Joseph Hawkins and his wife, Margaret Conner

In an effort to break through my brick wall on my own Hawkins line, I am reading everything that I can find on Stafford County, Virginia.  I printed out the Stafford County research WIKI from Family search and am systematically going through each entry.  Stafford is a burned county, so the research is  challenging.

However, one of the first things that I am looking at are the George Harrison King papers held by the Virginia Historical Society.  I found finding just what I wanted to see to be less than simple, so I am going to write how I got to the pages that I am looking at.  First on the Stafford County Wiki, I clicked on Virginia Genealogy beside the reference to George Harrison King.  Once there, I clicked the large blue button that says Virginia Online Records.  Next under vital records I chose Virginia Historical Society Papers.  I scrolled down to:

Browse through 918,495 images

And then clicked on that link.  That pulls up a list of the digital records that are available on-line.  I chose the George Harrison Sanford King Papers. Then go to Series I: Harrison to Hite.  When the images come up,  Put image #2152 into the search box.

The Hawkins line that is being discussed is that of John Hawkins of Spotsylvania County.  Mr. King is writing information to a woman who is a descendant of Capt. John Hawkins and has asked if he can help her ascertain parents for her ancestor.

Mr. King says that Mrs. Susannah (Sukey) Edmonson Wyatt was old in 1805. She knew Peggy Conner personally.  Peggy had been orphaned.  Peggy's half brother was her guardian.  This man who was her guardian was Mrs. Susannah Sukey Edmonson Wyatt's husband, Thomas Wyatt.  Peggy Conner had lived in their home in Essex County, Virginia.

Mrs. Wyatt says that Peggy married Joseph Hawkins.

And Mr. King also says that much later in Fayette County, Kentucky in 1800, Peggy Conner Hawkins made a deposition in which she says that she lived with her half-brother, Thomas Wyatt in Essex and in 1752 he moved to Spotsylvania.  Mr. King also says that he found guardian accounts for Margaret Conner, orphan of Martin Conner, in County Essex in the years 1749-1753 settled by Thomas Wyatt.  Mr. King surmises that Thomas Wyatt was the only father that Peggy Conner ever knew.

Mr. King then also puts forth the theory that Capt. John Hawkins (1756-1833) who is the ancestor of his client was the son of Joseph Hawkins and his wife Margaret Conner.

On image 2154 there is VERY interesting information about slaves that had belonged to these people.  As part of this information Mr. King adds this chart:

On the next few pages there is information about John Hawkins, son of Joseph and Peggy Conner Hawkins having lived in Amherst County between Spotsylvania and Kentucky.

On image #2179 there is information on the John and Mary Langford Hawkins line.but I have run out of steam....If you believe you descend from this family, I am happy to help you get to this information

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

Mercer County, Kentucky Edmund Hawkins

While Elaine and I were looking at the heirs of Benjamin Hawkins in Mercer County, Elaine happened to notice another Hawkins deed entry.  It is Deed Book 10, p. 225 in the Mercer County land information on Family Search.

I do not know which family group this information belongs to.  If you do know, please send me a comment.

The deed is in 1816.  Edmund Hawkins has died.  I think that his children are selling his land but I can't remember for sure.....and if I take the time to go back and look, I won't get this done.  But his three children are named in the deed:

Joseph with wife Georgeanne, Littleberry with wife Mary, and Mary Ann with husband Hudson Martin.

Family Group #1 in Mercer County, Kentucky

I was working on the connections between the Barnes family and the Hawkins family this weekend.  I had found a reference to a deed in Mercer County, Kentucky that had Hawkins daughters married to Barnes husbands.  I called Elaine to sort it out.  I have downloaded the deed from Family Search and filed it in Hawkins in Kentucky.

Benjamin Hawkins who married Ann/Nancy Bourne had died in 1811.  My interpretation of this deed is that Abraham has been chosen administrator of Benjamin's estate.  There is no will.  The heirs of Benjamin have come to an agreement for the land.  I only guess that Ann (their mother) plans to live with one of the children.....perhaps Abraham and his wife, Polly Coke.....and that Abraham is paying the others for the land.  The deed states that Abraham is paying $2000 to the heirs.  Five of the heirs receive slaves as part of the deal.  The slaves are named and each heir who receives 1 or 2 slaves is named.  I have taken a screen shot of the signatures.


  

My best interpretation of this screen shot is that the signatures indicate that each heir has given up claim to the land and that they have all agreed to the change in ownership for the slaves named.  And that the people are:

Abraham who is the administrator of Benjamin's will.  According to the research of Joan Horseley who also employed at times, Craig Kilby, Abraham was born in 1776.  Both Joan and Craig are now deceased.  But both were excellent researchers.  Abraham is not the oldest child of Benjamin and Ann, but I think it possible that he was the oldest son.

One of our participants in the Hawkins yDNA project, Patrick Harold Hawkins, believes that he descends from Abraham.

Reuben Boston is husband to Benjamin and Ann's daughter Sarah.  I do have information about their marriage.  From birth date that I received from Joan Horsley, Reuben would have been about 51 at this event.

William Barnes is perhaps the husband of the daughter Ann.  She is the only daughter that I have no marriage information for.  It is also possible that William Barnes is the son of daughter Elizabeth.

Someone else signs for daughter Elizabeth.  Elizabeth was married to either Fielding or William Barnes.  I am not clear on that fact.  My data base on this fact is confusing.  But almost certainly, Elizabeth's husband with last name Barnes is dead in 1811.

John Hawkins.  John Hawkins could be John B. Hawkins married to Ann Ford.  I have always put John B. Hawkins into the family group of Benjamin and Nancy/Ann Bourne Hawkins.  But I have noticed in my digging for this post that not all of the researchers attribute John B. into this family.  Some have him as son of one of the other Hawkins/Bourne families....certainly we all believe that John B. had Bourne grandparents as well as Hawkins.  This could also be a grandson.

Presley White is husband of daughter Lucy.  Lucy is a relative newly wed:

Mercer County marriage records Presley White to Lucy Hawkins with Reuben Boston as surety Nov 30, 1808.  Consent of Ann Hawkins for her daughter.

Francis Hawkins (he may have been called Frank) is the son who eventually ended up with the property described in this deed.

After Benjamin Hawkins’ death, his oldest son, Andrew [I believe this to be a mistake in the book that I was looking at at the time I was doing research on this house...should be Abraham] purchased the property from his siblings in 1811, but it was Andrew’s brother, Francis Hawkins, who eventually bought the farm and lived there.  He and his wife, Permelia, reared all ten of their children including Ann Hawkins who became the wife of John S. MCGee.  Francis Hawkins died on June 14, 1869, and one of his sons, “A”L”” Hawkins, bought out his brothers’ interests and continued to reside on the farm raising another generation of Hawkins family on the home place.....

 The original Hawkins farmhouse is still standing, although no longer used as a dwelling......

 The house and cemetery are located on Short Road just a few miles north of Salvisa.

Quite a few years ago I visited a house that fits this description.  When I have extra time, I will try to pull out my photos and notes to see if indeed this is the house that I saw at that time.

Still talking about Francis/Frank:  One of my autosomal matches says that this man’s name is Francis Gaines Hawkins.

Andrew Hawkins for Benjamin Hawkins.  I could write an entire blog post about the mysteries in my data base for sons Andrew and Benjamin....but I won't.  I do not know why Benjamin was not signing in his own right and not present.

And then Andrew signs for himself.

The last signature on the deed is Ann.  I immediately jumped to the assumption that this was Benjamin's wife, Ann Bourne Hawkins.  But, of course, it is possible that it is a daughter, Ann.  Other researchers tell me that daughter Ann married John Green.  And if that is true, she would have signed as Ann Green.  According to dates given by other researchers, Ann would have been about 27 in 1811 and would have been an old maid according to the judgments of the times if she had still had Hawkins as last name.  But either thing is possible.

Family Group #28

Usually I do not add a new family group unless I have two or more participants who carry the Hawkins surname and are both part of our Hawkins yDNA project.  However, today I added family group #28 with two kits who are close matches at 37 markers.

Harry Hawkins is the father of Cynthia Heidorn.  And R.S. Waline is the father of Crystal Walline.  Crystal has explained that her grandfather had biological surname of Hawkins but took the name of his adopted father.  Thus he is a Hawkins by dna.

Here is what Cynthia explained about their new family group:

Hi Marsha,

According to Crystal Walline, her grandfather took his adoptive father’s name , Walline instead of keeping Hawkins. My gg grandfather, Orrin is the same age/generation as Henry Nelson Hawkins. We are wondering if they are cousins. I am searching for Orrin’s grandparents. Crystal is searching for Henry Nelson’s parents. Hopefully we can figure this out!