We have DNA matches through a direct family line but --my LEE husband refuses to takle the test! But for what it is worth, I can feel it in my bones that my husband's line is:
1. William H. Lee b. 1710 d. 1770 or 1780 as I have seen it several ways. He did marry on 3/25/1727 in King and Queen Co. VA--Elizabeth "Rachel" Ambrose b. 1710 and died 9/1770 in Amelia Co. VA.
2. They had numerous children--about 12--some I cannot confirm but I do not delete them either. One son was our Ambrose Lee b. 1733 Caroline Co. VA and died tragically with 7 young children in 1764, age 31. His wife was Frances Penn b. 1735 Caroline Co. VA. (After his death she married a Drury Tucker and they had a son together--Robert L. Tucker.) Ambrose and Frances married in 1753.
3. Here is where you might get confused: A son of Ambrose and Frances Penn Lee--Richard Lee b. 1752 in Amherst Co.(our line) married: Frances "Frankey" White Harrison b. 1753, daughter of a famous Rev. War soldier--Battaile Harrison. You can see how that there would be a chance that the two married Frances Lees--mother of Richard Lee and wife of Richard Lee, could confuse. The corker is that the MOTHER of Frances "Frankey" White Harrison Lee was Frances Tinsley White. See how so many names that are the same can really mess with your thinking!!
3. The puzzle for our family is that we link to the Penns and the Lees as well as Rachel Ambrose Lee through DNA. However, tracking the family of Ambrose Lee is no easy task as names are the same between generations and about half of the family stayed in the Amherst Co. VA area and the rest booked it for TN but mostly Lincoln County, KY and then other locations over time in KY.
4. Richard Lee married Frances "Frankey" White Harrison on 12/4/1780 in Amherst County, VA. Francis Harrison Lee died 5 years later in 1785, we think from childbirth at age 32. The weird thing is given all the generational data on Richard b. 1752 and Frances b. 1753 and knowing they came from Amherst Co. VA which did not have their records burned, WHY do they not have children showing up somewhere along the line on a confirmed list. Yes, they missed the 1780 census with Frances dying in 1785 and the 1790 census was destroyed so nothing of Richard until a land grant on 1/18/1798 shows him living in Lincoln County, KY, which later broke into Logan Co. WE also have the 1810 and 1820 census data on him
We see no records of Richard Lee--try tracking that name--in the Rev. War. We do see a notation regarding a deed in 1777 of part of the estate of his Uncle Capt. William Penn 1745 to 1777 who died in the Rev. War as part of the Continental Army. We don't know if Richard served in the war effort or just farmed before he married Frances....But we suspect that he could have been married before he married Frances and definitely after she died in 1785. He lived to be 93! We know of 4 and maybe 5 children attached to him but we suspect there are others.
Here they are:
- Rev. Richard Lee b. 1776--Before marriage to Frances Harrison.
- Annis Lee b. 1779, married Chamberlain Hutson in Logan Co. KY 5/17/1802.
- Benoni Lee b. 9/15/1783 and married Patience Walker on 6/9/1804 in Logan Co. KY.
- James Lee b. 1784 and owned land near brother Benoni and Richard in Logan County.
- There is one other brother we think is named John Lee who was in the Rev. War near the end and was a Cumberland Settler in Sumner Co. TN just across the border from his brothers in Logan Co. We think he is the oldest brother and his wife, Rebecka and he had several children and so were married before their siblings in Logan Co. KY. They were living in Sumner Co. near a James Lee b. around 1750 in VA , served in the Rev. War, was an Overmountain man and a Cumberland Settler as well. He began acquiring land in TN beginning in 1779 while a Rev. War soldier. He served in the King's Mt. and Guilford County Courthouse battles in the war. John and James had farms next to each other.
- In the what we think is the same Richard Lee family were two other known daughters, Mary "Polly" Lee b. 1787 and Ritta "Rity" Lee b. 1791. Mary was married to John Cook on 10/19/1805 in Logan Co. KY and Ritta was married to Joseph E. Estes in 1807 in Warren County, KY.
Supposedly, after over 15 years in Lincoln Co, KY and its eventual county divisions, accumulation of farms and children, they all left for southern Illinois in the lead up to the process of statehood of Illinois around 1810, James Lee, the senior, coming a little after 1810.
This is about all I know but I feel there might be someone out there studying the same Lee and other people during these time periods. Key people of Amherst Co.:
Ambrose Lee and Frances "Frankey" White Harrison LEE.
It seems that their son Richard followed brothers, George Penn Lee b. 1750 to the same parents in Amherst Co. VA and Francis "Frank" Lightfoot Lee b. 1754. to Lincoln Co. KY. There were two Lee sisters Jeane or Jane Lee Tinsley b. 1755 to Barren Co. KY and Nancy Holland Lee Tucker b. 1762 settling in Casey Co. KY. Other families from Amherst Co. VA seemed to wind up first at least in Lincoln Co. KY which basically was along the northern TN line and it spread all across the state of KY at the southern border.
Hope this makes sense. I hope with a group think and some data, we could solve this issue.
Deborah Lee