Skeeter's Family: To Cast or Not To Cast?

Right up front I will tell you I have no plans of doing a podcast. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to sit and listen to me ramble incoherently for any length of time. I mean if that’s something that you enjoy, may I recommend listening to any political press conference. And if you’re really masochistic about it, there’s a certain elected person that has to be some kind of idiot-savant in this area. I’m not naming names here…

And here’s the thing. I am not a fan of podcasts or audio books. I just can’t sit and listen to people talk no matter the subject matter. My mind drifts to easily. All I would need is a video of the speaker or speakers. Doesn’t matter if it’s a “zoom” type of broadcast, or some professional thing with a soundtrack and credits rolling at the end. Just something for me to focus on please.

I know lots of folks that love podcasts and audio books. Seems some folks even listen to “Books on Tape” while driving. I would nod off before the first page was finished. Lord forbid it was a long-distance trip. Major carnage would ensure.

In the meantime, I’m down a rabbit hole following a completely unsourced tree that has one of the lines on my mother’s side. While this tree has some good leads on a few generations father back, it gets rather out of hand and claims descent from the Royal Stuart line of Scotland. James II to be honest.

I’ve posted before about how many Americans seem to covet a royal ancestor. Now I’m not saying that I would be upset to find a “royal” in my heritage. Quite the opposite. I’ve already determined that my Campbell line is not descended from the Duke’s line. It’s not causing me to lose any sleep.

I have not checked to see if my DNA, either Y-DNA or atDNA, can be matched with of the markers for the Stuarts or not. I doubt that I will match in anyway. I should mention that this so called connection is via an illegitimate child. So no, I won’t be starting another Jacobite uprising. Besides, I’m not Catholic.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it yet again. Do not trust any genealogy data on the web that is not backed up with good documentation. This rabbit hole I’m in is a prime example. I knew from the beginning that the “connection” to James II would not be valid. Before I go into detail on the errors of this tree, a little background as to why I even went down this rabbit warren.

In this post (and it’s follow up), I mentioned how I had to work through lots of errors, committed by myself and many others, in correcting a family for my great grandmother, Julia “Jewel” Sawyer. Long story short, I corrected her mother’s line from Turbeville to Dozier. This whole story comes from that unsourced tree I found has what appears to be that Dozier and her husband’s family, Flowers, back a few more generations. So I was hoping only to find those few generations back on those two names only. I will mention that the reason this tree is unsourced is it is on FamilyTreeDNA. The trees on that site do not have the usual documentation available. No census records, birth, marriage, or death certificates. All it is for is to let you match your DNA with other folks so you can contact them to share records and hints. So the tree owner is not to be faulted for not having documentation.

Once I looked at the next generations for the Flowers and Dozier lines, and added them to my tree – marked as “UNVERIFIED”, I kept going down the various branches. And that’s where the “gotcha” hit.

My 4^th great grandmother is Martha Flowers. I had that in my tree before this started. But I didn’t have her parents. According to this tree, her parents were Henry Burwell Flowers, Jr. and Rachel Stuart. I have now found documents that give me a good probability of this being the correct parents. So far, so good.

Rachel’s parents would be David Stuart and Elizabeth McQueen. Nothing odd there. David’s parents, David Stuart and Jane Gibbons, and Elizabeth’s were John McQueen and Janet Stewart. Still nothing really odd. Yes, both have a common name in their parentage, but they are spelled differently. I did think that maybe there was some endogamy going on. Endogamy is the custom of marrying only within the limits of a locality, community, tribe, or clan. This is during the period of the American colonies, so the courting/marrying pool would be less than back in home in the kingdom. Still not worried.

But let’s skip back a few generations. All the way back to what would be my 12^th great grandfather (if I believed this tree). He would be Esme Stewart, 1^st Duke of Lennox, 6^th Lord of Aubigny, and his wife Katherine de Balsac. Lord Darnley was a 1^st cousin to Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and was a 1st cousin, once removed (1C1R) of King James VI.

Lord and Lady Stewart had five children but we are interested in just two of the three daughters. Lady Henrietta Stewart married George Gordon, 1^st Marquess of Huntly. Lady Mary Stewart married John Erskine, Earl of Mar. This is all very documented in countless books.

Now it gets interesting. Go down 4 generations from Lady Henrietta, her 2^nd great grandson is Charles Stuart, 6^th Earl of Moray. Go down 3 generations from Lady Mary and you get her great granddaughter Lucy Erskine.

I’m sure you see this coming, but Charles and Lucy married. Of course they did. If I did the generational math correctly (no guarantee) Lady Lucy would be Lord Charles 2^nd great aunt. Honestly, I’m not in the least bit sure what their relationship was. Someone give me an answer in the comments, please?

Here’s the basic tree. Maybe looking at it will make it a tiny bit more understandable.

SVG Family Tree TreeDarnley