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I recently learned one of my ancestral families on my maternal grandfather’s side, the Morris family of Powhatan county, Virginia, is connected somehow to a Saponi descendants’ Stewart family who also living there. I am in contact with this descendant and her ancestors was John Peaterson Steward {born 1757 in VA} who married Dinah Stewart in 1778 in Virginia and later married Frances Dungey in 1797 on April 20 1797. He had children with both of them, as well a daughter named Sussannah Dungey with an unconfirmed spouse. The marriage of Frances Dungey and John P. Stewarts’ line is through her descent comes from. I match this descendant genetically at the 4th to 5th cousin level. However, she is much older than me, so there’s a give or take a couple generations difference.
My ancestor is Virginia/Jenny/Jane Morris. she is the matriarch of my Morris line. The surname “Morris” might have been even chosen by her because there are no other Morriss’ around- black, white or otherwise. She owned the land she lived on, was a free person of color who was born in Virginia around 1795 and lived in Jefferson, Powhatan, Virginia in 1840. Her son Edward “ned” Morris was my ancestor and was born around 1830 in January. He married a woman named Lucy from Amelia county, Virginia and their descendants became my Morris line.
Somehow, my Morris family and her Stewart families are related but I have been unable to make the link or find the common ancestor/s. I’ve been trying for months now trying to find my possible Saponi connection. So far, this is the closest I’ve gotten to it. I’m just wondering if anyone here is more familiar with this kind of genealogy and would be willing to share any genealogical information or thoughts they might have. Any help at all would be appreciated.
Best wishes to all!
Jogdelog Battyboy,
I investigated on Ancestry.com. The Stewart line you mention is well documented, but there is very little on this Morris line. Too little to link Stewart-Morris through genealogy alone.
Have you been able to isolate through DNA any others who are related to you and this Stewart-Dungey descendant?
One thing that seems to be a constant in families with Saponi ties is endogamy – remarrying into the same mixed community generation after generation until 1900 or later. So one possible clue is to look at the families both descendants marry into.
The Stewart-Dungey descendants marry into Creacy, Byrd, Brown, and later generations into Goens(Goins/Goings?).
For Morris there is little info, the two children of Edward Morris I could find had marriages to Jane Brown (1841-?) and Benjamin Goode (1845-1920).
Brown, Goode, and Goens are names found in this mixed community. Not much to go on, but you could look into those lines more.
You could try looking for family resemblance in pictures. If you have old Morris family pics you could compare them to pictures of John Stewart-Frances Dungey descendants … their son Richard Stewart 1800-1885, their grandson Littleberry Crawford Stewart (1828-1917) of Cass Co MI and g-granddaughter Martha Ann Stewart (1868-1954) of Cass Co MI.
Thank you. I did hire a professional genetic genealogist to research this connection- they specialize in African-American and genetic genealogy. They just verified the connection of the Morris family to the Stewart family using DNA. Now I’m just waiting on the genealogy research part but we are making progress so far. It’ll be a few weeks until the report is done however and I was just curious if anyone else saw or knew of a connection.
Also, I am descended from the Goode family of Virginia. My ancestor you mentioned-Benjamin Goode- is the son of Robert “robb” Goode {born around 1805}, who was also a freeman of color and a landowning farmer. My aunt has told me she believes our Goode family has native connections {Powhatan/Algonquin} but I’m skeptical- though I’m considering the possibility.
Maybe I should wait for the genealogist finishes the report. Do you think so? However, feel free to add anything if you have any thoughts on what I put above.
Thank you. 🙂
I understand these kind of projects take time. I think I should wait to hear back from the genealogist I hired and review the report. He is very skilled in Virginia Afro-American genealogy and is very knowledgeable in genetics. I’ll be sure to share what I find out regarding my Morris-Stewart connection.
Although not in my direct bloodline, my Morris line did intermarry with the Brown family of Powhatan VA.
I’m also wondering if the connection to the Stewart family could be through Edward Morris’ currently unknown father. He was born about 1830 to Virginia/Jenny/Jane Morris. In 1850 he lived in Powhatan county with a white man named Jacob Roberts {a miller by trade} and his family, possibly as a servant or an apprentice. Still, finding out who his father was may be a clue to finding the connection.
The world of the Free Persons of Color in Powhatan county was small, so the Stewart and Morris families were likely related through marriage or by being distant cousins. If anyone here has any suggestions or help, that would be great.
battyboy12;38108 wrote: Thank you. I did hire a professional genetic genealogist to research this connection- they specialize in African-American and genetic genealogy. They just verified the connection of the Morris family to the Stewart family using DNA. Now I’m just waiting on the genealogy research part but we are making progress so far. It’ll be a few weeks until the report is done however and I was just curious if anyone else saw or knew of a connection.
Also, I am descended from the Goode family of Virginia. My ancestor you mentioned-Benjamin Goode- is the son of Robert “robb” Goode {born around 1805}, who was also a freeman of color and a landowning farmer. My aunt has told me she believes our Goode family has native connections {Powhatan/Algonquin} but I’m skeptical- though I’m considering the possibility.
Maybe I should wait for the genealogist finishes the report. Do you think so? However, feel free to add anything if you have any thoughts on what I put above.
Thank you.
To me it makes sense to keep researching yourself while waiting for the genealogist’s report. There is always more to learn and connections to uncover. The historical records may or may not exist to show the genealogy behind the DNA link from Morris to Stewart. Paper records or no, your ancestry is still the same.
The road you are walking sounds very much like mine. Ten years ago I had healthy skepticism of oral history in my family. Since that time I have come to give equal weight to family stories and genealogy. After years of seeking out other descendants I’ve found the same oral history verified repeatedly. Everyone has to feel and decide for themselves what is ‘proof’. A rule of thumb I follow is that if a story is repeated by three separate unconnected sources than it is most probably true.
The Good/Goode/Goad name comes up in many VA/NC mixed-blood families, Gold and Gould may be variants too from what I can see. My ancestor Isom(Isham) Goode seems to be listed as white and mulatto in different censuses. He became a Quaker and shows up in meeting records. Documents show he made the move from Jefferson TN, to Clinton OH, then Randolph IN. There is no paper record but everything points to him coming from Randolph NC before TN.
Having never been able to find a record of his parents I started looking closely at his neighbors and families he married into. In doing that I found the family name of his wife’s mother (Redfern) on a denied application to the Guion Miller Roll. From speaking to Rick Haithcock I learned of a pattern of Catawba who applied to Cherokee rolls and were denied, not because they were not Indian, but because they were not Cherokee. Further research showed that the Quaker families he travelled with came from the Newberry Monthly Meeting in SC.
Is all this ‘proof’? I think that answer depends on who is asking. For me it is, because the family history around this line is too much to ignore. There seems to have been much energy invested into passing for white, while keeping mixed roots quiet outside the family circle. Looking at these families I also found cousins (Coppock) who took a very hard stance against slavery. Associates of John Brown who paid the ultimate price for their belief in equality.
One brother was hanged for treason after the raid on the federal armory in Harper’s Ferry. The other escaped via Underground Railroad “a fugitive from the justice of Virginia”. They believed there was no justice in a government that condoned slavery. He would die a few years later in the Platte River Railroad Tragedy of the Civil War. Add all this up and it is proof to me of the tri-racial nature of the group we come from. I don’t pretend that it proves it to anyone else, I just know what I feel in my heart.
Engaging professional genealogists has not yielded much information for my family. They were able to search physical courthouse records and tell us what was not there, which saved days-long drives and much searching. I see nothing they can do that we can’t do on our own with a big enough time investment. Presumably they are pros because they are familiar with the historical records and are practiced at searching them, which can really save time and give a new perspective.
The time it has taken for me to learn what I have is not trivial. It has meant giving family research a high priority in my life, above making money, above recreation. The way I see it cultural and spiritual wealth is much rarer than monetary wealth. For me to be better able to tell my daughters who they are is more valuable than any dollar value inheritance I could give them.
Not sure if any of this is helpful to you, it is just my experience, feel free to make your own judgements.
Thank you. It’s good to hear that my situation is not the only one that is hard to trace. I hope for the best, though I did find out just this morning from the genealogist that my Jenny Morris appears on list under Free Negro section. Based on list, she may be the daughter of Edward Morris, mulatto, who probably died before 1811. A Rose Morris, mulatto, possible widow of Edward appears in 1811 records, and Jenny is the next entry after Rose in 1813. This could be a lead.
Thanks again!
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