Where did the middle name "Holyfield" come from for Richard Henderson 1761-1840?

Question

Richard Henderson was born in North Carolina 1761 and died in 1840 in Tallapoosa, Alabama. His wife was Rachel Thornton and his father was Richard "The Quaker" Henderson.

In no records has the middle name Holyfield appeared; not even the initial H. Can anyone supply a source or an incidence of why this name is atttached to Richard on many user trees and right now on WikiTree? I think it should be removed but am trying to make sure of that action.

Answer 1

Find A Grave Index has Samuel  Velpeau Holifield Henderson born 8 Feb 1885, who died 6 Jan 1958 at Camp Hill, Tallapoosa, Alabama. Burial was at Camp Hill Cemetery.

Comments

Thank you, Frank. I will check this out.

Answer 2

Piggy-backing off this, why is he attached as the father of my ancestor, Daniel Henderson? Is this based on some source? I don't see anything establishing this.

Comments

Daniel Henderson has just recently become my ancestor also - after many years. Richard named all of this children in his will - filed in Tallapoosa County, Alabama in 1840. Daniel is named in the will. I have just been adding children who were missing from Richard's profile and sourcing as many as I can.

My ancestor, James H. Henderson is the James that was already listed as Daniel's son but with no sources or details.I will be adding more - just will take a bit of time.

The thing that pulled it all together is DNA. Matches from Richard's and Daniel's and James' descendants. I will be posting those matches as soon as I have all the relationships worked out.

---

Okay, please do. I am very curious. Daniel Henderson is not THAT unique of a name, so just the name appearing in a will wouldn't be enough to convince me we had the right daddy for him. But if the DNA evidence is solid, that's another matter.

---

Jessica, the DNA is solid!! A couple of us are putting it all together. It might be a bit before I have it all posted because I want it all done correctly - but I will get there!! Hopefully, it will help all of us who are related to this line.

---

I ran our Gedmatches and you and I share 71-ish cMs. That's about third cousin territory, give or take a half relationship.

---

Thank you Cousin Jessica. I will include that match on my DNA report!

---

Hi Jessica and Virginia,
I was reading these threads because my various family members have quite a few matches on various testing services who have Richard Holyfield Henderson (and Elizabeth Branson) in their trees. I'm a Quaker Branson descendant. I also checked out the various DNA matches that are listed for Richard Holyfield Henderson.  Question:  I do not see that the two of you share 71 centimorgans of DNA on Gedmatch.  Using 7 centimorgans as a comparison minimum, the two of you appear to share no DNA at all. One has to reduce the comparison minimum to 3 centimorgans to get any match, but those matches are almost certainly false matches, Identical by State (IBS) rather than Identical by Descent (IBD).  Thanks in advance for clarifying--we're all in this together in trying to figure out these DNA matches!

---

I got sidetracked and have not worked on this for a while so will need to do some digging. I just went to Ancestry because it is quicker and checked my thru-line matches for both Daniel Henderson and Richard (Holyfield) Henderson. I have 85 matches with descendants of Daniel and 145 with Richard. I know - not everyone's tree will be correct but after researching for a very long time, I know Daniel is James H. Henderson's father. Descendants of James H. match with descendants of Daniel on more than one of his children's lines.

Richard H. as father for this particular Daniel could be disputed but evidence points that it is correct. We can all do our research and compare notes in another venue if anyone wants to do that.

---

That is a lot of matches, Virginia. Yesterday I tried to triangulate with some of my family's DNA matches who have the Henderson/Branson line in their tree, but haven't had luck so far.  Of course, these individuals are very far back in time, which increases the difficulty and decreases the chances of figuring out the source of aT DNA matches. Still, I'll keep these matches in my  Branson DNA comparison file.  You never know what might turn up. Keep up the good work!

Answer 3

Richard Henderson (1710- ), m. Elizabeth (1722-1788). I also have yet to see a source confirmation for the middle name “Holyfield.”

There are two sons  (that I’m aware of) Nathaniel (1740-1803) & John (1750-1826) and, there may have been a Thomas.

Richard Henderson 1761-1840 m. Rachel Thornton 1765-1844 (daug. of Abraham Thornton 1748-1796) I am unaware of or, have not found a source as to whom this Richards parents are.