Searching for Heritage

  Background: When I first ordered a DNA test from Ancestry in 2017, one of my main goals was to learn more about my great-grandfather McDuffie Weams (1876 - 1943). He was the oldest of my great-grandparents by almost 20 years, and his background was always a bit of a family mystery. Supposedly, he was adopted as an orphaned child along with his brother by the Weams family, who lived near the town of Central in Pickens County, South Carolina. This simple explanation was basically all that was passed down about his family history, and it would turn out to be the beginning of a long, gradual process of filling in countless details through historical records and DNA evidence. Early on in my research, I learned that this particular Weams family consisted of Andrew Weams (1800 - 1870) and his wife Martha Neal (1805 - 1885), who were married in 1834 in Pickens District, SC. They had four children born between 1835 and 1842: Thomas H. Weams, Margaret Jane Weams, John A. Weams, and Martha Adel

Much like my last post on the descendants of the Abbeville, SC Weems family, I thought it would also be helpful to put together a basic summary of the known descendants of the Greene County, TN Weems family . This will be a starting point for further exploration and speculation about the common history the two families might share, which is genetically and historically distinct from other known Weems/Wemyss families. John Weems was born around 1741 or 1745 according to family historians of the 20th century, although it is important to note that none of the historical records from Orange County, NC or Greene County, TN provide his exact age or birth year. He first appeared in Orange County, North Carolina around 1767 and settled in Greene County, Tennessee with his nine children around 1792. He died in 1812. His wife went by the name Kitty, which was a nickname for Catherine, but her maiden name is unknown. Aside from these basic facts, not much else is known about John's origins.

In a previous post , I outlined most of the known historical records tracing several seemingly unrelated Weems family lines through Virginia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee during the middle to late 1700s. Although many internet sources have mistakenly combined or confused these separate lines, a close examination of the available records will hopefully clear up any further misunderstanding. These next posts will dive deeper specifically into the family of Thomas Weems and Eleanor Jacobs of Augusta County, VA and later Abbeville, SC. (Note: I have seen Eleanor's first name spelled Eleanor, Ellenor, Elinor, and Ellinore. Variations of her last name include Jacobs, Jacoby, Jacobse, and Jacob. I tend to use Eleanor Jacobs for consistency, but to my knowledge there is not necessarily one correct or incorrect spelling. Similarly, the Weems family used the spelling variations Weems, Weams, Weemes, Wims, and several others, all derived from the original Wemyss.) Notably, multiple Y-DNA test