DNA Comes Through

Great news. At last we have proof that the U.S. Tapscotts descended from Henry the Immigrant of Virginia are related to at least one British Tapscott. A Tapscott who never immigrated from England and who is descended from the Somerset line shows a match with me and another U.S. Tapscott with a yDNA genetic distance of 3 for 67 markers and with another U.S. Tapscott with a distance of 4 for 37 markers. We all share a common ancestor, probably from Somerset (or possibly Devon), with a 50% probability of being 10 generations back. Not only that we all closely match the Jamaican discussed in my blog of 21 Oct 2014.

And speaking of the Jamaican, it is thought that William Tapscott, the Rebel, who was transported around 1686 to Jamaica, ended up in Monmouth County, New Jersey. (See blog of 8 Feb 2014).  I now have a close autosomal match with a known descendant of Lydia Tapscott of Monmouth County, New Jersey.

Two "successes", but we are still awaiting others. We are still awaiting results for the descendant of Robert Francis Tapscott of Virginia. The test analyses have been postponed. And we still need yDNA test volunteers from the Tapscotts of Ohio, Canada, and Australia. But what a day!

On another subject, demand has been far greater than I expected for the 2nd Edition of Henry the Immigrant. But I still have a few copies left.

Robert "King" Carter (1662/63 - 1732) of Lancaster County, Virginia, at the time the wealthiest man in Virginia, if not all of America, was a businessman, a planter, and an employer of Henry Tapscott, the Immigrant, who did some carpentry for him. From Jul 1726 to Sep 1727, Robert served as acting governor of Virginia following the death in office of Governor Hugh Drysdale. During that time Virginia was hit with a dreadful pandemic.We don't know what the illness was--perhaps smallpox, or typhoid fever, or yellow fever--but Governor Carter believed it resulted from the sinful condition of Virginians. Accordingly he issued the following proclamation:

Whereas it hath pleased Almighty God for the punishment of our sins to afflict this Colony with a long and violent sickness and grevious Mortality And to the End all persons may be excited to a Speedy Repentance that So the Almighty may be moved to avert his Judgments I have thought fitt by and with the Advice and Consent of the Council to appoint That Wednesday the Tenth day of May next be observed and kept throughout this Colony and Dominions a Day of Publick Fasting and Humiliation...

"King" Carter's proclamation was issued 21 April 1727, the month and year that Henry the Immigrant is believed to have died. Thus Henry may well have been a victim of the "violent sickness," passing too quickly to be aided by "fasting and humiliation." A rapid onset would explain why Henry died without a making a will.

Author Anne R. Davis discusses the proclamation (though not Henry) in her soon to be published monograph Distempers and Physic: Eighteenth Century Health in Lancaster County, Virginia. (TimeLines, Foundation for Historic Christ Church, Vol. 10, Issue 2, Fall 2014.)