Does DNA J1 Haplogroup Finding Prove Samuel Porter is Related to Landlot Porter?

It all started when I contacted an individual named Carol Hughes about her post on an Ancestry.com message board.  According to the post, Carol and I were researching the same individual, Anastacia Porter Lawson Porter. Known as "Gracy" to family members, Anastacia was the second wife of William Porter, who died in Hinds County, Mississippi in the 1800s. According to most accounts, William Porter was the son of Landlot Porter and Winnie Palmer Porter. More about the Porter family of Hinds County, Mississippi can be read here. 

Source: Carol Hughes Personal Photo Collection
Gravestone of Landlot Porter
Fortson-Porter Private Cemetery
Hinds County, Mississippi

Shortly before reading Carol's post on the message board, I had read about a small family cemetery near Raymond, Mississippi that allegedly contained the graves of Gracy, her husband, William, his father, Landlot Porter, and other Porter and Fortner family members. I shared this information in an email to Carol, and was struck with amazement when I received her reply telling me that she lived within a few miles of the cemetery's location.  

Although she had no previous knowledge of the cemetery's existence, Carol readily volunteered to locate it and kindly offered to photograph whatever headstones she might find. As most of us know, family obligations, weather, and life in general often take precedence over family research activities, and almost a year went by before Carol was able to make the trip to the cemetery. Although Carol had actually located the cemetery early on, she discovered it was located on private property and she needed permission from the owner. Carol was persistent, and soon her visit to the cemetery, albeit a bittersweet one, was realized. Although the cemetery is located on privately owned property, it has been vandalized and some of the heavier stones and monuments have been toppled.  Gracy Porter's stone was one of those that had been overturned. Landlot Porter's grave marker is still standing, and the photo appearing in this post was included with Carol's permission.

Will I ever know how my great-great-great-grandfather, Samuel Porter, b. circa 1799 in South Carolina, is related to Landlot Porter or to his son, William? I don't know, but I haven't given up searching. I have joined the WorldFamilies Surname Project and I submitted a DNA sample provided by one of the oldest living Porter males in Samuel Porter's lineage to FamilyTree DNA's lab in Houston, Texas. Test results showed the DNA sample submitted by this elderly Porter male matched Y-DNA samples belonging to descendants of John Porter (b. 1690 in Virginia) and to a descendant of Shadrack Porter, one of Landlot's sons by his first wife, Winnie Palmer. The most interesting information about these DNA matches, however, is that each of those tested that matched at the 12 to 37 chromosome range also belong to the J1 Haplogroup (M267), including the Porter male relative I mentioned. 

Now what does that mean? Specifically, the J1 Haplogroup finding means that individuals with this result have ethnic ancestry in many of countries that make up the Arabian Peninsula, as well as some of the countries in Northern Africa. In addition, the majority of academic information about the J1 Haplogroup indicates this finding is indicative of Jewish ancestry, pointing to the "Cohen gene model."  DNA findings can get rather complicated even without involving Haplogroup designations, so I invite you to read more about J1 Haplogroup results here. 

The J1 Haplogroup finding in my father's ancestry (and mine) does not surprise me. Physical attributes common in my paternal grandmother's Porter family, particularly those of her brothers and her father, were characteristic of Middle Eastern men. Fascinating information.....and it's difficult to believe that it all resulted from just two cheek swabs! 

Will this finding change the direction of my research? Most definitely. Since the Porter family came to Mississippi from several areas in South Carolina, I need to find out more about the family and its collateral lines before they migrated to the Mississippi Territory. Of historical significance is that South Carolina, specifically the cities of Camden and Charleston, had the largest Jewish population in the U. S. in the early 1800s.  You can read more about this segment of our country's history in the Enclyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities, an online history department located on the Goldring-Woldenburg Institute of Southern Jewish Life website.

So one of my directions for researching Porter family history for the coming year is researching South Carolina history....and who knows what I might find!

Y-DNA Testing - Halotype Results and Unanswered Questions

Well, the DNA testing results are in.  Actually, the results have been available since late December, but I am just now getting around to writing about what the findings.  The test kit itself was uncomplicated, but the results were delayed twice.  The delays were good, though, since each one represented the lab's dedicated efforts to ensure reliable results.  If I may backtrack for a moment here, DNA testing seemed to be the last resort for me in determining the name of my fourth paternal grandfather, Samuel Porter's father. There were too many Porter men in South Carolina and in Mississippi during the late 1700s and early 1800s to make a definitive match.  So, I joined  the World Family Tree's Porter Surname Project and enlisted the help of a Porter male family member in providing a cheek swab sample for a Y-DNA test.  I chose the test that would yield 37 markers and provide halotype information. If you are unfamiliar with genealogical DNA testing and are wondering what is a "marker" and why one would be interested in 37 (and testing more more than 37 is available), an explanation can be found here.  Now if you are also wanting to know what "halotype" means and why this information is important to genealogical DNA research, an explanation is provided here. 

The individual who provided the DNA sample for my Porter research was a first cousin, twice removed, and the only living male child or grandchild of my paternal great-grandfather, John James Porter, his father, James M. Porter, and his father, Samuel Porter.  Samuel Porter was born circa 1799 in South Carolina and came to the Mississippi Territory in the early 1800s.  In early 1825, Samuel Porter married Mary Middleton in Franklin County, Mississippi, before moving a few years later to Madison and Attala Counties after the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek opened up land there in 1832.  According to a copy of their marriage certificate, parents' names for neither Samuel nor Mary appear on the document. Although DNA testing has determined that my Samuel Porter is related to John Porter, who lived in the early 1600s in Virginia and to his descendants, Edward Sanders Porter, Elisha Jeter Porter, Hancock Porter, and Stark(s) Porter, I still do not know the name of Samuel's father. There were other male Porter family members living in Franklin County, Mississippi in the early 1800s, including John, Landlot, and James, but I have been unable to find Samuel's direct connection to any of these three men. 

Although Y-DNA testing did not yield the initial results I sought, it did produce a finding that confirms some questions about my paternal grandmother's family that I have had since I was very young.  My father's male family members share the J1 Halotype, indicating they have ancestry that links them to countries in and around the Fertile Crescent . My questions began when I was a young student studying geography and history.  Wanting to know where my own family originated, I asked my grandmother about her heritage and her family's origins.  I remember her reply when she said that "Mama's people were Black Dutch and Papa's people were Moors from South Carolina."  As I grew older, I often recalled her words and wanted to know more about her Porter family's heritage.  There was something unusual about these male Porter family members - besides the fact that most of them were quite tall, they exhibited very distinct facial features, and their skin color was what some might call "swarthy."  When I was older, I wondered even more about the Porter family's ethnicity, as I compared the looks of my own father, and my brothers as they grew older, to his mother's relatives. As I matured and learned more about various cultural, religious, and ethnic traditions, I often wondered if my grandmother's insistence that my siblings and I not drink milk when we ate fish might indicate that we had a Jewish ancestry. Now, thanks to Y-DNA testing results that show a J1 Halotype finding, my questions have been answered. 

For more information about Halotypes, including the J1 Halotype, read here.

They All Stopped at Natchez

"And they all stopped at Natchez." This sentence appears on page 16 of Harnett T. Kane's book, Natchez on the Mississippi, published by William Morrow & Company, New York, 1947. 

During the past several weeks, I have revisited some earlier research and began some new on several lines of my families, including the surnames Middleton and Porter, who settled in the early Mississippi Territory around 1800.  The primary reason for this effort was that I have hit a brick wall in finding the names of the parents of my third great-grandparents, Samuel Porter and Mary Middleton Porter, who later settled in Madison and Attala Counties.

According to a census of the Mississippi Territory recorded in 1790, members of the Middleton and Porter families were already living in the area. In 1810, when a census for the newly-formed county of Franklin was recorded, the two families lived in close proximity to each other and at least one marriage between a Middleton and a Porter had already occurred. Since Franklin County was formed from Adams County (Natchez), it is very likely the families lived in the same place before and after the census recorded in Franklin County in 1810.

Several pieces of interesting information have come out of the review of my previous research, including some new questions and the answer to at least one unanswered question. I am certain at this point, that Mary Middleton who married Samuel Porter in June 1825, was not the same Mary Middleton who married John Porter in April 1808.  According to the ages shown for Mary and Samuel on a U.S. Census recorded in 1850 in Attala County, Mississippi, neither individual would have been old enough to have married in 1808.  In addition, the names of Mary's parents (1808 ceremony) are shown on the Adams County marriage record as John and Elizabeth Middleton.

As my research continued, it was interesting to see how many South Carolina residents, including the Middletons and the Porters, settled in the Natchez area. Some families moved to other areas of Mississippi and Lousiana, and others stayed for the rest of their lifetimes. Some of the Middletons and the Porters were among the latter. Apparently, the Middleton and Porter families were already connected through previous marriages before they left South Carolina. The U. S. Census of 1790 shows that Stephen Middleton and Hugh Porter lived very near each other in Abbeville, South Carolina in 1790, although the familial connections, if any, remain unknown at this time.  Other Franklin County residents, including the Gibson, Porter, Middleton, and Witherspoon families had lived near each other in another area of South Carolina known as the Georgetown District.

Another question remains unanswered concerning the maiden name of Mary Middleton, widow of Willis Middleton, who was shown on the Franklin County Census of 1810 as the head of a household that contained several children, including four daughters. Willis Middleton, according to most researchers was likely a brother to Stephen Middleton, John Middleton, and Martin Middleton.  Some researchers believe the widow Mary Middleton's maiden name was "Motte."  If this is indeed true, she is likely descended from a well-known South Carolinian, Jacob Motte, of Charleston. Researchers have also questioned whether Willis Middleton's widow may have been the Mary Middleton who married John Porter in 1808.  As stated earlier in this post, I believe this is untrue, since the Adams County marriage record clearly shows that John and Elizabeth Middleton are the parents of the bride.

Since I am clearly near a dead end in validating the names of Samuel Porter's parents, I have made a decision to join the Porter Y-DNA Project that I recently found online.  Several of the Porter men who were present in the Mississippi Territory around 1800, including Landlot Porter, possibly Samuel's father, and Landlot's sons, Joseph Porter, John Porter, and William Porter, are already on the list. The process will take some time, since I need a male DNA donor with the surname Porter, but I am hopeful that I will have an answer down the road.  Watch for the results here.

Sources:
Marriage Records, Adams County, Mississippi, Circuit Clerk's Office
Marriage Records, Franklin County, Mississippi, Circuit Clerk's Office
U. S. Census of 1790, Abbeville, SC (microfilm)
U. S. Census of 1790, Mississippi Territory (microfilm)
Census Records, ancestry.com, Mississippi Territorial Census (1792-1820), Franklin Co., MS
Porter Y-DNA Project, accessed online on September 14, 2011

Middleton-Porter Connections

It appears that several Porter-Middleton marriages already had occurred in South Carolina and in Alabama, before descendants of these two families actually arrived in the Mississippi Territory.  In fact, one of these occurred in Adams County almost twenty years before the marriage of my fourth great-grandparents, Mary Middleton and Samuel Porter, who wed in 1825 in Franklin County, Mississippi. That marriage took place on April 21, 1808, in nearby Adams County, Mississippi, when Mary Middleton, daughter of  John G. Middleton and Elizabeth Middleton, married John Porter. (Since Franklin County had been established from a portion of Adams County, it is entirely possible that both marriages could have occurred in the same location.) The earlier marriage was performed by Shadrack Porter, a justice of the peace and the groom's brother, and both men were sons of Lancelot (Landlot) Porter and his wife Winifred Palmer Porter. According to the U. S. Census of 1810, there were two additional Porter males, William and Joseph, who were enumerated as heads of households in Franklin County, Mississippi.  


At this point, it is unknown how William, Joseph, and my fourth great-grandfather, Samuel Porter, were related to Landlot, John, and Shadrack, or to each other. Nor do I know names of the parents of Samuel Porter and Mary Middleton Porter. One thing is certain, however, the Porter and Middleton families had lived in proximity to each other in at least two states for several decades and continued to do so in southwest Mississippi  until newly formed counties opened up for settlement elsewhere. 


It appears that Samuel and Mary Porter remained in Franklin County for at least five years after their marriage, since Samuel was enumerated on the U. S. Census recorded that year as the head of a household that consisted of one female under thirty and two children, a male and a female, under five years old. The next time that Samuel appeared on a census was in 1837, when he was shown on a state census recorded that year that shows him living in Madison County, Mississippi.


Next:  The Porters of Madison and Attala Counties


Source:
Hunting for Bears, comp., Mississippi Marriages, 1776-1935 [database on-line].  Provo, UT, USA:  Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004.  Original data:  Mississippi marriage information taken from county courthouse records.  Many of these records were extracted from copies of the original records in microfilm, or book format, located at the Family History Library.


Ancestry.com.  Mississippi State and Territorial Census Collection, 1792-1866 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA:  Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007.  Original data:  Mississippi State and Territorial Censuses, 1792-1866.  Microfilm V229.  3 rolls.  Heritage Quest.


Ancestry.com.  1830 United States Federal Census [database on-line].  Provo, UT, USA:  Ancestry.com Operations, Inc, 2010.  Images reproduced by FamilySearch.

Middleton Family of SC and Mississippi

Yesterday, I made a decision to begin tracing yet another of my early family lines, the Middleton family of South Carolina.  Armed with information that I have known for some time, the facts that my paternal fourth great-grandparents, Mary Middleton and Samuel Porter, were born in South Carolina and were married on May 17, 1825, in Franklin County, Mississippi, I began in earnest to search the Middleton family's origins. Since members of the Porter and the Middleton families were enumerated in an early census of the Mississippi Territory, recorded in 1810, I began my search by reviewing a list of Mississippi Territory pioneers on an invaluable MsGenWeb site about the early southwest Mississippi Territory. On that site, I quickly found the name Stephen Middleton. Could Stephen Middleton be the father of my Mary Middleton?  Although several of his children's names appeared in the detail beside Stephen Middleton's name, the name Mary was not listed.  The information did state that names of other Middleton children were missing, so my next effort will be to search for those missing names.  Since the only names that appeared on census records before 1850 were names of the heads of households, finding the children's names may be a difficult process.  Wish me luck, and watch here for more Middleton research results.

Source:
Ancestry.com.  Mississippi Marriages to 1825 [database on-line.] Provo, UT, USA:  Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 1997.  Original data:  Dodd.  Jordan R. et al.  Early American Marriages: Mississippi to 1825, Bountiful, UT, USA.

Piecing Together the Porter Family Puzzle

A reader contacted me last week seeking information about his great-great-great-grandparents, A. A. Porter and Mildred Porter, who lived and died in Holmes County, Mississippi.  According to my contact, A. A. Porter (he believes his first name was "Allen") was born on February 20, 1816, in South Carolina and died on March 17, 1886 in Lexington, the county seat of Holmes County, Mississippi.  Mildred M. Porter was born on January 1, 1823 and died on April 11, 1902.  Both individuals are buried in Oregon Cemetery in rural Holmes County. My contact has found information that his great-great-great-grandfather was a Civil War veteran, serving in Co. B, Independent Cavalry, of the 1st Battalion MS Reserve Corp and/or Rebel Troop.  A. A. Porter had at least two sons, John William Porter, born June 23, 1845, who died August 31, 1943, and Robert Porter, who served in Co. B (Red Rebels), 1st MS Sharpshooter Battalion. According to information provided by my contact, Robert was killed during the Civil War in the Battle of Peachtree.  John William Porter was my contact's great-great-grandfather.

Researching my own Porter ancestry has been extremely difficult, primarily because male family members have been named and renamed John, James, William, and Robert since the late 1700s.  Also, many of the individuals that I need more details about lived before 1850, the first year the U. S. Census enumerated all household members by name. Actually, I already knew about A. A. Porter, my contact's ancestor, since I had discovered his grave several years ago during a period of research in Holmes County.  But I have never been able to connect this individual to my Porter line.  Ironically, there was another A. A. Porter (Archibald) who lived in Attala County, adjacent to Holmes County, who possibly was a brother of my great-great-great-grandfather, Samuel Porter.  According to family stories, after the death of Archibald Porter's first wife, Susanna Morrison, he traveled to Alabama, where he still had relatives, to seek a new wife.  There he met and married Anne Trawick, daughter of Isabella and Burwell Trawick, and he and his new bride returned to Attala County where he owned land. Later, Anne and Archibald Porter became the parents of Susanna Porter, named for Archibald's late wife, and Isabella and Burwell Porter, named for Ann's parents.  Less than ten years later, Anne Trawick Porter became a very young widow when Archibald died.  Ann would soon remarry, to Boley J. Conner, and they became the parents of thirteen children that included three sets of twins.  Many members of this large Attala County family are buried in the historic Conner Cemetery.


It seems that anyone named Porter who lived in Attala, Carroll, Chickasaw, Holmes, or Madison Counties should be related.  But it doesn't seem to be an easy matter to go a generation beyond my great-great-grandfather, Samuel Porter.  So I know just how my reader must feel:  this Porter family puzzle is a difficult one.