A large branch of my family traces back to Rowan and Iredell counties in North Carolina, and these are the ancestors of my great-great grandmother, Mary Edith Luckey. Mary Edith’s maternal grandfather, Samuel Davis, pushes back a couple generations before the records give us no more, and his ancestors from Europe are unknown. More information is known of Mary Edith’s maternal grandmother, Mary Clifford, with her paternal line going back to her grandfather, Michael Clifford, a Scottish man born in Ireland. And Mary Edith’s other grandmother, Esther Tucker, had a heritage from early Maryland settlers who lived near present-day Washington D.C.
As for Mary Edith Luckey’s paternal grandfather, Joseph Luckey, there is no paper trail evidence identifying his parents. By virtue of knowing his surname, it would seem that his line traces back to a Scots-Irish man, Robert Luckey, who migrated to Pennsylvania in the early 18th century, and left many descendants in Rowan County, North Carolina. But a segment of my DNA offers a clue to another possible ancestor: it clusters Joseph Luckey descendants with descendants of a man named William Bennett (1717-~1795). Perhaps the line goes through Joseph Luckey’s unknown mother, although the link that connects to his family may be lost to history.
Another large branch which largely traces back to North Carolina and Virginia comes to me from my great-great grandmother, Elizabeth Sutherlin. Neither of her parents have any documentation tying them to their parents, but her father Jackson Sutherlin’s tree has been revealed with the use of my DNA (see his biography). The Sutherlin (or Sutherland) line goes back to original ancestor George Sutherland, who lived in Virginia during the 1650s. Because records are scarce, most of the wives of Sutherland men are hard to prove, but one of them was a descendant of Walter Chiles (1608-1653), who lived in Jamestown for a time.
Typical home of a Mid-Atlantic colonial pioneer.
As for Elizabeth Sutherlin’s mother, Mary Fleming, we know that she was born in Ohio, plus the 1880 census shows that her father was born in Virginia and her mother was born in New Jersey. Using these facts along with my own DNA, I’ve determined that Mary’s mother was part of the Hand Family of Scotch Plains, New Jersey, with the maternal half tracing back to the colony of New Sweden. The Fleming side of her heritage tracks into Kentucky via Virginia, and there’s a suggestion that this branch includes some very elite Virginians going back to John Rolfe and Pocahontas. It’s important to note that there isn't any DNA or other evidence to prove that.
The other untraceable branch of my family who partly originated in the Mid-Atlantic colonies were the ancestors of Isabelle Hunter. She was said to be born in Vincennes, Indiana in 1803, and married into a French Creole family. Her father was a Scots-Irish immigrant, and her mother was from Delaware, of an English heritage. Because we don't know Isabelle's mother's maiden name, the Delaware line stops there.
The reason many of these ancestors can’t be connected to the original people from Europe is that their colonies had a different history than the ones to the north. These settlers had less of a central authority overseeing their lives, such as in New England and New France, so no one kept tabs on individuals. It was a society where people survived more on their own, rather than working as a community. Births, deaths and most marriages went unrecorded except for in perhaps a family Bible, and often such documents didn’t get handed down. Generally speaking, formalized records were only kept for the transfer of land in wills and property sales, and not enough vital data is in these records to piece families together.
It’s too bad because these colonial ancestors had life stories just as rich as the traceable ones. Often the reason a man migrated from England was that he committed a crime, although many were just poor people looking for opportunity in America. There was money to be made in growing tobacco, and the Maryland-Virginia area was ideally suited for that. All a person needed was ship’s passage and a small land grant, and within a few years, they would be much better off than they had been in their home country. The colonies became patchworks of small tobacco farms, and some very large ones operated by much wealthier men from England, some of whom are among my ancestors.
Not everyone in these colonies settled in the tobacco region, and another group who were primarily from present-day Northern Ireland migrated into eastern Pennsylvania. Since the land nearest to the coast had already been claimed by others, the newcomers moved inland, and then made their way down the Shenandoah River Valley. By the mid-18th century, many were living in the Piedmont of North Carolina, and eventually were led by men like Daniel Boone into Kentucky and Tennessee. Other settlers in Pennsylvania went a more northerly route into Ohio, and eventually further west.
The reason many of these ancestors can’t be connected to the original people from Europe is that their colonies had a different history than the ones to the north. These settlers had less of a central authority overseeing their lives, such as in New England and New France, so no one kept tabs on individuals. It was a society where people survived more on their own, rather than working as a community. Births, deaths and most marriages went unrecorded except for in perhaps a family Bible, and often such documents didn’t get handed down. Generally speaking, formalized records were only kept for the transfer of land in wills and property sales, and not enough vital data is in these records to piece families together.
It’s too bad because these colonial ancestors had life stories just as rich as the traceable ones. Often the reason a man migrated from England was that he committed a crime, although many were just poor people looking for opportunity in America. There was money to be made in growing tobacco, and the Maryland-Virginia area was ideally suited for that. All a person needed was ship’s passage and a small land grant, and within a few years, they would be much better off than they had been in their home country. The colonies became patchworks of small tobacco farms, and some very large ones operated by much wealthier men from England, some of whom are among my ancestors.
Not everyone in these colonies settled in the tobacco region, and another group who were primarily from present-day Northern Ireland migrated into eastern Pennsylvania. Since the land nearest to the coast had already been claimed by others, the newcomers moved inland, and then made their way down the Shenandoah River Valley. By the mid-18th century, many were living in the Piedmont of North Carolina, and eventually were led by men like Daniel Boone into Kentucky and Tennessee. Other settlers in Pennsylvania went a more northerly route into Ohio, and eventually further west.
Migration of ancestors from Pennsylvania to Rowan County, North Carolina.
One major reason for the the westward movement of these people is tied to the end of the American Revolution. A generation of young men served in militias and the Continental Army, and deserved compensation for their sacrifice. But the newly-created federal government had no money to pay them. They did have an abundance of land out west, so this was offered to veterans instead of cash. Thus began an exodus of migration, and a culture of living off the land on the American frontier.
The thing that these lines of my family all seem to have in common was that they were hardy individuals who had no fear of picking up and moving. Perhaps that’s another thing that makes them all hard to trace, but it also paints them (in my mind at least) as having an independent spirit. And having moved entirely on my own from coast to coast, not once, but twice in my life, I feel their presence in myself. After all, I do know that I inherited a substantial amount of DNA from my Mid-Atlantic & South colony ancestors.
