Busel Skaggs: Just a Rabbit Pulled from a Hat?

I've blogged before about genealogical myths that surround the Skaggs family, for example the famous Mary Thear myth.  Thanks to Wilene Smith (alias Chloe Q Cumber) we stuck a pin in that balloon back in 2007, however, I still see Mary Thear in family trees all over the place sending our fellow family historians on useless wild goose chases.

We may have been snookered by another one of these Skaggs myths, the elusive Busel Skaggs.  This slippery fellow was supposed to be the father of the American Skaggs family, an Irishman, a Virginian, basically all things to all people.  However, I am unaware of any evidence that he ever existed.  No one I have ever communicated with has been successful in finding any evidence of the existence of Busel Skaggs either.  Yet this ghost appears on Skaggs family trees everywhere!  And it's not just me, even the great Skaggs genealogist Ida Lancaster was exasperated with the modern day snipe hunt for Busel Skaggs.

"I think someone pulled a rabbit out of a hat and called him Busel." - Ida Lancaster

The 1820 Census and Old Peter Scaggs

The 1820 census has some interesting information for Scaggs family historians.  The relevant county in Kentucky in 1820 is Floyd since, at the time, it included some or all of the future counties of Lawrence, Pike, Morgan, Carter, Johnson, Magoffin, Boyd and Elliott.  The KYKinfolk website has a good transcription of the 1820 Floyd County census.

DNA Testing: Old Peter and Martha Were Not Native American

An anonymous correspondent has informed me the results of an autosomal DNA test, and these results are important to descendants of Old Peter Scaggs who are interested in possible Native American heritage.  Our correspondent is a documented direct descendant of Old Peter and Martha and the DNA test showed ZERO Native American ancestry.  Not a trace.  So the multi-generational rumor that Martha Cothron was Cherokee appears to be just a myth.

A Forgotten Stash of Skaggs Information?

Maud Carter Clement was a writer and historian of southwestern Virginia.  Genealogical information and local history of Pittsylvania County, Va. are the main interests of the collection of Mrs. Clement, housed at the University of Virginia Library in Charlottesville.  This collection was the raw information for her genealogical research that produced books such as The History of Pittsylvania County, Virginia.

A folder that may be of interest to Skaggs researchers is in this collection.  Labeled as "Genealogical data re: Skaggs" and dated December 9, 1938 it may contain information about Skaggs ancestors with ties to Pittsylvania County, Virginia.  Some Skaggs ancestors that have those ties include: Zachariah Skaggs, John Skaggs and Charles Skaggs, who appeared in the 1767 tax list, Archibald Skaggs who, in a military pension deposition declared he lived there prior to the Revolution, and Eli Skaggs who supposedly married Rebecca Popejoy there c. 1791.

The folder of interest is identified as Box 13, Folder 10 of the collection, labeled "Genealogical data re: Skaggs."  If someone can take a peek into that folder in Charlottesville, please let us know what is in it.

John Scaggs of Kent County, Maryland

Thanks to some recent digital transcription of records by the Maryland Historical Society we have discovered that a John Scaggs lived in Kent County, Maryland in 1749 and 1750.