Who was Old Peter Skaggs?

Another Call for Skaggs Men for DNA Testing

We've made a lot of progress with our Skaggs DNA testing. We've had a lot of descendants of Old Peter Skaggs and the Long Hunters do the Y-DNA testing and it's really paid off with the knowledge we've gained. We can go back to the early 1700s pretty confidently for the Long Hunters and we still think Old Peter Skaggs' parents are likely John Skaggs and Ruth Elkins despite many opportunities to prove that theory wrong. But now we're finding our relative lack of knowledge about the other Skaggs lines is hurting our research back to the year 1700 because it's too easy to confuse an ancestor of Zachariah or Aaron Skaggs with those of Old Peter. We need more Y-DNA testers in certain Skaggs family lines to make a lot of our deed and court record searches support provable DNA relationships.

R-FT48276: Richard Skaggs, Lost Leader

Current Y-DNA testing points to Richard Skaggs who married Catherine Brockman as the first Skaggs ancestor in the R-FT48276 haplogroup. Richard was the eldest son of Aaron Skaggs and Sarah Lyon and married Catherine "Caty" Brockman in Adair County, Kentucky on 17 September 1804. According to Skaggs historians, Richard tried to lead a pioneer expedition to Texas in the 1830s but must have taken a wrong turn somewhere because he ended up in Illinois.

Intruder alert! Intruder alert! Our Y-DNA testing project has tested multiple descendants of Charles Scaggs, one of the intruders on Indian land in Mississippi Territory at Sims Settlement in the early 1800s. You can read the history of how the President ordered the Army to beat the stuffing out of these intruders to drive them off Indian land back to Tennessee where they belonged.

R-BY44771: The Grandfather of the Long Hunter Brothers?

The Skaggs Y-DNA project has tested multiple descendants of Old Peter Skaggs and the Long Hunters. These testers all descend from a single common ancestor with the R-BY44771 haplogroup. The genealogies of the test participants indicate that this common ancestor lived in the late 1600s to early 1700s.

R-BY114454: Descendants of William Brock Skaggs

I don't know much about William Brock Skaggs and that's unfortunate because he was the common ancestor for two testers in the Skaggs Y-DNA project. He was a grandson of the Rev. James "Longman" Skaggs of the Long Hunter group of Skaggs, born about 1796. He married Nancy Warren about 1815 and lived out his life in Green County, Kentucky dying sometime after the 1860 census. William Brock Skaggs had the R-BY114454 haplogroup in the Skaggs genetic lineage, shown below:

An Update on Richard Scaggs of Prince George's County, Maryland

I've written several posts regarding Richard Scaggs of Prince George's County, Maryland. Each post about Richard is a little better than those that came before since we are learning a lot from the Skaggs Y-DNA project.

First, I showed Richard marrying Grace then a second wife Mary Brashear, however, we discovered through DNA testing that those were two different Richards.
Next, I thought Richard who married Sarah Selby was the Richard born 1724 as youngest son of Richard and Grace Scaggs of Kent County, Maryland but DNA testing proved that wrong also
Then I thought Richard who married Sarah Selby was son of the Richard who married Mary Brashear since they appear have the same R1b DNA haplogroup, however I'm ready to consider another possibility.

R-BY99605: The Father of Old Peter Skaggs?

The Skaggs Y-DNA project has tested multiple descendants of Old Peter Skaggs and his brother Solomon. All these descendants had the same Y-DNA haplogroup, R-BY99605. So it appears an ancestor of Old Peter and his brother Solomon had this R-BY99605 haplogroup.

More discussion about the genealogy of R-BY99605 is below the fold.

1909: How about a vacation at Skaggs Hot Springs?

The following is a 1909 travel brochure for vacationing at Skaggs Hot Springs in Sonoma County, California

only four hours’ ride from San Francisco by boat, train and automobile. The Sausalito Ferry is the traveler's starting point, and a half-hour ride on our incomparable bay brings you to the Marin shore, where two trains daily connect for Skaggs Hot Springs. As the train whirls through the far-famed Sonoma Valley with its luxuriant vineyards, olive groves and blossoming orchards, the traveler views a scene of natural grandeur unequaled on the Pacific Coast.

Sorry, but it appears we're 115 years too late.

R-BY114642 Descendants of Peter Skaggs Jr.

The R1a Skaggs Family has a family group defined by Y-DNA testers who are living descendants of Peter Skaggs Jr., identified by the Y-haplogroup R-BY114642.

The genealogy for the Y-DNA test subjects in the R-BY114642 haplogroup is below the fold.

Updating the Skaggs Y-DNA Project in Family Tree DNA

I like to occasionally provide an update about the Skaggs Y-DNA project that is being managed on Family Tree DNA. Usually I blend the DNA test results with the genealogy work that's been done to create several Skaggs family groups. This time I will "follow the science" by using the Family Tree DNA haplogroup chart to create the Skaggs family groups and fill in each family group with the known genealogy of only the test participants involved.

Are the Sullivan(t)s related to the Skaggs?

A Sullivan family descendant took a Big Y DNA test at Family Tree DNA and matched the Skaggs for Y-DNA. This has led us all down a rabbit hole of Sullivan(t) genealogy to try to find out how this tester could be related to the Longhunter branch of the Skaggs family.

Update on the Skaggs DNA Project

It's been awhile since the last post. We've been going down genealogical rabbit holes for months so not much new to post. However, I thought I should provide an update regarding the Skaggs DNA project. We have some results to share based on both the Y-DNA testing and the autosomal DNA testing.

Are the Staggs related to the Skaggs?

We're getting a bunch of autosomal DNA matches between Staggs and Skaggs testers. Both families appear to have ancestors from the Virginia Northern Neck and Southern Maryland. We are looking for descendants of the following Staggs families who might be interested in Y-DNA testing to see if their Staggs line matches any of our documented Skaggs lines:

West Virginia Staggs

1 John Stagg (-1797)

2 George Stagg (1766-1844)

3 Christopher Staggs (1797-1858)

4 Otho Staggs (1835-1913)

5 John Wesley Staggs (1868-1929)

6 Ortho Thomas Staggs (1896-1927)

Fleming County, Kentucky Staggs

1 Joseph Stagg (-1816)

2 Joseph Staggs (1782-1860)

3 Josiah W Staggs (1817-1894)

4 John Barber Staggs (1862-1903)

5 Santford Staggs (1889-1979)

We would like to combine Staggs DNA testing with our existing Skaggs DNA testing to determine if the two families are actually related, even though they have different last names. Any relationship would likely be back to early 1700s Virginia and/or Maryland, so the Y-DNA testing is our best bet.

If you are a male Staggs from either of these lines and are interested in testing you can contact the Group Administrator here.

Where was "Horse Pasture?"

William Skaggs, the eldest son of James "The Long Hunter" Skaggs applied for a military pension in 1832 for service during the American Revolution. In that pension application William stated that he was born in North Carolina. "...the said Skaggs further states that he was born in the state of North Carolina the County he does not remember; it was near a place called the horse pasture as he learned from his mother..." Where was Horse Pasture?

Skaggs DNA Testing: Putting It All Together

The Skaggs Y-DNA project has been working diligently testing male volunteers who descend along different Skaggs family lines. They've been aligning the DNA test results with the ongoing genealogical research effort to identify distinct, yet related, Skaggs families. The results follow below the fold.

Skaggs DNA Testing: The Long Hunters

The Skaggs Y-DNA project has been working diligently testing male volunteers who descend along different Skaggs family lines. Volunteers have been tested from the branch of the Skaggs family that descends from the children of James and Rachel Skaggs, known as the Long Hunters.

by General Joseph Graham

Published in The Southern Literary Messenger, September 30, 1845.

"The following account of the battle of King's Mountain is a copy of the original paper, drawn up by the late General Joseph Graham, father of the present governor of North Carolina, of Lincoln county, North Carolina, the county in which the site of the battle is located. The accompanying plan of the battle is a copy by a young lady of Carolina from the original taken by Gen. Graham on the ground. This graphic account, given by an uninterested individual, of the battle that led to the retreat of Cornwallis, then on his advance through Carolina, may afford interesting information to your readers, that love to dwell upon the scenes of the Revolution."

Henry A Skaggs: A Brick Wall back to Maryland

Henry A Skaggs is the brick wall for a West Virginia Skaggs family from the Greenbrier County area. Many Skaggs researchers have thought he was from the Thomas Scaggs (born 1728) line of Virginia and later West Virginia Skaggs but I'm not so sure. It's possible he was the Henry Scaggs in the 1800 Frederick County, Maryland census, making him a brick wall back to the 18th century Maryland Skaggs families.

Henry Skaggs and the Murders at Frenchman's Knob

Cyrus Edwards of Horse Cave, Kentucky was author of the 1924 story "The Murders at Frenchman's Knob." The story is of the murder of William Smuthers and Gilbert LeClerc by Indians in 1782/3 in the "Barrens" of western Kentucky.

Colonial Roads and Skaggs Family Migration

Knowledge of colonial roads can help with understanding Skaggs family migrations prior to 1800. Below is a map of the system of roads in colonial America.

If you are interested in how Maryland Skaggs might have ended up in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina just check out the analysis below the fold.