John Tyler and Me
Once again, WikiTree takes me back into Virginia through my paternal Walton line.
At the end of this series, I going to have to write an analysis of which family lines provide me with the greatest number of Presidential connections. So far it’s the Botts/Walton line in Kentucky and Virginia, but that’s probably because so many of our early Presidents were from Virginia. Once we get past Zachary Taylor (coming up in two weeks), we don’t have any Presidents from the South until Benjamin Harrison (the 23rd President) and then not again until Woodrow Wilson (the 27th President)
This line tracks with my tree on Ancestry back through my 6th great-grandfather Charles Anderson (#8 in the box above). Once it diverges to his sister, Mary Anderson (#9), I had to do some work to confirm these connections. On my tree, Charles actually had two sisters named Mary – this is because I wasn’t interested in them when I was building my tree and didn’t bother to figure this out. After a little looking around, I confirmed that Charles actually had only one sister named Mary, and that she in fact did Mary a man named George Martin.
Before I go any further into this connection, I want to talk just a bit about my Anderson family connection. James Anderson (the father of Charles and Mary) was the grandson of Reynard Anderson, who came to Virginia as a headright (probably an indentured servant) sometime before 1654. Reynard’s wife, Elizabeth Skiffen, was born in England to William Skiffen, who also came to Virginia as a headright prior to 1650. Reynard and Elizabeth married in Charles City County (about 15 miles from my house) in 1662.
The more interesting story focuses on Elizabeth Ligon, who was the mother of Charles and Mary Anderson. I haven’t been able to figure out the exact connection yet, but Elizabeth is the great-granddaughter of Thomas Ligon, a “gateway” ancestor for signers of the Magna Carta.
A gateway ancestor is one whose lineage is proven to a past event (in this case the Magna Carta). By proving my connection to Thomas Ligon, I am proven back to 1215, when the Magna Carta was signed. I have a little problem with the idea that she’s married to a man named Matthew Ligon; I have her married to someone else, but there was only one Ligon family in Virginia in the 17th century, so her children are direct descendants of Thomas Ligon in some fashion.
So now that we have the Ligon connection pretty well established, let’s go back to look at Mary Anderson (#9). She was married to George Martin (#10), but I don’t show Susannah Chiles as his mother. I’ve poked around on Ancestry a bit and I can’t make this link.
So let’s hop over to Geni and see if it helps me out at all.
This connection takes me through the same Walton family, but this time the connection is through Tabitha Allen Walton (Botts) father, William. Once again (just like in my discussion of Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson in earlier weeks of this series) the problem is the proliferation of men named William Walton. The William Walton that Geni suggests connects to John Tyler was born in 1777; the William Walton who was Tabitha’s father was born in 1784. I didn’t contact the Geni profile manager to fix this when I encountered it a couple of weeks ago, but I think I’ll have to follow through now.
I decided to check out what FamilySearch has to say about this connection. Here’s the link they propose:
This connection suggests a blood relationship – that President Tyler and I have common ancestors, Robert Booth and Frances Burgess. However, on my Ancestry tree Robert is not my x great-grandfather, but rather is the father-in-law of my 9th great-granduncle. The connection fails, once again, on the misidentification of my 4th great-grandmother William Walton.
I may have to check my Walton facts again – I have pretty good sources for “my” William Walton, but everyone else disagrees with me. I can access my sources when I’m at the library on Saturday so I’ll double-check everything. I’ll let you know.
But right now, this connection also gets a failing grade.