of his brothers, John  and William” (GTG p.8). 

George is not a strong candidate for the father of our GGgrandfather Thomas. Despite George’s self-designation as a “mariner,” his work was clearly farming in Delaware, and both his lifestyle and activity do not reveal a likely proximity to or affiliation with the Maryland Todds.

William Goforth (1665-1748)
Born 1665 in Yorkshire, England; died 1748 in Talbot County, Maryland; married 1694 to Sarah Preston, daughter of John and Joan Preston of Talbot County, Maryland, [near St. Michaels and Oxford, Maryland.] “[E]ngaged in seafaring (possibly privateering, to some extent).  He was denounced in a Quaker monthly meeting at Falls, New Jersey in 1682 because of his alleged activities in connection with privateering.  In his sailing trips he must have visited often the ports on the Chesapeake Bay, for in 1694, he married Sarah Preston, who lived near old Oxford, some 30 miles across the bay from Annapolis, on the Eastern shore of Maryland (GTG p. 8). 

William is a strong candidate for fathering our GGgrandfather Thomas (see further rationale below).

John Goforth (1667-1750) 
      Born 1667 in Yorkshire, England; died 1750 in Newcastle, Delaware. Lived most of his life in Philadelphia and Red Lyon, New Jersey (GTG p. 9). Further, GTG’s account of John relates a lengthy record of his dealings as a farmer. Married twice—first to a “Hannah” and after her death to a “Lydia.”

John is not a strong candidate for the father of our GGgrandfather Thomas. No believable proximity for association with the Maryland Todds.

Miles Goforth (1673 to before 1734) 
Born in Yorkshire, England, and died in Kent County, on the eastern shore of Delaware (on the Dover Bay). “Miles Goforth was living in Philadelphia in 1704 [where he operated a transfer business, arranging for passengers and freight].  He removed into what became Delaware sometime later in life, as he was in Kent County [Dover] during and before 1734” (GTG p. 10). Of note, his first wife was named Frances, but our Frances died prior to 1706 and this one died prior to 1734.

Miles is not a strong candidate for the father of our GGgrandfather Thomas. No believable proximity for association with the Maryland Todds.

 Zachariah Goforth (1675-1736)
Born 1675 in Yorkshire, England; died 1736 in Kent County, Delaware. “Lived in Philadelphia when a youth…. Zachariah was living in New Castle Hundred, Delaware in 1696. [Early Delaware Census, 1665‑1697]  About 1700, or somewhere around that time, Zachariah bought a tract of land in Dorchester County, Maryland adjoining Talbot County, on the Eastern shore, where his brother William had settled.  About 1707, Zachariah moved to Kent County in what is now Delaware, where he became a land owner and prominent citizen” (GTG p. 10).

Zachariah’s association by locality with his brother William places him closer to the Maryland Todds, but by then Frances had likely died, so Zachariah is not a candidate.

Thomas Goforth (dates of birth and death unknown)
Presumably died quite young, so not a candidate for the father of my GGgrandfather Thomas.

Of these six sons, William seems the best candidate for a number of reasons:

*  By 1682, William Goforth was engaged in seafaring and “[i]n his sailing trips he must have visited often the ports on the Chesapeake Bay, for in 1694, he married Sarah Preston, who lived near old Oxford, some 30 miles across the bay from Annapolis, on the Eastern shore of Maryland,” (GTG p. 8). These facts suggest that William was affable or credible enough to win approval for marriage from a reputable family—or even visiting rights in the Maryland Todd household.

*   Frances Todd’s father Thomas Todd Sr was a planter and merchant, holding a share in the ship Augustine, and the family lived in Baltimore, which has a major harbor opening onto the Chesapeake Bay (Biographical Dictionary at Archives of Maryland online). In fact, Thomas Sr died at sea in 1677 during a voyage to England to sell tobacco from his plantation (see letter attached to his 1677 will). These facts suggest a not unreasonable opportunity for William to have become acquainted with the Todds of Baltimore.

*   The Goforths were Quakers, and the family of Frances Todd’s mother, Anne Lovelace Gorsuch, became converts to Quakerism by 1652, only five years before Anne married Thomas Todd Sr, again providing an opportunity by religious affiliation for William Goforth to have become acquainted with the Todd family since he was also likely to have frequented major ports such as Baltimore on the Chesapeake Bay.

*     According to George Tuttle Goforth, William “was denounced in a Quaker monthly meeting at Falls, New Jersey in 1682 because of his alleged activities in connection with privateering” (p.8). That William Goforth received this rebuke reveals a moral latitude for the time that could account for his ungentlemanlyrelationship with Frances. 

*   Biographical facts for William’s other brothers do not reveal any details that suggest they had ever visited Baltimore nor would their occupations or business engagements have taken them to places other than Delaware or Pennsylvania.

Since Y-DNA evidence suggests these brothers represent the family and generation that would have fathered our 3GGgrandfather Thomas Todd, William Goforth Jr seems the most likely candidate for our Goforth 4GGgrandfather, and paternal great-grandfather to Josiah Todd.

In conclusion, genetic genealogy suggests the parents of Thomas Todd, and the paternal great-grandparents of Josiah Todd, were William Goforth Jr, son of William Goforth Sr and Anne Skipwith, and Frances Todd, the daughter of Thomas Todd Sr and Anne Lovelace Gorsuch.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Here are links to the WikiTree profiles for the key ancestors I discuss above, which includes additional documentation and sources.

Josiah Todd
(my great-great-grandfather)

Josiah's parents:Thomas Todd -- if born before 1706 (my 3xGGgrandfather)Charity Hardy (my 3xGGgrandmother)

       Thomas Todd's rerouted patrilineal line, per DNA and genealogical findings:

William Goforth Jr, Thomas's proposed father (my 4xGGgrandfather)

William Goforth Sr, Thomas's paternal grandfather (my 5xGGgrandfather)Anne Skipwith Thomas's paternal grandmother
(my 5xGGgrandmother)

Kym and I are real fans of Skip Gates's PBS series Finding Your Roots. We never miss an episode.

And we've become fascinated by his genealogy crew, who often use a combination of paper trail and DNA evidence to confirm or point the way when their research into program guests hits a brick wall in the search for a previous generation.

The availability of online records has provided a real boom for the present-day genealogy research, but the explosion of available DNA data has opened up tools and avenues of exploration by amateurs like us, helping us break through our own bricks.

My own search for the grandparents of Josiah Todd (1778-1853), is a case in point. 

I've used a combination of painstaking research into genealogical records to narrow the field, but DNA matches have provided leads in some instances, while in other instances DNA data has confirmed hunches--even to the point of helping me to build a strong case for the identity of my mysterious ancestors: the parents of Josiah's father, Thomas Todd, my 3xGGgrandfather. 

In this blog, I'll walk through what the DNA evidence leads tell me, and then I'll narrow the field even further by revealing what the genealogical records reveal about who Thomas Todd's mother, my 4xGGgrandmother, may well be.

(In the following blog, I'll do the same for the identity of Thomas Todd's father, my 4xGGgrandfather.)

DNA Evidence for the family of my 4xGGgrandmother, Thomas Todd’s mother

My DNA research, all autosomal since Y-DNA doesn’t track matrilineal lines, produces a convincing number of shared identical DNA segments with uploaded DNA kits on GEDmatch.com from descendants of Capt. Thomas Todd Sr (1619-1675) and Anne Lovelace Gorsuch (1638-1694). These shared segments  are with 15 living, confirmed descendants from Todd+Gorsuch sons Thomas Todd Jr (eight living descendants with shared identical segments totaling 220.5 cM) and William Todd (seven identified living descendants with shared identical segments totaling 215 cM), for a total 435.5 cM. (To be clear, this number represents the aggregate of ALL matching segments with me from all 15 descendants. But subtracting the 57.9 cM overlapping shared segments still produces 377.6 cM of unique matches with me by living Todd+Gorsuch descendants.)

Here’s the breakdown of identical segments with the living descendants of the two Todd+Gorsuch sons, revealing two identical triangulated segments in five instances with two varying descendants: one pair matching mine on my Chromosome 2, one matching pair on my Chromosome 12, one pair on my Chromosome 21, two matching pairs on my Chromosome 22. To clarify, these identical segments on each chromosome recur for three living descendants, including me.

I also share three identical “triangulated” segments in six instances with varying living descendants of Todd+Gorsuch sons: one triple match to a segment on my Chromosome 1, a triple match on Chromosome 2, a triple match on my Chromosome 10, a triple match on my Chromosome 15, a triple match on my Chromosome 17, and a triple match on my Chromosome 20. To clarify, these identical segments on each chromosome recur for four  living descendants, including me.

Among these matches, I share a total of 53.4 cM with a 9th great-granddaughter of Thomas Todd Jr (son of Todd+Gorsuch) and a total of 41.6 cM with a 10thgreat-granddaughter of Thomas Todd Jr. I also share a total of 46.5 cM with an 8th GGranddaughter of William Todd (another son of Todd+Gorsuch), a total of 42.2 cM with a 9th GGranddaughter descending on a different line of descendants of William Todd, and a total of 38.8 cM with another 8thGGranddaughter of William Todd.

Tracing the family trees for the six above higher-shared matches with descendants reveals no other recognized divergent surnames other than the Todd+Gorsuch line. (I did the same for all the other descendants as well and with the same results: no other recognized divergent surnames other than the Todd+Gorsuch line.) 

Additionally, I share identical segments on Chromosomes 2, 5, 10, 11, 15, 19, and 20 with three living descendants through a separate Gorsuch line descending directly from Anne Lovelace Gorsuch’s parents John Gorsuch and Anne Lovelace. This line is via great-granddaughter Elizabeth (Gorsuch) Howard. Eight of the identified 15 living descendants of the Todd+Gorsuch sons included in my pool also share these same identical segments.

All the shared segments with living descendants of the Todd+Gorsuch sons for whom I have documentation suggest my 4xGGgrandmother, the grandmother of Josiah Todd, is an unidentified daughter of Thomas Todd Sr and Anne Lovelace Gorsuch, one who has no officially recorded offspring that I can find in official records.

But which daughter? According to the paper trail, the Todd+Gorsuch couple had eight children, including the following four (maybe five? See below) daughters:

Ann Todd (1658 to sometime between 1684 and 1694). Born and died in Baltimore MD; documented as living at home in 1669, when her father Capt. Thomas and family officially emigrated to MD; still lived at home in 1677; married Miles Gibson in 1677. 

My 3xGGgrandfather Thomas Todd has a presumed birthdate between 1710 and 1715, so Ann is only a candidate if our Thomas was born much earlier: if Ann died between age 26 (1684) and age 36 (1694), then she could have been the mother in or before that window.

          Frances Todd (1669 to possibly as late as 1706, per VA Mag 25.1: 85-86). Born in Gloucester VA; died in Baltimore, MD. Included under head of household Thomas Todd Sr in 1677 when the family officially emigrated to MD. (He already had land holdings in both VA and MD.) Frances appears in Thomas’s will of 1677 in MD and again in stepfather David Jones’s will of 1686 for 230 acres from his “dwelling plantation.” No record she ever married. 

Since my 3xGGgrandfather Thomas Todd has a presumed birthdate between 1710 and 1715, Frances would have been at most 37 at time of her death if 1706. So a likely candidate for mother of my 3x GGgrandfather Thomas if he were born slightly earlier than supposed.

          Johanna Todd (1669-1686). Came to VA in 1669 with father Thomas Sr and in his will of 1677 in MD. Died at age 17. So not a candidate unless the range of dates for my 3xGGfather Thomas are very much in error.

      Averilla Todd (birth date before 1669 and died prior to 1700). Came with father Thomas Sr to VA in 1669. She appears in her father’s will of 1677 in MD. In stepfather David Jones’s will of 1686, she received 250 acres from his “dwelling plantation.” Died before 1700 when recorded rent goes to her brother James alone. Approximate age at death was likely about 30. 

Averilla may be a candidate for my 4GGgrandmother if my 3xGGgrandfather Thomas was born prior to 1700.

       ??? Elizabeth Todd Kennedy (1670-1743?). Born in Baltimore, MD; died in Augusta, VA. 
This presumed daughter is problematic. No records reference or mention this presumed “daughter” of Thomas Todd Sr and Anne Lovelace Gorsuch among any primary Todd documents. And the reported death date of 1743 only appears on one WikiTree profile and one Ancestry.com profile—both managed by the same researcher. The 1743 death date pertains to an Elizabeth Todd buried in Scotland only two days after supposedly dying in Virginia. So we have no certain end date for this presumed daughter. However, the nine discovered living descendants of this line nonetheless share many DNA segments with me and with the other descendants of Thomas Todd Jr and William Todd, both confirmed sons of Todd+Gorsuch.

I have discounted this person as a candidate because of the lack of historical documentation connecting her to Thomas Todd Sr and Anne Lovelace Gorsuch..

Frances Todd seems the most likely candidate, with Averilla Todd as a less likely possibility as well, as the mother of my 3xGGgrandfather Thomas Todd, and paternal great-grandmother of Josiah Todd.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Here are links to the WikiTree profiles for the key ancestors I discuss above, including documentation and sources.

Josiah Todd
(my great-great-grandfather)

Josiah's parents:Thomas Todd -- if born before 1706 (my 3xGGgrandfather)Charity Hardy (my 3xGGgrandmother)

       Thomas Todd's rerouted matrilineal line, per DNA and genealogical findings:

Frances Todd, Thomas's proposed mother (my 4xGGgrandmother)Thomas Todd Sr, Thomas's maternal grandfather
(my 5xGGgranfather)Anne Lovelace Gorsuch, Thomas's maternal grandmother
(my 5xxGGgrandmother)

Possible photo of Josiah Todd(Post by Mark Todd) 

One of the more perplexing brickwalls I've encountered in my genealogical researches into my paternal ancestors has centered on the great-grandparents of Josiah Todd.

Josiah was born on 17 Dec 1778 in Bertie County, North Carolina, during the War of Independence. He moved to Edgefield County, South Carolina, in 1805, where he raised family with his first wife Nancy Asbill and, upon her death, with his second wife Zilpha Thomas. After service in the War of 1812, he moved in 1817 with his second wife to Collirene, Lowndes County, Alabama, where he later died on 11 Aug 1853.

My Y-DNA 111 and Big Y-700 testing results from FamilyTreeDNA has revealed an unexpected ancestral plot twist, we could call it, but it may answer the question of why no one has been able to source – or, at least, to convincingly document – the paternal ancestors of Josiah Todd earlier than his grandparents Thomas Todd and Charity Hardy.

My Y-DNA testing results also correlate with the genealogical findings of Richard McMurtry, whose intensive DNA compilations suggest that Josiah Todd’s ancestry represents a Todd family group that is American born but with no known immigrant progenitors, nor is that group related to any of the other Todd families living in the Americas at that time by following Y-DNA lines.

What’s going on, and what are our roots? The Y-DNA test results show that there seems to have been a Goforth fox in the Todd henhouse in the second, or possibly third, generation prior to Josiah Todd!

My test results confirm that I have substantial Y-DNA matches with members of the Goforth family, as do the two other William Josiah Todd descendants who have also taken the FamilyTreeDNA Y-DNA test, and they also show these same Goforth matches.

Further, the particular Goforth matches all come from the same immigrant progenitor-couple: WILLIAM GOFORTH, born 1631 in Hampshire, England; died 1678 in Burlington, N. J.; married July 11, 1662 at a Quaker Meeting in Hull, Yorkshire, England to ANNE SKIPWITH, daughter of Willoughby and Honora [Saunders] Skipwith, born 1642 in England; died February 3, 1723 in Philadelphia, PA., buried in the Roce Street Quaker Meeting House burial grounds, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

William and Anne Goforth arrived in the New World aboard the fly-boat “Martha” on 18 Oct 1677, settlers for the new Quaker colony in the area which later became Burlington and West New Jersey on the Delaware River, about 30 miles from the site on which Philadelphia was founded five years later, in 1682, by William Penn

Although William Goforth died only a year later, the couple brought with them six sons: George, born 1663, died 1732; William, born 1665, died 1748; John, born 1667, died 1750; Miles, born 1673; died before 1734; Zachariah, born 1675, died 1736; and Thomas, dates of birth and death unknown (although likely born 1676).]

These sons, though officially married, are potential candidates. However, it's also possible that the Todd-Goforth liaison occurred inYorkshire, England, in the generation(s?) prior to William and Anne's arrival in the Americas.

When William Goforth died, his wife Anne would later remarry another member of the immigrant passengers on the “Martha,” a man named William Oxley, and with him would settle in Philadelphia. This may be significant since one of William Josiah Todd’s sons, Lewis (brother of Josiah and Henry Hardy), would later marry an Oxley (related only by marriage rather than blood).

Of interest is that Anne Skipwith Goforth Oxley has documented lineage back to King Edward I, and therefore back to the original lords of the Norman Conquest.

This revelation of genealogical origins doesn’t, of course, diminish the percent of ancestral Todd DNA but simply routes those chromosomes through the mother rather than the father. Since this Todd DNA line doesn’t appear to belong to one of McMurtry’s classification of 200-plus other Todd DNA family groups living in America at the time (our group is classified as Todd Family Group 158 by McMurtry), this (great?-)grandmother of Josiah’s would have come from Todd immigrants not yet identified.

My working hypothesis at this time is that the Todd line of immigrants would likely have arrived after 1677 (when the William Goforths arrived in the Colonies) but before 1710 (the earliest possible date of birth for Josiah’s grandfather Thomas Todd). And a promising course of inquiry would lie in trying to identify locations where Todd families overlap with Goforth families during this window of time.

* * *
Mark and Kym Todd are volunteers on WikiTree, a project to create the entire human tree.
Profiles, sources, and documents for individuals described above are on WikiTree:


Josiah Todd
(my gg-grandfather)Nancy Asbill
(first wife of Josiah)Zilpha Thomas (second wife of Josiah, and my gg-grandmother)

Josiah's parents:Thomas Todd Charity Hardy          Josiah's rerouted patrilineal line, per Y-DNA:
William GoforthAnne Skipworth

Possible photo of Josiah Todd(Post by Mark Todd) 

One of the more perplexing brickwalls I've encountered in my genealogical researches into my paternal ancestors has centered on the great-grandparents of Josiah Todd.

Josiah was born on 17 Dec 1778 in Bertie County, North Carolina, during the War of Independence. He moved to Edgefield County, South Carolina, in 1805, where he raised family with his first wife Nancy Asbill and, upon her death, with his second wife Zilpha Thomas. After service in the War of 1812, he moved in 1817 with his second wife to Collirene, Lowndes County, Alabama, where he later died on 11 Aug 1853.

My Y-DNA 111 and Big Y-700 testing results from FamilyTreeDNA has revealed an unexpected ancestral plot twist, we could call it, but it may answer the question of why no one has been able to source – or, at least, to convincingly document – the paternal ancestors of Josiah Todd earlier than his grandparents Thomas Todd and Charity Hardy.

My Y-DNA testing results also correlate with the genealogical findings of Richard McMurtry, whose intensive DNA compilations suggest that Josiah Todd’s ancestry represents a Todd family group that is American born but with no known immigrant progenitors, nor is that group related to any of the other Todd families living in the Americas at that time by following Y-DNA lines.

What’s going on, and what are our roots? The Y-DNA test results show that there seems to have been a Goforth fox in the Todd henhouse in the second, or possibly third, generation prior to Josiah Todd!

My test results confirm that I have substantial Y-DNA matches with members of the Goforth family, as do the two other William Josiah Todd descendants who have also taken the FamilyTreeDNA Y-DNA test, and they also show these same Goforth matches.

Further, the particular Goforth matches all come from the same immigrant progenitor-couple: WILLIAM GOFORTH, born 1631 in Hampshire, England; died 1678 in Burlington, N. J.; married July 11, 1662 at a Quaker Meeting in Hull, Yorkshire, England to ANNE SKIPWITH, daughter of Willoughby and Honora [Saunders] Skipwith, born 1642 in England; died February 3, 1723 in Philadelphia, PA., buried in the Roce Street Quaker Meeting House burial grounds, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

William and Anne Goforth arrived in the New World aboard the fly-boat “Martha” on 18 Oct 1677, settlers for the new Quaker colony in the area which later became Burlington and West New Jersey on the Delaware River, about 30 miles from the site on which Philadelphia was founded five years later, in 1682, by William Penn

Although William Goforth died only a year later, the couple brought with them six sons: George, born 1663, died 1732; William, born 1665, died 1748; John, born 1667, died 1750; Miles, born 1673; died before 1734; Zachariah, born 1675, died 1736; and Thomas, dates of birth and death unknown (although likely born 1676).]

These sons, though officially married, are potential candidates. However, it's also possible that the Todd-Goforth liaison occurred in Hampshire, England, in the generation(s?) prior to William and Anne's arrival in the Americas.

When William Goforth died, his wife Anne would later remarry another member of the immigrant passengers on the “Martha,” a man named William Oxley, and with him would settle in Philadelphia. This may be significant since one of William Josiah Todd’s sons, Lewis (brother of Josiah and Henry Hardy), would later marry an Oxley (related only by marriage rather than blood).

Of interest is that Anne Skipwith Goforth Oxley has documented lineage back to King Edward I, and therefore back to the original lords of the Norman Conquest.

This revelation of genealogical origins doesn’t, of course, diminish the percent of ancestral Todd DNA but simply routes those chromosomes through the mother rather than the father. Since this Todd DNA line doesn’t appear to belong to one of McMurtry’s classification of 200-plus other Todd DNA family groups living in America at the time (our group is classified as Todd Family Group 158 by McMurtry), this (great?-)grandmother of Josiah’s would have come from Todd immigrants not yet identified.

My working hypothesis at this time is that the Todd line of immigrants would likely have arrived after 1677 (when the William Goforths arrived in the Colonies) but before 1710 (the earliest possible date of birth for Josiah’s grandfather Thomas Todd). And a promising course of inquiry would lie in trying to identify locations where Todd families overlap with Goforth families during this window of time.

* * *
Mark and Kym Todd are volunteers on WikiTree, a project to create the entire human tree.
Profiles, sources, and documents for individuals described above are on WikiTree:


Josiah Todd
(my gg-grandfather)Nancy Asbill
(first wife of Josiah)Zilpha Thomas (second wife of Josiah, and my gg-grandmother)

Josiah's parents:Thomas Todd Charity Hardy          Josiah's rerouted patrilineal line, per Y-DNA:
William GoforthAnne Skipworth

Earlier generations countered the battle against higher mortality rates by raising larger numbers of children, hoping to beat the odds for surname survival. But that meant having to come up with more names for more children than parents these days generally face.

It reminds me of the period in my life when I was a musher, and when it came time to breed and raise a litter to replenish the ranks of our sled teams, we noticed that other mushers (those who raised multiple litters to use or sell) would often give theme names to their litters. I recall one musher who had dogs with the names Exxon, Texaco, and Mobile (and these littermates clearly looked alike). The solution my first wife, Sharon, had was to call our own little littermates by the names of famous department stores -- hence, our pups received the names Penny, Macy, Bloomie (for Bloomingdale's), Tiffy (for Tiffany's), Alex (Alexander's), and Bucky (a stretch for Sears and Roebuck -- good thing for us the litter only had six pups!)


The experience did, however, give me empathy for what my grandparents were in for when they elected to populate the Texas Panhandle with extra farm hands named Todd. My father's first and middle names (Dexter Lamar) as well as those of his brothers and sisters -- for a total of eight siblings -- are a case in point.

I always marveled at the odd and sometimes strange names my paternal grandparents chose for their children, and a little digging revealed those names were mined (mostly) from my grandmother's side of the family tree. Nonetheless, it's been quite an eye-opener to realize why my grandmother saddled so many of her children with names that sounded like desperation Scrabble words, compelling many of her children to invent alternative nicknames for themselves.

Okay, you get the idea. For other genealogists who wander onto this post, enough said. You get the drift. What follows is perhaps of more interest to the descendents of my own immediate family of Todds.

A.P. and Mae Todd's Children
Let's list my dad's siblings in order of birth, ending with my dad's own name, and including the nicknames many of them adopted. I've emboldened those names on the list that have analogues to earlier relatives (at least, the antecedent relatives I've identified so far).
Maggie Alice (b. 1901)Thomas Clifton "Cliff" (b. 1903)Byron Franklin "By" (b. 1905)Milton Lewis "Bill" (b. 1908)Cyrus Edwin "Ed" (b. 1911)Lola Bess (b. 1914)Hardy Buford "Boots" (b. 1915)Dexter Lamar "Deck" (b. 1918) "Mae" (Wilson) Todd
on her wedding day, 1900 A.P. Todd, on his
wedding day, 1900Certainly, the continuous string of birthdates -- an average of almost one new child every other year for seventeen years -- seems to me sufficient justification for my grandmother, Mary "Mae" (Wilson) Todd, to have earned naming rights. And she exercised that right until the final two children (doubtless too exhausted to care by then), when she seems to have ceded to my grandfather, A.P. Todd, the opportunity to offer a couple of names from his side of the family. But he, too, must have felt compelled to go with his wife's trend of using more -- shall we say, distinctive? -- names from his lineage.

My maternal grandmother's parents were Benjamin Frankin Wilson and Sarah Hoover. (In the late eighteenth century, the latter's surname changed from Hüber to Hoover only one generation after that branch of the family immigrated from Bavaria to Pennsylvania, but that curious name-change phenomenon is blog grist for a separate mill.)

Here's the siblings list again, but this time with the antecedent namesakes and relationships to my dad's mother (#s 1-6) and father (#s 7-8):
Maggie Alice (Mitchell) -- Mae's older sister was named Maggie.Thomas Clifton "Cliff" -- still looking for antecedents for these names.Byron Franklin "By" -- Mae's father was Benjamin Franklin Wilson. (And the antecedent for her father's name was clearly an homage to the famous eighteenth-century American statesman.)Milton Lewis "Bill" -- Mae's grandfather was named John Milton Wilson (antecedent given and middle names for the famous English Renaissance poet?) while Mae's grandmother had the maiden name of Lewis.Cyrus Edwin "Ed" -- Mae's older brother was named Cyrus.Lola Bess -- still looking for antecedents for these names.Hardy Buford "Boots" -- AP's father was named Hardy. (And this name recurs in almost every previous generation, beginning as a common family name in my Todd branch after an early Welsh great-grandmother's maiden name of Hardy. Dexter Lamar "Deck" -- AP's initial's stand for Atha Poin dexter . (And the antecedent relative for Atha's first name was his great-grandfather, Athanathan!)Of the sixteen given and middle names for these eight siblings, half have clear ancestral antecedents within the family's previous three generations, which is consistent with the common practice of drawing upon the names of forebears as a source of subsequent generations' names.

In my own generation, I got my dad's first name for my middle one (fortunately, my folks refrained from reinstating the "Poin-" prefix for Dexter); to his chagrin, my brother Stephen got his middle name of Watt as a namesake for the nicknames given to our own mother's father and grandfather (their real names were both Watkins but both father and son went by "Watt"); and our sister got our mother's first name of Mary although our sister decided to go by her middle name of Suzanne.

The Ancient Egyptians believed that a person never died as long as their name was spoken by the living. In some ways, the tradition of naming descendants for ancestors accomplishes the same thing. Besides, it's reassuring to realize how our ancestors live on not only in our DNA but also by what we're called.

* * *Mark and Kym Todd are volunteers on WikiTree, a project to create the entire human tree.
Profiles, sources, and documents for individuals described above are on WikiTree:


Mary "Mae" (Wilson) Todd
(Mae's profile page provides links to her siblings and her ancestors.)Atha Poindexter "AP" Todd
(AP's profile page names siblings but provides links, so far, to only his ancestors.)