Who was Obediah Goodman and who were his parents?

Question

Obediah Goodman [[Goodman-5005]] is listed as the son of a man named Joseph Goodman [[Goodman-2114]] and a woman named Nancy Moytoy Goodman [[Moytoy-214]] with a duplicate, Moytoy-148.

Joseph Goodman of Albemarle County, Virginia is well documented.  He was born about 1741 in Hanover County, Virginia.  The application for his Revolutionary War pension documents his life, his marriage to a woman named Nancy (an Ancestry compilation of Virginia Marriage records gives her maiden name as Nancy Mickie and the date of their marriage as Dec 2., 1786), and his death January 16, 1826.  He never lived any where but Virginia, spending his adult life in Albemarle County.  Nancy remained there until her death which occurred after 1855. [see Fold3 Revolutionary War Pensions, Virginia, Veteran: Goodman, Joseph, Pensioner: Nancy Goodman].   The 1850 U.S. Census (Year: 1850; Census Place: Albemarle, Virginia; Roll: M432_932; Page: 212A; Image: 428) shows an 83 year old Nancy living with several people named Michie.  There is nothing whatsoever to connect this Joseph and Nancy with any Cherokee people or with Obediah Goodman, born in Tennessee in 1770. 

Nancy Moytoy Goodman in Wikitree is described as the daughter of a Cherokee man named Willenawah, wife of a man named The Badger.  Willenawah has no known descendants.  Many claim that he was the father of Doublehead and several siblings, but there is no evidence of this.  Doublehead did apparently have a sister named Na-ni, or Nance, since she is named in a letter dated 1812.  James Hicks theorizes that she was married to a man named The Badger, and that several individuals listed on the Mullay Roll of 1848 with a last name of Oguma or Badger, are their descendants, again without supporting documentation.  

There is no suggestion anywhere that Doublehead’s sister was ever married to, or connected with, a man named Joseph Goodman.  

I could not find Obediah Goodman in any on-line census or marriage records in Tennessee or Kentucky between 1770 and 1850.  “Albathy Goodman”  (a female) is found on the 1830 census in Floyd County, KY.  [1830; Census Place: Floyd, Kentucky; Series: M19; Roll: 36; Page: 87; Family History Library Film: 0007815].  “Alla Goodman” is found in the home of Sarah Patton on the 1850 census.  [Year: 1850; Census Place: My District, Floyd, Kentucky; Roll: M432_200; Page: 436A; Image: 64].   In 1860 “Altithy Goodman”  and in 1870 “Ally Goodman” is living with the family of Richard Martin, still in Floyd County.

Answer 1

I have found some docs where Obediah was mentioned and put the info on his profile. I have to go now, but when I return, I I will keep looking for his parents.

Answer 2

In case you didn't see it, I also added some info to his wife's profile Ally.

I saw some family trees claiming Joseph as his father, but also some other men ... all with no sources.

I am also inclined to question whether Nancy Moytoy was the correct mother. What I saw is claims that his mother was Nancy Mickie and she was on the census with other Mickies. Unfortunately I didn't follow the census info at that time. But then later I came across this marriage info ...

"Virginia marriages to 1800" for Joseph Goodman married 02 Dec 1786 Albemarle County to Nancy Mickie

Comments

I don’t think Joseph and Nancy Goodman from Virginia have any connection to Obediah Goodman from Tennessee.  Obediah may have had a father named Joseph, but if so, it’s not the one who’s attached to him.   There is also nothing to suggest any connection with the Cherokee woman named Na-ni or Nance.  And she has no connection to the Joseph in Virginia who married Nancy Michie.

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Hawkins County, TN is bordered by Virginia and from past genealogical research, I know there was a lot of migration back and forth in the old days.

Also Obediah's early children were born in Virginia.

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In the 1770s Newman's Ridge, TN was pretty much a wild frontier. The white man's presence occurred in the early 1780s. In 1799 there was a petition to create a new county (Hancock)  from Hawkins County, TN that included a "Sherod Goodman".

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I haven't seen the source below but it is supposed to mention a lot of related Goodman's on Newman's Ridge including Obediah ...

Grohse's Notes in William P. Grohse Collection, microfilm reels 0968670 through 0968673) at Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah

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N Gauthier, could you please share your information on Obediah's early children born in Virginia?  Thank you.

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I haven't worked on that family since 2018, so I no longer remember the details. But if you look at his profile, it says he was born in Virginia and it looks like he married there, because the profile says he moved "his family" from Virginia to Tennessee ... so that would mean his youngest children were born in Virginia, before the move to TN.

Answer 3

It’s unlikely that Obediah Goodman was born in Tennessee in 1770.  The Hawkins Valley area of Tennessee was not settled until 1785, after the Revolutionary War.  The area was included in the abortive effort to create a “State of Franklin” and was also settled by  families now called “Melungeons”  in the 1790’s.  The first white settlers in Tennessee were the Watauga settlers from North Carolina who lived on Cherokee lands from about 1770.

Comments

I would like to go ahead and chime in on this conversation. Melungeons were the mixed race ancestors of the first whites and Native Americans whom mingled and settled around present day Wilkes County, North Carolina, and further into Tennessee. Some were also part African and Native American. We cannot determine if Obediah Goodman was actually a Goodman or Richardson, but in my family it is common knowledge that we have Native American ancestry. My grandmother's profile picture should be evidence enough that her ethnicity was of mixed heritage. Russell-19017

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There definitely a question whether Obediah Goodman was a Melungeon or not although he lived in Hawkins County in a community where many persons identified as Melungeon lived. Extensive Melungeon research conducted by Roberta Estes and others[http://www.dnaexplain.com/publications/PDFs/MelungeonsMulti-EthnicPeopleFinal.pdf] connects Obediah to families from Louisa and Rockingham counties in Virginia; his DNA tested descendant showed no Native American connection.  

Estes' research shows that most of the Melungeons were mixed white and black; only a couple of families showed any Native American connection.

Whether he was Melungeon or not, it seems pretty clear that his parents were not Joseph and Nancy Michie Goodman of Albemarle County, Virginia, and that his mother was not Nancy, the sister of Doublehead.  His parents may well have been named Joseph and Elizabeth Goodman, but I've not seen any documentation as to who they were, where they lived, or when or where Obediah was born.  

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Y-dna can show that his Goodman father was not Melungeon ... that is what the R haplogroup for Europe is showing. BUT it is his mother who is being claimed as a Melungeon and women do not have any Y-dna.

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One more thing that researchers should check is if the Obediah GOODMAN descendants's Y-dna in that study might match any RICHARDSON Y-dna. There is a possibility that there has been some kind of confusion between an Obediah Goodman and an Obediah Richardson.

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We are descendants of Obediah through Enoch, our 3rd ggf.  My brother's YDNA shows us to be Osborne.  We had oral history that one of our Goodman grandfather's was an Osborne taken in by Goodmans who adopted the Goodman name.  We did YDNA to check this out and found we are indeed Osborne.  We have no idea how, where, when this happened but many cousins speculate it is Enoch who was the Osborne.  Additionally male descendants of Obediah through William Robert test as being Manis or possibly Gibson.  This confuses the question of Obediah's parentage greatly.  We have had no Richardson results as yet.  We have Enoch's marriage bond from Floyd County, KY where a Priscilla Goodman declares she is Enoch's mother and that he has no lawful father.  We think that Priscilla is Obediah's daughter, no actual proof, and that she had Enoch and one other child by an Osborne (our oral history says the Goodmans took in two Osborne children) and that Obediah and his wife raised them.  The cousins who descend from William Robert show dna relationship to us so we speculate that we are related through Goodman women and not the men.  We have zero actual proof of any of this and are constantly working on it and tearing our hair out trying to put all the pieces together.  We are trying to figure out who our Osborne grandfather is through DNA but it may be impossible to figure out.  We do know through FTDNA Osborne project that we match the descendants of Thomas Osborne from Kent, England but have no idea of the downline from there.  If anybody has ever heard of any of this and knows something, we would be eternally grateful for the information.  The Obediah Goodman line is very mysterious and apparently a very tangled mess.  Obediah's descendants do not match any of the other Goodman descendants in the FTDNA Goodman project.

Answer 4

I have now sourced all those Goodmans and Obediah Goodman does not belong with any of them. I have added sources for Obediah too. But his supposed mother Nancy Moytoy is still unsourced as I can't find that a Moytoy married a Goodman and/or I don't think her maiden surname was Moytoy. Some say that the Moytoys are fictional.

Answer 5

Hello,

After factchecking some of my ancestors, i got here!

My 3rd great-granduncle has the name Obediah Moore (Mulatto)brother of Joel Goodman Moore...both whos father is John Austin Moore who married Sarah Sally Goodman, (My 4th great-grandparents) is daughter of Joel Goodman who i believe are Melungeon (serphardic mix?). The Moore family have signatures on the Cumberland compact and have lived near the Goodman and Goins In the Carolinas. This Obediah would've been born 1789-1852 hope this helps!

Answer 6

Obediah is the brother of Edmond "Ed" Goodman, both sons of Joseph A Goodman & (bear with me here) Nancy Michie/Barksdale aka Elizabeth Michie.  She's listed under all 3 names on Joseph's Ancestry.com page.  He never remarried so all 3 of these names refer to the same woman.

Ed & Obediah are said to be of Melungeon descent on Ancestry.com, which makes sense as they're from the Hawkins County, TN area.  Ed changed his race from "Free Colored Person" in the 1830 census to "white" in 1840, which probably meant he could pass for white as many Melungeons could.  These people were primarily biracial (African + Caucasian) as confirmed by the Melungeon DNA Project.  Only one family in the study had any detectable Native American DNA; none had Portuguese, Spanish or other claimed ethnicities as previously claimed.  

A Goodman descendant even participated in the DNA Project as you can see on the Wikipedia page about said study.  I assume it's Obediah/Ed's descendants because these Melungeon villages weren't huge--there couldn't have been many "Goodmans" in Hawkins Co, TN.  

Sorry for the late reply but this is all very fascinating to me.

Comments

Sorry, but that's not accurate.  The Joseph Goodman who married Nancy Michie lived and died in Virginia, as did his wife.  His children were James, Mary, and Charles, all of whom had apparently died before Nancy died in 1856. Their children and grandchildren were all in Virginia.   The Ancestry tree muddles at least two families. The Melungeon paper (Roberta Estes and others) states that the DNA of a tested descendant of Obediah Goodman did not match the Goodman descendants in the Melungeon study.

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Kathie, do you have an offline copy of that paper? It's no longer on dna-explained.com.

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Here are the links:

Melungeons: A Multi-Ethnic Population | Native Heritage Project

and the paper itself:

http://www.jogg.info/72/files/Estes.pdf