ALTERNATE ORIGINS

is the center of Shakespeare’s “Tempest.” With a Combs connection in Jamestown, the Stratford man would certainly have known or could have known the details. DeVere could have also found out, if he hadn’t been dead by then.

Though I have only once attempted to categorize our ancestors’ origins, with the exception of “my Jews,” most of them came from England, first, then Scotland and Wales, then France, and lastly, by my count, Ireland. The idea that the Scots Irish (an American term) led the way into the American wilderness or were intentionally encouraged by the British to settle on the frontier fesromg is mitigated by the evidence that, by the time they got there, they had already intermixed with descendants of the English xxI

gentry.

Another surpise was how many Welsh and French descendants were in the mix. At the impressive “Museum of the American

Frontier” just north of Abingdon, VA, the “four nations” that made up the population of pioneers are represented by reconstructed buildings from England, Scotland, Germany, and Native America. Welsh and French structures are not represented.

And what about the Irish? Well, what about the Irish? Want to fight about it?

Many of the ancestors listed here are named Patrick and Jerome – obviously saints’ names – so they must have been Catholic.

The standard history is that the Irish who settled here were transplanted Protestant Scots who stayed just a while in Ulster and Quo Vadis?

then removed. Though the general pattern – especially among the titled such as Sir Francis Collinsworth – may still ring true: But what about the Jeromes and Patricks?

This leads to another observation: the Catholic colony of Maryland doesn’t seem very Catholic at all, even going back to the many ancestors who settled there; many of whom settled in St. Mary’s City, the first capitol of the Catholic colony of Maryland.

The Carroll family in Ireland and Maryland has been studied extensively; but why did Peter Fugate the Huguenot feel so comfortable about landing in Maryland so soon after that refuge for Catholics was founded?

Dixieland

The presence of so many Huguenots in the Chesapeake area is also surprising. Most of the histories nail the Huguenot presence down to New Rochelle, NY or in New Paltz up along the Hudson, or in cities such as Philadelphia, Boston, and Charleston.

My purpose in writing this book is to bring raw data together about two sisters – who happen to be our daughters – and who The Huguenots presented here were possibly more than scattered curiosities; they may be representative of wider Huguenot happened to drop out of the genetic straw which was attached to the genetic funnel which was attached to the genetic collection settlement in smaller communities.

flask into which at least 200 founding immigrants to this country were poured.

Was this just coincidence? Did one Huguenot indentured servant just happen to marry with another indentured servant who I attempted to draw a narrow picture of their grandfathers and grandmothers, and to supplement it with articles and commen-just happened to be of French origin and also just happened to be living on a nearby farm? How many Huguenots were there any-tary of historical provenance. While these people should not be considered a cross section of the American population at any one way? (The question is admittedly clouded by their residence for years in England and their tendency to Anglicize their surnames point in time, it would not be surprising if they did represent a larger picture.

– as in Pierre Fouquette becoming Peter Fugate) I doubt it. A study of “satellite” French communities in the Atlantic colonies and Except for the black population, which is not knowingly present in this family tree, it is hard to see why this gathering of their connection with parishes in England (such as the one that reappears often here - St. Martin’s), and then their connection with European and Native Americans should be much different than similar colonial populations – especially in early Virginia – with each other once they got over here, might prove edifying.

the exception of known and defined ethnic enclaves such as existed in the Pennsylvannia Dutch country, the Cherokee Nation, or The French Connection as a whole and in its particulars, remains a mystery. The Fuquas, Fauquiers, the Fouquets and the as a result of experiments such as “Germanna.”

Fowkes, no matter how “English” their pedigrees seem, mostly refer to French origins in their official family histories. They may I will rely upon my own first thoughts as I attempt to suggest areas for further research – allowing the possibility that studies be claiming kinship with “William The Conqueror” 500 years before, but all those families ending up in the same geographic area about similar topics may have already been published and that the validity of any study increases with the size of the population 3,000 miles away from their origins is certainly fascinating. Does there exist a connection to one major Fouquet family which sampled.

came over to England from France many years before? (The family Fouquet was very important, and included a reknowned reli-My first impression is that one historical concept about colonial settlement is confirmed: the founding families of Virginia gious artist in the 1300s, and, 300 years after that, the Treasurer of France.)

were gentry rather than peasantry; were out of favor nobility, rather than popular court figures, and were the second or third And another curiosity – which can probably never be satisfied until some lost correspondence or diary is discovered 300

sons of the titled British upper class, rather than the favored first sons who had every reason to remain in England or Ireland or years after being lost: The Fouquet/ Fuqua families must have known about each other (Fauquier was the Assistant Governor of Scotland, or anywhere they had inherited a castle and land.

Virginia. Fuqua was also important.). Were they curious about any common origin;, and, of course, did they know one another?

Revisionism being what it loves to be, there have been plenty of commentators who have long since thought they had blown The Scots and Irish in Virginia emerged out of an active clan structure. My living with these ancestors for the last four years the cover off this traditional viewpoint and exposed it as rusty wishful thinking by a status hungry middle class. This does not has allowed me to see the continuing connections between the associated clans as the centuries proceeded. For example, Noble seem to be the case with the data collected here. There are lots of ancestors with titles, and quite a few had positions at court at a was a sept of McIntosh back in ancient Scotland, and Nobles settled among the McIntosh’s after they got to Virginia. Is this also time when their positions at court were more secure for them; and even out of favor, many of the families listed here had connec-mere coincidence? Or did the Nobles still feel some allegiance to the McIntoshes?

tions with other families which were still influential back in England.

And now for the politically incorrect, but still provocative.

The “Virginia Company” which founded Jamestown has been thoroughly studied, but why did so many Combs’ come

The nobility which settled in Northern Virginia mixed and mingled for some years with the “lesser sorts” so much so that, 200

over? Were these the same Combs who are listed in Shakespeare’s famous will? This is an important question in literature, years later they are portrayed in our media and by our government as the most hopeless, impoverished, unambitious “snapshot”

even if it is not so important to Jamestown, because the Authorship Question (Did Shakespeare write the material or did people in the entire U.S.

DeVere?) hinges on the Stratford man using the shipwreck off Bermuda in 1610 as a source for the shipwreck story which Was something more than just hitting the road for new adventure going on? Is this a sad example of a people in “decline,” or an early motif of the democratic “leveling” taking place on all over the American frontier.

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