November 2019 – Begats and Bequeathals

Dennis Linchey/Lindsey (abt. 1700-1762): Post-Indenture Life in North Carolina, 1750-1762

November 26, 2019January 27, 2020 William D. LindseyLeave a comment

Sugar Jones' Militia List Eaton's Company 1754 — “Granville County: Muster roll of Colonel William Eaton’s Regiment,” in “Troop Returns, Military Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, RG 5864; digitized online at the state archives’ Digital Records Collection.

Or, Subtitled: Yows, Weathers, Working Tules, Indiorn Corn, and Shillings Starling

An assortment of deed, tax, and other records in Granville County, North Carolina, in the 1750s and 1760s provides an interesting snapshot of the final decade of Dennis Lindsey’s life. In 1750, he appears twice on Granville County tax lists, once in Edward Jones’ district and once in John Brantley’s. As we’ve seen, it was from Jones that he first bought land on Isinglass Creek in Edgecombe (later Granville) County in 1744. And he sold that piece of land to John Brantley in November 1746, just after buying a tract on Sandy Creek. Continue reading “Dennis Linchey/Lindsey (abt. 1700-1762): Post-Indenture Life in North Carolina, 1750-1762” →

Dennis Linchey/Lindsey (abt. 1700-1762): Post-Indenture Life in North Carolina to 1750 — A Correction of Some Errors

November 25, 2019November 25, 2019 William D. LindseyLeave a comment

Detail from Compleat map of North Carolina, 1770, showing Sandy Creek — A detail from John Collet, J. Bayly, and S. Hooper, *A Compleat map of North-Carolina from an actual survey* (London: S. Hooper, 1770), in the North Carolina Collection Gallery at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

At the end of my last posting, I told you I’d move on to an account of the final decade of Dennis Lindsey’s life, ending with his death in Granville County, North Carolina, in August 1762. I now find that before I do that, I need to correct some mistakes I made in that previous posting. I’m going to point them out to you now, and I’ll also revise the posting itself to correct the errors, since others who may not see my corrections here may circulate or rely on that previous posting. Continue reading “Dennis Linchey/Lindsey (abt. 1700-1762): Post-Indenture Life in North Carolina to 1750 — A Correction of Some Errors” →

Dennis Linchey/Lindsey (abt. 1700-1762): Post-Indenture Life in North Carolina to 1750

November 21, 2019January 27, 2020 William D. LindseyLeave a comment

Jones, Edward to Dennis Lindsey, Edgecombe 1744 (Halifax DB 5, 213) — Deed of Edward Jones to Denis Linsey, 3 February 1744, Edgecombe County, North Carolina) (Halifax County, North Carolina Deed Bk. 5, p. 213)

Or, Subtitled: The Importance of Knowing County Boundary Changes as You Study Land Records

To sum up some salient points of the previous posting about Dennis Linchey’s/Lindsey’s post-indenture life in Virginia (abt. 1725-1734/5): once he was freed from indenture, likely about 1725, he did what we’d expect a young man recently freed from servitude to do: Continue reading “Dennis Linchey/Lindsey (abt. 1700-1762): Post-Indenture Life in North Carolina to 1750” →

Dennis Linchey/Lindsey (abt. 1700-1762): Post-Indenture Life in Virginia

November 19, 2019November 21, 2019 William D. LindseyLeave a comment

Virginia Statute, Irish Indentured Servants — William Waller Hening, ed., *The Statutes at Large, Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia from the First Session of the Legislature in the Year 1619* (New York: Bartow, 1823), vol. 1, p. 411.

Or, Subtitled: A Failed Attempt to Patent Land, and Suits of Debt

To recap (and link to the two previous postings in this series [here and here]): as Brendan Wolfe and Martha McCartney tell us, the indenture of Irish servants in colonial Virginia was subject to a law that required Irish servants in the colony arriving without indenture papers to serve six years if they were above sixteen, and up to their twenty-fourth year in any case.[1] Continue reading “Dennis Linchey/Lindsey (abt. 1700-1762): Post-Indenture Life in Virginia” →

Dennis Linchey/Lindsey (abt. 1700-1762): The Indentured Servant Years

November 15, 2019November 25, 2019 William D. LindseyLeave a comment

Will of Dennis Lindsey, Granville County, North Carolina, August 1762 (in Granville County Loose-Papers Estate Files, North Carolina Archives, C.R. 044.801.25)

Or, Subtitled: Strother Ties and Bristol Ties Everywhere You Turn

The Indentured Servant Years

As we’ve seen, Dennis Linchey/Lindsey, the Irish servant indentured in Richmond County, Virginia, on 1 June 1718 whom we’re now tracking, would likely have been born around 1700 — or perhaps a bit before or after that date. We noted that Carol McGinnis indicates that most indentured servants coming to Virginia in this period were young people aged 18 or so, though many were younger.[1] According to Nathan W. Murphy, an expert on indentured servants in Virginia during the colonial period, most indentured servants in Virginia were 15-24 years of age when they began their servitude.[2] Continue reading “Dennis Linchey/Lindsey (abt. 1700-1762): The Indentured Servant Years” →

Dennis Linchey/Lindsey (abt. 1700-1762): Do DNA Work and Prepare for Surprises

November 13, 2019February 19, 2023 William D. Lindsey1 Comment

Or, Subtitled: How DNA Findings Can Upend All You Thought You Knew about Your Family

I want to return now to a topic I introduced in May 2018 (and here): the descent of my Lindsey family, classified as group 10 in the International Lindsay Surname Project, from an Irish indentured servant named Dennis Linchey, who arrived in Richmond County, Virginia, by 1 June 1718 aboard the ship The Expectation, and was indentured in August 1718 to Francis Suttle. This first posting in this new series will talk about how DNA findings can completely upend everything you think you know about your family history, and point you in fruitful new directions for researching your actual family history. Continue reading “Dennis Linchey/Lindsey (abt. 1700-1762): Do DNA Work and Prepare for Surprises” →

The Nottingham Ancestry of Strachan Monk (1787-1850/1860): Notes on the Possible (?) or Probable (?) Pett Ancestry

November 7, 2019November 8, 2019 William D. Lindsey2 Comments

Phineas Pett, portrait by unknown artist from the National Portrait Gallery, London; on the Wikimedia Commons copy of this image, which I’ve used here, see below.

Or, Subtitled: Fatal Matches and Cruel Step-Parents

It’s time for me to draw this long, long series of postings on the Nottingham ancestry of Strachan Monk (1787-1850/1860) to a close. As I’ve told you in my last several postings, an English researcher of the Virginia Nottingham family, Cedric Nottingham, has concluded that the father of Richard Nottingham (abt. 1620-1692) was a Richard Nottingham (1587-1640/1650) born in Ipswich, County Suffolk, England, who married (he proposes) Mary, daughter of Peter Pett and Elizabeth Thornton, and spent his adult life as a merchant in London. Cedric Nottingham traces this Nottingham line back a number of generations to a John Nottingham who died in Bury St Edmunds, County Suffolk, England, in 1439. Continue reading “The Nottingham Ancestry of Strachan Monk (1787-1850/1860): Notes on the Possible (?) or Probable (?) Pett Ancestry” →