Category Archives: Genealogy

DNA for Genealogy

I recently had my DNA tested. After a little research, I chose Ancestry.com b/c 1) it’s easy to use; 2)  huge number of family trees to match to (plus historical records to verify and document your tree); 3) they keep the DNA, so as technology improves you may get more results; and 4) the raw DNA data is easily downloaded, then uploaded to other sites with more powerful technical analysis tools.

I’ve uploaded my data to Family Tree DNA (for a moderate fee) and to GEDmatch.com (free). These allow you to match one-to-all (a fishing trip) or one-to-one (to zero in on someone who looks like a genuine match). I am barely beginning to understand it all, but am pleased so far.

Also, my family tree is complete (as far as I know it) on Ancestry and is public.

I have found the tutorials on the site linked below to be very helpful, including Lesson 2 which helps you figure out which company to start with. The answer may depend on where your ancestors were from, as well as what kind of information you are seeking. If you are looking for relatives within the time frame of a typical family tree, don’t skip the autosomal (atDNA). The others will take you back into deep time, but won’t show spouses, other children, cousins, etc., just a son-to-father-to-father chain or a daughter-to-mother-to-mother chain.

On the other hand, for African Americans searching for a white male ancestor, the Y-DNA test may be the most efficient way to start.

GEDmatch.com has a whole page of links for learning, under the title DNA for Dummies.

Are you an American McGruther or McGruder who is not descended from Alexander Magruder?

If you have been trying in vain to figure out how you are descended from Alexander Magruder, take heed!

It has long been believed that every Magruder and McGruder in America is descended from Alexander Magruder, who was brought to Maryland as a prisoner of war in the 1650s. I recently learned from Don McGruther in Scotland that other families came to the U.S. during later waves of immigration. Some of those families arrived via Ireland and their descendants today may think of themselves as Irish American.

Don would like to find any McGruthers, McGruders–or those with other versions of the family name, such as McGrew, McCrew, or McCrue–who came separately to North America. He has compiled extensive information from public records and may be able to help you trace your Scottish ancestors. If you are interested in having your DNA analyzed, it may also be possible to establish how closely you are related to Don’s line, to the Alexander Magruder line, or to others, even without a paper trail.

The spelling of your name might be a clue. In Scotland the name was spelled variously, with McGruther, McGruder, McGrudir, and McGrouther among the most common. Magruder is a uniquely American spelling, adopted from the signature on Alexander’s 1677 will. If your family arrived later, it’s most likely you are using one of the Scottish spellings–or perhaps a different spelling altogether. A few of Alexander’s descendants do use one of the Scottish versions of the name, so to find your line of descent you’ll need more clues than just the spelling…but it is one place to start.

If you know or believe you might be descended from later immigrants, please get in touch. You can write to Don at mcgruther(at)btopenworld.com, or contact me via the Contact tab at the top of this page.

Don’t be a stranger!

African-American Magruders in Washington DC Slavery Petitions, 1862

I’ve just published a page on Af-Am Magruders Named in Washington DC Slavery Petitions, 1862.

All those enslaved in the District of Columbia were emancipated by the Compensated Emancipation Act of 16 April 1862. Slaves were freed immediately and slave holders had 90 days to file a petition for compensation. Though the 3,100 slaves emancipated comprised less than 1% of enslaved people in the U.S., its ultimate impact was far greater, providing a legal framework and precedent on which the Emancipation Proclamation was modeled.

The website Civil War Washington has transcribed and indexed those petitions, with images of the original documents attached–an outstanding resource for any African-American searching for ancestors in the city. Because both owners and the enslaved frequently moved back and forth across city limits, this source also should be searched for those with Maryland or Virginia roots. Most former slaves left their owners immediately and by 1870 70% of the approximately 3,100 emancipated people had left the city. So even if your family has no known connection to DC, you should take a few minutes and search these petitions. The site is well designed and both quick and easy to use.

As always, the best sources for details about enslaved people are those created at moments when it was in the slave owner’s interest to provide a full name and a full description. In this case, owners had to present their slaves for examination, or, if a person had run away, produce witnesses who could testify to the slave’s condition and value. Petitions provide surnames, physical descriptions, and, in many cases, details about the enslaved person’s skills, living situation, and family members. Petitioners also had to say how and from whom they acquired each person–more priceless detail for genealogists.

More than 150 slave holders failed to file a petition. To receive compensation, each had to swear (among other things) loyalty to the Union; so most of those who failed to file are assumed to have been Southern supporters or known sympathizers. Others were residents of Maryland or Virginia, whose slaves had been living–perhaps hired out, perhaps fugitive–in the District. On 12 June 1862 Congress passed a supplemental act allowing slaves whose owners had failed to petition to file petitions for their own freedom. Each of these supplemental petitions includes the individual’s request for freedom plus the testimony of witnesses who could verify ownership, residence in the District, and other details. These “supplemental petitions” were the first instance in which slaves were allowed to petition and give testimony in a Federal court, another legal precedent with far-reaching consequences.

On my page, I list the African-American Magruders I found named in the petitions, with a few notes on their circumstances and possible connections to other families or individuals.

Bernice Bennett’s Geneaology Blog Talk Radio

Yesterday I met an extraordinary woman, Bernice Alexander Bennett, and discovered her Thursday evening Blog Talk Radio program, “Researching at the National Archives & Beyond.” Bernice’s guests are authors and researchers with wide experience. Topics among recent programs include searching incarceration records, genealogy resources in Louisiana, and Freedmen’s Bureau records. Last week’s show, Dr. Maurice Gleeson on “The Irish in the Slave Trade,” addresses both Irish men sent as bound labor to the West Indies and American colonies and Ireland’s participation in the African slave trade, and also debunks a few unfounded beliefs about these histories.

All shows are broadcast live, including call-in and write-in questions and comments from listeners, and all shows are archived–174, so far. Sound quality is not like commercial or public radio, but it’s fairly good. Broadcast is Thursday evening, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time…and one upcoming program features Edward E. Baptist, whose book The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism I am reading now and highly recommend. From now on, you’ll find a link to this program in my blogroll, listed as Bernice Bennett: Genealogy Live Talk Radio.

Another resource: “Our Black Ancestry” networking site

Through fellow members of Coming to the Table, I recently learned of Our Black Ancestry, a site that includes an interactive data base for people researching various African-American surnames. Just click on the Surnames tab at the top to reach directions for how to use the site. Also recommended: post your inquiries on a RootsWeb forum for the county where your ancestors lived. CTTT’s home page reads:

Coming to the Table provides leadership, resources and a supportive environment for all who wish to acknowledge and heal wounds from racism that is rooted in the United States’ history of slavery.

New regional chapters are forming, and a national gathering takes place every year. Assistance can include mentoring and support for descendants of the enslaved and descendants of enslavers who are searching for linked ancestors. For those who can’t travel to a meeting, monthly conference calls on a variety of subjects can help connect you to this community.

Priscilla Gray & Her Descendants, in bondage to Maryland Magruders for 150 years

For at least a year I have been promising to compose a page about Priscilla Gray and her descendants. Priscilla was a mulatta “born of a white woman,” indentured as a servant to Sarah Magruder, widow of Samuel Magruder (d. 1711). Technically, Priscilla was a free woman, because her mother was a free white woman, but long periods of indenture imposed on both mothers and their illegitimate children kept women like Priscilla in virtual slavery for years, sometimes for life.

In 1727 Priscilla was convicted for the same crime her mother had committed–bearing an illegitimate mixed-race child–and sentenced to seven additional years of servitude to Sarah Magruder. Her child was sentenced to 31 years of servitude. It was rare in Prince George’s County, in those years, for a woman to be prosecuted more than once for the crime of “mulatto bastardy.” Priscilla, her daughters, and other women held in bondage by the Magruders and families with whom they intermarried seem to have comprised a majority of the repeat offenders. In all, Priscilla bore seven children and served an additional 35 years of bondage for the “crime” of childbirth. Her daughters–each of whom was held in servitude to the age of 31–suffered the same fate, their terms of service extended with the birth of each child. Some of Priscilla’s daughters and other descendants did manage to survive long enough to obtain their freedom; others not. Slaves named Gray were named and manumitted in Magruder wills right up to 1860, the eve of Emancipation.

There are many gaps in my information on the Gray family. I hope in future to fill some of those gaps; but for now, here is what we know about Priscilla Gray and her legacy. If you are an African American descended from Priscilla, please get in touch, and teach me more about your family’s story.

African American McGruders/Magruders in Frederick County, MD

Pat Magruder has been researching African American descendants in Frederick County, MD, and has found several households, some using the McGruder spelling. She posts her finds on the African American Magruder Descendants Facebook Group, so if you are interested you may want to join that group. Here are her recent posts–

I found a Zeddrick Magruder 73 years old in 1870 and his wife Harriet in Frederick City Maryland African American.

More Mcgruders, Magruders found in Urbana Frederick County , Md. Rueban Mcgruder 1870 census- 25 years old black male. Boarder of Sarah Nailor also black.

Rezin Magruder , white male , age 30 in Frederick City, 1860 census, had an entire African American family named Baton. Charles,his wife Mary and 6 children. Zaddock Mcgruder and wife Priscilla. 1860 census. He was 65 years old. Frederick City. African American. Some of the spelling of Magruder changed to Mcgruder in other census.
 
Hope this info helps someone.

For those interested in the Magruder/MacGregor question…

Please see comments by Jim Magruder on the page (under Alexander) called “Alexander’s Family Tree.” Continuing that conversation, I have updated the page (under Scotland) called “McGruder / McGregor / Campbell / Drummond: Are you confused yet?” I haven’t changed the argument I make there, but I have added more details, some sources, and some clarifications.

To all who still believe, or want to believe, in the Magruder-MacGregor connection: your comments are welcome. More welcome still would be evidence to back up the legend.

Jim Magruder says in his comments that belief in the connection goes back to the 17th c. I know of no evidence before the 19th; and the 19th c. Magruders whose writing I’ve seen, or whose stories have been published, make no claim pointing farther back than the late 18th.

When I first started researching Alexander and all these related histories, a long, long McGruder-MacGregor tradition was exactly what I expected to find…but I didn’t. I read about Alexander’s life, and I read about Clan Gregor, and I couldn’t find any intersections between them. Likewise, when Don McGruther began researching in Scottish historical records, he expected to prove the McGruther-MacGregor connection: instead, he wound up proving that there is no evidence.

So, really, if you have older evidence from Maryland, I can’t wait to see it. And if you have evidence from Scotland, bring it on! We can start the hunt all over again.

More on the Mullin/Mullen Family

I have just finished a major overhaul of my page about the Mullin/Mullen family, whose members were manumitted between 1803 and 1817. The first to gain freedom were “Old Basil” Mullen and his wife Ester or Easter, who were manumitted by the will of Benjamin Hall in 1803. (Benjamin Hall was the father of Eleanor Hall [widow Clark] who married John Smith Magruder.) Basil was a carpenter, and it seems he immediately set about earning money to purchase and manumit his relatives. In 1806, he manumitted his daughter, Sarah Digges, with four of her children, having purchased them from Henry Lowe Hall (son of Benjamin and brother of Eleanor Hall Magruder). In 1810 he purchased another daughter or daughter-in-law, Dolly Mullen, with one of her children, and a son, Basil, who was also a carpenter, with his wife Suck [Sukey] and one of their children. Finally, in 1814, Basil purchased his son Joseph with wife Kate and two daughters from John Smith Magruder, and manumitted them in 1817. Read more about this hard-working and loyal family and the process of “bootstrapping” to gain freedom.