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Need a documented male from Manakin Town

The Legal Genealogist can’t resist trying this one more time.

After all, I’m right here in South Carolina, just down the road from where my third great grandfather Jesse Fore enlisted in the South Carolina Militia in the War of 1812, and I’m going to be here a few days trying to find out more about Jesse and his family.

So… here on DNA Sunday… let me try begging for spit one more time:

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.

The Faure/Fore/Ford question is one of my most perplexing brick walls, despite knowing quite a bit about 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 — R-M269 — 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? There are two candidate families in Union County, South Carolina, shown in the map below, around the time when Jesse might have been born there — Jesse and Elizabeth Fore and Archelaus and Rachel Fore11 — and only a hint of evidence so far to say which one is a better fit (probably Archelaus, but…).

Union County SC

I’d also like to know just 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 188212 — and I can’t find a hint of a divorce case.

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 Standard13 — or myself — as to Jesse’s ancestry. That’s one of the reasons why I’m staying over in South Carolina to do some research. But given the record losses here,14 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 1700.15 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, and — seriously — not even any spit. 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 physical 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.
  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.
  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.
  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 15 July 2018.
  11. See generally 1790 U.S. census, Union County, South Carolina, p. 46 (penned), col. 2, line 17, Archelaus Fore; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 15 July 2018); citing National Archive microfilm publication M637, roll 11. See also ibid., p. 43 (penned), col. 2, line 36, Jesse Fore.
  12. 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.
  13. “Ethics and Standards: Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS),” Board for Certification of Genealogists (https://www.bcgcertification.org/ : accessed 15 July 2018)
  14. Janis Walker Gilmore, Research in South Carolina, NGS Research in the States series (Arlington, Virginia : National Genealogical Society, 2011).
  15. 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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