Autosomal match to Hawkins family #1

You may want to read the post that is below this post first if you have interest in family group #1.  However, if your interest is strictly autosomal DNA testing, and you have no interest in the family line that has Benjamin Hawkins who married Ann/Nancy Bourne and died in Mercer County, Kentucky there is no need to take the time to read it.

Jim Barnes and I began chatting about his Barnes family that is found in Culpeper, Virginia (maybe Orange?) in the late 1700s.  I know their names because I have looked at a marriage date of maybe 1799? between a Hawkins male and Milly Barnes.  I'll try to edit this with facts later.  The date is just a little too late to be parents for my Thomas R. Hawkins who was born c.1797.  But for 30 years it has been of interest to me.

But because of the conversation between Jim and me, I started looking around for documents that included both the Hawkins and Barnes name.  And I found a deed that I had in my files and piles that was signed by the heirs of the Benjamin Hawkins who is named above after Benjamin's death in Mercer County Kentucky.  That is what the below post is about.

As part of our conversation, Jim and were both surprised that he has as many matches who claim Hawkins connections on his family finder list as I do.  I have no Barnes in my tree that I know of and he has no Hawkins that he knows.  And in turn I have as many family finder matches who claim Barnes ancestors on my list of family finder matches as Jim does (I might have a few more).  Our conversation led to the thought that it is because the Barnes and Hawkins family was so intermarried in Culpeper and Mercer County that many Hawkins researchers have Barnes in their tree and vice versa.

So I suggested to Jim that he join the Hawkins dna project for just an hour so that I could look at his family finder matches to see if anything jumped out at me.  And absolutely!  When we used the filter Hawkins his matches went down to around 61 and his very top match was Patrick Harold Hawkins.  I took a quick look at his tree and immediately knew that Patrick was a family group #1 Hawkins descendant.  And I sent an e-mail to Patrick.  BUT WAIT....as I reread the blog post that I had written already, I saw that I had actually mentioned the fact that Patrick was a descendant of Abraham Hawkins who was the administrator for Benjamin Hawkins who had married Ann/Nancy Bourne!  Oh, Wow!  This is fun!  In the middle of the night, I could not help but jump out of bed to form my theory.  Here is a screen shot of Patrick's tree from 1841 going back to Benjamin and Ann/Nancy Bourne Hawkins:  (You may have to manipulate it to see all the way back....it was unreadable when smaller.  I can send it to you if you are unable to manipulate)



And below are may middle of the night scratchings.  The left hand side are Patrick's Hawkins line.  While the right hand side are Jim's Barnes line.



The huge big brace....had to look up word   

marks the generations that should match for a 2nd to 4th cousin.  But remember that if Jim and Patrick are not of the same generation (that is one is retired while the other is young and still working), their match may actually be 4th cousin once removed.....or some such thing.  This will show up the same as a 4th cousin.  One of them will have the couple who are their common ancestors as 3-gr-grandparents while the other will have the same couple as 4-gr-grandparents.

Ok.  Finally the punch line.  It would seem to me that the most likely scenarios is that Sarah Barnes who married Pleasant Fielding Hawkins may have been a sister to John and George Barnes.  And then the common ancestor to both  would be the father of these three siblings.  And if this is not the case, it might have been one more generation earlier (the grandfather of John and George Barnes).

Please help me edit this blog post.  It is done quickly.  Additions?  Deletions? corrections?  misspelled words?  Clarifications?  Thanks