Miscellaneous McAtee Tree Lines

Following are lines in my family tree that I don't have a large enough story about to make a separate document for.

Parrishes of Crawford County Arkansas

Sarah Isabelle Parrish was my great-great-grandmother. She was born in Franklin County Arkansas and wed William Lewis Griffin in Crawford County. Her father was John Thomas Parrish, born 1835 in Wake County North Carolina. Sarah's elder sibling was born in Missouri in 1866. John was in Henry County Tennessee in 1860. I've found no record if he served in the Civil War, but the family was clearly on the move at that time. It's possible that he even was a Union soldier. His father's name was also John Thomas, born 1808 in Person County North Carolina. John Sr's wife was Winnie Todd. She was born seven years before Mary Ann Todd, who was Abraham Lincoln's wife. I expect that Winnie and Mary were cousins, but not particularly close ones. Their common ancestor may have been born in England prior to immigrations. John Sr's father was Abel, born 1777 in Granville County North Carolina. The family was in North Carolina in 1812, but I've found no record of military service for Abel. His father was John, born 1758 in Goochland County Virginia. As fits with the story here, I don't know if John served in the Revolutionary War.

John's father was Brisco "Brissy" Parrish, born 1715 in New Kent County Virginia. Brissy's father was John Harrison Parrish, born 1694 in Charles City County Virginia. John's father was Humphrey, born 1668 in Charles City. The exact identity of Humphrey's father isn't certain, but all Parrish roads seem to lead to Edward who was born around 1600 in Yorkshire England. He died in Maryland, so it's odd if he was the origin of a line that went to Virginia in the next generation. But we know from our Hollis line that Virginia settlers ended up in territory later claimed by Maryland and it was a source of conflict between the Protestants and Catholics (not that they needed another excuse to fight back then).

The Parrish surname came from England either way. Our Parrish line is of the R-M269 haplogroup. The name Parrish actually originates in French Paris, which shifted over time to mimic the English religious word parish. Specifically, the name came from the Normans and seems to firmly place the arrival of our line in England after 1066AD. Most likely the progenitor of our line was an aristocrat from Paris. The name Parisi was actually in England around 400BC, as it was the name of a Celtic tribe in Gaul that was also the origin of the name of the city of Paris. But I expect that no descendant of that tribe used the name Parrish by the time the Normans arrived. It's still possible that our man from Paris descended directly from the Parisi.

Medders of Titus County Texas

Nancy Medders was my great-great-grandmother. She was born in Georgia and wed John Elarson Hollis and they later moved to Titus County. The first thing to remark about this line is the spelling of the name. It came from Meadors, and Medders quite evidently is a southern phonetic. But it was spelled that way in documents and on tombstones, so it became official. Meadors itself probably originated from Meadows, so change seems to be the norm for this line. Nancy's father was Reuben Ryals Medders, born 1805 in Anson County North Carolina. Reuben's father was William, born 1770 in Anson. William took the family to Georgia by 1820. William's father was Jason Meadors, born 1729 in Essex County Virginia. Jason's father was also Jason, but the last name seemed to be form Meador, making a similar 's' ending shift as our Morris line did around that time. He was born in 1704 in Essex. Sr's father was John, born 1658. It was the same location, but at that time was called Rappahannock County.

Getting our line to this point with only documentation was quite a challenge and took many years, due in large degree to the shifting form of the name. I didn't have confidence in it until ThruLines agreed with it, up to John. And it happens that John's father is documented as Thomas, born 1636. Our line gets foggy here again, which means it was right around the point of immigration. One possible patriarch is Ambrose Meador who immigrated the same year. But another suggested line traces all the way back to the Normans. I won't name all of them, as we can't know they're ours, but along the way is a William Meadowe of Suffolk England born 1504, and at the origin is an Edmund de Wytnesham born 1090. His place of birth is spelled Witnesham today, which means "Witta's meadow".



See a photo above of a church in Witnesham, that stood in the 16th century. Edmund's son was called Robert de Medewe. It's at least interesting to see what might have been the origin of the name. The Y-DNA of our line isn't certain, but the most likely possibility is R-L21 which is another Celtic culture that branched off R-M269 around modern Bavaria. What's curious about that is it's much more common in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland than England. It's not impossible that they migrated directly to England several thousand years ago, but they may have moved there after initially settling in Wales.

Holsonbacks of Logan County Kentucky

Catherine Holsonback was my fourth great-grandmother. She was born in Georgia and wed John Quincy Adams Smith. He obviously was named after John Quincy Adams. I expect that he was related (maybe closely) to John Quincy Adams's wife, Abigail Smith. Our JQA's daughter with Catherine was Narcissa Catherine Smith, who wed Joseph Lafayette Hardcastle. Narcissa (not surprisingly) didn't like her name, and went by "Bi" as in the second Catherine after her mother. Bi Hardcastle's final resting place was Atoka Oklahoma. Catherine Holsonback's father was Lewis D. A cousin claimed the D stood for Delano, according to a family Bible. But Lewis's grandfather was acquainted with a man named Matthew Devore, and Lewis's father was Matthew D. To top it off, a Lewis D who descended from Lewis was called Lewis Devore in his obituary. Therefore I'm certain that Catherine's father was Lewis Devore Holsonback and his father was Matthew Devore Holsonback.

I determined that Matthew was Lewis's father by census analysis, and ThruLines now supports it. Lewis was born in 1791 in Edgefield County South Carolina. The family moved to Coffee County Tennessee on its way in Catherine's generation to Kentucky. Matthew was born in 1766 in the Ninety Six District of South Carolina. Both Matthew and Lewis moved to Georgia where Lewis raised his family, which helped in the census analysis to connect them. Matthew's father was Abraham, born 1741 in Pennsylvania. Abraham's father was Derrick, who immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1738. He followed as the next generation went to North Carolina. Abraham went from there to become the South Carolina family patriarch.

Derrick immigrated from the Rhineland of what was then called the Holy Roman Empire and would eventually be Germany. His name had been Johannes Diterich Helsenbeck. His father had the same name, and his grandfather was Johann Jurgen Halsenbach. The Rhineland is in the west of Germany, in what was also called the Palatinate. Many Germans immigrated to America from there, including other lines of our family tree. The reason as I understand it was instability over conflict with France and shifting borders over the previous centuries.

When I researched this line I heard of male descendants believing it came to the Rhineland from eastern Europe. I wondered about that, and now that I've looked at the Y-DNA of the line I understand. Their haplogroup is R-M198, which is a part of R1a, the primary makeup of Eastern Europeans and Russians. See the "heat map" below of R-M198 (the red shading). Notice first that it's rare in the Rhineland. There is a concentration on the east side of Germany around Berlin. Maybe the Halsenbachs had been there, but either way they came to the Rhineland from points east.


Distribution of haplogroup R-M198

Baileys of Carroll County Georgia

Elizabeth Bailey was my fourth great-grandmother. She wed William Medders in North Carolina. What's interesting about our Bailey line is that Elizabeth's great-grandmother is named Thamar Suman in Ancestry.com member trees. I originally assumed that Suman is South Asian, i.e. from India. She's claimed to have been born in 17th century North Carolina. The reason why this means anything is that my mom's and her mom's initial Ancestry.com ethnicity estimate from their DNA tests had measureable amounts of South Asian reported. That assertion has since disappeared with updates to those estimates. Thamar Suman was my grandmother's fifth great-grandmother, which would've fit with the original ethnicity estimate. I've done a fair amount of research on this, and I even visited Elizabeth City North Carolina where she was supposed to have lived. It seemed impossible that a South Asian woman could've been born so early in North Carolina. And if she was born there, her parents had to have been there. But I've come to the firm conclusion that she was English. I wondered if Suman was a mistransciption of Sherman, or something like that. But it turns out that Suman is actually a very old English name that means seaman. And though Thamar sounds exotic, it's actually a biblical name that's fallen out of fashion. I've never seen anyone else with that name, so it probably was already out of fashion in the 17th century. Even though Thamar has proved to be less interesting than we hoped, the Baileys are still an interesting part of our ancestry, as they were very early settlers of North Carolina, before Elizabeth City was even established. Thamar apparently was a widow when she wed David Bailey, and his will listed goods he'd acquired from her. There quite likely was a lack of women at the time, which is why a young man would be in a position for his first wife to be a widow.

Paces of Jamestown

A few of our most central paternal lines were in very early Virginia, but none made a direct connection to Jamestown. I suspect that we have multiple connections to children who were born in Jamestown, since so much of our family tree went through Virginia before the Revolution. But most will probably never be known due to a lack of documentation of women before 1850, let alone the 17th century. Only one of those lines is documented, because it leads to one of the notable men of the first English colony.

Elizabeth Parris Pace was the grandmother of Mary Elizabeth Tapp. She was born in Virginia and wed John Casey. Her forefathers were Barnabas, Richard, Richard, Richard, George, and Richard Pace. The last was the immigrant from England to Jamestown. George was born there. Richard Pace is famous for having warned Jamestown of the impending massacre of 1622. Pace established a plantation that he called Pace's Paines. See the photo below of the sign at the site of his plantation today, which tells the full tale.

Additional Surnames in our Tree

Here are more ancestors whose lines I haven't fully analyzed.

Third great-grandmother maiden names:
Evans (Welsh), Carter (Irish), Green (English), Martindale (English), Smith (English), Harris (English)

Fourth great-grandmother maiden names:
Brown (English), Hudgens (English), Wade (English), Casey (Irish), Haney (English), Todd (English), Trimm (Irish), Knighton (English), Wheless (English), Young (German), Taylor (English), Williams (English), Wolff (German)

Fifth great-grandmother maiden names:
Rowland (English), Clark (English), Pennington (English), Bach (German), Powell (Welsh), Mullis (English), Terry (English), Harmon (German), Baldwin (English), Hagan (Irish), Williford (English), Tindal (Irish), Mobley (English), Lamb (English), Merrick (Welsh), Brandon (English), Morris (English), Glover (English), Jones (Welsh), Doster (German)

There are many more surnames beyond fifth great-grandparents that I've not listed.