Lawrence Buckner (bef. 1711 - abt. 1782)

Born before 1711 in Virginia

Ancestors

Descendants

Died about 1782 after about age 71 in North Carolina, United States [uncertain]

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Loretta Buckner [send private message]

Biography

Lawrence was born prior to his mother Sarah's inclusion in her mother Sarah Evans' Will, dated 1711. Lawrence and three siblings are named: William, "Elira" and Henry.^[1]

Lawrence Buckner Jr.

This person is most likely Lawrence Buckner Jr. of Dinwiddie County, Virginia. The father of the brothers Jesse, John, and Benjamin Buckner was certainly closely related to Lawrence. Numerous family traditions show that Lawrence's nephew Henry Buckner was a close relative of the three, and only two male Buckners of that generation are known to have survived to adulthood, Henry's father Edward and Lawrence. Lawrence first appeared in his grandmother's 1711 will,^[2] from which we can gather he was probably born sometime in the 1700-1710 range. Lawrence purchased a land grant of 184 acres in in Prince George County in 1739 (in the area which became Dinwiddie in 1752).^[3] John Winfield's 1741 grant in the same county mentions Lawrence as a neighbor. He appears one last time in 1743 sponsoring the baptism of Susanna dau, of Wm. and Mary Mitchell in Albemarle Parish.^[4]

The mysteriousness of Jesse, John, and Benjamin's parentage suggests that their father may have died fairly young, and Lawrence's disappearance after 1743 would fit well with this idea. The birth years of the brothers are not known for certain, but they are generally estimated in the late 1730s to mid 1740s, which would also be consistent with Lawrence being their father who died sometime in the 1745-50 range. Unfortunately, surviving Dinwiddie County records are very sparse, so no strong evidence has come to light so far, but the circumstantial evidence makes Lawrence the most likely candidate. Indeed, the fact that his estate proceedings are not recorded anywhere suggests that he may not have died until the country boundary change in 1752, since if he had died in Prince George, there probably would have been some record of it.

Research Notes

See Corrections to The Buckners of Virginia Since this profile was unsourced and largely empty of any useful data and was one of several duplicates of John Buckner, I am going to convert it into a place holder for the presumed common father of Benjamin, Jesse, and John Buckner since at least one of them has been historically attached to it anyway. Many popular undocumented internet "trees" claim that this is John Buckner of Caroline Co VA, but both documentary and DNA evidence strongly contradict this idea, as detailed below. I think this is probably Lawrence Buckner of Dinwiddie Co., but it could be his brother William or Henry (see Lawrence Buckner Sr. for details).

A 1918 Baptist history dealing with Burrow Buckner contains a tradition that makes John, Jesse, and Benjamin brothers. It states that "The Buckners of the United States are the worthy descendants of worthy British yeomanry. They derive their origin from three brothers, Jesse, John and Benjamin, who came to America in the Colonial days. It is not known from which of the three brothers Burrow Buckner descended."^[5] Burrow Buckner was the son of Henry Buckner, who in turn is thought to have been the son of Edward Buckner of Surry Co, VA (d. 1767). This tradition is probably not completely reliable, particularly with regard to the idea that the three brothers were immigrants, but it does indicate a tradition of a relationship between Henry Buckner and Jesse, Benjamin, and John Buckner. A similar statement directly attributed to H.F. Buckner (Burrow's nephew) added the detail that the "middle brother" John had moved to Georgia in 1792, which should aid identifying him.^[6] The 1918 biography explicitly states that Benjamin was the youngest of the three, so the birth order should be Jesse, then John, and then Benjamin.

Benjamin Buckner (q.v.) was present in Dinwiddie Co, VA in 1783 before moving to Rowan Co. NC (probably in 1784, based on the date of his land grant), which makes Dinwiddie a logical place to seek his origins, the same county where Lawrence Buckner Jr. had a land grant. Generally, members of this family seem to originate in the Southside region of Virginia (see [2]), the area south of the James River and west of the Tidewater (Brunswick and Dinwiddie Cos. especially). Culturally and geographically, this area is strongly connected to the North Carolina piedmont, and many early settlers of that part of North Carolina migrated from this part of Virginia.

Crozier (p. 286) notes another tradition that a Jesse Buckner was one of "six or seven" brothers who migrated from Virginia to North Carolina and gives names "Henry, William, John and possibly Aylett." Crozier's Jesse Buckner was in fact a different Jesse Buckner from Benjamin and John's brother, probably a son of Henry Buckner, so this tradition is apparently referring to Henry's sons who migrated to North Carolina in a similar time frame as Henry's three cousins. These two traditions have often been confused because of the similar names and locations, but taken in their proper context, they both appear to be mostly authentic, except probably for the inclusion of Aylett. The fact that these two groups share very similar names supports the other evidence that they were closely related, and members of the two groups often seem to have interacted, which is why the Jesse-John-Benjamin tradition passed down through Henry's family.

Yet another N-brother tradition in this family, this time with seven brothers who went from Virginia to the "western part of [North Carolina]", can be found at the Clark Co. IL Genweb website which is attached to Jesse Buckner of the JJB triad. It contains an interesting and apparently independent addendum explaining that Jesse disliked the "wild and bloody" western part (presumably the Rowan/Cabarrus area) and so moved to the more eastern Chatham Co. In this case the provenance of the tradition is less clear and it seems to be less specific, but in general, all the migration traditions point us toward the idea that many members of this family migrated to North Carolina together.

DNA

Y DNA evidence strongly supports the idea that these three were closely related as well. Edward Buckner's descendants share a very close Y-DNA STR profile (usually identical at the 37 marker level) with descendants of Benjamin, Jesse, and John.^[7] Since these three are not listed in Edward's will, the implication is that they were not brothers of Henry, so the Baptist tradition is correct in making them three brothers related to Burrow Buckner.

There is one other contemporary Buckner who might be a fourth brother in this family, or another cousin, Charles Buckner of Cumberland Parish in Lunenburg Co. Unfortunately, information on him is sketchy, but he appears as early as 1764 in a tithe list^[8] so it is doubtful that he is the same person as Benjamin Buckner's son Charles. However, the fact that Benjamin named a son Charles does support the idea that Charles Buckner of Lunenburg was a close relative of his, given that it was a very unusual name among 18th century Buckner families in America. A further corroborating fact is that Charles Buckner was a witness in a 1768 lawsuit in Lunenburg Co. between James Buckner (probably Edward Buckner's eldest son) vs. Matthew Laffoon.^[9]

World Family Tree Buckner Project

The World Family Tree Buckner Project Mirror of the FTDNA Surname project provides all the essential lines. The following profiles can be documented back to these individuals.

• B9658 - Jesse Buckner
• 349866 - John Buckner of Jones Co. GA (d. 1820)
• B12384 - Edward Buckner through Henry Buckner

Below, the differing STRs (out of 37) of the two main immigrant lines, the present James River Buckners and the Rappahannock lines are compared, along with modal STRs for the SNP-tested haplogroup (M269 and M222 modes shown, though they appear to be the same for the lowest subclade DF105 as well).^[10][11] The modal values establish the most likely haplotype of the common ancestor. Roughly speaking, each difference in DYS385b counts for around 5 generations, DYS442 for 4, and DYS449 for 1.5-2 generations, so effectively this comes out to around to a peak probability for 10-11 generations to the most recent common ancestor (MRCA). However, so few (3) Rappahannock lines have been tested that it is difficult to determine how recent the mutations are, particularly on DYS449, so the effective date of the [13 13 31] type is not entirely clear. The [14 11 30] type definitely dates from around 1710 though. This takes us back to the early 1400s as the most likely time to MRCA. Even accounting for statistical error, this is clearly not compatible with the idea that the two lines descend from a single immigrant to America in the mid 1600s, so this forces us to conclude that the James River Buckners and Rappahannock Buckners descend from at least 2 separate and only distantly related immigrants.

(*converting from the Ancestry.com reporting which is 5 steps longer)

Note that the James River group is closer to the mode forDYS449 but the Rappahannock group is more modal for DYS385b and DYS442.

Sources

1. ↑ Southside Virginian, Will of Sarah Evans, 1711
2. ↑ The Southside Virginian Vol. X, No. 3, pp. 113-115 (1992), Internet Archive, http://www.buckbd.com/genea/sevans1711will.html
3. ↑ Virginia Patent Book 18 p541
4. ↑ Gertrude R.B. Richards, Register of Albemarle Parish Surry and Sussex County 1739-1778, National Society Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1958, p. 49
5. ↑ J.C. Maple and R.P. Rider, Missouri Baptist Biography: A Series of Life-sketches Indicating the Growth and Prosperity of the Baptist Churches as Represented in the Lives and Labors of Eminent Men and Women in Missouri, Volume 3, Missouri Baptist Historical Society, 1918, p. 56-57 [1]
6. ↑ R.S. Duncan A history of the Baptists in Missouri, St. Louis:Scammell and Co.,1888, p. 441 Internet Archive Copy
7. ↑ Typical profiles on Ysearch.org include:
   • www.ysearch.org/lastname_view.asp?uid=&letter=&lastname=Buckner&viewuid=KXFTW&p=0 KXFTW, *www.ysearch.org/lastname_view.asp?uid=&letter=&lastname=Buckner&viewuid=MAZQJ&p=0 MAZQJ, and *www.ysearch.org/lastname_view.asp?uid=&letter=&lastname=Buckner&viewuid=ZKSG2&p=0 ZKSG2
   (dozens of profiles are known, so the modal type is well established); the three known STR profiles from John Buckner of Gloucester's related lines (the Rappahannock immigrants) are very similar to that but differ at three loci out of 37 (see research notes below). Not enough of the Rappahannock lines have been tested to establish a modal ancestral type, but it is evident that the James River and Rappahannock Buckner immigrants probably differed at at least one or two STRs at the 37 marker level. Subclade tests are in broad agreement that the common ancestral type must have been in subclades R-M269>L21>M222>DF105. Verified and probable descendants of John and Sarah Buckner of Caroline VA and Currituck NC belong to an entirely different haplogroup, usually predicted "J2a1" (now called J-M410), though this prediction is not confirmed with SNP testing and has relatively low statistical fitness. Buckner YDNA tests that predict to R-M269 or its subclades should be excluded from that line, at any rate. See also the Family Tree DNA Buckner Surname Project or the World Family Tree Buckner Project Mirror
8. ↑ http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/lunenburg/census/sun007.txt
9. ↑ Lunenburg Co. VA Order Book 12, p. 209
10. ↑ https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/r-1b-1c-7/about/background
11. ↑ http://dgmweb.net/DNA/General/Y-DNA_modal_haplotypes_R1b.html#R-M269asterisk

• Daughters of the American Revolution, DAR Genealogical Research Databases, database online, (http://www.dar.org/ : accessed June 27 2022), "Record of Jesse Buckner", Ancestor # A016576.