From a Branch to a Twig

An earlier blog (28 January 2016) noted that patrilineal (direct male) descendants of Henry Tapscott, The Immigrant, likely all belonged to R-Z8, my haplogroup and a branch on the Y-Chromosone phylogenetic tree. Further testing now shows that my sublclade (a smaller branch, “twig”?) is R-S18890 (also known as R1b1a1a2a1a1c2b2a1b1a1a2b2). Going from the very large branch of M343 to the twig at S18890, we have M343 > L389 > P297 > M269 > L23 > L51 > U106 > Z381 > Z301 > L48 > Z9 > Z30 > Z2 > Z7 > Z8 > Z338 > Z11 > Z341 > Z12 > Z8175 > FGC12057 > S18890, where green indicates positive tests (my verified branches) and brown indicates presumed positive tests (my presumed branches). R-S18890 is probably the haplogroup for all patrilineal descendants of Henry the Immigrant.

A few days ago I received a letter from Annie Barnes, wife of Harvey Barnes, informing me that Harvey, a product of Cornwall, England, also has the haplogroup R-S18890. It is highly likely that Harvey and we Tapscotts have a common patrilineal ancestor, possibly before family names were used, explaining the two different names, “Barnes” and “Tapscott”. And since Harvey and we are known to have matches with Family Group 5 of the Family Tree DNA Bolling Project (http://www.bolling.net/family-group/5), members of that group presumably also share a common ancestor with us.

At that point, I would have stopped since my major interest is in relatively recent history and I am no expert in ancient genealogy. But, it turns out that Annie Barnes is much more knowledgeable than I am in that area. She has published a very informative posting on the migration patterns for Haplogroup R-S18890 and their progenitors (http://www.hibbitt.org.uk/dna/y-dna-barnes.html) and though the posting is for Harvey, it probably applies equally well for patrilineal descendants of Henry the Immigrant. Read it. It’s a great piece of writing.

An Uncertain Life, Part 3

Elizabeth, widow of John Tapscott, and her new husband, Oliver York, soon found that they were being omitted in legal notices about sales of John’s estate. Oliver, Elizabeth, and William Tapscott, John’s brother and administrator, came to an agreement. At the June 1872 term of the Clark County court, agreeing not to press the lack of notification, “Elizabeth E. York & Alvin [Oliver?] York waive further process and enter this appearance being as fully as if they had been served with process two days before the present term of this court.” By 21 June 1872 notices of sales of John Tapscott’s estate included the phrase “subject to the widow’s dower.”

The term “widow’s dower” in William Tapscott’s newspaper notices last appears in a 23 Oct 1873 announcement in the Marshall Weekly Messenger. Then Elizabeth and Oliver York disappear, never to be seen again. What happened to them? Nobody knows, or at least are not saying.

Administration of John Tapscott’s estate drug on for years, and William was under continuous legal harassment for not settling debts. Finally, in Dec 1891, over two decades after John’s death, William “Tabscott” issued a final report, showing $670.24 received from estate sales and 732.88 paid out, including $125.40 going to John’s widow. John had left a burden, not a benefit. The final report included William’s comment

“The undersigned states that he believes the foregoing report to be accurate but that he believes that he has been for a number of years unable to find the papers in said court concerning said estate … and that this report or one due in this case would have been made years ago but for the absence of said papers, which he hopes to be able to get but can not.