This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Roper Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/kgDBAEB/3.13.1.1 Message Board Post: Glad to be of help! Have you obtained the death certificates or the applications for a social security number? Presumably, each of these would show the parents names. It is UNCLEAR whether our families are connected and, if so, how. I am from a line of ROPERs with a certain lineage to David ROPER (b 1744, d 1808 - Charles City County, VA). This David ROPER owned the ROPER plantation on the Chickahominy River, in Charles City County, which plantation seems to have been occupied by John ROPER at least as early as 1704 (based upon the Quit Rent Tax Roll) and patented by John ROPER in 1714. Other Posts on this message board give a great deal of information about this plantation and my line through David ROPER's son Rev. David ROPER, of Richmond, Virginia. There is a ROPER DNA Study underway which has demonstrated that many of the ROPERs who settled in America in the early Colonial period, including ROPERs from Virginia, Massachusetts and North Carolina are actually RELATED, but it remains UNCLEAR precisely HOW. It seems LIKELY given the presence of the given name "Jesse" in YOUR line that you may be a descendent of Charles ROPER (b abt 1720) and Anne GOODWYN, but please bear in mind that this is a SPECULATIVE ASCRIPTION based solely upon (a) the presence of a "Jesse" in your line, and (b) the apparent emergeance of your line from Tennessee, where several lines of descendents of Charles and Anne GOODWYN migrated. I am happy to be of assistance in trying to connect your ROPERs to other established lines, but it would probably be helpful to obtain the death certificates and social security applications to obtain the identities of the parents of Verner and Georgia Dawn ROPER. Also, if there is a ROPER surnamed MALE from this line who is willing to participate in the ROPER DNA study, DNA evidence could be used to rather quickly match to one of the better established ROEPR lines. But please bear in mind that this should be viewed as a SUPPLEMENT TO rather than a substitute for traditional genealogical evidence.