Sorting out the Family
Origins of the John Todds of KY
John Todd b
1746 VA d 1829 TN
John Todd b
1750 PA d 1813 Shelby Co, KY)
John Todd b
1750 PA d 1782 Blue Licks, KY
By Richard McMurtry January 2003, Revised July 2004,
May 2005, March 2006
Introduction
The
three John Todds above appear in early
The
identity of
The
John Todd 1746-1829 has been thought
by some family historians to be the son of Andrew Todd d 1791 of Chester Co.
and
The
John Todd 1750-1813 has been previously
identified as a son of Samuel Todd, and grandson of Robert Todd of Philadelphia
Co., PA. However, recent research suggests that it is more likely that he was the
son of Andrew Todd d 1791.
Background
The
agreed chronologies of the two John Todds are:
John
Todd 1746-1829
John
had a son born in Virginia in 1769 and came to Lincoln Co, KY by 1780, settling
initially in the vicinity of McMurtry’s Station at the confluence of the Dix
River and Kentucky River. By 1782, he
was surveying land in the portion of
John
Todd 1750-1813
John
Todd married Mary Ruble and had his first children born in
Possible
Connections
It
is known that in 1772, John Todd (with wife Mary) in
It
is known that Andrew Todd d 1791 had a son John who was alive in 1799 and had
12 children of which one was married.
The
key evidence in distinguishing the identities of the two latter John Todds
comes from five sources:
1. Feb 1784 Letter of Levi Todd
to John McCulloch in which he states that his cousin-John Todd, brother-in-law
to John McCulloh, was planning to come to Kentucky in the spring but Levi
thought it was too late to get a grant and John would have to settle for buying
land from a settler which was not likely to be very profitable.
2. 1829 will of John Todd
(1746-1829) that indicates that Robert and Ebenezer McEwen are his relatives.
3. 1799 Letter from Andrew Todd
son of Andrew Todd d 1791 to John McCulloh in which he stated he had just seen
his brother John whom he hadn't seen in 23 years and who had 12 children, one
of whom was married.
4. 1772 deed in
5. Bedford Co. PA records show
a John Todd living in the same township 1776-1784 as William Todd, son of
Andrew Todd d 1791
6. 1774 tax list for
7. Tax Lists from All of
This
essay will show that:
Identifying John Todd (1746-1829)
The Levi Todd 1784 Letter Evidence
The
discussion trying to identify the family connection of John Todd (1746-1829)
initially focused on one phrase in Levi Todd’s
“- I have heard Cousin
John your Brother in Law will arrive in the Spring
tis a pity he has lost this year past as he intends
to
become a Settler…”
This
indeed is a critical phrase since it documents that John Todd son of Andrew
Todd had not yet become a settler.
One
interpretation of this is that this applies to John Todd (1746-1829). This interpretation acknowledges that this
John Todd was in
Another
interpretation - contrary to the one above - is that the letter could not apply to John Todd (1746-1829)
because this John Todd (1746-1829) had
filed surveys for 850 acres of land and was living in Kentucky at least by 1782
two years before the letter was written.
The
correct interpretation can not be determined by looking only at the phrase
quoted. However, let us look at the
remainder of the phrase:
“I have heard Cousin
John your Brother in Law will arrive in the Spring
tis a pity he has lost this year past as he intends
to
become a Settler, the Chance of Land is now very
bad any other way than by Purchase from Individuals
the Industrious may still be repaid for trouble and
expense & but little more”
What
we see here is that Levi is lamenting that John has “lost this year” . He specifically says: “tis a pity he has lost
this year past”. Levi goes on to explain
the reason he thinks it is a pity by saying that it is very difficult to get
land any other way than by purchase.
Levi goes on to clarify why purchase from individuals is a problem – he
explains that one may “industriously” work land acquired “from individuals” but
they may only be able to get their investment out of the land but not make
profits. – specifically he says: “the Industrious may still be repaid for
trouble and expense & but little more.”
He makes clear that timing is the issue here. He says “the Chance of land is now very bad”
and implies that the past year has seen the situation get “very bad”.
Earlier
in the letter he makes clear that the situation in
“Emigrations into this Country from
been very great since last Summer Our number since
then has nearly doubled..”.
We
can better understand why the past year was seen as so critical by Levi by
looking at the surveys that the various Todd family members filed in the period
1780-1785.
|
|
1780 |
1781 |
Dec 1782 to
Dec 1783 |
1784 |
1785 |
|
Levi Todd |
|
|
2600 acres
(6) |
|
3500 ac (3) |
|
Samuel Todd |
|
400 ac (1) |
100 ac (1) |
|
|
|
John Todd |
|
|
850 ac (3) |
|
500 ac (1) |
|
Rev John Todd & Robert
Todd |
|
|
2810 ac (6) |
|
1000 ac (1) |
|
Robert Todd |
200 ac (1) |
|
1328 ac (4) |
3827 ac (6) |
11,359 (7) |
What
we see in the table is that 1783 was a big year of filing surveys for all the
Todds.
Note: Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of
grants corresponding to the acreage listed.
When
Levi Todd wrote his letter in Feb 1784 and said that it was a pity that John
Todd had “lost the past year”, he had during the past year filed surveys for
2600 acres of land with 6 surveys. He
saw the year before he wrote the letter (the “year past”) as the year of
opportunity and seemed to be saying that those who arrived after might not be
able to get grants. Indeed, for Levi, he
did not enter any other surveys until 1785.
However,
he would not have characterized John Todd 1746-1829 as having “lost the past
year” in the sense of losing the opportunity to get grants, because John Todd
had, like Levi, been busy filing surveys and had filed 3 surveys for 850
acres. It would not make any sense to
say this John Todd had lost the opportunity to get land by any other means than
purchase. The situation did not warrant
Levi feeling pity towards John Todd (1746-1829) with respect to acquiring land
– John was on the verge of acquiring 850 acres!
There
is one other clue in the 1784 letter that Levi was referring to a different
John Todd. The letter begins by saying “I
have heard Cousin John your Brother in Law will arrive in the Spring”. The phrase “I have heard” implies that Levi did not have direct
knowledge of John’s plans, but rather had been told of John’s plans by a third
party. There would have been no reason
to use such a phrase for John Todd (1746-1829).
We know that John Todd (1746-1829) was in fairly close contact with Levi
Todd because John’s 14 year old son Joseph was a marker on one of Levi’s
surveys in 1783. Levi would have known
directly of John’s plans and would not have had to rely on a third party to
have told him of John’s plans. The John
Todd that Levi is referring to appears to have been someone not in close
contact with him and hence a John Todd other than John Todd (1746-1829).
In
sum, John Todd (1746-1829) was not the son of Andrew Todd referred to in Levi
Todd’s letter of 1784.
So,
if John Todd (1746-1829) was not the son of Andrew Todd, who was he?
The 1829 Will Evidence
The
most important clue to this lies in John’s will proved 1830 in
“I hereby make my relation Robert H. McEwen
sole executor”
He
also refers to Ebenezer McEwen as “my relation”. These references appear to be
to Robert Houston McEwen and Ebenezer McEwen sons of Alexander McEwen and
Margaret Houston (born
This
connection is supported by the fact that John’s oldest son Joseph Todd was born
in VA in 1769. The birth place comes
from the 1880 census for Joseph’s son David which indicates David’s father was
from
In
By these two pieces of
evidence, we have proven that the John Todd 1746-1829 was NOT the son of Andrew
Todd d 1791, but rather was closely related to William Todd of Philadelphia and
August/Bedford Co, VA.
Rockbridge/Bedford
Co
If
we look in the Augusta/Botetourt/Rockbridge County area and the
These
four Todds can be identified. From other
research (See essay on Family of William Todd), we know that two of them are or
probably are sons of William Todd of Philadelphia & VA. Samuel Todd is identified as son of William
in an 1801 court deposition. James Todd buys
land in
The
other two, William and John, are also probably sons of William. The clue to the identity of William and John
comes from
There
is also a clue in these records that suggests that William Todd the seller had
gone back to the
So,
we have shown that:
So,
if John Todd (1746-1829) is not the son of Andrew Todd, who is?
Identifying John Todd son of Andrew Todd d 1791
We
do not have conclusive evidence for identifying Andrew Todd’s son John. However, strong circumstantial evidence
points to John Todd (1750-1813) of
The
1799 Andrew Todd Letter Evidence
The
key piece of evidence is the letter written in 1799 by Dr Andrew Todd son of
Andrew Todd d 1791.
Letter of Andrew Todd to John
McCulloh,
“…
No account from Brother Robt since my last - I have also had the pleasure of
seeing Brother John since my last whome I had not seen for 23 years his Wife
was with him. They are both well,
Brother in particular - he was very healthy & looked well, he has 12 living
children one of whom is married.
If
Andrew saw his brother in
1795
Name County Assumed Identity
John
Todd Fayette John Todd 1746 VA-1829
John
Todd Mercer John Todd 1746 VA-1829
John
Todd
John
Todd Bourbon John Todd 1740 MD-1807
John
Todd, Jr Bourbon John Todd 1765 MD-1828
1800
As
listed in tax lists Assumed
Identity
John
Todd Fayette John Todd 1746VA -1829
John
Todd Jessamine John Todd 1746 VA-1829
John
Todd
John
Todd Bourbon John Todd 1740 MD-1807
John
Todd, Jr Bourbon John Todd 1765 MD-1828
John
Todd
In
1795, there are 5 John Todd entries in the KY tax lists. The last two (in
In
1800, there are 6 John Todd entries. The
new one – in
More
importantly, the John Todd of
The
above deduction is based on the assumption that John Todd was in
Responding
to this requires going back to look at the
The
The evidence in
Putting
all this evidence together indicates that John Todd of Shelby Co was the son of
Andrew d 1791, that he was speculating for land in 1773 and 1774 on the PA
frontier, that he was living in Chester Co in 1774 as a single man, that he
moved to Bedford Co by 1776, that he was no longer single in 1776 and that he left
Bedford Co about 1784 and went to Kentucky.
Let’s
look at each piece of evidence in detail:
The
1774 East Whiteland,
There
are only two Todds in
I
see no reason to not assume that this John of the 1774 tax lists was Andrew’s
son.
One
might ask the question: Could John, the
son of Andrew, have gone to
The
answer would be “no, not likely”. The
only other John Todd of families in the area and of age would be John Todd
1750-1782, son of David Todd 1724-1785 of
So,
unless a totally unknown John Todd from a totally unrelated family appeared and
disappeared from
This
marital status is a significant piece of information. It tells us that John, son of Andrew d 1791,
could not be John Todd 1746-1829 because the latter John had a son born in1769. It also tells us that when we look for John
Todd, son of Andrew d 1791, in later records, we need to look for someone whose
first child was born after 1774.
The
Tax Lists of All
A
compilation was made of ALL the Todd entries in ALL the tax lists in ALL the
counties of Pennsylvania as published in the Pennsylvania Archives to determine
how many John Todds appeared in the tax lists in the 1776-1782 period and that
therefore could correspond to John Todd of Shelby County Kentucky who had been
living in Pennsylvania in 1776, 1778 and 1782.
We
found John Todd of
Therefore,
we conclude that the evidence shows that John Todd of
The
question then becomes: If John Todd of
The
connection between William and John Todd
There
are two pieces of evidence that William Todd, known to be a son of Andrew, and
John Todd continued to be geographically associated with each other on the
In
the first instance, we know that William and John were sons of Andrew; in the
second instance, we know that William was son of Andrew and assume that John
continued to associate with his brother William.
In
the first instance, we know John and William “of
We
are left with Andrew Todd d 1791 whose sons were John, William, Andrew and
Robert. Also, Andrew Porter who was
associated with these land dealings was the husband of the step-daughter of
Andrew Todd d 1791 and was associated with Andrew Todd’s business dealings for
many years.
All
the evidence in
In
the second instance, we know from family tradition reported by John McFarland
in 1833 that Andrew Todd d 1791 went to live with his son William in
This
movement is attested to in the 1833 manuscript of John McFarland, son of Arthur
McFarland and Elizabeth Todd, and grandson of Robert Todd 1697-1775 who
stated:
“Andrew
remained in
The
presence of John Todd arriving at the same time in
We
conclude that this is sufficient circumstantial evidence to show that John Todd
of
Putting
this all together gives us: John Todd a
single man in
This
is all that needs to be said to prove the parentage of John Todd of Shelby
County; however, there still remains the question of how on earth did John Todd
wed Mary Ruble in 1775 when there were no Rubles in either Chester or Bedford
County. To shed light on this, we must
turn to
The
Jefferson Co KY and the John Gregg – Ruble Connection Evidence
John
Todd was connected with a John Gregg in
The
results of this investigation are described in more detail in another
essay. However, the short story is that
John Gregg lived in 1765-1766 in Frederick County, Virginia only four miles
from the Ruble family around the time he married and this John Gregg appears to
be the John Gregg who lived in Bedford County only four miles from John Todd
and who was so closely involved with John Todd in Jefferson County, Kentucky.
Let
us review the information we have about these connections in
We
first find John Todd in the
Of
the seven John Todds associated with early
It
is clear that these entries do not refer to:
Looking
back to
Another
curious aspect of the John Todd-John Gregg connection is that they both have a
connection to Frederick Co, VA. John
Todd’s daughter married Jacob Ruble, a son of David Ruble who was raised in
Frederick Co, VA where the Rubles settled about 1744 having moved from Bucks
Co.,
More
importantly, when John Gregg purchased land in
At
last, we have a person who was connected to both
We
have hypothesized that John Gregg married the widow of John Ruble reportedly
died prior to 1762 and brought his wife’s daughter Mary Ruble with him to
The
only other Ruble connection we know of is even more tenuous. There are several Ruble/Ruppel families in
the Philadelphia/Berks County area around the time of Mary’s birth (ca
1750). One of these Ruble families
included a Barbara Ruble who married Conrad Aker ca 1775. Conrad Aker was in
I
favor the John Gregg Frederick County-Bedford County connection as the basis
for more research.
The
DNA Evidence
DNA evidence supports the
conclusions above relative to the parentage of John Todd 1750-1813 and John
Todd 1746-1829.
DNA testing supports the
assertion that John Todd 1750-1813 was the son of Andrew Todd d 1791 and that
John Todd 1746-1829 was more closely related William Todd d 1760-70 or Robert
Todd 1697-1775.
DNA testing has been used in
family history surname projects because two modern day descendants of the same
17th century ancestor will tend to have virtually identical or near
identical male DNA. Hence if two
individuals of the same surname have very different DNA, then they are likely
not related.
DNA testing has been done on
descendants of the two John Todds - John Todd 1746-1829 and John Todd 1750-1813
as well as descendants of the three patriarchs - Robert Todd 1697-1775, Andrew Todd d 1791,
William Todd abt 1700-1760/70.
The results show that all
three of the patriarch Todds are closely related. Normally, this would make it very difficult
to tell whether Andrew or William was the father of a particular John Todd
because all branches of the family would have almost identical DNA. But luckily there is a detectable difference
between the lines. The key genetic
marker (marker 461) in the DNA pattern of two descendants of John Todd
1750-1813 matches two descendants of Andrew Todd d 1791 through the line of
Andrew’s son Robert Todd 1762-1828.
This supports the contention that John Todd 1750-1813 was the son of
Andrew Todd d 1791. This marker does not
match the DNA of any of the 5 descendants of John Todd 1746-1829 (from both
Joseph b 1769 line and John b 1770/80 line) suggesting that John 1746-1829 was
not a son of Andrew d 1791.
Furthermore, the key genetic
marker in the DNA pattern for five descendants of John Todd 1746-1829 matches
the DNA of two descendants of William
Todd d 1760/70 through the lines of his sons Samuel Todd 1739-1813 and Low Todd
1723-1792 and matches a descendant of Robert Todd 1697-1775. This supports the hypothesis that John Todd
1746-1829 was the son (or grandson) of William Todd d 1760/70 because Robert
Todd 1697-1775 did not have a son or grandson John Todd that is not accounted
for and since William Todd did have a son (or possibly grandson) named John
Todd of the right age to be John Todd 1746-1829.
The data suggests that there
was a genetic mutation in the generation of Andrew Todd d 1791 and that his
descendants carried this genetic marker but the descendants of William and
Robert Todd carried the value of the genetic marker characteristic of the rest
of the family.
See attached chart showing
the families tested and the pattern of values for the key genetic marker.
FUTURE RESEARCH
1.
For proving that John Todd son of Andrew was the John Todd who married
Mary Ruble
a. Records of John Gregg in
b. Records of Ruble, Gregg in
c. Reocrds of Ruble family in
Bedford and Somerset Co PA
d. Records of Ruble in Berks
Co. PA
2.
For proving the John Todd (1746-1829) was son of William, the only
thing I can think of is to go through the
Attachments:
Appendices
1.
2. Todd DNA results