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If you’re a male with the name Faure, Fore or Ford, and you’ve documented your descent from the Faure family of Manakin Town, Virginia, I want your DNA. If you know a male with the name Faure, Fore or Ford, with documented descent from the Faure family of Manakin Town, Virginia, please tell him I want his DNA. If you’re associated with any Huguenot society anywhere in the universe and you’re even acquainted with a male with the name Faure, Fore or Ford, with documented descent from the Faure family of Manakin Town, Virginia, please tell him I want his DNA.

Just a little bit of it. It won’t hurt, I promise, and I’ll even pay for the DNA testing.

Jesse in 1830

Saturdays around The Legal Genealogist are for my family, and the Faure/Fore/Ford question is one of my most perplexing brick walls. Now, having said that, truth be told, I know a lot about my 3rd great grandfather Jesse Fore. He was a fifer in Captain Michael Gaffney’s Company of South Carolina Militia in the War of 1812.1 He married his first wife Nancy in Buncombe County, North Carolina, in 1815.2 He was in Buncombe County for the 1830 census,3 in Union County, Georgia, in 1840,4 and Pulaski County, Kentucky, with Nancy in 1850.5

In 1851, he filed a bounty land application based on his 1812 war service.6 In 1855, he married widow Sarah Nicks in Union County, Georgia.7 He and Sarah were in Bledsoe County, TN in 18608 and can’t be located on the 1870 census. Jesse died in Warren County KY on 16 Jul 1872.9 I even know what Jesse’s YDNA haplogroup was — R1b1a2 — based on the testing of a great great grandson from Texas in 2008.10

There are, of course, a few minor little details about Jesse that I’d still live to find out. You know… those inconsequential details like … oh … where was he born? Who were his parents? How was it that he felt free to marry Sarah Nicks in 1855 when his first wife Nancy didn’t die, in Parker County, Texas, until 1882?11 As I said, details.

Now I’m not going to pretend I’ve mined every last record out there that might help me track Jesse back. I’m a long way from satisfying the Genealogical Proof Standard12 — or myself — as to Jesse’s ancestry. But given the record losses in South Carolina,13 I sure wouldn’t mind taking just a little shortcut here and trying to leapfrog him back to the family I think he was part of: the Faure family which, with other French Huguenots, settled in Manakin Town, Virginia, around 1700.14 If I could make that link, then even if I don’t ever pick up more of a trail to go backwards from Jesse, I’d at least have a clue where to start — to go forwards from Manakin Town to Jesse.

And all I need is just a little bit of DNA. Not much. No needles, no blood, not even any spitting. Just a swab rubbed on the inside of a cheek of just one documented male direct-line descendant of the Manakin Town Faures. Just one male Faure, or Fore, or even Ford who’s got the paper trail my Jesse didn’t leave to his descendants.

I’ll handle all the testing details. I’ll pay for the test. Nobody else will even get your email address if you’d rather not give it out. Nobody else — not even the testing company — has to have your address.

So… c’mon, all you Faures, Fores and Fords with that paper trail. C’mon. You know you want to…


SOURCES

  1. Michael Gaffney Diary, 1797-1853, transcribed and edited by Henry Gaffney, 1894; file 02887-z , Southern Historical Collection; Louis Wilson Library, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
  2. Declaration of Soldier, 27 March 1871, Jesse Fore (Fifer, Capt. Gaffney’s South Carolina Militia, War of 1812), soldier’s pension application no. 4553, certificate no. 7041; Case Files of Pension and Bounty Land Applications Based on Service Between 1812 and 1855; Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files, 1800-1960; Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15; National Archives, Washington, D.C. Note that although Jesse named her as “Sallie” in that declaration, it was his second wife Sarah who was called “Sallie.”
  3. 1830 U.S. census, Buncombe County, North Carolina, p. 254 (stamped), line 6, Jesse Fore household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 May 2004); citing National Archive microfilm publication M19, roll 118; imaged from Family History Library (FHL) microfilm 18084.
  4. 1840 U.S. census, Union County, Georgia, population schedule, p. 13 (stamped), line 2, Jesse Fore household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 5 May 2004); citing National Archive microfilm publication M704, roll 52; imaged from FHL microfilm 7048.
  5. 1850 U.S. census, Pulaski County, Kentucky, population schedule, Division 1, p. 7 (back) (stamped), dwelling 106, family 106, Jesse Fore household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 March 2007); citing National Archive microfilm publication M432, roll 217.
  6. Affidavit of Claimant, 4 Jan 1851, Jesse Fore War of 1812 pension no. 4553, RG 15, NA-Washington. His affidavit in support of the bounty land warrant was attested to in part by his son, William M. Fore, then Clerk of the Pulaski County Court.
  7. Affidavit of Claimant, 3 May 1879, Sarah Fore, widow’s pension application no. 36249, certificate no. 25298, service of Jesse Fore (Fifer, Capt. Gaffney’s South Carolina Militia, War of 1812); Case Files of Pension and Bounty Land Applications Based on Service Between 1812 and 1855; Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files, 1800-1960; Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15; National Archives, Washington, D.C.
  8. 1860 U.S. census, Bledsoe County, Tennessee, Pikeville Post Office, population schedule, p. 50 (penned), dwelling 352, family 352, Jesse Four household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 27 Jan 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication M653, roll 1240; imaged from FHL microfilm 805240.
  9. Affidavit of Claimant, 3 May 1879, Sarah Fore widow’s pension application no. 36249, War of 1812, RG-15; NA-Washington
  10. Kit 132424, Ford Surname DNA Project, Family Tree DNA (http://www.familytreedna.com/public/Ford/default.aspx?section=yresults : accessed 27 Jan 2012.
  11. Baker Cemetery (Baker Community, Parker County, Texas; on Baker Road approximately four miles south of the intersection with Doyle Road, Latitude 323503N, Longitude 0974338W), Nancy C. Four marker; photograph by J.G. Russell, 3 May 2003.
  12. Board for Certification of Genealogists, “The Genealogical Proof Standard” (http://www.bcgcertification.org/resources/standard.html : accessed 3 Jan 2012)
  13. Janis Walker Gilmore, Research in South Carolina, NGS Research in the States series (Arlington, Virginia : National Genealogical Society, 2011).
  14. See generally R.A. Brock, editor, Documents Relating to the Huguenot Emigration to Virginia and to the Settlement at Manakin-Town (Richmond : Virginia Historical Society, 1886); digital images, Google Books (http://books.google.com : accessed 27 Jan 2012).
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