R-FT12801: Charles Scaggs of Sims Settlement

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.

Skaggs Family Groups based on DNA Testing

It's time for an update on the Skaggs Y-DNA testing.  We currently have 19 Skaggs who have taken the Big-Y DNA test and are descendants of Viking ancestors from the Isle of Man.  We call these guys R1a Skaggs.  We also have a few other Skaggs who are not part of this Isle of Man family and we call them the R1b Skaggs.  Both are Skaggs, just two completely different families. Both are really interesting, however, in this post I'll discuss the R1a Skaggs and group them into families based on their DNA.

Bible Entries for the Sims Settlement Scaggs

I have been scrolling back through the history of the Rootsweb Skaggs list and found an entry regarding one of the Sims Settlement Scaggs families.  This October 2008 entry seems long forgotten.  A poster to the old Genealogy.com Genforum board claimed to possess a Williams family bible with two Scaggs entries in it.

Aaron Scaggs of Maryland and His Descendants

We know from early 18th century Maryland christening records that an Aaron Scaggs and wife Susanna had three children, Charles, Moses and Susanna.  We also know that Aaron Scaggs died c. 1715 and Susanna subsequently remarried to John Moberley and later Henry Boulton.  These second and third marriages allow us to determine that Aaron's wife Susanna was Susanna Hyatt, the daughter of Charles Hyatt and Sarah Tewksbury of Maryland.  Aaron's descendants are relevant for researchers interested in Old Peter Skaggs since at least one appeared in the records of the New River area of Virginia and is frequently mistaken for James, the father of the Longhunters.

Skaggs Pioneers in Alabama

Back before there was an Alabama, there were Skaggs pioneers in the area known as the Mississippi Territory.  First there were the Skaggs intruders on Indian land, part of the Sims Settlement, who the government ran off the land in 1810.  But that wasn't the last of the Skaggs in the Mississippi Territory.

The Skaggs DNA Project

I recently checked the Skaggs DNA Project website at http://www.worldfamilies.net/surnames/skaggs/results for current Y-chromosome test results.  There’s a lot of noise on there with most of the results not even Skaggs and one of the Skaggs results attributed to Forkbeard Skagg, King of England or some such nonsense.  Don’t let that silliness fool you, there are five Skaggs results out there that separate the Skaggs into two basic Y-chromosome families: 1) R1a1a and 2) R1b1a1a2.  I did a little detective work on these five test results and here’s what I came up with:

Will the real James Skaggs please stand up? James C. Skaggs

There are many genealogical records available from the 1700s for James Skaggs, making him appear to have been everywhere at all times.  I want to try to take advantage of years of genealogical research by many Skaggs researchers to separate these James from each other:

1. James and Rachel Skaggs - the parents of the Long Hunters
2. James Jr. and Mary Skaggs - the Longhunter James, son of James and Rachel
   
3. James and Susanna Scaggs - lived side-by-side with the Long Hunters in Virginia, then went west and ended up in Warren County, Kentucky
4. James C. Skaggs – Revolutionary War pensioner from South Carolina
5. James Scaggs and Catherine Reaser/Mary Brinker - lived with first wife Catherine Reaser in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, then with second wife Mary Brinker in Frederick County, Virginia and the Chew's Folly farm in Prince George's County, Maryland

James C. Skaggs was a Revolutionary War pensioner from South Carolina who is frequently confused with other James Skaggs from that time period.  He is considered to be an ancestor of the famous Safeway Skaggs family.  The affidavit below the fold for a military pension contains a lot of useful information about James C.’s life, including an interesting statement that “applicant states that he never left his post during all this service unless when in the immediate neighborhood of his father's, when he made a visit of a few days and immediately returned.”  This indicates that James C.’s father lived nearby in Laurens District, South Carolina during the War.  Also, “at the termination of the war he moved to Spartanburg District South Carolina where he lived 10 or 11 years, when he moved to Jefferson County Tennessee, where he lived one-year when he moved to Knox County Tennessee where he has lived ever since and now lives.”

Sims Settlement

In the fall of 1806 a group of settlers led by William and James Sims traveled from east Tennessee on flatboats down the Tennessee River and up the Elk River to the area of present-day Limestone County, Alabama.  You can read their story from the state historical marker here.