Not long ago I wrote a blog post about Richard Scaggs, wife Sarah Selby and their farm "Chew's Folly" on the Maryland Western Shore. This is an important Skaggs family group because they are so well documented from Sarah Selby's inheritance of "Chew's Folly" in the mid-1700s to the present. When I was working with Chris Keig from the Isle of Man putting together Skaggs family groups we realized we had several gaps in our Y-DNA testing, a key gap being descendants of Richard Scaggs and Sarah Selby. Well, thanks to a correspondent, Y-DNA testing has provided a surprise regarding this family.
We have assumed that Richard Scaggs and Sarah Selby's descendants were part of the R1a group of Skaggs. There are two groups of Skaggs in America, R1a and R1b. They're both Skaggs, just two separate families. If you're new to this, you can catch up on my discussion about Skaggs family groups here. Now for the big news: The descendants of Richard Scaggs and Sarah Selby have tested as R1b Scaggs, not R1a. So they join the descendants of Thomas Scaggs, the Scaggs pioneer in West Virginia as part of the R1b Scaggs family. This makes me think that the Richard Scaggs who married Sarah Selby and the Thomas Scaggs who pioneered in West Virginia were likely brothers whose parents were Richard Scaggs and Mary Brashear who married in Prince George's County, Maryland in December 1727. We know the Thomas Scaggs was son of Richard Scaggs and Mary Brashear through church marriage records. Now Y-DNA testing is leading us to believe that the Richard Scaggs from "Chew's Folly" was also a son of Richard Scaggs and Mary Brashear. The R1b Scaggs tree as we understand it now is below.
2 Richard Scaggs
+ Sarah Selby
Confusing.....So, do we know if the First Richard SKegs who came to America prior to 1658 was a R1a or R1b Dna group.
ReplyDeleteAlso, so the Richard Skaggs (R1b) who married Sarah Selby was NOT apart of the immediate family of Richard Skaggs (R1a) who married Grace and one of their sons was John Skaggs who married Ruth Skaggs Bishop ? Is the above comment correct ?
Q: So, do we know if the First Richard SKegs who came to America prior to 1658 was a R1a or R1b Dna group?
DeleteA: No, we don't know for sure. We need a documented descendant of Richard Scaggs the Pioneer's grandson, William Scaggs, to test. That would confirm whether this family was R1a or R1b.
Q: So the Richard Skaggs (R1b) who married Sarah Selby was NOT a part of the immediate family of Richard Skaggs (R1a) who married Grace and one of their sons was John Skaggs who married Ruth Skaggs Bishop ?
A: That's the new theory. Richard Scaggs who married Sarah Selby was NOT the Richard Scaggs born 1724 to Richard and Grace Scaggs. However, if a descendant of William Scaggs of Kent County tests as R1b instead of R1a we would have to reconsider.
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ReplyDeleteI find it odd that "Christopher Scaggs - South Carolina migrant" is in this tree considering how close he was to the Charles and Mary line, and even exchanging land in E TN.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about exchanging land in East Tennessee, however, these two lines crossed in Spartanburg, South Carolina. James C Skaggs of the Charles and Mary line attested in his pension application to living in Spartanburg about 10-11 years after the Revolution. I've always thought he meant 10-11 years after Yorktown, so that would have been about 1781-1792. He ended up in East Tennessee after that. It's likely he travelled with his father, Charles.
DeleteChristopher Scaggs was in the Frederick County, Maryland militia in 1781. He married Tabitha Morris in Bedford County, Virginia in 1790. He was in Spartanburg, SC in a 1798 deed, the 1800 and 1810 census. So these two family lines crossed in Spartanburg, SC but missed each other by a few years.