jcjv wrote mailto:jcjv@shawneelink.com: > > Carole, I devour all the information i receive regarding our esteemed > family. So you know when the Duttons first entered Southern Illinois? > All I know is that in the mid to late 1800's a circuit riding preacher > by the name of John or James Dutton came to southeastern Illinois and > helped charter two of the areas oldest General Baptist churches(one > named Duttons Chapel). I am hoping to eventually put all this info onto > a great family tree and present it to my grandfather for his 80th > birhtday.Also what is the _earliest_ date recorded by our family? Was it > first in England or earlier as in Viking Days???My family(Carolyn my > wife age 30 Jonathan my son age 11 and Victoria my daughter age 4--with > one more Dutton on the way Feb of 2000) all crowd around the screen to > read these e-mails. Perhaps some day we can converse. Take care and God > Bless!! ------snip---------- .ps have any ideas about the town of Dutton Arkansas??? _______________________ Hi jcjv, Congrats on your millennial baby! These are good questions; however, I do not have the answers. There are quite a few folks on the Dutton list and maybe one of them would be able to help you out with Illinois and Arkansas Duttons. I would suggest posting a note to the list to see if anybody knows of your Duttons and the Illinois circuit preacher. mailto:DUTTON-L@rootsweb.com Regarding the early Duttons and the earliest recorded date from our family. There is no easy, short answer. The professional genealogists would say that the earliest recorded Dutton is Odard who is listed in the Domesday Book, 1086. You can read about Odard on my website-- http://genealogy.dutton.net/gen_perspect/odard.htm >From Paul C. Reed, highly regarded professional genealogist whom I also respect, I have learned that J. Horace Round, published a work (I think in 1909) which reported that the Dutton historical data regarding Odard's lineage in Normandy was fantasy. This was based upon the lack of evidence corroborating Dugdale's Domesticon Anglicanum (i.e., lack of additional external evidence beside Dugdale) and based upon internal evidence (Round decided that the names of Odard and his brothers were Old English and; thus, were not Norman at all). He also pointed out that there was no person "Ivo, Viscount of the Cotentin," and that these brothers were not even in the Domesday Book. To make a long story short, the early "experts" have cut our lineage off, all the newer "expert" genealogists accept that cut without question, and no one looks into whether Round's arguments are solid or not. To me, this is very poor scholarship on the part of all the genealogists--both old and new--with the exception of Dr. Katherine S. B. Keats-Rohan, Director for the Unit for Prosopographical Research, Linacre College, Oxford, and Dr. Elisabeth van Houts. On the other hand, I accept what Dugdale has written and I search for evidence. I go to the library and photocopy every piece of early, pirmary evidence that I can find about the Duttons. AND I find stuff (like, the email I posted yesterday about Geoffrey de Costentyn). Keats-Rohan in her newest book, "Domesday People," 1999, has listed Odard as a Norman and has given us a brother for his son, Hugh, named Gilbert (*I think* it is Gilbert de Lyme). I talked to an expert in etymology who told me the names of Odard and brothers are cognate with Continential German names. I have also read some old charters from Normandy which have an Odard in it, but no genealogical links were written (he might, in fact, be Odard of Vernon, but that's just a guess!). I might never find Odard's father after all the French burned the manuscripts in the Cotentin during the Revolution and we bombed the heck out of the region during WWII. I have a source for what is left of this early information, but I can't get the journal--very frustrating. I'm sure that this is more than what you expected, but there IS no easy answer. There is data going back to Normandy as some of the early Duttons claim it, but the experts deny it and I am still learning how to find it!! Some of it is in British Museum Records--fat chance I'll ever see that!! The earliest Duttons believed that they were from Normandy and were cousins to the Conqueror, but 1000 years later we cannot find the paper trail to prove it (and the paper trail may no longer even exist). You'll just have to condense that somehow for your grandfather. Sorry, this is so long. Carole