The Richard Tapscott Family– An Overview

This is, I hope, my last post on Richard Tapscott son of William the Preacher. Again, I would like to thank Frank Jarke, one of Richard’s descendants, for passing along some family history that helped unscramble Richard’s line. Frank is more knowledgeable than I am about many aspects of the family Nevertheless, I found a four things of interest (at least to me):

1. There are several comparatively well-researched trees on the internet covering some of Richard Tapscott’s descendants, but almost all fail to actually connect with Richard.

2. Although Richard had four children, only two — Kasiah and George — are known to have left descendants. (I apologize to those of you who have decided to use another of the several names found for Richard Tapscott’s only daughter, but nobody knows for certain what her name was meant to be. Most assuredly, illiterate Kasiah did not know.)

3. The descendants of Kasiah, which comprise the “Kasiah Line” ended up McLean County, Illinois, in and near the town of Bloomington. The George line, on the other hand, ended up in Putney County, Indiana, in and near the town of Greencastle. Of course, these families have spread out today. Nevertheless, their roots are in McLean and Putney counties and that is where extensive research must start.

4. There are, today, no descendants of Richard Tapscott bearing the family name “Tapscott,” unless they have acquired the name from another source. Richard had but one son with descendants, and that son had only daughters. That, of course, means that yDNA cannot be used to confirm descent from Richard.

I’ve barely made a start on the history of the Richard Tapscott line (though I did collect about 140 new sources), but I’m stopping here to return to my Wabash Valley Tapscotts, descendants of Richard's brother Henry. Others, more closely related to Richard, can carry on the investigation. Contact me if you would like a copy of my gedcom file or a register book file for this family. The information I’ve collected will eventually be made part of my tree “Descendants of Henry Tapscott the Immigrant” on Ancestry.com, but I am not planning anything in print.