#16 Royal Descents, Notable Kin, and Printed Sources: A Biographical and Geographical Survey of the American South, Part 1A
Gary Boyd Roberts
Published Date : February 13, 1987
On October 9-10 the Society
is holding a two-day seminar in Houston, Texas (space is still available--simply
call us), where I am speaking on colonial immigrants of royal descent and "An
Introduction to Southern Genealogy: A Bibliographic and Geographic Survey." The
former subject I shall address with the 2nd edition of The Royal Descents of
500 Immigrants, now scheduled for the year 2000. Today and for the next two
columns I shall discuss the South, beginning with Maryland and ending with
Texas.
The northernmost "southern" state is Maryland, although Delaware
has certain southern characteristics and was perhaps partly Confederate in
sympathy. Maryland itself contains some extension of Pennsylvania and much of
northern Virginia. It is, however, a separate planter culture with its own major
city (Baltimore), a Catholic 17th-century hegemony ( the
Calvert-Sewall-Lowe-Ross kinsmen of the lords Baltimore), and a noted
Revolutionary elite (Carroll, Paca, later Key and Taney, with John Dickinson of
Pennsylvania and George Mason of Gunston Hall among "crossover" figures with
Maryland ancestry). After the Civil War Maryland, like Pennsylvania, is
important only regionally and belongs more to mid-Atlantic culture than to the
South. Baltimore becomes almost a northern city, linked to Wilmington and
Philadelphia, plus Washington, D.C., rather than to Richmond; and the
mid-Atlantic cities are all dominated by New York. In western Maryland there is
much German and Pennsylvania-Shenendoah Valley migratory culture.
Major
Maryland sources include the multi-volume Maryland Archives, Passano's
Index of the Source Records of Maryland (a subject-index by family to
all Maryland works published through 1940), and G.N. Mackenzie's Colonial
Families of America (7 vols.), especially good for Baltimore and Maryland
planter families. Maryland Genealogies (2 vols.) consolidates all
genealogical articles from the Maryland Historical Magazine, and H.W.
Newman consolidated English origins scholarship (plus mere clues or "hunches" in
To Maryland from Overseas. Especially useful among area compendia are
Newman's Anne Arundel Gentry, 3 vols., and Charles County Gentry,
plus Baltimore County Families, 1659-1759 by Robert W. Barnes, who has
also transcribed many records and newspaper notices. Barnes's Maryland
Marriages, 3 vols., covers the whole state through 1820.
Virginia so
dominates the South that I shall divide this column after discussing the
geographical divisions and some major clans, and cover sources next week.
Virginia's three major areas are the Tidewater; then southside Virginia, the
"spillover lesser Tidewater" south of Richmond; and the Shenendoah Valley, or
western Virginia, later West Virginia and Kentucky. In this last there is some
Tidewater planter migration (note Strothers and Thorntons among Anthony Savage
descendants), but most of the Valley is dominated by Pennsylvania Germans,
Scots-Irish, and Welsh; these groups seem to compose much of Appalachia as well,
but are very poorly covered in print.
The Tidewater plantation culture
can be divided into three generations of immigrants--the Jamestowners, 1607-25;
the "cavaliers" of the English Civil War and Cromwellian period, 1640-1660; and
the post-Restoration large grants and huge plantations. A few major clans with
some of their noted descendants (and an emphasis on the colonial figures)
include Randolphs--Peyton, Edmund (Jennings) and John of Roanoke, plus among
descendants of Randolph daughters, Jefferson, John Marshall, Jeb Stuart, and
R.E. Lee, and wives of Thomas Nelson, Gouvernour Morris, and Woodrow Wilson; and
Carters--the two Benjamin Harrisons, William Henry Harrison, Carter Braxton,
R.E. Lee, wives of Peyton and Edmund Randolph and of John Marshall, plus Byrds,
Nelsons, and Pages. Three other clans (all, like the Randolphs and Carters, of
some gentry and royal descent) are almost as important. From the Eltonhead
sisters, wives of Edwin Conway, Henry Corbin, and Ralph Wormeley, descend all
major Lees, James Madison, Cyrus Griffin, plus wives of Gouvernour Morris,
Francis Scott Key, Carter Braxton, and Edwin McM. Stanton (this last Lincoln's
Secretary of War!). From Mary (Towneley) Warner of Warner Hall or her Towneley
and Smith nephews descend George Washington, Meriwether Lewis, R.E. Lee, wives
of Thomas Nelson and Robert Mills, plus, among 20th century figures, Queen
Elizabeth The Queen Mother, George S. Patton, George C. Marshall, and Adlai E.
Stevenson II. And from a group of Ligon cousins including Sir William Berkeley
and Lady Thomas Dale (plus Edward Foliot, my ancestor Colonel Thomas Ligon, and
almost certainly Anthony Savage) descend Madison and Zachary Taylor; wives of
William Clark, Jefferson Davis, and A.S. Johnston; plus once again Patton,
Marshall, and Stevenson.
Virginia, along with Philadelphia and New York,
and with less New England influence than is often thought, dominates the
Revolutionary and early Federal periods in American history. The "Virginia
dynasty" of presidents extends from Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe
to W. H. Harrsion, Tyler, and Taylor.This much intermarried plantation
aristocracy also produced major Civil War generals--from the list above, not
only Robert E. Lee but also Jeb Stuart, Albert Sidney Johnston, and even the
first Mrs. Jefferson Davis (Zachary Taylor's daughter). After the Civil War
Virginia, like Maryland, becomes only regionally important. It produces almost
no tycoons and only the second Mrs. Wilson among presidents or First Ladies. In
World War II, this old aristocracy gives us Patton and Marshall, and afterwards
Adlai Stevenson (plus Admiral and Senator Byrd). Virginia is now, however,
secondary to the "Sun Belt", with "capitals" in Miami, Atlanta, New Orleans,
Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Florida and Texas easily
outshine the Dominion state and northern Virginia, even Richmond, is more and
more an extension of Washington, D.C., and its suburbs.
The next column
will cover Virginia sources, the Carolinas, and Georgia. A third column will
cover Kentucky, Tennessee, the "Deep South," the Mississippi River culture and
Texas. I hope readers will enjoy this excursion into non-New England topics. At
some future date we shall consider the mid-Atlantic as well.