WlkCon Discussion of the WALKER Connection [The following exchanges between Doug Tucker and myself began with this excerpt from my EdwJohn report circulated early May 2001. Linda Sparks Starr] As far as I can determine, Dr. Lorand is the source behind WALKER as Elizabeth's surname. The St. Peter's birth register for four of their children identifies the mother as "Elizabeth" only. Recently I saw a specific, purported citation to the marriage register of Blisland Parish for Elizabeth's surname. However, Chamberlayne, who transcribed several vestry books, begins the one covering Blisland Parish in 1721. He doesn't include any individual registry entries in this work, but does include them in some of his other works. Bishop Meade in v.1 of his massive history of VA Churches and prominent families (published 1857) could find nothing from Blisland Parish; however he came across the above vestry book before finishing his second volume. A check of indexes and genealogical book dealers failed to locate any published work from Blisland registers. Therefore, I think we can surmise the birth / death / marriage registers no longer survive and weren't extant at the time Dr. Lorand's usual 'sources' were doing their research. Therefore, we can't document WALKER as Elizabeth's surname. And without documentation, we have to look at other things for evidence of her surname. The lack of WALKERs interacting with Edward in his New Kent Co. neighborhood suggests we really should look at other families. Yes, there are Walker families in New Kent Co. and some do marry into the extended Johnson / Clark line; however, my point is, none are inter-relating with Edward as we have come to expect in this closely knit extended family. Taking this discussion one step farther, I extract the following quotes from Susan Stewart's PTIIISSN who finds errors in Dr. Lorand's ancestry of Elizabeth: "... Johnson then goes on to say that George Walker was the son of Mr. Samuel Walker who signed the will of Sir John Johnston. George Walker, as we know, married Ann Keith, daughter of Quaker George Keith in Virginia. But says Dr. Johnson, it was THEIR daughter Elizabeth (NOT George's sister) who married Edward Johnson of New Kent ... First problem: this overrides Doug Tucker's discovery of an Elizabeth baptized 13 JAN 1658 in Aberdeen as the daughter of Alexander Walker, the excommunicated minister of Old Machar Parish, who supported the Quaker movement. It is this last Elizabeth that Doug presents as the wife of Edward Johnson of New Kent. If Doug is right in this idea, it still is necessary to find proof that this Alexander Walker family came to Virginia. Second problem: the daughter Elizabeth said to be born to George Walker and Ann Keith can't be the wife to Edward of New Kent. She would have been but a toddler when her first recorded child Thomas was baptized in 1680. So Dr. Johnson clearly is wrong about this, ... But since the theme is persistent that Elizabeth Walker married Edward Johnson, perhaps the answer is that Elizabeth Walker, daughter of George and Ann (Keith) Walker, was the wife of Edward Johnson (JR.) of New Kent County. This is the son Linda has proposed as being unrecorded." Katherine Cochrane, who stumbled onto my webpage June 1998, e-mailed that Elizabeth, daughter of George Walker and Ann (Keith) married Stephen Dewey. However, she cites a CD as her source. She also followed up on my observation the Anglican minister, George Keith of Kiskeake Parish, York Co., was remarkably similar to the above Quaker George Keith. The Anglican minister received a patent in 1634 for transporting himself, his family and others in 1617. Adding to the coincidence, Kiskeake Parish was renamed Hampton Parish, the same parish whose minister was Rev. Edward Johnson in the 1650s. ----------------- [The succeeding discussions were circulated among the group in the form of individual e-mails that began with a short comment from me. The comments have been deleted, but the discussions, separated by (-----) remain intact. We begin with Doug: ] Regarding the section of your recent Edward Johnson paper titled "Walker Connections", I agree that we can't document that Elizabeth Johnson's maiden name was Walker. However, there is ample indirect and circumstantial evidence that her name was Walker and that she was the daughter of Alexander and Elizabeth Walker of Kiccotan in Elizabeth City Co. Note, that the Walkers lived in Elizabeth City Co. -- not New Kent Co. although one of Elizabeth's brothers - - Alexander Jr. -- later settled in New Kent Co. I reread (on you website) what I had written back in 1998 concerning the parentage of the Elizabeth Walker who married Edward Johnston/Johnson of New Kent Co. I also went back over Lorand Johnson's ramblings on the Johnson and Walker connection. Finally, I reviewed some more recent research which touched on this same Walker family and its connection to one of my Tucker lines -- George Walker and Ann Keith's son Jacob Walker married Courtenay Tucker. In any case, I will summarize here what I know about the Walker/Johnson connection. The story begins back in Aberdeenshire where Rev. Alexander Walker, pastor of Old Mochar Parish in Aberdeen, was accused by the local Presbyterian hierarchy of having Quaker sympathies (he had let Quaker missionary George Keith preach a sermon at Old Mochar). He was subsequently defrocked, and because he had a large local following, he was briefly imprisoned and then quickly "transported" to Virginia with his family as "undesirables". I think the transport date was 1674 but may have been 1675. His family, according to Old Mochar baptism records, included a wife, Elizabeth, sons Alexander Jr., George and James, and daughters Elspet (Elizabeth), Agnes and one other whose name I did not record. As I reported in 1998, Elizabeth Walker's baptism was recorded in Old Mochar on January 13, 1658. Alexander Walker settled his family at Kiccotan, along Mill Creek in Elizabeth City Co. Virginia land patents show exactly where he lived. Since neither Presbyterians or Quakers were held in high esteem by Virginia authorities, Alexander and Elizabeth Walker seem to have kept a low profile and probably attended no organized religious meetings. Certainly, there were no Presbyterian or Quaker groups active in Elizabeth City Co. during the 1670's. Alexander Walker apparently took up tobacco farming and accumulated a modest amount of property, some of it jointly with Rice Hughes (a documented Quaker). His son, George, became a Bay pilot and is documented as a full pilot in 1674 when he was still a teenager. As noted earlier, in Aberdeenshire, Rev. Walker had been friendly with Rev. George Keith, a Presbyterian minister turned Quaker missionary. A fiery orator, Keith was one of the chief protagonists in the Quaker struggle with the Presbyterian establishment in Aberdeenshire. Keith was also married to Elizabeth Johnston (his second wife), daughter of Dr. William Johnston and Barbara Forbes -- and Dr. William Johnson was a younger brother of Dr. Arthur Johnston. (All of the above relationships are documented.) In 1676, after the Quakers' annual Meeting in London, George Keith sent his daughter, Ann, (by his first wife, not Elizabeth Johnston) to Virginia to an "arranged" marriage with Alexander Walker's son George. According to Lorand Johnson, a letter written by Elizabeth Johnston Keith (part of early Quaker letters collection at a Quaker Museum in London) stated that her step-daughter, Ann was to be accompanied on the voyage to Virginia by her cousin Edward Johnston. Edward, the son of her father's brother, Dr. Arthur Johnston, was Elizabeth Johnston Keith's first cousin and Ann Keith's second cousin. We know the marriage of Ann Keith and George Walker took place as planned and we know that Ann and George were practicing Quakers. Both are mentioned in George Keith's diaries from his several visits to the American colonies and from his stint as headmaster of a Quaker school (Penn Charter Academy) in Philadelphia. We also know that Ann broke with the Quakers shortly after her father renounced the Quaker movement, but that George remained a member of the Society and the Walker children was raised as Quakers. Their son, Jacob, was a Quaker when he married Courtenay Tucker (from one of my Tucker lines). The Elizabeth Walker who is thought to have married Edward Johnston/Johnson was the sister of George Walker and not his daughter. Lorand Johnson's identification of Elizabeth's parentage is confusing. In one place he certainly infers that Edward married a sister of George Walker, yet in another place he charts Elizabeth as a daughter of George Walker. However, the dating of the voyage -- 1676 -- makes it clear that Edward married a sister of George Walker as George was just 22 at the time and his sister Elizabeth was 19. (Quakers rules required marriage to another Quaker. There were not many other Quakers at Kiccotan in that time period, which explains why George reached across the ocean to Aberdeen for a Quaker wife. Edward Johnston/Johnson's appearance on the Walker doorstep as the chaperone of Ann Keith must have appeared a godsend to the Walkers although I suspect that the Edward/Elizabeth marriage was every bit as arranged as the George Walker/Ann Keith marriage.) In any case, I think we have to assume that Edward Johnston/Johnson and Elizabeth Walker were married relatively soon after Edward's arrival in late 1676. How long did one wait to marry in those days? Six months? A year? In the 1670's, there was little vacant arable land in Elizabeth City Co. Alexander Walker Jr. had taken up a land patent in New Kent Co. in 1676 and it may have been he who persuaded Edward and Elizabeth to settle in New Kent Co. The timing is important because the "frontier" was moving steadily westward and in the mid-1670's was located just about where Edward Johnson settled -- along Powhite Swamp, about two miles west northwest of what would later become the New Kent/Hanover county line. (I should point out that Thomas Moorman was settling along Whiting Swamp at the same time and Whiting Swamp is almost directly across the county from Powhite Swamp and also about two miles from the future county border. The Johnson and Moorman properties, although on opposite sides of the county, were only about five miles apart.) As to the question of whether these folks were Quakers in the 1670's, Edward Johnston/Johnson was IF he was the son of Dr. Arthur Johnston. (Dr. Johnson's other surviving sons were Quakers and, by 1674, both were settled in VA on the Eastern Shore.) Elizabeth Walker was likely a Quaker as we know for certain that her brother George was a Quaker or he would not have been marrying Ann Keith, the daughter of one of the most visible and well-known Quaker missionaries of the times. The absence of Edward's name from Hinshaw merely reflects the fact that the Henrico/Curles meeting was not the meeting attended by the Quakers of New Kent Co. They had their own meeting by the mid-1680's and had built a meeting house by 1690 on Black Creek. Unfortunately, the registers of the Black Creek meeting did not survive. Or, to put it another way, there were enough Quakers in New Kent Co. by 1690 to support the building of a meeting house. Generally, that required a minimum of 15 families. Who those 15 families were is open to conjecture, but I, for one believe the Johnson, Moorman, Woody, Fleming, and Raley families were among the "earliest" members of the Black Creek Meeting. (They all lived within a few miles of where the meeting house was built). I also think they were all Quakers before settling in New Kent Co. Doug Tucker ---------------- Dr. Lorand Johnson is the sole source for much of the often-published information on Edward Johnson and his wife, Elizabeth purported to be WALKER. We are fortunate in this because he had the foresight to will his research papers and books to his long-time trusted research assistant, Suzanne Johnston. In other words, his papers were saved intact, instead of being completely destroyed or divided among several heirs with differing views of the value of such things. The biggest problem with Dr. Lorand's work is his almost total disregard for citing his sources. But with his research intact, one would think his sources for various statements should be easily discovered. However, as we will see, it doesn't work that way. Within his "Evidence for the Continued Acceptance of Dr. Arthur Johnston as the Parent of Edward Johnston of New Kent County, VA ...'" (privately printed 1979), Dr. Lorand gives Wirt Carrington full credit for this quotation: "Affidavit concerning the statement of Wirt Johnson Carrington, presumably found in Quaker Records (?Henrico) by Douglas Somers Brown, as follows: 'In 1676 George Keith and his wife, Elizabeth (Johnston) and her cousin Edward, son of Dr. Arthur Johnston, and Keith's daughter, (Mary Keith), attended the yearly meeting (of Quakers) in England. After the meeting, Edward Johnston and Keith's daughter (Mary Keith) accompanied William (minister) Edmondson, who returned to Henrico Monthly Meeting' (then New Kent County Virginia)". [p.1] Although he does mention Mrs. Carrington MIGHT HAVE GOTTEN the information from Mrs. Douglas Somers Brown, later in the affidavit he gives Mrs. Carrington's notebooks as HIS particular source: "The wording of the first part of the statement from 'the book of Wirt Carrington' reads like it were (sic) taken from a Quaker Record, possibly from Henrico Monthly Meeting of Friends." Here he repeats the above statement verbatim, only all in CAPS this time. He then adds: "Mary Keith married George Walker of Kikatan (grandson of Rev. Samuel Walker of Monkegy 1630-49, Aberdeenshire), and his sister Elizabeth Walker married Edward Johnston -- the subject of this narrative. " [p.2] One may ask, then, WHERE was this information obtained and just how did Dr. Lorand acquire it? So far no one has found this statement or verifying data outside Dr. Lorand's published works. He did acquire access to Carrington's research papers due to his close association with Hinshaw and Miss Sue Terrell. I quote from the affidavit, beginning at the very bottom of page 1: "Seemingly happy to have a 'reader' for her collection, Miss Terrell sent daily, packets of her life-long accumulation of genealogical facts. My interest at the moment ... was limited to the assistance for Mr. Hinshaw, and related items. I copied carefully, xerox not then being available, and much of her data was read, remembered and returned without copy. The item concerning 'Edward of Kent' was preserved, not that they were Quakers, but because Edward was recorded as of the same family as the Quaker ancestors, William and John Johnston. ... Many of the old papers sent by Miss Terrell were yellow and brittle with age. ... Much data sent by Miss Sue Terrell was 'from the book of Wirt Carrington' -- apparently a note-book sent to Miss Terrell by Mrs. Carrington before her death." Let's look at one phrase again: "The item concerning 'Edward of Kent' was preserved, not that they were Quakers ... " No one knows what happened to Mrs. Carrington's research papers. Some suspect they perished in a fire along with Ms. Terrell's papers. BUT not all was lost, for Dr. Lorand's hand copied notes are in the hands of his research assistant. After a diligent search through Carrington's work, Suzanne found ABSOLUTELY NO mention of either Edward Johnson OR Dr. Arthur Johnston. In fact, it appears Mrs. Carrington had no interest in tracing beyond her two ancestors, John and William Johnson. Thus, we have a cited source, but the specific information is not located therein. It's not a piece of paper he would easily part with. In fact, by the time he published his Caskieben book (1975), xerox machines were available; why didn't he copy his handwritten note saying Edward was the son of Dr. Arthur into this book IF he had such a note in his files? Turning now to Doug Tucker's rebuttal to the 'Walker Connection' portion of my EdwJohn. Doug mentions a letter "... written by Elizabeth Johnston Keith (part of early Quaker letters collection at a Quaker Museum in London) stated that her step-daughter, Ann was to be accompanied on the voyage to Virginia by her cousin Edward Johnston. Edward, the son of her father's brother, Dr. Arthur Johnston, was Elizabeth Johnston Keith's first cousin and Ann Keith's second cousin." This particular letter is not mentioned in Dr. Lorand's affidavit; therefore he probably discovered it after the affidavit was submitted. Again, Suzanne has searched Lorand's research papers for the specific letter, and according to her jnstnclr: "The matter of the Keith letter stating that Cousin Edward Johnson was coming to Virginia. In many of the communications I looked over during the weekend, Lorand quoted that letter only as 'Cousin Edward' not 'Cousin Edward Johnson.' So, I think we need to look into that further before we quote it as a source." Since it was supposedly found in a Quaker Museum in London, surely someone can obtain a copy or full transcription of this particular letter to share with the entire group. How many Quaker Museums can there be in London? Meanwhile, I'm extremely troubled by the total lack of a copy or transcription of the letter. Surely Dr. Lorand would recognize it as much too important to be lost. But even more to the point, IF he actually had a copy or full transcription of the letter saying 'cousin Edward JOHNSTON' in this context, he surely would have widely shared it with the genealogical community. And Suzanne would certainly have been aware of it. Thus, we are left yet again with only his word that some evidence exists. And only his word that a kinship exists where even his own research papers fail to disclose supporting evidence. The recent non-matching DNA testing between a descendant of John Johnston and two descendants of Edward should end all discussion about Dr. Lorand's conclusions. Edward is NOT a member of the same Johns(t)on line as John Johnston. [DNA testing for William hasn't been done.] It is time to stop rehashing the same old debates. Our time and resources are better spent searching Virginia records for Edward Johnson of New Kent Co. Virginia, who was most likely in Virginia well before 1677. This includes searching for the surname of his wife, Elizabeth. Linda Sparks Starr -------------- It is true that Lorand Johnson did not thoroughly document all of his conclusions on the ancestry of the American Johnston/Johnson lines, but he was quite clear as to why he concluded that Edward Johnston/Johnson married Elizabeth Walker. He based his conclusion partly on the contents of a 1676 letter written by Elizabeth Johnston Keith to Quaker missionary Mary Harris. According to Johnson, that letter said that Elizabeth Keith's step-daughter, Ann Keith, was sailing to Virginia after the Quaker Summer Meeting in London to marry George Walker, son of Rev. Alexander Walker of Kiccotan and that Ann was to be accompanied on the voyage by Elizabeth Johnston Keith's "Cousin Edward". Lorand Johnson concluded, correctly in my judgement, that the "Cousin Edward" referred to by Elizabeth Johnson Keith was Elizabeth's first cousin, Edward Johnston, youngest son of Dr. Arthur Johnston. Lorand Johnson offers actual quote's from the Elizabeth Johnston Keith's letter so either the letter existed and was quoted properly or Lorand Johnson was guilty of fraud. I have researched the letter cited by Johnson and understand that it still exists and is part of a collection of early Quaker correspondence maintained by the Society of Friends at its London headquarters/museum. I have also been informed that the letter is included in a published anthology of early Quaker writings, but have not personally tried to locate the book -- until now. I think Lorand Johnson made the correct call on the Johnson/Walker connection because virtually everything except proof of the actual marriage seems to check out. Edward Johnston WAS a first cousin of Elizabeth Johnston Keith -- in fact, he was her only cousin, first or second, who was named Edward. This can be readily verified as Elizabeth Keith had cousins only on the Johnston side of her family (her mother was an only child) and her Johnston first and second cousins were well documented. So, if the Keith/Harris letter is legitimate, Lorand Johnson correctly identified the "Cousin Edward" who accompanied Ann Keith to Virginia. There are numerous documents that prove that Ann Keith did marry George Walker of Kiccotan and that both were observant Quakers (although Ann later joined her father when he broke from the Quaker movement in the 1690's. If Edward Johston/Johnson accompanied Ann Keith to Virginia, he was in the right place at the right time (important considerations) to have married George Keith's sister, Elizabeth. We also know that George had a sister Elizabeth as her baptism is documented in Old Machar Parish, Aberdeen, in 1658. Furthermore, we know that by 1676 Quakers were required to marry other Quakers or face dismissal from the Society. The Walker family had gone so far as to import a Quaker wife for George from England, suggesting that Quaker spouses were relatively scarce in Kiccotan. Oh, I almost forgot -- we have no proof that Edward Johnston/Johnson was a Quaker. True, there is no hard proof, but there is much indirect evidence that suggests he was a Quaker. His older brother George was a Quaker who was arrested and imprisoned for his Quaker activism (his name in included on "Bess' List of Quaker Martyrs"). George had emigrated to Virginia in the mid-1660's and had established a Quaker meeting (Muddy Creek) on Virginia' Eastern Shore. His cousin, Elizabeth Johston Keith, also made Bess' List (as Elizabeth Johnston) -- but then she had later married Quaker missionary and firebrand, George Keith. It seems likely that in choosing a sailing companion for daughter Ann, the Keiths would have chosen a fellow Quaker. And, it was Quaker George Keith who was at least partly responsible for the defrocking and of Rev. Alexander Walker and the "transportation" of Walker and his family to Virginia. Clearly, the Quakers of those times were a tightly knit and semi-closed society. So, I suggest there is a high probability that "Cousin Edward" was a Quaker when he came to Virginia. In sum, Edward Johnston/Johnson was in the right place at the right time and with the right religious beliefs to have married Elizabeth Walker. By the way, another Walker point made by Lorand Johnson checks out. Rev. Alexander Walker of Old Machar Parish and later of Kiccotan, VA was the son of Rev. Samuel Walker of Monkegy Parish, Aberdeen. Rev. Samuel Walker was a witness to the 1628 will of Sir John Johnston, oldest brother of Dr. Arthur Johnston. When Arthur's father, Sir George Johnston died in 1596, Arthur was only eight years old. Older brother John was 21 years Arthur's senior and served as Arthur's surrogate father. Thus, there was a close connection between the Johnston, Keith and Walker families long before the reported 1676/77 marriage of Edward Johnston/Johnson and Elizabeth Walker. One final comment -- I must have missed something vital in your DNA reporting. I was under the apparently erroneous impression that the ONLY thing the tests establish was that descendants of Michael Johnson were not closely related to descendants of John Johnson. Since no one had proved the parentage of Michael Johnson, (that is why the test was run in the first place), how could these DNA results "prove" that Edward Johnson was not related to John and/or William Johnson? (Elizabeth was the daughter of Dr. William Johnston and Barbara Forbes. Dr. William was the younger brother of Dr. Arthur Johnston, father of Edward. Edward was two years older than Elizabeth.) Since the main question here is the surname of the woman who married Edward Johnson, I think we should set aside Lorand Johnson's musings on the Walker/Johnson connection and look at what we can and cannot prove about the two principals -- Elizabeth Walker and Edward Johnson. We can prove the following without using anything written by Lorand Johnson. (1) Rev. Alexander Walker of Kiccotan, VA, and formerly of Old Machar Parish, Aberdeenshire, had a daughter named Elizabeth and a son named George. Rev. Walker was defrocked and transported to Virginia for having demonstrated Quaker sympathies by allowing Quaker missionary George Keith to preach at Old Machar. (2) Rev. Alexander Walker was the son of Rev. Samuel Walker of Monkegy, Aberdeenshire and Samuel was a witness to the will of Sir John Johnston in 1628. (Sir John was Dr. Arthur Johnston's oldest brother.) (3) Ann Keith, daughter of George Keith and Ann Whyte and step-daughter of Elizabeth Johnston Keith, came to Virginia in 1676 to marry George Walker, son of Rev. Alexander Walker of Kiccotan. (4) The Walkers and Keiths were active, practicing Quakers. The proof works from George Keith, who was an acknowledged Quaker missionary. His second wife, Elizabeth Johnston Keith, had a record of participation in Quaker disturbances and had been arrested and jailed on several occasions. Her name appeared on Bess's List of Quaker martyrs. (Also appearing on Bess's List of Quaker martyrs was George Johnston, a son of Dr. Arthur Johnston by his first wife, Dorothy Kynunckle and reportedly a half-brother of Edward Johnston/Johnson.) (5) Elizabeth Johnston Keith was the daughter of Dr. William Johnston and Barbara Forbes and that Barbara Forbes' motherwas Elizabeth Keith who was an aunt of Rev. George Keith. (Another Keith connection!) (6) Dr. William Johnston was the younger brother of Dr. Arthur Johnston, reported father of Edward Johnston/Johnson. Therefore, Elizabeth Johnston Keith and Edward Johnston/Johnson would have been first cousins. They would have been roughly two years apart in age, with Edward the elder of the two. Among the items which have not been confirmed: (7) A controversial letter written by Elizabeth Johnston Keith to Quaker missionary Mary Harris reported that Elizabeth's step-daughter, Ann Keith. was to sail to Virginia after the Quaker Annual Meeting in London to marry George Walker and that Ann would be accompanied by "my cousin Edward", (i.e. Edward was Elizabeth's cousin). A little research establishes that Elizabth Johnston Keith had first cousins only on her Johnston side as her mother, Barbara Forbes was an only child. Furthermore, there was only one "Edward" among the possible Johnston cousins and that was Edward Johnston/Johnson, son of Dr. Arthur. My understanding is that the letter in question not only resides in a London Quaker museum, but that it has also been published although I have not seen the original letter. (Readers may recognize Mary Harris as the Quaker missionary sent to Virginia by George Fox to help establish the Quaker movement in the American colonies.) Doug Tucker --------------- Doug misses my point entirely. Yes, the Johnston family living in the Aberdeen area did know the Walkers. However, my stance is: Dr. Lorand is the SOLE source for placing Edward of New Kent Co. VA within that Johnston family and UNTIL something in the way of primary or good secondary evidence is located, any further discussion of the relationships coming from Dr. Lorand's research is a waste of time. As to the existence of the very specific letter supposedly written by Elizabeth (Johnston) Keith, my stance is the same -- UNTIL it is located (including the very specific location data), copied and shared with the group, we can only accept it as hearsay at best. As to the definition of "Cousin": According to page 78, _A to Zax: A Comprehensive Dictionary for Genealogists & Historians_, by Barbara Jean Evans, Hearthstone Press, VA 1995 --COUSIN: 1) child of a sibling; 2) sometimes used to indicate a relationship by marriage rather than blood; 3) in early New England it can mean a niece or nephew; 4) sometimes used to refer to a close friend; 5) used to refer to someone who is kin, but the exact relationship is unknown. As to the purpose of the DNA testing. Originally it was to determine whether John and William, both of whom married MASSIEs, are indeed brothers (as reported by some researchers) or not kin at all (as reported by others)? Two descendants who have proved their way to Michael asked to take part. This made sense because Dr. Lorand groups all three -- John, William and Edward -- within the same family group. If Dr. Lorand is correct, all three should share the same DNA. Therefore, our original intent expanded to include descendants of John, William and Edward. We have yet to find a qualified descendant of William -- qualified meaning male who descends directly through males from this William -- but the search continues. We are waiting the results from the second descendant of John. As to Michael as son of Edward: page 128 of Dr. Lorand's _Caskiebien_ shows Michael as son of Edward and Elizabeth. But I agree with Doug here. We haven't found documentation for Michael as SON of Edward. However, other researchers, whose reports appear on my webpage, have clearly shown there is a very close relationship between Michael and Edward -- close enough their DNA should match. In my opinion, IF Michael is not an actual son of Edward, then he is a nephew, or his father and Edward are first cousins. Any of those relationships would produce matching DNA for Michael and Edward. Thus descendants from Michael will match Edward's DNA. I urge all of you who question the close relationship between Michael and Edward to carefully reread those reports. In my opinion, the evidence, presented from 'good secondary sources', is overwhelming. Linda Sparks Starr