Fauquier County Tapscotts

I was contacted yesterday by someone who believes she is a descendant of Harriet Tapscott of Fauquier County Virginia, and who also had an Ancestry.com autosomal DNA test done as did I. Unfortunately we have not yet been notified of a match. Nevertheless matches are still being made and perhaps something will show up. I wrote her the following.

There are two Fauquier County Tapscotts with similar names—Harriott and Harriet.

Harriott Tapscott was a sister of James E. Tapscott and a daughter of Ezekiel Tapscott and Hannah H. George of Lancaster County. Ezekiel Tapscott was my 5th-great uncle.

Harriet Tapscott (courtesy of Monica Samowar).

Harriet Tapscott, on the other hand, was the daughter of Elizabeth Percifull  and likely also of James Tapscott and the granddaughter of Ezekiel.

Harriott was my first cousin five times removed. Harriet was my second cousin four times removed. Harriet was the niece of Harriot. A lot of people have confused the two, but I have extremely strong evidence that they were different people, evidence I'll be glad to post.

To a large extent, the descendants of Harriet and her mother Elizabeth Percifull populated Fauquier County with Tapscotts. This is probably accepted by everyone. Thus perhaps excepting some recent arrivals, the Fauquier County Tapscotts of mixed race are descended through mixed-gender lines. This means that only mtDNA or autosomal DNA tests can be used. We can pretty well rule out the use of yDNA (though we might get a surprise).

A larger problem is that any descendants of Elizabeth (Percifull) Tapscott who were not also descendants of her husband James have no known Tapscott gene connection. This is a problem because Elizabeth is known to have had descendants who were not fathered by James but who, in most cases, were given the surname "Tapscott." Before she married James, a Lancaster County court case showed that Elizabeth had two illegitimate white children, whose fate is unknown, fathered by Richard Cundiff. But of much greater importance here, Elizabeth is also believed to have had the following children of mixed race who ended up in Fauquier County—Telem, Catherine, William, Jackson, and Edmond Abraham, all of whom were given the last name "Tapscott."  In fact Harriett is likely the only child of both James and Elizabeth, who were married only a short time, six years or less. In court Elizabeth claimed that Harriet was a child of James and Harriet did receive land based on that claim. If that is true then Harriet's descendants through her children—John, Cordelia ("Delia"), and Maria—should show autosomal DNA matches to Tapscotts related to Ezekiel. The problem is that Elizabeth may have been lying about Harriet in order for Harriet to obtain land from James's service during the War of 1812. (The whole land thing is still confusing.)

If we can find some autosomal matches between Fauquier County Tapscotts believed to be descendants of Harriet and Tapscotts related to Ezekiel of Lancaster County (I am presumably one) then we have evidence that Harriet was indeed James's daughter. I would very much like to see this happen. If we find no matches (after really trying) this indicates that Harriet was not a child of James (but also adds proof to Harriott and Harriet being separate people).

One other possibility is to look for mtDNA matches through female lines between Fauquier County Tapscotts and descendants of Elizabeth (Percifull) Tapscott's sisters, and there were a lot of them—at least seven, daughters of Elijah Perciful. A match would lend weight to the connection to Elizabeth Percifull though not to James or Ezekiel. Of course tracing female lines would be quite difficult owing to the name changes.