John Dabney Pettus - New parents for John "Dabney" Pettus? Is there documentation? Why was he disconnected from the Norwich line?

Do not know. Following.

There's a mid 1600 John Dabney with a 51 year older dad as it stands now and the choices of the 2 Norwich lines have a Mayor with a Cindy King or the Mayor with Elizabeth as parent choices. It's got an exclamation point for 2 sets of parents.

Was trying to do some merging and may have sorted wrong. Can each profile get a parents / spouse note in the "about"?

Also this tree needs a curator to merge in, but don't know where it belongs

Thomas Pettus, Esq.

There's a pedigree on multiworlds, I posted it in a couple of profiles. They do a good job.

Pe12-10 Capt THOMAS PETTUS b abt 1656, Williamsburg, James City Co Va d 1690, Lunenburg, Va m1 Mary Elizabeth Dabney s.b. m2 Mourning Glenn

http://www.multiwords.de/genealogy/pettus1.htm

Ah ha

From http://www.mikesclark.com/genealogy/pettus/pettus.html#jp0

John's name in some accounts appears as John Dabney Pettus, but this is incorect and derives from a series of Pettus family assumptions published in 1921 by Patrick Baskervill. John Pettus did in fact have a contemporary cousin named Stephen Pettus (c.1679-c.1759), who was married about 1700 to Elizabeth Dabney. Like John, Stephen Pettus participated in the move up the Pamunkey River, and he similarly died in St. Martin's Parish in Hanover County, Virginia. He also inherited much of the original Littleton, Utopia and Burnt Ordinary estates, and he did indeed have a number of descendants named John Dabney Pettus. However, these descendants do not tie back to the John Pettus of the present narrative. John and Anne had several children, including the son who follows.
(Pettus, 2011 - v. I, p. 310-313, no. 125)

Anne Pettus is a real problem. I can't even get a decent read on her dates or geography, much less her parents. See notes in her profile.

I think John "Dabney" Pettus is almost straightened out.

Another resource

http://www.southern-style.com/Pettus.htm

Amy Nordahl Cote I think the Pettus family verged off away from the MP's and that's how the Shropshire origin came in. We have to stay on top of the matches.

There have been a lot of changes to the Pettus line in the last couple of years--and no one seems to leave notes as to why changes are made. Hopefully if we put our heads together we can lock down some of it.

The "Southern Style" site has my direct line (from Stephen, son of Col. Thomas) as descended from Ka Okee, but if I remember right, he was born too late to be her child? I'll take another look.

I thought Stephen had to have been from the 2nd wife also.

Please see this blog post on common errors in the Pettus tree:

https://pettusheritage.wordpress.com/2016/11/07/misinformation-on-t...

note:

Thomas Pettus Jr. was not a Captain, did not marry Elizabeth Dabney, and married Mourning BURGH (my 9th great grandmother through her second marriage, to James Bray), not Mourning Gleane/Glenn.

More at link; a lot to consider and weigh against the other genealogies and sources.

I think Mourning Burgh was a later generation ....

Definitely a tree with a lot of conflicting info

I've been looking at Mourning Burgh via both sides of the line (my Pettus and Bray lines), including research from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. James Bray II married Mourning, the widow of Thomas Pettus of Littletown (later Kingsmill) plantation. The Bray genealogies also include the error that she was a Glenn/Gleane. James Bray came into possession of her Pettus property, so the connections can be researched through land records.

James Bray, II

The most frequently quoted mom of Mourning Burgh when clicking "Research This Person" . . . . . is........Colbreath

MyHeritage Family Trees
Allen County, KY Smiths - 16062014 in Allen County, KY Smith's Web Site, managed by Kruse Smith
Birth: 1663 - Virginia
Death: 1711 - Virginia
Parents: William Burgh, Elizabeth Burgh (born Colbreath)
Siblings: Henry W. Billingsley, John Billingsley, Elizabeth Jordan (born Burgh), Margaret Burgh, George Burgh, Billingsly Burgh

candidates was the Virginia immigrant.

"The uncle, bapt. 1599 at St. Simon and Jude Church, Norwich, was the son of Thomas Pettus of Norwich and his wife Cecily King. The nephew, bapt. 1610 at St. Peter Hungate Church, Norwich, was the son of William Pettus of Norwich and his wife Mary Gleane."

Let me get that going. I didn't know which brother to move Thomas the immigrant to. It also seems this is where the Gleane name went time traveling from

Regarding the possible Pocahontas--Pettus connection (through Ka-Okee), William Pettus (will dated 1608) was brother of Thomas Pettus m. Cecily King, married Elizabeth Rolfe, cousin of John Rolfe.
http://www.layston-church.org.uk/FH%20Website/ind553.html

William Pettus, merchant of London

I already had William Burgh and Eliza/Elizabeth (Cobreath) Billingsley-Burgh connected to my Bray and Jordan lines (Mourning is my direct ancestor through Bray and an aunt through her sister who m. John Jordan), so I merged her over into the Pettus line as well.

I haven't yet seen proof of Henry Billingsley's middle initial or of a brother Billingsley Burgh, but if I find anything I will add them. The three brothers I have record of (Henry, George, John) all died without children.

It appears that Thomas Pettus Jr. (note: no proof he was a Captain) had no living descendants as of November 17, 1725, because his plantation "Littletown" was bequeathed to the descendants of his wife's second marriage, the Brays.

The only child of Thomas Pettus Jr. I have any documentation for at this time is Elizabeth Pettus, who is named in the 1792 will codicil of Thomas Pettus's executor Nathaniel Bacon, Sr.

I can find nothing to support his supposed first marrage to a Dabney.

I can't find a source for the date of Thomas Pettus's marriage to Mourning Burgh--many online trees show a date of 1680--we know Mourning was still single in 1679 when she witnessed her sister Elizabeth's marriage to Thomas Jordan. There are records showing her as Mourning Pettus after the marrage.

Thomas Pettus Jr. died in 1687 in Holland--he went there in 1686, on behalf of Mourning's half-brother George Billingsley, who stood to inherit some money from his grandmother Agatha Billingsley. We also have a court record from August 1687 naming "Mourning Pettus widow," which also proves Thomas Pettus Jr. died sometime earlier. (It would have taken a while for the news to get back from Europe.)

From this we have a rough guesstimate of daughter Elizabeth Pettus's birthdate-- ASSUMING she is the daughter of Mourning Burgh, as many trees make her out to be, and not of an unproven first wife, then she would have been born sometime between c1681 and c1686, early 1687 at the latest (Thomas Pettus went to Europe in 1686; I don't know the exact date).

If Elizabeth was from an earlier marriage (again, need proof), she was born no earlier than c1671, for she was still a minor in 1692, per her father's executor Col. Nathaniel Bacon Sr. (aka "the elder" as opposed to his cousin "the rebel"), who added a codicil to his will in 1692 mentioning "Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Thomas Pettus, should she live to be 21." (I don't know the date of the codicil, but Bacon died 16 March 1692.)

Elizabeth Pettus must have died before November 17, 1725, the date her stepfather made his will. James Bray II bequeathed Littletown Plantation (formerly the property of Thomas Pettus Jr.) to Mourning's daughter Elizabeth Bray Allen, until such time as her nephew James Bray III (son of Col. Thomas Bray, deceased) came of age.

So these children don't belong to this Thomas Pettus Jr. (aka Thomas Pettus II, Thomas Pettus of Littletown):

Please also note: they were born after his death!

Elizabeth Hopkins

Capt. Stephen Pettus, Jr.

So Elizabeth Pettus c1681-before 1725 (the only proven child of Thomas Pettus Jr., of Kingsmill) could have married and had children, but it seems unlikely that any outlived her if she did, otherwise they woulld have inherited Littletown.

I made a new profile for this Elizabeth, since Elizabeth Pettus m. Arthur Hopkins belongs to some other Pettus family (she may be a cousin of this Elizabeth).

Elizabeth Pettus

I added / documented the family of Elizabeth Jones don't yet see a connection to the family of John Rolfe, Ancient Planter

So what do we do with wife of Stephen? Pettus & her Pettus children

Thomas Jr "presumably" had a wife before Mourning Burgh

I put notes on the children's profiles that they aren't his children, for now (putting them on notice, I guess). Hopefully we can find some sort of documentation of a family relationship to other Pettuses.

Seems doubtful that Thomas Pettus Jr. actually had a first wife, since so many folks have been researching him and his extended family, these plantations, all the Williamsburg connections, the Brays & Jordans, etc. and she's never turned up except in unsourced trees. Willliam Pettus (researcher with the blog) writes he has found no record of an Elizabeth Dabney in 17th century records, but he does show a Stephen Pettus (Stephen II at Geni) marrying MARY Dabney after 1700.

So "Mary Elizabeth Dabney" Pettus seems to be the result of confusing two generations.

I haven't yet figured out how Stephen II relates to Thomas Jr.. Might be a tall order.

William Pettus at the blog writes that there are lots of Pettuses who are apparently related to one another but many of the family connections are still not proven. He even writes (now this is depressing!!) that there is only one Pettus line that goes all the way back to the immigrant family and meets the requirements for the Genealogical Proof Standard.

But maybe there is "preponderance of evidence" for some of these folks, at least. It's going to take a long time to go through them. There is so much conflicting info out there that I have been putting it off for a while. Most of the new material coming out online seems to be aimed at proving a Pocahontas connection.

I wonder if Stephen II was once attached to a Stephen I? Maybe to the alleged son of Ka-Okee. I spent so much time today on Mourning Burgh (her family connections are complicated) that I've barely looked outside her family yet.

We could consider linking some of these together with placeholder profiles for "unplaced Pettuses," perhaps.

I'd love a second opinion on whether I'm right in assuming that Thomas Pettus Jr. had no living descendants by November 1725, when "Littletown" was passed onto the Brays instead of a Pettus heir.

So the blog writer is the author of the 2 volume Pettus book, and http://www.mikesclark.com/genealogy/pettus/pettus.html#jp0 quotes from it for his study. I think we can consider this "best we know.". Mutliworlds is failing on the VA side but I think is reliable for England, he usually uses several sources, and we can in theory get into National Archives for wills and property. and there are roots web databases, I found at least one that's good for England.

The Mary Elizabeth Dabney children could be chased from down the tree to up and by spouse and her side, that should make it clear if they are from "unknown Pettus" or can be placed. In the meantime I'll hook them onto a placeholder to get them off the Mourning Burgh tree.

Re: I'd love a second opinion on whether I'm right in assuming that Thomas Pettus Jr. had no living descendants by November 1725, when "Littletown" was passed onto the Brays instead of a Pettus heir.

That was in the Pettus blog. If you have any details on the property that should confirm it.

So this is also from the same researcher:

"As the evidence for Thomas's marriage Ka-Okee had not come to my attention until the summer of 2012, my two volumes were written on the basis that Thomas and Elizabeth [Elizabeth Freeman Durrent] were the progenitors of the Pettus family in Virginia. Once the new evidence came to my attention, I thought at first that Thomas had descendants by both wives. In particular, Thomas and Elizabeth had a son Thomas, who was an orphan in 1672.

Thomas II may have married twice. Assuming that was the case, nothing is known about his first wife (despite claims that he married a Dabney). His only wife of record was Elizabeth Burgh of Nansemond County. At the time I wrote my book, I had concluded that the children of Thomas II (probably by his first wife) were Elizabeth, who died before 1700, and Stephen, who married Mary Dabney.

The problem is that known male descendants of Stephen and Mary have Y-DNA that matches the Y-DNA of known descendants of Powhatan. The only way for this to work is that Stephen was not the son of Thomas II. More likely Stephen was the son of an earlier Stephen Pettus who was settled in New Kent County by 1662.

These circumstances lead me to believe that the earlier Stephen was the son of Thomas I and Ka-Okee. Another result is that Elizabeth, the orphan daughter of Thomas Pettus II was his only child. Thus, all known Pettuses born in Virginia probably trace back to Ka-Okee, her mother Pocahontas, and her grandfather Powhatan."

http://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/pettus/933/

then he replies to his own message:

In my previous message, I argued that Stephen Pettus who married Mary Dabney must have been the son of an earlier Stephen Pettus whom I identified in my books as the son of Thomas Pettus, immigrant, who settled at Littletown. For convenience, I will refer to these individuals as SP1, SP2, and TP1. At the time I wrote that message, I had realized that SP1 could have been TP1's child by his first marriage to Ka-Okee. Since TP2 of Littletown is known to have been the orphan son of TP1 and his second wife Elizabeth (Freeman) Durrent, I mistakenly concluded that the only way for known male descendants of SP2 to carry the same Y-DNA as certain persons known to have native American ancestry was for SP1 to have been the father of SP2.

I now see that I was confused about the DNA matching, which involves Y-DNA. Y-DNA is preserved in the male line of descent for many generations. Thus, it is not necessary to argue that SP2 was the son of SP1, because SP2 would have the same Y-DNA as TP1 whether SP2 was the son of SP1 or of TP2. Furthermore, other evidence presented in vol. II leads me to believe that Stephen II was more likely to have been the son of Thomas II.

http://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/pettus/934/

I wonder if he is missing the issue of the Littletown Plantation. But the YDNA info is very interesting.

I just read the property notes and unless someone was further swindled like orphan Elizabeth may have been, I don't see how the 2nd Thomas had other children. They would have sued.

So certainly the Dabney children could come from Stephen etc but they had no claim on Littletown.

- Elizabeth Grove birthdate is off to have a child born 1656 ish

- made Thomas Pettus, of "Littletown" MP this should help

- something is wrong with the Elizabeth who married Hopkins, she's of New Kent & has different managers from her "brother"

I found where Henry Rolfe, of Kelvedon Hatch, Gent. belongs according to one tree but there are date issues

I don't know how the heck I missed this before, but Elizabeth Pettus died in 1700, and a Stephen Pettus later conveyed his interest in the Pettus estate to James Bray (who married Mourning Burgh Pettus in 1693).

Stephen could have been Thomas's nephew rather than his son. If his date of birth on the Geni profile is accurate, he was born after the death of Thomas anyhow.

On 2 May 1700, Elizabeth made her will and apparently died on the same day. Several months later, on 4 October, Stephen Pettus of Blisland Parish, New Kent County, Virginia, and certain other parties were grantors in a lease-release conveyance of the Pettus estates to James Bray, Jr., of Wilmington Parish, James City County, Virginia (only the lease deed is still extant). Bray had married Mourning Pettus sometime prior to Bacon taking inventory.
How did Stephen acquire an interest in the Thomas Pettus estates? Several possibilities can be mentioned: (1) Stephen was Thomas’s orphan son and heir, (2) he inherited the estates from Elizabeth under the terms of her will, or (3) he inherited under the rule of primogeniture as Thomas’s nearest male relative. The reader should bear in mind that John Pettus of London and Col. Thomas Pettus of Virginia were first cousins. Thus SP of London and Thomas Pettus II of Virginia were second cousins. Perhaps the deed is evidence that SP, grantor in the sale of the Pettus estates, was a descendant of SP of London.In that case, the situation was similar to that in “Downford Abbey,” which appeared on PBS’s “Masterpiece Theatre” this season. In that series the heir-apparent was a third cousin of the abbey’s owner.
Sometime within the last ten years, I came across a previously overlooked record that convinces me that SP was the son of TP II after all. The evidence is in a York County record of a lawsuit brought by Thomas’s widow against Lewis Burwell. Mourning claimed a shipment of tobacco had come to her during her widowhood. According to Mourning, the tobacco had become mixed with her late husbands’s estate and had wound up in Burwell’s possession. Burwell’s defense attorney argued simply that the disputed tobacco was “the proper estate” of SP.
My interpretation of this evidence is that Burwell, as executor, was holding the tobacco for Thomas’s orphan son until the latter came of age. Had SP been a cousin and “heir-at-law” by primogeniture, he would have no claim to tobacco grown elsewhere and shipped to Littletown. Primogeniture applied only to the inheritance of real property. Furthermore, the tobacco did not come to SP as Elizabeth’s heir, as she was still living at the time. If she was the only orphan child of TP II, Burwell’s attorney would have argued that the tobacco was her “proper estate!”

http://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/pettus/856/

Are we saying Stephen Pettus should be merged into Stephen Pettus

Found a research paper stating ~three~ children were left in the care of Mourning Pettus after the death of Thomas Pettus Jr. This may mean that Stephen really is the child of an earlier marriage.

I had to sign up for Academia.com and let them see my Google contacts (what the heck?) to read the paper--it's a Ph.D. dissertation:

From Houses to Homes: An Archaeological Case Study of Household Formation at the Utopia Slave Quarter, ca. 1675 to 1775

Garrett Randall Fesler
Williamsburg, Virginia B. A., University of California, Santa Cruz, 1986 M. A., College of William and Mary, 1991 A Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Anthropology University of Virginia May 2004

Don't know if this link will work, but it should come up in Google searches if it doesn't work:

https://www.academia.edu/20365914/From_Houses_to_Homes_An_Archaeolo...

I've already spotted at least one error (he calls the second wife Mourning Glenn) and a possible error (he says Thomas died in 1690--I haven't seen William Pettus's source for 1687). It's going to take me a while to go through the paper, I just started looking at it. Hopefully there are some primary sources referenced that we haven't seen yet.