At 11:59 PM 07/25/2002 -0400, Depaine@aol.com wrote: >Please excuse me for hitting the send button twice before I even wrote the >message...it's late and I guess I'm sleepy!! Anyway, I just wanted to reply >to the letter about Thomas and Anica.....I was definely quoting what I read >in Col. Payne's papers.....Thomas' family is an ancillary line about which I >knew almost nothing before I saw the papers. I do think you should consider >how close Annica and Yanica sound, and remember how frequently in those days >people were likely to spell phonetically. I am sure many people had no idea >at all how their names were spelled. I don't mean to say that they were the >same woman, but I don't think you should rule it out entirely. Elaine > I agree Elaine. Not simply because of the spelling of the name, but for several other reasons as well. First, there are no other known birth, marriage or death records to indicate that there had been any other woman by the name- Other than the daughter of Nathaniel Ayers and her niece by the same name as found in the will of her brother. Second, the mother of Thomas Payne, Elizabeth Poindexter [whose family hailed from Jersey, Channel Islands, where they were associated with the Payn's of Lineage 1], married 2ndly Ruel Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury is not a common surname. For example, in all of the known Virginia land patents between 1623 and 1695 the name appears only 1 time (as John Shrowsberry) [see Cavaliers and Pioneers, vol. II]. Members of our Lineage 2 are known to have named their children Shrewsbury and Poindexter. [for a list of all the names associated with our two primary Lineages identified in the DNA testing, see the updated chart at http://papayne.rootsweb.com/dna-project] Third, those in Lineage 2 are known to have been kinsmen and friends of the Ayers family to which Yannaka Ayers belonged. Fourth, there are also records indicating that members of Lineage 2 had associated with other families connected to Lineage 1 in our DNA testing [such as Sturman and Woodson]. I am attempting to identify all of those connections now- with the help of our Lineage 2 participants. All of these facts add up to indicate, that in all probability, our members of Lineage 2 descended from William Payne and Elizabeth Poindexter. This is now subject of some debate among those in Lineage 2 and I get the feeling that although they also feel there is a connection here, they are not yet willing to draw a conclusion as they have yet to find primary recrods to confirm the relationship. That is my understanding of the situation anyway. I respect their commitment and desire to have the proof they are looking to find, but I am personally happy to accept the weight of the evidence in the meantime as proof enough. Of course that is only my feeling- and I certainly don't expect anyone to conform to my way of thinking on the matter. Still, even with my feeling, it doesn't solve how they descend from William and Elizabeth, and that is something of far greater importance to them than to me. My interest is satisfied by just knowing that the relationship to William Payne and Elizabeth Poindexter exists. Now you seem to be indicating that information you found in Charlottesville in Brooke's files confirms a relationship between William Payne (who married Elizabeth Poindexter) [likely a member of Lineage 2] and the immigrant John Payne [likely a member of Lineage 1]. This goes along with my suspicion that William descended from the immigrant John's son, Richard Payne, through Richard's son John (wife Millicent), and his son, John, Jr. (wife Elizabeth Aubrey). But this causes a problem that I will address in a moment. In a similiar situation, the immigrant John Payne is believed to be a member of our Lineage 1 due to the fact that the DNA testing shows that George Payne, who married Mary Woodson, belongs within Lineage 1, and George is believed to descend from the immigrant John. Several souces, such as "Virginia Genealogies," have drawn this conclusion, and I tend to agree with them in part because George had married a Woodson, and this family seems to have had connections with Lineage 2 after they all had left Virginia. Other reasons for my belief are the fact that Lucy Payne, a descendant of George, married Maj. George Steptoe Washington, whose ancestors had lived in Westmoreland County near the family of John Payne, and as "Virginia Genealogies" points out, it was unusual among Goochland County families to marry families from the Northern Neck as these Paynes did. Another, and in my opinion, a very strong indicator of this relationship between George and the immigrant John, is that George's family became extremely close with the Dandridge and Spotswood families. This is readily apparent by looking at the names of the children of Archer Payne- who gave his children those names. Now, Mary Dandridge (d. 1837), daughter of Nathaniel West Dandridge, Jr., and Sarah Watson [another Lineage 1 connected surname], married Richard Ellis, who had been first an apprentice and eventual partner of William Wirt. I should not have to elaborate on the relationship between the Paynes of Westmoreland County with this Wirt family- several members of which are buried in the Payne family cemetery at "Red House," in that county. As i've said before and will continue to say- we once went on the premise that these branches of the Payne family were unrelated. Now we are discovering that this was an incorrect presumption. We now have DNA proof to support what the records have been trying to tell us . But here is the problem with this scenario- If we conclude that the immigrant John Payne was a member of Lineage 1 (as it would appear); and that William Payne (who married Elizabeth Poindexter) descended from John of Lineage 1 through his son Richard (or any other son), then we must now explain why the DNA of Lineage 2, who in all probability descend from William and Elizabeth, does not match the DNA of Lineage 1 as we should expect. I feel that the record evidence supports the idea that William Payne descended from the immigrant John. But if this is true, then a non-paternity event (such as adoption or illegitimacy) would necessarily have to have occurred sometime between William Payne and the birth of the earliest ancestor among our participants in Lineage 2. This is undoubtedly going to cause many to conclude that there must not have been a relationship between Lineage 1 and 2. For this, we would have to conclude that either Lineage 2 did not descend from William and Elizabeth (which I find highly unlikely) or that William Payne did not descend from the immigrant John Payne. Of course, another explanation would be that George Payne (who married Mary Woodson) did not descend from John Payne, and therefore he was not a member of Lineage 1, leaving him open as a possible member of Lineage 2. Unfortunately, we won't know for sure until known descendants of the immigrant John Payne come forward to be tested. That would surely clear up some of these problems. To summarize, we have two or three possible scenarios to follow as I see it. The first round of DNA testing has been helpful to bring these to light for us, but ultimately, the picture cannot become any clearer until we conduct further DNA testing on descendants of Lineage 1 and 2, and those as yet undefined ancestors whose descendants have not been tested. (With or) Without that testing, we will continue to hunt for records to establish the genealogy, but I am not very hopeful that with that method alone we will ever find an answer. After all, it has been 300 years already and no records have surfaced. To me, our best (and only other) chance to find the answers while we're digging for those records is through the DNA testing. All we need are the participants. Regards, Patrick