http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~devinedna/baldna/Baldwin.htm

This is the link to the Baldwin surname DNA Study, which I administer.

Two Solomon Baldwin descendants appear as BAL 38 and BAL 39. The closer match of these lines to Maness family lines than your other Baldwin’s is noted in their lineage descriptions.

• From Donna Jean Glasgow; 2/21:
  • I have spent a great deal of time this weekend systematically looking at Mitchell, Latham/Lathram families, and Baldwin families, and I have still not been able to make any connections.  I was working on the assumption that Rebecca Mitchell was a Baldwin and that she had hooked up with a Maness before she married Layton Mitchell and had Solomon.  However, I could not find a Rebecca Baldwin from the right time frame among any of those families that were unaccounted for.  I did determine that she cannot be the Rebecca Baldwin that married John Sturgill or the Rebecca Baldwin that married John Alder (the latter being Irish Baldwins that wound up in Hawkins Co., TN).

    I may never know what happened to my brother or who the heck Solomon Baldwin’s parents were!

    I do think it is fascinating that so many Halls married so many Elliotts (there were no less than five Hall/Elliott marriages among the children of Masias Hall and his brother, Reuben.  Also, there were two Sturgill marriages, which is very interesting.  Sure wish I knew what Sturgill’s beef was with Solomon!   Miles Sturgill was the son of Elijah Sturgill, who was born in 1805 in Ashe Co., NC, so I wouldn’t be surprised to learn the families knew each other from way back.

    Like I said earlier, Reuben Hall, William Maners, and a “Brother Stegen” (Sturgeon, another name for Sturgill) were all at the Stony Creek Baptist Church in 1813, where “melungeons” were mentioned in the minutes.  I just feel like I am tripping all over the people that are related to Solomon, but I just can’t put it all together without records!

    I need to research the Andrew and Kittury Mitchell along with the two William Mitchells that showed up in the 1820 Grayson County census along with “Laten” Mitchell.  I also need to account for all the children (using their ages) in all the census years.  I still have plenty of work to do!

• From Donna Jean Glasgow; 2/15/2010:
  • I really do think Solomon has a connection with the Baldwins in the area.  I don’t think Stephen Baldwin could be any more than a cousin.  I hope Mitch is able to provide real evidence that Phoebe Baldwin was really a Mitchell.  We don’t even know for sure that Solomon WAS a half-brother to Andrew and Enoch Mitchell; that is only lore at this point.  Yet, there sure seems to be a connection between Solomon and the Mitchells, so I proceed as if they are half-brothers.  In that case, Phoebe Mitchell is a half-sister to Solomon, and she surely would not be marrying a brother of Solomon.  Perhaps she would marry a cousin, though.  To me that means that Solomon is NOT a son of Elisha Baldwin or a brother to Stephen.

    See what we have to go on?  Probabilities only, nothing concrete!  I have to rely on naming patterns, migration patterns, and a few clues, such as Maness DNA, “Old Regular Baptist” lay preacher, Floyd County constable (hearsay), naming patterns, and a legend in the family that there was “Cherokee,” which I interpret to mean a Melungeon heritage.  That’s not much to go on, but it’s SOMETHING.

    Too bad some of Russell county’s records, notably a deed book and a marriage record book, were destroyed along with miscellaneous court papers, in a fire which burned a large portion of the center of Lebanon, including the courthouse, in 1872.

    I wish I had access to some land records!  Surely Solomon Baldwin had land in Virginia.  Of course, I have only the internet to rely upon.

• From Roy Haas; 2/14/2010:
  • I ran across Stephen and Phoebe several years ago in Russell Co. and tried to work them into our mystery. They were in a census there.
    However, I could not tie them into Solomon.  I think they are connected.  I think Solomon’s mother married Mitchell and the Baldwin kids grew up with the Mitchell’s in Russell and Floyd counties.
• From Donna Jean Glasgow; 2/14/2010:
  • This is the first time I have heard of Stephen Baldwin’s wife, Phoebe, being a Mitchell!  Do we have a source for that?  It is extremely interesting that Phoebe and Stephen Baldwin had children Rebecca and Solomon–but those are very popular names, (So was Noah).  I do believe these folks were naming their children, at least the earlier born ones, after family members.  I am especially interested in the name Alexander–Solomon’s oldest son.  There is an Alexander Maness, son of Isom Maness.  Alexander’s brother, Arthur Maness, had a son, John Baldwin Maness, born August 09, 1856 in Scott County, VA; died June 23, 1922 in Republic, Greene County, MO.

    I have done a thorough search for any snippets I can find on those Baldwins from Wilkes/Ash Counties in NC and Grayson/Russell County, VA.  I keep trying to make Rebecca, wife of Layton Mitchell, a Baldwin, but for the life of me, I cannot find any evidence of it.  She is certainly not the Rebecca Baldwin, daughter of Elijah Baldwin, who married John Sturgill.  Elijah Baldwin had a son, John, and I think it is interesting that Solomon Baldwin had children John, Rebecca, and Elijah.  However, Alexander was the oldest son, so his name is bound to be a clue.

    The Rebecca Baldwin who was a dau. of Elijah married John Sturgill in Grayson County about 1810 and and they moved to Scott County by February 22, 1812, where John Sturgill (any kin to Miles Sturgill?) appeared as a member of the Stony Creek Primitive Baptist Church. There was a William Maness who was also a member of that same church:

    Minutes of the Stony Creek Baptist Church
    AKA “Kilgore’s Church”

    http://melungeonhistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/

    August the 24 day 1805
    Church meeting held at Stony Creek. Received by experience and baptism William Manes.

    December the 28 day 1805
    Church meeting held at Stony Creek. The church unanimously agreed that a letter be sent to Br. Shadrick Estep to come and make satisfaction to this church for this transgression for she is grieved at him. Ordered that Brother John Brickey and Br. James Leath go and cite William Maner to attend at a church meeting appointed at Brother David Cock’s on Saturday next the 4th of January 1805 (1806) and that Br. James cite Sister Cloe Francis to attend said meeting, and that Brother David Cock cite Sister Carter to the meeting as witness against Maner. Ordered that Br. David Cox and James Leath cite Sarah Flannery to attend at the next meeting and be dealt with for her ill conduct. John Flannery, Moderator. Dismissed in order.

    January the 4 day 1806
    At a called meeting at Stony Creek this 4th day of January 1806, William Maner
    excommunicated for this church swearing, getting drunk and obstinacy in not appearing before the church when cited to trial. Robert Kilgore, Moderator. Dismissed in order.

    It is interesting to me that members of my Hall, Gibson, and Moores all had connections with that same church.

    Yes, it is interesting that Elisabeth Mitchell, who married Martin Sanders, named a son Noah Baldwin Sanders.

    I sure wish the Glade Hollow/Reeds Valley Primitive Baptist Churches had records of their membership!  A lot of the Glade Hollow membership went to Blackwater, Tennessee.  I have to keep reminding myself that the western part of NC became Tennessee, so it is very plausible that our Maness/Baldwins were at one point living from the very northeastern part of Tennessee.

    I’ll swear!  These Baldwin/Maness connections are more complex to research than my ancestors from Northern Ireland in the 1600s!  (I lucked out on finding their church, where all the records were still extant).

• From Mitch; 2/13/2010:
  • I’ve come across a couple clues that might mean something, but then again maybe not. You may already know this, but what the heck. We’ve heard the story about Solomon Baldwin possibly being related to Andrew Mitchell. I’ve heard from another Mitchell researcher that a Stephen Baldwin (Balden?) was married to Phoebe Mitchell…the younger sister of Andrew Mitchell from Russell County, Va. Also, Elizabeth Mitchell, Andrew’s oldest sister, had a son named Noah Baldwin Sanders, born 1842 in Russell County. Not sure what to make of it and I just found this out today. What do you think? Interesting, eh? I think there might be something there…not sure what just yet.

John Elliott Trial Proceedings Newsletter

Hi all you Solomon Baldwin/Sarah Elliott descendants!  I finally got my hands on the court records of John Elliott.  I was hoping it would give some details of the circumstances surrounding the murder, but it did not.  But nevertheless, it is a helpful document to have in your records.  It names friends of John Elliott who helped put up his bail money.

As far as the Maness heritage goes, I have (from the comfort of my own computer, of course) left no stone unturned in looking for a Maness/Baldwin or even Lawson/Baldwin connection, and I have found none.

I am intrigued by the names of John Wesley and Alexander that crop up in both Isham Maness (the one who drowned in the Clinch River) and Solomon Baldwin’s descendants.  Of course, lots of people were naming their children John Wesley in those days, particularly if they were Methodists.  I would guess that folks in that SE Virginia/Kentucky region did not start naming their children John Wesley until after Francis Asbury arrived in 1771, but the name may have caught on, kind of like the name “Lorenzo Dow” did, to later become commonplace whether the people were Methodists or not.  If Solomon Baldwin was Regular Baptist preacher like we think, why name a son John Wesley?  Would it make sense for Solomon to name a son (Alexander) after a half-brother by a father who obviously did not raise him?

It seems to me that somehow Isham Maness is the most likely candidate to be Solomon Baldwin’s father.  The name Isham (pronounced Isom, with a silent “h” as in graham), is originally an English surname and began in the locality of the River Ise in England (ham as in Birmingham, meaning hamlet or town).  The surname Maness in all its spellings could very well be Irish as in McManus, and I have found that to be fairly common in Ireland, but I have yet to find an Isham as a forename in Ireland.  That would suggest that if Isham Manes were Irish, that his family were at least not fresh Irish immigrants in the late 1700s.

I have certainly let my imagination run away with me, but have not found any documentation anywhere.  I have way more questions than answers, but now I am “stucker” than I was when Solomon was a Baldwin!

I just wanted to let you all know that because I have not written anything on this subject or corresponded lately, I have not let the matter rest.  I have spent literally hours poring over every scrap of information I can glean.  I just thought I’d shake the tree a little bit!

Have any of you had any luck at all?

Cheers,

Donna Jean Glasgow

Descendant of Matilda Baldwin

Click Here: Reference Link

The 12, 25 and 37 marker samples have been returned to Tim and they are a perfect match with my sample markers. Tim is joining several FTDNA projects including the Baldwin and Maness projects.

This is exciting news. Now we can say with certainty that all male Baldwin’s who descended directly from Solomon are not genetic Baldwin’s. We are likely either Maness (or Manes, or Maynor) or Lawson. Thus, the hunt begins for our true genetic heritage and origins.

First, not everyone wants to join a surname project, for whatever reason.  They can join a regional project like the Gap project and you can still match against them.

However, the real reason I started the Cumberland Gap project is so that people with different surnames but that lived in the same geographic area could see who they match.  Let’s face it, the girl next door was much more likely to have a child with the boy next door than with the boy in the next county.  Generally speaking, people who knew each other well enough to make children lived close together.  If you didn’t have the opportunity to get to know someone, you very likely weren’t going to have children by then, inside or outside of wedlock.

I was reading an old newspaper from Claiborne County from the late 1800s and ran across a tiny little snippet quite by accident.  It was talking about a boy who was bound out to a farmer.  No one remembered quite what happened to his parents, but they likely died, as the frontier life was very difficult and their medical needs were often unmet (by modern standards).  However, the boy took the last name of the man he was bound to and who raised him.  This was not an uncommon practice on the frontier, and the Cumberland Gap area was frontier from the time is was sporadically settled in the 1770s until the mid 1850s.  Land grants were still regularly issued in the 1860s, up to the Civil War for unoccupied land, and some as late as the 1900s.  Often children were taken and raised by relatives of those who died, and if there were no relatives available, they were raised by another family.  Raising an extra child really wasn’t a burden as they could provide much needed labor as they grew.

So what do you do if your DNA doesn’t match with others of your last name, and what does it mean?  It means that there is an undocumented adoption someplace along the line.  Often, if you can find the records, if they still exist, you’ll find that the circumstances are something like I described above.  Given the number of wars that the men of the Cumberland Gap area participated in, some of which were fought on their home ground, it’s not surprising to find children fathered by marauding troops.  Additionally, women who had children outside of wedlock gave the child their name, including widows who had children after their husband’s died.  Those children would have the former husband’s last name.  Sometimes women were married early and the husband died young.  The widow remarried and often the children took their step-father’s name as their own.

Women in the Cumberland Gap area seemed to be a very independent sort and sometimes they had children before they were married. When the mother married, those children often simply took their step-father’s name as well.  Many, if not most of the Cumberland Gap families have oral histories of Cherokee female ancestors.  The Cherokees were a matrilineal clan, and the husband was only the husband until the wife put his things outside their home.  That was a divorce.  If the woman chose never to “marry”, that was fine in that culture.  I wonder if the high incidence of births outside of marriage is influenced by the Cherokee maternal culture.

And as the final topic for today, what can I learn about my heritage if there are no matches to my surname, or by other surnames that I match?  First, as I’m sure you all know, the more markers that you have tested, and the more you match, the “better” the match is, meaning the more closely in time you are actually related.

Sometimes you are related, but you are not related since the advent of last names.  I call this anthro-genealogy, because it falls between genealogy and the deep ancestry called anthropology.  However, if you are trying to learn about your own family history, remember that people most often migrated in groups.  This is true for as far back as history takes us.  No matter where you were going, you would need help and family gives us the security of knowing we are not alone.

Most of the early settlers in the Cumberland Gap area were of Scots-Irish descent.  As a short history lesson, the Scots (or Scotch) Irish were a displaced people from the lowlands of Scotland to the area of Ulster in Ireland when England ruled Ireland in the early 1600s.  This is known as the Ulster Plantation Era.  In 1717, a famine combined with huge rental increases and increased pressure to convert from being Presbyterian to being Anglican, the Church of England spurred the first wave of immigration of the Scottish people living in Ireland to the colonies.  Even though they had been living in Ireland more than 100 years, they still thought of themselves at Scots, hence the name Scotch-Irish.

The Scottish clans were made up men of the same surname, but also others living in the same proximity.  So you could be a Mann in the Gunn clan for example.  Many simply adopted the last name of the clan whose protection they fell under.  This era was the beginning of last names for the common people, and explains why we find so many different DNA lines within the same “clan”.

The Scotch-Irish were not the only people seeking a new land.  The Protestant French Huguenots who survived St. Bartholomew’s Massacre in 1652 and who were not burned at the stake for being “heretics” were given 20 days to leave France under penalty of death by the Catholic government.  They also became a displaced people and migrated heavily to Germany, the lowlands (Netherlands, Belgium, Flanders) and to England.  They too immigrated to the colonies early, forming Manakin Town in early Tidewater Virginia in the 1600s.

Another persecuted group were the Amish, Mennonite and Brethren, all pietist sects, opposed to violence in any form, including self-defense.  They were driven from Switzerland, then from Germany.

The peace-loving Quakers were being purged from England and they too sought refuge in the colonies.

The commonality between all of these groups is that they all departed from the old country to the colonies through ports of Great Britain.  The Colonies were a British holding and all immigration was regulated by England in one form or another.  Before 1738, Pennsylvania was run by the proprietor William Penn and he was the only colonial proprietor who would tolerate religious freedom.  In fact, he actively encouraged these groups to settle in his colony as he needed settlers to clear the woods and to provide a buffer against the “savage Indians” who were understandably unhappy about the encroachment upon their lands.

In 1738, Virginia enacted the Religions Toleration act passed to encourage settlement in Virginia by deferring taxes for 10 years and providing settlers with a musket and very cheap land.  In one case, the Presbyterians (Scotch-Irish) were provided with a 10,000 acre land grant.  Settlers began pouring across the boundary between Pennsylvania and Virginia for free, or nearly free land.  Again, they often migrated in groups.

As soon as (and sometimes before) the land west of the Alleghenys and Appalachians was open, the settlers were there, often initially as squatters, then as land owners.  People poured into the current Virginia counties of Augusta, Orange, Botetourt, Washington and Rockingham and then the settlers streamed on down the valleys into what would eventually become East Tennessee.  I’m sure we are all familiar with the history of this area, that is was initially North Carolina, then Virginia, then the State of Franklin, then North Carolina again, then Tennessee.  The boundary lines were also in dispute, and many who thought they lived in Virginia in fact did not.  It’s no small wonder that very few records of this timeframe exist, and those that do are widely scattered among various counties and states.

Why does all of this matter to you, as a genealogist, if you are trying to find your roots?  We are often very quick to dismiss matches with people of different surnames.  However, looking at the patterns of those surnames can provide us very valuable clues to the history of our own family before the advent of surnames.  Where are those people who we match from?  Why did they come to the states, and when?  What was their migration path both in the old country and in the colonies?  All of these subtle clues together help us determine the history of our own family, often long before last names were adopted or assigned.  Don’t quickly dismiss matches to other surnames.  Ponder the possibilities.  Knowing that the Cumberland Gap area was heavily populated with the Scotch Irish first, along with the French Huguenots, some German groups, a few Quakers and some English from the Virginia shoreline colonies, what can those matches tell you about your early ancestry?

Best of luck with your genealogy, and please, let me know of any success stories generated from the Cumberland Gap project.

Roberta Estes

Please let me share some observations on my Mitchell DNA results. First of all, I am certainly no expert on this stuff. In fact, I’m probably more confused about this than most people. It seems to me that it is very important to realize up front that these Y-DNA results go back a long, long way… before surnames. I have about 150 close matches, 23/25 or 24 out of 25 markers. Only 2 are Mitchells. Many Dougherty’s, Byrnes, Brennan and others. Fortunately, I am one of those King Niall (lived around 450 CE) descendants and a lot has been written about these folks lately. This family, tribe, clan split up over the centuries and took different surnames…Mitchell, Melville, Mulvihill, Brennan and probably Dougherty and Byrnes and many, many others. My grandfathers probably didn’t start using the name Mitchell until the 1500, 1600s. I only know that we were Mitchells in America since 1793. My point is maybe these Manus matches go back 1000, 1500 years. We really can’t say when Solomon Baldwin’s grandfathers starting using the Baldwin name. At least not yet. These DNA results put us in a family much, much bigger than I ever imagined. A long ago family that took dozens of surnames that we know today.

Just spinning this around in my head. Thought it might shed some light on what to expect in future results. Thanks for listening, and let’s keep searching! Mitch

While we await further results from the game changing Solomon Baldwin DNA tests, I thought I would share some of the findings outlined in the new book “Elliott’s of Elliott’s Risque” by Clarence Shepard. Mr. Shepard is 80 years old and has written several other books focused on Floyd County records. He’s been researching the Elliott’s for years. His book is two hard bound volumes totaling about 1,000 pages…much of it copies of photos. It looks like hand typed much of it. I believe he’s selling the set for $95, if I recall what I paid. He wants money orders only. His address is: 2641 Delmonte Avenue, Dayton, OH 45419-2670

These are his conclusions so far, in a nutshell:

Sarah Elliott, wife of Solomon Baldwin, is a descendant of the Elliott’s of Elliott’s Risque, which is located in Baltimore, Maryland. Sarah born about 1812 in Virginia (Russell County, most likely)

Her father was John Elliott born about 1781 in Washington County, Va, son of Michael Elliott and Mary Trim. John Elliott’s wife, mother of Sarah, is Mary “Polly” Unknown. He says he has never seen a last name or even a middle initial for her in all the years he’s been doing  research. She is always referred to as Mary or Polly. Some people claim her name was Powers, but Shepard doesn’t believe it. Has no idea where that came from. (Do any of you know?)

Shepard says our John Elliott is the same John Elliott who was charged with murder in Russell County in 1817. He apparently served some jail time, but got off easy. And here’s the cool part!

The Elliott referred to in the song below is our John Elliott! Abner Vance, while in prison awaiting trail composed a ballad, “The Vance Song or Abner Vance’s Death Ballad, which is recognized by the Southwest Virginia Folk Lore Society, as the oldest song still in existence, written west of the Blue Ridge. The whole story is on the web. Google it!

Vance Song
Green are the woods where Sandy flows,
And peace it dwelleth there;
In the valley the bear they lie secure,
The red buck roves the knobs.
But Vance no more shall Sandy behold,
Nor drink its crystal waves;
The partial judge pronounced his doom,
The hunter has found his grave.
The judge said I was an incarnate fiend,
For Elliott I tried to save;
I agreed as a juryman Elliott’s life to save,
Humanity belongs to the brave.
John Elliott left Virginia for obvious reasons, moved to Kentucky and became a Methodist minister and died in 1850. 

John Elliott’s father was Michael Elliott, born Oct 29, 1747 in Baltimore, Maryland. Michael Elliott left Maryland and apparently arrived in SW Virginia about 1782…living in Washington, Russell and Scott Counties over the years. Michael died in Scott County, Va 1823. 

Michael’s parents were James Elliott and Mary Weecks…and it appears James’ father was John Elliott. This John Elliott may have been the immigrant ancestor, but then again maybe not. First record of him is a deed in 1715 in Baltimore County, Maryland.  James Elliott was born about 1714, not sure where. Elliott’s Risque was the name of the property where the Elliott’s lived. It was part of the land owned by Lord Baltimore. There is no smoking gun link proving that John was the father of James, but there is solid circumstantial evidence linking the two. The best evidence is John Elliott’s will. John Elliott apparently got into some trouble with the church and his own wife in 1743 for cohabitating with a woman, who was married to a neighbor. John and the woman left Maryland and disappeared from the records for years. Finally in 1764 a will surfaces in Amherst County, Virginia for a John Elliott who writes, ” I give unto James Elliott of Baltimore County in Maryland all that tract of land called Elliott’s Risque.” He never says James is his son, but it sure looks that way. 

Tim Baldwin, a cousin who is a direct descendant of Solomon Baldwin, has submitted a DNA sample to FTDNA. And, Tim also has joined the Baldwin surname project. A second DNA sample is needed to confirm or refute the supposition that our ancestry roots are in the Maness Family and not the Baldwin Family. Tim’s DNA analyses should be complete by the end of this year.