Corders in the McKay Family Genealogy Index

Originally posted Monday, June 22, 2009

I spent an hour in the new (and greatly improved) Samuels Public Library in Front Royal today and started making my way through the shelves of their Local History Room. I'm looking for the Corders of old Frederick County, VA. Not a lot of luck so far, except for a couple of entries in the McKay Family Genealogy Index.

There was a reference to Edward Cordit (Corder) on page 680 of the index referring to Frederick County Order Book 1:316, an entry dated 2 April 1745 when he (among others) petitioned for a road from the Court House to Gregory's Ford. Not too sure where Gregory's Ford is. I've Googled it and I'm not getting any satisfactory results. I assume it's somewhere along the Shenandoah or the Opequon. Edward was later tasked with maintenance on the resulting road.

Another entry on page 826 concerns John Corder, believed to be the second son of Edward Corder Sr. of Greenway Court. John married into the Quaker Branson family (she was disowned for marrying out of unity) and he and his wife Elizabeth Branson Corder inherited land in Frederick County from her father, John Branson. On August 5, 1772 John and Elizabeth Branson Corder sold their parcel of land to Andrew McKay. (In 1762 John Branson sold acreage to Andrew McKay; in 1767 Thomas Branson sold land to Jacob McKay; in May 1768 John Branson sold another parcel to Andrew McKay. Looks like when the Bransons wanted to liquidate land, the McKays were the go-to guys.)

The third entry concerned a Mary Corder who had married a A. R. Y. Compton. After digging around a bit, I concluded that Mary was the daughter of Alexander Corder and Elizabeth Arnold of Culpeper County, VA. These Corders are descendants of the Fauquier County group as far as I can tell.

Cramming Hendersons

Nope, not what you think. Researcher Robin Henderson sent me his notes on the Chesapeake Hendersons (that group descended from James Henderson of Somerset County MD and Accomack County VA) this year and the daunting sight of three plus linear inches of paperwork to log into my database has filled me with anxiety every time I see it laying on my desk.

I recently kicked off the Henderson G1 Family Discussion Group on Yahoo and now, overtaken by events as the discussion has taken off, I have waded into the stack with a vengeance. Occasionally I get off on a tangent, but I'm furiously pecking away at my keyboard, logging names and dates, and making entries into my Henderson timelines. I feel like I am cramming for some kind of horrifying comprehensive final exam on the Chesapeake Hendersons, and the price of failure is the missing of some critical clue on how our Chesapeake and Onslow families connect.

Last night I came across a post by Sue Gill on one of the forums. Sue descends from the Chesapeake group through Barnabas, who unhelpfully immigrated to Onslow in the mid 1700's, just to confuse the matter. I'm simultaneously entering her information and I see some similarities in naming patterns which may prove helpful.

A Day with Al Curtis

So yesterday I did something I am rarely able to do - spend the day with fellow genealogist. Two summers ago I spent a wonderful Saturday being driven around southern Alamance and Guilford and northern Randolph counties by Jane Fruitt, who by her own admission is more comfortable with dead people than with the living (a sentiment I sometimes think I share). Yesterday I had the distinct honor to meet (and take to lunch) Alfred Field, administrator of the Curtis Family DNA project, and an authority on the NC line of Curtises.

The Curtises are a family about which I know little. Granny Henderson's grandmother was Sophronia Curtis (married to Nathaniel Low), and I have a single indistinct photo of the wizened little old lady standing in her doorway, but little other than that. Her father was Abram Curtis, who had a single known brother, Hiram. Al tells me that DNA testing has conclusively proven a connection between the North Carolina Curtises and the family of that name in New Jersey who can document their ancestry back to the late 1500's and early 1600's in Derbyshire, England. Their American progenitor was apparently a Quaker convert and refugee. As Al detailed the numerous and entertaining indiscretions of the North Carolina line, I concluded that my own Curtis ancestors were not much moved by any righteous Quaker sentiment. Makes for good stories, but can be very difficult in tracing ancestry...

New DNA Results provide answers...and questions.

I'm happy to report that more DNA test results have come back for our Corder Family DNA Project, and these results contained no nasty surprises. At 25 markers, the DNA test was just 1-off on marker 449 (a "fast mutator") which confirmed the paper research of both lines involved. Although the DNA cannot pinpoint the precise relationship between the two men, it does prove that they share a common ancestor within a reasonably recent window of time (no more than 7-20 generations). This is no surprise to them. Their own paper research has lead them to a reasonable conclusion about their MRCA (Most Recent Common Ancestor) and so I think that everyone is well satisfied with the growing baseline DNA signature we're getting on record for the William Corder b. 1703 of Fauquier County VA group.

The new testers have lots of questions so I really need to focus on getting our Corder DNA Project web site up and running. I wanted it to be polished and perfect for launch, but now I'm beginning to think that something may be better than nothing, regardless of the state of completion.

I spent some time last night working on another group of Corders who left Fauquier County VA in the mid 1700's and migrated into Granville/Caswell County NC before dispersing over the southeast and then points west. I am hoping that DNA testing will connect this group to one of the others at some point. I am always very suprised at how quickly the time passes when I am working on these old lines. The next time I looked up, it was half past midnight and it felt like I had only just scratched the surface.

Our Brooks DNA chat is very active and as usual, LaMarr Brooks provides much of our information and research from her astonishingly detailed (and very tidy) notes.

LaMarr has learned that as far as anyone knows, none of the central NC Brookses have done the DNA test, so we are still open at this point to the possiblity that there may be a relationship between our NC/SC/TN group and the larger group of Brookses from central NC. The problem with researching the Brooks family is that it seems like chasing your tail. The surname is not exactly unusual, and when combined with the aggravation of unrelated groups bestowing very similar or common first names down through the ages, there now exists a fearsome tangle. More than one of us on the chat has confessed to finally giving up in frustration and working on another family line. Hopefully the DNA will provide a breakthrough. It has already conclusively linked two pockets of TN and SC groups together no later than the late 1700's.

A Red Letter Day for Genealogy

Well, when it rains, it pours. Two new and intersting contacts made today. Mary Ellis, County Coordinator for Alamance NCGenWeb, contacted me out of the blue with the good news that she and I are related on both the Henderson and the Murray lines. The Murray connection is relatively recent, the Henderson connection further back and through a female line, which is always nice since the females are so under-represented in genealogy. Curiously though, Mary's genealogy provided me with a date that came in handy later in the evening when I found another Henderson researcher of a most unexpected nature.

I was piddling around out on Facebook (one of the exceedingly rare times that I have actually spent any time doing that) and I came across a group called "Henderson Clan" which I tried to join, only to find that it was a closed group a single family of Hendersons who descend from James Henderson b. 1815 in Onslow County, NC . (Search on the group in Facebook and you'll see why I found the connection so startling and interesting.) After a wee bit of explanation, administrator Lisa Henderson let me join the group and we are working together to see if we can see a logical place where her line fits in with either of our Onslow County Henderson groups. One of the dates supplied to me earlier in the afternoon by Mary seemed eerily helpful. We'll see what pans out as I review the stacks of notes I have on the Henderson clan, but I was glad to meet Lisa and learn about her line.

The More, the Merrier - a new Brooks!

It's always a pleasant surprise to find a new "cousin" researching one of our collateral lines, and happily, one found me last night. I had posted a notice on the Brooks Family Forum (on genealogy.com) for researchers of William Brooks (b. 1781 NC) to contact me, and so Carol B. R. did, and off we went. Carol is descended from a son of William (as am I), and will add one more piece to the big Brooks puzzle we're working together. Carol joined our private Brooks discussion group last night and I'm sure she'll find plenty of interest to keep her busy, as the group had posted 320 messages (as of last night) since starting up in January of this year.

All Quiet on the Western Front

It's one of those rare days when I have a few minutes in the morning to work on my research. No doubt all hell will break loose shortly and interrupt my reverie as clients call with requests and endless repetitive chores (like cooking and bathing) rear their ugly little heads.

Yesterday morning Tom's mom was with us and we drove down to the Low Water Bridge which crosses the Shenandoah right off of Happy Creek Road in Warren County. We were on our way to breakfast in Front Royal, but going down "the back way" to town across the river is always a treat for me since it takes us right by Edward Corder's Turkey Tract, the land Corder leased from Lord Fairfax in 1748. The bulk of the original 200 acres was for sale last year and I feared greatly for it since development is pushing its way north up Highway 522 (shiny new shopping centers cluster around the exit at I-66). Apparently a neighbor bought the piece and has fenced it beautifully. There are now horses grazing in the rolling meadows, and all is well and pleasant-looking. There are another 68 acres for sale on the west side of the railroad track, only part of which, I think, falls within the original boundaries of the Turkey Tract. Only time will tell what will become of it. Land here in this area is frightfully expensive.

I posted quite a bit on the G1 Henderson discussion group yesterday evening, so they're probably tired of hearing from me as I muse about whether or not my nearly twenty-year-old work on the Henderson family could stand up to closer scrutiny now that DNA results (and lots of online resources) are rolling in. I think it may be time for me to conduct a comprehensive audit and review of all of my Henderson material and begin to systematically work through it, posting it to the Artemas H. Henderson Memorial Library, and to the private G1 Discussion group. Maybe I'll catch something I missed before.

Ah, there goes the phone. And so it begins.

Man, I should know better than to get started on this stuff.

I have such a backlog of genealogical emails and documents to work through that my desktop, my email application, and even my house looks like that of the proverbial Mad Scientist. I try every day to address at least one thing, be it an email, a GEDCOM someone sent me, a new snail mail letter, or something I found and copied from the internet and then stuck in my "to do" box. The problem with this daily approach is that once I start, I can't stop!

This week I have started a new listserve for the G1 Henderson family. G1 is a designation given to Hendersons who are known to be from the Onslow and Chesapeake groups. We were all awkwardly sharing bits and pieces of information and misinformation and so I decided a listserve would be much more efficient. But setting it up has come with the attendant consumption of time on the front end. Hopefully it will pretty much run itself once everyone is onboard and chatting.

I'm also continuing to puzzle out the whole Corder-Baker relationship. We know the Corders and Bakers are related from their DNA testing, but how? Since there was obviously a non-paternal event in one of the families, the speculation needs to be done privately, and more testing would help. I think I may be on to something since the Wayne County KY Corder's DNA test came in and matched our Elijah Corder line, however. As they say, that changes everything. More on that later as new developments come in.

Welcome to the Genealogy Blog!

I've been wanting to add a Blog to my genealogy web site for some time now so that I can update my large network of fellow researchers on what I'm currently adding to my database. Since I only publish my files to the internet about once every two years (it's a huge undertaking since there are thousands of files to be formatted and transferred), I need a way to keep people updated on what's coming for the next upload.

I also want the Genealogy Blog to serve as a forum for me to write personal observations or comments which may not fit in, strictly speaking, anywhere else on the site.

I hope you enjoy the Blog and I encourage everyone who visits to post comments or feedback both on the blog and on my genealogy web site located at www.laurahenderson.com/genealogy