DNA Testing Update: Skaggs and the Isle of Man

It’s time for an update on the Skaggs DNA testing.  Several Skaggs have submitted Y-DNA test results since the last time we checked in and additional autosomal DNA testing results for Skaggs descendants have been posted to GEDMatch.  These new tests have produced some interesting results.

The Big-Y DNA Test is on Sale

For men with the Skaggs, Scaggs or Skeggs surname interested in tracing your Skaggs ancestry back to colonial times or perhaps Europe, the Family Tree DNA Big-Y test is on sale through Thanksgiving (UPDATE: now Christmas) for $399.

The Mystery of Richard Wade Skaggs

Back in 2014 there was a request on the Ancestry message boards for information about a Richard Wade Skaggs from Western Kentucky.  He supposedly was born in Louisiana and grew up in Kentucky and appears to have ties to a Richard Wade and Mary Ann Skaggs who are found in Louisiana shortly after it was turned over to the United States.  What's really interesting for Skaggs researchers are the lawsuits filed in 1836 against a bunch of Skaggs including this Mary Ann Skaggs and her husband Richard Wade.  The details are below the fold.

Morgan County, Indiana Skaggs

The Morgan County, Indiana Gazette published a three-part series on the Skaggs family on April 22, 1971.  Part 1 is copied below.  Parts 2 & 3 are lengthy and can be obtained from the Morgan County Public Library in Martinsville, Indiana.

Zachariah Skaggs: Mistaken Identity

Too many fake family trees on the internet are changing reality. A specific case of this for Skaggs researchers is Zachariah Skaggs. The internet seems convinced that the Zachariah Skaggs who lived in Virginia in the late 1700s to 1818 was married to a Nancy Annie Wilcox. I've posted about this error before and how two Zachariahs from different times and places and two Nancys have been confounded into a fake marriage of a young Kentucky girl, Nancy Wilcox, with a dead Virginian, Zachariah Skaggs. So once again:

• Zachariah Skaggs from Russell County, VA, father of Jeremiah, was married to a Nancy (Annie), but NOT Nancy Wilcox, and he died in Virginia in 1818
• Born prior to 1747, likely in Maryland
• Heir-at-law to John Scaggs who died in Montgomery County, Virginia c. 1779
• Estate passed to grandson John Skaggs in Russell County in 1818
• Zachariah Skaggs, from Barren County, KY, grandson of John Skaggs, the disabled war veteran from the family of Long Hunters, was married to Nancy Wilcox in Kentucky in 1822
• Born in 1801 in Kentucky
• Died in Bartholomew County, Indiana c.1830
• Widow Nancy Skaggs appeared in the 1830 Bartholomew County census
• Widow Nancy (also known as Anna) Skaggs remarried in 1832 to Daniel Reynolds in Bartholomew County, Indiana