DNA Sale April 2014

Here is the information sent out by FTDNA on their sale this weekend.  Please be sure to read my information at the bottom of the add.  Contact me at mosesm@earthlink.net if you have more questions. 

If you have reason to believe that you or your participant connects to the Hawkins Surname directly (that is participant has last name Hawkins or birth father who carries the Hawkins surname), please go to:

https://www.familytreedna.com/group-join.aspx?Group=Hawkins

to order your kit.  This will automatically give you the discounted price for the 37 marker test as well as automatically joining you to our Hawkins DNA project.

This is an excellent sale as the 37-marker test will give you a good indication of to which of the Hawkins family groups you or your participant will connect at a good price.  You can always upgrade  the number of markers at a later time if you have need of more information.

DNA Family Group #6

GROUP #6

This group has branches which match through DNA, but that we have not been able to connect genealogically. This Hawkins group is English. The branches that match are:

• Martin Hawkins (1837-1893) was born in South Hampton, England and ultimately immigrated through New York City, NY to Illinois. Family legend has it that Martin Hawkins fell in love with an Irish girl named Hannah Sheehan. Martin's family would not approve the marriage and Martin gave her passage money to New York. He was in the English navy and was on a ship bound for New York. He jumped ship in New York and met up with Hannah and were wed. They came west headed for California but got as far Illinois when their first baby was born.
• Stephen Hawkins was a “mariner” who was born in coastal NH in the late 1600s & died May 7, 1720 in Dover, NH. This line moved westward through Vermont and New York and ultimately to Michigan. Stephen has a son Stephen (b. 1718) who had a son name William (b. 1758). William homesteaded in VT in the 1790's. William's youngest child was Luther (b. 1805 Caledonia Co, VT). The tester’s great-great-grandfather, Luther Hawkins (d. c1883 Tuscola Co, MI) is believed to be this Luther (son of William). He appears in the Niagara Falls NY in the 1840 census and migrated to Michigan from New York just after the Civil War (1867 or so).
• James Hawkins (b 1841) m. Fanny Clark. Their child Alfred John Hawkins (b 1864 London, England; d. 1902 Kent County, England); m June 30, 1885 Mary Ann Jameson in England) immigrated to Gibson City, IL in the US. Both became naturalized citizens on November 5th, 1892. They had five children in Gibson City: Ethel, Albert, Reuben (Vincent), Marian, and William. In 1896, Mary Ann , Ethel, Marian, and William returned to England. In 1897, Alfred, Albert, and Reuben returned to England. Back in England, Alfred worked as a house painter and he and Mary Ann had four more children: Gladys, Grace, Herbert, and Alfred Jr. Alfred Sr died of smallpox on March 31 1902. Sons William and Alfred Jr immigrated to Pasadena California and in 1915 sponsored their sister Gladys who also immigrated to California.
  Their son Reuben Vincent “Vic” Hawkins was born in Gibson City, IL but moved to Great Britain during the first World War and joined the Royal Navy, and then after the war settled in Canada (in Toronto, Ontario). His grandchildren currently live in the Canadian province of New Brunswick and Ontario, in small towns outside of Toronto. It's not clear when, and to where, Alfred and Mary Ann's other children emigrated (or whether they remained in England). Mary Ann spent her last years with her children in California and died in Los Angeles California on December 15, 1947.
• Richard Hawkins – nothing known of this line other than descendants are in Australia.
• Elijah Hawkins (bef 1774-1840) married to Elizabeth Scott (1782-1842) the daughter of Reuben Scott and Margaret Cope. He is buried in the Benjamin L. Perry Cemetery in Salt Rock, West Virginia. Some of his children ( traveled west and settled in Monroe County, Indiana. Some researchers believe Elijah is the son of Nicholas Hawkins (c1700-1754) and Elizabeth Long (c1704-1768). Nicholas is a descendant of Sir John Hawkins (1532-1595), the privateer cousin of Sir Francis Drake. Other researchers disagree and believe their ancestors (in other groups of this project) are from this line. DNA has proven this Elijah line and the other lines are not related. It is not known which research is accurate.

At this point we need help to do the following:

We have two samples from descendants of Elijah's son Henry. We need to find a sample from another one of his sons, either John N. (b1809 & married Lucinda Holmes) or William (b. 1811 & married America Beleu). William had a son named George Eldridge Hawkins.

• We need a fully proven descendant of Sir John Hawkins tested.
• We also need to find another sample from another son of Stephen Hawkins.
• We need a DNA sample from another son of James or Alfred should be tested.
• Learn about the Richard Hawkins genealogy to determine what further steps should be taken.
• We need to find the marriage license of Martin and Hannah, which might have their parent's names listed and the birthplace. If the death certificate and/or obit of the first one of them to die are found, they also may have parent information and/or birthplace information on them.
  
  
  The above information has been provided by Cherie Ohlsson who is the Hawkins DNA co-adminstrator responsible for DNA group #6.  If you have questions about this DNA group, contact Cherie at:
  cherie_ohlsson@yahoo.com
  
  
  Bob Hawkins (rghawkins51@gmail.com) had an interesting comment/question about possible family connections on the above lines.  Anyone have any thoughts on this?  (Harry Hawkins answered the question about which city Martin settled in on the next blog post....but the rest of the guess is something someone might want to pursue.
  
  
  

  Question/Comment: Does anyone know in which city in Illinois that Martin Hawkins settled?  I find it an interesting coincidence that Martin and my great-great grandfather (James Hawkins) were born within a few years of each other in England, and then James' son Alfred (my great-grandfather) moved from England to a very small town in Illinois (Gibson City).... usually new immigrants settle in large cities (like New York).  Perhaps Alfred had relatives (from Martin Hawkins' line) in Illinois, and that's why he chose to emigrate there?  Just an interesting thought......... it would link my line to the Martin Hawkins line.

Descendents of Martin Hawkins in Family Group #6

I loved this story because it is so romantic.  Harry Hawkins of group #6 shared it and I have edited it a bit, but present it as written:  (Harry still lives in the St. Louis area where Martin and Hannah stopped on their route west)

 Martin Hawkins was from England, born in South Hampton in 1837. 

I know from experience that facts get twisted. Family stories in a space of a few years get twisted and no longer resemble the facts. Therefore, take this with a grain of salt. 

Family legend has it that Martin Hawkins, who came from England, fell in love with an Irish girl named Hannah Sheehan. Martin's family would not approve the marriage and Martin gave her passage money to New York. He was in the English navy and was on a ship bound for New York. Martin jumped ship in New York and met up with Hannah and they were wed. They came west headed for California but got as far Illinois when the first child was born (Harry's great uncle George).  Hannah and Martin had seven children (she was Irish Catholic).  There were 5 boys and 2 girls. 1 boy died young but the other six had families and Martins descendants are numerous and spread all over the U.S.  One of his sons Daniel did eventually make it to California and there is fairly large contingent of Hawkins who belong to this line living there.  Harry has spoken to and met several of them. 

This Hawkins family has been successful. There are many Doctors, Lawyers, Teachers, and just some down right good people.

Richard has gathered  good documentation to back up the story.   He has a ship's registry with Hannah Sheehan coming to New York. The ages and times match to support the story.

Hannah died young, age 37, 1878 and is buried in Staunton IL.   Martin died in 1893 age 58 and is buried in Taylorville Il.  He is in the Cemetery's record book, but they used a poor quality soap stone for grave stones and most are unreadable in the section he's buried in.

Hannah's stone is very readable.

Another story that Harry tells that is of great interest and could be followed up on for additional research in England is as follows:  My great uncle Tom Hawkins (one of Martin's sons) bragged about his uncle (Martins's brother) as having paricipated in the Boxer Rebellion. Harry shares some facts about the Boxer Rebellion that are quite interesting.

 Note:  The Boxer Rebellion, Boxer Uprising or Yihetuan Movement was a violent anti-foreign and anti-Christian movement which took place in China between 1899 and 1901.  For more information try Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion

The Boxer's,  a group of Chinese, laid seige to the western embassies, which were about 90 miles inland from the sea. A contingent was formed of various nations who had ships in the port to rescue the people in the embassies. An English officer was put in charge, and a Russian officer leading his group agreed to obey the orders of the the English officer. The crazy fact was that at the time of the Boxer rebellion, the English were at war with the Russians in the Crimea.  Hence a Russian officer accepted orders from and English officer at a time when their countries were at war. The contingent of various nations marched inland and successfully rescued the people in the Embassys.

Harry added the following information about his family line:

My great grandfather Martin Hawkins, lived in many towns in south central Illinois.. The coal industry was booming. The bulk of the immigrants were eastern european working in the coal mines. Martin was English and was able to read and understand blue prints and such. He was employed when mines were first built. Consequently he would move to a new mine location when one was started. I know that he was in Anna, Collinsville, Staunton, Carlinville, Bethalto and lastly Taylorville. He died in Taylorville and is buried there. I've not located his grave because the stones were of poor quality and inscriptions are hard to read. He is on the registry there. His wife who did about six years earlier was buried in Staunton. I only presume that in those days, unless you were relatively wealthy, they planted you where you died.

Martin's son, my grandfather William, whom I did have the pleasure of knowing for 10 years, was the president of the local United Mine Workers.  Thiis grandfather was a personal friend of Mother Jones and was involved in the Virden Riot as he was president of the local union at the time. My politics are conservative and independent. But at the time of the Virden Riot, Unions were fighting against crooked mine owners, paid off inspectors, unsafe working conditions, child labor, etc. I would have liked to be standing by his side.

Help in understanding DNA studies

Phil sent a URL to watch a very short and easy clip on the four kinds of DNA that are studied in our DNA projects.  Here is the URL if you are interested in watching this:

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/extras/molgen/index.html

I thought that it might be helpful to add some other good places to bone up on the subject.  For me my favorite source of explanation were the two books by Brian Sykes.  Both books are easy reading and very entertaining.  When you finish you will have a much enhanced understanding of the DNA projects.

Adam's Curse: A Future without Men is about the yDNA.

http://books.google.com/books?id=NJ6EPt17qeEC&printsec=frontcover&q=&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false

The Seven Daughters of Eve is about the mitochondrial DNA:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Daughters_of_Eve

The wikipedia article casts some doubt about the accounts that Brian Sykes tells of the seven clan mothers.  However, I found my own to fit very well with the story that Brian tells of Helena.  I am haplogroup H.  Helena is said to have lived in France in the area near where the pictures are found on the walls of the caves.  My maternal line was from Alsace Lorraine when one goes back as far as I have traced on the female line.  Certainly makes lots of sense to me.

I welcome others to send me good sources for educating ourselves on the DNA.  Certainly the site hosted by FTDNA has great information.....one can get to it by googling FTDNA.  Other ideas?

Hawkins DNA group #1

I want to do a post here that is about the DNA Group #1 matches who do NOT seem to match with the Hawkins/Bourne lines.  There are two possibilities for this:  one that they descend from another of the orphans of John and Elizabeth Butler? Hawkins and two that the connection is to an earlier generation than that of John and Elizabeth.  I would like to rule out the possibility that at least one of them connects to Thomas Hawkins of Old Rappahannock County, Virginia.  This post will be a great deal of conjecture.  So if you are reading it, do NOT consider this to be facts....but just kind of talking aloud about guesses.

DNA group #7

I have been chatting with Jeffrey about his Hawkins line.  Jeffrey and a cousin just paid for participant #303687 (who is an uncle to the two men) who  carries the surname Hawkins.  The new participant matches with group #7.  The two cousins neither one carry the Hawkins surname.  Jeffrey believes that his Hawkins family line connects to the  Benjamin Hawkins who married Martha Borden.  To help me with this, I would like to add Jeffrey's information here as well as some of the other participants who are a part of DNA group #7.

Jeffrey tells me:

 Benjamin Hawkins husband of Martha Borden of Botetourt County VA.  He lived from 1729-1778 in VA and left Martha a widow with children. Martha remarried and became Martha Harvey.  Martha Borden was from an extremely wealthy family and I assumed Benjamin Hawkins would probably be from a similar background.    You mentioned their son John Hawkins in an earlier email.  I am descended through this son.  The information I have which I am sure is correct is that John Hawkins (1766-1820) married Sarah Lauderdale (1773-1850) of Botetourt Count VA  on October 13 1793 in Botetourt and after the marriage John Hawkins and wife Sarah left VA with her Lauderdale family and settled in Tennessee. The counties I find them associated with are Sumner and Shelby. The Lauderdales were another early and prominent family.  Her father was James Maitland Lauderdale of VA and her brothers were military men.   One died in Battle of New Orleans in 1814 and another founded a military fort in Florida known as Fort Lauderdale. 

 You can see that Botetourt county in 1793 is found close to Bedford County.  

Sumner County is close to Nashville and also close to Bowling Green Kentucky.

Shelby County is the county in which one finds Memphis.

One of my best buddies on the Hawkins DNA genealogy called me after my post to the Hawkins mail list today and reminded me of a pitfall that group #7 needs to be careful about.  
There were two John Hawkins' in Botetourt County just after the Revolutionary War.  One was John who was the son of Benjamin and Martha Borden Hawkins.  This is Jeffrey's ancestor John Hawkins who married Sarah Lauderdale.  The other John Hawkins also had wife Sarah.  His wife Sarah is said to have been Sarah Johnston in the book by General John P. Hawkins.  This John Hawkins had father Philemon Hawkins married to Sarah Smith.   My buddy tells me that this John Hawkins was traveling with his brother Joseph and that they lived in Botetourt County for a while before moving on to Scott County, Kentucky.

The John Hawkins who was the son of Philemon (and is NOT related to group #7 that we know about)  was traveling with at least one Craig family and also with the ancestors of the man that I spent time with in Florida.  I will add that information later.  Another surname that would be connected to this group is Johnston.   I think of this family as being connected to the John and Mary Long Hawkins line.

You can also separate these two families by the place to where they moved:  The Borden group moved to Montgomery County, Va and Sumner County, TN.  The group who descend from Philemon move to Scott County, KY to join up with other of the John and Mary Hawkins line. 

The two separate Hawkins families lived in different Tax areas in Botetourt County.  The Borden/Hawkins line lived on Halls Bottom.  The Hawkins family that descends from Philemon and Sarah Smith Hawkins lived on Sinking Creek.  

My buddy suggests that there is a deed in Deed Book 7 pg 662-664 in Botetourt County that ties Benjamin of Sumner County, TN to the Harvey name (Martha Borden Hawkins Harvey's second husband).  Tying this line positively to this line.  

I want to add one more thought that I don't want to loose about the Hawkins line that is connected to Philemon who are living in Botetourt County.  It is that John Hawkins married to  Sarah Johnston has brother-in-law Toliver Craig, Jr.  Tolliver Craig, Jr.'s wife is said to have been Elizabeth Johnston.  This may be why this couple are traveling together to Botetourt instead of being with the Traveling Church that went to Kentucky earlier.  

Another researcher who has ties to Hawkins DNA group #7 is Sara Powell.  Sara's 4-gr-grandfather died in Sumner County, TN.  This man was Robert Hawkins married to Sarah Smith. This Robert Hawkins had second wife Frances Gillliam.  Sarah's grandfather was Thomas James Hawkins, but every other male in her line has had the name Robert since her 4-hr-grandfather   Later generations are found in Davidson County, TN and Texas.  Certainly we would expect the Robert Hawkins who died in Sumner County to connect to Benjamin and Sarah Borden Hawkins in Botetourt County, Virginia.

More Autosomal (Family Finder) DNA "stuff" and Talbot County Georgia Hawkins lines

I have been chatting with Roger Harris a bit in the last few days.  His mother was a Hawkins and this is what he has told me about his line:

His mother's ancestors came to Talbot County, Ga., in the early 1830s.

I know that they (the Hawkinses) were from North Carolina, but I don't know where in N.C.

The earliest ancestor known was Jesse Hawkins, who was born ca. 1780.  (His wife's name was Mary.)

The only other thing that I could add is the fact that Jesse Hawkins, who came from North Carolina, lived in Pike County, Ga., where he died before 1850.  (His will was made in the late 1840s.)  His son William, who married Serena Millen, came to Talbot County in the early 1830s.  William and Serena married in Upson County, Ga., in the late 1820s.  

Jesse's widow was named Mary, and she is found in the 1850 census of Pike County.

I started looking around to see what I might have to help Roger and found the following slide from my County slideshow about Talbot County, Ga

All of you do know me know that I have "cheat Sheets" to remind me of what I have known in the past about all of the Hawkins groups.  There are many of us and it isn't easy to keep people in one's mind in any kind of order.  This is just a conglomeration of "stuff" that I have gathered about the Hawkins' in this area.

I heard from Stacy Head in June 2023 with questions about this Hawkins line.  Here is what Roger added to his original post when I asked him about his research:

A quick summary, where this line is concerned, is "embedded" in the Find-A-Grave memorial at the link pasted below:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/234170343/william-hawkins

As far as I know, there is no proof of a connection between Jesse Hawkins (the North Carolina native born ca. 1775/80 who died in Pike County, Ga.) and anyone who came before him.

What we do know now, beyond a doubt, is that this "Hawkins" line has its origins in a "Spruill" line.  

My first cousin, a Hawkins male, did the "Y" test, and there were essentially no "early" Hawkins men among matches.  The Spruills, however, are there, along with the Dillons, Davenports, and other related families.  They all came out of 18th-century Tyrrell County, N.C.

I would like very much to solve this mystery.  In the meantime, I only know (and the Spruill DNA Project coordinator has given me assurance) that we (in this "Hawkins" line) are very much of the Godfrey Spruill family.  If you check the Sproul/Spruill DNA Project spreadsheet, in any of its incarnations, you'll see Hawkins "Y" test-takers represented.