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Dear Forum members,
The Little family was living in Lunenburg, Halifax, and Pittsylvania Counties (VA) in the 1750s and 1760s, then moved to western VA and Wilkes Co NC in the 1770s. From there they moved into eastern KY and Pendleton District SC … and on across the south.
The Littles are found in numerous records (Pittsylvania tax lists, Herbert’s and Swift’s lists, Wilkes Co NC tax rolls, etc) adjacent to many of the surnames being researched by the group (Bunch, Collins, Gibson, Hash, Osborne, Pennington, Roberts, et al).
I’ve placed primary source records on these Littles at http://www.geocities.com/littlednaproject/LittleRecords.htm.
Y-chromosome DNA testing confirms that all these Littles descend from a common male Little ancestor.
He was almost certainly Abraham Little who was transported from England to VA in the 1680s as an indentured servant.
Abraham Little became one of the early longhunters in the early 1700s, a profession taken up by many of his descendants.
The Littles lived on the frontier in successive generations. They tended to avoid military service and frequently skirted the law.
Most had no particular religious affiliation, though there also were several Baptist preachers in different family lines.
Family lore is that Littles in different branches married Native American women in the 1700s, though this is not documented.
Hopefully there will be some tidbits of information on the Little Records page that will be of interest to members of the group.
Please let me know if you have connections to the Littles or have come across other references to the family.
Best Regards, Leo
Leo W. Little
Administrator, Little DNA Project
Austin, TX
LEO,
Howdy there….one of my great grandmothers was a Little. She married John D. Everett. She was born and raised and died in North Carolina. Her name was Rosa Lee Little b. abt. 1893. Her father was William Samuel Little b 1856 NC, her mother was Mary McLawhorn…her grandfather was William Churchwell Little b 1819 in Georgia her grandmother was Julia Simmons from North Carolina. (Green and Pitt Counties).
Linda
Your link is not working, Leo. I can’t connect them on paper(tough job) but I have not spent alot of time on this line either but I’m pretty sure we descend from Abraham also. You’re right to about them skirting the law….even my grandmother was standoffish….this is my paternal line. Apparently the Little’s are border Scots…..and they MOVED alot once here in America.
Linda
Hi Linda,
The Forum text editor appended the period onto the link. The correct link for the Little Records is:
http://www.geocities.com/littlednaproject/LittleRecords.htm
The Little DNA project at http://www.littledna.com has 19 Littles (listed in orange on the Results page) who have roots in the Borders region of Scotland and England.
The descendants of Abraham Little have different DNA from the Borders group. Abraham was first recorded in Tidewater Virginia in 1692. This is at the tail end of migration to Virginia primarily from the south and southwest of England.
There is circumstatial evidence that ties Abraham Little to Wiltshie Co England, though only a DNA match to a Little there would prove the case since the paper trail is lost in the fog of history.
Most of the Pitt County NC Littles came from Surry County VA. There are three members of the Little DNA project that are descendants of the Pitt Co Littles and they do not match either the Borders Littles or the descendants of Abraham Little.
However, I feel your William Churchill Little line is actually not connected to these Pitt Co Littles, but more likely to be of the line of Littles from Beaufort Co NC that also settled in Edgecombe Co.
A descendant of the Beaufort Co Littles has been tested, and his DNA shows he’s clearly one of the Borders Littles.
I feel reasonable confident your Littles were Border Scots, though unfortuntely, it appears we are not genetic cousins.
Best Regards, Leo
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