No, that’s not exactly misspelled…
So last week The Legal Genealogist set DNA research goals for 2022: to identify the four closest yet-unidentified autosomal DNA matches, one at each of the four major testing companies.
Clocking in at 125 centiMorgans (cM) at 23andMe, at 125 cM at AncestryDNA, at 67.5 cM at MyHeritage DNA and at 85 cM at Family Tree DNA, these four people are all likely 2nd-4th cousins and should be identifiable with work.1
And, as might have been expected, my friend, colleague and YDNA whiz kid Skip Duett immediately expressed shock: “No Y-DNA goals…?”2
Sigh…
Yes.
Yes, I absolutely do have YDNA goals.
And maybe it’s time to trot one in particular back out and see what happens this time.
Because I would really really really like to know if my third great grandfather Jesse Fore, born in South Carolina around 1787, was a descendant of La vefve faure et quatre enfants — the widow Faure and her four children, the Huguenot family of refugees who arrived in Manakin Town, Virginia, in or around 1700.3
Jesse is one of those frustrating guys whose record trail simply dead-ends — along with the paper trail of everyone we can find who’s connected to him. That doesn’t mean we know nothing. To the contrary, we can place him in South Carolina at the time of the War of 1812, when he served as a private and then as a fifer in Captain Michael Gaffney’s Company of South Carolina Militia.4 Since that unit was raised in the area of Spartanburg, he could be the son of Archelaus Fore, who was enumerated in 1790 in a household with two males over age 16, four males under age 16 and four females.5 There is a Jesse Fore on that same census, but without any male children in his household,6 so he’s a less likely candidate.
That Archelaus is likely the “Archibel Four” on the 1800 census of Union District, South Carolina, with three males under age 10, two males aged 10-15, one male aged 16-25, and one male over age 45, plus two females,7 and the Archer Fore in 1810 with two males ages 10-15, one aged 16-25 and one over age 45, plus one female over age 45.8
After Jesse’s military service in the War of 1812, he married his first wife Nancy in Buncombe County, North Carolina, in 1815.9 He was in Buncombe County for the 1830 census,10 in Union County, Georgia, in 1840,11 and Pulaski County, Kentucky, with Nancy in 1850.12 In 1851, while living in Pulaski County, Kentucky, he filed a bounty land application based on his 1812 war service.13
His personal history gets a little weird just after this bounty land claim. There’s no record of any divorce or other legal end to his marriage to Nancy, who moved with several children to Parker County, Texas, and died there in 1882.14 Sarah Nicks, the widow who became wife #2, claimed in her 1879 application for a pension based on Jesse’s War of 1812 service that they’d been married in Union County, Georgia, on 6 June 1855.15 She supported that claim with an affidavit, likely because there’s no marriage license and return for this couple recorded in Union County, Georgia.16
Jesse and Sarah were in Bledsoe County, Tennessee, in 186017 but haven’t been located on the 1870 census. Jesse died in Warren County KY on 16 Jul 1872.18
And, yes, we do have a representative of Jesse’s line who’s YDNA-tested, with lots of matches to others with the surname Fore and Ford. Including several who claim descent from the Faures of Manakin Town and even specifically to Peter (Pierre), who baptized a son Archelaus Faure in the church in Manakin Town in 1747.19
And not a single solitary one of us who can definitively link to that Faure family.
Most of the testers and almost all of the Fore researchers dead-end in Buncombe County, North Carolina, in the early 1800s. My Jesse is the only one of the crowd who can be documented in both Buncombe County and in Union County, South Carolina, and so at least raising the possibility of a link to the South Carolina Archelaus.
Who — sigh — of course — may not be the Archelaus of Manakin Town at all.
So… do I have a YDNA goal? Yep, lots of ’em, but the big one remains the same one I’ve been whyning about — pun absolutely intended — for a decade now: I need a documented direct-male-line descendant of the Faures of Manakin Town to be the baseline for all of the rest of us to measure against.20
Not a documented descendant of Archelaus of South Carolina (who may or may not be linked to the Faures of Manakin Town).
Not a documented descendant of Culvin of Buncombe (unless he’s the exception and actually does have documentary evidence that Culvin descends from the Faures of Manakin Town).
And not an undocumented descendant of anybody named Faure or Fore or Four or Ford who’s convinced that he must descend from the Faure family.
I repeat: I need a documented direct-male-line descendant of the Faures of Manakin Town, paper-trail-proved back all the way.
If I can find that documented direct-male-line descendant of the Faures of Manakin Town, I’ll be thrilled to pay for every bit of the YDNA testing right out to the BigY level.
And it’d be wonderful if I didn’t have to wait another 10 years for the right tester to be found…
Whyne…
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “A DNA whyne,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 16 Jan 2022).
SOURCES
- See Judy G. Russell, “The 2022 DNA goals,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 9 Jan 2022 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 16 Jan 2022). ↩
- Facebook status comment, posted 9 Jan 2022. ↩
- See List of the Refugees, “Manakin Town: The French Huguenot Settlement in Virginia * 1700-ca. 1750,” PDF at p. 5, Becoming American: The British Atlantic Colonies, 1690-1763, Toolbox Library: Primary Resources in U.S. History & Literature, National Humanities Center (http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/index.htm : accessed 16 Jan 2022). ↩
- 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. ↩
- 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 16 Jan 2022); imaged from NARA microfilm M637, roll 11. ↩
- Ibid., p. 43, col. 2, line 36, Jesse Fore. ↩
- 1800 U.S. census, Union District, South Carolina, p. 31 (penned), line 1, Archibel Four; digital images, DGS 004440896, image 484, FamilySearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org/ : accessed 16 Jan 2022); imaged from NARA microfilm M32, roll 50. ↩
- 1810 U.S. census, Union County, South Carolina, Archer Fore; digital images, DGS 004433429, image 484, top page, line 30, FamilySearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org/ : accessed 16 Jan 2022); imaged from NARA microfilm M32, roll 50. Note that this page has no number stamp and multiple penned numbers. ↩
- 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.” ↩
- 1830 U.S. census, Buncombe County, North Carolina, p. 254 (stamped), line 6, Jesse Fore household; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 May 2004); citing National Archive microfilm publication M19, roll 118. ↩
- 1840 U.S. census, Union County, Georgia, population schedule, p. 13 (stamped), line 2, Jesse Fore household; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 5 May 2004); citing National Archive microfilm publication M704, roll 52. ↩
- 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 (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 March 2007); citing National Archive microfilm publication M432, roll 217. ↩
- 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. ↩
- See 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. ↩
- Affidavit of Claimant, 3 May 1879, Sarah Fore widow’s pension application no. 36249, War of 1812, RG-15; NA-Washington. ↩
- See Union County Georgia Record of Marriages Book 1A, 1833-1865, and Index Book 1, 1833-1878, 1925-1933; Georgia Virtual Vault, Georgia State Archives (https://vault.georgiaarchives.org/ : accessed 16 Jan 2022). ↩
- 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 (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 27 Jan 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication M653, roll 1240. ↩
- Affidavit of Claimant, 3 May 1879, Sarah Fore widow’s pension application no. 36249, War of 1812, RG-15; NA-Washington. ↩
- See Register containing the baptisms made in the Church of the French Refugees at Mannikintown, in Virginia : in the parish of King William (Richmond, Va.? : Thos. H. Wynne, 1860), 15; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/ : accessed 16 Jan 2022). ↩
- See Judy G. Russell, “Wanted: Faure / Fore / Ford DNA,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 28 Jan 2012 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 16 Jan 2022). ↩
I have a heap of matches where the connection seems to be through their ancestors in Buncombe County, N.C. It’s for the one line of mine that seems to peter out anywhere beyond 1780 in Scotland. Both M and F lines from there are problematical, likely involving surname changes. And matches for one are apparently through Ireland and part of the other via Northumberland. On the matches’ side no Buncombe tree so far seems to go back to Scotland yet. So getting back to a Common Ancestor in 1600 is an unlikely dream.
In more frustrating moments I attribute any Buncombe Cy possible link as “bunkum”. Nevertheless, bits of evidence continue to collect. Maybe solvable one year, but not this one.
Hi Judy,
Yes our Ford/Fore lineage is a tough nut to crack. I seem to be retracing the same process 10 years after you. I see the Group 003 in the Ford FTDNA project. Do you have specific info on the lineages of those kits?
Two of them claim John Ford who died in Rutherford Co, TN 1808/9, which is my lineage by his son Johnathan T Ford who married Love Tucker Northcutt in Rutherford Co before removing to Gibson Co, TN.
The autosomal segments provide strong evidence that the paper line didn’t have an NPE back to this point because my father has some large obvious Northcutt segments.
I know one of the John Ford testers in the group comes from the line that went to Illinois from Rutherford Co. Both that family and ours passed down a verbal tradition that our Ford families were French.
The obit of Johnathan T Ford mentions he was born in Burke Co, NC. There are also tax records for the older John Ford in 1795 there.
Have you ever found a connection between the Burke Co Ford and Buncombe Co Fore families?
The only tester whose ancestry I am sure of is the one shown with Jesse Fore as the ancestor — since that’s the kit I manage. Other than that… there are a couple that trace back to Culvin of Buncombe County, and no, I can’t link the Burke and Buncombe lines.