DNA Family Group #1

As I wrote my blog post last week trying to get my head in order on our Family Group #1's various matches, I was struck by the fact that we seem to have a subgroup.  I am going to name it FG1Buncombe.  I realize that  all five of the subgroup do not have a connection to Buncombe County, NC.  However, I think that three of them do.  And for me in the early days of chatting with our Group #1 participants, I always thought of Dot's and Inez's lines as being the ancestors who had lived on land that is now a part of the Biltmore Estate.  So I apologize to the other two participants in having chosen a name that is helpful to me, but perhaps not as helpful to them.  This is what I typed into my blog earlier this week:

Kits #76532 and #68105 both believe that they descend from Benjamin and Hannah Hawkins who lived on land that is now part of the Biltmore Estate in the mountains of NC.  There is suspicion of ties to Campbell County, Virginia and then back to the Northern Neck of Virginia.  It is possible that this group connects to William Hawkins who was the orphan of John and Elizabeth (Butler?) Hawkins who both died in Richmond County, Virginia c. 1716 and the brother of Benjamin who was married to Sarah Willis.

For good maps of the Northern Neck go to:

http://marshamoses.blogspot.com/search?q=Northern+Neck

The above two kits are very close matches to kit #46919 and 59402.  Kit #46919 descends from Joseph Hawkins (1801-1867) who is associated with McMinnville TN.  Kit #59402 is associated with a Benj Hawkins b. 1750 in NC and died in 1826 in TN.  The descendents associated with Kit #59402 migrated to Dekalb County AL abt. 1830 from the McMinn/White/Warren county area of TN. 

For line of kit #59402 see:
http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/3585014/family?cfpid=-1714525665&selnode=1  

Kit #46458 would seem to fit into a subgroup with these four participants.  This participant has ties to a James Hawkins found in Buncombe County, NC (same as Kit #46919 and 59402).  This James Hawkins moves to Bradley County, TN by 1840.  Bradley County is shown in Red on below map.....perhaps it is a coincidence that he is living so close to Kit #46919's ancestor? 

Janice is the researcher who is connected to Kit #46458.  Her e-mail is jsblackhurst@comcast.net

Here is what Janice believes to be true about her line:

"My brick wall is JAMES HAWKINS born about 1805 in North Carolina; but he moved to Bradley Tennessee sometime before 1830. He was married to someone named Catherine - I still haven't found her maiden name. He and Catherine had children:  Thomas (b.1831), Tilman (or Tilmon b. 1833), Sarah Elizabeth (b. 1835), James (b. 1837), Jane (b. 1840) and Andrew Jackson (b. 1841).  Sarah we believe married a John Trotter there in Bradley Co.  The eldest son Thomas married Derusha Atchley.  (The Atchleys were a big family in Bradley Co too).

James Hawkins was a widower by 1860; and he and some of his sons moved to Georgia during the civil war period.  It appears he may have returned to North Carolina; and might be the James Hawkins living alone on the 1870 Buncombe Co NC census.   I've looked at some of the Hawkins in early Buncombe - but still haven't been able to quite connect him to whoever his father was.

My cousin's kit #46158; also had some close matches with Gene Hawkins and Vern Hawkins.  I've been in touch with Janet - and she thought that things point to a John Hawkins who moved down to North Carolina from Virgina around 1750; the Rowan Co NC area. But I haven't had a chance to dig into Rowan too much to see if there is a connection."

Because I do research on Rowan County in the mid 1750s for a line unrelated to my Hawkins line until the early 190's,  I am very aware of the fact that Rowan County was HUGE in that time period.  How huge was it?  When was it formed?  For answers to those questions I went to:

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~george/countyformations/northcarolinaformationmaps.html

It wasn't until 1750  that there was enough population in the backwoods of North Carolina to form Counties.  Before that Bladen, Johnston and Granville had just had unestablished western boundaries that extended indefinitely.  In 1750 Anson was established but the western boundaries were still not very clear.  In 1752 Orange was Created out of Anson and Anson became the entire western area of North Carolina.

In 1753 Rowan was created and that caused the entire western part of North Carolina to be in either Anson or Rowan.

It wasn't until 1791 that Buncombe was established.  Thus when we look at these NC Families, we have to think about the time period that we are considering to compare if they might have been living near each other.  My Elliott family was living in Rowan County when they first moved from Penn to NC but they were living in the part that later became Randolph County.  

I had worked on the Hawkins family in Campbell County, Virginia July 20, 2012...take a look at the blog post:

http://marshamoses.blogspot.com/2012/07/william-joseph-hawkins-of-campbell.html

I believe that this family group may have connections to this FG#1Buncombe subgroup.  Let me know what you think.