This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/wNHBAIB/2821.1.1.4.2.2.1.1.1 Message Board Post: In Middlesex County, a Peter Chilton married Susan Jaxon on March 2, 1685. This man appears in the records as Chilton, Chelton and Shelton over the next 30 years. Three of his sons’ births are recorded in the Christ Church Parish Register as Chilton, but his own name occurs in his 1718 will as Chilton, Chelton and Chellton. There is no data in either the Parish Register or the county records to support the claim of Mildred Campbell Whitaker in her book entitled THE SHELTONS OF ENGLAND AND AMERICA that Ralph Shelton of Middlesex County, VA, was a son of this Peter and that Peter was a descendent of the non-existent James she cliamed to be son of Sir Ralph Shelton of Norfolk County, England. Mrs. Whitaker asserted James came to Virginia where James' sons included Peter. Peter's will names as his sons Peter (deceased), William, Thomas and Zebulon, and no others. A fifth son, Henry Chelton is noted in the Christ Church Parish Register, as having predeceased his father, ! at age about 26 and probably unmarried. Absolutely the first known record -- of any kind -- for Ralph Shelton who died in 1733 in Middlesex County, Virignia, is dated on October 10, 1702, recorded in Essex County, VA, Deeds & Wills, Book No. 10, 1699-1702, p.133, which is a record of Thomas Meriwether claiming land for having imported Ralph into the Colony of Virginia. Ralph served no indenture and he witnessed the will of Thomas Meriwether, in which Meriwether left Ralph land in Middlesex County. In light of the fact that Meriwether left Ralph land and the further fact that all other persons named in Meriwether's will can be identified as his relatives, it has been speculated that Meriwether and Ralph were kin. A Meriwether has done a genealogy Y-chromosome DNA test which has been compared to similiar DNA tests of descendants of Ralph Shelton. These tests did not match, meaning that Thomas Meriwether and Ralph Shelton were not kin through their male genealogy lines. There has been discussion of the fact that Thomas Meriwether might have been related to Ralph through Meriwether's mother's family who married into the family of Sir Ralph Shelton in England. This too has been proven not to be true. There has also been speculation that Ralph Shelton was the brother of the wife of Thomas Meriwether. No one knows the surname of the wife of Thomas Meriwether nor whether or not she came from the Colonies or from England. This seems highly unlikely, however, as Meriwether did not marry until a year or two before his death, which means Ralph had been in Virginia for some years at the time of Meriwether's marriage. Hildred