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Ahnentafel - 64 Jeremiah
Duskin |
Born: February 22, 1788 in Randolph Co., North Carolina Father: William Ellis Mother: Unknown Married: Dorcas Aretta Trogdon - August 14, 1812 in Randolph Co., North Carolina Children:
Died: June 26, 1867 in Wayne Co., Iowa Buried: Genoa Cemetery, Monroe Twp., Wayne
Co., Iowa Census:
Occupation: Wagon & carriage maker
The mystery of Jeremiah Duskin's parents For many years the conventional wisdom has been that Jeremiah was the illegitimate son of William Duskin and Catherine Allred. This was based upon research by genealogist William Perry Johnson of Raleigh, North Carolina. In a 1975 or 1976 letter to Mrs. Helen Duskin, whose husband was a descendant of Jeremiah through his son, Lindsay, and who was a leading researcher of Duskin genealogy for many decades, Mr. Johnson mentions that several years earlier he had copied the old bastardy bond records at the Randolph Co. courthouse and that a bastardy bond was issued in 1788 to William Duskin and Catherine Alred. (sic) Subsequent findings, however, call the conventional wisdom into question. In the late 2000s researcher Jean LaCoss indicated to me that according to her own research no record of the particular bond referenced by Mr. Johnson is currently present among the records. However, she did locate two references to court records in the Fall 1999 edition of the Randolph County Genealogical Journal:
No information regarding the disposition of either case has been identified yet. Catherine Allred did have a child, John C. Allred, who was born (apparently out of wedlock, although no bastardy bond is evident for this birth either) about 1794, and whose father is unknown, but it has been reported that recent DNA testing of descendants of John C. Allred indicates that his father may have been a Robbins. Catherine Allred later married Isaac Odell in 1802. It should be noted that according to the law at that time, illegitimate children were given the last name of the mother, as was the case with John C. Allred, so if Catherine Allred was Jeremiah's mother, why was his surname not Allred? My own y-DNA test results in 2018 indicate 9 matches within genetic distance 2. (2 mutations) One is Dennis Duskin, Jr., who is, as I am, descended from Jeremiah's son John. The other 8 are all named Ellis. According to researcher Alfred Ellis there was a William Ellis listed in 1782 as having sold land to a Semore York. It gives a precise location as being a short distance from the Sandy Creek Baptist Church which was built on land owned by Semore York. Jeremiah Duskin would marry Semore's granddaughter, Dorcas Trogdon in 1812. I have also located a 1787 land grant record for 100 acres "on Morrises Branch of Carraway waters" to William Ellis and there is a William Ellis listed in the 1790 Federal census in Randolph Co. I highly suspect that the William Ellises in these three records are one and the same, and that he was the biological father of Jeremiah Duskin. Alfred Ellis is descended from a William Ellis (born about 1734 in Kent Co., Maryland, died 1809 in Washington Co. Tennessee) but his William Ellis had left North Carolina for Tennessee before 1782, so is not the William listed in these records. However, our y-DNA results suggest that his William and the father of Jeremiah, whether it is this William or another Ellis male, are definitely related. Many questions remain. Is my hypothesis indeed true? Who was Jeremiah's mother? Did William Ellis impregnate Catherine Allred, who then blamed the pregnancy on William Duskin? If Catherine was his mother, why was Jeremiah's surname not Allred? Was Jeremiah's mother an as yet unidentified Duskin female? William Ellis is not listed in the 1800 Federal census in Randolph Co. Did he die? Move away? More research and a certain measure of luck will be necessary to find these answers.
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