Martha Farrar (abt. 1664)

Then this profile that I adopted while working needs attention apparently. I adopted this and another Great Aunt while working on Farrars that have popped up recently with controversy. I'll take a look. I had to hand the last one over to a "project". Thank you.

Also, feel free to work on this profile. If it is especially important to you I will give it to you. I adopt abandoned profiles sometimes that I think are significant and need work.

Thanks again. Jennifer

Regretably, the Farrars are gateways to the likes of the Jamestown society and Barons of Magna Carta, etc. Myself I am not interested in joining or bragging rights. Only in keeping the record as correct as possible.

For instance this item here https://www.geni.com/people/Martha-Worsham/6000000002228278356on page Dl-10, is probably responsible for the info that Martha married Walter Shipley, an "error" that is repeated many times as a google of Shipley "Martha Farrar" will reveal.

Then google Worsham "Martha Farrar" one hit you get is this https://www.geni.com/people/Martha-Worsham/6000000002228278356 Where she is labeled ex partner of William Whitlow II (whatever an Ex partner is suppose to mean)

Thanks Jennifer, but it is not important to me at all. I simply received a wikifeed some time ago, about a change to the profile and is my custom I checked the change and compared it to my sources, found no substantiation, but subsequent yeoman work by Kerry Larson, convinced me that my source was incomplete and in error. I am now disengaged.

Also, I found this as Katherine Farrar Barnett is a grandmother. So, I'm not especially attached to this profile.

William,

If you have a copy of that book, could you post a comment summarizing what it says about this Mary Farrar? Then we can just update this profile to reflect those facts, & cite that page in the book as the source.

The subject was Martha Farrar, and you asked about Mary. From page 6 "Mary (suprescript 4) Farrar m. Joseph Watkins, ca 1717, page 6 Some Farrar Island Descendants, Alvanh Holmes, 1977

of Martha (superscript 4) Farrar (nothing is mentioned). If your interest is Mary Farrar,then on page 7

Mary Farrar (Thomas, William, William)dau. of Thomas Katherine (Perrin) Farrar m. Joseph Watkins, ca 1717 in Henrico Co. He left his dau. Mary 200 ac. on the Tuckahoe. (Issue: 1. Mary Watkins named as a grandchild in Thomas Farrar's will: m. Henry Willis who sold his land -------70 ac. in 1774, 120 ac. in 1763, located on Reedy Branch about 4miles from the Manakin Sabot area, and moved to N.C. issue 1a. Joseph Willis b 11.12.1772, served in the rrevolution probably from Caswell Co., N.C. =1b. Mary Willis b 11.3.1755, Goochland Co., VA 1c. Elizabeth Willis b. 2.11.1648 in Goochland Co., VA 1d. Christiana Willis b.4.5 or 9.6. 1761 1e Henry Willis, Jr b.1762 in NC.C. m. May (Polly) Haddock in 1782, Caswell Co,, N.C. 1f Benjamin Willis b. 1765/70 m. in Rutherford Co/. NC ANNE GALIS B 1775 later moved to Burke Co., (Now Mitchell Co., NC and were there in 1830

Submitted by Mrs. Wayne E. Cook, 34 E. Cpmgress Street.Villa Park, ILL 60181, whose husband is a descendant of Henry.

There is plenty of meat there for others to claim one of the dtrs of Henry Willis as an ancestor. No mention of daughters spouses.

The information I posted was about MARY Farrar, not her sister Martha. There is nothing on Martha other than she is listed as a daughter of Thomas Farrar and Katherine (Perrin) Farrar, not even a DOB.

Yes, I meant Martha, not Mary. It sounds like we know very little about her. I have updated the bio to reflect that and added the source you cited. Thanks for your help on this.

There is no record of Martha other than mention in a will. We do not know if she even survived into adulthood, much less married. That leaves a hole in the wall into which people try to place their own brick. This is a situation that will go on forever.

I have a book, the Annals of Henrico Parish, which I try to use to help people solve problems. Nothing in it about this Martha, then again the records of the Anglican Church of St John's, located in Varina but ST John's, relocated twice from Varina, finally ending up in Richmond.

The vestry records are problematic for the late 17th through the 18th Century, lots of missing years, and in some years only one marriage noted. It appears that the compiler either could not read the records or only transcribed the ones that they were interested in.

The majority of the Annals are simply Church business, and lists of communicants, baptisms and burials are from the early 19th Century to early 20th.

Very frustrating for erstwhile family historians, I know. There are no repositories of births, deaths, marriages other than church records. In the 18th Century Virginia did issue marriage licenses, but they were quite expensive, and most persons restorted to issuance of banns and having the marriage recorded in church. Church records recorded baptisms, not births, and most didn't bother recording deaths, unless they were buried in "hallowed ground".

But that was no help, as churches were regularly disestablished after the communications or congregation moved on, which is what happened to most Virginia churches after the revolution, when travel along the main migration trail, the upper road, was safe from marching armies.

So many churches fell into disuse, and even in the modern era. I was running a military problem in Tennessee, just south of Nashville, when I came upon an old church buried in the underbrush, tombstones and all.

For persons seeking record of a ancestor with links to the revolution. To my knowledge there is only one county militia record, and that is partial, available. All the rest have disappeared.

And then there are the ravages of fire, flood and of course Tarleton's raiders, that dude did some damage to courthouses.

Family bibles are problematic. The oldest daughter usually inherited the bible, and it wound up in a different family, generation after generation. Thus a Jones family bible, wound up in a Hotchkins family, then in a Reynolds family, then in a Russell family etc.

We are often left trying to prise info out of county courthouses. County's kept records of indentures, deeds, wills, probates, taxes anything that produced income, even those are problematic, go to Caswell or Person County, NC and you will find at least three Farrrars with the same first name (John or William), probably father, son or cousin, but we don't know which.

Our forebearers had a custom of naming their children after themselves, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles. In the days when primogeniture was the common law, it was a custom for a man to name his oldest son after himself, that way there was no question of who was the oldest son, and thus the rightfully heir, if he died intestate. By the same token mothers would name their oldest daughter after themselves.

Middle names were uncommon (what middle name did Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, etc have?

After the revolution, things changed, all things British became anathema, even naming customs, they adopted what is called the Old Jones tradition. Virginia was the first to do away with Primogeniture in 1789,but in some counties it still carried on, finally state by state the practice was abandoned, And if a person died intestate, then the county stepped in and divided the estate, after taking it's cut naturally.

If the father of the house died, leaving a widow and minor children, the children were considered orphans, and the mother had to prove to the county that she had the means to tutor her children, provide a home, feed and clothe them,otherwise the state stepped in with Orphans courts, and farmed the children out (as free labor if old enough) to family, friends and neighbors, and if old enough a local neighbor would take them in as free labor. This happened to one of my ancestors in South Carolina, at 14 placed in guardianship and at 16 struck out on his own.

The search for records made all the more difficult, because one of the favorite methods of unscrupulous developers (aka town boosters) was to destroy evidence by burning down the county courthouse, if not then, then the natural event of the times. I tried to search a county courthouse but most records were burned up in a 1921 fire, and that was the second fire of that courthouse.

It gets to the point, where the best we can do is gather circumstantial info, and then make a logical deduction (detective work), but if we do that, then we must stand ready to back off, if new or competing info or claims surface.

Some states like Alabama issued marriage licenses in the mid 19th century, but marriage licenses did not become universal, thoughout the states until passage of the Income Tax act in 1913.

Update. Ifound a record of Martha's marriage to Walter Shipley.