This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: waroper Surnames: Roper, Samuel Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.roper/1896.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: Frank: This seems to me to be good, sound genealogical analysis! You and Bonnie SAMUEL are to be applauded for your continuing advances in constructing a more correct and defensible genealogy of the Caswell ROPER families!! I would add several additional points in support of your ascription. * First, the Census data we have identified for John ROPER seems to show: John ROPER: 0 - 0 - 3 - 0 - 1 -- 1 - 1 - 1 - 0 - 1 -- 0 - 2 [Caswell, NC 1800] John ROPER: 0 - 1 - 0 - 0 - 1 -- 1 - 0 - 2 - 0 - 1 -- 0 - ? [Caswell, NC 1810] The former record seems to show four females in John ROPER's household. One is under age 10 (b abt 1791-1800); one is age 10 to 15 (b abt 1785-90), one is age 16 to 25 (b abt 1775-84) and one, presumably John ROPER's wife, is age 45 or more (b bef 1756). The youngest daughter is therefore of the correct age to be the Jane F. ROPER who married Herndon SAMUEL in 1815. Similarly, in 1810 John ROPER has two females age 16 to 25 (b abt 1785-94) residing within his household. Both of these females are consistent with the age shown for Jane F. Roper SAMUELS (b abt 1793 - VA) in the 1860 Census record. Thus, the extant Census data is CONSISTENT with your suggested ascription. * As I have suggested in previous posts, it is also important to consider other alternative ascriptions. The two most obvious alternative possibilities are that Jane F. ROPER was a daughter of William ROPER and Keziah YATES, what seems to have been the widespread ascription despite a complete lack of supporting evidence, and that she might have been a daughter of Revolutionary War Veteran James ROPER (b abt 1756-60, d 18 Nov 1835 - Simpson, KY). The core trouble with ascribing Jane as a child of William and Keziah is that it requires us to assume a LOT of facts for which there is simply NO EVIDENCE. Although we KNOW that William ROPER married Keziah YATES, we seem to only have a Tax record from 1790 rather than a Census record and there is NO KNOWN evidence that this couple had ANY CHILDREN AT ALL. There are also some indications that Keziah may have died (she is NOT uniformly shown on the deed records of William's conveyances). William and Keziah married in 1781 so we must ASSUME that Keziah survived twelve years of child birth. Moreover, there ARE extant Census records for Caswell County in both 1800 and 1810 and William ROPER is NOT enumerated in either. Thus, the natural inference is that William ROPER has either died or moved away. So, presupposing that Jane F. ROPER WAS William ROPER's daughter, we must next ASSUME that she RETURNED to Caswell, NC, to marry. This might be a minor assumption if she was KNOWN to have relocated nearby OR if she had very recently lived in Caswell. For example, if we KNEW that Jane live with William in 1810 and then MOVED AWAY, before 1815, the idea that she might return to marry some childhood "sweetheart" doesn't seem too far fetched. But if Jane moved away BEFORE 1800 when she was age 7 or less, the idea that she might return to Caswell, NC, to marry, particularly if she lived at some distance, begins to stretch credulity. The bottom line is that there is NO COMPELLING EVIDENCE which would support an ascription of Jane as William ROPER's daughter EVEN if William ROPER and Keziah YATES were both still living in 1793, which is uncertain. * The case AGAINST Jane being James ROPER's daughter is every bit as compelling. We KNOW from James ROPER's Pension Application that he moved from Caswell about 1799 and I believe that the Chester, SC, Census record for him in 1800 is reasonably conclusively his, despite some irregularities with the first letter of the surname. Here is what we understand to be James ROPER's migrations: Caswell, NC: Before 1799 Chester, SC: 1799-1805 Logan, KY: 1805-1819 Simpson, KY: 1819-1835 * While it is TRUE that James ROPER is shown to have two daughters under age 10 in 1800, there is some other information that causes some doubt: James ROPER: 2 - 1 - 0 - 1 - 0 -- 2 - 1 - 0 - 1 - 0 -- 0 - 0 [Chester, SC] I have suggested in another recent post that this James ROPER may have been the father of the two ROPER grandchildren of William LEA -- William ROPER and Sarah ROPER. See: "James ROPER (b abt 1756-60?, d 18 Nov 1835 - Simpson, KY) As a Candidate To Be Father of William and Sarah ROPER" (12 Apr 2014 4:06PM) http://boards.ancestry.com/surnames.roper/1893.1/mb.ashx If this ascription is correct, James ROPER was previously married to an unnamed LEA daughter who died not only before William LEA's death in 1794, but also before James ROPER's KNOWN date of marriage to Mary O'NEAL on 27 Mar 1792. While it is NOT at all improbable that James ROPER and Mary O'NEIL had a child in 1793, the year following their marriage -- and they PROBABLY DID -- the probability that this child would be a daughter would only be about 50%. That probability is UNALTERED by any conditional probability as to the makeup of the gender of their children since they seem to have exactly two sons and two daughters. So even leaving aside the fact that James ROPER and Mary O'NEAL are KNOWN to have moved away, there seems to be at best only about a 50% chance that they could have even had a daughter in this age range. And this is TRUE whether or not my ascription that James might be the father of William and Sarah ROPER is correct. >From that statistical disability we then add the distance of not one move, but two. James ROPER's children would have been transplanted first to Chester, SC, and then to Logan, KY, where a daughter Jane ROPER would have been most likely living at the date of the 1815 marriage to Hendon SAMUEL. * Henry ROPER may be discounted as a possible father for Jane F. ROPER out of hand. Henry ROPER was born abt 1781-4 and would have been no more than age 12 at Jane ROPER's date of birth. Moreover, Henry ROPER's extant 1810 Census record show ONLY one female age 16 to 25 in his household. Admittedly, Henry ROPER married Rachel FARLEY late in the year of the Census (October 4, 1810). The female IS in the correct age range to be Jane F. ROPER. But we must assume that Henry married at age 11 or 12, that the first wife died before 1810 and that Henry ROPER didn't remarry right away or, if he did, that the second wife died, too. We must assume that the ONLY female in his household is a daughter already age 17 by 1810. * We therefore have not only the IMMEDIATE ADJACENCY of the John ROPER family to Herndon SAMUELS in Caswell, but the seeming displacement of BOTH of the next best candidates to be Jane ROPER's father. * * * Applying Occam's Razor, we ought to accept the simplest explanation of the readily available facts: That Jane F. ROPER probably still resided in Caswell, NC, within one of the two households actually shown in the 1810 Census for Caswell (John ROPER and Henry ROPER) and that she was residing with her father prior to marriage. Since Henry ROPER cannot reasonably be Jane's father, John ROPER must be her father, even absent the other arguments and proof you persuasively set forth. This would be a reasonable conclusion even if John ROPER didn't live immediately adjacent to the SAMUEL family! Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. 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