The death of Jacob Tapscott

In a previous blog I mentioned that I had been corresponding with Ben Ames, a descendant of Jacob Tapscott, my great great uncle, and Ben's great great grandfather.

"Jake" Tapscott lived for a while in or near Hutsonville, Crawford County Illinois, immediately south of Clark County. Another member of the community was Judge Steers, John W. Steers a wealthy farmer and an important man in the community. In 1868, the house of Judge Steers was robbed and evidence pointed to a disreputable group of relatives and hangers-on headed by Old Jim Lane. The "gang" was arrested but several posted bond and were released. The local community called on a group of regulators, some say a "posse," others "vigilantes," to rid the county of these suspected miscreants. On 8 Aug 1868 the "posse" walked into Jim Lane's house, where a gunfight ensued. Jacob Tapscott, a "posse" member, was hit by a bullet (some say fired by Old Jim Lane) and died instantly. He was only 32 (or so). His widow, Mary Lockard moved to nearby Terre Haute to find work to support her four children.

Young Jim Lane was also killed in the gunfight and his father, seriously wounded. The posse panicked realizing that they had no warrant and left with Jake Tapscott's body. For some time afterward Old Jim Lane, who recovered from his wounds, sought justice to avenge his son's death from what he considered to be mob action, but to no avail. Lawyers, worried about their standing in Crawford County, refused to take the case. A couple of years later, a lone horseman rode into Annapolis, a small settlement near the scene of the gunfight, dismounted, and walked among the few buildings. After a short time, Old Jim Lane (for that is who it was) remounted and rode away, never to be seen again. Although the Lane family had likely committed the robbery of Judge Steers, the action taken by the enforcers was unjustified and for Jacob Tapscott, it was disastrous.

Illinois was surprisingly rough back then. Jacob Tapscott had a brother Samuel, a scalawag and an accused murderer. But more on him later.

Jacob Tapscott

I had a nice email from Ben Ames calling my attention to a yDNA match I had to his uncle on Family Tree DNA. With the information Ben gave me I was able to fit his line into the Tapscott family tree (see the tree "Descendants of Henry Tapscott the Immigrant" on Ancestry.com). Ben is descended from Jacob Tapscott, one of the Clark County Illinois Tapscotts. I am descended from Jacob's brother William Tapscott. We are both of the Edney line.

Fauquier County Tapscotts and DNA Testing

Today I received an email from a descendant of Cordelia Tapscott asking if she could get involved in DNA testing to show a connection with the Tapscotts possibly through testing with a male relative (e.g., a cousin). I wrote the following (slightly modified):

Thanks a lot for the offer. Unfortunately it appears to be almost (but not quite) impossible to use DNA to show relation between descendants of Ezekiel Tapscott, whose son James E. Tapscott was involved (somehow or other) in founding the Fauquier County Tapscotts, and descendants of Cordelia. The problem is that no matter how the descendancy occurred, any connection between you and a Tapscott involves a line with both males and females. A male descendant (a male Tapscott cousin for example) has the same problem. At some point there is a male/female break in the line so that it is neither paternal nor maternal and neither mtDNA nor yDNA testing can be used.  For the Fauquier County Tapscotts, there will always be a break (if our genealogical research is correct).

The only possibility to show your connection with Tapscotts would be with autosomal DNA and the results will not be easy to interpret since there will be many false negatives (due to large relationship distances) and many false or at least unimportant positives. Nevertheless, matches from autosomal tests could show something. For example, you and I are probably connected and could match with autosomal testing (which I have already had done through Ancestry.com). If we did match, it would be strong evidence that you are descended from Tapscotts. If we do not match (which is likely due to the distant relationship) nothing is proven. You may, therefore, wish to have Ancestry.com testing (which is only autosomal) done, though it is a gamble.

The mtDNA test, which you have had done, can be used to follow your maternal line, but this will not get to the Tapscotts, though it might be possible to get back to Elizabeth Percifull, wife of James E. Tapscott. One possibility would be to find living descendants of Elizabeth's sisters through female lines. It is quite likely that such descendants exist, but tracing and finding them would be exceedingly difficult. But a positive match between you and them would be very, very exciting.

I wish I could be more optimistic about proving a Tapscott connection for the Fauquier County Tapscotts using DNA.